General Chat

................ and everyone else leaves the room for the next several hours :-D

A good cheap meal is beans on toast made with wholegrain bread is supposed to give you all the same nutrition as a steak,

according to a food program i saw last week,

Roy

grilled cheese on toast ???


I've envious ............... I can't eat any dairy :-(


soy cheese just does not do it!

Well you are more of a paragon than me, I am getting far too lazy :-D....

Mind you, I have been saving on food these last two days because all I have eaten is cheese on toast....don't ask .....and no I am not pregnant :-D

I remember home economics....My mother had already taught me more than the teachers ever could.......My goodness...the children today know nothing. ....nope...don't start me on that topic....off to get a cuppa :-D

Susan

I'm not a paragon!


and we do waste food sometimes.


we happen to like roasts, and we like cold roast meat ......... so to get 3 meals out of 1 piece of meat just makes sense to us.


I also don't like cooking that much!

So one big shepherds pie, fish pie, or stew, freezing the excess portions, is more to my liking than several smaller ones cooked separately! Much less effort. :-)


hope you are well.



sylvia

Wow! Sylvia, I am impressed and also feeling rather ashamed of myself for the wastage in our house.

I too know what it is to go without in my childhood but reading your post has made me feel I should do more to stop the wastage and to remember what it was to be creative with the little that was in the cupboards....the sense of pride that came with making something from practically nothing.....I am sure my life was more fulfilling in those days.

I was raised by a mother who was very thrifty ............... having lived through WW1 with her father overseas, then through the 30s and finally WW2.

OH was also raised by a thrifty mum

so we have both lived that way since we married almost 45 years ago.

We buy very little prepared food, yet I have a freezer full of meals.

There are just 2 of us now, but we have a roast almost every Sunday ......... then we have cold roast meat on Monday and sometimes Tuesday. If there is enough left, I'll make a version of a risotto or a curry (if it's lamb) on either Tuesday or Wednesday. If not enough, then I'll have a roast meat sandwich for lunch. So that is at least 3 meals from one piece of beef, pork, lamb or whatever

If roasts are on special at the store ............ OH will buy either a much larger one than usual or two smaller ones. He will cut the large one into 2, and that is frozen, as is the spare smaller one.

We bought a very big ham on the bone on a special sale last year ..... and OH cut it up in smaller sized roasts. He swore he would never do that again, it was so difficult! But we got 4 roasts out of it .................. and in fact, he did repeat the exercise a few months later when they again came on sale. We still have one of roasts in the freezer. I think we will ask the butcher at the supermarket to cut it up for us next time we think of buying one. As long as we buy all the pieces, they are willing to do things like that.

I have sliced roast chicken in the freezer .......... 2 packets, each containing enough chicken for a dinner for 2. We had a large chicken the other week, and ended up being out for 3 nights, so we froze most of it. We got the hot meal, the legs and thighs cold another night, I had 2 sandwiches, and 2 meal sized portions frozen from the one chuck! I also froze portions of the sage and onion stuffing

I have also frozen sliced roast turkey.

The one thing I am not good at is making soup ............. I've tried, and they just taste awful! so carcasses get thrown out.


I buy extra lean ground beef when it comes on special, and freeze it until I need it. The same with cans of wild sockeye salmon (they come on at about half price). Then I make large shepherds pies or fish pies .......... and freeze the excess in 1 serving sizes, using aluminum foil as the main wrap. The foil packets take 30 minutes to heat up if thoroughly thawed, or 1 hour if still frozen.

I figure to get at least 5 portions from 1 pie ......... 2 fresh, 3 or more frozen. Last week I got 5 frozen shepherds pie portions and 4 frozen fish pies.

Added later ............... I also buy stew meat when it's on sale, then make large stews, always casseroled in the oven. Eat 2 portions, and freeze the rest. Two weeks ago, I made stew, and froze 2 boxes for 2 people, and 2 boxes for 1 person each.


We buy turkey sausages from the butcher ................. always buy extra, and freeze them.

The butcher also makes something he calls Hollywood lamb chops ................ minced lamb formed into a patty, and then wrapped with bacon. Again, we buy more than we need, and freeze the extras.

OH has a small veggie patch in the garden, we usually have enough potatoes to last from September to January.

We are eating leeks picked fresh from the garden right now. He sows the leek seed in spring, then just lets them grow, doesn't even bother thinning them. When everything else has been dug up in September, he pulls and thins the seedlings, and transplants them all. Then he just leaves them until February, when we start to eat them.

They are delicious, so tender.


If bread is on special, we will buy 2 loaves, and freeze one.


I have quite a large freezer under my fridge, and we have an upright freezer in the basement ..... although that mainly contains frozen juices (always bought on special), ice cream (or my soy dessert), frozen fish.


I never buy jams, except for strawberry jam when he wants to make a trifle.

We make all our own jams, jellies and marmalade ........... he does all the work now, I just tell him when they are at setting point.

Quince and crab apples are free from the Botanical Garden where I used to work. We go out to pick blackberries wild. We have to buy Seville oranges or kumquats from whichever grocery store has decided to carry them "this" year. Blueberries come on very good specials at the height of the season, either from the farms or in the store. We go to the local fruit farms to buy tayberries and other soft fruits. I never make strawberry jam!

Although, I do have to admit that making your own jams is not a cheap way of getting them ......... they just taste soooooo much better!




sylvia

:-D :-D :-D

There was a thread with household tips some time ago. perhaps someone could find it - I have tried.

Lesley, I stand corrected,

Must be getting old :-S we used to set our cold store at 4 degrees with air flow at harvest time to help bring down the temperature and then you are correct it should be between 7/10 degrees

I will amend my post

Roy

Roy. 4 degrees is to low a temperature to store potatoes less than 5 degrees and the starch turns to sugar, the optimum temperature is around 7/8 degrees Celsius.

Thanks Ladies, thats great

Teresa x

Ah, you got one of those too TW. I have t be quick if I want to make soup or he is off picking the bones. Well not at the moment with his tooth problem, at the moment he rather likes the soup :-D :-D

As long as the chicken is thoroughly cooked, there shouldn't be a problem with it as long as it is put in the fridge as soon as it's cold enough, and used withing 3-4 days.

Mine doesn't last that long, my OH likes chicken too much for me to have it hanging around for too long, I have to use what I can quickly or he's in and out the fridge picking at it. :-S

3 days is max i would keep a chicken, without using it or freezing it,

I am ultra cautious with chicken and would usually only keep it for three days.

Did anyone watch countryfile the other week about chicken and pylobactor. 70%of the fresh supermarket chicken they tested had it. That is why chicken must be cooked really well. And why I never eat chicken in restaurants.

Fred, I just no their is a Scottish connection some where in my tree, but i have still not found it yet :-S

Roy ;-)

"How long is it safe to keep a cooked chicken?"

Home cooked, as long as it has been stored properly in the fridge, probably 5 days. After that, I start to get a bit cautious. Mind you, we do have caste-iron stomachs!

I Think Roy and i are of the same feather ,so tight assed ,we should BOTH be of Scottish descent ,we even save the skins off tatties in this house ,scrub the tatties first ,peel and then use the skins for making tattie and leek soup .
Called ,mean ,tight or in Geordie land Canny with the money lol,Fred :-D

Another way to stretch mince in shepherds pie is to add aubergine or squash. We have very little waste. I think we have less waste in this house too since they brought in the food waste bin and banned food waste from the land fill bin. I hate putting food in the food bin and wrack my brains as to how to use it instead of throwing it. We are fortunate and don't actually have to watch the pennies but do so by choice.