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

boredofbeingathome

phizzimum wrote: »

somebody, on some thread (vague, moi?) said that the sprouts are poisonous - like the bits of the potato that have gone green. not sure if this is true or not...anyone?

tart is due out of oven any minute now...serving it with jacket spuds and salady bits. will report back later!

Definately, don't eat green potatoes

http://www.eatwell.gov.uk/asksam/healthydiet/fruitandvegq/

Scroll right down to the bottom. Interesting about sprouting bits as well, but i just pull little sprouts off and don't eat them- will eat the rest of the spud though.:D

LilacPixie

I have made a quiche type thing before with just onions and egg and some mustard powder. I also add in some diced potatoes that are boiled to just soft for bulk. somtimes alternate white and red onions to look visually pretty (and use up whatever i have)

I personally find the fugalist of meals to be soups. Tomato and balsamic vinager is my current favorite and not all that expensive.

weezl74

Penelope_Penguin wrote: »

OK :j I'll make this on Wednesday (when I'm off work, and can get to the butchers )

To clarify, you'd like me to make the dish, and do costings for it?

Anyone have a recipe for stuffing balls?

Penny. x

Hi Penny, well I was going to make our impoverished family eat stuffing balls made from this:



as it's 16 p a pack and they'd each get 6 balls which would certainly fill them up!

But as long as you have some stuffing with it, I feel it's a valid test of how much/little meat I can allow/get away with

And- mega challenge alert, if anyone can do a HM stuffing cheaper no whoopsies allowed, then hats off and I'll certainly include it in the meal planner.

Drops gauntlet, walks quietly away....

shaz_mum_of__2 wrote: »

weezl this is my standard sausage recipe

1 kg minced pork
3 tsp salt
2 grammesblack pepper
1/2 tsp mace
1 tbs dried sage
1 tbs sugar
1/4 pint water
handful breadcrumbs or rusk.

Have tried various variations so far

apple sauce could be added for pork and apple flavour or a pureed cooked apple but most sausagemakers add some dried apple from healthfood shops too


Shaz

Thanks shaz

how many sausages/portions from those quantities? xxx

Avocet thanks for the thoughts, I'm glad you spotted that about the carrots. However on my last 2 asda trips that 2kg bag at that price has been unavailable and one staff member thought they'd been discontinued so I may have to stick with the frozens sadly.

Good point about the fruit and will think further on that, thanks.

Butterly spread, I agree that butter would probably make it prohibitive if we're genuinely persuing subsistence living here, but I do feel that our end product could include some healthy swap suggestions for those who have a few more pence a week to make. We could offer them in order of health benefits, and people could make the choice from there, does that make sense?

Also, what do people think... less FRESH fruit but more variety of fresh fruit, or a piece of fruit every day even if it's an apple every day?

Thanks for noting that about the Kiwi fruit too, the NHS portion counter told me they were 1 portion each, but I should have checked as they are wrong about pulses too on mysupermarkets NHS 5 a day checker....

*must remember to write to them*

Great responses, and loving the momentum here, I think we can come up with something great here guys :T:T:T:T:T:T

HowlinWolf

Weezl. Hmm, I've been having a look at the shopping list I'm not sure you'd get away with 80 tea bags for 2 adults and 2 teenagers. For one I'm not sure that many teens wouldn't want some sort of pop or juice to drink and I don't think 80 teabags is enough.
I'm not sure that the Kiwis are a good use of money. You can't make a whole lot with them, you need two to make a fruit portion and they aren't really teen friendly. I think it would be better to buy less volume of each fruit but get more variety and at least if you had bananas you could make banana cake (or did i miss the presence of bananas on the list).
Are you assuming that the 100 is just for food? What about toiletries for the family or cleaning products?
I think it might be good to add something in like a Mr S basic ham joint as this can be cooked chopped up and used to make sandwiches, pad out baked potatoes, or use in things like carbonara or pasta dishes which are pretty cheap to make. If you sliced half finely for sandwiches and chopped half up into .5 cm cubes you could make at least 2 or 3 meals seem like they had meat content iyswim.
I think the carrots and onions look quite expensive and not sure that cauliflower is going to be that popular with teens.
What about minestrone soup, the one I make in the slow cooker uses tinned toms and tinned or dried beans. The tiny amount of pasta in it swells up well and it becomes quite filling. The ingredients can be tinkered with depending what is available in the bottom of the fridge and it makes at least 4 huge portions. It usually does 2 adults and 1 toddler for 2 meals plus 1 additional adult lunch. Will post recipe if you like.
PS the carrot cake disaster is being eaten just not in cake shaped bits!

homegrown_life

We use Pure spread which doesn't have the hydrogenated oils, it's a little more expensive than the buttery spread on your list. You can bake with it fine. It doesn't taste like butter though!! But we like it.

HowlinWolf

For HM stuffing I use breadcrumbs (salvaged from stale/end of loaves and frozen until you have enough) 1 diced onion, 2-4 tsp each of dried sage and dried thyme and a couple of oz of melted butter. not made into balls but cooked in a dish and spooned/sliced out. Assuming that the breadcrumbs are free then at Mr A my shop would cost me

smartprice onions 2kg 78pence
dried sage 52pence
dried thyme 61pence
basic butter 85pence

the biggest expense would be the butter as you would use almost half a pack so more expensive than your dried mix. But, the onions would count towards your daily fruit and veg I assume and you would still have an almost full bag of onions and the herbs would last for months and could be used in the sausage making. The leftovers are good between 2 buttered slices of bread!

Penelope_Penguin

weezl74 wrote: »

Hi Penny, well I was going to make our impoverished family eat stuffing balls made from this:
as it's 16 p a pack and they'd each get 6 balls which would certainly fill them up!

OK. I'm sure I've seen a stuffing ball recipe on OS, so off to hunt

HowlinWolf wrote: »

Weezl. Hmm, I've been having a look at the shopping list I'm not sure you'd get away with 80 tea bags for 2 adults and 2 teenagers. For one I'm not sure that many teens wouldn't want some sort of pop or juice to drink and I don't think 80 teabags is enough.

DH and I make a pot of tea for 2 mugs with 1 Tesco Red Label tea bag So at 2 pots a day that would be 60 a month, but doesn;t allow for the children.

My teens drink tea, coffee, water and milk. They have fresh fruit juice occasionally, but wouldn't miss it if it weren't available as a matter of course.

They'll eat cauliflower too.

cheerfulness4

Avocet wrote: »

(3) There's no fish. Obviously a vegetarian plan wouldn't have fish in it, but shouldn't an omnivorous version attempt to deliver the recommended one portion of oily fish a week? Sardines, tuna and rollmops aren't terribly expensive, and I see from mysupermarket that Asda offer a 420g tin of Glenryck South Atlantic Pilchards in Tomato Sauce for only 65p (although I don't know if they are edible in anything more than a technical sense).

These Pilchards are great in fishcakes (half and half with mash seasoned with lots of pepper and some nutmeg). Some of the tomatoey sauce mixed in with them is lovely.
There's none of the strong taste and funny texture that can put some off of this fish.

My mum used to make these as a frugal dinner for us when we were growing up in the 60/70's and I still love them and make them for my sons.

misskool

I've frugalised weezl's recipe (sorry!) used 200g of sugar, 300ml of veg oil and 2 tsps of bicarb. I used 2 tsps of cinnamon and 1 of ginger.

Raisins were rehydrated in 2nd dunking of 3 teabags so nil cost there (unless your household double dips).

still light and fluffy and could probably cut down to just 1.5 tsp of bicarb as I can still taste it.

PetuliaGristle

Hi Weezl, I'd like to lurk in this thread too! I can contribute this recipe for cold beetroot soup which is very similar to the one in my Rose Carrarini book with even less ingredients, though Rose nukes the soup in the food processor - will have to pursuade dp to try it though