I saw the actual book for this heavily discounted at Big W but don't think it's there anymore. If you don't have the money there's always the Youtube Channel

(if Youtube keep trying to strongarm you into paying for subscription you can get ublock and constantly update it with pasting in little snippets of code in an arms race. There are guides. I need to learn the specifics but just stubbornly wait out the ads)

I was posting stuff about foraging from public fruit trees a few years ago on Reddit and in this cost of living crisis/food insecurity it seems timely to give it another bump here.

Though we shouldn't have to. :(

The Local Food Connect map posted for the main article seems really limited to inner Melbourne which is annoying.

The map from Public Fruit Melbourne requires you to request access.

However the article links a much more comprehensive map at the Falling Fruit website. This also offers locations for the outer suburbs of Melbourne as well as quite a few other Australian states.

So... it seems I may know a few budget meals that might be appreciated.

Cacciatore is a fairly cheap old school family recipe or it freezes for meal prep. It can be a one pot with a Dutch oven or large skillet.

Apologies for the non-Aussie measurements. I was looking for a fairly simple one without flour dredging, limited and cheaper ingredients and having both a stovetop/oven option.

Obviously this can be done in a slow cooker, pressure cooker or instapot to save gas or electricity.

This was picked for posting because chicken drumsticks are currently very cheap at Coles ($6.40 for 1.6kg Coles RSPCA drumsticks). I vaguely heard there might be some chicken shortage coming? so this might change.

Definitely use bone in drumsticks or thighs because they're cheaper, more flavourful and more suited to the long slow cooking.

I made sure to choose a recipe that uses canned tomatoes for the lower unit price.

I suggest using carrots, zucchini, celery etc if you don't like capsicums. Check the price on the mushrooms and the capers. Asian grocers can be cheaper for veg if you have one near you, or if you have a market. Obviously access varies.

For the wine use $5 Aldi plonk or use chicken broth (cube should be fine).

Also if you don't have rosemary consider just using dried Italian herbs from the Hoyts bags. Smoked paprika also goes very nicely.

Serving this with rice, potatoes, pasta, polenta, couscous or bread will soak up the sauce and pad it out.

Some bakeries used to sell their day old bread on a table. Not sure if they still do that. Or if you learn the supermarket restock day and go right before closing time you can get some deals. Honestly any kind of bread would be fine.

This is an 'easy' one for chicken breasts https://tasty.co/recipe/easy-chicken-cacciatore

I'm intolerant to almost everything in this but it looks delicious - have at it for me

Smash Hits. I saw it on preorder while browsing the Big W site and figured that this is the place for that info. I’d suggest it as a Christmas gift but no idea when it actually comes out

The physical recipe books are called Survival For The Fittest and Survival From The Fittest but if you don't want to buy them everything is free on the AIS site.