Economy Gastronomy - new budget cookery programme; BBC

Rossy2692

I live on a council estate in an ex mining county, I take offence at the view that council estates are grotty, the majority of people on council estates are very proud, hardworking people, yours is the kind of comment that gives a bad light to the majority of council estates in this country aspiringgeekygirl.

ALIBOBSY

HariboJunkie wrote: »

I really recommend jointing a chicken to anyone who hasn't. It's very easy and incredibly economical especially if you buy free range. I haven't bought chicken breasts for a couple of years and will joint a chicken once a week. I use the breast meat and bag and freeze the dark meat until I have enough for a casserole.

This is what I was thinking of doing, or perhaps buying 2 every couple of weeks, one to "bounce" that week and another to joint and freeze in portions to use later.

ali x

thriftlady_2

ALIBOBSY wrote: »

This is what I was thinking of doing, or perhaps buying 2 every couple of weeks, one to "bounce" that week and another to joint and freeze in portions to use later.

ali x

That's a good plan Ali.

I buy 8 chickens at once from my butcher as a freezer deal. You can have them ready frozen or fresh. I usually get them ready frozen and use them whole, but next time I might ask him to joint them all for me. Then I can bag up the breasts, legs and thighs separately. There'll be the wings too and the backs for stock.

Lesley_Gaye

forgot to say that after I had cooked a whole chicken and a small ham joint for some pies I was making to sell, and after I had made stock from the carcass, I used the tiny bits of chicken from the carcass and a few very small pieces of ham, mixed them with mashed potato and made 2 rissoles.

Sizzled them in olive oil until crispy, and me and OH had them with beans from the garden and a huge chopped beef tomato (also from the garden) - yum - and all but free

sooty&sweep

Hi

I've not watched the whole series but I did watch last weeks.
I enjoyed it and agree with alot of what they had to say although I don't always practice it.
One thing I didn't understand though was that they appeared to have the students peeling english salad tomatoes for their stock recipe.
Is there a reason why they couldn't used canned plum tomatoes ? They're not particularly expensive and very useful to have in the storecupboard.
I cook the majority of meals from basic ingredients but I don't have time to peel tomatoes.
Am I missing something ?

Jen

patchwork_cat

Lesley_Gaye wrote: »

Well, I was really quite staggered this week, and somewhat ashamed.

I have cooked for most of my life, and am the kind of shopper that if I am, say, buying carrots, I will check the price of the ones in bags before automatically taking loose ones, just in case the sneaky supermarket has fiddled with the prices. Always on the lookout for a bargain, shop at markets, greengrocers (esp their cheapy, bashed, box) etc

And yet ...... I had received an order for some meals for a local shop and needed some chicken. As it was pies I would be making, I automatically looked at the packs of thighs, as they would be cheaper. My OH much prefers breast meat, while I always choose the leg given an option. I knew that packs of breast meat would be more expensive than a whole chicken, but was under the impression that a pack of thighs would be cheaper.
But either somethng has changed since I checked (have I ever checked? Can't remember!) but, whatever, I happened to check the price per kilo of a whole chicken against the pack of thighs and was amazed to see that the whole chicken was cheaper.

How could I have gone this long and not known that! (Hence the shame)

Guess what I will be buying from now on! As well as checking more prices to make sure there are no other nasty little assumptions lurking in there.

Made the pies - chicken and ham, so had a little joint of ham as well to boil. So now had some lovely ham stock, and a carcass for stock as well.

So made some delish green split pea soup with all the resulting stock

My OH is rather squeamish with meat and until recently wouldn't touch soup made with chicken stock because of the icky look of the back of a stripped chicken carcass. But I persevered and offered it every time I made it and eating it myself when he turned it down. But he has recently relented and ate it under protest for a while, and now isn't commenting at all - hooray

The thing is you can't compare like for like because of bones. I would be interesteed if someone did a calculation on g for g meat. I did recently on Salmon. I always thought that buying a whole salmon and filleting it was still cheaper than fillets, but I was wrong. Bought a whole salmon at Asda 2 days ago - 2.4kg, but when it was filleted it was only just over a Kg. I will be buying already filleted in future as it worked out at £12 /kg of fish!!

Gigervamp

Didn't Allegra mention that they were using fresh tomatoes because they taste nicer?

I get through tinned tomatoes like there's no tomorrow and would use them in the bedrock recipe unless I was given a load of tomatoes by my in-laws (I can't seem to grow them for some reason!) or if I saw them on special offer.

patchwork_cat

sooty&sweep wrote: »

Hi

I've not watched the whole series but I did watch last weeks.
I enjoyed it and agree with alot of what they had to say although I don't always practice it.
One thing I didn't understand though was that they appeared to have the students peeling english salad tomatoes for their stock recipe.
Is there a reason why they couldn't used canned plum tomatoes ? They're not particularly expensive and very useful to have in the storecupboard.
I cook the majority of meals from basic ingredients but I don't have time to peel tomatoes.
Am I missing something ?

Jen

Fine in my opinion and I commented just the same earlier. What student is going to buy fresh toms and peel them when they can open a can? ( previously said I would have liked them to say -that chefs may prefer to use fresh and if gastronomy is your thing rather than economy of either money or time then use fresh, but if you live in the busy world that I do tinned is fine)

I frequently make my own tomato bedrock and have for years. In the slow cooker onions, tinned toms, passata, tomato puree, carrots and butternut squash (hide extra veg! have added courgettes, but leave them out now). When cooked for 4 or so hours blend down with stick blender. I freeze this for chilli, bolognaise, pizza, and various tomato pasta recipes including meatballs and with cheese or chilli for puttanesca.

MrsE_2

aspiringgeekygirl wrote: »

Old time Housewives would make n meals out of mince and chicken etc they have introduced Veal Shin a must for my Menu!! It is just a rebranding and an attempt to unite Gastromony with Economy.
:eek:

No sh*t Sherlock:rolleyes:

Penelope_Penguin

patchwork_cat wrote: »

I frequently make my own tomato bedrock and have for years. In the slow cooker onions, tinned toms, passata, tomato puree, carrots and butternut squash (hide extra veg! have added courgettes, but leave them out now). When cooked for 4 or so hours blend down with stick blender. I freeze this for chilli, bolognaise, pizza, and various tomato pasta recipes including meatballs and with cheese or chilli for puttanesca.

I agree with batch cooking sauces, and freezing for later, but that's not puttanesca it needs olives, capers and anchovies I base mine on Delia's recipe, and like it as it only uses storecupboard ingredients

Penny. x