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

Frugaldom

Ceridwen, I'm not the world's best cook and not the best for following recipes but my idea of the onion tart is that it's similar to quiche - pastry case with beaten eggs and chopped whatever is needing used up at the time. If I'm adding cheese, it's a sprinkling of grated on the base before the egg goes into the pastry case.

I hardly ever rest the pastry, I just roll it out, drape it over and then pour the mix straight into it. So, no saute-ing (sp?) no pastry resting and no blind baking = oven can go on to preheat from starting recipe to popping the flans / tarts / quiche into the oven. I can fit 4 in so I bake 4 then freeze 3 to save on time and electricity. If I slice and freeze, it means these do as individual portions when DS wants to take some for lunch.

Sorry, still trying to get to grips with the mythical family - do they have a freezer and a standard size of oven? I'd need to do something like potato wedges to make the onion tart into a meal for my gannets, otherwise they'd treat it like a lunchtime snack meal.

System

In an astonishing quirk of coincidence, I spent ages this morning looking up beansprouts, to see if mung beans might be an interesting and cost-effective addition to the shopping list, and right now (as I write this) Countryfile on BBC1 is showing an article about the very same thing (albeit on a larger scale). I was going to post in a week or two after carrying out a small horticultural/financial experiment, but thought I'd better do it this evening instead, in case anyone wants to catch the programme on iPlayer.

Anyhow, I buy 500g Mung Beans at Ocado for £1.18. This 500g would yield (applying the ratio used by the commercial grower on television) 8 kg or more of sprouts! Obviously, nobody would want to eat so many sprouts in a single month. But a 500g bag of mung beans would give:
-- one mung dhal (250g) to serve with rice, naan and sambals as a meal in its own right
-- five weeks worth of sprouts for stir-fry or salad: 50g beans per week would yield (apparently) 800g of fresh, crunchy sprouts each week under commercial conditions

I must admit that I am surprised at the growth ratio. I have grown lots of sprouts, and you certainly get a good packed jarful out of a tablespoon or two of seeds. But I have never weighed the before and after weights. I doubt that the commercial rate could be matched under non-ideal conditions at home. Even so, suppose you got 500g of sprouts from 50g of pulses, at a cost of less than 12p per batch, might that be something worth considering for inclusion in the plan?

Alison_Funnell

OK here's mine.

Have made with Grana Padano - cost very similar to that of mature cheddar. I made it 65p for the cheese. Using 50% of the weight of cheese to account for increase in flavour - also to cut the sat fat a bit.

Added a sprinkle of dried thyme - to my mind it seemed to be crying out for it - cost nil dried from the garden last year.

Also I used premade mustard not dried and didn't need any water in my pastry :eek:. Instead of rolling it I formed it into the dish by hand then chilled - seemed to work ok.

And the filling - I needed less filling that 750g and added the season to the cooking onions as the salt helps to draw out the moisture better. Also used 50% VEG OIL/BUTTERY.

Also managed with one eggs worth of filling. Which brings me to the next questtion what sized tart dish did every one use?

ceridwen

I used a 9" flan tin.

Dinner is - finally - served....

End result - too little pastry - and I have leftover onions (duly being kept for summat else).

The quiche itself - well...bar slightly too small an amount of pastry and that came out a bit duff. Looks good/smells good/tastes good. Puffed up nicely, browned nicely. Right amount of cheese.

Eating it right now with spicy potato wedges and steamed carrots (would be baked potato and salad by preference).

Overall - well I'd certainly eat it again - but only if I wasnt the one making it.....defo too high a Faff Factor for me to do it again (bar any changes to a quicker/easier base - like that quick flat bread perhaps).

crystals2632

but running out of chocolate. seriously.
in cupboard
syrup
open flour white and brown dated 2004
cocco
butter
eggs
little bit of sugar
coco pops
can I use the 2004 flour for cakes. looking for weevils but cant see any, the thought of using it though.
what can I make from this lot I'm going to chuck the flour?

HowlinWolf

Lesley & canidothis, the weetabix cake works well with about 125grams of sugar, the full amount is way too sweet for my taste. In fact you could probably cut back to 100g with no trouble. I use mixed fruit instead of sultanas and I like it with a tiny sprinkle of demerara sugar on just before baking for a bit of added texture.

HowlinWolf

Sweetcorn fritter feedback

Okay, I make the sweetcorn fritters for ds's tea.

Thoughts:

really easy to make and easy to cook
Taste - I thought they were very bland (even with a bit more garam masala than specified) but they were okay with mango chutney and I don't really like sweetcorn so in that sense they did well
My marks out of ten - 4
Would I eat them again - if there was absolutely nothing else in the house except sweetcorn then yes. But, I think they would be better as an accompaniment to something else as they are just too dull to eat on their own. Sorry Weezl

DS's response (bear in mind he is 3)
he wolfed the first one down with mayo, ketchup and mango chutney as dips and asked for a second, yay thought I!
Halfway through the second he pushed the plate away and said he didn't like it. He had to be cajoled to finish the second and wouldn't eat a third (they were tablespoon size). Unlike me ds loves sweetcorn so that wasn't really a good sign.
So based on close observation I shall give ds's score as 4 out of ten.

Alison_Funnell

Fivenations wrote: »

Regarding cheese, I buy Grana Padano instead of Parmigiano Reggoano for cooking.

Grana is the generic name for this type of hard cheese and a good Grana can be better than a mediocre parmesan. Costco sell a very good one it for about £9 a kilo which can ame cheap ingredients taste like luxury, though probably not for this plan. I'm lactose intollerant but can eat this with no problem so that's my excuse!!!

I so agree. I've been doing this for a while. Fantastic cheese to use.

grandma247

I don't rest shortcrust pastry at all unless I am doing batch cooking and need to do something else first. also when I did domestic science, many years ago, we were only allowed to use a round ended knife to stir the pastry and water together. We were told if we used anything else in the GCE exam we would loose marks. I have no idea why but I still use a knife.
Sunday roast today as had ddil here and sent ds back with her when she went home as he works sunday nights and has his in the night.
I have done the onions for the tart tomorrow.

weezl74

Avocet wrote: »

In an astonishing quirk of coincidence, I spent ages this morning looking up beansprouts, to see if mung beans might be an interesting and cost-effective addition to the shopping list, and right now (as I write this) Countryfile on BBC1 is showing an article about the very same thing (albeit on a larger scale). I was going to post in a week or two after carrying out a small horticultural/financial experiment, but thought I'd better do it this evening instead, in case anyone wants to catch the programme on iPlayer.

Anyhow, I buy 500g Mung Beans at Ocado for £1.18. This 500g would yield (applying the ratio used by the commercial grower on television) 8 kg or more of sprouts! Obviously, nobody would want to eat so many sprouts in a single month. But a 500g bag of mung beans would give:
-- one mung dhal (250g) to serve with rice, naan and sambals as a meal in its own right
-- five weeks worth of sprouts for stir-fry or salad: 50g beans per week would yield (apparently) 800g of fresh, crunchy sprouts each week under commercial conditions

I must admit that I am surprised at the growth ratio. I have grown lots of sprouts, and you certainly get a good packed jarful out of a tablespoon or two of seeds. But I have never weighed the before and after weights. I doubt that the commercial rate could be matched under non-ideal conditions at home. Even so, suppose you got 500g of sprouts from 50g of pulses, at a cost of less than 12p per batch, might that be something worth considering for inclusion in the plan?

Brilliant! I think this is useful in all the planners. I especially think that the vegan version (cooo-eeee, twinkle_star!:)), which has room for fresh veg (hopefully!) will give us more ingredients to put with the bean sprouts. Good thinking avocet. I will look for that on iplayer

Frugaldom wrote: »

Sorry, still trying to get to grips with the mythical family - do they have a freezer and a standard size of oven? I'd need to do something like potato wedges to make the onion tart into a meal for my gannets, otherwise they'd treat it like a lunchtime snack meal.

Hello! I'm amazed you've been able to catch up with our mad challenge:) I know the frugal living challenge is full of energy and va va voom and very popular, so hello and welcome, and hats off to you for having the mental energy to think about this thread too

The delia tart should say, 'with wedges and veg' on the meal planner, I'll amend that- apologies all

I think we've decided to imagine that Bob and shirley have a freezer and pretty standard equipment. It opens up too many parameters of things I can't address if not. The general consensus was to keep it simple at first until we actually have something useful, and then add in extras. Of which equipment would be a very interesting and useful addition I feel

Example: most recipes I know of, use the phrase 'roll out the pastry'. And then proceed to the next step. I'm all for making it as helpfully worded as possible, but I don't think I can say, 'and if you've no rolling pin, try your local freecycle!' or somesuch. Not because it's not really helpful advice, just because the recipes would be really complex. OR we'd be writing a very specialist recipe book/resource which loses general appeal. Does that make sense?

I'm coming round to thinking that anything like this can only really have one 'unique selling point' or interesting feature or else it may lose people.

I'm aiming for: 'can a family of 4 live healthily on £100 a month?' the hot words in the title, are healthily, which gives us lots to contend with family of 4 which gives us our issues of who'll eat what and how to please 2 generations, and £100 a month, which gives us an 80p per person per day upper limit.

which might lose people if I were to add things like, 'with limited kitchen equipment' or other provisos.

£294.35 per year for everything a person eats and drinks would represent such a huge saving for most people, I think, that it may free up the ability to buy what is lacking?

nopot2pin wrote: »

I know I have made the surveys anon... but Weezl, your responses give you away:rotfl::rotfl::rotfl:

really?;) I wonder which ones