£10 to feed us until 17th?

vickiem30

I made the cheesy bean pie for my tea tonight. I did it in the microwave, because I'm too tight to put my gas oven on. It was really nice. I'm going to try a garlic mushroom one, with mushroom soup, mushrooms, garlic and cheeese.

Fingers crossed.

donnajt

vickiem30 - i've never thought of cooking the beanie pie in the microwave - did it come out crispy on top? how did your garlic mushroom version turn out?

Uniscots97

Hi Noggin, have you got any dried stuff in your cupboards?

The reason I ask is you could make the following soup (I've included rough costs too where I could as I made this recently)

1 stock cube (preferably ham but can be chicken or vegetable)
1 pack split peas (29p lidl)
1 pack dried marrowfat peas (29p lidl)
1 tin butter beans (18p most supermarkets)
1 large potato
4 carrots
twist of black pepper or herbs (optional)

Pre-soak your split peas and peas for at least 8 hours if using cold water or an hour if using boiling water. Then put them into a pan with 2 litres of boiling water with the stock cube and let this simmer away for at least an hour. Add the potato (cubed) and carrots (sliced), just clean the veg rather than peeling if you can as you'll get more out of this. Cook for another hour then add the tinned butter beans and add more water, try and make it up to about 4 litres. It will be really thick. One soup sized bowl of this really fills you up without bread. I've managed to buy the ingredients for this for under a pound before and 4 litres would do us (3 sometimes 4, 2 adults and 2 teenagers with adult appetites) about 18-20 servings.

GrillMonkey

I've only just seen this thread and not read throught it yet so this is a responce to the first post.

I should add at this point that my cooking ability is really limited. I can't make bread

Ahhhhh, I hate it when people say this. You can cook and you can make bread. Trust me. I used to be a chef and when telling people they'd usually respond with "cool, I wish I could cook!"... you can, it's easy. Please don't let people fool you into thinking is a magic art. I'll say to people "I'm cooking risotto tonight" and they'll say. "Ooo, I wouldn't know how!" well neither did I until I read a recipe. Seriously have some confidence, find some recipes that you'd like to make and follow the instructions clearly. You'll be pleasntly suprised how easy it is.

Rant over

Chestnuts are in season at the moment so see if you can find a tree and collect a few. Found this recipe.

Chestnut and Sage Soup

Ingrediants
2 tbsp [strike]Olive[/strike] oil
2 leeks, sliced
1 small carrot, finely chopped
3 sage leaves, chopped
200g [strike]vacuum packed[/strike] foraged chestnuts.
1 x 400g can Chickpeas, rained and rinsed
[strike]3 tbsp Sherry[/strike]
1.5 litres vegetable, chicken or meat stock
Salt, and pepper

[strike]To Garnish
180g fromage frais, or low-fat Greek yoghurt
oil, for shallow-frying
6 sage leaves
6-12 chive stems[/strike]

Method

1. Heat the oil in a large saucepan or pot. Add the leeks, carrot and sage and cook, stirring, for about 5 minutes until the vegetables are softened.

2. Add the chestnuts, chickpeas, [strike]sherry[/strike] and stock and bring to a boil. Simmer for 30 minutes until all the ingredients are very tender and well-combined.

3. Remove the soup from the heat and allow it to cool briefly before pur!eing the mixture. Then return to a low heat to keep hot and adjust the seasoning to taste with salt and pepper.

[strike]4. To prepare the garnish, place some oil for shallow frying in a frying pan and, when it is very hot, add the extra whole sage leaves, spacing them well apart in the pan. Allow them to crisp up, turning gently if necessary. Place them on paper towel to drain. [/strike]

I've edited it for you to make it a bit cheaper.

British apples are in season. See if you have a neighbour or friend with a tree how may have some extras.

bella2121

kittiej wrote: »

What about buying a sack of spuds?

My local greengrocer sells them for £5.99 a sack and there's loads you can make.

my local asian food wholsaler sells 10KG white potatoes for £2.49!!! amazing i know! your could do jacket spuds, mash, boiled, roasts, wedges

foreign_correspondent

how about keeping the kids busy and getting some free food - there are loads of blackberries around at the moment, and lots of apples this year - take the kids out blackberrying (and keep your eye out for any available apple trees too) and see of you can get enough fruit for crumbles, or fruit compote to eat with natural yogurt - it may even make the kids less fussy if they have picked it themselves!!

foreign_correspondent

oh, and worth asking on freecycle about cooking apples etc - loads of people do, and lots of people are glad to be able to offload a carrier bag full

vickiem30

donnajt wrote: »

vickiem30 - i've never thought of cooking the beanie pie in the microwave - did it come out crispy on top? how did your garlic mushroom version turn out?

It didn't go crispy, it was more like bread and buter pudding, if that makes sense!

Garlic mushroom one was really nice, I'm even thinking of doing a lasagne style next week!