YOU don't need loadsa money to eat well. Every time I leap into my small hatchback and head off for the supermarket, I am a hunter gatherer.

Yes, I admit it, I am the ultimate sad bag lady. Completely off my trolley.

Where others scrabble through Oxfam looking for designer labels or sift through sales rails for that bargain with the broken zip, it's remaindered food that does it for me. I am the Queen of Best Before.

I cannot remember when I last paid full whack for a joint of beef. Nothing gives me greater pleasure than to discover a succulent piece of rib in the last minutes of its sell by date reduced from £7 to thirty bob. Into the freezer it goes for the next time we entertain.

Take the gammon joint I bought for £1.29 late on Sunday afternoon. I simmered it for an hour with half an onion, a carrot, green tops from a leek and plenty of herbs.

Then I spiked it with cloves, roasted it for half an hour, and served a few slices hot with garlic mash and parsley sauce. The rest lasted three days as doorstep ham sandwiches to take to work for two of us - and all for the price of one sandwich pack.

And did I throw the stock away? Waste not, want not. I added soaked dried peas and turned it into thick pea soup.

That can be our starter tonight, with a French stick reduced to 10p and crisped in the oven. Main course will be two plump herrings bought half price from the fish counter for only 35p the pair. I will fill the cavity with lemon thyme (a bunch reduced to 25p), brush with oil and grill.

A few of the vine tomatoes I bought at four pounds for £1 in the market will be thinly sliced and dressed with olive oil and fresh basil as an accompanying salad.

For our wedding anniversary a few weeks ago I made the ultimate wild mushroom soup using a mixed pack of chanterelles and oyster mushrooms (another sell by date bargain) given a powerful kick with a few dried boletus. These are the edible fungi I gather by the kilo in autumn, slice and dry in my airing cupboard.

For seconds, I admit it, we had a ready meal - but not as the producer intended. I found a pack of fresh lamb shanks, "value added" and price inflated with the inclusion of a sachet to make rosemary gravy, reduced from nearly £4 to something like 80p.

I simply chucked the sachet of gravy powder into the bin then casseroled the lamb very slowly with red wine and redcurrants (from a punnet down to 10p). We finished the meal with gooey Camembert and over-ripe blue Stilton, both half price, and decided that we could not have fared better if Jamie Oliver had been our Naked Chef.

Asparagus I still find a sensuous luxury - and you can pay full whack for that while it's only a pound a bundle in the market. Boil briefly, saute in olive oil with hot cooked pasta, season generously with black pepper, top with huge flakes of Parmesan, and it's a meal.

We were away for Christmas. But at the last gasp on Christmas Eve I spotted a lone, fresh freerange turkey reduced from £14 to £5. It was roasted on chilly Easter Sunday to great acclaim and, needless to say, the leftovers made turkey and ham pie, the carcass endless stock...

There is a downside. Carried away during a recent trip to Newcastle where an amazingly cheap food market is filled with northern stuff like tripe and chitterlings and pig's trotters, I bought a sheep's head for 75p. Every time I open the freezer it's leering at me. What am I going to do with it?

Written by Sue Nowak

February 14, 2002 13:38