Cook your own meals - processed food and ready meals are expensive. It is much cheaper and often better for you to buy basic ingredients and make it yourself

Keep the refrigerator and the pantry well stocked with basic foods. Look out for offers on basic foodstuffs and stock up. This will save unnecessary trips to the store and also avoid the need to buy such products when they are not on sale.

Keep a healthy refrigerator by using food before it’s out of date. Use leftovers as lunches or snacks for the next day.

Base meals around cheap, starchy foods such as bread, pasta and potatoes.

When starting cooking it is important to read the recipe before you begin so that you know you have all the ingredients on hand.

Get into the habit of setting a timer five minutes less than the recipe suggests, carry the timer with you if you leave the kitchen.

Never measure any ingredient over the mixing bowl or saucepan.

Do not throw away lemon or orange peels. Put them in a small bowl on the table to deter flies.

To get the most juice out of oranges, lemons, limes and other citrus fruits, place whole fruit in warm water for several minutes or put it in the microwave for 10 seconds before juicing.

Rolling an orange or lemon under your hand a few times on the counter before cutting will produce more juice.

To peel oranges or any citrus for salad, pour boiling water over them and let stand five minutes. The white part will peel off with the skin, leaving the orange clean.

To keep a lemon fresh and juicy store in a bowl of water, with a tight fitting lid, in a cool place.

To squeeze citrus fruits without a squeezer, cut the fruit in half, push a fork into the cut surface, press down on the skin with one hand while turning the fork gently with the other.

To ripen fruit quickly, put it into a brown paper bag along with one ripe piece of fruit.

Refrigerated apples last up to 10 times longer than those left at room temperature. To prevent apples from speeding up the ripening process of other items in your produce drawer, store them in a brown paper bag.

If you have added too much curry then try adding a little honey.

If gravy or sauce begins to separate during cooking, add a little water and it will emulsifier again.

If you burn sauce or gravy, pour it into a clean pan, add some sugar to it a little at a time to avoid the final result becoming too sweet - it takes the burnt flavour away.

To prevent lumps from forming when making gravy or thickening stews, mix the flour or cornflour with a little salted hot water.

When pan frying or sautéing always heat the pan before adding the butter or oil. Not even eggs stick when you use this great tip! To keep hot oil from splattering, sprinkle a little salt in the pan before frying.

Add a few pinches of brown sugar to gravy that is too salty.

If your sauce or soup is too salty, add a few pieces of raw potato. They will absorb the salt and you can pull them out of the sauce or soup before serving.

If a sauce is burnt on the bottom of a pan, remove the pan from the heat immediately – do not stir. Place the bottom of the pan into a sink full of cold water to stop the cooking. Do not stir the sauce. Pour the top 3/4 of it into a new pan, leaving the burned part behind. Taste the sauce. It might still be okay, but if you detect any burned flavour, you will have to throw it away and start over.

Roasting chickens with the breast down will help keep the meat more moist.

Before roasting a chicken, store in the fridge for 24 hrs for richer flavour.

After a chicken/turkey dinner, cut all the leftover meat off the bone as soon as possible or it will dry out.

Leftover food must be wrapped or put into containers and put in the refrigerator as soon as possible.

To brown minced beef - heat the pan and add a little cooking oil. Add the mince to the hot pan and leave for a few minutes before turning over. When all the meat has changed colour from red to brown, drain off any excess fat. Now further ingredients can be added according to chosen recipe.

Mince beef will not stick to the pan if a little salt is added to the pan before adding the meat.

If you are browning meat and it sticks to the pan when you try to turn it. Take the pan off the burner and allow it to sit for a minute or two. The moisture in the food will loosen it from the pan and you can then turn it easily. Unless it is burnt to a crisp, this will work every time.

Do not use a fork to turn steaks, or they will lose some of their juice. Use tongs or a spatula instead.

When grilling always line the grill pan with aluminium foil as this will make the clean much easier.

Remove bacon slices from the frying pan before they are totally done. They will continue to cook a in their own grease after you remove them.

Never reuse marinades that have come in contact with raw meat, chicken or fish. Putting cooked food back into the raw marinade will contaminate the food. Even the fork that moved meat when raw must not be used for the cooked meat.

Never cut beef, poultry or pork on a wooden cutting board. The germs in raw meats can be lethal and fruits and vegetables cut on the same board later will pick up these germs since wood is porous. Use a separate cutting board for meats and make it hard plastic.

Wash your hands after handling raw chicken, beef or pork to prevent food poisoning. The bacteria can be cooked out, but is very dangerous if it gets into any food that will not be cooked.