Economy Gastronomy - new budget cookery programme; BBC

MrsE_2

There is a huge thread devoted to this programme & book.

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/1844847

silverarrow73

You can get cornmeal in Tesco for about 45p for 500g bag. It's virtually the same stuff as polenta, and when I brought some, it was down the "World" Food aisle, with some Japanese food, and stuff. It was by the spices, but I think that might be bigger Tesco's that sell it?

sharloid

I made gnocchi the other night using instant mash. It's 20p a bag in Asda so I think it works out cheaper than some of the other suggestions.

1 cup instant mash
1 cup boiling water
1 egg, beaten
1.5 cup plain flour
Pinch of salt and pepper

Mix together, roll out into a long sausage shape, cut with a floured knife, drop into a pan of boiling water and pick them out when they float. Easy!

ALIBOBSY

kaz0705 wrote: »

On the plus side, whilst looking for it, we came across a bag of pop corn. As we've got a big metal wok, we figured we'd try it out. One cup of corn later and we had enough popcorn for about 10 people! Reckon we need a 1/4 of a cup for just the two of us- so that 86p is going to go far! Now to make the toffee.....

x

Thats something I was suprised about, my kids love homemade popcorn now and its so cheap. The mark up in the shops is bad enough, but the cinema is just criminal.
I make salted corn, by sprinkling some on just as the first corns start to pop and the lid goes on, the a further sprinkle when cooked.
If they want salted buttery corn, same salted then I put small bits of butter onto the edge of the hot wok-it melts straight away and you camn toss the popcorn in it or take the popcorn out, melt the butter in the hot pan and toss the popcorn back in.

we make sweet the same as salted but with sugar instead, I find if we add butter to the sugery versin you get a toffee type taste, but not that thick toffee you get in shop bought.

we just experimented a few different ways till we found what worked and we liked best.

The kids also sometimes like "pink popcorn". pop the corn without any flavours on whilst putting some icing sugar and a drop or 2 of pink food colouring into a lidded plastic tub or thick plastic bag (freezer bags work well). put the popcorn whilst still slightly warm into the bag/box lid on or close top of bag and hold then shake madly. you get a slight coating of pink icing on each popcorn, nice and not too sweet-a bit lighter for kids parties or in summer.

I also like cinnamon and icing sugar on mine but I am a cinnamon feind lol.

Lol my EG book use it alot even now. Wish they would do a second series and this time make the budgets alot tighter to fit with the current climate. BTW pauls bread rec works brilliantly.
ali x

calleyw

CommitedToChange wrote: »

the lasagna made from the pork is to die for

I have tried i twice and it never worked for me.

I don't like cheese sauce so just used tomato based sauce.

Cooked it for as long as it said and the pork was luke warm and the pasta not cooked.

So have given up. I wonder if it is anything to do with the dish I am using.

Not sure I really want to try again. Nice to hear that it is nice when it cooked right just not by me:rotfl:

Maybe better if did it as a pasta bake not thought of that one.

Yours

Calley

zippychick

I've merged this with the thread MrsE linked to - it's long but a great thread!

I hope you get on well with the book. I'm not much of a meat eater at all so it wasn't really for me

Zip

alex21

Is this a repeat because I watched the last series and it was really excellent. It goes along the lines of each week a different basic buy. The ones I remember were the economy of buying a large salmon fillet and what you could use it for for numerous meals. Another was buying such as beef pieces and doing a basic recipe then how it could be tweaked to ring the changes. The principle is buy big, save fuel by cooking all at once but not having to eat the same meal repeatedly.I think they finish with a challenge of the cooks providing a 3 course meal for the family using what is in the house only. I totally loved her take on macaroni cheese. This actually is practical cooking and none of these ingredients that you need to live in London to buy. Can't wait.

JillS_2

alex21 wrote: »

...I think they finish with a challenge of the cooks providing a 3 course meal for the family using what is in the house only...

I always felt that was such a fiddle because every week the participants "just happened" to have a large piece of meat or fish in the fridge. And this was after a week of using the EG shopping list, menu, recipes - so why did they have it in?

edited to add: but I still enjoyed the program a lot.