Weezl and friends Phase 2 -giving it a whirl for Shirl! Testing meal plan for a month

weezl74

kezlou wrote: »

hope the above is okay weezl x

more than ok, tis fab

Bigjenny

Hi Weezl

Will try to write a short piece for website over the weekend.

Jenny:D

weezl74

Allegra wrote: »

Warning ! Work in progress !

Okay, just general ideas atm to help testers - I plan to keep adding to this as new tips/ day by day suggestions etc. come in. Weezl, if anything of importance for the Tuesday start needs to be added in at this stage, let me know and I'll do it straight away

Bake 4 loaves of bread at a time; leave one loaf out and freeze the other 3. Options: slice all the loaves before freezing them to avoid the last minute panic when you forget to defrost a loaf in time. Individual slices defrost in minutes. Breadcrumbs can be swept up into a container kept in the freezer and used in recipes at a later date.
Slice one loaf and make it up into sandwiches - they can be popped into a lunchbox straight from the freezer and will be defrosted and ready to eat by lunchtime; freeze the remaining two loaves whole or as half-loaves and defrost as needed.

You can get ahead on any recipes that require shortcrust pastry by making a big batch of pastry and freeze in recipe-sized portions; defrost the night before and the next day the pastry will be ready to roll and fill. Delia's onion tart can be made up whole in advance and frozen.

Pizza dough can be made in a triple batch and dough frozen in individual batches, as can pizza topping sauce. Take out of the freezer the night before so the dinner becomes no more than a quick assembly job. Or, if you have a lot of space in the freezer, you can be really organised and roll out and spread with topping a month's supply at once and freeze individually. Can be cooked straight from the freezer.

Amatriciana sauce can be cooked as a large batch and meal-sized portions frozen in empty margarine tubs or tupperware containers until needed. And if you are only cooking for one or two, silicone muffin moulds are great for freezing small amounts of food - just pop the rounds out once frozen and store in a plastic bag in the freezer. You can also use moulds to freeze small amounts of pate, hummus and the like.

If you grate your block of cheese as soon as you get the shopping home and pop it into a container in the freezer you will avoid it disappearing in clandestine sandwiches. as well as saving time when preparing the evening meal. Same goes for bacon - slice or chop and freeze in meal-sized portions. And if you can't face all the weighing out and portioning up at this stage, don't worry - just chop up small, spread on baking sheet and freeze. Once frozen, remove with a spatula or fish slice and pop in a plastic bag - just take out of the freezer and weigh out as necessary for each dish.

Pulses can all be soaked and cooked in one big batch, then frozen in meal-sized portions. Cooked pulses weigh roughly twice as much as their dried counterparts, so bear that in mind when following a recipe.

Bacon and onion pudding takes a long time to steam, so it's best to steam one in the batch cooking day then put the other one in overnight and freeze it. (If you have a humongous slow cooker you might be able to steam both at once).

The order you use your food processor in is pretty important, doing the tangy bean pate and then the liver pate-no need to wash up in between, not so the other way around. Ditto apple curd then seed butter.

Chicken and onion pies can be made in a single batch and frozen until needed. Make stock with the carcass of the cooked chicken. Stock can then be refrigrated for up to 4 days, or frozen.

You can get ahead on endless onion chopping you can let the food processor take the strain and do loads in that, and then fridge some in a sealed container and freeze some.

And if you only cook for one, or have trouble making your onions yield exact amounts, just use what you need from a chopped onion and freeze the rest. If you keep a bag in the freezer and just add to it you can then use the amount needed straight from frozen.

Getting ahead on spanish omelette: you can freeze eggs. For the omlette you could make the filling and leave it to cool then portion it out in bags, beat the required egg in a cup then pour onto the filling, seal and freeze. When you need it just get them out in the morning and leave to thaw, cook as normal. You can also slide a cracked egg onto a plate and into a ziplock bag for fried eggs. They look a bit cloudy on the yolk before cooking and they are not runny yolks but they are fine otherwise.

Mince can be braised in single batch then made up into cottage pie/chili as required and frozen.

Can anyone add any other thoughts to Allegra's marvelous advice before I publish this to our test website?

xxx

weezl74

Bigjenny wrote: »

Hi Weezl

Will try to write a short piece for website over the weekend.

Jenny:D

brill! Do let me know if you need more guidance

artybear

On the website are you having a comments board or anything to see if the planner is reaching the people it needs to and general feedback??

Just an idea and I dont know how hard it is to do so please ignore me if its a complex process.

xxxxxxxx

weezl74

artybear wrote: »

On the website are you having a comments board or anything to see if the planner is reaching the people it needs to and general feedback??

Just an idea and I dont know how hard it is to do so please ignore me if its a complex process.

xxxxxxxx

good question Arty!

At first we have built it so it will measure how many unique 'hits' each page is getting, this will be a really useful measure of popularity.

My blog has a similar tool. This is how I know we have quite a few people who are keeping up with us but in a quiet way. Whenever I tell you guys I've popped something up there I get about 350 hits on that recipe

I'm reluctant to put a 'contact us' or feedback page though, because it feels I might be promising something I can't fulfil. If I wrote to a site and said; 'Please post recipes involving pilchards!' And they never got back to me I'd be a bit miffed cos I'd imagine it wasn't just a busy mum of 2 from cardiff desperately trying to do something helpful in her (very little) spare time. I'd think it was an organisation or something, who could afford to do that.

Does this make any sense?

In_Search_Of_Me

Couple of things..
Firstly just reading back wanted to say how proud I am of you all. What a fab bunch you are; all individuals with different skills that you have so generously bought to Weezls mad (but cunning!) plan...a huge hug/pat on the back and well done from me....not just for all your incredible efforts but for the sensitivity, care and time that you have all given.
Secondly, re the intro piece I love it but would say that shirl may not know what brasing is so think terms like that need to be explained (maybe in brackets just after?)...
Bread is rising and I gotta laugh...my brain is SO mushy I even forgot the pinenuts...
Bread will go in when the carrot cake (and maybe banana muffins) come out...now going t have my fave meal...pasta with butter and a bit of black pepper. Simples!

weezl74

ISOM where's Sian's super easy cake recipe?

I want to make a coffee walnut cake

jinky67

weezl74 wrote: »

Jenny, would you be willing to write a very short piece for the website explaining how to adapt the planner for one person? ie a real idiot's guide-assume nothing! But please do say 'no' if you're too busy

*de-lurks*
See thats what I am looking for, cos when I get my own place, I am doing this plan:j
I have been following this all the way through, I love it and cant wait to try it out:T:T


*relurks:cool:*

weezl74

jinky67 wrote: »

*de-lurks*
See thats what I am looking for, cos when I get my own place, I am doing this plan:j
I have been following this all the way through, I love it and cant wait to try it out:T:T


*relurks:cool:*

thanks Jinky

All our lurkers always delurk at just the right moment eh?

PS frankie and arty, please don't ever feel you have to apologise to me for going off plan, I never expected anyone to be able to test it to the exact letter, life just isn't like that.

But we now know a lot more.

We know shirl neds to be able to store her veg/shop weekly.

We know that most of the recipes are found to be edible/even really quite nice by most folk. (not sure what to do about the veggie burgers tho, confused smiley!)

We know that no-one has been starving hungry, poorly (I hope) or gained or lost more than a few pounds (eating up of easter eggs notwithstanding) and amazingly, even though this is such a low cost planner, without shopping around or using whoopsies or bogofs (equivalent to 65p per person per day if those things were used) some of you are willing to try these things again after the month ends and to incorporate them in your regular lives.

Amazing :T:T:T

We have also acquired our own website and domain name and have published 60 trial pages already.

This is all in less than 10 weeks! :D:D:D