My SoA....please help!

Benson112

all_hours wrote:

I haven't tried this yet. Here's curry queens recipe for basic curry sauce, with the variations underneath it. You could make the basic sauce and freeze it in portions then add the ingredients for korma or bhuna later.

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=100759

Thanks matey ill give it a go!

lynzpower

Benson112 wrote:

wahey i was right for a change lol

Wish i could change my attitude to take away. I could go for days without eating and it really wouldnt bother me, but wack 2 take aways infront of me and ill eat the lot! rediculous really but i cant change it, i just dont feel hungry when its anything other than junk food! honestly i eat like a 4yr old (and no that doesnt mean i need a bib haha). Its got to change, i cant carry on like this for my health and my wallet! :rotfl:

My Oh was the same. He ate NO veg whatsoever- once then he was diagnosed with hideously high cholestrol ( ie he could drop dead any day) and we simply had to change.

We cook everything now, and we still have all those junky type things, pizzas with the garlic bread, and the chicken dippers - all homemade, burgers, chinese, indian, fajitas, enchiladas etc. Most of these are a piece of cake to make ( indian not as easy, but still perfectly possible!) they have to be to be able to be knocked up in minutes by takeaway staff, who are not exactly classically trained in haute cuisine- at least not in east london!

Verbatim

pudding06 wrote:

I have to say I do miss takeaways - theyre much more highly seasoned than normal food and so 'normal' food takes a bit of getting used to agian. lol

but once you start eating ordinary food you do get used to it and it does get easier.

i'm convinced that takeaways have some kind of addictive drug in them because you ( as in one does) do seem to get addicted to them.

pudds

The addictive drug is salt :eek: and possibly monosodium glutamate if that's still legal in food. (Think it's banned here or in some other countries if not here. )

Snaggles

lynzpower wrote:

they have to be to be able to be knocked up in minutes by takeaway staff, who are not exactly classically trained in haute cuisine- at least not in east london!

Lol, that made me laugh out loud!

Just a quick tip if you like curry from the chinese (my hubby loves the stuff!) - Farm Foods do it in powder form (you just heat it up with some water), then you can just quickly cook some chicken, onions and peas (or whatever else you fancy), pour the curry sauce in, and it's exactly like chinese takeaway curry. Sainsburys also do a jar of chinese curry paste (in my local one, they have a display with more unusual/exotic ingredients on it, and I found it lurking on there). You can just mix it with boiling water from the kettle, bung some oven chips in et voila, chips and curry sauce!

The Farm Foods one is called 'Mayflower', not sure what brand the sainsburys one is. If you are near any chinese supermarkets, you can probably buy it even cheaper in there.

Edit - ooh, talking of chinese supermarkets has just reminded me what brand the sainsburys chinese curry paste was - it was Wing Yip (if you have a Wing Yip chinese supermarket anywhere nearby, it's a fair bet they will sell it lol!)

Snaggles

Verbatim wrote:

The addictive drug is salt :eek: and possibly monosodium glutamate if that's still legal in food. (Think it's banned here or in some other countries if not here. )

No, it's definitely not banned here unfortunately - a lot of chinese take-aways use it (not all), and it's in loads of stuff that you wouldn't even think about, such as most brands of crisps. It's a 'flavour enhancer'.

mrslawrence2003

Benson112 wrote:

lol yep you got it. Thing is ellies meals take 10 mins to cook, ours take longer most of the time. And to be honest alot of the "i cant be bothered to cook" is more of a "i fancy a pizza not a jacket spud" attitude. Soooo this is easily changed its just laziness!
and you are right about the takeaway stuff...we are very careful to bag and bin everything straight away. She is really good at sitting and waiting for her dinner so it doesnt tend to be a prob. But takeaways are a no no now anyway!!

We had mince meat and potatoes last night with onion gravy...cost a hole £2 to feed the 3 of us (even though i froze mine for ellie in the future because it was rank! haha). Im so fussy i can see this cheap eating being a problem for me but to be honest ill go without if it means i can feed clothe and house my family! I ended up having cup a soup lol, lame i know!

hey i am the most fussy eater in the world and i manage to eat extremely well on not too much money. it doesnt have to cost a lot to taste good, it just has to be well put together. for example, i will not, under any circumstance eat bargain basement dirt cheap meat. so to get round this problem, we do things like buy an organic chicken and use every bit of it, incl the carcass to make stock and it does for 3 -4 meals.

and doing homemade pizzas can be very cost-effective. even if you dont want to make the pizza dough yourself, you can buy ready made bases and then just load up with toppings.

something else that will help is to buy the cheaper cuts of meat like lamb shank or oxtail. these can be really delicious if cooked in the right way and are really really cheap!