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

Fire_Fox

OK very much for comments/ criticism as I don't cook for a family of four so I have no real idea of quantities!

Salmon Fishcakes
(six portions @ 40p, 1g omega-3 per portion)

Pink salmon, 418g tin £1.55
Potatoes, 400g 11p
Mayonnaise, 2 tablespoons ??
Lemon juice, 2 tablespoons 5p
Sweetcorn, 240g 23p
Mixed herbs

Serve with
Fine green beans, 240g 24p
and carrots, 240g 16p

Is there a way of microwaving the potatoes in the liquid drained off the fish in order not to waste the flavour and essential fats? Original recipe is Delia's Frugal Food containing hardboiled eggs, anchovy paste and gherkins. Is the above going to be tasty enough?

Calzone Pizza
(four portions @ 24p, 1.8g omega-3 per portion)

Half of Weezl’s pizza base and sauce recipe 47p
Smartprice sardines in tomato sauce, 2x120g cans 48p

Will we get away with no cheese if it's a calzone? Should be tasty enough with the fish? Could the tomato sauce be reduced and a little basic white sauce added for oozing 'creaminess'?

Pilchard & Vegetable Pasta
(four portions @ 40p, 2g omega-3 per portion)

Glenryk pilchards in tomato sauce, 425g tin 64p
Frozen fine green beans, 200g 20p
Smartprice tomatoes, 400g can 31p
Smartprice onion 320g 12p
Frozen garlic 4p
Mixed herbs
Smartprice penne 500g 32p

Original recipe was my own but it's pretty standard stuff. Taj frozen crushed garlic is cheaper than the tube stuff - 50p for 400g in Asda! :money:

Spicy Sardines with Rice
(four portions @ 42p each, 2.5g omega-3 per portion)

Smartprice sardines in tomato sauce, 3x120g cans 72p
Smartprice tomatoes, 400g can 31p
Smartprice onion, 320g 12p
Frozen garlic 4p
Garam masala, 20g 11p
Dried peas, 100g 11p
Smartprice rice, 400g 29p

Original recipe here:
http://www.glenryck.co.uk/pages/pilchard-recipes.htm#recipe3

purpleivy

ceridwen wrote: »

Ummm....thats a possibility too...with pears as well....thinks....I DO have rather a lot of pears at the moment....nom nom.....(as our Weezl would say)..:)

Me too, they were on super6 at ALdi last week and I bought 4 boxes. THey'd been about £1.49 the week before and they're something I like.

Regarding Mrs Micawber and the bread, I have a lovely recipe for breadsticks, which would make a really good cheap snack for Bob, Shirley and family. Good with houmus, could bake them at the same time as the pizza. Top with salt, pepper, herbs, iffy cheese.... Have a pic somewhere...



Also of interest frijoles refritos!


I think you have already had the recipe for these in your 50p thread. If Shirley is happy to roll out pizza, maybe she and the kids could roll some tortilla wraps. DS and I worked out today that the cost is about 2p each vs 80p per bag of 8 at Aldi, to £1.49 at Mr T for the posh (read expensive) ones. Editing...... just read someone has posted a recipe. We have some grated cheeese, avocado or whatever with them

Kaz2904

weezl74 wrote: »

Does anyone who has a family member who really would want meat twice a week, think that oily fish would be ok? What kind of meal would it need to be?

DH can't understand why this is being done so I tried to get his opinion as he is the most resistant to change in our house. He would insist on meat 3-4 times per week (Yup, even when we were in horrific debt so I used to go without).
I asked if it would be acceptable to him to have an oily fish meal once per week instead of meat and he said yes.
When I was young and money was tight we used to have pilchard pie. This consists of a pan of mashed spuds and a tin of pilchards. I would probably add other veg to it now to up the veg content but it was one we were left to cook when we were home alone at about 8 & 9 so no knives :eek:.

I'm guessing from DH's reaction that he won't go for testing the meal planner but I might try to do it for myself and possibly the children. If not then I shall try to replicate meals from the plan for our evening meal.
DH comes home from work every day for lunch and just eats what he fancies. He has been known (often) to eat in a sandwhich what I have planned to feed the 4 of us for tea. Then I open the fridge at 5pm to cook it and it's nowhere to be found. So he gets home to this :mad: and no tea rather than this and tea. Drives me mental! He does have his uses though!!!



ETA: Glad he's turned. Less of an issue now then. If you pack your bag now then you have got aaaaaages to unpack and repack it enough times to ensure that you forget that vital piece of equipment! If you pack Fergies bag now, won't he have grown out of it all by the time you need it? I always had a change of clothes, calpol and loads of nappies etc in DD's changing bag. That doubled up very well so when I had to go in to have DS and MiL sat with her overnight, she was able to just grab nappy bag and drop DD at SiL's house in the morning in her jammies. Everything she needed was in the bag.

Fire_Fox

weezl74 wrote: »

I have also realised that asda veg oil is 100% rapeseed oil, so if we swap for that, that's really good on the omega front? How much veg oil would be needed daily?
xxx

Rapeseed oil is 9% omega-3: if I have done the maths correctly you'd need about three tablespoons per day which is a lot of fat from the recommended daily allowance! :eek: And it shouldn't be heated which I think most of it is in the current plan. Mayonnaise? Walnuts? Pumpkin seeds? Hopefully some clever vegetarians will come up with an equally clever solution!!
http://www.vegsoc.org/info/omega3.html

Do I assume that we are going to use free-range eggs in the vegetarian plan, given that many veggies are interested in animal welfare? This suggests both free range and organic eggs are higher in omega-3 than those from caged hens:
http://www.cbc.ca/marketplace/webextras/bed_eggs/egg_stats.html?bed_eggs

IIRC both Columbus and Goldenlay omega eggs are free range but I am guessing they are not veggie-friendly as the hens may be fed fish meal or salmon oil. :huh: LesKol cheese is an option as it is endorsed by the Vegetarian Society: it makes shocking pizzas and cheese on toast (but nice cheesey beans!), and loses flavour on heating so it's suitability for the plan depends on the recipes created! It's about 1.5% omega-3 which isn't great.

minjara

weezl74 wrote: »

:T:T:T:T loving your blog and thanks for testing borscht :A

Cheers me dears, hoping to keep it up dated more, with all me foody goings on. The plan tomorrow is cupcakes!!!!! If I feel up to it as my mother is coming round about 4 :eek:
Betcha it all goes wrong!

Loz x

grandma247

Does the pizza sauce have to have tinned tomatoes in it? tomato paste is about 25p a tin and you would only need 1-3 tins of it depending on how far you want it to spread.


I do salmon patties with 1 lg tin salmon mashed a bit,1 tin chickpeas drained and whizzed in the liquidiser with just a little liquid to keep it moving,garlic clove ,sometimes herbs and salt and pepper. Add all to a bowl and combine. I use my cheapie dried potatoes to soak up excess liquid in the mixture. Make the patties, roll in flour or breadcrumbs and cook in the oven till golden.

The calzones without the cheese sound good. I like sardine or pilchard pizza anyway.

weezl74

rachbc wrote: »

I didn't pack my bag til I was 16 days over :eek:, theres time yet

Loving this thread - I can't commit to testing everything but I'll def try a few that fit n with my families likes and time contraints and chip in if thats ok?

Please do!:) 16 days over?:eek: They induce us here at 41+5

nopot2pin wrote: »

Hmmmm...
I am not so sure if they are helping or not *confused* ????????
I was thinking about this after doing the sweetcorn fritter one last night, and, I am not sure, but maybe a survey for every recipe might be a bit of overkill ???????????

I can crack on an get them done though, if thats what is wanted

Edit... all 3 surveys have been checked again, so they shold all work properly now

Awww potty, it sounds like it's proving tricky!

I'm very happy to leave it to be your decision. No-one else can possibly know the time or trouble these things take, and I'm sure it's more than you have let on! Do please at any point feel free to suggest any other method which you think might work, but no pressure for it to be you who does that work IYSWIM?

For example, but this is possibly not practical, if we just had one recipe per person who was willing to collate the opinions, and they just did a search of this thread for the word 'falafel' and they copy and pasted the feedback into one bigger post- or something like that? I dunno, would that help at all?

xxx

weezl74

purpleivy wrote: »

How many pizzas does this make? I make 4 dinnerplate sized ones

This batch made 8 9-10 inch pizzas with a rise of 1-1.5 inches. I did a thick crust pizza because it's more filling for less topping. HTH x

weezl74

HowlinWolf wrote: »

hopefully these are right. some recipes has cost of ingredients but no total cost so I worked those out but others had no costing for ingredients. Will try and come back to work out from the asda list later

Thankyou Howlin, that's really handy to have it in one place! :A:D

weezl74

ariarnia wrote: »

Would someone mind posting a basic explanation as to the method for cooking the most recent recipes?

hiya! I guesstimate I'll be able to put methods up on the weekend, at the moment I'm just flinging any time I've got at getting the costings and ingredients up for each one.

I realise, which I didn't at the start of the challenge, that some of you are wanting to follow this yourselves and so you'd like things understandably to be ready sooner.

I tried to be responsible about that and not put it on old-style and not call it recipe thread or something that implies it's anywhere near finished!

But I am sorry that things are less ready than people need/hope I do hope that big list of frugal meal planners available elsewhere on the internet that I posted earlier will help people lots in the meantime