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

FrankieM

weezl Just to reassure you my children have either cereal or toast for breakfast. I pretty much always have either muesli or weetabix. Lunch are always ham sandwiches sometimes with some salad.
So no real variety here!

ceridwen

'Morning all:D

Hoping to have time to try the onion tart this weekend and write down other recipes that appeal (thanks for yours Lesley).

Yep..breakfast and lunches also necessary obviously. I think probably most people only have a few different things that they rotate for breakfast (not a lot of time at that point in the day and the "late birds" amongst us still half asleep).
Lunches - hmmm....probably not THAT much variation in them by a lot of people. I guess the amount people vary that meal by depends to a large extent on whether they eat lunch at home or take a packed lunch to work. In the event of it being a packed lunch - then there's going to be less variation I imagine - just because of the morning rush to get it ready and/or lack of cooking facilities at work. For me personally - maybe my ideal would be 10 variations for packed lunch and 20 for lunches generally IYSWIM. Thats me - others might be different on that.

Well - I've had my wooden spoon out for the morning - stirring my porridge and inviting over Shirley Goode (well-known cookery writer from a couple of decades ago and who positively loves a challenge of this nature) - so hoping she might visit at some point (though I know she's not that well these days...). Fingers crossed...

nopot2pin

wyrdsister wrote: »

Potty If you can handle all the complicated sounding survey stuff i'd be more than prepared to go answer it

I have my frugalised chickpea curry on the go at the moment, will report back later if it's nice

:j:j:j:j

weezl74 wrote: »

Weezl74 and acetate monkey will

:j:j:j:j


Ok smashing...
I will check out how to go about this over the weekend...
I have just done a week of nightshifts, with a rather frugal sleep pattern for some reason ...
Probably to much of :think: :rotfl:

Boomdocker

Lesley_Gaye wrote: »

Here you go Ceridwen. It's been quite a while since I cooked this, but from my notes, I think this is about right. OH and I were veggie for about 15 years or so, so I have lots of veggie recipes that I still use, and we both still like to eat veggie about half the time even tho we are now lapsed

Gram Flour and Spicy Veg Tart

Ingredients
For the pastry:
100g gram flour
pinch of salt
50g butter or spread

1 onion
100g button mushrooms
1 med courgette
2 med eggs
2 tsps Tandoori masala mix
25g Fontina cheese, or similar
Approx 2 tblsp thick yogort

Mix the gram flour, baking powder and salt. Rub the fat into the flour mix. Add tiny bits of water at a time until you have a mix that will bind together. This pastry is almost impossible to roll out, although you might be able to do it between sheets of greased greaseproof paper or cling film. What I did was to basically squash it into a well greased tart tin until it was the right thickness, same as a pound coin. When I made this I used 4 metal individual quiche tins about 4inches across which might make it easier to do.

Saute the onion in a little oil until transparent, remove from the pan. Saute the mushrooms until caramelised and mix with the onion. Chop the courgette and add to the veg mix.

Now stir in a couple of tblsps of thick creamy yogurt and about 25g Fontina. You are aiming for a mix that is coated with yogurt and cheese but not too runny and not too cheesy. Now add 2 lightly beaten eggs and a little salt and lots of fresh ground pepper. Finally stir in the Tandoori spice mix. Divide between the tart tins.

Bake in a medium oven for 20 minutes until puffed and golden.

You can vary the veg to whatever you have of course, I made it in the summer so courgette was in the garden. I particularly like Tandoori masala mix, but any spice mix you fancy could be used, the ubiquitous garam masala would also work.

Let me know what you think and if you try it

This looks good to me as my flatmate has a wheat intolerance so we can try this one in the future. I guess that is a basic pastry base that I could use elsewhere? Thanks

nopot2pin

ceridwen wrote: »

I was wondering whether we might have some sorta mini-Forum of our own (similar to the Nonnymouse Forum or summat - that originated in MSE). With that - we could have a thread for each specific recipe and a general thread for comments on the thing as a whole. I'll just toss that thought into the pot for consideration

(errr....and theres the fact that we would be totally free of any & all restrictions being "off-grid" - ie off MSE;):)).

I am not familiar with Nonnymouse, but I do like the concept of it for this instance.

Avocet wrote: »

Have you allowed a % figure for waste in preparation when calculating the quantity of fruit/veg to buy? If it is easier to PM me, please do so.

:rotfl::rotfl::rotfl::rotfl::rotfl:

I am laughing, because this reminded me, when I was a teenager, and we all (4 of us) had to take it in turn to peel the spuds.
My little sister was rubbish at it
No matter how much tuition she had, she was pants at peeling
Subsequentlly there wasn't as much on your plate, the nights it was her turn to peel the spuds
My dad used to weigh her peelings against the actual spuds :eek::eek::eek:
Gradually, over time, the spuds did outweigh the peelings :cool:

ceridwen

Penelope_Penguin wrote: »

Not everyone has this. As ceridwen said, some people will need the term "zesting" explaining to them. IMHO, some people will need terms like simmer, brown, grate, cook, explaining. They seem obvious to most of us, but imagine that you've never cooked before .............. Or, ask someone who has a hobby/interet/job, about which you know zilch, to tell you about it - it may well make no sense

But no need for despair on that front though....:) - if I can manage to teach myself to cook then I think that means there is a reasonable chance that a lot of others can learn too:)

Believe me - when I started up I dont think I'd made as much as beans on toast for myself. Shall we just call it a "steep learning curve" that took place then?;):rotfl::rotfl:

homegrown_life

weezl74 wrote: »

Any other uses for marrowfat peas?

You could make pease pudding? There's a recipe on this page. It's a document on scribd .com (which I've no idea about), but if you search the text for 'pease' it brings it up. Apart from the herbs and sesame seeds you'd have everything. I think normally you'd use ham when making pease pudding, I know my mum is hankering after it again as she's from the North East where it's from and I've been after trying to make it, but really I've no idea what it's even supposed to taste like!!

weezl74

Hi all, another question:

Trying to keep it as workable as possible, even though Bob and Shirley will have explained the predicament to the kids, I'm just wondering how we have some braeburn apples in the house and they don't just pick one up and snack on it?:D

Does Shirley need to do all the apple-based cooking on day one to prevent this?

TIA for any thoughts

homegrown_life

She could I suppose, but what I would suggest is making sure she keeps the ones destined to be cooked with seperate and explain. If it's teenagers then hopefully they'll understand. I think if all the apples are bought at the beginning of the month then they need to be rationed out, i.e. only enough for a week in the fruitbowl at a time and explained that there is to be no more than one a day for each person (or whatever is right). I could explain that to my 8 and 9 year old and I'm pretty sure they'd comply.

HTH

weezl74

homegrown_life wrote: »

She could I suppose, but what I would suggest is making sure she keeps the ones destined to be cooked with seperate and explain. If it's teenagers then hopefully they'll understand. I think if all the apples are bought at the beginning of the month then they need to be rationed out, i.e. only enough for a week in the fruitbowl at a time and explained that there is to be no more than one a day for each person (or whatever is right). I could explain that to my 8 and 9 year old and I'm pretty sure they'd comply.

HTH

it does help very much:D. Sadly none of them are not just for cooking in the Bob and Shirley plan When we get to James and Kitty Davies there's fruit which can be eaten fresh though :T:T:T:T She'll have to explain that the fruit isn't for any snacks I guess?

xxx