Dhal Recipe £1 a day

patchwork_cat

strangeotron wrote: »

I don't have an asian grocer nearby; i don't live in a city. I don't have the money spare to invest in that way. That is the problem with benefit payments. You simply don't have the wiggle room. This would mean doing without regular food for at least a week which is of course out of the question. It might seem practical to suggest this, but the people that do are not in the same financial position. I think a lot of the people who advocate thrift forget this and are a little disingenuous. The same can be said for this £1 a day challenge: if you are buying a ton of food in bulk before hand, you are cheating the challenge!

Where is your nearest town and is it easy to get to? Do you like lentils and pulses? You can buy Rajah spices online, they really are much cheaper than even supermarket own brand.

patchwork_cat

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?p=34865#post34865 cheap dahl recipe.

strangeotron

VfM4meplse wrote: »

Do you really not have as little as £100 put by?

Correct. Is that hard to believe?

Callie22

strangeotron wrote: »

The same can be said for this £1 a day challenge: if you are buying a ton of food in bulk before hand, you are cheating the challenge!

But to be fair, most people living in the West who are doing the £1 a day challenge won't be actually managing on £1 a day. For a start, presumably that doesn't include your rent or mortgage, or utilities - which it would in the developing world.

strangeotron

nuatha wrote: »

Garam masala is a blend of spices, together they give a rounded intense flavour, though they usually add little in the way of heat (effectively they are are mild curry blend).
Dahls can be made with yellow split peas if these are easier to find. They would keep in a fridge for a couple of days and freeze well.
Red lentils are very versatile and are worth experimenting with, they are a good cheap protein source, can stretch various dishes and with carrots make a very tasty soup.
Last time I bought red lentils from Tesco they were £2 for 2Kg in the world food aisle (as well as 90p for 500g on the other shelves).
I'd allow 75g of lentils per person and serve with bread or rice. (Chapati are very easy and cheap to make) and I'd expect to have leftovers.
HTH

We can porbably do away with garam masala then. Don't need every single spice in the book.

patchwork_cat wrote: »

Where is your nearest town and is it easy to get to? Do you like lentils and pulses? You can buy Rajah spices online, they really are much cheaper than even supermarket own brand.

I like lentils and pulses when cooked properly, i'm not very good at doing that and dry food is not pleasant. I mainly eat brown rice, which sadly isn't cheap either. But the cheaper white variants are not too healthy.

pink_princess

Which stores do you shop at OP?

strangeotron

I tried that recipe, with what I have, but you can't just pour lentils into a pan of oily fried onions and cook them properly.

strangeotron

pink_princess wrote: »

Which stores do you shop at OP?

I shop at Tesco which costs me £7 to get to.

Penny-Pincher!!

Talking of Indian food....OH popped into Lidls yesterday and they had 5kg bags of onions for just over £1. He did say that there weren't many left as one of the workers had said that many local Indian take aways had bought them for their base sauces.

VFM4-I love Indian food as does OH but I need a high protein diet. Do you know if the food if made in bulk would freeze well? I know lentils are high in protein but wondered if you had any other easy recipes that would be good for us? Ta. x

PP
xx

DonaldTrumpsHair

VfM4meplse wrote: »

Here we go again...:whistle:

Indian food is tasty, filling and extremely economical to make. To get any value out of it you will have to do exactly what Indians in the UK do, that is bite the bullet and accept you will have to invest to save, make one trip to your nearest Asian grocer and buy in bulk quantities. It may cost you well over your weekly budget at first, but a little goes a very long way and you will be eating from it for months if not years. So the savings in the long run will be well worth it.

I have done the same and now rarely spend as much as £5 a week on food, if that. Cooking in bulk and freezing also helps a lot.

Sorry, but I don't believe this. Just a few vegetables and fruit cost more than a fiver. What do you eat then?