Economy Gastronomy - new budget cookery programme; BBC

cw18

Jesthar wrote: »

Wish I had a local butchers, we do have farm shops but they are blooming expensive. Must try harder to find one...!

My closest butcher is a 3 mile round trip. I've no idea what he's like, but when I've glanced in on passing there's never a customer in there - so doesn't exactly fill me with confidence for trying him
Closet farm shop - no idea. Almost non-existant around me. And those I've passed in the car don't have any boards outside for meat - just potatoes, fruit & veg, milk and cream.
Closest supermarket - 5 minute walk each way.

So I'm afraid meat for us is supermarket only, with no other realistic option. (Plus I get a lot of it on Whoopsie, which I've never seen in a butcher shop)

LilacPixie

I did laugh at the store cupboard essentials. Mine are, olive oil because i use it for pizza dough, bread, shallow frying, pasta etc balsamic cause i put it in everything worcestercshire (sp?) sauce ditto, oregano, basil, oxo cubes and tomato puree.

Did anyone notice a distinct lack of fruit in the house plus what did they have for brekkie and lunch?? I saw several boxes of cereal. Plus did you see the sizes of the two mac cheese she made?? they were huge.

LilacPixie

For me I have one butcher that is about a 3 minute walk away, not that keen on that shop though, does alot of 'chinese style' cuts of meat which i feel is to hid the excess fat, there is also a bakers and a greengrocer but it isn't that great either. In the opposite direction is a huge field so I take the car and after about 5 mins you come to my usual butcher nothing else there though apart from a chinese take away a corner shop taning salon, barber and hair/nail bar. I actually have to drive past this row of shops to make it to tescos.

What I really need is a decent green grocer. We really have none around here, tried veg boxes and was less than impressed with the quality so for now we use aldi/lidl but I live in a semi rural location so there must be a decent farm shop somewhere.

competitionscafe

Jesthar wrote: »

Incidentally, did anyone else laugh out loud at the first round of 'essential' store cupboard ingredients beign several different types of oil and vinegar? :rolleyes: I just have one type of each - veggie oil to stop my pasta sticking and malt vinegar for the rare occasion I have chips!

I couldn't cope without olive oil - use it almost every day. One bottle of extra virgin and a bottle of standard for cooking. I also have red and white wine vinegar and rice vinegar as well as balsamic but mostly use the rice vinegar as I prefer it to the red and white wine ones. Balsamic is only used occassionally (great with puy lentils or with roast veg) and don't have sherry vinegar or sesame seed oil but I do have a bottle of sunflower oil. I also have white vinegar but mostly use that for cleaning. I also read somewhere that you don't need oil in the water to stop pasta sticking and that it also makes it harder for the sauce to 'stick' to the pasta - since reading that I stopped putting oil in my pasta water and it never sticks - just keep it at a fast rolling boil and stir occassionally.

Quillion

I too use olive oil for everything i need a new bottle as i dropped mine on the kitchen floor.
It fetches black grout up lovely !!

I have just seen this and i missed it wonder if there will be a repeat.

Quillion

competitionscafe wrote: »

I couldn't cope without olive oil - use it almost every day. One bottle of extra virgin and a bottle of standard for cooking. I also have red and white wine vinegar and rice vinegar as well as balsamic but mostly use the rice vinegar as I prefer it to the red and white wine ones. Balsamic is only used occassionally (great with puy lentils or with roast veg) and don't have sherry vinegar or sesame seed oil but I do have a bottle of sunflower oil. I also have white vinegar but mostly use that for cleaning. I also read somewhere that you do't need oil in the water to stop pasta sticking and that it also makes it harder for the sauce to 'stick' to the pasta - since reading that I stopped putting oil in my pasta water and it never sticks - just keep it at a fast rolling boil and stir occassionally.

I always rinse the pasta and rice in boiling water to remove the gluten which stops it sticking once out the pan x

competitionscafe

cw18 wrote: »

My closest butcher is a 3 mile round trip.

I am lucky in that the butcher and fishmonger are both 10 minutes walk away (they are opposite each other) - very rare to go in and not have at least 1 other customer in there but if you go on a Saturday both have a massive queue.

There are also at least 5 local veg box schemes all with free delivery and most of them also have a stall at the Saturday farmers market - one of them was giving away salad stuff for free the other week as they had a surplus!

For farm shops try putting you postcode into the search box at bigbarn.co.uk

fabbman

Scarlett25 wrote: »

I caught the trailer for the show the other night and it looks a good prog :j Different families or groups of people will feature each week and 2 chefs will show them how to spend less, but still eat well on a budget.

The show airs on BBC2 on the 5th August (don't know what time though yet!)

Watched a bit of this last night.............talk about teaching you to suck eggs! Most of us on here are already savvy when it comes to saving $ so why tell us to meal plan and only buy what we need from the supermarket....der.....common sense - no??

hotcookie101

fabbman wrote: »

Watched a bit of this last night.............talk about teaching you to suck eggs! Most of us on here are already savvy when it comes to saving $ so why tell us to meal plan and only buy what we need from the supermarket....der.....common sense - no??

But the thing is this programme is not aimed at all the people who are on OS and can cook a meal for 2p :rolleyes: It was about teaching people who eat loads of ready meals and takeaways and don't bother to cook, that cooking a decent meal can be done for less money than they spend already.
Yes it might seem rubbish to you guys who don't feel you need more than veggie oil etc, but it was economy gastronomy, and I thought it was pretty good tbh-yes none of the recipes were anything new to me,(and I agree- I always add carrots celery etc to spag bol/chilli etc, but I also use wine!) but I like Allegra, and I thought they did a good job. I know £130 a week is a lot of money-but it was a massive drop from what they were spending before, so it is significant. Even if you think people should spend £40. I don't like OS because I can't afford to buy ready meals, I cook from scratch because I like to. I like to keep my costs down, but if I feel cream adds to a dish-I will add it.
I think we all have to remember that the whole country doesn't know how to do this, sorry for being blunt but I feel some of the comments on this thread have been very judgemental and smug They did well....

Floss

I agree with HotCookie101, and also, you have to remember that allegedly the mum on last night's programme couldn't cook - faced with the thought of starting from scratch, with 2yr old twins and a "9yr old handful", even if she does work part time, being Wonderwoman in the kitchen can be a bit daunting for anyone.

She is of the generation not to have had Domestic Science or even proper cookery at school, so may never have learnt the basics that the majority of us know & use on a daily basis.

I think they did well - they started up a store cupboard from scratch and they were also using their leftovers from the "huge" dishes making them stretch for more than one meal.