I freeze and fruits or vegetables that are over ripe, and almost ready to go into the bin. I make them into muffins, smoothies, and (with my thermomix) slushies.
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I freeze and fruits or vegetables that are over ripe, and almost ready to go into the bin. I make them into muffins, smoothies, and (with my thermomix) slushies.
I totally made a large Portuguese tart for dessert and I chopped up salted fudge and dotted it on the bottom of the tart. So amazing. Made the soup and the bread. I swear we are like kings. Totally pulled a Mcgyver in the kitchen today ;)
This makes you much more creative with cooking, that's for sure! I imagine it's how people cooked way back when, when shops weren't open 24/7 and produce wasn't available all the time.
I've been thinking about this more. I thought I had nothing meal-worthy in the pantry but had a look today and noticed a few things. I think I'm gonna see how long I can go with what we have here too. I know I'll need to but some things but, for a challenge, I'm going to limit the most I can spend to 'top up' what I've got to $5 a dinner. I figure that if I'm spending more than that I'm probably not doing a good enough job at using up what I have. I wonder how long I can go with this $5 max rule?
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I really don't think there is any need to ****-shame the Portuguese woman, truly.
Rocked it tonight here - chicken, couscous, last of the 3 different bags of frozen pea/corn/carrot mix from the freezer, left over caramelised onions from the pizzas, roast sweet potatoes and pumpkin, garlic, fresh parsley and a bucket of tumeric (luuuuurve tumeric) and the end of the Moroccan spice mix. So. Damn. Good.
Broke out the slow cooker this arvo (thanks Melbourne "summer") and defrosted some chuck steak from the freezer, plus a recipe base that I dug out of the panty and some veggies. Mashed sweet and normal potato. Yummy.
But we are absolutely out of fruit and veg. So, to the shops tomorrow. I will only buy fresh produce. Oh and things like cheese.
Edit: Rouge, recipe for the tart?
This week (since the 1st Jan) Ive spent $30 on groceries, minus two lunches (though one cost $30, but it was 230 with unfed kids, so we had no choice )
Will probably hit $50 total tomorrow, as we have limited veggies, and are hosting a lunch playdate, and my sister/bi for dinner, so need salad for lunch and fruit for arvo tea, then some ricotta for my sisters cannelloni (the rest of us are having a tuna and veggie bake and I have the ingredients for that already)
Not bad for feeding 4 people for the week, and another 7 people for 2 meals.
I just found a big bag of red lentils in the pantry. Any suggestions of what I should do with them?
Dahl, Soup or lentil burgers.
I didn't do anything yesterday. Ended up having eggs on toast. Tonight is chicken drumsticks and something. Don't know what the something is yet.
We have lots of potatoes ..
Tonight I'm doing potato with lots or left over vegies , beans , lentils , tin tomatoes . Stock and some herbs from the pantry .
Yep dahl...yummm might see what i can dig out and make some tomorrow. i also add them to stuff with mince and veggies. No-one notices and it bulks it out.
Using some of my 17 pounds of flavoured butters tonight - steak and frozen veg, nothing special, but I luuuuurve flavoured butter!
Herb, garlic and cayenne tonight.
Yum!!
I've hit boring!
I'm doing teriyaki chicken drumsticks and fried rice.
I did make an awesome smoothie after a good treadmill session with fruit stashed in the freezer ;)
Teriyaki chicken and fried rice is exciting in my house. That's how bad I am at cooking :rofl: I'm making a concoction out of chicken and pasta tonight.
Well we were out to dinner tonight but I've decided to use the lentils to make a lentil shepherds pie tomorrow night. DH isn't a mega fan of vegetarian dishes (but he will tolerate them) so I'm hoping that the fact it looks like a hearty pie will win him over.
Question: the recipe calls for a tin of lentils. Since I'm using dried lentils should I soak them or something first? (This is probably obvious to everyone else, but I rarely cook with them).
Yep soak or cook them keep in mind they double in size when soaked.
Dinner actually turned out great.
3928
Tomorrow is going to be warm. So I might do something on the bbq... Not sure yet.
Looks great!
Thanks for the advice too.
I make lentil shepards in the thermomix and my DH nd kids love it!! It's not the prettiest looking dish but it really is tasty, I don't soak the lentils as the recipe doesn't call fr them to be soaked first:
I still haven't tried that!
With lentils it depends on the recipe. Some recipes need pre cooked lentils because of the cooking time. If I was substituting I'd cook the lentils similar to how they are canned. Or ensure there was enough cooking time without over cooking the other ingredients. When you cook lentils in a dish they tend to break down slightly. The texture also changes depending on how much salt is in the dish.
Oooo Olive is this an RC recipe? i'd like to get more lentils and legumes in my families diet!:
We've been going well! I did a big shop of fresh produce - no meat at all. Lots of veggies and fruit. The last two nights I've done a spinach risotto with some frozen spinach I dug out of the freezer and then last night we did a BBQ with frozen snags and steak. And roasted sweet and normal potatoes.
Off to my parents' tonight. Back onto it tomorrow.
Bad planned on baking to use up yoghurt, bananas, etc, but MIL is here and the queen of eating dodgy food and has scoffed one of the bananas. Suppose can still bake but wont be as banana flavoured as I would like.
Haha Astrid my DH did that the other day when I wanted to make banana bread. It was not a banana that I would have eaten but he scoffed it down.
I did something else today to try and combat the food hoarding. I usually make a batch of savoury scrolls for lunch once or twice a week, and we always end up with four or five left over. I bag them up and freeze them. But they never get eaten. So today I wanted to make some and I decided to halve the dough. I used less flour, less ham, less cheese and we still ended up with plenty for all of us for lunch. And possibly not so many for the freezer. Win!
Wrong thread... Oops - sorry
I did mean to write that I was inspired to make Dahl yesterday with the leftover lentils in the pantry
Thanks for the inspiration ladies!
Had a great week overall!
A total of $94.82 on groceries, including a fruit and veg top up with 5kg of carrots, 2kg of onions and 1kg of potatoes, which will be used this week, and then hosting another 4 people for lunch twice, and another 3 people for dinner once.
We also spent $50 on takeaway, $20 of which was budgeted for and planned, but $30 which was unplanned as we were out helping a friend move furniture, and it was suddenly 230 with hungry kids, so we had to just stop and grab food.
Our meals were:
Wednesday - Picnic lunch (cold meat/roast chicken and salad) Left over Curry
Thursday - Picnic lunch (cold meat/roast chicken and salad) Roast chicken and roast veg
Friday – Subway/McDonalds lunch in town. Chicken and noodle stirfry
Saturday – Sandwiches. Left overs
Sunday – Take away. Chicken casserole
Monday – Sandwiches. Left overs
Tuesday – Picnic lunch (cold meat/roast chicken and salad). Tuna bake/spinach and ricotta cannelloni
Do you normally eat so much chicken in one week, Trishalishous?
ETA: I hope the reads properly! LOL I am just curious, I'm not being a cow.
Going well here. Basic vegetable/nap pasta here last night - with more left over Christmas ham! :rofl: But, it is almost gone now!! :leap:
Fried rice tonight, have couple of ends of cabbage left in the fridge I think are still salvageable, plus...ham... frozen veg. Super easy, cheap, and I make huge batches at a time and freeze the rest.
Also, have a large pottle of cream I need to use - looking for inspiration... not feeling the cream pasta vibe at the moment...
Make butter LS! That's my latest thing with old cream :) Or scones... Panna cotta... I'll see if I can come up with anything else.
Need some dinner inspiration. In our freezer we have lots of chicken... Drumsticks/Maryland plus some breast. Some mince. Some trout and barramundi. Maybe I'll do something with some fish... Not feeling the chicken vibe... Suggestions anyone?
ETA - suggestions in general for the chicken Maryland would be appreciated..!
Lime slice- with leftover cream I have done the following recently:
Béchamel sauce for lasagne - still a pasta, I know.
Pavlova topping for a quick dessert or icing for cakes or cupcakes
Soup- works well in Tomato, Cream of Mushroom, even add a dollop to a clear vege stock to give a bit more body (plus soup freezes well for future quick meals)
Ice Cream - if you have a machine handy, cream goes well in the plain old Vanilla base
HTH
OP, I did a Portuguese chicken thighs last night. Can also apply to the Maryland (providing it is not already coated in something)..
Very quick and simple- marinade chicken in Portuguese sauce (had an open bottle stashed in the back of the fridge) bake in the oven, turning every so often. Serve with polenta and raw vege- we had carrot and capsicum.
As I used thighs we have some leftover chicken and polenta too for another dinner or lunch. Easily makes serves 4.
OP:
Ok chicken
Roasting:
On a bed of sliced onion/leek/minced garlic lay down bacon wrapped Maryland splash of wine sprigs of time and dots of butter salt & pepper. Bake for 180c 45mins-1hr. You'll know it's ready when the meat starts to pull away from the bone.
BBQ:
Martha Stewarts oregano lemon chicken. My tips... Score the chicken before marinating. Helps flavours to infuse cooks quicker.
Stovetop:
PW's Chicken Tikka. Remove skin from mary lands and cook as per recipe. You can chop thigh/leg so they are smaller pieces. Make the rice as per her instructions. It's amazing.
Others include Chicken with olives (another PW recipe) or Chorizo Chicken bake (random veg and chicken and chorizo baked with oregano, rosemary, lemon juice, garlic, onion, olive oil. Sprinkle with fresh parsley when cooked. Serve with salad.
Soup, remove the skin and poach the pieces to make stock.
Curries. Make a paste in the TMX. Cook in a pot. I always used to make Thai green curry with chicken pieces.
I have NFI what I'm doing for dinner. Forgot to lift something out.
Ugh I don't have ant fresh herbs. I need to start growing herbs! And no lemons. Hmm.
DS1 wants fish n chips. So tempting, in the heat...
I'll check the tikka recipe...
Dry herbs work fine! Don't fret over fresh unless it's a curry paste ;)
Don't think curry can be on the menu this week. Or next. :lol: That chicken tikka looks awesome. Could totally convert to TMX, do you do in TMX? The paste at least? Does broil mean grill??
Just found some snapper in the freezer. Bag says Nov 2011. Should be ok?? Completely still frozen. Clearly, I don't like to do much with fish... :redface:
Broil means grill. I wouldn't bother doing it in the TMX. Remember not everything needs to be done in the TMX ;) it's a one pot dish.
I wouldn't use fish that's gone off in 2011. But I'm paranoid with food. A couple of bouts of hardcore food poisoning will do that to you.
Do you go fishing? Bait ;):
Some good looking bait. Sigh, we should have done a food hoarders challenge two years ago... :(
Chilli and Cornbread tonight. Will make some kitchen sink cookies later to take to a friends. I've nearly cleaned out everything. How much did we all save? I've used about 1/4 of the food budget last fortnight.