Store cupboard challenge

LizzieB

Hello, everybody. SanFran, sorry for not responding sooner but I shattered one of my side teeth at the weekend. Even with my denplan cover, i've still got to find £120 in lab costs for the crown Oh well, more reason to try to be frugal!

Seitan is also known as 'wheat meat' (can you have wheat?). It's a product made from wheat gluten which has a similar texture to chicken (certainly firmer than quorn or TVP). Like tofu there's very little natural taste (though I have seen a 'flavoured' one available) but it soaks up cooking juices/marinades nicely. Holland and Barrett do it in the chilled section but you can buy it in powdered form to make it up yourself.

JillS, where did you get your pauper's cookbook from? I've been after it for ages!

Cheers

missychrissy

Woofles wrote: »

The set I have to hand as it were is very good, I think it consists of ten pieces and they all fit together inside each other, it was dirt cheap from Woolies (I do miss Woolies for odd things like that). The other odds and sods are in a big carrier bag on the pantry floor, ah the joys of a pantry, hides a lot of 'clutter'. I regained half the floor after my cat died, now I don't have to store bags of cat litter and umpteen tins of cat food.

missychrissy I have visions of you skulking in the dead of night raiding peoples recycling boxes for empty wine bottles and cursing those that don't drink, that's an awful lot of wine.

I have a big family that descend on me regularly so it saves me money brewing my own wine. I give a lot of wine away to family and work colleagues. Most people return the empties so I just reuse the same bottles all the time. I only have to ask family and friends and they very quickly supply me with their empties. I also never bottle some wine and just bung it down in a glass demijohn or put a fermenter with a tap on the worktop and have it 'on draught'. The latter works well for large family get togethers. It case you think I roll around sloshed all the time, I only get through about one bottle of wine per week. I only drink on 2 or 3 evenings a week as I work night shifts. However, I did get a bit sozzled on 2 occasions when I was racking off and bottling, I was sampling as I went so will have to be more careful next time.

I got carried away during the summer months trying out new types of wine. I'm working out what we do like and which wines to concentrate on and which to forget.

I got quite a bit of equipment from freecycle to keep the costs down.

Storage is the biggest problem. I have filled my hall cloaks cupboard with several sturdy wine boxes and have 2 large wine racks in my utility room but I'm going to spill out into the garage soon.

JillS_2

LizzieB wrote: »

JillS, where did you get your pauper's cookbook from? I've been after it for ages!

Cheers

Sorry, I won't be much help on your quest. I've had it since 1988 - bought secondhand then from Oxfam. It cost me 15p - (there should be an icon for 'gloat').

LizzieB

No probs JillS, I missed my chance on getting it a couple of years back. It was in a second hand shop in Shanklin on the IOW for 50p. It was one of those 'i've got no cash on me i'll come back tomorrow' but as we all know, things don't always turn out how we want! Next day, it had gone. Had to cheer myself up with a :beer: if I remember! (still cheering myself up with a :beer: now lol!)

CCP, hope your lamb chop is perfect!

XSpender, nice one to your OH and making things from the cupboard. It's good to know they are on side.

Missychrissy, my colleagues at work are used to saving me their water/pop bottles as I recycle them as little seedling pots/grow ons. I don't have a great deal of growing space in my greenhouse, but it is nice to give living herbs or baby lettuces back.

Have a good evening all. Nuala - how are you feeling?

fedupandskint

I seriously need to rejoin the store cupboard challenge and only buy some more food when I have run out with no other options available.

Today decluttered a chicken from the freezer into the SC with a potato in the oven with a packet of stuffing from the pantry and some veg from the freezer.

Rest of the week I can see me eating a lot of chicken! Still will be making some more freezer indenting next week!

ellemm

Been reading everyone's posts with interest and am keeping on track so far this week. Not been in a shop since Saturday :j and have used from the freezer:-

3 chicken breasts (made in to curry for last 2 nights)
6 pork links & 3 pork chops, as mentioned in previous post
1 HM lasagne (for me tomorrow)
1 HM chicken pie (for OH tomorrow)
1 HM cottage pie
1 portion of HM chicken & leek soup (for OH lunch tomorrow)

Thursday & Friday will use up some haddock, prawns and cooked chicken, probably stir fry the prawns for OH and chicken for me and another night have the haddock in HM breadcrumbs.

Well pleased with results this week and certainly have enough HM meals to do most of next week too. :T

Penelope_Penguin

I've written a meal plan using what I have in my freezer, and it should last most of the next 3 weeks

Tonight we've had pasta with cheese sauce and some crisped up bacon sprinkled over

Penny. x

CCP

Penelope_Penguin wrote: »

I've written a meal plan using what I have in my freezer, and it should last most of the next 3 weeks

I suspect mine's the same, although I'm not organised enough to think 3 weeks ahead! I've done my plan for next week, though, and I shouldn't need to buy anything other than milk, cheese and my weekly veg box. :j (Oh, and cat food, but I'm not counting that - my attempts to get my cat to live an OS lifestyle have been less than successful. :rolleyes:)

nopot2pin

Penelope_Penguin wrote: »

Did anyone post this This is my recipe:

Chop a small pumpkin into 8, reserving seeds and roasting them on a baking sheet. Sprinkle the pumpkin with olive oil, pepper and nutmeg and bake until soft. Remove the skin and chop into big lumps.

Sweat an oinion and some garlic in butter, until soft. Add about 60g risotto rice or barley per person. Have a pan of simmering stock and add this a ladelful at a time until the rice is cooked and the liquid absorbed. Add the chunks of pumpkin, season to taste, and add more butter

Serve sprinkled with parmesan shavings and the toasted pumpkin seeds.

Penny. x

Well, I made this this evening :drool:
It's lovely....

Although, I have just realised that I didn't use any nutmeg, or butter:o... I kinda forgot about them.

Also, I didn't have any parmesan, so I used a mature chedder....

Oh, and I didn't have any rissoto rice, so I used pudding rice :rotfl:thats been lurking in the cupboard for a while

I did toast the pumpkin seeds... but I'm not convinced about them. Maybe they were a little too cooked (read burnt) , so I didn't use them in the end.

Actually reading back, I really didn't follow the recipe at all eh ??:rotfl::o
Never mind. It was enjoyed. And it will be made again.
Thanks for the inspiration Penny

candygirl

nopot2pin wrote: »

Well, I made this this evening :drool:
It's lovely....

Although, I have just realised that I didn't use any nutmeg, or butter:o... I kinda forgot about them.

Also, I didn't have any parmesan, so I used a mature chedder....

Oh, and I didn't have any rissoto rice, so I used pudding rice :rotfl:thats been lurking in the cupboard for a while

I did toast the pumpkin seeds... but I'm not convinced about them. Maybe they were a little too cooked (read burnt) , so I didn't use them in the end.

Actually reading back, I really didn't follow the recipe at all eh ??:rotfl::o
Never mind. It was enjoyed. And it will be made again.
Thanks for the inspiration Penny

Lol it sounds like my way of "following" a recipe:rotfl::rotfl::rotfl: