"Fashionable Food that doesn't cost a fortune" – that's the guiding principle behind Sophie Grey's 'destitute gourme', a comprehensive cooking resource for ordinary people with limited incomes and busy lives who love good food.

Destitute gourmet came about through Sophie's experiences of trying to feed two fussy children and two foodie parents on a grocery budget of $60-70 per week. Her background in restaurant cooking enabled her to create delicious tasting, terrific-looking, healthy food from inexpensive ingredients.

The tricks and techniques she developed became the destitute gourmet brand, that now includes six cookery books, a guide to saving money called Live Well Spend Less, plus a website (destitutegourmet.com) with over 4000 Facebook fans and a newsletter subscriber database of around 14,000.

Sophie Gray recipes – based on the idea of food you can make on a weeknight that the family will actually eat – feature regularly in Foodtown and Taste magazines.

All Sophie's recipes use ingredients the average household might already have on their pantry shelves and are readily available in supermarkets. She takes her inspiration from peasant cuisines such as Indian, Asian, Mexican and Mediterranean – cuisines that do 'inexpensive and delicious' really well.