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

munchki

thank you for this! Was hoping to not have to scroll through loads of wonderful recipes, far too easy for me to get sidetracked :rotfl:

temptation beckons......

Will have a look and hopefully find that in which I seek.

Thank you ever so much once again

kath x

BigMummaF

Drifted upon this thread yesterday...HTH:p

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=248445

bails

Just got back from foraging - our blackberries are far from ready yet but I did pick 2lb of wild raspberries! :j I can't remember who was asking but I had a close look at them today and they sound very similar to the unidentified berries you found, with the big white centre staying on the plant when you pick them. The leaves do have 3 distinct parts, which I'm not sure yours had?
Off to try and catch up on some posts, have a good day everyone!
EDIT: aha, I see there may have been progress on the berry front
I've only caught the tail end of the veal debate but want to thank the person who brought up the point that veal is a by-product of the milk industry - it sounds really silly but I had never thought about this before :eek: I'm not convinced by the ethics of soya either though, anyone got an opinion? (happy to be PMed rather than go off topic on the thread).

Plum_Pie

bails wrote: »

I'm not convinced by the ethics of soya either though, anyone got an opinion?

I know that

1. Due to rising demand, in some countries rainforest is being cut down to grow soya beans, (see also S American beef, Thai king prawns.)
2. Some evidence linking soy consumption to early onset dementia:eek: and infertility :eek: :eek: in men. (I'm a woman btw!)


Unfortunately, I really like tofu and those provamel puds!

bails

Yes, those were the things I knew too, thanks Plumpie. OH uses soya and tofu; I could quite happily live without tofu but want something to put on my cereal and cant handle just water (unless it's porridge).

baileysbattlebus

bails wrote: »

Ceridwen, I took this from a thread here the other day, the credit goes to Curry Queen and I haven't tried it yet:

Curry Sauce


1 kg onions (I only ever use red onions)
50g ginger
50g garlic
1.5 litres water
1 tsp salt
225g tinned tomatoes (or passata) (I use a 400gm tin which is 260gm net)
8 tbsp veg oil (I use 1tbsn for the onions and 5 for the tomato sauce)
1 tsp tomato puree
1 tsp turmeric
1 tsp paprika

Method

Stage 1
Peel and slice onions, garlic and ginger (if cheating and using minced ginger/garlic from a jar miss next bit out) and put chopped ginger and garlic in a blender with half a pint of the water, and blend till smooth.

Place onions, blended ginger/garlic and the rest of water into a large saucepan. (I do this without blending garlic & ginger - just chop - it gets blended at the end - I also soften the onions in a little oil before adding the water)

Add salt and bring to boil. Turn heat down and simmer on very low, with lid on, for 45 mins. Leave to cool.


Stage 2
Once cooled, blend onion mixture (do half at a time) in a blender until perfectly smooth (this is important).

Can be frozen at this stage. (I don't freeze here - as I want to to be able to defrost and use as a curry - not onion, garlic and ginger sauce)


Stage 3
If using tinned tomatoes give them a blast in a blender until smooth (I use passata as I'm lazy LOL!). (I do this at the end too)

Heat up oil in a large clean pan then add the tomato puree, turmeric and paprika. Stir in blended tomatoes and bring to boil. Turn down heat and cook for 10 mins, stirring occassionally.(I blend it here)

Add onion mixture to saucepan and bring back to the boil. Turn down again to very low and simmer for 20-25 mins, stirring occassionally. During the cooking process a froth will appear on the surface which needs to be skimmed off. (I would freeze here - then you just need to add the spices and meat when you defrost the sauce)

The sauce is now ready to use or can be refigerated for up to 4 days. I've also frozen it at this stage and it's been absolutely fine.


I know it sounds like a long, complicated process, which is one of the reasons I make it in bulk batches, but it really is worth the effort if you want to make curries like the ones they serve in Indian restaurants/take-aways.

I'll dig out the beetroot cake recipe and post too, remind me if it doesn't appear!:D

I make something very similar to this on a regular basis - use basically the same ingredients - I find it makes about 7/8 decent sized servings or about 1.5 to 1.6 litres and 800ml of the basic sauce should serve 4. I have put some comments the original - hope you don't mind - it's just to highlight the slight differences

When I come to use the "basic sauce) I take:

A couple of tbspns oil
1 level tspn salt
1tspn dried coriander
1tspn ground cumin
1tspn garam masala
1tspn dried fenugreek leaves
1/4 tspn chilli powder

Put oil in pan and heat - add basic sauce along with your meat cook for 2/3 mins on a high heat

Add all of the spices and salt and cook for about 5 mins.

(if using prawns add them now) and simmer for about 10 mins - adding extra water if it's getting too dry.

I also add peppers and onion to it and sometimes a couple of quartered tomatoes.

This is a very nice plain curry and well worth the effort of making it, once I had made it a couple of times I actually found it quite easy - the first time was a bit of a pain.

You can make this into a load of different curries - add ground almonds and a bit of single cream and you have Korma.

And once you have the spices, it's also very cheap

78p for a kilo of red onions in Asda and a tin of tomatoes + what ever meat or veg you want to put in it.

Plum_Pie

bails wrote: »

Yes, those were the things I knew too, thanks Plumpie. OH uses soya and tofu; I could quite happily live without tofu but want something to put on my cereal and cant handle just water (unless it's porridge).

You can make almond milk quite easily. You put them in the liquidiser to grind them and then add water, leave for 8 hrs or so and then strain. I'm sure you can a recipe off the net if you want something more accurate. I would think you'll need to bulk buy the almonds though to reduce costs.

Lesley_Gaye

My elderly neighbour has a quince shrub that she doesn't use that I can raid for as many as I would like - yum yum. Have googled quince and found lots of yummy recipes here http://www.waitrose.com/search.aspx?q=quince

Any of you lovely lot got any favourite recipes that could use them? I wonder if they would bottle alright, bet they would. I'm going to look at my preserving books RIGHT NOW

cw18

Just done my daily rounds of the local shops -- and have come home with another half kilo of runner beans to freeze. Normal price is £4.40/kg (:eek:), but they were in clearance at 49p/kg -- much more reasonable

Lesley_Gaye

cw18 wrote: »

Just done my daily rounds of the local shops -- and have come home with another half kilo of runner beans to freeze. Normal price is £4.40/kg (:eek:), but they were in clearance at 49p/kg -- much more reasonable

Bimey - I didn't realise how much money I was saving by growing runner beans!