50p a day til Christmas - healthily?! Weezl's next challenge...

To make 1 tin
100g mixed dried fruit
6g glace cherries chopped finely
6g mixed peel
27g flour
pinch salt
1/8th tsp mixed spice
27g unsalted butter
27g soft brown sugar
1/2 egg- beat 1 egg in cup and use half of it to mix cake
6g ground almonds

Sieve together flour salt and spices.
cream butter and sugar together until fluffy.
Add egg slowly to butter and sugar mixture.
Fold in flour and spice mixture.
Add dried fruit, peel and ground almonds and mix well.
Pour into prepared tin(lined with greaseproof paper)either an old baked bean tin or sponge pudding tin.
Tie some brown paper around tin to stop it from burning cake.
Cook in lower part of oven gas mark 1, 275f or 140c until a slewer comes out clean.

That looks a really scrumptious cake, applemella...will definately do this one.

I had a fab day budget and cooking wise.
Porridge, 3p with handful of dried fruit 5p
Dinner..for DS, and Dd, ( i was stuffed from porridge) 4x slices HM bread 8p. Cheese, 15p,and a tomatoes 10p?
Milk-25p for litre(offer in farmfoods £1 for 4)
Tea, well this was a bit inspired from curry mentioning..

Pork chop bones with meat on from wed meal-0p
Fried in spray lite with chineses 5 spice and crushed garlic, put on tray and under grill.
In pan, then add courgette-20p
sliced frozen peppers-20p ( 86p from farmfoods)
mushrooms-10p( large from bag of mushrooms of market 50p)
tin of toms-19p
sweetcorn-10p(76p farmfoods had for a while)
stock and curry spices 5p
rice-30p

Marinate together and cook until stock reduced. serve with rice, and add chinese style pork chop bones, look a bit like the ribs..

Pud..
I large tub of fat free natural yoghurt, stir in three tablespoons of cadburys highlights (low cal ones) I used mint madness, and chop up banana on top.
Yog-33p
highlights-free ( given by sis who doesn't like them)but prob 20p if bought!
bananas-10p-large bag about 3kg off market at the end of the day 40P

I'm stuffed now!
Total £2.64 Now slightly over, but i was under yesterday..and the pud was well worth it..as was tea, it is a favourite now. DS also mopped up sauce with a cheese scone, honestly!
If all were homegrown, it would come in even cheaper... i can't wait for a crop!
All very SW friendly as well, and low sugar for DD2

Thanks very much for the Carrot Halwa recipe. Years ago I had an M&S Indian cookbook with an amazing carrot Halwa (think they called it Halva) recipe in that I loved but I lost it and have never found a replacement. I can't wait to try this new recipe. My old recipe had sultanas in so I might add them in too for some extra fibre!?

Weezl I have a request, which I will completely understand if you ignore! I am trying really hard to up my fruit and veg intake as I have hospital treatment booked in for October and 3 months to get healthy for it. Is there any way you can post along with your costings/nutritional profile of a recipe how many of your 5 a day it contains? For example I seem to remember you had a recipe for sundried tomato and rosemary bread recipe which you count as some of your 5 a day? Don't worry if you can't do this, it was just a thought.

I have a recipe for a minestone soup which has FIVE of your 5 a day veg in it!! I'll hunt it out and post it soon, it's a great way to get your veg into you!

Hope you're all having a good day. :j

think natco is a brand name. Normally on the 'asian' department of supermarkets - things like lentils, spices, popadums, nuts etc. are normally cheaper in this section for some reason

Just found they have a website - don't think it's any cheaper but has loads that you don't find in the supermarket and recipes

http://www.natco-online.com/

Wow! I'm now just over a quarter of the way through the original challenge thread (makes interesting reading, and picking up bits of info about people along the way) during which time I've copied 21 recipes over to a Word document!

The only thing that worries me is how many of them are actually puddings or sweet treats (10!)