Showing posts with label thrifty meals. Show all posts
Showing posts with label thrifty meals. Show all posts

19.3.14

Charity Challenge Day 4 - The art of deception

The fussy one had eaten nearly all his Almost Spanish Omelette before he realised there was potato in it. I'd cut the potato really, really small. Needs must you see.

Another Charity Challenge highlight has got to be using a chef's ring for the rosti - honestly it's not been out of the drawer for aaages, and I'd forgotten how a bit of neat uniformity can magically make things seem more appetising. Appearance matters for kids - well it does for mine, and frankly I'll take all the help I can get.

So I'll be making round food more often, and have another go at rosti cakes, though next time I'll squeeze more of the starchy liquid out of the grated potato; pretty sure that's the key to a good rosti.


We're over half way through now, and not wanting to tempt fate or anything, but our £12 veggie week is going better than expected - I'd even say my fussy blighter has eaten more than he usually does.
This has probably got a lot to do with a ready supply of homemade bread. Last year I used Recipe Junkie's delicious bread recipe, and even made a bubbly, yeasty sourdough starter, but this time I've gone for speed and stripped my bread prep down to the bare bones.

500g of strong flour in a big bowl with a 7g sachet of yeast sprinkled on one side and 5-10g of salt on the other (so the salt doesn't kill the yeast), then mix in 300ml of warm water, plonk out onto a floured surface and knead for about 10 minutes.
Put the dough ball onto a very lightly greased tray and leave, covered with a tea towel, somewhere warm for one hour plus. Score the risen dough, and pop into a pre-heated oven at 220 degrees C for about 25 minutes. Should sound hollow when you tap the top, and seems to have worked fine so far, even with my old/new flour mixture.

I made some cider bread today, and know I've banged on about it before, At Length - but it really is the easiest bread EVER. No need to knead, and takes only a few minutes to prepare. If you've got some spare cider/lager/guinness knocking about do give it a go. I had the end of a bottle of cider in the fridge and cut back on the cheese and butter quantities so it didn't make too much of a dent in our rations.
It's best eaten on the day it's made, but that's never been a problem!

Also wanted to mention I've kept any spare bits of bread and ends of loaves for something I'm going to try tomorrow. I know I'm going to like it, just not so sure about the kids...
All will be revealed in the next post.

12.3.13

Frugal food - Charity Challenge day 4

I've had to plan meals down to the last grain of rice so I can stretch the food bought with my £12 budget across the week. I don't really mind the planning bit, and it's less daunting than last time, because things like making bread don't phase me as much as they used to. I make it regularly now, thanks to the very lovely, talented Recipe Junkie and her tutorials on growing and using a sourdough starter. I wasn't totally sure what a starter was to be honest; now I have a jar of bubbly, yeasty goo sitting on my window sill, constantly reminding me to make bread.

sourdough starter

So, this week breakfast is bread or toast, and lunch for me is some kind of orange soup (lentil/carrot or to spice things up carrot and lentil..)  I have packed lunches to make too: my fussy one has them all week - the others have a mixture of packed lunches and pre-paid school dinners. I'm giving them ham and cream cheese sandwiches, a muffin, 2 cream crackers with marg, and a carrot.
They are going to be sick of the sight of carrots by friday.


So the family meals work out like this:

Saturday      Lunch: Lentil soup and bread
                       Tea: Homemade ham and mozzarella pizza and garlic pizza
                       (sauce: one tin chopped tomatoes, half the passata, onion, tsp sugar, seasoning)

Sunday         Lunch: Tomato, mozzarella and ham pasta
                       (leftover cheese and sauce from pizzas + chopped up ham)
                       Tea: Roast chicken, potatoes and carrots

Monday         Spanish style frittata
                       (chopped and fried up potatoes from day before, half an onion, a little ham, 4 beaten eggs + cheeky handful of peas from freezer for a splash of colour..other than orange..)

Tuesday        Savoury chicken rice
                       (leftover chicken pieces, half a leek, half an onion, carrot, stock)
                   
Wednesday   Tomato and ham pasta
                       (another batch of tomato sauce made with spare tin and rest of the passata - save about half for friday pizzas. Maybe add a dollop of cream cheese to pasta sauce)

Thursday       Leek and carrot soup with cider bread 
                        (Cider bread is really worth a go - so quick, easy and delicious. I'm using some cider I keep in the fridge for this recipe - but no cheese or butter)
                     
Friday            Ham pizza and garlic pizza

I bulk out the meals with bread, and after-school snacks and puddings are muffins. Peach, carrot or banana on offer this week. Squirrel is having break.


Snackless squirrel

The homemade pizzas on saturday night were a great success



375g of flour made dough for 4 bases (2 tomato, 2 garlic)

We even had enough to feed a hanger-on; and apart from one slightly tense moment as I watched my son's friend carefully pick all the precious pieces of ham off his pizza, everyone was happy!

Sunday roast is always a winner - and there's enough chicken left for savoury rice tonight, plus a big bowl of fresh stock. I cut the potatoes up really small for the frittata yesterday, but they were spotted by my fussy potato avoider.
spanish style frittata
Still, he did eat it. Very slowly. Every single thing has to be eaten up this week!

No one's going hungry, that's for sure, and I keep reminding them we're doing it for Comic Relief - but think the novelty might be wearing a little thin..

You can find out more about our Charity Challenge here