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

purpleivy

I'm with you on the budget thing, not including loo roll etc etc. I plan my budget to be food only, no booze, as in my book is a luxury and also difficult to budget for , as we tend to buy sporadically. Tonic isn't counted in either, as it goes in gin and we don't use it at any other time! Do you like my logic?

Alison_Funnell

newlywed wrote: »

But I'm interested in trying the carrot cake (and have a sweet tooth) - will do this tomorrow. But have no orange so will have to add apple juice or lemon juice?

The stepkids won't eat raisins but me and OH will so will make it for us.

Never thought of apple juice! Will try that next time. I used mixed fruit steeped in alcohol - a left over from xmas baking .

phizzimum

taka - here's what I do when cooking onions - when they start sticking to the pan use a little water (or wine) to loosen them, and scrape any browning off the pan so that all that caramelised flavour will get into your onions.

weezl - think you've included blueberrypie twice on the list of testers

HowlinWolf

weezl74 wrote: »

no I'm sure it'd be grand. Feels picky to say this and I don't mean it to, but you have to get to 868 portions (so it delivers the same 5 a dayness as the asda list) and meets the 7 portions part...

It's really tough though and it took me a lot of rooting out unnecessaries to get all that F and V in. But I figured we should cos that seems to be a lot of people's concern with subsistence living.

Anyhow, I feel a bit like I've rained on your parade now and I didn't mean to, I'm sure we can use the spare £11 to make up the difference

Please don't give up! We need a sainsburies version too!

Bum! I now wonder whether my family are actually eating enough fruit and veg! Don't worry no parade raining but even using the remaining money I can still only get it up to 365 portions. Hmm some rethinking required I think. Also I don't have teenagers so my general portions may be way off and I may well be starving the imaginary family.

But based on the meat that's in there:

I reckon I could get 6 meals out of the two chickens plus a large amount of stock - poach chickens then strip the meat and you get a higher yield as pretty much every last scrap comes off the bones plus you get the stock. One would be pie with lots of veg etc to pad it out served with mash and frozen veg. One would be curry with a good handful of added raisins and served with a saag alloo, rice and homemade naan. Probably do a stir fry with one lot with rice and the mushrooms and some of the peppers and might use one lot for sandwiches and one lot for a pasta dish.
I'd use the stock and some of the pots and carrots and celery with the soup mix to make a shed load of soup for lunches.

I'd use carrots, celery, tinned toms (not sure I've put in anything like enough of these) handful pasta and some dried beans (would need to save money from somewhere in list to allow for these) for minestrone soup.

Houmous for sandwiches with the garlic and dried chickpeas.(which looking back at my list I've clearly forgotten to include)

With the lean steak mince and some added lentils, onions and possibly carrots I'd make 2 x cottage pies and 2 lots of bolog sauce.

With the lamb mince, lentils, some of the peppers and some carrots I'd make 4 shepherds pies (never said it'd be exciting!)

1 pack of sausages, tinned toms, carrots, any leftover pepper and onions I'd make sausage casserole

1 pack for toad in the hole probably

The pork mince is a bit more difficult as I don't eat it but I think I'd mix it with breadcrumbs and make meatballs. I'm going to assume that using it this way and served with pasta and a tom sauce you could get 4 meals out of the pork mince.

I'd also do pasta with cheese sauce

cook the ham joint, chop half small and add into pasta dishes - should do 2 or 3 depending how frugal we're being. The rest i'd shred and mix with grated cheese and either some chutney or mayo for sandwiches.

I'm assuming that brekkie is either cereal or toast (hm bread) but I'm concerned that there isn't enough for a month in my basket. Hopefully there would be enough eggs for the odd boiled or poached one.

Treats would be weetabix fruit cake and if I could run to a couple of packs of coconut then some coconut bread.

I make that 23 main evening meals at least. I am assuming that the rest of the evening meals would be vegetarian pasta dishes, baked potatos and if we can run to the odd tin of beans then some beans on toast or soup.

Lunches are soups or sandwiches but I don't think I have anything like enough in my basket to do a full months worth

I'm assuming that the milk will be watered down old style to make it go further
back to the drawing board!

JayJay14

Facinating discussions while I have been out for a swim.

I will be having the onion tart for dinner tomorrow, I have cooked the onions this evening to save time when I get in from work. I am glad I did cos it took ages and they are really only golden as opposed to deep:D

I have the pastry crumbs ready to go with but have missed out the cheese, I have however put in a little mustard powder (found a tin of colemans unopened in the pantry - use by date 08/09 (where is that confused smiley when you need him:rotfl:) I must have bought it for something but what I don't know.

Will report back tomorrow.

Elliesmum

ceridwen wrote: »

Waste is where a lot of many peoples food budgets goes IYSWIM. I've certainly found that I'm not spending any more on food - despite recent price rises - because I'm being more aware of trying to use up all my food than previously.

Does that count as extreme moneysaving to blitz a leftover sandwich in the liquidiser and throw the resultant breadcrumbs over the top of a savoury bake for instance? Previously - I would have just thrown it away...

This I whole heartly agree with, waste and portion control (which is of course linked with waste IMHO). I used to make masses of food, pile it on the plates, out face everyone and end up chucking the left overs.

Now I weight everything, carefully looking at what a packet holds, how many portions I can get out of it etc. I try my hardest not to put any food in the bin. Peelings get kept to make stock, the smallest amounts of mash/pizza topping etc get frozen etc. All scraps/left overs are looked at and evaluated as to what can be done with them. The last resort is the dog, she gets the very few last bits and pieces that I feel should go in the bin, only if it's ok for her to have them...

Some of you may know I have an OH who IS very fussy when it comes to frozen food.... Well he isn't really, just thinks he is. I've been sneaking in more and more previously frozen fresh food and he doesn't have a clue.

He must be progressing as I made some home made naan the other day, new recipe so had no idea on portion size and there was enough for 2 more meals. I made the comment that there was all this waste and he said why didn't I freeze it, the kids will eat them. I looked at him and said what about you and he replied, well if you don't tell me then I probably will too.... This is a break through...

Sorry - back on topic, I don't think it's extreme to use a left over sandwich. I would do the same.

EM xx

LilacPixie

I think the vast majority of us struggle with portion control. I know I for one certainly do especially with rices and pastas. I never know how much to cook.

Someone mentioned frugal equiptment essentials. I feel this is a very good point. I, for example do not have a food processor so cannot make HM breadcrumbs despite having various left over bits of bread. I mybe could using the stick hand blender but i have visions of bits of bread flying all over my kitchen so i have not attempted it. What I do have is an electric food slicer. It was only £28 or so from Argos in the mid summer sale but I have found it has paid for itself since then. My OH takes a packed lunch daily and its usually some sort of roll/wrap/sandwich. He likes both roast beef and roast ham with salad etc. He hates the reformed type sandwich meats so we were inthe rut of the £2.30 for 5 slices type thing. Since I bought the slicer i have been buying and roasting joints of meat and then slicing them with the slicer. Even better when its whoopsie reduced joints like the 1.4kg of topside I got in December for 90p. he is still eating that, its easilly done 20 rolls so far. It may be that i only find it helpful because I am useless with a knife others may be able to carve perfectly.

I am sure we all agree a freezer is essential.

weezl74

Good morning m'lovelies :A

Wow loads of good stuff to catch up on!

I have tried to be a little clearer about the challenge in post number 4 click, so that we're all hopefully singing from the same hymn sheet.

These aren't set in stone and if any of them feel wrong, I'm open to discussion

NB there are no rules on what we chat about, I'm your friend not your teacher:rotfl::o, what I mean is, things which I feel I can usefully include in our end result- a healthy subsistence meal planner for a family of 4.

OK I realise this thread is going to need a little more organising! I'm anticipating trawling back through a gazillion pages looking for the word 'tart' when I come to publish this in whatever end form is agreed best:rotfl:. And I don't think that's going to be realistic .

I wonder if one person might be willing to be a kind of summariser of all the feedback from a particular recipe we've tested? Feel free to organise it as you wish, but one possible way to present it which I would find really helpful might be (see next post...)

weezl74

example of a recipe feedback summary:

Recipe: Vegetarian lasagne

no of testers: 26

General feedback: (ie: nice x4, bit bland x2 portion a bit small x4)

Suggested improvements:

Suggested frugalisations: (and if any of these have been subsequently tested)

Nutritional feedback if given:

current costings: 38p per person

should this recipe be included in the planner: 20 think yes, 5 no, one not sure, probably only once in the month

weezl74

OK I'm off to work shortly, but will catch up more fully later this evening

Have a lovely day recipe testing