The biting credit crunch means that it really is time to start shopping and cooking a little more cleverly. We now throw out one third of the food that we buy, an absurd profligacy.

How can we spend and waste less but still enjoy eating as much as we always have? Perhaps it is time to get more adventurous. Think about rabbit, for example. Its tender flesh has a taste similar to chicken, although it is lower in fat and high in protein - and is extremely good value. Organic chicken can cost up to £7 a kg; wild rabbit costs between £3 and £4, while farmed costs between £4.50 and £5.50.

If you live in the country - or near a friendly butcher - you should be able to order either farmed or wild rabbit in advance. Wild rabbit has a better flavour and is probably better for you as it runs free feeding on nuts, berries and leaves and so is lower in fat. And you don't need to worry about myxomatosis. The virus, fatal to rabbits, does not affect any other mammal.

In contrast, farmed rabbit has a less pronounced flavour but is often more tender than its cousin. The important thing to remember is that wild rabbit needs more cooking to tenderise the meat.

Even if you are really not into rabbit, I urge you to give it a go as it is such a delicacy (in Italy it is usually on the menus of local trattorias). But if you really can't face it, this recipe works brilliantly with chicken or guinea fowl - which brings me to another point.

Cooking a casserole-type meal like this is an excellent way to make the most of ingredients. Not only will you have a warming tarragon-scented stew for supper, but you can make devilled rabbit sandwiches or slimming salads with any leftovers before you use the bones for stock.

Making a stock is the ultimate in getting the maximum amount of pleasure from food. So pop a bowl on to the table for people to throw their nibbled bones into during supper, or collect them at the end. Then simmer them for a few hours with a carrot, celery, onion and bay leaf, pepper and herbs in enough water to cover. The result will make a whole extra supper, perhaps as a mushroom risotto or a white bean soup. It is perfect thrift cooking for lean times.

- Rabbit is a fantastically lean meat which also benefits from a really useful trio of minerals: iron for energy and buoyant mood; zinc to help shore up our immune systems and selenium for a healthy heart. This dish provides almost half of our daily selenium, a mineral which the UK diet is currently lacking.

But be aware that if you add 300ml of double cream, you rather negate the leanness of the meat with calories rising to more than 550 per serving. This would fall to about 280 a serving if you used the crème fraîche.

Each serving with cream will also provide 64g of fat and more than 30g of saturated fat (women should aim for a maximum of 70g of fat a day and men 90g).

Serving it with a green salad will bring the number of portions of vegetables it provides to one and half.

AMANDA URSELL

(www.amandaursell.com)

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