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

shanks77

Hi finishing off last nights meatloaf and having a bash at the sweetcorn fritters made with water as per request from Weezl earllier will report back later with verdict from me and ex who is brutally honest (young people may be offended by his language cover your ears ) Speak later

maltesers_2

Avocet wrote: »

But my understanding is that the reasoning behind having a shopping list is to ensure that, spread across the month, there is adequate provision of fruit and vegetables, oily fish etc. It doesn't much matter when these are consumed, as long as they are consumed over the course of the month. This is exceptionally hard to retrofit to a plan driven by financial considerations rather than by a list of required ingredients, and I assume that this is why Weezl launched her initiative with a shopping list containing the required quantities of F&V.

It's a health-driven approach which aims to achieve a particular price point, rather than a price-driven approach which aims to achieve a particular level of healthiness. I do think that the two approaches are different, and require slightly different starting points to prevent having to retrofit those elements which are key. It is the difference between "how do we use up all these ingredients which will give us at least the minimum levels of everything we need for health" and "what are the cheapest recipes we can construct that are tasty and nutritional, but which we will have to revisit later when we build them into an overall menu plan to ensure that across the month we have incorporated everything we need for health".

Not that I know a lot about it, of course; it's just a gut feel! :-)

I do understand the importance of meeting the health/nutritional requirements of plan. The meals on the list and the shopping list should form the basis of the main meals but flexibility is essential as more suggestions get incorporated. If we have a per meal or serving budget as well as a daily nutritional plan we will keep within the parameters.

hornetgirl

My goodness - finally managed to get to the end of this thread! Working full time last week and most of February's food already in stock mean I haven't been able to join in yet. I'm at home this week so hoping to try out some of the recipes at last. I'll probably start with the carrot cake (I must be the only person who hasn't tried it yet lol!) and the sweetcorn fritters.
Interested to see different views on what constitutes a portion of baked beans. We're having them tonight. Our household is Bob and Shirley only - no juniors. I've just put 1/4 of the tin into the freezer - will do me on toast or a jacket potato for a future lunch. Of the remainder, I'll have a further 1/4, leaving 1/2 a tin for DH. This will be eaten with quiche and salad for our main meal today, but if we were having as a lighter meal on toast, the beans would be divided up in the same way.

Fire_Fox

Fire_Fox wrote: »

Weezl: Calcium is not going so well. The government recommends two to three portions of dairy per person per day, but I don't see a problem with using two portions and then making up the difference elsewhere. That means we need a minimum of [STRIKE]124[/STRIKE] 248 portions, but we only have 78 adult portions (200ml milk/ 30g cheese).

Using either the Asda website or http://www.nutritiondata.com/ I have calculated:
9 litres milk = 11g calcium
1kg cheddar = 7.2g
Six cans pilchards = 7.6g
30 medium eggs = 0.7g

Error in quantity 21kg flour = 3.5g
Missed 12 oranges = 0.6g

Which is a total of 37g calcium. Plus some from water intake, depending if it's a hard or soft water area.

Vegetarian/ vegan sources of calcium:

500g plain yoghurt 1g
500g cottage cheese 0.3g
1kg broccoli = 0.5g calcium
1kg spinach = 1.3g BUT contains a compound which blocks absorption :mad:

1kg dried kidney beans = 1.4g
1kg dried red lentils = 0.4g
1kg brown rice = 0.2g
1kg wholemeal flour = 0.3g bran reduces the absorption of calcium.
300g dried apricots = 0.2g

300g almonds = 0.75g
300g tahini = 0.45g
300g linseeds = 1g

Basically you need to eat an awful lot of plants to meet the RDA for calcium!

shanks77

Well finished meal and surprising results ex enjoyed sweetcorn fritters and would have them again quite happily in fact he said that he would have them as a meal with wedges and chutney or something similar and be content with that he found them filling.
I made them using water not milk halfed the amount only 2 of us), also only used 3/4 teasp sugar and would cut that out totally next time. Last thing i only needed 2 teasp of oil which and used a non stick omelette pan so that saves our oil a bit.
HTH xx
Sweetcorn survey done

Fire_Fox

weezl74 wrote: »

Thank you that's really helpful.

Just as you did with the omegas, are you able to come up with a magic ingredient yielding mega calcium 'bang for it's buck'? She says optimistically .

I was wondering if fortifying the bread with this might help?



also, I noticed that you've put the family down as having 4.5kg flour, but I've got them as having 21 kgs and so I wondered if I've posted an old list somewhere, or maybe breadflour doesn't have the same calcium?

xxx

:rotfl: I've just been cracking on with the calcium, having missed this post! 340g pack (= six pints) of the above dried milk contains 4.3g calcium: it certainly helps but we have a loooooong way to go. White flour has approximately half the calcium content of wholemeal, but I have clearly misread your list! Didn't realise you had three types of flour, doh, and have amended post above in red.

Edam has slightly more calcium that the SP cheddar, somewhat less fat (25%) but is a little more expensive (£5.40 per kilo). Reduced fat cheddar (16% fat) has 15% more calcium and 25% more protein, but is also more expensive (£6 per kilo). Not sure what either would do to the recipes, suspect Edam alone would be pretty disgusting! Parmesan and Gruyere/ Emmental have almost double the calcium content of cheddar, but at a price ...

Apologies for the ropey reference as I have lost the NHS one:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-3033/The-good-cheese-guide.html
Grana padano is also very high in calcium (1.1g per 100g) and cheaper than parmesan:
http://www.practicallyedible.com/edible.nsf/pages/granapadano

System

Fire_Fox wrote: »

I've just been cracking on with the calcium

I vaguely remember from my veggie days (or decade, depending on how you look at it) that chick peas contain calcium too, in a non-dairy sort of low-key way. Is it worth counting them as well, since we have 2 kg of them and are scrabbling for all we can get? Or are they just not a good enough source?

Sian_the_Green

So, onion marmalade experiment 1..

320g onion, chopped into dice
85g sugar
150ml (10 tbsp) vinegar from jar of pickle (cabbage but beetroot I am sure is very similar/same)

Cooked all up in a pan, lid on for first 20 mins, then lid off to reduce, cook until most liquid has been boiled off, will be sticky but not too jam-like

This amount yielded 240g once cooked.

Ate it with some of the left over pork and apple burgers, delish, probably too sweet for non-sugar fans (sorry ceridwen!) but would be a very nice accompaniment to something like the onion tart or the fritters.

Weezl, shall most definitely be putting in a request with the Big Guy Upstairs for a swift and relatively painless delivery

(Since 4 pm I have been stood in my kitchen making

1. Onion marmalade
2. Weetabix Cake
3. Soup (potato, leek, a bit of cooking bacon and other random veg)
4. Savoury scones - these without the cheese and some cayenne, salt, pepper and garam masala, cheap and cheerful and quick!

Right, off out tonight, need to get ready. Have a great evening all!

Lesley_Gaye

Interesting distinction between a price point driven plan and a list of food covering all the nutrional bases, what can we make with it plan. I have always done the former, but the latter completely makes sense even tho I have visions of reaching the end of the month and having a kilo of onions, 2 chick peas and an orange with which to make dinner!

All this effort we are putting in to make sure Shirley, Bob and kids are healthily fed, I have never done this for our own meal plans except for the odd meal here and there.

I have learnt some things during this process too - purple portions need to be thought about, calcium needs to be thought about and I'm loving the simple calorie distribution, eat everything to maintain weight, miss out the cakes if you want to lose some.

Would love to come up to London to the Ministry of Food exhibition and meet some frugalisters

Nursing a cold, so off to the sofa to feel sorry for myself now

Fire_Fox

Avocet wrote: »

I vaguely remember from my veggie days (or decade, depending on how you look at it) that chick peas contain calcium too, in a non-dairy sort of low-key way. Is it worth counting them as well, since we have 2 kg of them and are scrabbling for all we can get? Or are they just not a good enough source?

Apologies they are listed in post 1384, but edited out of post 1416. 2g calcium per 2kg dry chick peas.