At the end of every month, my posts on what I’ve read, what I’ve been cheerful about and my goals for the month, have been really useful to me in tracking my moods and progress. So I’ve decided for this month to do something similar for my eating and cooking. I may not do it every month but I found it quite interesting to look at posts about food in July and generally to reflect on my cooking and eating.I kicked off July with Salted Caramel Sauce. It’s not something I’ll make very often, it’s far too dangerous to have in the fridge at all times but it’s something I’d never made before and it’s nice to try new cooking techniques.Most of this month seems to have been about revisiting old favourites or trying to make interesting food without busting my budget. The budget thing is really important to me as I start to pay down debt and think about what I’m spending money on. This pasta bake isn’t rocket science, but usually I wouldn’t treat it like lasagne and would only at red sauce, using white sauce as well made it better. I talked about how what I eat changes when it’s hot but what actually happens is that how I cook changes, for the brief week of the heatwave, the breakfast crisp made a come back into my menu as did the cous cous salad.We went for afternoon tea (with a Wimbledon theme) at the Charlotte Street HotelWhen I found myself unexpectedly staying at Ma’s, we raided Marks and Spencer for dinner. There was some pizza. Although to be fair there is never a month when I don’t make pizzaThere was also a cheeky manhattan – because sticking to the budget is not the same as not buying whiskey!And this is the amazing something out of nothing rice. All the dying vegetables, rice, a tin of tomatoes and a ball of mozerella. It fed me and Ma on a Saturday, was lunch on Sunday, dinner on Monday and did lunch on Tuesday. Total cost roughly £4 and I didn’t have to go shopping…. It feels like the theme of this month was making do and using up what was there.