to want to 'pass it on'?

[MrsWembley]

So, following on from a thread about the price of Gregg's sausage rolls and BOGOFs, which has turned into a barney about how easy/difficult it is to cook/learn to cook on a budget, I, feeling very sad about the world in general and my small corner in particular, have decided, in the spirit of Jamie and someone else whom I can't remember right now (might have been Kevin Spacey), to pass on any cooking skill I might have to anyone living in/working in/passing through the Bristol area.

Seriously, if it's all I can do right now to make life a little better for someone/anyone, then bring it on!

Now, what do you lot have to offer, ?

Ragwort I don't know about anyone else, everyone has their own reasons and their own way of living, but I am on a diet at the moment and find that weekly planning is the best way of sticking to it.

If I see bargains in the supermarket, I either find a way of shoehorning them into the menu by making last minute changes, check the date the offer runs out and plan to do something the following week, buy them anyway if I absolutely know I'll use them at some point or, do you know what, sometimes I just ignore the offer. My mum used to come home telling me about the amazing deal she'd seen and how much money she'd saved. I would ask her if she would have ever bought the item if it wasn't on offer. Usually she'd say no. So I'd tell her she hadn't saved money, she'd actually spent more!

I would love to do monthly planning but I don't have freezer/cupboard space for that amount of food and DP would soon find a way of buggering it up.

I am useless at meal planning. I tend to rebel at imposed schedules even if they are imposed by me!

We have a moderately flexible plan now, we have rough ideas of what we will eat but there's room for spontaneity. We do our shopping online and now we have the delivery saver thing we are planning to switch from weekly to twice a week (but obviously smaller) shops.

This is probably a stupid question but I didn't know potatoes and onions could last ages. I have a freezing cold and dark cupboard. so I can buy massive cheap amounts of potatoes and onions and just keep them in the cupboard? And they won't go off?

Also, frozen onions. I just chop them and freeze them? No cooking them first? Do I need to defrost them?

My excuse for asking stupid questions is that my mum brought be up on a diet of sausages, chips and ribena. I'm still young so very slowly teaching myself to cook. I cant go on to YouTube to watch videos as the only Internet I have is on my phone! I would love for someone to teach me to cook and loving this thread

This is a fantastic thread. I miss being able to ask my mum for advice, so love you lot!

Chocolate You sound like just the sort of person we're hoping to reach.

If you can, buy a big sack of potatoes from your local greengrocer or scout around for a supplier in your area that will sell in bulk for cheap (look up-thread for other ideas), but do not buy this amount from the supermarket, because you will pay a fortune! Same with onions, they'll only sprout if they think it's warm/damp/light enough to grow. But if you've freezer room, yes to freezing them if you can buy them in bulk. No, you don't need to cook them first but you can if you want to and then just miss this bit out of the recipe you're using them for. I would freeze them raw though, personal preference, as I don't always know how I'm going to cook with them.

Your freezing cold and dark cupboard is just like an old-fashioned larder and is a god-send when it comes to storing food. I would give my left leg for an old-fashioned larder...

And, fwiw,

And thank-you, Murder.

How wasteful

Have you seen the price of raspberries??

We've actually got a larder, but unfortunately it's the only place we can fit our fridge-freezer, and to be able to get stuff out of the fridge-freezer we've had to remove the larder door :(

for you Murder. We have a flat with no cupboard space at the moment, but when we move I'm determined to find something I can make a larder out of!

Thank you mrswembley! Yes we have a larder, I couldn't think of the word when typing my last post! Thanks for your help! Can't wait to get my onions frozen, it will save me so much time.

*Buy a sack of spuds for less than a tenner from your local veg shop and they will last you weeks. Your family will never be hungry with a sack of spuds.

onions at your local Turkish supermarket, 50p a sack ...3 months later, still ploughing through them! *

Blimey, do they really last that long? The stuff I get from the supermarket goes off in about a week! How do you keep them fresh?

Sorry I need to RTFT better.

MrsWembley I've never attemped curry, not a fan of hot stuff, most of the mild dishes I've looked at tend to be creamy.
I like the idea of a bit of manual labour on the lottie in exchange for cookery lesson, I'm in South Glos so not far from Bristol.

I also chop up carrots and celery and keep them in the freezer. It means you can buy in bulk and also between them and the onions you have the base of a spag bol without having to do any peeling and chopping.

Mrs Wembley - used you post on the BBC Goodfood forum a few years back?

Just to add re poaching eggs, I can never do them straight into the water without loosing bits while cooking, I use a bit if cling film, use it to line a cup, crack the egg in and twist up the cling film so it's all enclosed in its own little parcel (you need a big enough bit of cling film to be able to twist up the ends) then put that into the boiling water. Egg poaches nicely and you just lift it out and unpeel the cling film. And you get a nicely shaped poached egg too

Oooh can I freeze carrots raw too? Love time savers

Yes, I always freeze the raw. It's brilliant. You can throw them into casseroles and all sorts.

Marking place for later :-)

If cooking onion, keep it on a medium heat and stir regularly so it doesn't burn. You want it to be translucent before you add anything else to the pan - if your onions still have crunch in the middle, they'll taste bitter.

Brilliant! MN cookbook/money saving tips? MNHQ??

Sorry, welles, not me

Darkside, how close and what's your situation re DCs, so we can work out whose kitchen to use? I have two under 4 but they go to Grandma's once a week.

I can teach you how to cook a basic tarka and from there the possibilities are endless...

Anyone got any advice on how to defrost a shitty freezer that is so iced over the draws wont open?

Its a fridge freezer. I have just not used it because i forget about and full the fridge and if turn it off at the mains all the food will be fucked too.

Great thread! I'm not at all your target audience as I love to cook and am fairly competent, but it's always good to hear other people's tips. I had never thought of freezing onions -or carrots and celery either for that matter - so I'm going to adopt that.

And in return I give you my current favourite cheap-as-chips and a million times better for you quick lunch/supper, posh beans in toast, ready in the time it takes to toast the bread. Chop/crush a clove of garlic, fry in a generous glug of olive oil in a small saucepan. Add a drained tin of beans (any beans - haricot, cannellini, etc), a pinch of salt, black pepper, possibly a bit of rosemary (dried or fresh) or some chilli, and heat through. Serve on the toast.

Dunno about the defrosting sorry but I also chop over any peppers leftover and freeze them - you can get frozen peppers but I find they tend to be mushy.

I sit down Sunday morning after breakfast with a cuppa and plan the meals for the week (slightly flexible as dh often gets called away with work) - this mainly started when I went back to work after mat leave. I don't get in til past 6pm and we were popping to buy tea because I was so tired and past caring what was for tea. Knowing there was a premade Chilli or spag bog defrosting or a stew in the slow cooker was a way out of that spiral. Saving money was an added bonus.

God, SP, in that situation I've done one two things (and when it happened to me yeeeeears ago it was a v. small fridge with a freezer space at the top so I don't know) - I either turned it off and went at it with a knife to get as much off as quickly as possible or I left it on and went at it with a hair dryer...

I do not endorse either method, come to think of it. Best leave this problem to those with safer ideas!