It's STILL tough and not getting better - so how are we coping?

parsonswife8

Allegra wrote: »

Hello You might be pleased to hear that Weezl's vegetarian planner is now live. A few of us are having a go at it this month, if you'd like to join in, hop over to the How much you've saved forum, Weezl's Phase 3 thread and say hello :j

OMG, Weezl is a little diamond.:beer: Lovely recipes, thanks to all involved on that site.

shirleytch

That is an excellent site with great menu ideas and recipes - I will be referring to that one again. It also has meat recipes on there - you can pick and choose to plan your week. I love it - thanks

ceridwen

parsonswife8 wrote: »

OMG, the world has gone mad.:eek:
We will make do and go without certain things if we have to. I have quite a stock of soap and coffee which will last us quite a while.
What next?:mad:

Well...one thing that strikes me (having been reading a couple of history books recently) is that people have had to adapt what they eat over the centuries as various different foods have altered their price up or down in "real terms". There was a time, for instance, where oysters were extremely cheap and food for really poor people - whereas, these days, we know as being a luxury food that the "ordinary person in the street" has rarely/if ever had (once in my case if you're asking).

So - there is an element of "adapt and survive" that is necessary and we need to be "open" to trying foods and drinks that are new to us (no - I categorically DO NOT mean gen*tically-modified or milk from cloned cows, etc...:cool:).

One recent historical book I have been reading about the potato sure enough had a large section in on the Irish Potato Famine - the main point of which seemed to be that if they had grown a wider variety of food, instead of just the potato, that they would have fared much better. The reason, from what I could see, as to why they didnt grow that wider variety seems to be that the land was trying to support too many people (as they were having too many children and trying to divide and sub-divide land up in smaller and smaller patches) - thus they went so much for the food that gave the "greatest value" (ie the potato). If they hadnt been trying to feed so many people from such a small amount of land per family - it looks like there wouldnt have been SUCH a huge problem - with the devastating effects that were spelt out in this book. Thank goodness I'm not living in those times - as the author quite graphically describes seeing "living skeletons" in front of the eyes of the commentator describing how things were.....

Well - that was my take on what the author was basically saying in this section. Other people might have interpreted it differently - but it DID seem to be the message that was coming over very clearly.

This is a theme I am following through on at the moment - ie what was eaten historically over the last few centuries and how people adapted or failed to adapt to what was available.

BTW - any useful books/websites anyone has on how the British have been eating for the last couple of centuries would be welcome please:)

Rummer

I have just eaten dinner from the garden using marrow as the main meal and making rhubarb muffins for pudding, delicious!

katholicos

Don't know if this will help anyone but i made a YouTube vid about how to make yoghurt cheaply and from scratch. There are of course many ways of doing so, and this is just one way. Hope it helps someone to eak out the pennies :-)

Link

Broomstick

The Abel&Cole vegbox site has a really good section of recipes indexed through ingredients:

http://www.abelandcole.co.uk/recipes

Brilliant for seasonal gluts of veg (I am being taken over by cabbage atm and I've just discovered that they have 37 cabbage recipes :rotfl:)

Anyone know of any other vegbox companies doing recipe collections like this?

B x

ceridwen

katholicos wrote: »

Don't know if this will help anyone but i made a YouTube vid about how to make yoghurt cheaply and from scratch. There are of course many ways of doing so, and this is just one way. Hope it helps someone to eak out the pennies :-)

Link

Well - bl**dy good for you Katholicos:T. Keep us informed on this...:)

Lowslung

FAO Ceridwen

Food in England by Dorothy Hartley

I haven't read it but I have heard it is very comprehensive - and its on my list!

elona

Rumner and katie

Crossing everything I can think of for you both!!!!!


Who gets to borrow a whip to go to number 10? Or does parliamentary whip mean something else?;)

EstherH

Hi, thanks for that video, yoghurt is on my 'to do' list after someone mentioned it the other week on one of the other threads. Was going to get a wide necked flask.

Tea tonight was very moneysaving. One gammon round thing left in fridge from other day.
Chopped it up and fried with onion and frozen pepper in a little olive oil.
added tin of chopped tomatoes and some sweetcorn. Salt, pepper, mixed herbs and garlic flakes.
Made a white sauce in microwave and added that.
Mixed it all into pan of pasta. Stirred round to coat pasta. Voila - one portion of meat - four portions of tea.

Was really pleased with myself. Don't think anyone realised how little meat was in there.