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

aless02

still reading back as I didn't get a chance to check the thread yesterday. Weezl, I feel terrible that I haven't been lending more of a hand, so hopefully now that my LO has settled down a bit, I'll have more time for researching & recipe-testing! :T

You guys are brilliant and the amount of knowledge and brain power on this thread is astounding - I am constantly amazed! Can't wait to try to the meal planner some day once DH has run his marathon in April as right now he currently eats practically the whole budget in bananas!

Also would love to stick my nose in for a visit to the Imperial War Museum - have been itching to go back a couple of yrs now, despite it being just up the road!

weezl74

Avocet wrote: »

And we're assuming that they have a bigger-than-normal freezer to store all this milk (for four people) alongside all the frozen veg, half pizzas, half pork roasts etc?

Does anyone have any advice on this? I thought the batch cooking was meeting an aim that lots of folk expressed, which was to keep the working week freer if the main cook in the family was at work all day.

But if having enough freezer space is a deal breaker for some, then that's bad too.

I wonder how we can find the balance here?

Maybe once someone's had a look at 'shirley's big batch cooking day' they'll be able to give us a sense of the storage which will be required?

How does that sound, and any other thoughts?

Weezl x

aless02

oh and weezl, re: the chicken

I do ASDA SP whole chickens fairly often and DH & I fairly happily split 1 breast, so I could presume that 2 breasts would feed 4? I pad out the meal with lots of mashed potatoes & a side veg, so with your side dishes I think it'd be fine personally. Other people with actual families of 4 might want to chime in .

Avocet - boiling sounds interesting, but does it suck all the flavor out of the chicken?

P.S., I would never ever have the room to store all the milk in our standard fridge/freeze, but we drink UHT so extra gets stored in the cupboards anyway (honestly, it doesn't that bad folks! )

weezl74

Lesley_Gaye wrote: »

I would be quite happy to add to this, but I don't know how to get access to update it. Is there a signon we use to get to it?

you should have access now lesley

Lesley_Gaye

Sweetcorn Soup Feedback

have just made the Sweetcorn Soup and had for lunch

I wasn't sure that the quantities given would make 4 portions, but used those quantities as a test.

Didn't think I would need all the flour, so added it bit by bit. Could see that there wouldn't be enough for 4 portions partway through, so added another 250ml water and 100g sweetcorn

35g flour
320g sweetcorn, plus another 100g
750ml water, plus another 250ml
1 stock cube
1tsp salt
ground black pepper

boiled sweetcorn in water and stock cube for 7 minutes. Mixed flour with a little water, added to the sweetcorn, blitzed and cooked off the flour for 2 more minutes.

OH and self had a 500ml serving each with some bread. One more 500ml serving left in saucepan. So 1500ml in total. Would need to reduce each serving to 375ml to get 4 portions - would this be enough for a lunch? I don't think so, not unless it was eaten with a substantial amount of other food.

On the plus side, super easy soup to make and pretty tasty. The flour needs to be enough to give it a good mouth feel, so it's not too runny, without making it too thick, when it would feel like wallpaper paste. 35g was just right for this quantity.

To give 4 x 500ml portions the quantities would need to be 25% more, so 45g flour
525g sweetcorn
1250ml water
stock cube
1 tsp salt
ground black pepper

weezl74

aless02 wrote: »

oh and weezl, re: the chicken

I do ASDA SP whole chickens fairly often and DH & I fairly happily split 1 breast, so I could presume that 2 breasts would feed 4? I pad out the meal with lots of mashed potatoes & a side veg, so with your side dishes I think it'd be fine personally. Other people with actual families of 4 might want to chime in .

Thanks Aless that's really heartening

I hope this next question won't put anyone off the roast chicken idea, but:

researcher required: OK I've been reading up on flour fortification due to calcium gate, and I noticed that in some places chicken bones are used. NO I AM NOT SUGGESTING THIS

But It did make me think that the long boiling of a chicken carcass in water must therefore leech some of this great calcium store out into the water. After all, the bones do go mushy, and calcium is in part responsible for keeping our bones strong?

Anyone willing to find out the calcium content of a real chicken stock from boiled bones?

aless02

weezl74 wrote: »

Anyone willing to find out the calcium content of a real chicken stock from boiled bones?

ooo, try this link: http://www.springerlink.com/content/p7u013w7360016w2/

Fivenations

Morning

Re Calcium debate....I cant recall if this plan is a one off emergency month or meant to be ongoing. If it was for just one month I would personally concentrate on getting enough calories, protein, iron and calcium and only worry about the teens getting the 7 a day, with the adults taking what they can plus supplements, unless Shirley is pregnant of course. It's not ideal but would not do any permanent damage over just one month.

I'd also advise Shirley and Bob to ask close friends and family for support, perhaps an invite for dinner, windfalls if in summer, help out in the garden/allotment in return for veg. Or tag along with someone to Costco/Makro/wholesaler to stock up on some of the staples. ( I bought a 20K sack of baking spuds for £4.29 and cheeses are also good value, plus many more items. You need to check prices and just make sure you only take cash and leave cards at home!)

Wheezl - this is not a criticism - just a comment from some one who can only stand on the sideline in wonder while you lot busy yourselves!

I could try an concoct a day's menu from some of the ingredients on your list that I could eat but it would mess with your careful planning.

How long to go now before thr big Day?

Allegra

weezl74 wrote: »

another possible tweak following calcium gate - family of 4 required to volunteer (more the merrier!)

please can I have a couple of volunteers?

1 asda smart price whole chicken, roasted, plus (per person): 250g potatoes roasted, 1/4 packet stuffing, gravy made from the meat juices, flour salt and peppper, no stock sorry, 80g carrot, 80g peas 80g roasted onion.

The burning question: can you slice the breast meat thinly enough and make the other bits big enough that at that roast meal, JUST THE BREAST IS ENOUGH?

ie we'll need all the dark meat for other things.

But is it just too stingy?

If anyone is up for this I would be so grateful.

Suggestion: serve it out as I've said, but have extra roasties on hand if you have a mutiny!!!!

Finally, I am able to give some good news regarding portion size ! Only two of us here that eat meat, but you have pretty much described what we would have as a "roast chicken dinner" (except we'd have yorkshire puddings instead of stuffing, simply cos I like them so much I'd eat them with anything; plus they have a huge psychological plus as they look like there is a lot of food on the plate) - and we would have just one breast from a small chicken between the two of us - as I do the chicken in the slow cooker, you can just peel it off the bone and shred it rather than slice it to get a huge-looking pile of meat drenched in gravy. It gets even big eaters like us pretty darn full.

Regarding the watered-down milk - I buy whole milk and dilute it half-and-half with skimmed powdered milk. The taste and consistency is the same as that of semi-skimmed, and I would guess that calcium loss would not be an issue, like there is when diluting with water ?

Fivenations

Re calcium in chicken stock - my grandmother would soak carcass overnight in water with 1 or 2 tablespoon of vinegar. I've since learnt that it helps to break down the bones and release calcium.