Weezl and friends Phase 3 - sitting pretty with Kitty

tiamai_d

Hi, I got a pork shoulder joint from tesco half price (so £5) ended up getting it for free because my caster sugar had spilled all over the bag (so I washed it?).

It's in the freezer for Christmas time (probably not christmas day). Any nice frugal ideas for cooking and serving it?

mardatha

I'm really keen to try this menu for a month, because I'm trying to build up a stash of food and on a very low income it's proving hard going. If it left me enough money to buy some for the stash then I would be motivated for the next month too... maybe. LOL - depends on how hard the cooking is, cooking is NOT my thing!

Sami_Bee

So I made the cheesecake, and either its gone wrong or its just not to our (sugar loving) taste I'm wondering if a dash of vanilla or cinnamon in the filling would help, I just found it quite savoury and the topping/base too bitter
I did wash the nuts and found drying them removed quite a bit of oil so needed to use more oil in the base and nutbutter.
I also used good quality organic 70% choc so not sure if that made it more bitter than intended? (don't worry it was a freebie bar )
I took photos

Allegra

It looks exactly as mine did, Sami - and I did think that mine could have taken a bit more sugar - but none of us thought that it needed more. The Asda SP plain chocolate though hasn't got anywhere near that much cocoa in it though, so that probably would have affected the taste a bit. We did not find it bitter at all, neither base nor topping - in fact, topping was perfect, lovely smooth ganache, you'd never have guessed it never met cream in its life. So I guess that's a lesson we need to learn from you - easy on cocoa solids with this particular cake !

Mardatha, there is a little bit of cooking involved with both the monthly menu plans I'm afraid - and there is a fair bit of dreaded chilli/curry/pasta, so I don't think your DH would be all that happy following it to the letter How's about trying out a week of recipes that you find easy to cook/hubby would eat, and see how you get on with that first ?

mardatha

O yes absolutely - can't eat what we don't eat LOL - a bit like my theme song, can't cook don't cook. I will finish knitting this mouse and head over to the site and copy out some recipes

aless02

tia - I did pork shoulder in the slow cooker. If you've got some stale Coke lying around, pour about a cup in there - it really does make a yummy sort of marinade for it to cook in!

Sami - it's not an overly sweet cheesecake, so you're accustomed to that you may have found it sour/bitter. I'm a bit of a cheesecake snob and think they SHOULD be slightly sour (much more authentic) rather than the sickly sweet kind you find in the UK . Also, that bitter chocolate definitely would've made a difference. Perhaps you'd like it with milk choccie next time and slightly sweetened peanut butter (I always add a teaspoon to tablespoon of sugar to my PB).

Sami_Bee

Allegra & Aless, thanks for the thoughts, I'm not averse to giving it another go, I've got a stash of Asda's own brand milk, dark and white choc i bought when on offer (when i was too snobby for SP:o) I might make the topping on its own as an icing first

weezl74

Sami_Bee wrote: »

Allegra & Aless, thanks for the thoughts, I'm not averse to giving it another go, I've got a stash of Asda's own brand milk, dark and white choc i bought when on offer (when i was too snobby for SP:o) I might make the topping on its own as an icing first

sami m'dear, I feel bad that your first foray into cfr cooking wasn't as nommy as you'd have liked

I do hope you'll experiment and let us know.

Shall I suggest a tad more sugar in the recipe? Or shall I say if using a higher cocoa bar do it

slowlyfading

hi guys, can someone point me in the direction of the brownie recipe on the site? I can't seem to find it!

Julimk

Hi slowlyfading

Here you go.

http://www.cheap-family-recipes.org.uk/recipe-chocolatebrownies.html?opt=pc