Recipes for really bad times?

Towser

All this is bye the bye for me if I can't cook it in a palatable meal, my family won't eat it.

Where can I get some chef skills for family meals? Or is it all to do with following a recipe?

Tonight I was going to cook stir fried vegetables with stir fried chicken with boiled rice. I mentioned it to hubby who managed to turn it into vegetable and chicken fajitas and boiled rice with sour cream which was much better.

How can I make it, melt in you mouth family meals or do I need to go on a course?

Where can i make melt in your mouth family meals on a course?

freezspirit

Quick question on Toad in the hole - I've got a pack of frozen cocktail sausages, do I defrost them or use straight from freezer and pour batter on them and into the oven?

NewShadow

freezspirit wrote: »

Quick question on Toad in the hole - I've got a pack of frozen cocktail sausages, do I defrost them or use straight from freezer and pour batter on them and into the oven?

With batter (for yorkies or TinH) the important thing is the batter is poured onto hot oil. If you heat it in a cold dish it won't rise right, and if you don't have oil in the bottom of the dish it'll stick.

I recon frozen cocktail sausages would be fine but, given you need to heat the dish anyway, I'd put them in while the oven gets to temp.

reuse.relove

This was a yummy meal I made last night for Mr and me. We're on super hard times after having to leave a damp damaged house and as a result lost our deposit and one month paid rent on two houses! Eek. We have been eating loads of dried soya mince. Its so cheap and lasts for ages. Here's my recipe for a quick and cheap bolognaise (adjusted for 4)

1 medium red onion (or 2 small ones - bags of small onions is cheaper!)
2 cloves of garlic
1 cup dried soya mince (roughly)
1.5 cups of beef stock (I stick to the OXO brand of cubes because others are too salty. Also works with veggie stock but I think it's weird with chicken stock)
2 can chopped tomatoes
Cheese
Tomato sauce
Spaghetti

Soak the soya mince in the stock. In the meantime finely chop the onion and garlic. Fry gently in a saucepan and once starting to brown add the soya mince and any extra stock that wasn't soaked up. Turn up the heat and add the cans of tomatoes. Add a healthy squirt of tomato ketchup and then add herbs and spices of your choice (I used smoked paprika, oregano, and basil). Avoid salt because of the stock bring to the boil and simmer for 10 mins with the lid off for it to reduce and then cook the spaghetti. Serve with cheese. Handy tip: parmesan and other hard cheeses can be frozen and used straight from frozen if grated.
Good luck and I feel your pain! The above took me less than half an hour and cooking on the cheap can be much more time consuming. All the best!

reuse.relove

camNolliesMUMMY wrote: »

I am in need of some very frugal recipes using just a few ingredients.
I do have herbs and spices in as well as the regular chopped toms n beans etc.

We are going to find jan a really hard time for us! Hubby was short paid £600 just 5 days before Xmas. It's been a nightmare. He won't get this money back till the end of jan.

I am after recipes that may have been used in the world war when food was was made on a shoestring.

I have under £150 for 4 of us and a small dog to get us till the 28th jan. However if anythings left I need to put it back in the bank as we are overdrawn by £600!!! That's our maximum overdraft.


Tia to anyone who replies with some useful info or links to sites that can help me stretch our food.

camNolliesMUMMY wrote: »

i Don't have any sausages in, but dh is not keen.
I have
12 eggs left
2 onions
10-12 bonesless chicken thighs
5 drumsticks
3 pieces of lamb on the bone for stewing
1 pack of diced lamb
8 Potatoes for baking
2 loafs of bread ive put one in the freezer
3 tins of bean
2 tins of chopped toms
half a tube of tom puree
frozen peas
frozen casserole mix
filo pastry
chicken nuggets of 40?
milk two bottles
loads of condiments
lots of herbs and spices
rice
pasta
lasagne sheets
homemade frozen chips and grozen cubed potatoes
1 tin of corned beef
only self raising flour no plain



ds2 is 3 and he doesn't eat mash, roast potatoes etc only in chip form!!! rattles me.


ds1 hates onions but i tell him to pick them out.
dh can be picky he goes off things all of a sudden he's like ds2 sometimes lol he moaned about the boneless chicken thighs as he prefers breast, however i went to makro last month and it was cheaper than buying the breast and thought it would be ideal and he wouldn't moan. but ive told him we have to do what we can to get through this tough time until his money is given back to him.

You don't need a course! You need confidence and to spend time on it. My dad loves cooking and a few years ago he started teaching me a few basics because I was heading off to uni. I got to uni and spent my evenings on forums like this just reading what people like to do - what change they make, what you can substitute etc. Then it was just practicing with basic stuff and then gradually cooking for more people. I'm now the food editor of the uni paper! (I'm doing a masters)
It sounds like your hubby has some handy skills so get him to show you a few things. I taught my OH some chopping skills and basic sauces, and seeing someone else do it really builds confidence. This sounds weird but honestly, use student cookbooks! You may not be at uni but you're a student cook, and I still use them with my own twists. Check out YouTube videos! (Although avoid some fancy chefs because they sometimes do things the fiddly way). Cooking isn't about being perfect, its about fun and healthy ingredients. And remember cook it slower and for longer and it tends to taste better don't spend time and money on a course when you've got all the info to hand and onkine . Anyone can cook, it just takes sometime to get in the groove. Good luck and I hope this helped.

System

Value porridge @ 75p per kilo
Golden rice with veg (value range) about 25p
Baked beans 25-35p for value range
And value bread at 50p a loaf
Think pasta cheap too

Being vegetarian is cheaper!

Money_saving_maniac

Towser wrote: »

Tonight I was going to cook stir fried vegetables with stir fried chicken with boiled rice.

How can I make it, melt in you mouth family meals or do I need to go on a course?

What's wrong with a stir fry of veg and chicken with boiled rice? I often do that with the left over roast chick, I add garlic and ginger and either soy sauce or a bit of hoisin if I'm flush. I've also been known to serve it without sauce.

Is you disrespectin ma cookin?
:rotfl:

Rather_Cynical

I can't be sure if it helps, but if you have a JJFoodServices branch nearby you can pick up food at proper wholesale prices - I can see some chicken legs going for about £1.40/kg, wings for about £1.20/kg, pork belly for about £2.50/kg, bacon for about £2.00/kg, cheese for about £2.00/kg, chicken breast for about £2.80/kg, 25kg of Maris Piper potatoes for £6.99, etc. If you have the freezer space, definitely try to pick something up!

It's also not a bad idea to volunteer for a FoodCycle Hub near you (in effect a soup kitchen), which uses donated produce to feed the hungry. Churches often run soup kitchens too. Some other sources of food include a local Food Bank, which should give you about 3 days worth (less for a big family but still).

EDIT - East Asians are masters of making do with less. Recipes like stir fry egg and tomatoes, pan fried sardines with soy sauce, extremely flavourful stews with potatoes for bulking, etc can be eaten with rice very cheaply. If you need any instructions on how to cook rice, feel free to ask.

cuddlymarm

Hi

More ideas are

Pasta beans and cheese ( pop a little grated cheese in the microwave and melt) don't forget grating the cheese makes it go further ��
Eggy bread
Soup and pudding night(use up your bendy veg with a stock cube and whatever spices you have) with crumble, rice pud, pancakes with sugar, jam etc.
A main filler in our house on lean weeks are jam sandwiches as a snack.
Don't forget this month isn't forever so you won't be doing your kids long term damage if an occasional meal is a filler upper type meal.

I hope this helps a bit
Cuddles

WantToBeSE

Thanks to everyone for sharing their tips and recipes with camNolliesMUMMY, you have helped me too