Anyone got a nice spaghetti and meatballs recipe?

tazladytaz

I have found recently that my bread doesn't rise well. Looking at the instructions it says to use less water, or less yeast. I am going to cut down the water to begin with to see if that helps. It is still edible.

Frugaldom

Day 4 of no spending almost completed :j I've baked 3 loaves (used 1 bag of flour), a tray of biscuits (still got cookie dough left in fridge) and half a dozen rolls this afternoon. We scoffed the rolls before they were even properly cooled! I now have some cooked chicken (defrosted from freezer supplies) and a couple of chopped (ever so slightly wrinkled) tomatoes in a casserole and have poured over a carton of the hm curry sauce (defrosted from freezer supplies). I have loads of rice, so that's a late dinner taken care of for tonight. This 'using everything up' is quite addictive, especially when it stops you from spending - am feeling quite proud of myself and think I might keep within my £100 grocery target if I can stay on track. :T

I've still got about half of the big sack of potatoes left, plus loads of pasta, rice, spaghetti, lasagne etc, baking ingredients. I'm slowly getting through the freezer stock but there's enough in there to cover at least a full week's dinners for 3. Have enough cereals, porrage oats, grapefruit etc for breakfasts - I'm now becoming obsessive and am going to try to not spend anything tomorrow either. As I said before, DS hasn't even noticed that the milk in the fridge is made up from dried milk and I have a full box (makes about a gallon) of it left in the cupboard. After all the moans and groans about it, NOBODY has noticed that all the milk for puddings, baking, coffee, tea etc is skimmed milk powder! :rotfl: I'm slowly convincing myself that I can come in under budget! It's first time I have tried making finger rolls today and they were really nice. If I made a full batch of them and then froze them, I could avoid buying bread (unless it's a 10p loaf :cool: ).

Hope everyone is doing OK here - will find out soon enough as I'm just about to catch up properly after a week of distractions & researching freeganism!

Tazladytaz - I've cut down the amount of yeast I'm using in my bread and have added a few spoonfuls of skimmed milk powder to the water. Today's dough rose so much I got those extra half dozen finger rolls from the mix :T

mhe

MRSM - just made caramalised red onion sauce and sausages wrapped up in some of your tortillas. Now whist they were yum or nomnom the tortillas were a bit hard to wrap - do you think i heated them for too long?? DH and DS didnt seem to notice - just wolfed them down!!

natzini

Hello everyone!
It's half term round here now, so I've bulk cooking and also baking plans, as well as everything else I've got planned.
Got a food order coming tomorrow which'll last us til the end of the month and somewhat beyond due to the bulk cooking. So hopefully we'll be in at the £100 mark this month.
Have had a pj day today so am off to have a bath in a bit (yes I'm a smelly moo, but it's a first day of the hols tradition) and then am going to make some banana loaf and some choc chip cookies. Dinner tonight is grilled chicken, potato layer, veggies and cheese sauce.

MRSMCAWBER

MHE

Are you talking about them fresh or are they a batch made and frozen?
if they are fresh made then NO they shouldn't go hard at all .they are lovely and velvety
:rotfl: :rotfl: I took some out of the freezer for dinner..left them to defrost and just zapped in the micro to warm up .. they went a bit harder... so i put one on the bottom, filling on top and then another tortilla on top -and cut into wedges-cos then they need to be firmer so they don't "flop the filling out" :rotfl:(my brother always reckons most mexican food is basically the same -just folded differently ) .. still -stuffed with chicken n peppers they were still tasty -but i have made note, not to nuke em in future...:rolleyes:
In fact -what i will do with my next batch is cook the 4 we want straight away, and freeze the other 4 as dough and see if they work better that way will let you know if it works:D

Well..we are still under budget..and i have enough food to sink a battle ship ....although im going through cook books n mags at the moment and spotting lots of recipes i fancy giving a go..so lots of odds n sods of ingredients i will be wanting..so i think the March budget may be used on lots of lovely new bits for my store cupboard:p oh the excitement :j

Oh and my hubby has taken the "letting down of full fat milk" to a whole new level.... we buy it in cartons but have a 1lt pop bottle that we dilute into.. only yesterday i he was in the kitchen and i thought he was washing out the empty milk carton to put in the recycle bags -as thats what i do.. but NO he was running in cold water, to rinse it out and use the last drops of milk to add to the milk in the bottle :rotfl: "by george i think he has got it"

Here is a recipe i posted on the weight loss thread-but as you don't all visit i thought i would share it here too....

They are sooooo simple, ... they are a bit like egg custard, creme caramel..well minus the pastry or burnt sugar
which is odd as i don't normally like either ..im funny with consistencies -but i liked these and thought they were a great low option for when only something sweet will do

I wasn't sure about the cardamom..but when i cracked them they smelt lemony..so it made sense..always associated cardamom with curry

BAKED CARDAMOM AND ORANGE CUSTARDS
serves 4 -1 point each

• 200ml skimmed milk
• 2 beaten eggs
• 2tbsp artificial sweetener -I use sugar as i have cut right back on artificial sweeteners etc
• 2 oranges
• 4 cardamom pods

1. heat the oven to gas 3/160c/140 fan
2. spray 4 ramekins with low fat spray -i don't do that.. i just rinse them out with cold water (don't dry) and this helps stop them sticking
3. place the milk in a pan and crack open the cardomom and add the seeds to the milk
4. gently warm through until hand hot
5. take off the heat
6. whisk the eggs and sugar/sweetener in a jug -just enough to combine
7. add to the milk, and stir until sugar dissolved
8. tip the mix through a sieve back into the jug
9. grate the zest of the oranges into the ramekins
10. divide the mix between the 4
11. place in a roasting tin and pur in boiling water -so its half way up the ramekins
12. place in oven for about 40mins..insert a knife and it should come out clean..but the custards should still wobble..and we all know what that looks like :rotfl:
13. remove and allow to cool before chilling
14. to serve peel and segment the oranges and add that and any juice to the tops

I only used the zest of 1 orange....and i didn't add orange segments either -
It would be simple enough to swap the cardamom for vanilla pod (my next version;) ) or to grate nutmeg on the top -so its more like egg custard..
and i pondered what it would be like with a few slices of banana in the bottom...so that will be me getting some bananas on Monday

right im back off to my mags now

bails

Thankyou for all the yummy sounding recipes, I am storing them up to inspire my menu planning! I've been having a look at other people's GC budgets and feel we are spending far too much in comparison - I know it's early days for us so I just need to focus on actually hitting target and then thinking of reducing it but as two veggies (+ 2/3 cats + 2 guniea pigs) I feel quite embarrassed
Due to OH wanting to 'help out' but never quite getting round to it, we haven't had a proper menu plan so far this month :rolleyes: I've persuaded him to let me do one for the rest of the month so that should help. Then it's all guns blazing for March - I AM going to reduce my spends
Half term now so I also plan to get some batch cooking in - roasted veg soup is on the cards and my first foray into the world of BM (still haven't got round to it :rolleyes:)then may have a go at some of those recipes.
Thanks everyone, you are an inspiration and I look forward to learning something each time I log in x

kittynortheast

Hi
Well, don't think I'll do as well as last month, but I have changed to better quality meat now, the other thing is I've started buying stuff I don't need but are reduced for next month so that has added extra to my bills, sainsys had some good reductions when I went this week Thankyou Mrs Mc for the pasta bake recipe with salami (basic of course!) I was in a rush and forgot the toms but actually with just parmesan and mascapone cheese (4th meal out of that tub!) it was lovely!!.

cat_79

Hi all i need to seriously cut bck on the amount i spend on shopping so i would like to join the GC i have 2 kids a partner 2 cats and 2 hamsters we spend at least £130 each week on food and would like to see if can cut bck to £60 but it seems imposible i will put my limit at £250 for the month any hints will be happily accepted

galacticgreen

Bought some fruit and veg today along with toothpaste, loo roll and shampoo, so I have updated my sig. Cooked a joint of beef in slow cooker today. It was really nice. Had it with mash and veg. Thanks for the positive posts last night. I'm feeling more positive tonight, although I know its going to be tough...:cool:

betterlatethannever

I have several cans of tinned meat (stewed steak) and i'm not mad about it on its own...anyone any ideas of what i can do with it to slightly disguise the flavour?
I'm not sure if turning it into a stew with swede etc would work