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

FrankieM

weezl sorry to hear you're poorly xxx

poohbear59

Just a thought.. We have gone 'off plan' twice during the testing. I haven't run out of anything!!

The two meals we ate differently to the plan; one used our own eggs and this week we used a pack of sausage meat. I have managed to feed all of us for £82 so far.

Breakfasts have turned into elevenses for all the boys . This has meant that they have been able to have oatie snacks instead of porridge. They always start work and then eat so it is no hardship to them.

Just remembered we ran out of cheese and had to buy more because someone nabbed it. But we have still remained within the £82.

The biggest change for me is that DH has changed the way he thinks about spending. We have had to live frugally for a while now, before this marvelous idea of weezl's.

When DH has popped out to the village I have told him each time we don't need anything and where he might have bought a box of pringles or a bar of chocolate he has realised how by doing so he is taking us over budget and has now stopped buying anything.

I think he felt that we always had to have a full fridge and cupboards. Or that he couldn't go into the co-op to buy his tobacco without buying something for the rest of us.

Now he is acutely aware of the cost of his tobacco as it is the only thing we have spent on, except cheese since our ASDA order.

The burgers went down really well here, they would like them again at DDs barbecue next weekend. I left my mixture whilst I had a bath and when I came downstairs again DS2 was frying them. I kept the leftover mixture in the fridge and used it again the next day.

He said it took quite a long time but I think he was being ultra careful as one would with a beefburger that it was 70 degrees inside.

weezl and company, if you can find a job for me to do I am happy to help out. Just let me know. I have told my sons that they are part of a social experiment!!!


weezl, I hope you are feeling better soon. Please have lots of rest:)

kezlou

weezl74 wrote: »

I'd love you to do any testing

I'm a bit better but still not 100%, thanks for asking :A

sore throat and achy:(

But we soldier on here at the ministry of food:D

Well i'm glad your on the mend Make sure you get loads of hotwater and honey down ya. Works for me, i know i've still got the flu. But drinking that really helps my throat and tastes really yummy!


Well the [FONT=&quot]Pasta con Funghi is in the oven as we speak, along with HM foccia bread sprinkled with black pepper and sea salt. Should be ready in about 10 mins so will let you know how it went.

oops the phones ringing back on in a bit x
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queen_of_string

Poohbear, that's amazing :T I am finding it hard to absorb that you have fed your family of grown, physically active adults for such a small amount. I really am filled with admiration for what you have achieved through your own dedication and with the help of this plan.

I know you said once, you were hoping to start a business using the savings made by being frugal. I just wanted to nosily ask if that was becoming a reality yet ( as someone who is self employed themselves, albeit at the other end of the process-heavily into succession planning and escape strategies after 8yrs for me ).

We are huge meat eaters here, but really loving the look of the vegan plan. Going to try the pasta tomorrow me thinks, will say nowt and see if there's any comment. The only changes I have to make here are for OH who has type one diabetes ( he mostly sorts himself out portion wise) and then some wrangling with portions if there are 3 kids or just the one

ISOM - I am just off to post in the OS preservers thread re experiments in rhubarb and ginger cocktail.


Hope you feel better soon Weezl.

Bigjenny

Have tried 3 recipes from the list this week. All ingredients quartered.

Chilli Mince. Used a pinch of chilli powder and garam marsala. Quite sweet will use a bigger pinch of chilli powder next time, would also reduce amount of onions for me.
Open froze kidney beans and then bagged up to use later.

Baked Bean Curry. Used kidney beans straight from freezer and cooked for a few mins. Found this quite sweet so added a little curry powder. Not sure if I would do this one again.

Carbonara. Lovely. Nice and easy.

No Garlic used in any of the recipes

All the above were good portion sizes, so just had 75g rice with Chilli and Curry.

HowlinWolf

well done everyone on a great month's work

kezlou

Results of the [FONT=&quot]Pasta con Funghi:-

Very moreish, extremely yummy and creamy.
OH, DS1, DS2 all ate it with no complaints in the slightest. Never heard meal time so silent lol
I originally thought the lack of cheese would spoil it but no its works a treat.
Now the olive juice i used came from a very large jar of pimento stuffed olives, so i kind of guessed the amount which would come from a small jar. Sorry weezl, it was only ones i had in the cupboard.
I mixed the flour and oil together and it looked exactly the same as the pasta alfredo sauce of planner 1. To be perfectly honest this version looked, smelt and tasted much nicer than the alfredo version. Maybe that's just because of my paranoia about lard but hey ho.

so all in all 8/10, definitely a dish which will be made in the future.Got four good sized portions out of it, and surprisingly still have 3/4 of a foccacia bread left, so it must have been good!

Planning on making tomato, olive and lentil steam pudding tomorrow, if all goes well. Again will let you know the results.
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poohbear59

queen_of_string wrote: »

Poohbear, that's amazing :T I am finding it hard to absorb that you have fed your family of grown, physically active adults for such a small amount. I really am filled with admiration for what you have achieved through your own dedication and with the help of this plan.

I know you said once, you were hoping to start a business using the savings made by being frugal. I just wanted to nosily ask if that was becoming a reality yet ( as someone who is self employed themselves, albeit at the other end of the process-heavily into succession planning and escape strategies after 8yrs for me ).

Almost every penny we have is going into helping to set up our business. We are not there yet but are well on our way. We have had to borrow too and we are quite determined to pay off our debts as soon as possible. We still need to borrow more but doing without has really helped us. The only problem we have come across is that lenders won't /can't believe tht we live on so little.

We are huge meat eaters here, but really loving the look of the vegan plan. Going to try the pasta tomorrow me thinks, will say nowt and see if there's any comment. The only changes I have to make here are for OH who has type one diabetes ( he mostly sorts himself out portion wise) and then some wrangling with portions if there are 3 kids or just the one

I have been known to make tuna pasta bake in the past and forgot (genuinely) to put the tuna i to it and the woolfed it down and didn't notice. Good luck with weaning off the meat portions:)

Portion wise, what I have done is to make the same amount of food each time nd if we have one person missing/out then I save tht meal either for lunch for someone the next day or freeze it as a quick ready meal. I have to admit that if there have been more than four of us I just up the carbs that I cook.

ISOM - I am just off to post in the OS preservers thread re experiments in rhubarb and ginger cocktail.
Mm, I quite fancy a cocktail using my rhubarb. I have so much each year that we make amazing chutneys and I can sell/barter quite a lot too.


Hope you feel better soon Weezl.

Me too weezl, get well vibes for you.

SusanC_2

weezl74 wrote: »

We've got a list of 13 keywords and 10 phrases to pop in both our meta-data and the body of the text. The domain name I've bought contains the words 'cheap family recipes' so we should get lots of hits from those search terms too.

But if anyone can think what people might type into google if they were looking for a resource like ours then do say and we'll build it into the metadata

I believe Google no longer uses the meta tags because people abused them. (Not sure about other search engines but Google accounts for around 90% of traffic.) It is supposed to make a difference though if you use key words/phrases as headings, in bold and at the beginning/end of a given page. It's also useful if the name of the site contains keywords so that if people link to it there is a good chance they are using the keywords in their links.

And I hope you're feeling better soon.

artybear

OMG wasnt DR WHO BRILLIANT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!:j:j:j:j:j:j:j:j:j:j:j:j:j

Cant wait for next week either-when I lived in Venice I didnt see any vampires but you never know......its a spooky place:D:jxxxxxxxxxxxxx