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

princess_loki

In_Search_Of_Me wrote: »

re the debate on butter vs spreadable could someone do costings - I think smart price butter is alot cheaper than spreadable and tastes so much nicer? Decided a couple of years ago that lifes too short not to have butter...know its fattening but its yummy......

have to agree - i have 'real' butter when finances allow and have found it to be a bonus along with lard when camping - but not cheapest option...

however... i do have to say that a bit of butter on farmhouse tea loaf is bl$$din lovely :j

purpleivy

shanks77 wrote: »

On the milk front have you thought of using the packs of UHT stuff it is fine in tea and coffee and i cook with it all the time. It last for ages once opened though i might not drink it "straight" as a bit of the watery side but for everything else its fine even ex doesnt complain so it must be fine!!!!!!!
Mr A does a 1lt pack for about 54p

In addition, I keep powdered milk in, as this a) has good shelf life, b) is cheap c) light to cart round in bags of shopping.

used to get one in a bottle shape similar to the old 'five pints' for a quid but not seen it recently. I just use value or whatever now.

vandanfc

Value butter seems to come in at around 34p per 100g. Buttery spread usually about 20p or as low as 15p if on offer.

purpleivy

Weezl, have you put the chick pea curry recipe out yet? I've been trying to catch up with this thread but not found it.

Sian_the_Green

Hey all. I had a bit of an experiment in chutney making.
I used...
400ml of vinegar from cabbage jar (jar was 700g)
180g red cabbage, half the jar I used
90g chopped onion, 1 onion.
190g chopped apple, 2 medium sized apples
70g sultanas
100g sugar
1 1/2 tsp garam masala


So, I put it all in a pan and cooked it up with the lid on as there wasn't a lot of liquid.
I used a medium heat for about 40 minutes
When it was all softened I took the lid off and cooked it for another 20 minutes.

So, it tastes pretty delicious but is not jam-like. Have eaten 2 dessertspoonfuls straight off the spoon, I think the amount I made would do about 8 side portions
I wonder if maybe more sugar would have made it more syrupy...

shanks77

newlywed wrote: »

I really want to make carrot cakes... but have no eggs..... and sainsbug order isn't due to come until much later

A tablespoon of vinegar will replace 1 egg if you are very short but wouldnt be useful if you have no eggs at all. I have tried it and it does work at a pinch but wouldnt do it all the time but hey if it saves the price of an egg now and again

shanks77

Penelope_Penguin wrote: »

So was I Hence the :rotfl::rotfl::rotfl:

ceridwen, you're in danger of making this extremely complicated. I don;t wash raisins, and neither do I peel carrots; am I alone in this?

You are not alone i dont do these things either unless my carrots are on their last legs or full of mud (even i am not that lazy) life is toooo short to wash raisins even my mum doesnt do that and she is fanatic about this. I was 21 before i got to eat my first unwashed apple so if she doesnt do this then i am not about to start (though i wont let her read this incase she gets some ideas and starts on all her dried fruit:rotfl:

HOWMUCH

Hi everyone, I always check out fruit and veg in Netto and Aldi they are often much cheaper than other supermarkets. Milk at the moment at Farmfoods is 2x2litres for £1.50. Enjoyed reading the thread. I am diabetic so alot of the things you have made are not suitable for me I would have to take far too much insulin. I will get together some of the cheap food recipes that I make, mostly savoury and post them.

System

weezl74 wrote: »

We were also a bit concerned for a hungry family of 4 how the cook would do it so all the fritters were warn and crispy by the end of the batch, rather than warm and crunchy. We debated with the idea of everyone having just one giant fritter rather than 5-6 smaller ones :rotfl:, but weren't too sure.

When we do sweetcorn fritters, I handle this in one of two ways, according to my mood at the time. Sometimes, I put all the fritters into a hot oven (on a tray lined with kitchen roll) and keep adding to the tray until the fritters are all done and we can eat them (they get a bit less crisp and a bit heavier somehow, so it's not ideal, but it still works and they are still wolfed down with gusto). The rest of the time, we treat it as a "hot off the press" family treat/event, with people getting fritters straight from the pan, in waves as they are cooked (I have a large frying pan, so can do six or seven small-to-medium fritters at a time, so we all get one or two in each round of serving).

In my opinion, the first approach is more like a proper meal, but the second is more fun for the children. Both methods work, in the sense of providing a proper family meal, but one is less formal than the other. (I think the fritters are best eaten straight from the pan, anyway).

weezl74

Hi all:A,

just spent yet another frustrating 2 hours on the Asda shopping list.

Seems like bad news to me.

I just can't accomodate all the parameters that people seem to need whilst maintaining a subsistence level budget. I have spent nearly 2 full time days on this, plus the whole accumulated wisdom accrued through living off 50p a day for a year.

I tried to accomodate:

• FR eggs
• Meat once every 3-4 days
• 7 of the 5 a day
• Colour variety - all the colours over every 2 days
• Enough protein/carb/fibre to sustain weight and gut health

I have already let the FRESH F and V daily requirement go, since that's not possible with the FR eggs, and from the poll on old-style the people needing F and V to be fresh and daily were 3 times fewer than the FR egg group.

Obviously this is a group/community endeavour so I don't want to just unilaterally decide what should shift. So I thought I'd make a suggestion and see what people thought:

I think they need losing in the following order

1. FR eggs
2. 7 of the 5 a day
3. Meat once every 3-4 days
4. Colour variety - all the colours over every 2 days
5. Enough protein/carb/fibre to sustain weight and gut health

please bear with me while I explain why.

Last to go: Enough protein/carb/fibre to sustain weight and gut health.
reason: Serious deterioration to muscle mass and weight loss will have damaging health effects within 2-3 weeks. The children will not grow, they will not be able to learn at school. Below enough energy their bodies will begin to self digest. I cannot promote or put my heart into any project which would put another value higher than that, personally.

Second to last to go: Colour variety - all the colours over every 2 days
reason: Failure to add in sufficient anti oxidants will as far as I understand it, have a carcinogenic (more likely to cause/promote cancer) effect. Again, as above, I can't promote that.

Then: Meat once every 3-4 days
reason: PLEASE BEAR WITH ME I KNOW A LOT OF YOU ARE VEGETARIANS! (also please believe me that I ate very little meat for the whole of the year of the 50p a day challenge and I was a vegetarian from the ages of 13-22 myself-this is NOT about personal taste)

This is based on having been on MSE for 3 years now. I have believed throughout that time, (but with less evidence and less vehemance) in promoting something closer to subsistence for the average debt-ridden family.

During that time I have spoken here on line and read old threads involving hundreds of women (sorry it's mostly women, this isn't sexist, I've never read this from a poster I've known is male), and the conversation if you have it with them runs like this: We'll call her Shirley. We'll imagine the dialogue is with us:

Shirley: I'm at the end of my tether, we can't make ends meet, we're in all this debt already and we're just adding to it. I wish I could bring my grocery budget down :(:(

Us: (After essential hugs) Don't worry shirley! You can bring it down, here are some tips..... (insert all the usual)

Shirley (once reassured the children will still be healthy) Oh, I can't do what you do. My DH would never tolerate not having meat every day.

Us: really? he can't cope with any other meals? Would he cope with cauliflower cheese? Quiche? How about a nice hot curry or chilli, really tasty, but just no meat!?

Shirley: Well.... I guess if I talked it all through with him he might manage a few of those a week. We are in a huge financial mess after all. Just there's no way he'd go without it completely forever.

And that's how I arrived at the meat twice a week. I genuinely think that at below that amount we would lose a huge amount of families. More than if we put value eggs on the list rather than FR. Not of lots of you, I know, and not lots of people on old style.

But (please come back at this if you want to) out there in the real world, if you asked most people what in their food usage could they not do, I think they'd say 'get all the members of my family to never eat meat again' as a nation, before they'd say 'eat an egg laid by a battery chicken'.

This is not my personal view, please don't slate me. But I think it's how it is.

second thing to go: 7 of the 5 a day
reason: Yes, I know 5 a day is only a minimum. I know the science behind fruit and veg. But because I genuinely feel that 5 a day of variedish colours will give people enough of the essential nutrients, and because of the stronger reasons above (muscle wastage, cancer, inability to get whole family to agree...) I can't justify to myself being able to not place it as second to go.

First thing I genuinely think we must look at losing. Sorry, I know that for 95% of you this is not what you'd do/eat. I'm sorry. I know you'd rather never eat meat again than do this(if not a vegetarian already): Buy 30 non FR eggs per month.

NB these aren't as dippy eggs fried aggs. They are the way of getting any pudding for this family that isn't a biscuit. They are a protein building block. They are the way that Bob doesn't only have vegan chick pea curry every night but once in a while has a Delia quiche. I'm not giving them loads of eggs. I just can't see a diet they'll find palatable if we remove them completely. (Yes, I know there are countless lovely vegan meals, I've eaten them) but show me a nation full of Bob Joneses committed to eating that way for life when faced with a 120000 tax bill, to shift the debt, and I'll eat my hat!

NB, please read this before you click quote and let rip at me!

I hereby promise you all faithfully that if I am still around after we've done phase 1- Bob and Shirley Jones,

I will put together a resource for Hatty and Keith Barnacle (where Keith has decided he will go veggie in order to only ever eat FR eggs)

and then we'll help James and Kitty Davies who are already happy to be vegan but have to give every member of the family a FRESH piece of fruit each day.

And this is my solemn promise to you.:)

But I think I have to do it in this order because one of my ethical/moral beliefs is that we need to do the greatest good for the greatest number in the first instance.

Enough now Weezl.

Stands back and waits for the fireworks.....:o