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

weezl74

Avocet wrote: »

FRUGALISED DELIA THICK ONION TART -- Costings using Weezl's Asda price list

50g self-raising flour ... 1.4
50g plain flour ... 1.4
10g English mustard (mixed) ... 2.0
100g buttery spread ... 15.0 (special offer - should be 22.8)
100g mature Cheddar ... 61.6
700g onions ... 27.3
2 eggs ... 19.9
110ml milk ... 6.1
salt and pepper ... 1.0 (nominal pricing)

Total cost ... 134.6p (but would be 142.4p if spread not reduced)

Just had a go at a further frugalisation of Delia's tart, taken from the usual place, so will see how that affects costings:

Ingredients

For the pastry:
140g self-raising flour 3.92
3 teaspoons colman’s mustard 3p
40ml oil 3.36p

For the filling:
1½ lb (700 g) onions, chopped fairly small 27.3p
40 ml oil 3.36p
2 eggs, beaten 19.9
110 ml water plus 35g skimmed milk powder whisked together
65g grated mature Cheddar cheese 40.04
15g grana padano 16.95p
1 teaspoon colman’s mustard 1p
salt and freshly milled black pepper


Pre-heat the oven, and a baking sheet, to gas mark 4, 350°F (180°C).


Method

First make the pastry by sifting the flour, mustard powder into a mixing bowl, then rubbing in the fat until the mixture becomes crumbly. Then add enough cold water to make a dough that leaves the bowl clean. Leave to rest in the fridge for half an hour.

Meanwhile, prep the filling. Put the oil in a heavy-based saucepan, then add the onions, stir to get them well coated in the oil, and cook them (uncovered) over a medium heat for about half an hour until they have reduced and turned a deep brown.

Then roll out the pastry to line the tart tin, !!!!! the base with a fork (can't believe I have to get round the rude word checker on a Delia recipe!), place it on the pre-heated baking sheet, and bake in the centre of oven for 15 minutes. Then spread the onions all over the base of the tart, whisk the beaten eggs together with the milk and some seasoning, and pour this mixture over the onions.

Finally sprinkle cheese over the top, return the tart to the oven and bake for 30 minutes till the filling is puffy and golden brown.

total 90.24p or 22.5p per person :T:T:T:T:T:T:T

best wait and see how it tastes first!

purpleivy

FrankieM wrote: »

You guys are doing an amazing job.

I love the idea that you are working so hard at making it healthy, but...I have a but.

Thinking of the people I know who have financial issues and could be helped by something like this, none of them really cook from scratch. They all eat meat in every meal.

I'm not sure how you are going to attract the people who will most need this kind of plan if they are anything like the people I know.
QUOTE]

I have read to the end of the thread (having turned away from it to have a life! LOL for a few hours!) and I'm surprised that noone has mentioned the above. I think it's a huge presumption that people that have financial issues don't cook from scratch and have meat at every meal.

For a start, there are many people here who have financial issues (the MSE site has millions of members) that may or may not cook from scratch and who don't necessarily eat meat, who will welcome the Bob and Shirley plan or a variation thereof.

I've been very interested in this thread Weezl, even though all I've done is make the odd comment. Not able to do much to help at the moment, but I'm really looking forward to trying some of the recipes (when I trust myself to cook the cakes in particular! - Maybe there should be a lean machine plan for the low fat brigade!)

HowlinWolf

Weezl and Avocet. Not sure what our stock levels are but enough carbonara for 4 can be made with the following ingredients

3 eggs (or rather 2 eggs and one yolk)
2oz of Gran Padano
a squidge of garlic paste
75ml of cream/milk/evap milk
4 or 5 tablespoons of bacon bits (I'm guessing about 75 grams) (more if we have it to spare and preferably double the amount so 150grams)
A splash of oil which may not be needed if the bacon is fatty or if Shirl has a good nonstick pan

and

pasta

If you can tell me we have the ingredients spare I can post method.

newlywed

pinkhayley789 wrote: »

I'm going to have a bash at these tomorrow too so thank you for your comments. I'm going to halve the mixture too, but wasn't quite expecting to get 14 out of it :eek: I'm going to be the size of a house at the end of this!

I spread them thin though

domesticgoddess789

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. Bake at a low heat GM 3 for 30-40 mins until a honey brown colour, not too dark or the raisins burn! Batch makes 32 bars, so halve it if you don't want too much risk!!!!!




97.84p or 3.05p per bar

Well have made a half batch of these this morning with:

100ml ish Veg Oil
50g sugar
125g wholemeal self raising flour (All I have in house due to a bit of a fear of white flour, I blame that Gillian McKeith woman!)
175g oats
185ml water
75g sultanas (Looked in cupboard to find 3 unopened bags of smart price sultanas and only 1 bag of raisins so used these instead).
About 2 tablespoons of honey (finished of remainder of jar)

They are lovely Weezl! I only got 12 out of the mixture though, once again confirming that we are quite the greedy piglets here. :)Just had a rather large one with my lunch and really enjoyed it. Very moist, quite soft and a bit more cakey than I was expected. Thank you so much, you are going to save me and my OH a fortune on shop bought cereal bars which are so expensive. :T Do you know how long they might keep for in a tin?

Lesley_Gaye

good grief, I go away for an afternoon and I had 4 pages to read this morning!

Have done the Sweetcorn Soup survey, have lost track a bit of which ones I have done, and which ones I haven't done

Am just waiting for the raisins to cool down before testing the cereal bars

We had Sweetcorn Fritters again last night. OH said that they could have been thinner, which is annoying as I particularly like them fat and chewy. I measured out the lower amount of oil (125ml) to see how much I actually used. I put the whole amount in the pan last time, but thought I could probably have used less. I put about a tblsp in the pan, dropped in the mixture in 4 big thick fritters (a portion being one fritter) and just needed to add 1 more tblsp when I turned them over. Could have got away with not adding the 2nd tblsp, but I wanted them to sizzle.

So about 100ml of oil could be saved there.

If you want me to do any more nutrition thingies for the recipes I can Weezl, I will carry on using Spark People unless you want me to use RecipeCal. Completely lost track of what's been done, and what's not, esp as our meal planner is changing what the meals are rapidly

weezl74

HowlinWolf wrote: »

Weezl and Avocet. Not sure what our stock levels are but enough carbonara for 4 can be made with the following ingredients

3 eggs (or rather 2 eggs and one yolk)
2oz of Gran Padano
a squidge of garlic paste
75ml of cream/milk/evap milk
4 or 5 tablespoons of bacon bits (I'm guessing about 75 grams) (more if we have it to spare and preferably double the amount so 150grams)
A splash of oil which may not be needed if the bacon is fatty or if Shirl has a good nonstick pan

and

pasta

If you can tell me we have the ingredients spare I can post method.

Hello Howlinwolf, post it anyway cos I'm sure all our readers will love it, but sadly this one for the planner needs to be an eggless carbonara

lesley hello! thanks for all your hard work and nutritional costings, very interesting about DH and the batter!

I'm aware the planner and ideas seem to be changing all the time . I always aim to respond to feedback, which sometimes means I go off in a few directions rather rapidly.

Please don't anyone feel that any of this processs is wasted though.

My sense of it, for what it's worth is that we may end up with 20 recipes for shirley month one, but an extra 100 for something else equally magnificent I'm amazed how healthy and frugal we have all challenged ourselves to be, and we have suceeded

And I'm gonna get your crumble on one of the meal planners if it kills me :rotfl:

weezl74

pinkhayley789 wrote: »

Well have made a half batch of these this morning with:

100ml ish Veg Oil
50g sugar
125g wholemeal self raising flour (All I have in house due to a bit of a fear of white flour, I blame that Gillian McKeith woman!)
175g oats
185ml water
75g sultanas (Looked in cupboard to find 3 unopened bags of smart price sultanas and only 1 bag of raisins so used these instead).
About 2 tablespoons of honey (finished of remainder of jar)

They are lovely Weezl! I only got 12 out of the mixture though, once again confirming that we are quite the greedy piglets here. :)Just had a rather large one with my lunch and really enjoyed it. Very moist, quite soft and a bit more cakey than I was expected. Thank you so much, you are going to save me and my OH a fortune on shop bought cereal bars which are so expensive. :T Do you know how long they might keep for in a tin?

Thanks for the lovely feedback hayley. I made our batch a fortnight ago and they're still nice I think the fact that they aren't a crunchy biscuit to start with means that they don't go soggy and feel stale. You could freeze some though?

xxx

Allegra

weezl74 wrote: »

Hello Howlinwolf, post it anyway cos I'm sure all our readers will love it, but sadly this one for the planner needs to be an eggless carbonara

I make a "carbonara" by frying off some chopped onion and ham/bacon and then pouring basic white sauce (butter/marge + flour + milk) over it. I'm afraid I have totally lost track of where Shirl's stocks of basics are at, but perhaps this is something that would work for her ?

FrankieM

purpleivy wrote: »

FrankieM wrote: »

You guys are doing an amazing job.

I love the idea that you are working so hard at making it healthy, but...I have a but.

Thinking of the people I know who have financial issues and could be helped by something like this, none of them really cook from scratch. They all eat meat in every meal.

I'm not sure how you are going to attract the people who will most need this kind of plan if they are anything like the people I know.
QUOTE]

I have read to the end of the thread (having turned away from it to have a life! LOL for a few hours!) and I'm surprised that noone has mentioned the above. I think it's a huge presumption that people that have financial issues don't cook from scratch and have meat at every meal.

For a start, there are many people here who have financial issues (the MSE site has millions of members) that may or may not cook from scratch and who don't necessarily eat meat, who will welcome the Bob and Shirley plan or a variation thereof.

I've been very interested in this thread Weezl, even though all I've done is make the odd comment. Not able to do much to help at the moment, but I'm really looking forward to trying some of the recipes (when I trust myself to cook the cakes in particular! - Maybe there should be a lean machine plan for the low fat brigade!)

I haven't made any presumptions, just stating facts about the people I know. In fact even most of the people I know who don't have financial issues rarely cook from scratch and have meat everyday.
I was discussing the fact that I do a veggie meal once a week and people were interested in a 'what a strange idea' kind of way, but certainly not in a 'what a great idea'.

I think what Ceridwen said about leading a horse to water is a good one and perhaps people will just tweak it for their own personal preferences.

I live in the Midlands, I don't know if area makes a difference to what people are used to or willing to eat.