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

weezl74

Sian_the_Green wrote: »

Yup, I am a fox

All the single men of Sheffield are now heading over to mine...

I told them all to eat copious quantities of mashed up baked bean with garlic and then trump away like old dogs in your living room all night

That was what you wanted me to do wasn't it siany?

Kiss kiss

HowlinWolf

aless02 wrote: »

weezl, that's fine! You can use my real or my alias, I'm not bothered . I've also made the PM bread with 50/50 wholemeal/white flours and with only white and it's been fine both ways. Never tried with 100% wholemeal but Shirley wouldn't be using that on this plan anyways (ooo I think I have rye flour lurking in the cupboard next time and will try that, yummmmm! Thanks HW )

Aless if using Rye I'd suggest doing between 50 to 100g rye and the rest either white or a combo of white and wholemeal. It will probably be no use as toast but will be lovely either buttered with cheese or soup. I like the flavour it gives and it has the benefit (I think) of being extra good for you. I'd love to know how you get on with it and I think I'll try your 50/50 version, I love wholemeal bread.

On a seperate note I have just made Shirl's stuffing (or rather I've made my stuffing but on looking back Shirl's recipe is pretty much the same. 1 onion diced and cooked in butter(y spread), the last quarter of a paul merrit boule from earlier in the week, a palmful of sage and a palmful of thyme and the juice and rind of one very dry and wizened lemon (which I don't usually add but remembered this had been suggested for shirley). Usually I cook the lot and what we don't eat with the roast I have in a sandwich so instead I have split it in two and put it in two of those tin takeaway type trays. One I will freeze (uncooked) for another day and the other I will cook tomorrow when we have roast chook.

lorietta

shanks77 wrote: »

Lorietta more directed at you as you seem less confident/experienced in your cooking abilities. If storage was not a problem does the thought of a batch day of cooking leave you wanting to run for the hills or do you think "well thats it out of the way for a week/fornight/month" or are you quite up for the challenge.
Or would you prefer to do things on a day to day basis (still following a plan) building up your confidence with each new meal knowing that if things go pear shaped you could come and ask for help?

I'm not sure about the batch cooking, it wouldn't daunt me as such, and if it fitted in with my lifestyle I'd probably bake all the bread on a satuday or something like that. I don't think I could cope with batch cooking if it involved having to cook 2 or more dishes at the same time, but maybe if it was something like savoury and a cake. I think as my confidence progressed it would help.

I made the bacon pasta bake thing (sorry forgot it's fancy name) today- cheated a little cos I got my mum to fry the bacon- having 3 saucpans on the go at once intimidated me:o. It is just about ready so I will post results after it's eaten. My mum thought the recipe sounded nice and she is up for me doing the chicken and onion pie tomorrow or later on in the week- and anything else I want to cook:p cos it saves her having to do it.

Anyway, I can now make a roux! It was a lot thicker than I imagined it before I added any liquid. Maybe photos of stuff like that would be useful for Shirely, because she won't have an experienced cook to ask "Hey does this look right?".

HowlinWolf

Stuffing

This works best if you have a food processor or one of those hand held blender thingies.

Peel an onion - easiest if you chop both ends off and then slice it in half from bottom to top. Throw the halves in the processor and whizz until it's diced. Alternatively you can dice by hand. Take the top off the onion (leave the root on), slice in half from root to tip. Peel. put the flat side of the onion down on the chopping board. Make lots of cuts from the root toward the front of the onion but don't cut through the root. Now put your non-knife hand flat on top of the onion and slice through the middle (horizontally) toward the root. Now slice the onion from side to side as if you were going to cut rings from it. You should now have diced onion.

Melt buttery spread in a pan, keep a close eye on it as you don't want it to burn. when the butter is melted put the onion in, make sure the pan is on a low heat and cook for 5 minutes until the onion is translucent.

Meanwhile shove your stale (hard is fine but green is not) bread into the food processor and whizz until you have crumbs. If you have no food processor cutting the bread up into smallish pieces and then rubbing between your fingers gently should work.

Add a palmful of dried sage and a palmful of dried thyme to the bread or use herbs and quantities of your choice. Use a veg peeler to take a little of the skin off a lemon, do this gently as you only want the yellow bit of the rind and not the white pith as this is very bitter. Chop the rind up with a knife and whizz quickly in the food processor. If you have a citrus zester use this instead or use the fine side of a grater.

Squeeze the juice of the lemon into the bread. Add in the butter and onion mix and whizz together. You should get a mixture which is damp to the touch and will jsut about hold together if pressed. If your mixture is a bit too dry then add some more melted butter.

Press the mixture into the bottom of an oven proof dish or tinfoil tray. The lid of a pyrex casserole dish will also work for this. At this point you can freeze the mixture if you wish. Defrost thoroughly before cooking.

Dot a few little bits of butter on the top of the stuffing before putting in the oven.

Put in the oven at 180c (conventional) or with your roasting bird until bits of the top are going golden and crispy.


COMMENTS AND SUGGESTIONS WELCOMED

HowlinWolf

lorietta wrote: »

I made the bacon pasta bake thing (sorry forgot it's fancy name) today- cheated a little cos I got my mum to fry the bacon- having 3 saucpans on the go at once intimidated me:o. It is just about ready so I will post results after it's eaten. My mum thought the recipe sounded nice and she is up for me doing the chicken and onion pie tomorrow or later on in the week- and anything else I want to cook:p cos it saves her having to do it.

Anyway, I can now make a roux! It was a lot thicker than I imagined it before I added any liquid. Maybe photos of stuff like that would be useful for Shirely, because she won't have an experienced cook to ask "Hey does this look right?".

Lorietta, this is the how to make a roux/white sauce tip that we are working on for Shirley. It is still very much a work in progress but do you think it would have helped you to make your first roux if you had had this? Can you think of anything else you would have needed to know or anything that we could add to help Shirley to make the sauce?

White sauce

A white sauce can be used for lots of things from a sauce for pasta, in a lasagne or moussaka, or in a meat, fish or veggie pie. You can also use it as a sauce for meat/fish/veggies if you add appropriate flavourings or for a fricasse (a white stew).

You can make a white sauce of any quantity. All you need are equal amounts of flour and a fat (e.g butter, hard margarine or a spread that is suitable for cooking) and a hot liquid (stock or milk for preference).

Put the fat in a pan and melt over a gentle heat, a higher heat will cause it to brown and will affect the taste.

When the fat is melted add in the flour. Stir. The flour will become incorporated into the fat, cook gently for a minute or two until you have a slightly sandy looking mixture with little craters in it (or honeycomb if you don't like the idea of craters in your food).

Add a good slosh of your hot liquid into the pan, stir. When all the liquid is incorporated into the fat and flour add another slosh. Repeat until you have a sauce of the desired consistency.

(If you want to be a little bit cheffy take the pan of the heat after each slosh of liquid is incorporated and give it a good beating with your spoon for a few seconds. This works the gluten in the flour and will add a lovely glossy finish to your sauce.)

When your sauce is the consistency that you want you can add flavourings if you wish such as mustard, grated cheese, herbs or onion, the possibilities are (almost) endless.

artybear

Hello:wave:

My you have all been productive today!:j

Iv been to work-very tired but had such a nice lunch hour walking in the sun around the Farmer's Market its kept me cheery all day.:T

Not got much to add at the mo but just thought I'd say I'll be hanging round here for the night so if you need any indexing just shout.

artybearxxxx

FrankieM

Does anyone know if we've done the calories for the Baked Bean Curry?

weezl74

Hi Lesley,

I don't know if you'll have chance to read before you go out but I've opened the wrong spreadsheet I think, I've made loads of changes but I've just spotted this one doesn't have the batches of all the pates and spreads etc behaving properly, I opened '22 March meal planner (1)'. Erm, I'm not sure what to do now I'm sorry I thought that was the right one.

weezl74

FrankieM wrote: »

Does anyone know if we've done the calories for the Baked Bean Curry?

I just did a search this thread for all posts made by Aless and I think not...

Oh unless IOIWE did it... hang on...

edit, nope sorry

lorietta

Well, we all liked the pasta =]. I don't know how much bacon and cheese we used, probably a little too much. I made it without mustard, because my dad won't eat it, and with stock, because that's what it said on the origional recipe. My parents both said they would hapily eat it again. I will fill in the survey in a minute.

HowlinWolf
I think that is a very good guide =]. I put the fat and flour in together and stirred until it was all mixed, not that it makes any difference. I would describe the final consistency as a "paste" because I think this gives you a good idea of what you are aming for?

I would also say that my Mum's tip to get it nice and smooth was to only add little amounts of liquid at first then you can add bigger amounts of liquid when it is more liquidy (if that makes any sense at all?). I get what you mean about the liquid getting incorperated, maybe if you say "when no more is visible in the bottom of the pan" for clarity? I was a bit thick about this and kept stiring for ages after all the liquid had disappeared- it would have taken me ages to add in all the liquid if my Mum hadn't corrected me.

I remeber making white sauce at school when I was bout 12, and it came out all lumpy =[ So I am really pleased this time it came out nice =]. If I hadn't had someone standing next to me who can cook properly I think that guide would be really useful.

I have had a thought about batch cooking- It might make life a lot easier for Shirely if she does stuff like cooks all her bacon at the start of the week (if it will keep) as my main issue with this was "ahh I have 3 pans on the go! Help!"