Store cupboard challenge

Flat_Eric

I made a curry with some *forgotton* steak I found in my freezer on Saturday :j It made for a lovely meal on Saturday evening and did us for tea tonight. It was so nice knowing that I had a nice meal with very little faff as it was a very tiring weekend and thus a tiring day at work.- all I had to do tonight was reheat the curry in the microwave and shove in the oven to make sure piping hot and cook some rice and naan. I think thats what I shall do on a Saturday now - cook something and have leftovers for Monday evenings.

Question though. I don't think I have any more hidden steak but do have some casserole steak - i typically cook my curries for hours - do you think I could use the casserole steak and that if I left it long enough, it would be really tender?

I have a butternut squash that needs using up, also a bag of spinach and some gammon. That makes for a strange combination so I think I might freeze the gammon. not sure though what to do with the spinach or the butternut squash ?!

seductivesmile

Hi all

Flat Eric, Re the odd bits, you could try the butternut squash tart that is on the recipe pages of the GC? i have read it is fairly sweet so could be a dessert dish (if you eat them?) as for the spinich, how about a soup? or a risotto? and the gammon, well, i could eat it til it comes out of my ears, depending whether it is a lump or a steak you could pop it in a slow cooker (if you have one) and make sandwiches out of it, or if it is a steak, eat it with the spinich and some staples?
The casserole beef for curry should be fine if it is cooked long and slow. Can i ask again if you have a slow cooker as if you like to cook things for a long time, instead of a hob or oven a slow cooker is very economical!

I have had such a productive evening, because i am trying to deplete the stocks, i wont be buying any more snacky things, and where i can replace the odd packet of crisps with HM popcorn, i was thinking of sweet cravings, i looked thru a recipe book i havent used and the first 6 pages i have all the ingredients in my baking cupboard! so when i am out of choccie biscuits, i will be ok! happy me!

I had the risotto today as last night i came home from work and fell asleep so i didnt eat the planned dinner and consequently - didnt turn the cooker on to cook the pasta, so today i had salami risotto at lunch - didnt give myself food poisoning, but burnt my mouth :P - and this eve i ate the salmon, with defrosted HM potato wedges, which taste better second time cooked! and broccoli and cauli - all out of the freezer, for a touch of variation, i added a dollop of the garlic and herb philli to dip the wedges and salmon into - yummmmmy!
so tomorrows lunch is the pasta, and in the eve i will pop the pastry hat on the chicken and veg pie and have that with mash.
then 2m eve its time to take more out of the freezer! not sure what i will have tho, quite fancy some gammon now thanks to flat eric, so i may have gammon, wedges, pineapple, egg, peas and onion rings on weds for tea, and i have the day off so may just have a sandwich, use the end of the salami up.
I've also started taking squash into work with me, not only is it cutting down the amount of caffeine i drink, its using up my supplies and i drink more than usual. Benefits all round. I knwo this is going to sound a little up myself, but i have only ever drunk rob*nsons squash, and vimto, growing up its all my mum bought, so is there much taste difference in the supermarket own brands? i drink mainly orange / orange & mango / orange & pineapple but would like to stop spending >£1 for 1ltr.

Thanks
SS x

gairlochgal

Butternut squash - method I came across recently in Nigel Slater book. Cut in half, spoon out the seeds, put a knob of butter in the "well", season and sprinkle with thyme, whatever herbs you have to hand, roast in low oven for an hour. Delicious......

And my daughter did a v nice spinach salad from Nigella the other day. Torn up spinach, tomatoes (deseeded in the recipe but I couldn't see why) and dressed with olive oil, lemon juice and finely chopped garlic.

bluebag

SS, I find the supermarket brands to be perfectly acceptable when I switched from the branded squash, however some of the 'value' ultra cheap ones can be a bit watery. My family will drink anything so it's just me that's the squash snob.

XSpender

I cut my finger badly while chopping the cabbage for last nights tea and ended up in A&E:eek: The cabbage was chucked out but we reheated the pie when we got back.:) I will need to swap things around in the meal plan so tonight will be pasta bake and salad or something out of the freezer with chips and beans. DH will have to wash and chop the spuds. Its times like these I could do with a bag of emergency oven chips:rotfl:

Flat_Eric

Thank you everyone for your replies above. Some fab ideas. I think I might have the gammon tomorrow night - with home made wedges. mmmmmmmm. I might have to pop to the shop though to get some chestnut mushrooms and cherry tomatoes to have with it! :j

Looking in the bottom drawer of my freezer this am, I am reminded about all the quorn products I have. I have a huge pack of quorn mince which I think was bought from the chilled section - now I bought the quorn recipe book so Im not really stuck for ideas on how to cook but.... if I cook say a quorn chilli using frozen quorn mince, do I need to defrost ? and can I re-freeze the chilli once cooked ? Also some of the quorn products that I bought, were bought from the chilled section and I have subsequentely frozen but I know that I bought quorn mince from the freezer section also - does this make a difference into whether I can re-freeze or not ?

katenut

seductivesmile wrote: »

I've also started taking squash into work with me, not only is it cutting down the amount of caffeine i drink, its using up my supplies and i drink more than usual. Benefits all round. I knwo this is going to sound a little up myself, but i have only ever drunk rob*nsons squash, and vimto, growing up its all my mum bought, so is there much taste difference in the supermarket own brands? i drink mainly orange / orange & mango / orange & pineapple but would like to stop spending >£1 for 1ltr.

Thanks
SS x

Why don't you try dropping down to supermarket own-brand hi-juice first (normally £1 per litre, often on a multibuy offer though) then if you're happy with that try the normal cheaper squash? Personally I prefer hi-juice, the cheap squash is just not the same.

Storecupboard challenge is going OK in our household, need to make up something with couscous for my work lunches for the rest of the week though and running out of couscous inspiration!

XSpender

Flat_Eric wrote: »

Looking in the bottom drawer of my freezer this am, I am reminded about all the quorn products I have. I have a huge pack of quorn mince which I think was bought from the chilled section - now I bought the quorn recipe book so Im not really stuck for ideas on how to cook but.... if I cook say a quorn chilli using frozen quorn mince, do I need to defrost ? and can I re-freeze the chilli once cooked ? Also some of the quorn products that I bought, were bought from the chilled section and I have subsequentely frozen but I know that I bought quorn mince from the freezer section also - does this make a difference into whether I can re-freeze or not ?

I eat a lot of Quorn and make a big batch of chilli and shepherds pie from frozen mince (and have used chilled then frozen mince) and then freeze it again and have never had any problems with illness or the taste been effected.

A lot of the recipes in that book ( I have it too:)) say to defrost the mince first (depending on what you are doing with it) and then cook it and then say the recipe is freezable so it must be OK.

Fruball

clairewop wrote: »

I've been pointed to this thread for help, I'm buying food all the time as I don't know what to do for tea etc.

I have done an inventory of what's in my store cupboard fridge and freezer I have loads of food but seem to have nothing to go with anything

There are probably loads of things you can make.

Why not post your inventory and let everyone here give you some ideas

taplady

XSpender wrote: »

I eat a lot of Quorn and make a big batch of chilli and shepherds pie from frozen mince (and have used chilled then frozen mince) and then freeze it again and have never had any problems with illness or the taste been effected.

A lot of the recipes in that book ( I have it too:)) say to defrost the mince first (depending on what you are doing with it) and then cook it and then say the recipe is freezable so it must be OK.

I do this too all the time - never had any problems with it although I dont defrost it just cook it from frozen!