Weezl and friends Phase 2 -giving it a whirl for Shirl! Testing meal plan for a month

Sian_the_Green · 1 June 2010 at 8:45PM

weezl74 wrote: »

sian I can't tell if your houmous is nice or you are being devoured by a dalek

Well unfortunately I can't play "hide the pea-ness" so I thought I would roast some onions instead. It is very nice. Caramelised onions are quite sweet so you do need to add a little extra garlic in there to cut through it, or lemon if you had it. That amount of onion is plenty for that amount of houmous, and it adds a lovely crunch to the proceedings.

Who-moose

He he

aless02 · 1 June 2010 at 9:02PM

heehee, thanks for that sian

weezl74 · 1 June 2010 at 9:04PM

Lesley thanks for offering to be involved with building the database.

My guess is that it might be very workable if mr arty fancies building the db without the nutrition data, and you and I populate the nutrition parts since we've done quite a bit of that research already?

How might that sound?

Project update: after a lovely uninterrupted chunk of time working this afternoon I feel we're much nearer readiness of the vegan planner, just need to finalise some recipes now and play what shall we do with these leftovers (not many of those left now yay!)

EEEK:eek: Murrell I just remembered I said I'd get you a new nut roast recipe by sunday just gone! ooooops

sorry did you make one in the end?

Hippeechiq · 1 June 2010 at 9:05PM

Evening everyone.

Sorry to be slightly off topic, but I tried my hand at making the Onion Tart from Shirls recipes today, and it didn't go very well so I'm wondering if I might pick your brains?

I'm afraid I'm not bright enough to work out who is who on FB (I'm Karen M by the way) so I've no idea who Lesley C is on there/here, but you state it's a favourite recipe of yours so I'm wondering if you could give me a few pointers as to where I went wrong, or if anyone else who has successfully made it could please

The pastry was my problem. All was fine up to where you add water.
Attempt 1) I thought I'd start with 2 tbs as the recipe says to use approx 6 tbs The result was gunge that no amount of flour would salvage without turning it into concrete, and so I had to bin it.

Attempt 2) Added about 1½tbs water and immediately got a dough that came away from the bowl and formed a ball (although there didn't seem to be much of it) Success, or so I thought. Chilled said pastry for 30mins, but when I rolled it out it simply cracked with every roll of the pin. I broke the ball of dough open and added a touch more water. No joy, still too dry, still cracked when I tried to roll it. Added a bit more and ended up with gunge again that had to be binned.

I was a bit :mad: at this stage, but determined to continue.

Attempt 3) I made my own pastry using 6oz Plain Flour and 3oz Lard, a touch of salt and a little water. Didn't have time to let it rest as my oven was up to temp, so when I baked it baked blind, it shrank significantly

I added the filling regardless, and although it actually tasted lovely, I feel it was a bit of a disaster, and I don't understand why when I meticulously weighed everything

110g Flour + 2tsp Mustard doesn't seem like enough "dry" mixture for 40ml Veg Oil and up to 6 tbs of water? And the amount of pastry it makes doesn't appear to be enough to line an 8" tin/dish? I'm not saying it isn't, just that it doesn't appear to be.

So.... those of you who have successfully worked with the pastry for the quiche, where did I go wrong? Is there a special technique? What tips could you give me? - apart from "stay out of the kitchen" :rotfl:

On a positive note, the onions caramelised beautifully

Sorry for the long winded message, but I would like to have another bash at this at some stage and very much want to stick to the original recipe, so want to avoid repeating whatever it was I did wrong this time.

Sian_the_Green · 1 June 2010 at 9:05PM

weezl74 wrote: »

ok I'm loving the sound of sian's recipes

Sian, the acid test, do you feel that they taste different enough that if you had one as a sarnie one day for lunch, and t'other the next (but not everyday/otherday, just a few times) would it feel like 2 different sandwich fillers?

I think so, though I reckon if it were a closed sandwich it would be less obvious than when I had them sat next to each other on the plate. The garam masala is good because it is quite fine and mixes in nicely, I tried with some dried herbs and it was a little gritty, they may need grinding a little smaller if you were to use them. I am not a mustard fan so didn't try that but it would be more different if you see what I mean! If you had something like a pea and mustard hummus you could even have caramelised onion and garam masala together, making one a sweeter sandwich, and one a tangier one. Or the garam would go nicely with peas in a kind of curry flavoured houmous. So many options. (btw, I am going to have garlic coming out of my pores for days, vampires of Sheffield beware!)

Also, the red lentil pate tastes better after being in the fridge overnight. It is an interesting colour though.

I would be happy to try the biscuits, though I may not be the best person given that I can't use the food processor and don't have any of Shirley's bread

up for it though!

weezl74 · 1 June 2010 at 9:13PM

awww karen, so sorry the pastry was all :mad::mad: for you. I feel bad!

Sadly I can't publish any edits now til I get home on saturday, but I hope we can work out together where the method is wrong.

Lesley, It's roughly the same water as oil isn't it that works well?, so I'm perplexed why 2 tbspns was way too much. Scratches head.

Sorry again

ps re reading your flour comment I'm wondering if my digi scales aren't that good after all

weezl74 · 1 June 2010 at 9:24PM

hipeeechiq, the delia pastry we frugalised had these ingredients:

For the pastry: 2 oz (50 g) self-raising flour 2 oz (50 g) wholewheat flour pinch of salt ½ level teaspoon mustard powder 2 oz (50 g) butter 1½ oz (40 g) Cheddar cheese, grated

and so the 110g flour was to up the content a little as the cheese is gone, and then we replaced the fat with the oil.

the two resulting pastries weigh the same so theoretically they should both cover the same 8 inch pie dish...

I will think on further and get back to you

shanks77 · 1 June 2010 at 9:39PM

Hippeechiq i am sorry that your pastry didnt work for you. Unfortunately i had the same problems and ended up making my own with the fat and flour which worked fine. I have tried Weezls method a few times and it went pear shaped every time. Sorry its not a helpful post just wanted you to know it wasnt just you.

Murrell · 1 June 2010 at 10:04PM

weezl74 wrote: »

Murrell, 93 unique shirleys have come via your blog :Tthank you! What sort of traffic is your blog getting cos that's a hefty amount of click throughs which implies your readership trust your links a lot

Hiah,

93!!!!!!!!! I only have 8 followers, so there much be a lot of people reading, but not signing up to follow. Gosh I find this so unbelievable that so many read my little blog, that I was wondering if I should give up! This has incouraged me to carry on with it. I don't know how to find out how much traffic I get, but this is incouraging.

I can do the nut roast on Thursday or Friday if you want. I just made the original brown onion version of the onion tart of Sunday instead (I used red onions last time).

Sandra
x

Lesley_Gaye · 1 June 2010 at 10:18PM

Hippeechiq, so sorry to hear about your pastry

I found the most important point is to use the same volume of water as I do of oil. It looks much too much when you first mix it in, but then the flour sort of slurps it all up and you end up with a soft, pliable dough.

I leave it for just a minute or so before it's fine.

I still used the cheese last time I made the onion tart, but can't taste it, so will leave it out next time. Have just looked up the recipe version I use and it is
100g sr flour
2tsps mustard
40g oil
40g water
40g cheese

I put all the ingredients in a bowl all together, mix the sloppy mix gently with a spoon, then leave it for a minute, 2 at the most, and the flour soaks up all the moisture.

I made oil pastry today for a pie (no cheese) with my DGD, we left it for a bit, then it was still a tiny bit sticky, so added 1 tblsp of extra flour and it was fine.

Previously, when I added the amount of water I thought it needed to get a dough (ie in pastry made with lard/butter) it was just as you describe, short and impossible to roll

PS I am Lesley or Lesley Gaye pretty much everywhere

Weezl and friends Phase 2 -giving it a whirl for Shirl! Testing meal plan for a month

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