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

Lesley_Gaye

was looking through a couple of recipe books last night and saw a recipe by Tamasin Day Lewis that involved just a whole cabbage of about a kilo and 750g sausages, slow cooked. She was raving about it and saying how wonderful it was.

If we used Asda SP sausages £1.06Kg and a white cabbage at 50p for a Kg that would be 80p for the sausage and 50p for the cabbage, total of £1.30 or 32p a portion

worth a go?

In_Search_Of_Me

morning...trying to keep up with you all! Avocet thank you on my behalf for helping with the geeky bits...while knowing that weezl wont forget cos she has a bump am concious that our weezl is about to have baby no 2 in amongst all the excitement of trying to be a revolutionary!

Re the peanut butter can pepys have an alternative for those of us who are allergic? As someone else said you wont please all the people all the time no matter how hard you try but would be nice to have peanut alternative as a fair few are allergic...

FrankieM

I forgot to mention that we tend to have bacon & egg sandwiches on a Saturday for breakfast and Sunday we have our main meal at lunch time and our pudding for tea. Not sure what difference that makes to your plan, but felt the need to share!! lol

Interestingly, I was chatting to my DH this morning about veggie meals and he was saying that his biggest problem is that he feels that he still feels hungry. We couldn't decide if that was psycological or not, also 'all in' meals have the same effect...though he did say that when he eats a bag of chips he doesn't feel the need for meat. I asked if I should just serve every veggie meals with chips?

poohbear59

I used to put foods needed in my meal plan in a carrier bag in the fridge but 'someone' ate some of it. Sausages that were in the fridge defrosting for a main meal were eaten for lunch in sandwiches. Since then I have post it notes or things written on with a marker pen, just like when I was a student and shared facilities.

It seems to be rubbing off because DS2 came into the living room yesterday and asked if he was allowed to eat some baked beans or did I have them in my plan.

We have 24 tins in the cupboard!!

As an HE teacher who had to teach Food Tech I always taught bread making, soup making, mainly savoury meal type cooking. All Food Tech teachers should be teaching all the basics first.

I often had letters complaining that I was making things too expensive for parents because the had to buy flour etc. which they didn't have in the house and it would just be wasted!!

When I planned to teach the younger ones how to make a stir fry: really cheap and easy to do. I had two parents send in ready chopped stir fry vegetables.

And when we had a pizza making lesson same parents sent in a ready made pizza base and a jar of topping!! We were making a bread base and our own topping using chopped tomatoes. I think it stuck in my mind because the parents were friends of mine:)

Sorry I hope that is not off topic.

aless02

weezl - just a thought that (eventually! I know you're busy) you should have a list of basic supplies this family will need in their kitchen. For instance, I doubt most "normal" families have 4 loaf tins to hand (I don't! which is why I've yet to try your bread recipe) and therefore will need to invest in some.

Immediately coming to mind are:
- slow cooker
- 4 bread tins
- pie/casserole dish
- blender/food processor

And then possibly a rough tip of where to cheapest buy these items? HTH.

and woe betide the non-Brit who doesn't like beans on toast! And I was SO looking forward to trying your challenge

FrankieM

ok, has any one heard the song by ( I think) Simply Red...I love the thought of coming home to you....?

DH, in his office, 'I love the thought of coming home to you.....even if I have to eat vegetarian...'

Perhaps old dogs can learn new tricks!

Penelope_Penguin

aless02 wrote: »

Immediately coming to mind are:
- slow cooker
- 4 bread tins
- pie/casserole dish
- blender/food processor

Unless you can get a SC from Freecycle, I really think that a big casserole dish is more flexible Lots of people think that they must have a SC (someone new on OS this week described their lack of one as a "crime" ) but plenty of us manage perfectly well without

aless02

PP, you're right of course. Iwas thinking weezl does her chickpeas and lentils in the SC, but I suppose one could easily do without it if stripped down to bare essentials. I haven't looked at the recipes closely - perhaps a large soup/stock pot should be added to the list? I'm trying to think of things that maybe 50% of families might not have even if they do cook regularly - so not things like knives and graters, but more specific like the darned loaf tins!

phizzimum

well we had a go at Borscht - we home educate the girls so we made it a learning opportunity: adapting a recipe, weighing ingredients - also ties in with a project they've recently completed on Russia!

one medium onion - 150g - diced
one medium potato - 200g - diced
red pickled cabbage, with some vinegar from jar - 200g
beetroot, chopped - 250g
half tin tomatoes, chopped - 200g
500ml stock made up according to packet
knob of margarine

in a large saucepan we sweated the onion and potato for about 5 minutes in the melted margarine.

we added all remaining ingredients and brought to boil, then reduced to simmer for about 35 minutes.

we gave the soup a mash with the potato masher as some of the beetroot pieces were a bit large, but this could be avoided if I'd chopped them properly in the first place

weezl74

Hi all, interesting morning of thread for me to catch up on

Frugaldom: It's quite difficult to define minimum UK subsistence isn't it, I've got my own personal definition, but others see it differently.

If we offered people the American 1960's subsistence plan it would cost £1.02 a day compared to our 80p.

But Lesley's porridge toast and baked beans UK subsistence plan can be done for under 50p. I think, but Lesley may have to help with portion sizes for that maths.

Lesley did say it would be very hard to get people to comply with that everyday for life, so I guess the 80p is somewhere in the middle, and unlike porridge, toast and baked beans, our plan wouldn't need a synthetic vitamin supplement, so folk may prefer it for that reason.

The main reason for going above the 50p a day of my original challenge, was as I said earlier, but not very well. It didn't achieve 'buy in' by anyone else as far as I know. People were very supportive and interested, but it didn't work for them for all manner of reasons. I guess this is a way of me trying to offer something that people in extreme need might feel able to do.

I hope that makes more sense?

Weezl x