Dhal Recipe £1 a day

European_Citizen

strangeotron wrote: »

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.

Why not? Many dishes are cooked like this. You cook the lentils a bit (better in garlic/ginger paste and not just fried onions) and then add water and simmer until they are done. Add the fried spices as described in the recipe from link above and that's it. I am sure you could also get away with just adding the spices straight to the pan instead of frying them separately if you are a lazy bum like me who hates washing an extra pan

Is the Tesco you go to a big one or Metro/Express? The latter are terrible when it comes to spices as they only sell the expensive ones. If you don't find the cheap ones (world food aisle) at your Tesco maybe you can pick them up next time you go to a bigger town/city? BTW the fruit and veg shop close to where I live is owned by a guy from India who also stocks spices and other stuff: it might be worth checking if you have a similar shop in your area.

Memory_Girl

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!

I simply can't agree. I was on benefits with two kids to feed. A tiny percentage at first of my income went to building a store cupboard - literally one tin of 19p tomatoes at the time - in the space of a few months I had managed to buy all the staples I needed and our food bills for the last three weeks have been

£15.28
£16.93 and
£19.93

The ladies over on DFW will attest that this is more than I used to be able to spend on my journey to DFW:D

I have a food budget of £25 for everything incl cleaning stuff and toiletries - and the money I don't spend goes back into building a store cupboard.

Sure it takes time - but I must have saved thousands of pounds building a store of things on offer, bargains from A Food and so on.

BTW - 2kg of urad dal bought from A Food last month for £1.95 which makes 40 portions of dal.

10kg of chapatti flour is on now at £1.95 - a 10kg bag is the size of 6 and half bags of regular flour.

It does take a lot of time - but it can be done pennies at a time, in fact I did it AND paid back 10K of debt in two years whilst on benefits.

I live in rural Scotland - so a trip to an Ethnic Supermarket is a planned and budgeted for event as it is in the city.

If you are really struggling you could pop over to the DFW board and get some help with your SOA - they are a really friendly lot - and I owe them my financial freedom.

MG

Racheldevon

This isn't Dahl in the traditional sense, but it's cheap to make, and you can alter the ingredients to whatever suits your budget/tastes etc. You also only need the one pot of spice so it might be useful to you. http://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/1364/spicy-root-and-lentil-casserole

strangeotron

European_Citizen wrote: »

Why not? Many dishes are cooked like this. You cook the lentils a bit (better in garlic/ginger paste and not just fried onions) and then add water and simmer until they are done. Add the fried spices as described in the recipe from link above and that's it. I am sure you could also get away with just adding the spices straight to the pan instead of frying them separately if you are a lazy bum like me who hates washing an extra pan
Is the Tesco you go to a big one or Metro/Express? The latter are terrible when it comes to spices as they only sell the expensive ones. If you don't find the cheap ones (world food aisle) at your Tesco maybe you can pick them up next time you go to a bigger town/city? BTW the fruit and veg shop close to where I live is owned by a guy from India who also stocks spices and other stuff: it might be worth checking if you have a similar shop in your area.

You didn't say add water, nor did you say cook the lentils beforehand.
The tesco is the supermarket. Tesco Express is the worst of all worlds: i dislike supermarkets, especially the exploitative tesco, but i don't have much choice. We don't have an asian food shop where I live.

Memory_Girl wrote: »

If you are really struggling you could pop over to the DFW board and get some help with your SOA - they are a really friendly lot - and I owe them my financial freedom.

MG

I don't understnd what the acronyms mean, it's already difficult enough finding the correct forum on this site for reasons ive' explained elsewhere.

VfM4meplse

Penny-Pincher!! wrote: »

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?

Indian food actually tastes a lot better the next day IMO, and I can't think of a single curry dish that doeesn't freeze well. Do be a mindful that some lentils are high in carbs rather than proteins so it's worth googling the nutritional content first.

DonaldTrumpsHair wrote: »

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

Yes, it is incredible but the eating out of the freezer and cupboards challenge got me there. I should stress that it wouldn't be possible if I ate meat. Heres how:

I have a larder that is fully stocked with every single pulse and grain imaginable, a shelf for baking products and one stuffed full of spices. Oh yes, and I have a mini herb garden growing in my kitchen windowsill. That is the investment part of it - if you open my larder cupboad, you'll find it stacked with food, most of which is completely inedible until I work my magic on it.

I buy enough milk for a large cup of tea / coffee a day so a couple of pints lasts a fortnight, some of bowls of fruit /veg from the local stall or Lidl / Aldi and that's it. Yesterday I bought 3 large aubergines from Lidl for the grand sum of £1.11 (wondering what to do with them now ) and some spinach for 69p. Then it was a large punnet of grapes, 2 large mangos and 6 oranges for £3 from the stall, and I have about 1lb mini-plum tomatoes in the fridge that I bought last week (this cost £1 from the stall, I weighed it when I got back and there was over 1kg, and I gave half away to a neighbour). It's more than enough for me for a week when I supplement it with my existing supplies as the rest comes out of the freezer. I eat v little processed food, if I want it I make it from scratch and when I make anything it's in bulk so I can freeze it. I could theoretically bake my own bread but it's easier to buy it on offer / after work and add it to the freezer, so I can take it out as and when it's required. I live next door to a Sainsbury's and by the time I get back there are often lots of reduced bakery goods available but I generally avoid food shopping more than once a week.

Now an example for the maths bit: I made a stockpot of channa dahl a couple of weeks ago for an estimated cost of £1.50, which went straight into the freezer and I can get 16 servings out of it. That's less than 10p a serving, so it works. Vegetable soups are marginally more expensive, but still v cheap and filling of you buy what's in season / on offer.

I don't usually eat breakfast, if I can be bothered to eat at l/t it's usually a piece of fruit and dinner is either a freezer option, or I go out socially or have work-related meetings (although increasingly less so these days as I become more critical of other people's food, and I really don't like the kind of unhealthy finger-food served at evening meetings). At the weekends I try to have a proper lunch instead of an evening meal. Today it was a bowl of the afore-mentioned channa dahl (about 250ml volume) bulked out with a couple of tablespoons of dry couscous - bought in bulk when Lidl sold it 1/2 price on a weekend offer, so probably cost no more than 5p if that.

Emmzi

strangeotron, you seem slightly argumentative with people who are genuinely trying to help. I am not sure dhal recipes is necessarily what you need - would you like to describe a bit more about what you have near you, and your budget, and maybe people can offer other ideas? You have told us lot about wht you do not have, what do you have? Garden? window box? What shops?

VfM4meplse

Memory_Girl wrote: »

I simply can't agree. I was on benefits with two kids to feed. A tiny percentage at first of my income went to building a store cupboard - literally one tin of 19p tomatoes at the time - in the space of a few months I had managed to buy all the staples I needed and our food bills for the last three weeks have been

£15.28
£16.93 and
£19.93

The ladies over on DFW will attest that this is more than I used to be able to spend on my journey to DFW:D

Well done you :T:T:T.

I must say that the chappati flour is a bargain. I've never made one in my current home (even though I have been here for over 11 years ) but might be persuaded to at that price.

VfM4meplse

strangeotron wrote: »

You didn't say add water, nor did you say cook the lentils beforehand.

You really are playing us now. How else do you cook dried foods? :shocked:

elona

There is a debt free wannabe board and if you go on there and post a Statement of Affairs - i.e.

Money coming in

expenses like

rent

council tax

food

tv licence

electricity

gas

etc

The replies then suggest ways to cut back, get cheaper deals etc.

orangesmartie

patchwork_cat wrote: »

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

Thanks for the link, I'll be having that for tea tomorrow, as long as i find a chappatti receipe