50p a day til christmas, healthily?!-Weezl's next challenge (part 2)

Maxjessdru

thought I'd post a great recipe I found tonight - chinese sweet and sour pork - much better than shop bought, OH was seriously impressed.

Anyway, I have put the proper recipe here - along with my version!

12 oz lean pork (I used leftover from roast yesterday)
salt & pepper
1tbsp rice wine or sherry (didn't have so used red wine vinegar)
plain flour
1 beaten egg

For sauce
1 tbsp veg oil
1 garlic clove
1 spring onion
1 pepper (used last of my home grown)
1 red chilli (left out cos didn't have)
1 tbsp light soy (used dark)
2 tbsp brown sugar
2-3 tbsp rice vinegar (used red wine vinegar from back of cupboard!)
1 tbsp tomato puee
4fl oz water or stock

Chop pork into cubes, add salt pepper and rice/wine sherry. Leave to marinate. Dust pork with flour, dip into beaten egg and then flour again. Fry until crisp, remove and drain on kitchen paper. (did this even though cooked port - came out really lovely and crisp).

Heat the oil and add garlic, spring onion, pepper and chili (or whatever other veg you are using). Stir fry them add soy sauce, sugar, vinegar, tomato puree and water/stock. Bring to the boil then add the pork, heath thoroughly and serve (I had with egg fried rice). Would also work with chicken or prawns and I'm sure you could add mushrooms, pineapple or whatever else you had in. Really good store cupboard recipe.

phizzimum

max - that recipe looks yum.. I used to do a lot of chinese cooking from scratch, but somehow I seem to have forgotten how to do it now get out of the habit somehow.

made tuna fish cakes for dinner tonight - it was a bit of a thrown together meal as I hadn't had time to do the shopping. As I was making them I had that sinking feeling that no-one would eat them as DD6 doesn't like mashed potato, and they were falling apart in the frying pan. But they turned out very nice, girls loved them (wished I made more)

DD10 did ask me if they had lentils in though!:rotfl:

(they didn't in case you're wondering)

In_Search_Of_Me

belated happy birthday guapa...are you a boy or a girl...always think a boy but maybe not?!! Just popping in to say hi before a very long day at work (14 hrs!) and short work day but patchwork tomorrow ...am off to bed after a cuddle wth Alfie cat! hugs all...

weezl74

Good morning all,

Two internet engineers have now been round so it seems I am back online. :T:T:T

Today is feeling very old-style and thrifty, as I've made another enormous batch of my thingie with green lentils and bacon. I doubled the onion tho and upped the amount of lentils from 350g to 550g.

By this morning the lid of the slocooker was being forced upwards by the rapidly expanding lentils :eek:, quickly put half in a pan on the hob (not so very old-style!) and am carrying on the cooking....

Tastes ok, but I slightly prefer the less oniony one. I think it will work out cheaper per portion too but I'll keep you posted.

After some much more expensive breakfasts early in pregnancy I am happy to say that fergus is now proving a frugal foetus, and my breakfast is now a measly 7.5p (60g oats, 20g sultanas, splash of milk,-porridge:money:)

The lunch I've been taking to work is 125g rice, 80g peas and a blob of mayo- 20p, but my previous sandwhich wasn't doing the trick and I was getting dizzy by home time!

dinner is usually summat and potatoes or rice, as pasta is just the wrong texture at the moment!!!!, either the lentil and bacon thing or the oaty chilli, which worked rather well. (sorry ISOM, didn't realise you didn't like baked beans when you tasted it!:D) they work out at 25-30p per meal.

I'm also having a pudding of tinned fruit these days for extra vitamins (30p), but for frugality have gone for fruit in syrup not juice. Can't say I like this much, I think I'll drain it off!!!;)

This puts a typical weekday at around 1900 calories, and about 6 of my '5 a day'

Downfall seems to be our 'fun budget'. Saturday night was a £2.50 ice cream and DVD fest, not bad for a night in for 2 cost-wise I guess, but polishing off half a tub of ben and jerries 'phish food':o:o:o:o is probably a bit too much fat and sugar for me!!!!!

Thanks for all the recipes that have been posted, love'em! I'll need to do some more indexing, gulp!

Love to all,

weezl x

cw18

Welcome back Weezl -- long may it last

Still doesn't sound like you're using up all of Fergus' 50p/day !!!!! And I'm sorry, but tinned fruit in this house is always in juice..... I can't stand the sweetness of the syrup ones, plus I happily drink the juice so tipping away the syrup effectively increases the cost of the fruit you've taken out of it :eek: False economy in my eyes

Bunny200

phizzimum wrote: »

max - that recipe looks yum.. I used to do a lot of chinese cooking from scratch, but somehow I seem to have forgotten how to do it now get out of the habit somehow.

made tuna fish cakes for dinner tonight - it was a bit of a thrown together meal as I hadn't had time to do the shopping. As I was making them I had that sinking feeling that no-one would eat them as DD6 doesn't like mashed potato, and they were falling apart in the frying pan. But they turned out very nice, girls loved them (wished I made more)

DD10 did ask me if they had lentils in though!:rotfl:

(they didn't in case you're wondering)

Does DD6 & 10 refer to their ages or order of birth?! I usually refer to order of birth so I was a bit freaked out about having 10 kids!

I think my girls are weird as fussy DD1 (5) LOVES lentils in tomato sauce & pasta, shes usually a really slow eater but give her that and shes licking the pattern off the plate:T

cheerfulness4

The large tins of prunes in juice are only 32p at Asda at the moment and the apple juice they come in is delicious in HM muesli bars made from their SP muesli.
Do you think Fergus might like a few prunes?

zarazara

Hi y'all, just wondering, does anyone have any frugal recipes which dont include curry type spices? I quite like a curry type thing occsionally but am getting a little fed up with using the spicey stuff for flavour.

naturally_2

hello all! Am feeling slightly more frugal at the moment, due to having realised that Weight watchers isn't as far off from Slimming world in some ways. Am now hurridly re-jigging free SW recipes to 0 point WW ones by omitting lentils etc and keeping all the good veg in!

zarazara... what do you like? You can do lasagne very cheaply (I think a box of lasagne sheets is 30p and does say 5 lasagnes easily - do a vegetable one or a mince one bulking out with oats or lentils, and use a carton of passatta (30p ish from Lidl, Adsa do a jar of smartprice stuff for similar) as the sauce with whatever herbs you like in it - I just tend to chuck in a load of mixed herbs or basil. I also quite often use a value stock cube disolved in a small amount of hot water mixed in for flavour.

phizzimum

Bunny200 wrote: »

Does DD6 & 10 refer to their ages or order of birth?! I usually refer to order of birth so I was a bit freaked out about having 10 kids!

I think my girls are weird as fussy DD1 (5) LOVES lentils in tomato sauce & pasta, shes usually a really slow eater but give her that and shes licking the pattern off the plate:T

yes ages! :rotfl:sorry for the confusion. I love the image of us as a huge Von Trapp family - we'd definitely put lentils in everything then!