Weezl's phase 1- recipe testing and frugalisation- come one, come all!

weezl74 · 22 February 2010 at 9:10AM

Avocet wrote: »

And presumably that figure would only apply if we ate the entire tub. At the moment, we are using 10g of it, and 10g of baking soda cannot possibly yield 14g of calcium! :-)

indeedy

I have a cunning plan though involving HM lemon squash, since the alkalinity in the baking powder will be well balanced in something so acidic....

weezl74 · 22 February 2010 at 9:14AM

Okay:

HM stuffing balls challenge

onion, breadcrumbs, oil, garlic, dried mixed herbs, milk, real chicken stock, some snippings of bacon fat from the cooking bacon for extra flavour if desired.

no egg sadly

Can you make something palatable (if soaked in HM gravy

)

ideal target: enough for 4 people for 4 dinners ie 16 portions in total for less than 64p

System · 22 February 2010 at 9:30AM

weezl74 wrote: »

Gia is incredible value, It is equivalent to 1kg fresh garlic. It therefore also yields 12.5 of your 5 a day

Although I agree that this is quite garlicky, having it bought it last week to experiment with (on the strength of this thread), I find the claims for Gia Garlic to be quite impossible to believe:

Product Description
Gia® Garlic is produced to a unique formula based on an authentic Italian recipe. Careful handling retains the full fragrance and unique taste of garlic. One half inch of paste from this tube is equal to 1 clove of natural garlic (the entire contents equal 1 kilo).
Use Gia® Garlic and save yourself the fiddle and mess of skinning and crushing cloves of garlic.

All well and good, and looks like a bargain. But then look at the ingredients:

Ingredients
Garlic (55%), Sunflower Oil, Salt, Preservative (E224)

How can something that weighs 90g possibly "equal" 1 kg of garlic, when it actually contains less than 50g garlic, judging by the part of the packaging which is a legal requirement? How can it count as 12.5 F&V portions, when it doesn't contain enough raw ingredient to constitute a single portion? One clove of garlic weighs -- what? 2g? -- but the idea that you can get 500 squeezes out of this small tube stretches the imagination!

I suspect, knowing nothing at all about it, that they are referring to garlic flavour in their claims rather than to actual physical garlic. You know how garlic flavour intensifies in some recipes if you leave it overnight? I suspect that is what they are relying on here, with their maceration of garlic in oil.

Sorry to be so cynical, but it looks as though this product contains just 49.5g garlic (55% of 90g), although its flavour punch may be heftier.

weezl74 · 22 February 2010 at 9:35AM

I think you're probably right avocet!

*goes off to reduce the amount of fruit and veg on the spreadsheet*

System · 22 February 2010 at 9:51AM

Yummy! I made the apple curd last night, and I am just eating some on a slice of bread. It is absolutely delish!

I used butter instead of spread, and only made a half quantity because I didn't want to use up all the Braeburns in the fruit bowl. It yielded 220g of apple curd. The Rajah garam masala works really well (I happened to have this exact brand in the house anyway, bought from an online Indian supermarket -- although my tub cost three times what Asda are charging for it on our shopping list).

Spread very conservatively, it took 16g to cover a medium-sized slice of homemade bread. The half-batch cost me 40.5p, because Braeburns are on special offer at Ocado at the moment.

It would also be very tasty on top of rice pudding.

Great recipe, and I'll make it again. Thank you. I'll fill in the questionnaire this evening when the rest of the family has tried it.

weezl74 · 22 February 2010 at 10:36AM

Avocet wrote: »

Yummy! I made the apple curd last night, and I am just eating some on a slice of bread. It is absolutely delish!

:j:j:j yay! I'm really glad you liked it

maltesers_2 · 22 February 2010 at 11:32AM

weezl74 wrote: »

Example day for hungry teens, comments welcomed:

porridge with raisins and 15g skimmed milk powder 11.95p

3 slices toast with apple curd 7.8p

cereal bar 3.8p

carrot cake 6.5p

houmous sandwich 4p

risi e bisi 32.84p

garibaldi biscuit 1.7p

tea with milk 8p

total 76p

I'm sure this would fill up the hungry teens but, without knowing the nutritional breakdown, it looks very carb heavy with very little protein (I think teens need a min of 40g) and no fresh fruit or veg so no vit C (42mg required). I am so sorry to criticise especially after all your hard work to get enough calcium in.

Lesley_Gaye · 22 February 2010 at 11:41AM

Allegra wrote: »

Finally, I am able to give some good news regarding portion size ! Only two of us here that eat meat, but you have pretty much described what we would have as a "roast chicken dinner" (except we'd have yorkshire puddings instead of stuffing, simply cos I like them so much I'd eat them with anything; plus they have a huge psychological plus as they look like there is a lot of food on the plate) - and we would have just one breast from a small chicken between the two of us - as I do the chicken in the slow cooker, you can just peel it off the bone and shred it rather than slice it to get a huge-looking pile of meat drenched in gravy. It gets even big eaters like us pretty darn full.

we pretty much do this too. OH only likes the white meat, I much prefer the dark. He adores yorkshire puds. So when doing a roast chicken dinner, he'll have about half a breast, I'll have the equivalent from a leg, 250g assorted veg each, roasties and he'll have loads of yorkshires, I might have 1, possibly 2 (I do 12 in bun tins, he eats 2 or 3 straight out of the oven)

There is a family story, often told, from when I was growing up where the 6 of us in the family had our Sunday lunch of roast beef, lots of roasties, lots of yorkshires, lots of veg and lots of gravy. Lots of dishes being passed hither and thither. Yum. But when Mum went out to the kitchen she discovered the beef still resting on the side! And no-one, no-one, had noticed a thing!

So what with one thing and another, I think the meat is just part of what is enjoyed so much about a roast dinner and if it is a bit smaller than usual, I don't think most people would even notice

Off to read the rest of this thread now that has grown so much overnight

weezl74 · 22 February 2010 at 12:02PM

maltesers wrote: »

I'm sure this would fill up the hungry teens but, without knowing the nutritional breakdown, it looks very carb heavy with very little protein (I think teens need a min of 40g) and no fresh fruit or veg so no vit C (42mg required). I am so sorry to criticise especially after all your hard work to get enough calcium in.

Hi malteser, thanks for saying about your concern, we're all very diligent on behalf of this mythical family aren't we? I worry about shirley myself!

To reassure you, the fruit and veg count is between 6 and 7 per day so above NHS guidelines.

Firefox has done a preliminary look at protein and was reassured that all was well. We've evaluated about half of the meals for protein and they're fine for our teenagers as far as I know.

That's the advantage of a team with different skills, I'd not be able to know that by myself at all!

I hope that helps to reassure you, obviously the final version will be able to contain the cold hard maths showing shirley that there's plenty of vitamin C for the children

hornetgirl · 22 February 2010 at 12:28PM

weezl74 wrote: »

Okay:

HM stuffing balls challenge

onion, breadcrumbs, oil, garlic, dried mixed herbs, milk, real chicken stock, some snippings of bacon fat from the cooking bacon for extra flavour if desired.

no egg sadly

Can you make something palatable (if soaked in HM gravy )

ideal target: enough for 4 people for 4 dinners ie 16 portions in total for less than 64p

My MIL makes stuffing using just onions, breadcrumbs, oil and whatever herbs (dried or otherwise) might be to hand.
She doesn't work in exact quantities, just mixes it all together in the food processor then spreads it on a baking tray to cook. I'm sure it could be made into little balls if needed but she doesn't bother.
DH loves it. I find it very tasty but too much gives me indigestion!

Weezl's phase 1- recipe testing and frugalisation- come one, come all!

Comments

Confirm your email address to Create Threads and Reply

🚀 Getting Started

Categories

Is this how you want to be seen?

Get our FREE Weekly email full of deals & guides - and it’s spam-free