Frugal Foodies, thread 3! Favourite leftover dishes, avoiding waste, menu ideas. Plus pets, and other chat.

[Ninkanink]

Hey everyone! 🌺🌼🌸

1st thread is here

2nd thread is here

Looking forward to another lovely thread! ☺️ Eat, drink and be merry!

Forgot the recipe...
www.kingarthurflour.com/recipes/sourdough-pizza-crust-recipe

This is fast becoming my favourite website.

Hi all

Sorry I've not been on been having a low week and not been on mn much at all to be honest. Just feeling blah!

Partly gloomy weather here doesn't help but just generally been feeling tired/off.

Not been doing proper cooking either so got LOADS to use up but freezer was slightly more empty -
Though I filled it yesterday, mainly with ice cream 

Lots of bread and curries going on I see! I've not been baking either and feel a bit guilty for that.

I've a HUGE stack of dishes to tackle before I do anything too which I will sort today. Part of it is backs been playing up so I've not been wanting to stand for long.

I've still got the pastry not sure of date on it, also fresh pasta to use, plenty fruit and veg (too much!)

But I think I need to do either stuff that's quick or that can be done in oven without much monitoring (as in I can pop in, sit for a bit then serve)

Lots of eggs to use up too so probably I'll do frittatas/baked eggs to use them up.

@lexloofah it definitely takes practice! I'm here just myself so it's a lot easier. It's much more tricky when there's others in the household eating/using stuff you were planning to use for a recipe! When dd lived here that used to drive me nuts!

Once she was older I succumbed to "flatmate" type rules and divided the fridge into 1/3's - a shelf for me a shelf for her and a shelf for shared BUT if there was something I didn't want her using as I had plans for it I'd put on my shelf. (It wasn't a dictatorship we discussed it all)

Also when meal planning/creating shopping list you need to consider what you already have in.

I used to be (still am sometimes) a bugger for thinking I was out of something, buying more, only to go and put it away after shopping to find I'd 3 lots in! 

Regarding being overwhelmed with choice - I use the nest egg app and it allows you to note expiry dates. Not only useful for monitoring stores but also days I can't decide I'll choose the option with the nearest expiry date.

@LaMarschallin wishing you a speedy recovery and hoping you're covid negative! Hospital food is dreadful and I am not fussy either but the veggie options are dire usually

Had a disastrous grocery delivery yesterday which I'm awaiting a call about. I won't bore but would like to know how safe bashed tins of beans & tomatoes are, how long houmous safe after use by date (caramelised onion flavour if that makes a difference?) and how long strawberries will keep roughly past best before?

(And that's not even the worst that happened!)

I'm eating more bread thanks to you lot - even though I'm not baking it!

Want to find the motivation to make more flatbreads and do some cake baking.

@Xiaoxiong, @PurpleDaisies and @Graphista, many thanks for your good wishes. Really appreciated
And also thanks to everyone on the thread for not calling me a fearful whinger (I was being) and ungrateful. I did appreciate the treatment I got.
It's my last day of self-isolating today and - touch wood - all well so far.

Funnily enough, the hospital dietician rang yesterday (I was very impressed) because she'd seen me while I was in. Sadly, the only thing she had to offer were Fortisips and Fortijuice, neither of which I could keep down.
Mr LaMar has been cooking up to today (because I'm Typhoid Mary Covid Cathy).
Which is fine - a mixture of things like sausage casserole or basic curries interspersed with the odd ready meal.

But...
I lied when she asked what I had for dinner yesterday (M&S chicken & dumplings with M&S red cabbage and (fresh) french beans).

Felt this would confirm their obvious suspicions that I live on a very limited diet and can't cook.

So, said:
breakfast: crumpet and Marmite* - true
lunch: quiche and soup - true
snacks: cheese and biscuits; yoghurt - true
drinks: water; 1 v. milky coffee; diluted orange juice - true
pre-bed: hot chocolate - true

and

dinner: fish pie with Delia's potato and rosti topping, glazed carrots and peas - Big Fat Lie.

That's what I'm cooking tomorrow as long as Covid doesn't creep up on me on my very last day of isolating.
Which would be cruel.

Pride makes one (well, me...) commit terrible sins, it seems.

*Sooo worried about Marmite! Can't remember when I last needed to buy some and now it's getting low

I LOVE marmite. I would be so sad if I couldn’t get it. I have marmite and butter on toast pretty much every day for breakfast. Hopefully they can sort their supply issue.

@LaMarschallin having a cathartic moan is positively encouraged on this thread. We’re more than just food here! Enjoy your freedom from self isolation tomorrow.

It’s been a nice day here. Friends popped round to the garden for a catch up. It was odd not to offer them coffee (they brought their own!) or cake but so nice to chat. They’ve taken some of my sourdough starter so hopefully he’ll do the business for them too.

Dinner was hybrid of fresh cooked and laziness. I had a craving for sweet and sour sauce so instead of a take away I made the sauce from scratch and had with frozen fake chicken nuggets and fried rice using a packet. It was about a hundred times nicer than the jars from the supermarket and I got to use up a tin of pineapple that went off (supposedly) in 2015.

@Graphista re houmous, I’d eat it for ages after the best before date, especially if it hasn’t been opened. I constantly have a rub on the go in the fridge and never look at the date. Strawberries will be obvious if they’re off. Bin any with mould. Apart from that, if they start to go softer than you like to eat them, use them for jam or a coulis...just cook them in a pan with sugar and a little lemon juice if you’ve got some. Then you can blend it or push it through a sieve. I’d use bashed cans. I’ve done so for years without an issue. Hope your delivery gets sorted.

Agree with everything Purple says about dented cans, hummus and strawberries. Mould on strawberries is immediately apparent, just take any out that have white fur and wash the rest.

Well my parents have left - I thought they were moving in with us but on Friday they packed all their cases, stripped the bed etc without really discussing it. When I texted to ask what was going on they just said they "wanted to get back to real life" so we are back to square one with homeschooling, both of us WFH, etc. I can't say I'm not gutted, especially as they weren't really upfront with me about how long they were staying and knew that I was assuming they were here to join our household, had ordered a week's worth of food for 6 people, planned meals I know they like (also discussed with them), planned my work week on the basis of 4 adults sharing supervision of the kids instead of just me and DH (with their agreement!) etc. It's fine, we will cope as we have all along and rejig our work weeks again but it's almost worse to have had support promised, expected and planned for and then suddenly removed. I wish they almost hadn't come at all and then I wouldn't have got my hopes up (and joyfully told work I could take more work on now I had more support which I will now have to pass back to my long-suffering team). I did ask them if we had done anything to upset them, how grateful we were for their help etc but they said no, they just needed to return to "real life". Wish we could too...

Anyway it's fine. We will just have to eat a LOT of salad, quickly, before it goes off since we can't freeze it. Luckily most of the other things I had got in can go in the freezer. And I had 2 loaves of bread to bake tomorrow, I guess I will bake one and give the other away as I was doing before.

@Xiaoxiong so sorry you've been let down. I have a similarly difficult relationship with my mum to this point I never expect to depend on her now.

I'm sure you and your little family will be fine - onwards and upwards!

I second what @Graphista says, that must be so frustrating, @Xiaoxiong. I hope you’ve at least got some nice food in your delivery?

I’ve been tired today and trying to catch up with some homework that’s involved intense staring at my laptop screen. That gave me a headache so I moved on to some linguistics and grammar which made my brain hurt more. To make it worse, I’ve run out of caffeinated coffee. I think I’ll have to send dh to the local shop.

Tonight’s dinner is going to be an easy one...pasta, fake meatballs and marinara type sauce. I got a bargain oregano plant (10p!) and I’m loving using fresh leaves. They’re so tasty. Yesterday’s cinnamon and apricot spiral loaf makes excellent toast so I’ve treated myself to some of that as a pick me up.

I’ve accidentally bought two big bags of sweet potatoes and looking for inspiration. We often have them in soup, curry, mashed or as chips. Anything different anyone can suggest? The only criteria is veggie!

@purpledaisies do you ever just have them as jackets? Love them that way

Oooh, found you guys again!

I have a dilemma concerning gluten feee pasta. I have some beetroot flavoured stuff, but when cooked, it leaks all it’s colour. Is thee a way of part cooking it and then adding in to a pasta bake?

Veggie if poss.

I’d forgotten about jacket sweet potatoes. Love that idea for tomorrow’s tea. Think will gage with veggie chilli and guacamole.

Sorry, no idea about gluten free pasta but hope someone else does. I’ve only ever boiled pasta!

@Xiaoxiong

So sorry to hear about your parents' decision not to stay.
It must have really knocked you off balance (and nobody's balanced very steadily these days).
Hope you at least get some lovely meals out of it (think that's guaranteed: your knowledge of cooking is amazing ).
in any combination and/or proportion to suit.

Thanks all, yes it has knocked me for six and I'm having trouble doing anything productive at the moment. Hard to focus, feeling listless and it's frustrating as I have a huge report that is overdue at work and I thought FINALLY this week I would be able to nail it. Now I'm supervising the kids and making food again, and instead I'll stay up all night to try and finish it. I should have stayed up to do it last night but I fell asleep on the sofa as I was so tired. Oh well.

Gluten free pasta - I would definitely just par-boil and add to your favourite pasta bake recipe and then it doesn't matter what colour it is. I'm partial to macaroni cheese, or Annabel Karmel tuna pasta bake! (Yes it's for toddlers, but it's really nice with a dollop of chili crisp on top!)

Ooooh, I think tuna with the beetroot pasta would be a great combo, and I got a stack of 4 tins in Tesco the other day (and got a jar of Marmite just incase!)

Wait, what, there is a Marmite shortage?

Only me at home has it on toast but I secretly stir into things like shepherds pie mince and roasties

Yeah, it's a by prodcut of the brewing industry, and with reduced demand from the pubs being closed, there's less yeast to make the extract from.

Ah I see, will get the next jar I see then thnx

I bought some Marmite butter in M&S yesterday which is fine for crumpets/toast. They also do Marmite cream cheese but I'm not sure about that.
According to their website, the bakery does cheese and Marmite pastries but sadly our branch doesn't so far.

However, there's an ominous lack of actual jars of the good stuff on the shelves

I didn't know there was a marmite shortage 😱 that'll be going on my next food order then!

@PurpleDaisies you could do a hash with some of the sweet potato?

Marmite seems available here for the moment. I've a jar in but may add to next order just in case. It's so handy for so many things

Purple there is a fab Ottolenghi recipe in one of his Plenty veggie cookbooks for sweet potato wedges coated with coriander and a dip made of creme fraiche, lemongrass and ginger. It's delicious and uses up a lot of sweet potatoes. I also like them as jackets with compound butter, or with feta cheese, avocado, coriander and chili on top!

Enjoying reading everyone's ideas ...just about struggling to put together some lentil, spinach and goat's cheese fritters...''tis a first try...try to expand our veggie meal selection.

I scored some fillets of plaice on Pesky Fish yesterday, delivered today so tonight is plaice with beurre noisette, little roast potatoes and spinach, peas and lettuce braised together.

We had a frugal lunch too - 1/4 of a loaf of day old sourdough cut into cubes, fried in slightly too much olive oil with sliced garlic, some chunks of chorizo, an elderly head of broccoli cut small, pecans, and puy lentils from a packet. Glass of gazpacho (from a Brindisa carton) on the side. I gave myself a small portion (because I wanted seconds) but DH ate ALL the rest - which actually was no bad thing as it was more filling than I expected! This would easily be made vegan - just swap out the chorizo chunks for some smoked paprika and maybe up the lentils a bit, or other beans. I've made it with asparagus and almonds before too, and cannellini beans.

I gave away our other loaf of bread so we are down to our last quarter-loaf - I will just have to bake more tomorrow

I think I might take on a sourdough soon... I can't even get my head round the instructions though (I'm an intelligent woman, honestly!) 🤦‍♀️

Have you got a starter spam? I did mine with sultanas and he’s fantastic,

It was batch cook night here. I cooked four jacket sweet potatoes. Some we ate, the rest will become soup. Still plenty of the ottelenghi wedges and sweet potato hash which I love the sound of. I also did a huge chilli. I’m thinking of making up a pot of the spice mix I normally use to save time in future. It was bloody good though. Dh made guacamole.

Lovely food from everyone as normal!