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

homegrown_life

re chicken stock. Have googled and as fivenations says vinegar helps release calcium. I've also seen from this site that crushed egg shells can be added for more calcium too. Might be helpful for the veggie plan.

edit - not really suggesting this, but this site is interesting!!

weezl74

Avocet if you're still around, can I ask you to check the calcium spreadsheet, I think I've got the maths wrong and I don't think my column headings are quite as usefully manipulable as they could be!

homegrown_life

weezl74 wrote: »

Honey and raisin cereal bars

ingredients and costings:

280ml oil 26.04
100g sugar 9.8
250g flour 7p
350g oats 20.3
365ml cold water
150g raisins 19p
3 tablespoons honey 16p

warm the water in a pan and dissolve the honey and sugar in it. Add the raisins and leave to plump up as it cools.
when cooled add in the remaioning ingredients stirring well and spread the gloopy mixture into 2 large square baking trays. Batch makes 32 bars, so halve it if you don't want too much risk!!!!!


97.84p or 3.05p per bar

hoping to try this with half quantities later on today. I'm assuming it's plain flour? Also do they get baked at all, or just left?? Cheers :beer:

Fire_Fox

I was a bit nervous of coming back today, as I thought I'd really messed up the plan with the calcium calculations. Glad to see you are taking it as a challenge!

Regarding linseeds/ poppy/ sesame seeds and calcium: I would have thought these would have to be crushed or ground to release the minerals, in the same was as they do to release the essential fatty acids?

weezl74

Lesley_Gaye wrote: »

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

Thanks for that lesley I'll redo the costings then for that one. We had the smaller portion with 2 slices HM bread each, and DH was fine with amounts, but I think everyone divides their day up differently, and we certainly have a bigger dinner than most

What do you and DH usually have as a lunch, that might help me make a comparison

Also I've been meaning to ask you since this challenge began! The post on Mark's thread where you talked about your subsistence diet project (mostly beans and oats) can you say a bit more about what quantities were required? I'd love to cost it up as a comparator to Bob and shirley's

weezl74

homegrown_life wrote: »

hoping to try this with half quantities later on today. I'm assuming it's plain flour? Also do they get baked at all, or just left?? Cheers :beer:

Sorry I've added the baking time now I think I used self-raising, but they don't really rise, so I'd say either is fine ....

Fire_Fox wrote: »

I was a bit nervous of coming back today, as I thought I'd really messed up the plan with the calcium calculations. Glad to see you are taking it as a challenge!

Regarding linseeds/ poppy/ sesame seeds and calcium: I would have thought these would have to be crushed or ground to release the minerals, in the same was as they do to release the essential fatty acids?

Awww fire fox, poor you being worried, I'm just really glad you noticed it when you did. Such a big thing would have been incredibly difficult to rectify later and we may have just given up! It was really so good you noticed.

Have you had a lookie at the calcium spreadsheet, I think you've done lots of the work for that already, we just need one place to store it all in IYSWIM?

xxx

weezl74

Well! At one level reading the eggshell linkie makes me think, well we're there then! The eggshells plus lemon juice when processed as per method 3 of that there linkie would give all the family their entire calcium requirement.

I can't believe it. Since the eggshells and lemon juice are already on the list, we'd need no extra cash.

However, I'm aware that I am extreme!:rotfl: I'm guessing no-one else thinks this is a good idea?

xxx

homegrown_life

lol - it's an interesting idea!! I'm not sure that Bob and Shirley will agree though!!

shanks77

aless02 wrote: »

oh and weezl, re: 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! )

I agree as per earlier post it keeps for months unopened and once opened will last about 10 days. I have it on cereal and in tea/coffee and it is fine. I also bake with it and have never had any problems.

Sian_the_Green

weezl74 wrote: »

*
However, I fear the cakes may take a wee bit of a diminishment to accomodate!:)

I recognise that this may not be the healthiest suggestion in the world but have we considered?

Would it help the calcium? We used to love having ice cream for pudding when we were kids