Food Planning : Large Scale

greenbee

Can you cut the bread spending for a bit while you use up the potatoes? And then maybe make bread from your stored chappati flour - use up what you've got and save the money for later, as stores need to be rotated and used, and now is the time to do that. What's all the milk being used for? Can any of it be replaced with water? It's not excessive at one pint per person per week, but you might be able to reduce it a little. 

Happy_Sloth

greenbee said:

Can you cut the bread spending for a bit while you use up the potatoes? And then maybe make bread from your stored chappati flour - use up what you've got and save the money for later, as stores need to be rotated and used, and now is the time to do that. What's all the milk being used for? Can any of it be replaced with water? It's not excessive at one pint per person per week, but you might be able to reduce it a little. 

The bread get's used for breakfasts/lunches (Toast/sandwiches) i'm not sure what i could make from potato's to replace those. 
The Milk is mainly used in tea/coffee which is an essential haha and some is used on breakfast cereal and occasionally cooking. 

greenbee

Happy_Sloth said:

greenbee said:

Can you cut the bread spending for a bit while you use up the potatoes? And then maybe make bread from your stored chappati flour - use up what you've got and save the money for later, as stores need to be rotated and used, and now is the time to do that. What's all the milk being used for? Can any of it be replaced with water? It's not excessive at one pint per person per week, but you might be able to reduce it a little. 

The bread get's used for breakfasts/lunches (Toast/sandwiches) i'm not sure what i could make from potato's to replace those. 
The Milk is mainly used in tea/coffee which is an essential haha and some is used on breakfast cereal and occasionally cooking. 

Frittata for breakfast or lunch instead of a sandwich (or cereal). At least until you have dealt with the backlog of potatoes. Then maybe pasta-based lunches if you feel a need for carbs. If you make yogurt you can have that for breakfast. And rotate some of the UHT in for cooking, so you focus your spending on the F&F until the garden is productive and keep your savings topped up. 

While i I agree tea and coffee are essential, the key to dealing with change is creativity. So if you couldn’t get bread or milk what would you do? I switched my first coffee of the day to black about 9 months ago and found I enjoy it - just in a different way to my later milky coffee. I don’t eat breakfast, which saves money and calories, and when i’m at home lunches are proper meals (salads or soup on work days when I have limited time, and ideally the main meal at weekends with a salad or soup in the evening. So no need for bread unless for a specific dish.

Now the family have helped you list your stocks, get them researching reading recipes and coming up with suggestions. And maybe cooking some of them too! If you base your planning on calorific needs (depending on activity levels and whether you need to maintain, gain or lose weight) and ensuring appropriate levels of protein (approx 0.6g of protein per kg of body weight) then you can maximise the time that your stores last while keeping you all healthy and providing enjoyable meals.

Happy_Sloth

This morning i've been working out what is in the freezers...

Top Freezer (small one in Kitchen) 
Vegatarian (DS2 is Pescetarian and he doens't eat much fish so mostly veggy diet) 

• 12 sausages 
• 8 nuggets 
• 1/4 packet of Chicken Pieces
• 1 packet of mince 
• 1/4 package of meat balls

Fish (Only me and DS2 eat it) 

• 1 pk fish fingers 
• 6 filets of breaded fish 

Meat 

• 1/2 bag of Chorizo meatballs (enough for 2 meals if i ration) 
• 1/2 bag of swedish meatballs (enough for 2 meals if i ration) 
• small pk of diced chorizo 
• 1 pk pork mince
• 10 slices of black pudding
• 6 beef burgers
• 1/2 packet of cooking bacon
• small pack of diced bacon
• 12 sausages

Veg /fruit 

• Lots of Sliced Oranges and Lemons (leftovers from the veg box's stored for use in Gin so it didn't go to waste) 
• 4 peeled banana's (again leftover from veg box the week i got 2 full hands of banana and couldn't eat them all)  
• 1/4 bag frozen peppers
• 1/2 bag peas
• 1/2 bag sweetcorn
• 1/4 bag spinach
• 1/4 bag brocolli 
• 1 bag of bean sprouts. 

Potatos /Carbs

• 6 hashbowns 
• 2 portions of homemade Carrot and Mash
• 1 portions of homemade Mash
• Homemade cheese and potato Pie (side dish) 
• 4 slices of Garlic bread 
• 2 individual pizzas (one cheese, one meat)
• 1/2 loaf of bread. 
• Jam Roly poly 
• Spring rolls (enough for 1 side dish)
• Onion Baji's (enough for 1 side dish)
• 1 bag of potato wedges

suki1964

Happy_Sloth said:

greenbee said:

Can you cut the bread spending for a bit while you use up the potatoes? And then maybe make bread from your stored chappati flour - use up what you've got and save the money for later, as stores need to be rotated and used, and now is the time to do that. What's all the milk being used for? Can any of it be replaced with water? It's not excessive at one pint per person per week, but you might be able to reduce it a little. 

The bread get's used for breakfasts/lunches (Toast/sandwiches) i'm not sure what i could make from potato's to replace those. 
The Milk is mainly used in tea/coffee which is an essential haha and some is used on breakfast cereal and occasionally cooking. 

Potato Bread, basically mashed potatoes and enough flour to make a soft dough. Roll out, cut into triangles and fry, plenty of recipes online. Cook a batch and freeze to use as and when, reheating in the frying pan lightly greased. As kids we often only had those for tea when money was really tight

Happy_Sloth

We only have one small bag of flour atm (Unless it can be done with chapatti flour), so i guess it depends on what i prioritise the flour on. But i do love potato cakes never thought of making them myself. 

PipneyJane

Argh! Just lost a whole post!

Apologies, @Happy_Sloth, I thought the boys were older.  I do think that you need to get them involved in the crisis planning/budgeting process though.

Happy_Sloth said:

We are spending about £100 a month atm... 

• 2 x £30 fruit/veg box delivered. = £60 
• 8ish loaves of bread = £10 
• 12pts of Milk a week = £12 
• £20 random bits.. toilet roll, shampoo, washing up liquid. 

A couple of thoughts:

• By my calculations you have enough chapatti flour to make 6 loaves of bread.  It is bread flour, after all.  A can of instant dried yeast is about £1.20.  (Here is the BBC’s bread recipe. 2 teaspoons of instant tried yeast = 1 sachet.). One of the boys could take on this task and make it “his job”.
• I only have one type of flour in stock.  I buy the 10kg sacks of chapatti flour (currently £5) and use it for everything, adding 1 teaspoon of baking powder per cup of flour to make self-raising.  You have containers!  You should be able to store 10kg safely and bug free.
• Get the boys to help with meal planning.  Yes, your oldest has ASD but involving him should help him expand his dietary horizons.

HTH

- Pip

[Deleted User]

As I've found over the past few weeks you can do ANYTHING with chapatti flour including making crumbles, pastry, cakes and proper yeasted bread! the bread doesn't rise quite as bread flour would and got dry after 3 days (I made rolls) but tasted fantastic and I also made flatbreads which were lovely with curries and chilis.  This all from a pack I found at the very back of the store cupboard dated use by 2017!!! It's still good, no bugs, not stale and tastes lovely!

suki1964

Happy_Sloth said:

We only have one small bag of flour atm (Unless it can be done with chapatti flour), so i guess it depends on what i prioritise the flour on. But i do love potato cakes never thought of making them myself. 

You could also make rosti for breakfast and lunches with the potaotoes. Also I saw Jamie Oliver use mash as the pastry in a pie, Im sure a search will bring it up

PipneyJane

MrsLurcherwalker said:

As I've found over the past few weeks you can do ANYTHING with chapatti flour including making crumbles, pastry, cakes and proper yeasted bread! the bread doesn't rise quite as bread flour would and got dry after 3 days (I made rolls) but tasted fantastic and I also made flatbreads which were lovely with curries and chilis.  This all from a pack I found at the very back of the store cupboard dated use by 2017!!! It's still good, no bugs, not stale and tastes lovely!

YES!!!!!

It can’t be said more often.  You don’t need 3 different types of flour in your home, just bread flour, which is what chapatti flour/atta flour is.  Americans use “all purpose” flour for everything: bread, cakes, pasta, etc.  The only reason Britons don’t do the same with plain flour is that home grown winter wheat is lower in gluten than American or Australian wheat, so gets sold as plain flour or mixed with baking powder and sold as self-raising.

- Pip


ETA:  from experience, most chapatti flour will make perfectly good bread loaves.  I’ve only ever had one sack - T0sco Value, IIRC - that didn’t rise well.