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

FrankieM wrote: »

Oh, actually, if you post the chilli one first, I'll do that for tea tonight.

hello Frankie, I hope I'm in time!

545g onions chopped into dice
280g smartprice mince
100g carrot grated
1 can tomatoes
1 can kidney beans
salt, pepper, garlic, 1/2 tspn chilli and Garam masala
2 slices of bread, crumbed to thicken sauce if needed

fry onions, spices and mince together until onion is softened and meat is browned off
chop toms in the can with your knife and then tip the toms and juice into your pan.
Add grated carrot and keep stirring until the grated carrot has disappearedish! Add bread crumbs if you need

taste, adjust seasoning, serves with 100g rice each.

artybear wrote: »

Also are you a professional photographer the pics are awesome? I want to eat everything yummmyyy!!!XX

Awww thanks Arty I have sold quite a few of my pics actually and I have a little webdesign company (well it's just me, but I do sell professional websites I've built ) The cucumbers got to be only about 14cm long, but were sooooooo flavoursome compared to bought ones, an amazing difference. When the boys are a bit bigger I might get a bit more into growing my own.....

Allegra wrote: »

Finally made the dried pea version last night, and I must say that it wasn't my finest moment Cockled it up a bit on two counts - first of all, forgot I didn't have any grana in, secondly, I have only ever cooked dried peas in the slow cooker before (they come out lovely and melt-in-the-mouth soft), so I thought rather optimistically, after looking at the packet instructions, that once soaked, they'll be fine to go straight in with the rice rather than being cooked before. 'Fraid they weren't.

That's not to say that they were bad - just not at all what I expected, more like chickpeas than peas. The combination of crunchy peas and melting mushy rice did have a certain appeal, but in the future I will stick to a more uniform texture and make sure that the peas are fully cooked before they go in !

In terms of taste though, as opposed to texture, the lack of grana did present me with a problem. All I had in was strong cheddar, and while I could not really remember if Shirley and Bob would have had that option, we did need to eat something, so in it had to go. So, what went in was as follows:

250g dried peas
1 litre chicken stock
30 ml veg oil
25g bacon, chopped up small
160g onion, chopped up small
200 g rice
20 g strong cheddar
salt
freshly ground black pepper
1 tbsp (15 ml) mustard


Mindful of what grandma said about lack of taste, I fiddled about with the method a bit, and started off by frying bacon in the oil until crisp, then fishing it all out with a slotted spoon, then frying off onion, adding rice and peas, then stock and mustard. Brought to boil, turned down to simmer and cooked for further 30 min. I needed more liquid so topped up with hot water from the kettle.

When it was nearly done, I stirred in half the cheese and the reserved bacon pieces, and sprinkled the rest of the cheese (looked a pathetically small amount at that stage, so I nearly reached for more but managed to resist) on top.

I loved it :cool: Crunchy peas and all. It's nothing like the original Venetian dish - but then, neither is the version I grew up on. For me, it was a 9/10 (a mark lost due to pea crunch factor and lack of parsley) - but then, my palate was educated in a very different way to the palate of most Brits. The other half - a far more reliable Bob-and-Shirl indicator - gave it 3/10 but, to put that into perspective, that's not much different to what he would give to the original dish, and he did say he would eat it again, as often as it was served, which probably says more about him than it does about the dish :T

I will fill in the survey soon as I can - must dash now though - onion and potato tart tonight !

Loving the feedback Allegra thank you:A, sorry about the crunch of the peas:(. I think it sounds like a success:T:T:T:T, although I'm struggling to interpret DH a bit does he eat whatever's put in front of him and not really mind if he feels 3 out of ten or 7 out of ten about it, or does he think 3 is quite a good score?

I'm not sure I'd eat a 3 out of ten again, so I'm a tad perplexed!!!

poohbear59 wrote: »

weezl, I had decided to make your pizza recipe for tonights dinner but DS1 has asked me to make the scone dough base. I just wondered if you had considered a scone base as it will be cheaper to make then the bread dough?
Also what do you propose serving it with? I would have made a salad in the past .

We have decided to try the onion tart tomorrow.

When we made the original ones (portions still as the recipe shows) they filled the dinner plate and neither of us could fit anything else in :).

But now we were going to stretch a double batch to be 3 meals, I was thinking of a version of Allegra's DD's potato salad. Cold cubed cooked potatoes, fine green beans and raw onion chopped v finely and dressed in a 4:1 oil to vinegar dressing, with perhaps a tad of mustard and garlic.

How does that sound, have you got any of the ingredients in?

I can be more specific about amounts if you'd like to test how filling it will be for Bob and shirl?

Sian too has recommended a scone base for cheapness. I wasn't sure because the bread dough rose so much it seemed to create a great volume for small pence, but I shall certainly try a scone base.

Still never tried scones Don't tell my MIL!!!! xxx