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

MichH

Lesley_Gaye wrote: »

couldn't agree more. When I occasionally venture over to other boards, it always surprises me how sharp people can be - we never get that here. I would love to take part more in the green fingered board as I love to grow things, esp edibles, but it can be little frosty over there sometimes

I second your comment on the green fingered board, especially as a newbie gardener myself. I did venture on and ask one question and got some good advice, but as you say some of it was a bit 'frosty', verging on sarcastic. Not at all like this board!

Been on a long term lurker on this thread and Weezl's previous thread. I would like to say thank you to everybody who has inspired me to make everything from scratch and for all the lovely recipes! I've tried a few now with great success. :j

Sian_the_Green

I'm not a watcher of Big Brother (just don't get its entertainment value ) but I think that if they fail their shopping task they are 'punished' by having a grocery budget of 'only' £1 per person per day...

I'd love to see Weezl in there, a look of glee on her face at the thought of doubling her grocery budget as the others snivelled into their hankies :rolleyes:

ZoeGirl_3

InTheRed wrote: »

Hi Zoe!
Can I ask how long did you leave in the oven? And do you think it would be possible to substitute cocoa with Options hot chocolate?
Thanks
InTheRed x

About 8-10 mins :P But until just starting to brown, or else they get too crunchy

Opps, and just noticed the second question!! Probably wouldnt work as well, if you used hot chocolate, but heck, I would give it a try once anyway, they should still be edible :P the flavour just might be a little muted...actually that gives me an idea for the half packet I have of hot chocolate that I havent used, mix some with my rapidly declining cocoa powder to extend it, so THANX!!!!! :P

Money_saving_Diva_2

Talking of courgette cake (which sounds yummy - I adore carrot cake so am up for trying this!) I was perusing the web and found this recipe for carrot fudge. It's an old wartime recipe apparently and thought the more adventurous among us might like to give it a try!! (and then report back of course for those of us less experimental with our tastes...*giggles*)


Carrot Fudge
You will need:
4 tablespoons of finely grated carrot
1 gelatine leaf
orange essence or squash
a saucepan
a flat dish

• Put the carrots in a pan and cook them gently in just enough water to keep them covered, for ten minutes.
• Add a little orange essence, or orange squash to flavour the carrot.
• Melt a leaf of gelatine and add it to the mixture.
• Cook the mixture again for a few minutes, stirring all the time.
• Spoon it into a flat dish and leave it to set in a cool place for several hours.
• When the "fudge" feels firm, cut it into chunks and get eating!

Plum_Pie

Hello All,

I'm still reading this thread, although I've been too busy to contribute.

MS Diva, carrot fudge is also a traditional Indian sweet (with a different method, I imagine)... I shall definitely be trying this. I love carrots with orange.

Haven't managed to write a meal plan for this week and I've been craving tapas for ages. Yesterday, I rang a friend to try to persuade her to come on a spontaneous trip to La Tasca to make use of the MSE tip. No such luck. However, when I got home, I managed to use up bits from the bottom of the fridge to make a tasty dish which nuked my cravings:

'Mixtos de Refrigeradora Bravas'!*

1. Cut up left-over boiled spuds into small slices and toss in a little flour
2. Warm 1dsp oil from sun dried toms jar (could use normal olive oil, or even sunflower) with chili powder (could also use fresh sliced chilis) in a large, heavy frying pan
3. Add plenty of sliced garlic and stir until slightly coloured
4. Add chorizo chopped into matchsticks
5. Turn up heat and add finely diced courgette and red pepper, stir a few times
6. Turn down heat and add more oil and potatos
7. Cook until done, potato pieces will need turning over to develop an even, golden crust

Should take about 20 mins, max.

I really can't be more specific about quantities - I ate 1/3 of a big courgette, half a pepper, 2 cloves of garlic, 2 small spuds and 3 slices of chorizo. You need quite a lot of oil but I found the dish so tasty, I was happy with, by my standards, a modest plateful.

You could bulk the dish out by
-Serving it with crusty bread and salad (There was lots of yummy oil left on the plate, I was full by that point though!)
-Adding baby spinach or rocket to the pan and stir it thoroughly to wilt it
-Adding (or substituting the spuds for) canellini or butter beans.

You could use chopped sun dried toms instead of chorizo, if you're veggie.

*Fake Spanish name is joke about my poor linguistic skills, not about the lovely Spanish language, cuisine or people.

NemoToad

ceridwen wrote: »

My thoughts precisely ISOM....our weezl as O.P. (with her brand of self-deprecating humour and niceness to us all) and -well, "alternative" posters......what - you mean - you peeked through my computer screen and saw conventional-looking moi and thought "alternative"? Heh! (it suits my sense of humour to look a lot more conventional than I am!!!:D ) and Yep....have spotted one or two others on this yur thread <waves>. Hiya - Shaz:D and everyone else that merits the "title":D :beer:

I'd just like to say that as newish poster on MSE and OS in particular, you've all made me feel very welcome and provided lots of help and inspiration. I hope you haven't minded me popping 'in' every now and again.

My BF is out the house this evening (for a works meal) so I'm going to use the oportunity to do lots of baking (and probably ever so boringly clean the bathroom). It's one of my colleagues birthdays tomorrow, so instead of getting everyone to chip in for a rubbish shop bought cake I've offerred to make one. We also picked yet more bilberries at the weekend (and have plans to go again on Friday!) so I'll make something out of them (already made another 70cl bottle of bilberry gin so probably just some more muffins). I worked out that the cost of the muffins was 7.5p so I was quite pleased with that (it's a start for us anyway...). My BF thought I was mad for costing them though!

mama67

DS2 is having a friend to sleep over tonight so I thought I'd have a baking session to give some goodies for their snacks, and also to refill the freezer boxes for next week.

Have made:
Millies Cookies
Shortbread
Blueberry Muffins
Iced Fingers
Bread loaf for packup tomorrow (dough in BM)
Banana Loaf Cake

For dinner we are having BBQ burgers, sausages with salad and buns. There is also a jelly setting in the fridge which they can have with some ice cream if they wish.

moneydribbler

Afternoon all

I've just had my nummy lunch of oatcakes (2 packs for £1 in Farmfoods, 6 packs in each, so £1 for 12 lots, 9p per each - and you get 7 in each wee pack) with some of the cheese I bought at the weekend.

I know 9p is probably quite high for our Weelz, but they're a pretty good "keep in drawer" thing as one wee pack is enough for a decent lunch and they keep ages. Also, they're Nairns rough ones and are wheatfree . I reckon they'd be good with a wee bit of the liver pate (which I'm making over the weekend. I SHALL BE BRAVE ABOUT OFFAL) which I could keep in the fridge at work.

I'm out tonight, for a concert in Paisley Abbey which I'm really looking forward to... not totally MSE, but it's a wonderful venue for classical music and it's cheaper than the Glasgow concert by quite a way. We're going to the pub for dinner, which I used to think was cheap at 2 meals for £6, but that's almost a week's dinners on my current budget! (so it's coming out of the entertainment budget instead...).

InTheRed - I'm not sure how the mixture would work, cocoa powder is pretty much just bashed up cocoa beans, options is cocoa powder, dried milk and sweetner (and other, scarier, stuff) so it might taste a bit wierd, milkier, less chocolaty and sweetner's often a bad thing to cook with?

Plum_Pie

Oooh, I love Nairns oatcakes! I like to keep packs about the place (store cupboard, desk drawer at work) for emergencies! They're healthy, edible on the go and store well. (I like them so much I will eat them plain, if I have a bit of water to wash them down with!)

loocyloo

ooo, just had yummy 'experiment' !

had lots of strawberries needing eating (not enough for jam!), so cooked some down to add to yogurt etc.

i was also planning on making a cake, just a plain sponge as a traybake and adding some dried fruit ... so i added ground almonds that i remembered i had, to the cake mix (probably a good couple of ounces or more!), and then chopped strawberries and sprinkled them all over the top .... they sort of cooked and melted into the cake! saldy, i ate about 1/4 in one go 'testing' it!

xxx