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

hornetgirl

weezl74 wrote: »

Hi HG is that a typo? I think a tablespoon would be ever so peppery!

Definitely a tablespoon - from a set of measuring spoons. It's also marked 18ml. It wasn't heaped, it was probably a bit less than a flat tablespoonful. The taste was quite spicy, but by no means unpleasantly so.

weezl74

hornetgirl wrote: »

Definitely a tablespoon - from a set of measuring spoons. It's also marked 18ml. It wasn't heaped, it was probably a bit less than a flat tablespoonful. The taste was quite spicy, but by no means unpleasantly so.

Right ho! Thanks, I'll try it spicier myself next time

Sian_the_Green

Hey all, just a quickie to say a few things

Shall be trying the cereal bar recipe, sounds yummy. The fritters one sounds good apart from the frying puts me off, still trying to stay on track with the whole ww thing

I think a chutney is more than manageable with those ingredients!

I agree that people will be picking up the parts of the plan that work for them and think that the basic plan will be adaptable for others. e.g. a plan for free range egg buyers for £110, one for £120 which allowed meat twice a week (only an extra £5 per person) etc etc... I think the costs are so low that people will be able to tweak a little out of their 'treats' budget if needs be. I'm sure for most families there will be meals out or friends around or birthday parties which will mean a little extra in some places and a little less in others. If our teenage kids have paper rounds etc then they can add as many bags of doritos as they want

Have we considered scones? The savoury ones I made the other day were really really good and we could even make a scone base for the onion tart to make it go a little farther.

For me, the priority of the plan has to be calories as then we are not actually going to kill them in the near future, then nutrients that will lead to major problems later e.g. protein, calcium... I am unsure on the omegas, seems like for a basic plan like this it pushes out a lot of the things which make it plausible for most people. I wonder, given your posts earlier whether this is where cost comes in for you Weezl? If you want to keep the £100 amount it seems like something has to give, and if you want the omegas then the meat etc seems to have to change.

Hmm... Will feedback on anything else I cook

Hope all are well, congrats to newly engaged people, hugs to those who need them!

weezl74

Allegra wrote: »

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 ?

me too :rotfl:

Can you give me any approx. idea of quantities for 4 people Allegra, sorry if that's a faff, don't worry

weezl74

Sian_the_Green wrote: »

Have we considered scones? The savoury ones I made the other day were really really good and we could even make a scone base for the onion tart to make it go a little farther.

Any chance of a recipe How would it work as the base sian, would it be scone based and pastry sides, or no sides? Am a bit dumb about scones having never made them

taka

Ermmmmm... I'm just going to say this... Sorry in advance!

Have we now reached a point where the budget of £100/month is just not do-able for Bob and Shirley et al? *need shruggy man here* And by do-able I mean something they could realistically live on (and with) potentially for a few months. There is no point going to all this hard work if they aren't going to be able to realistically stick to it. I know they may HAVE to stick to it from a budget point of view but if we take the concept too far removed from their norm that they may not stick to it, or think its not possible to do/too extreme so don't even try which would be a massive shame.

I mean that you (and AM!) managed on your 50p challenge but didn't get many others joining you... I just don't want this very worthy endevour to be seen as extreme - just frugally delicious IYKWIM?

The old menu planner (before the most recent cull since the weekend) looked very managable and varied. I have no idea about meat/fish as I'm veggie but it looked like a reasonable balance between meat/fish and veggie stuff that an average family could cope with eating without feeling uber hard done by. Its a shame that due to calcium/omega- gate its not possible on the budget.

I think that upping the budget £10 (or even £20) a month would allow such a huge amount more options as to what could be included. Even £120/month would be a MASSIVE drop for a heck of a lot of people.

I love this thread and the ideas and ambition to help people that are behind it and I really want it to work.

Sorry if I've overstepped the mark by saying this.

Sian_the_Green

weezl74 wrote: »

Any chance of a recipe How would it work as the base sian, would it be scone based and pastry sides, or no sides? Am a bit dumb about sconeshaving never made them

This is the recipe I used... except I didn't use any cheese at all and added some cayenne pepper and some extra pepper. I didn't have a cutter so I used a metal egg cup! They are incredibly, incredibly easy.

To my mind it would be a base that was just whacked in the oven to cook for a wee bit then filling popped on top. They would be nice on their own too or as 'dumplings' to pop in after a stew is made, or if we just had some left over baking ingredients as a snack, made sweet with raisins...

A woman of your talents can definitely make them

System

Here is a breakdown of our stock levels, based on the latest shopping list, the latest menu plan, and the state of the nominated recipes as they stood last night (as far as I could tell).

It covers everything in the latest menu plan except for pasta carbonara, pea and ham soup, savoury oaty burgers, and spicy pea and apple soup -- recipes haven't been identified for these yet, and spreadsheets need numbers! ;-) It also doesn't include any daily allowances for milk and buttery spread. Batch quantities are based on how many servings of a nominated size are needed, and servings-per-recipe figures have been tweaked to the nearest multiple of four, to cut down on the need for partial batches. The carrot cake is the original recipe, because last night that was still the one displayed on following the link.

I do hope it's right. It's been rather a bad day, and I don't have time to check this thoroughly.

Here are the things which we need more of if we are to cook what is in the menu plan:

Cauliflower -1,814 g short (bought two meals worth, but planned four)
Oil -1,775 ml short (two batches of carrot cake and four each of cereal bars and boodle biscuits alone account for 2620 ml)
Sugar -1,707 g short (same culprits plus the weetabix fruit loaf)
Raisins -1,620 g short (mostly porridge with raisins)
Plain flour -1,290 g short (biscuits, pancakes, cereal bars, bhajis)
Rice -1,200 g short (three lots of bean curry and risi e bisi, two of risotto)
Apples -700 g short (apple curd and chutney)
Garlic puree -40 g short (nearly half a tube in pasta con limone, and a third of a tube in baked bean curry)
Baked beans -2 tins short (mostly with hash browns or as baked bean curry)
Pilchards in tomato -1 tin short (to allow for sufficient fish pate)

Here are the things we have used but didn't have in the shopping list:

Pesto -24 g short (we didn’t buy any but used it in risotto)
Stock cubes -3 short (we didn’t buy any but used it in risi e bisi)

Here is what we have used up but not run out of:

Beetroot 0 all gone
Salted peanuts 0 all gone
White bread flour 0 all gone
Dried marrowfat peas 0 all gone

Here is what we still have left from that shopping list:

Tinned tomatoes 4 tins left
Lemons 6 left
Oranges 10 left
Eggs 10 left
Wheat bisks 28 left
Honey 41 g left
Buttery spread 150 g left
Grana Padano 160 g left
Baking soda 170 g left
Yeast 170 g left
Cheese 185 g left
Leo dried peas 250 g left (we haven’t used any)
Vinegar 268 g left
Cooking bacon 850 g left
Dried milk 901 g left
Green beans 920 g left
Self-raising flour 1,000 g left
Sweetcorn 1,114 g left
Pasta shapes 1,200 g left
Carrots 1,340 g left
Porridge oats 2,000 g left
Evaporated milk 2,050 ml left (we haven’t used any)
Potatoes 2,200 g left
Peas (frozen) 2,721 g left (we haven’t used any)
Onions 5,540 g left
Milk 19,130 ml left

I'm afraid I have to say that I think there are too many cakes and biscuits -- they account for more than 13% of the budget. Do people really eat so many snacks of different types in a day?

queen_of_string

Dont you just hate it when someone beats you to the point? I woke up at 3am this morning thinking about this.

I know you wanted to bring this in on £100, it's a nice looking number, but I would like to echo what taka says, maybe it's just not possible to feed 4 people who like to eat meat for £100 anymore? Even with the heavily subsidised food in the Uk, prices have jumped up in the last 12 months or so. The previous plans had little bits of tasty meat, enough for most families to not notice or feel to much difference I thought. The current plan has only bacon and pilchards, I think even I would struggle with that.

I love the project, I love the idea of the cheapest possible grocery bill for those that need it, but I am wondering now if the cheapest possible for the meat eaters is over £100 and only the veggie families can make it under £100. It's all more choices for families that are chain smoking on the stress. We can continue to eat meat or we can go veggie and pay another £10 a month off our debts.

Sorry to rain on various parades.

morag1202

weezl74 wrote: »

I guess what I fear is, that we will add in so many things to be healthy that we will lose bob and shirley, because they "never ate any blinkin fish before this financial mess and why should they start now, it's pricier than corned beef and the kids don't like it." and then they carry on as they were before, and Bob and Shirley are still chain smoking quietly away with no-one noticing.

I think you have hit the nail on the head here and hope you won't mind me giving you my thoughts.

You posted your original poll on the OS board and an awful lot of the contributors here are OS. I wonder what kind of response you would have got if you had posted your poll on DFW? (the "home" of Bob and Shirley?) or even in the Arms? - very different imo.

I'm a lot older than you and remember vividly when my DH was made redundant during the recession of the early 80's when I was pg with our second. Benefits were much lower then and we cut out absolutly everything before food, and when that was still not enough to pay the mortgage there were 2 things I absolutely refused to compromise on, we still had a smaller amount of meat or fish every day and 2 pints of fresh milk.

I know that you are wedded to "feed a family of 4 for £100 per Month" but worry that after all the combined efforts you will have very few RL Bob and Shirley's on board and wonder if perhaps you would reach more (thus do more good) if you changed it to "feed a family of 4 for £30 per week" and included meat, fish and milk????

Whichever way you go, you and all your helpers have my heartfelt congratulations and admiration - this is what MSE is all about