Weezl's phase 1- recipe testing and frugalisation- come one, come all!

weezl74

lesley: is there a clever way that the spreadsheet can alert me once I've done a tweak that takes us into minus numbers of remaining stock? like all the text going red or something?

also is there a way I can adapt the formula which totals the food spend to not include the spices that shirl's stocking up with prior to starting the month?

xxx

artybear

Ok updated so farXXXX

Allegra

weezl74 wrote: »

The now definitive-ish Risi e bisi Bob and Shirley version- Allegra and fivenations, please can you look this over and comment and also add a sentence that describes the consistency shirley is aiming for?

Huge thanks

500g dried peas soaked and cooked as per packet instructions
1 litre chicken stock
60 ml veg oil
50g bacon, chopped up small
160g onion, chopped up small
400 g rice
20 g grana padano
salt
freshly ground black pepper
2 tspns mustard powder/1 tbsp (15 ml) mustard

start off by frying bacon in the oil until crisp, then fishing it all out with a slotted spoon, then frying off onion, adding rice and peas, then stock and mustard. Bring to boil, turn down to simmer and cooked for further 30 min. You may need more liquid so top up with hot water from the kettle.

When nearly done, stir in half the cheese and the reserved bacon pieces, and sprinkle the rest of the cheese (looks a pathetically small amount but persevere!) on top. Add a little more cracked black pepper and drizzle some of your rapeseed oil over the top if you like it to look like a Jamie Oliver recipe! Enjoy!

The texture of the original dish is usually described as somewhere between a soup and a risotto - Shirley might find it more helpful to think rice pudding, rather than a biryani.

Here is a picture of the original dish (a thousand words and all that )- the version with dried peas and long grain rice will be slightly mushier and just a tad drier than the dish in the picture.

Incidentally, I'm afraid that I have followed a hectic weekend with a stinking cold, so not had a chance to experiment with frugalising cornbread as yet....

aless02

weezl - I only used 3 eggs b/c the original post had 5 eggs for 4, so that was the closest I could get. But 2 would be easily be fine - I'd just put a splash more milk into my egg mix to make it stretch slightly further . Those quantities you gave are exactly double what I used for 2 people, so sounds lovely! :T

If it helps, when I made the risi e bisi, it pretty much looked like that...like a less glamourous risotto - and I didn't miss the forgotten cheese!

weezl74

Aless I am trying the paul merrett bread now

now then, is anyone up for a bit of non-google research?

I have happily discovered today that these:



contain a firming agent which contains CALCIUM! :j:j:j

However the amount/percentage is not stipulated on the can.

Whenever I ring asda customer services they take my name address etc, and I don't ant them to get fed up of multiple enquiries from one customer!

Would anyone be willing to ring and find out who the supplier is, and then ask them what amount/percentage of calcium is in the cans?

I find that they are happy to disclose this the more you sound like 'oh hello I'm just doing a project on people getting enough calcium!' cos else I think they worry that you're a competitor stealing their information :rotfl:

so if anyone's willing, I'd be mega grateful

poohbear59

Hi I have been AWOL again but feeling a lot better today. DS2 made the Spanish omelet last night and it was really yummy. We will definitely make it again.

Tomato soup again today too.

I haven't started reading through the thread from the weekend so will catch up and get back to you.

taka

Murrell wrote: »

If its the yellow split mung dal, they won't sprout. The mung beans are green with there skin on and yellow when shelled and halved and then called mung dal, if I am not mistaken. I used mung dal to make kitchari, cooking with spices and basmati rice and serving with vegetables. Very tasty and cheap too. The green mung beans I also buy to sprout only and they sprout in a couple of day after soaking for 1 day.

Sandra
x

Ok silly question... Do you use ordinary dried mung beans to sprout or do you need special beans?

weezl74 wrote: »

Plea for help from anyone with more accurate digital scales than me!

If you have any colman's mustard powder in the house, please would you weigh 2 teaspoons of mustard powder, and let me know what it weighs?

Huge thanks

xxx

I'll have a go at this when I get home from work - I have kitchen scales that measure to 1g and also wee scales (that I use for jewellery making) that measure to 0.01g accuracy if you want super accurate! :rotfl:

I'm still doing the spreadsheet protein etc additions on an offline version of the spreadsheet but I am a wee bit busy this week so its probably not going to be finished until the weekend sometime. Sorry! I hope this is ok!

poohbear59

weezl74 wrote: »

so is this a bit better?

spanish omelette

4 eggs,
160g sweetcorn
160g onions,
garlic,
Salt and pepper
little bit chilli powder.
60g cheddar sprinkled on top
Milk
mustard or mustard powder.

serve with 320g of carrots
and croatian potato salad

Last night DS2 diced and fried potato and added it to the omelette. We had no sweetcorn but had a tiny sprinkling of cheese on top and no milk in it either. Served with Smart price frozen brocolli for the calcium:)

weezl74

thanks

Poohbear, aless and frankie, how much milk shall I allow for the omelette?

taka, the more accurate the better with the weighing, sorry it's a bit pedantic sounding but I don't want to shortchange shirley

zippychick

nopot2pin wrote: »

Right ho....
I am puffed out
All previous surveys now replaced....
And the results spreadsheets now available for all to see

I will crack on with more surveys, from the recipes link, during the week, if I get a chance

I'm mega hungry, as not had any dinner .....
Off to see whats about in the fridge

Nighty nite all


Edit...
Results for the Tea survey has been increased 6 fold, from Weezl's suggestion to post threads in OS and DT :T
The thread in OS was moved to the Arms, and even more responses were collated.
Oh...and the link in my signature was removed soon after :rotfl::rotfl:(it was a link to post 4 of this thread, but maybe I shouldn't have responded to the boardguide, by asking if she had filled in the survey before moving it )

I'm really glad your survey got more responses in the Arms - of course it would! Actually, I really should have deleted your thread as it was a duplicate, but I didn't.

To clarify, the thread was moved as it was a survey about drinking tea. You explained how you liked to drink tea, and asked people to do a survey - with no inclination that it was related to this thread or moneysaving in any way. I couldn't see how discussing how we drink our tea would be classed as moneysaving (and your thread never explained it) , so I moved it to the arms.:)

Regards your signature link being removed - that was nothing to do with me, and I am sad to see you indirectly suggest it was - in some sort of revenge?!. I am a board guide here to try to help people and help the boards run smoothly . I'm not on some sort of power trip and I did not report your link to the MSE forum team.

If you have any issues with any of the board guides, or how we carry out our roles - please note you can send an email to [EMAIL="%20abuse@moneysavingexpert.com"]!!!!!![/EMAIL]

thanks
Zip

Edit - and yes, I did complete the survey.