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

nopot2pin

aless02 wrote: »

FWIW, I can rarely find a chicken under £2 in ASDA unless you just get extremely lucky. They usually run around £2.30-2.50 and up...

Weezl, PERSONALLY I think people aren't just "getting" the egg issue, so I'd be inclined to ignore the poll results. Like you've posted in the past, when faced with hummus sandwiches & porridge every single day, I'll bet that 90% of the FR-only voters would buy battery eggs in order to have a more "normal" diet. While I hate hate hate battery eggs myself (I used to work for DEFRA... ), I can totally understand the very valid point of something's got to give - either the house gets reposessed or some chickens have a bad time!

Okay, a bit drastic, but you see the point. ALSO, I really think the whole FR egg debate is totally pointless given battery will be illegal in 2 years' time. One can hope that the resulting minor backlash will reduce the price of FR eggs to a manageable level for B&S (well, I'm ambivalent about the moral aspects of that, but that's a debate for another day). If you want your plans & recipes to be long-lasting, ignore the eggs!!

So my vote is for the some-meat-with-battery-eggs-as-"normal"-as-possible-with-powdered-milk menu .

(FWIW, my DH who IS British, voted for powdered milk in favor of some meat)

I think you are right, in that most people dont see the whole egg thing.
I suspect, most people would be happy to munch on shop bought cakes, quiche, mayonaisse ect ect.... but unless it is specified that the eggs within are free range, the chances are they are not.

I chose on both polls, for only using free range eggs... but I am well aware, that in the last month, I have definately eaten substances that contain non free range eggs..... the most immediate substance that hits me in the forehead, is dried pasta. I eat pasta at least once, if not twice a week.
Now, if the lasagne that I used to make my spinach and ricotta lasagne the other night states in the ingredients, "durum wheat semolina and whole egg" .... is the fact that the box of lasagne was less than a pound (sorry, I cant remember the exact cost, probably between 60p-80p), indicitive to the fact that non free range eggs used, due to cost of free range eggs ? I dont doubt that more expensive organic pasta does use free range eggs, however, this is out of my price range, therefore I can not use it, at this time of my life.

I know that the eggs I PREFER to use should be free range. But, if I HAD to use cheaper battery eggs, because I could not afford free range, then I would, on a short term basis, especailly, if I had bitsy babes to look after.

In a nutshell, I like "no debt" more, than I like, free range eggs
Now.... onto the milk powder malarky :eek:
A few years back, I spent some time(5 months) in the Falkland Islands. There was always a shortage of milk , so powder milk was a must. I learned to like black coffee

Oh... and whilst I remember that time, the temperature gauge on ISO that was bringing eggs, broke :eek:.... so powdered egg was also a staple for the last few months too .... I wonder if that was free range or not ;)

I'm off into the kitchen now, to make up a few of Lesleys chickpea crumble portions for the freezer

nopot2pin

skaps wrote: »

Have been reading this thread for a while now and have tried to work out who Bob and Shirley are and think they are a made up couple but i could be wrong? Help

You are correct :T
Weezl created them, to make us all feel like we "know" them, and want to help them. Jenny and Jason are their teenage children.
I dont think they have a dog.
Well, I hope they dont, as I think that would mess up the meal plan and budget :rotfl:

poohbear59

Cauliflower cheese was plenty for all six (5 men and me) of us with potato wedges and a few extra frozen mixed vegetables to make it go a bit further.
I used the exact quantities of all the ingredients in the recipe adding dried milk powder but found that the sauce was a bit thick though everyone here said it was lovely.

When I make it again I will probably use less flour. I did think that for a pint of milk I would normally use 50g fat and 50 flour. The cauliflower does make the mixture more liquid so maybe I will try 75g flour next time. Not sure about the quantity of oil to go with it. I will think about it tomorrow when my brain is working.


Regarding kidney beans I always buy dried and pressure cook. It must have saved us a lot of money over the years. I have a bean cooking day every few months and bag up in 225-250g bags. I do chick peas, marrowfat peas, kidney beans and sometimes haricot beans. Soaking them overnight shortens the cooking time and I always, without fail, overcook my kidney beans and throw away the liquor. I had a friend hospitalised through kidney bean poisoning and I have been a tad obssesive about my cooking of them since.


ETA The extra man left some of his cauliflower cheese!
We were all a bit appalled! It won't be wasted though. It can go to the hens in the morning.

He did say he was rather full!

Sian_the_Green

poohbear59 wrote: »

BTW I seem to have an extra man here for dinner. .

Well that is careless when some of us don't have enough to go round, send 'em over here, I'll feed 'em up

Sian_the_Green

weezl74 wrote: »

hello! Thank you for delurking

We aren't too scary a bunch.

I promise I won't make you eat raw eggshells :o:o:o

But cooked eggshells, well that's a whole other story

Weezl, you are one of a kind, you're brilliant!

ceridwen

queen_of_string wrote: »

Also another one wondering about lard and if its cheaper. I think not having buttery fats around might be the way to go, as if it's there, people will want/eat it.

Ummm....that would mean 2 versions of many recipes though - a meat-eaters version with lard in and a veggie version with buttery spread in (unless we specified lard OR that solid vegetable oil stuff - Trex?) in each recipe concerned.

ceridwen

Sian_the_Green wrote: »

But cooked eggshells, well that's a whole other story

Weezl, you are one of a kind, you're brilliant!

Nowt to stop anyone crushing up their eggshells now and mixing them in with the flour they make bread with - as per Sharon Astyk's 10:1 flour to eggshells ratio:rotfl:. As I figured it - my ratio would work out more like 50:1 or summat of flour to eggshells - taken as, on average, baking 2 large loaves of bread per week, but, at a guess, using an average of 3 eggs per week.

Oh well - waste not, want not...:)

weezl74

nopot2pin wrote: »

You are correct :T
Weezl created them, to make us all feel like we "know" them, and want to help them. Jenny and Jason are their teenage children.
I dont think they have a dog.
Well, I hope they dont, as I think that would mess up the meal plan and budget :rotfl:

:rotfl:I may have taken this plan far too far, but I was just rather cross at the idea of the dog :mad:. How dare they feed the dog rather than Jenny and Jason! The dog has to go!

ceridwen wrote: »

Ummm....that would mean 2 versions of many recipes though - a meat-eaters version with lard in and a veggie version with buttery spread in (unless we specified lard OR that solid vegetable oil stuff - Trex?) in each recipe concerned.

I think that we'll have to add that as a paragraph in the FAQ's section, to offer vegetarian cheap alternatives to things. Even the second planner that we are referring to as the vegetarian planner will have some non-vegetarian things in it, it just won't have meat IYSWIM?:)

Another question: up til now I have been building all the recipes around the exact amounts required of each fruit and veg to make exact NHS portions of the 5 a day. In some recipes this leads to a slight imbalance of flavours (ie Frankie's feedback on the chilli as being a tad too oniony, but I think this is still workable) however, as we now enter a finalising stocktaking stage, it seems that it would be better from a 'no wastage' point of view to relax this rule, but making it clear to Shirley that everyone is still getting more than the 5 a day (not loads more!) but that this may not be distributed in exact 80g portions into each dish.

What do you all think?

I'm gueassing that the average Bob and shirley won't mind, but I know from various threads on old-style that the 5 a day is often a sudden target for people who want to find a nutritional issue with a meal planner that someone posts. It was sadly quite prevalent on Mark's thread, and I've seen it crop up quite a bit

ceridwen

...and for those interested in the formulation of food policy:

- There is a LONG chunk of that Sharon Astyk "Nation of Farmers" book on Googlebooks website
(far too long a link to type in - but I got it by googling:
"Sharon Astyk" + "A Nation of Farmers")

(the first result on the list Google came up with was for:
books.google.co.uk - and its there.

and there is enough reading to keep you occupied for QUITE some time in a huge long list of foodlinks on the right side of the page on:
http://civileats.com/2009/10/21/a-nation-of-farmers-a-handbook-for-revolutionaries/

Sian_the_Green

weezl74 wrote: »

:rotfl:I may have taken this plan far too far, but I was just rather cross at the idea of the dog :mad:. How dare they feed the dog rather than Jenny and Jason! The dog has to go!

How many meat portions do you think you could eke out from the average household dog? ;););)