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

weezl74

Further thoughts...

Lesley thanks for uploading yours and M's planner I've been having a lookie.

Is it your plan that we offer this one too, to achieve that goal that a lot of people suggested of 'what if Bob and Shirley don't want to go as far as 80p a day at first? Or were you more meaning to show our team, as ceridwen asked?

Either is fine I just didn't want to have missed an important addition to the project and then just plough on in my own sweet way :rotfl:

I can add more bacon to the pasta amatriciana you tested, as per your feedback, it would mean no bacon turnovers as a weekend brekkie/lunch treat... so I guess I'm balancing that out against Aless DH's feedback that he needs more substantial savouries in the day.

Would a few others be so kind as to test the pasta amatriciana and specifically comment about whether you'd need it to be more bacony to count or whether you'd want to see the inclusion of a more hefty savoury in the day on occasion instead.

I'm not sure if Potty can gather this type of feedback via surveys it seems a little specific, so I'll ask people to pop their answers on here if that's ok

And finally, many, many thanks to all for the lovely congratulations, on here, via pm and email. I am really touched that you care about me as a person as well as this mad little project.

Gratuitous post of my 2 loveliest recipe creations, baked as Orkney rightly pointed out, to precise and similar measures :cool::

lhd4

weezl74 wrote: »

:rotfl:hiya! welcome

Would you like to test some frugal recipes?

xxx

Good morning, congratulations on your new arrival! Your posted pic is adorable:)
I would love to try some frugal recipes, are there any that need testing specifically or should i just pick one and try?

Leanne

weezl74

thanks

if you go to post number 2 of this enormous thread, theres a link to click to the recipes to test, it would be fab if you could test the pasta amatriciana, we're not sure if it needs more bacon! How many are you cooking for, the recipe feeds 4...

thanks for joining in :A

ariarnia

I don't know how you'd count up the portion sizes, and with something like marmalade I'd be concerned that Shirley (or i'd) mess up the sterilisation and waste the whole lot, but I'm fine with the idea of counting up the number of portions at the start of the week or month and averaging them out. If you're aiming for 6 a day anyway (i.e. roughly 480g a day per person) I figure that's a noticeable amount in the diet. I think the idea about the marmalade not being suited is that:

1. As said, it's cooked in sugar and therefore hard to consider 'good for you' - kind of like being told that you have to include fat, because fat's bad isn't it? If it's explained that the total diet contains too little sugar that sugar (as in calories) is needed for health, then it can also be explained that the diet requires the oranges over time for vit c or whatever. It's home made and therefore not the nasty that the normal supermarket stuff is.

2. devils advocate - It's such a small amount anyway, that even though you say the sugar isn't bad for you, there can't be that much good in it anyway can there? I mean, how much good is there is a tea spoon of sugary orange anyway?

Again, personally I see no problem with having an orange and a half (6/4) per person over the month (that's 0.05 of an orange per day in a 30 day month that's 3.5mg of vit c per portion, around 7% with a rda of 45mg)

weezl74

thanks ariarnia, good thoughts

I think I picked up that you are in your new kitchen now?

If so, welcome to Wales

If you heard some pretty fierce noises in the night on wednesday/thursday then we're probably neighbours (ah the joys of homebirths! I'll take my neighbours a cake soon to apologise:rotfl:)

aless02

hiya weezl, just going to finish reading, but wanted to respond to you & everyone else - I tried to qualify in my post last night saying we were following a "ROUGH" B&S planner. It's also based off an early version that was far less refined, so hence prolly why I've run out of onions . So I hope no one interpreted that as a proper test of the planner nor implication that it was "ready". I did this under my own volition more to test ourselves than anything else (and to get our grocery bill down during a rather desperate month!). So please take feedback with a small grain of salt, as I haven't been religiously following anything - as in, counting out pieces of bread, rationing cake slices, etc.

(also don't take what I say as speaking for the majority, PLEASE!! I just post our opinions, which may be totally off base from the rest of Britain. I'd feel terrible if you got discouraged b/c I said I think fruit in cakes doesn't count as a serving...:o)

eta: and now that I've read...yes I take your point about the marmalade being averaged out over the whole month...I confess I hadn't thought of it like that! That's why weezl is running the project and not me :rotfl:

and just wondering if me/DH are the norm in wanting more savory snacks...it's likely a matter of what you're used to. I like nuts and rice cakes and cheese, so while the cakes are delicious, I do miss my saltiness. I had been snacking on remnants of fish pate & hummus that didn't make it into sandwiches, but now that's run out (need to make more hummus...). I will make peanut butter today, darn it! Was also thinking of swiping some flour to make pitas - would be yummy with the hummus and some grated carrot!

Oh I'm going to need to bake bread soon...what did you have in mind for adding oats to the BBC recipe?

ceridwen

aless02 wrote: »

and just wondering if me/DH are the norm in wanting more savory snacks...it's likely a matter of what you're used to. I like nuts and rice cakes and cheese, so while the cakes are delicious, I do miss my saltiness. I had been snacking on remnants of fish pate & hummus that didn't make it into sandwiches, but now that's run out (need to make more hummus...). I will make peanut butter today, darn it! Was also thinking of swiping some flour to make pitas - would be yummy with the hummus and some grated carrot!

Not sure what the norm would be in Britain myself - but I feel a lot of people would like more savoury snacks - things like hummus/pate/nuts/oatcakes/etc.

I know I would personally be glad of some snack recipes - without sugar in. Personally - I want every single calory to count (ie to give me summat good - vitamins/minerals/some other nutrients) - hence another reason for sugar being largely missing from my diet (as it has absolutely nothing whatsoever to contribute - its just empty calories - and I personally feel that any calories I have must "justify their existence" in terms of goodness).

A lot of my own snacking is fresh fruit (obviously) - but for summat more filling I tend to resort a lot to bread and porridge - so summat quick/easy and if it includes Readybreak then easy for me to swop that to porridge oats instead would be good (I find it easy to swop sugar to honey, white to wholemeal, vegetable oil to olive oil, buttery spread to butter or home-made buttery spread - but wouldnt feel quite so sure whether Readybrek would translate so readily into porridge oats).

NB; have now made the buttery spread. Not tried it yet. Got two versions in my fridge - one made with full-fat milk and the other made with my "standard" mix of 2:1 full-fat milk and water. I used my liquidiser to make it - visions of mixture splattered all over my kitchen if I had used my mixer...

weezl74

aless02 wrote: »

hiya weezl, just going to finish reading, but wanted to respond to you & everyone else - I tried to qualify in my post last night saying we were following a "ROUGH" B&S planner.
Oh I'm going to need to bake bread soon...what did you have in mind for adding oats to the BBC recipe?

yep, you were definitely clear it was rough, I think I just got a bit panicked that real life shirleys might begin and get a bit annoyed with me :rotfl: put it down to day 4 hormones Aless

Well ideally if you could add in the oaty cereal in the same quantities as I've put in the no-kneed bread on arty's list... Ah but you might have to do a bit of maths there, cos yours is a 3 loaf batch with a kilo of flour and mine is a 4 loaf batch with 2.5 kilos flour.... scratches head...

I'll get back to you on that!

Lesley_Gaye

weezl74 wrote: »

PS Lesley can we do a bit of an online chat at some point, I know you've been working hard and I don't want to repeat anything/ do anything you already have covered

Hiya Weezl, missed ya.

I have been tootling around with the spreadsheet quite happily. Have put in what I think is right for the mustard, but couldn't make much headway on the carrot cake/cereal bars and appley things as I couldn't pin down the definitive recipes. The ones in post #2854 are pointing to recipes that have milk powder for instance, which we don't have any more. I didn't want to mess up anything that you had done, so I left well alone.

Happy to have an online chat. Are you thinking Wed?

I didn't want to pester you so soon after Kester's arrival, so have kept all the detailed questions for later.

Do you think the Workspace might be useful? I thought maybe we could keep the working docs there eg Ceridwens list of basic equipment, the meal planner(s), nutritional stuff etc

I uploaded my meal planner as some wanted a lookie. I am quite happy with whatever use people may make of it, use it as is (when done, more to do on it yet), as a base, or just to see what I am doing

I am finding the process revealing, the bacon turnovers for instance, which I thought would be v. cheap, are actually one of the more expensive meals once I had added veg. Worked out that the bacon I used was 10p a gram - eek

weezl74

from Aless and ceridwen then I wonder whether we have a level 4 planner to build after 1-3 have rolled out, where the non-negotiable is about more savoury and less energy being delivered through sugars.

I personally agree with you guys, and would probably not want to eat the cakes, but that'd be ok cos I'd be at the lower calorie need in the bob and shirley planner, so I'd be getting mine from my porridge, sarnie and delia tart with veg, so that'd do me, calorie-wise, because I'm only 5ft 5 and a half

there'll be Bobs though (and perhaps Aless' DH is one of these) who will have other non-negotiables... Aless, I reckon your DH might be happier on planner 3 y'know, cos he could have his daily bit of fresh fruit at lunchtime. (just thinking out loud here really....)

Thanks guys, all very interesting stuff. Keep these good thoughts coming

Can I just ask, I notice we have 7 collaborators in the team who are looking at the 'windows live' environment. Is that because other folk who post regularly on here:
A) still see themselves as recipe testing but don't want to get bogged down in too much of the detail of the project
would actually very much like to but aren't sure if they should wait for an invitation/can't get their heads around the technology/didn't even know lesley had set one up etc etc...

I'm just hoping we haven't missed any collaboration hopefuls