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

artybear

weezl74 wrote: »

morning all

Thanks lots for the aesthetic feedback.


2. So arty as I'm not in work to test on a monitor larger than 19 ins, can I send you a zip of the whole site, changed, for you to run on your PC only, and then get your feedback? It would be a couple of clicks, plus a bit of feedback thinking time, so hopefully a max of 45 mins for the whole job

Course you can, I'm doing a very light work day today so will be at the computer all day and very happy for any distractions:A

Hope your enjoying real lifexx

Allegra

weezl74 wrote: »

?

Well I said I would until we saw if shirl was seeing the site, well now we have 1200 unique visitors I thought I'd better pull my finger out!
/QUOTE]

That's what I was hoping to hear :T

wyebird

Hello

Would like to offer my help now that have got some busy weeks out of the way. Was our Silver Wedding in April :eek: and it needed celebrating, and a holiday to recover from being married for 25 years!
Am a couple of years younger than Shirl, have two grown up kids (23 and 17) and DH. Dh was made redundant 3 times in last 18 months, has job now but have lost a third of income and this is starting to bite us, so economies are needed.
I like cooking and family will eat most things, DS eats about 3x more than the rest of us as very sporty.
ITRW I work with databases and performance benchmarking. Also, work on a project involved with healthy food in schools and school meal uptakes; finding out why children do or don't eat school dinners, and getting children to understand what consitutes a healthy diet etc.
Anyway HTH if there is anything I can do? xx

Allegra

Btw, we tested shepherdess pie yesterday. Very nice

weezl74

wyebird wrote: »

ITRW I work with databases and performance benchmarking. Also, work on a project involved with healthy food in schools and school meal uptakes; finding out why children do or don't eat school dinners, and getting children to understand what consitutes a healthy diet etc.
Anyway HTH if there is anything I can do? xx

wow! Talented lady

so already the things I can see, would you perhaps have a think about a way of embellishing the nutrition section of the site?

I know you've been reading the threads so you know how very much thought has gone into the nutritional choices. Barely any of that is even hinted at on that page.

What would your thoughts be on what else to include, how to word it? Can you offer any insights from the school meals project about what nutrition issues parents are concerned about, so we can reassure shirl.

Anything else you think should/could be on there?

No limit really to how many pages, we can click through from the first nutrition page to other pages, say one for calcium, one for omega 3? If that's what will reassure shirl?

Anyhow, just some thoughts to get your grey cells twitching

Big huge thanks for offering help:T:T:T:T:T:T, and for saying what skills you have.:A

Also any feedback about ways you might be adapting the planner to help one very hungry family member would be very welcome

weezl74

Allegra wrote: »

Btw, we tested shepherdess pie yesterday. Very nice

excellent so that's a thumbs up for him then

I changed the saag wording allegra, howzat now re portion sizes?

Claw_back_money wrote: »

I've got three youngsters all really struggling for money and think that they would really benefit from fab recipes, which are straightforward in terms of language, ingredients and kitchen equipment - I would be very surprised if they followed the plan to the letter but if they just adopted a bit at a time it would be so beneficial to them, I would say they could cook a bit more, spend and waste a lot less. I'm very conscious they're not your intended audience though. But maybe, if they made breakfast pancakes one day, they might be tempted by another recipe another day, and before you know it they would be following the majority of the plan.


There are loads of sites about cooking, but the whole essence of yours is fantastic - ie if you haven't got a pudding bowl you can use a jug etc. I love the fact that it is so good nutritionally, and that its costed.


I'm a veggie married to a Bobalike who will eat veggie sometimes but has some strange ideas. I am not your ideal helper as I've only been cooking from scratch for a couple of years (since I found this site actually).

*sticks neck out* But how can I help?

Cbm

PS sorry about the essay

CBM, thank you

Can you please say a bit more about whether we're doing that bit I've put in bold on the site currently?

As for help, yes please! What are you inspired by/interested in/good at?

Don't be shy, everyone has fab skills I am rubbish at detail, and desperately need more detail brained systematic types, more visionaries, more writers...

Brokebuthappy wrote: »

Ok.....you spied me!

I am an avid fan of what you guys are going and currently following the plan myself. Funds are very tight at the moment so the plan is working out very well for us. My OH is very into the plan to and like most bob's not willing to convert to a veggie plan! My DS is not a fussy eater and has given everything a try although he doesn't like the apple curd or porridge but has loved everything else.

I would say I am quite an experienced cook and enjoy cooking. I would love to help however I can

Brilliant! Thank you! If you notice we haven't made anything very clear for shirl, do holler, for example I realised today I haven't said about the lemon cordial or the cups of tea anywhere yet-must remedy asap!

How much did your shirley shop cost you?

Any downsides yet?

What have you done about DS not being fond of the applecurd and porridge?

Look forward to hearing more from you :A

weezl74

jaytin wrote: »

I have been following these threads since way back, but I am more of a reader than a poster, finally decided to de-lurk! I wanted to have a go with the planner, but there are quite a few meals that my husband and teenage son would just not ever eat, so I thought it best to stick to what I knew I could get away with. Maybe later I can introduce other meals gradually.
Using the planner as a base I have managed to reduce our bill for food to £185, yes I know that's a lot more than £100, but as I said before my husband and son will simply not eat anything with chick peas, beans, (other than baked beans with chips!) houmous, nut butter etc. A slow start is better than no start at all! The £185 includes a lot more fresh fruit and veg and some tinned fruit and veg too, also fruit juice, coffee and more expensive tea bags. I also wanted more fish as I would really miss that personally. Since we have been spending £400-500 a month on food this is a big improvement, that's less than half.
We are in a good financial position, we don't have any debts and my husband is pretty well paid, but we wanted to add to our savings more as we will want to buy a house when my husband leaves the Air Force in 5 years. So it's not just people who are living on very low incomes who will be interested in your ideas Weezl.
I just wanted to thank everyone for their work on the planner and the website, I know it isn't totally finished but it does look great and has lots of good info, unfortunately I couldn't find it through Google I had to go through Weezl's homepage to find it. Sorry for the long post!! :T

what fab feedback. I'm very chuffed the planner has saved your family money especially because you haven't 'needed' to so desperately as shirl (which must mean the food isn't completely vile:rotfl:) I'm very interested if you could say more about how you made the decisions you did in going 'halfway' with the planner. I wonder if a story that said, 'well I didn't want to go the whole hog so I...' and wrote your experiences, might be a useful addition to the site

I also cheekily wonder if I can ask, having gone down now to the £185, do you think you will stop there, or do you see it as something you might slowly go further with, like £180 next month with the inclusion of one more dish or something?

aless02 wrote: »

weezl, i know u deliberately did not want an email or a contact form, but i wish there was a way for non-mse visitors to trace it back here. Or what if someone wanted to feature the site on their blog and needed an interview? I know it's ambitious but could be possible! Not sure what the solution should be, maybe others have ideas. I just don't want u lose out on the chance something big comes along!

Would anyone be willing to be the email account? Something like 'cheapfamilyrecipes@hotmail.com' and check it a few times a week and just pop up and say if shirl's having a big problem with the way something's written?

Obviously that's a massive commitment, so what if we saw it as a rota type thingie, where you just say 'I'll have it this week!'

artybear wrote: »

Course you can, I'm doing a very light work day today so will be at the computer all day and very happy for any distractions:A

Hope your enjoying real lifexx

Great! Have I got an email address for you arty?

weezl74

spot more feedback required.

My dad and I are working on a way of getting the recipes to rank by other things than ease/diet/cost, such as calories per portion, whether it freezes, time taken to prep it/cook it, fat grams per portion.

Can I get a feel for how useful people feel this is, and should it come above any of the other tasks going on curently?

Is there anything else people feel the site urgently needs as it is now attracting real life shirleys

weezl74

shanks:A, I know you have done huge amounts for the project, but I wondered if you'd be willing to go through the recipes list and put an estimate of time to prep the dish and time to cook the dish:

ie

Bacon pudding
45mins/2.5 hrs (prep/cook)

nut butter
10/0

that type of thing?

If you say no I'll send a wrath ball!

Sian_the_Green

weezl74 wrote: »

Would anyone be willing to be the email account? Something like 'cheapfamilyrecipes@hotmail.com' and check it a few times a week and just pop up and say if shirl's having a big problem with the way something's written?

Pick me! Pick me!