What's cooking / VT cookbook merge

[AVFCLaura]

Make & freeze? Good idea.

I've got to be a touch careful also though, I live in a house with other girls and I have 1 tray in the freezer.

[AVFCLaura]

Laura, I gave up bread, pasta and alot of potato last year and i have to say it's amazing how little i miss it, well as part of my regular diet anyway.

My vice I'd say, bread & pasta. I realise I eat too much of these things & I don't think they are doing me any favours. I'm not a sweet tooth, I don't eat sweets / chocolates / puddings etc.

[Gingerlad]

Also, ASDA cracker breads are probs cheaper then Ryvita...

[Grant(aka_eddy)]

Laura, I gave up bread, pasta and alot of potato last year and i have to say it's amazing how little i miss it, well as part of my regular diet anyway.

My vice I'd say, bread & pasta. I realise I eat too much of these things & I don't think they are doing me any favours. I'm not a sweet tooth, I don't eat sweets / chocolates / puddings etc.

As long as you stock up on other foods and plan/prepare your meals in advance i think you'll be surprised how easy it is to do and how after only a week or 2 you really wont fancy it at all. In 9 months i've had about 6 subways, zero sandwiches bought or made myself, toast 4 times, pasta twice while eating out, whereas before i would live off these things.

Honestly i cant recommend it enough and if you could maybe try counting the calories you take in from them you may realise that you wont need to actually diet once you've taken them out, removing these dead calories is a diet in itself.

With the extra protein you take in you should never go hungry.

[AVFCLaura]

Sounds good to me Eddy.

I've got no problems with preparing everything, maybe what I need to do is get some good, cheap recipes and do a day by day meal plan creating a shopping list.

I'm looking at recipes on BBCGoodFood.com and it's brilliant - but a lot of ingredients are involved in most of the recipes. I am also cooking for 1 with little freezer space. Hmmm.

[AVFCLaura]

Ok - Help.

It's January and the credit crunch is in full effect, I want to do a healthy food shop on a budget, I'd like to lose weight (not a resolution thing, just general) and try and do maybe 1200 calories a day.

This is my shopping basket so far, what do you think, can you help, etc

Baking potatoes

Mission Deli wraps - Take to work instead of bread

Weight Watchers Danish white bread

Mixed stir fry (The veg & beansprouts) - I heart making Stir Fry

Pepper Stir fry (The veg & beansprouts)

Chicken fillets x 2

Sweetcorn in water x 4

Dress Italian Pasta sauce

Dress Italian Pasta sauce

Ryvita Crackerbread

Ryvita Crispbread

New Covenent Garden Carrot Soup

New Covenent Garden Fresh soup

New Covenent Garden Winter Soup

Bernard Matthews Turkey Escalopes

Garlic kievs

John West Tuna chunks

Colman's Tuna bake (Sachet to make them)

Fresh Ravioli x 2

Fresh Tortellini

If I need to start again, I will. I just need to be really careful of cost / calories. I'm happy to look into more ingredients that require preparing and cooking from scratch - as long as it's cheap enough and is not too complicated for my basic level of cooking skill.

I am shopping at ASDA online.

Thanks in advance

Bump, I've got to check out later and I'd love some help. I really would like basic ingredients that I can buy at a good cost to make some meals for my tea that are healthy - recipes would be great. All recipes I have found have far too many ingredients and just make them really expensive.

[Grant(aka_eddy)]

1 meal i'm having every day at the moment and is healthy is a large salad that i pick at over an hour or two at lunch.

Large protion of lean meat, Chicken or Ham works well.

Pineapple (from tin, in juice)

Pear (from tin, in juice)

slice of cheese

spinach leaves (use lettuce if you prefer) + a dressing

pepper

tomatoes

spring onion

carrot

Meant to have a hard boiled egg as well but i'm not a fan.

Get the dressing right and thats a tasty healthy lunch. I'm currently using garlic and herb low fat or a garlic and chilli dipping oil.

[AVFCLaura]

Ok, that's what is frustrating me slightly in this search, what you just posted even if I went to Lidl, would cost more than I would ever like to pay for a lunch. It sounds amazing, don't get me wrong, but it's not practically affordable for food for 1 on a budget, surely?

I'd like to stick to a budget of 2.50 pounds, 3.00 max really for an evening meal and even less for a lunch. Is that an impossible task to eat well?

[ClaretMahoney]

Ok - Help.

It's January and the credit crunch is in full effect, I want to do a healthy food shop on a budget, I'd like to lose weight (not a resolution thing, just general) and try and do maybe 1200 calories a day.

This is my shopping basket so far, what do you think, can you help, etc

Baking potatoes

Mission Deli wraps - Take to work instead of bread

Weight Watchers Danish white bread

Mixed stir fry (The veg & beansprouts) - I heart making Stir Fry

Pepper Stir fry (The veg & beansprouts)

Chicken fillets x 2

Sweetcorn in water x 4

Dress Italian Pasta sauce

Dress Italian Pasta sauce

Ryvita Crackerbread

Ryvita Crispbread

New Covenent Garden Carrot Soup

New Covenent Garden Fresh soup

New Covenent Garden Winter Soup

Bernard Matthews Turkey Escalopes

Garlic kievs

John West Tuna chunks

Colman's Tuna bake (Sachet to make them)

Fresh Ravioli x 2

Fresh Tortellini

If I need to start again, I will. I just need to be really careful of cost / calories. I'm happy to look into more ingredients that require preparing and cooking from scratch - as long as it's cheap enough and is not too complicated for my basic level of cooking skill.

I am shopping at ASDA online.

Thanks in advance

Bump, I've got to check out later and I'd love some help. I really would like basic ingredients that I can buy at a good cost to make some meals for my tea that are healthy - recipes would be great. All recipes I have found have far too many ingredients and just make them really expensive.

Not bad, mine would look something like this:

Broccoli

Carrots

(canned) Mini wee corns

Onion

green onion

red onion

small Potatoes

(canned) Water Chestnuts

(canned) Jyota Indian lentilcurry

(canned) Tuna

Chicken breasts x 2

Beef stew meat for stirfry

Wheat bread, 12 grain

kikkoman lite Soy sauce

thai noodles

rice noodles

stir fry sauce

hummus

pita bread

linguine

pasta sauce

parmesan

eggs

2x mac n cheese.

Pretty healthy stuff really, lots of veg.

[YLN]

Study food is what I'm at at the moment. Today I made a pasta bake that will do me for 3 days. ie until my final exam. Head of broccolli cut into inch florettes. Carrots cut up. Boil both these for about 5 mins. Penne Pasta. **** loads of cheese and pasta sauce. Breadcrumbs and a bit of basil for flavour. Spring onions.

Takes about 20 mins to prepare and food prep time til Friday is now 2 mins in the microwave. Sometimes I'll put in tuna, but it can turn before the 3 days are up so I was wary. If I'm really interested, I'll make a chicken and bacon one, but that's a non-exam time dish.

[ClaretMahoney]

Yea Yillan i know what you're up to there I do the same sort of thing.

Was realizing eating Subway for lunch every other day was a bit heavy on the checking account.

So now what I'll do is cook some chicken, carrots, brocolli and green onions with a good soy sauce/stiry fry sauce and mix it with rice or rice sticks (they rock!). I cook enough that it covers two lunches. Costs me about $5 to make the two meals and it's pretty nutritious.

Another good example is cooking 3 cups of rice or so, and a couple of chicken/beef breasts with a curry sauce with potatoes and onions, and then use that as lunch for the next couple days. That's what I did today, I have one more beef madras ready for lunch tomorrow. Shame I have to use a microwave, I reckon those are terrible for our bodies, meh, what can ya do.

[peterms]

Ok, that's what is frustrating me slightly in this search, what you just posted even if I went to Lidl, would cost more than I would ever like to pay for a lunch. It sounds amazing, don't get me wrong, but it's not practically affordable for food for 1 on a budget, surely?

I'd like to stick to a budget of 2.50 pounds, 3.00 max really for an evening meal and even less for a lunch. Is that an impossible task to eat well?

No, it's not impossible, but it does take a bit of planning. I'll take a look when I have a bit more time and make some suggestions.

But of the things in your list above, some are maybe quite expensive for what they are. Chicken fillets - a dear way to buy chicken, which also prevents you making the stock which would keep you in soup for a week. Tinned veg and sauces in jars are for people who need the convenience and don't mind paying more. Pre-packed stir-fry - also dearer than doing it yourself, and the veg will have started to degrade from when they were first cut up. Garlic kievs sound like the ingredient list may have things you don't really want, and anything from Bernard Matthews is 100% guaranteed to contain shite and involve animal cruelty.

If you buy some things from supermarkets like big bags of rice and pasta, tinned tomatoes when they're half price (they often are), make sure you always have onions, garlic, carrots, celery in the house, have some basic spices like dried chilli and if possible grow a couple of herbs in pots, then you can manage quite well with buying a bit of meat and some fresh veg as you need it.

I'll make some more specific suggestions in a couple of days.

[TheSufferingVilla]

Sherry Chicken Whatyermacallsit.

Ingredients:

--------------------------------------------

1 x reasonably large Onion - sliced

12 x Mushrooms - sliced

8 x Garlic Cloves diced

4 x Chicken Cutlets

Rice

Chicken Stock Cube

Butter

Flour

Water

Corn Starch

Cream

Sherry

---------------------------------------------

Method:

Onions, mushrooms, garlic and 2 Tbsp's of butter in the pan, fry up for a couple of minutes until golden, then set aside.

Cook the 4 Chicken Cutlets slowly in the pan with another 3 Tbsp's of butter until done all the way through, fire up the temperature chuck in 2 Tbsp's of flour, coat the chicken and brown, then set aside.

Mix 1 Tbsp of Corn Starch in 30ml of water, stir till paste like, then set aside.

Disolve 1/2 a Chicken Stock cube in 60ml of Water, add to medium hot pan. Toss in 250ml of Sherry and 125ml of cream, mix well, simmer down for 2 or so minutes, if still liquidy add the corn starch mixture to thicken. Toss the other ingredients back into the pan and heat through.

Serves 2 fat bastards over plenty of rice.

[Connell]

cant wait to try beef breast

[peterms]

I've got no problems with preparing everything, maybe what I need to do is get some good, cheap recipes and do a day by day meal plan creating a shopping list.

OK, working on £3 for dinner, £2 for lunch, here's some suggestions. Not everything is costed, because some things will last over a long period, like olive oil and mayo, so it's hard to break down. However, it's based on good quality ingredients, including free range chicken and wine. You could eat cheaper than this, for example today I had pasta with olive oil, garlic, chili and parsley, with parmesan. Pretty cheap, probably cheaper than any recipe below.

It's geared towards finding a couple of key ingredients (in this case chicken, with a subsidiary flavour of anchovy) and working around that. You can do all this without using a freezer or a microwave, though freezing stock is always a good idea.

You do of course get to drink all the wine you don't use for cooking. You could leave the wine out of the risotto, but the chicken and anchovy dish works much better with wine.

It's a bit long. :cry:

Buying:

Free range chicken £6

Bottle of white wine £4

Fish £4

Tin anchovies £1

2 tins chopped tomatoes £1

Feta cheese £2

Avocado £1

Refried beans £1

Leeks £1

Head of celery

Onions

Carrots

Garlic

Lemons

Cooking chorizo £2 (will last you more than a week)

Potatoes £1

Pack of 8 wraps £1.50

Tomatoes £1

Cucumber 50p

and any stock items you don't already have.

Priced items = £27. Say another tenner for various veg and herbs, and contribution to cost of things which are spread over a longer period like rice, pasta, capers, mayonnaise, olive oil. If you start without those stock items, initial cost will be higher while you build up a stock.

Haven't tried to allow for things like coffee, butter etc which you will doubtless also be buying, so don't expect a total food bill of £35 - that cost is for the dinners and lunches. You can do it cheaper by not using wine, not buying free range chicken and so on, but it's better like this. The fish is probably the dearest single meal. If you buy anything organic, potatoes are the best thing to get, and work in other veg as budget allows, starting with root veg.

Longer term, growing your own herbs in a pot and salad in a box is easy and cheap.

Cooking:

Do a couple of things at the weekend to get ahead for the week.

Take the legs off the chicken and save in the fridge. Put the rest of the chicken in the biggest pan you have (a good stock pot costs around £20), with an onion, carrot, stick of celery, bay leaf if you have one, but no salt. Fill pot with water, bring to boil, skim, and cook on the lowest simmer you can manage, not bubbles, water just barely moving, for about an hour. Take the breasts off, save one for lunches, the other is for the first recipe.

When you cook the potatoes for the first recipe, do enough for whatever saute potatoes you will want in a couple of days time, and any you might want for a potato salad as part of a lunch box. Saves a bit of time later.

Strip the chicken carcass of all the little scraps of meat (using hands while it's warm but not hot is easiest), save for the risotto. The stock is for soup, risotto, and any left over can be frozen for other soups.

Make tomato sauce: soften onions, garlic in oil. Add chili. Add 2 tins chopped tomatoes, simmer gently for 45 mins or so, adding a little more water if it gets too thick. Check it's not sticking. Season. Save for the enchiladas and pasta. Any left over can be used for eg nachos.

Make salad dressing. Olive oil, a little lemon juice or wine vinegar, touch of mustard, salt and pepper, in a jam jar. Shake before using. Take to work if you have salad for lunch, because once you dress the sald, the acid will start eating into the salad leaves.

Poached chicken with salsa verde

Anchovies, capers, garlic, parsley (other soft green herbs like tarragon or basil if available) - blend with a little lemon juice. Add olive oil at end, breadcrumbs optional.

Serve with the poached chicken breast, boiled potatoes, maybe broccoli.

Penne piccante

Soften chopped onion and small cubes of chorizo in oil. Add spicy tomato sauce. Mix with pasta.

Risotto

Soften chopped onion, carrot, celery, garlic, touch of chili, maybe small amount of chopped bacon or chorizo, in olive oil. Add rice (arborio or carnarole), turn over until coated in oil. Add glass of white wine, wait until absorbed, add chicken stock in small quantities, stirring all the time, adding more when needed, salt and pepper, add chicken and anything else available like bits of chopped peppers, mushrooms.

When rice is cooked, turn off heat, add a little butter and grated cheese, mix in. Add chopped parsley and mix in.

Use leftovers for a microwaved lunch, or shape into flat rice cakes and fry gently in butter or oil, or else make arancini - shape into a ball, add small piece of mozzarella in the middle, close up the rice ball, roll in breadcrumbs and deep fry, serve with salsa and salad

Sea bream with potatoes and thyme (serves 2)

Slice waxy potatoes as thick as £1 coin, fry gently in wide shallow pan, turning frequently, add chopped garlic and 1 sliced onion per person, 2 bay leaves, plenty of fresh thyme, lemon juice, glass of wine, salt and pepper, bit of chili if you like it. Put lid on pan, cook gently for half hour. Add whole fish (sea bream, sea bass work well here), replace lid, cook for further 2 mins, test fish by cutting in to it to see if it's done, serve by lifting to half of fish off the bone with a knife and a spatula, then lifting the whole set of bones off the bottom half of the fish. Doesn't really need an accompaniment.

Chicken with anchovies and capers

Fry chicken legs in butter and olive oil in saute pan until lightly browned, take out of pan. Soften chopped onions in pan, add chopped anchovies, stir until they start to dissolve, add lemon juice and glass of white wine, black pepper (probably no salt, having used anchovies), stir well. Return chicken to pan, put lid on tight, simmer gently for 40 mins. Check occasionally to see it's not sticking, add a little water if needed. Serve with rice, veg if you like.

Enchiladas

Take 2 wraps per person, lay flat. Soften small amount of chopped onion in oil, add small tin of refried beans per person, fry until warmed through, place in centre of wraps. Add some grated cheese, maybe a little chopped lettuce or finely shredded cabbage, maybe chopped fresh tomatoes if available, squeeze of lemon or lime juice. Roll up the wraps (tucking the sides under while rolling) and place in baking dish just big enough to hold them (lightly oil the dish first so they don't stick), cover in plenty of spicy tomato sauce, maybe add a few thin slices of cheese and some fresh coriander on top, cover with tinfoil, bake in medium oven (160o) for half hour or so. Leftovers work cold, or microwaved.

Grilled chicken with mustard

Mix mustard with crushed garlic, olive oil, lemon juice, coat chicken

Grill under moderate grill, not too close, turning often

Serve with baked or saute potatoes, salad.

Lunches

Greek salad (2 lunches)

Half pack of feta cheese, cubed

Cherry tomatoes, halved

Cucumber, diced

Black olives

Parsley

French dressing - olive oil, mustard, lemon juice, black pepper

Leek and potato soup (2 lunches)

Soften chopped onions and leeks in oil (chopped garlic and chili optional)

Add potatoes, cut into small cubes

Add chicken stock, salt, pepper, simmer for 20-30 mins, liquidise

Chicken and avocado wrap

Chop cooked chicken, chopped avocado, mayo, lemon juice, salt and pepper, roll in wrap. 1 breast and 1 avocado should do 2 lunches.

Mixed salad box

Leftover boiled potatoes

Leftover penne piccante

Cucumber, tomato, salad leaves, maybe some grated cheese

Add mayo, or else french dressing just before eating

[AVFCLaura]

Peter you are the man...

I am printing this and taking it home to look over. Wraps are brilliant, especially as I am trying to cut out bread. My boyfriend and I disagree over bread, but I don't think I should eat it. I remember being told that it's not good for women especially, I can eat like 4-5 slices of bread a day and I want to try and incorporate lunches that don't use bread. Also not having a slice with dinner (as I used to)

I should save a few quid here and there also as I dont drink. (Or eat anchovies.)

[mjmooney]

I couldn't imagine not eating bread.

[AVFCLaura]

I like krisprolls / crackerbread & ricecakes. I think they are a good alternative to bread.

[mjmooney]

My missus once did that "only eat homemade vegetable soup for a week" crash diet.

Just to show solidarity I said I'd go along with it too.

She did the whole week; I lasted until 10.00 pm on day 1, by which point I was going insane with hunger, and just cracked - and gorged on buttered scones.

The soup was nice and everything, but there is no way on this earth I could do that for a day, let alone a week.

[peterms]

I should save a few quid here and there also as I dont drink. (Or eat anchovies.)

I was wondering about the anchovies as I sent it, they are a "love or hate" taste. I would suggest leaving the anchovies out of the salsa, or else do a red salsa instead (eg red pepper, chili, tomato, chopped onion, lemon/lime). For the chicken dish, try Pollo al Ajillo instead. Saute about 10 whole cloves of garlic in olive oil (take off the papery outer skin, but don't peel), saute chicken until brown, add about 6 bay leaves, chuck in a glass of sherry or wine so it emulsifies with the oil, season, turn down to a gentle heat, put lid on and simmer for 30-40 mins.

If you don't drink, you can still coook with wine, just make sure you cook it enough so the alcohol burns off, which doesn't take long. Get a bottle with a screw cap, and it should be ok for cooking for a while, if you can keep your flatmates off it.