Meal plan - Live Below the Line

So, as I'm sat here with the children asleep, with a cup of tea and a rich tea biscuit with nutella on it (soon to be forbidden luxuries all), I thought I'd write out my meal plan.

I'm not sure I can afford to do it this way, as I think I'm a bit short on veg in my budget, but this is what I'm thinking at the moment. It may change to dhaal and pinto bean chilli before we actually get to the date, but here is where I am for now. It would be a lot more bean and pulse heavy already if it wasn't for the boys' aversion to all pulses except baked beans.

This is on a budget £20 for all 4 of us for 5 days. I'm hoping to find cheaper cooking oil than I have so far which will give us more money for veg, I only need a little bit but the Live Below the Line budget rules means I have to account for the whole bottle, the only thing you are allowed to just budget for a portion of are herbs/spices.

I've underlined the text below each time a new thing makes an appearance, for ease of reading.

As you will see it is somewhat monotonous, but we knew it wasn't going to be a gourmet experience:

Day 1
Breakfast: porage made with milk, plus fruit for the boys (kiwi, banana, blueberries).
Lunch: Split pea soup, homemade flatbread, plus cheese for the boys
Tea: Roast chicken and roast veg, flatbread, plus yoghurt for the boys.
Rice pudding
Snacks: oat and apple biscuits

Stock will be made with the chicken carcass to use for risotto on another day.

Day 2
Breakfast: porage made with milk, plus fruit for the boys (kiwi, banana, blueberries).
Lunch: Split pea soup, homemade flatbread, plus cheese for the boys
Tea: Roast chicken and roast veg wraps, rice? flatbread, sweetcorn fritters, plus yoghurt for the boys.
Rice pudding
Snacks: oat and apple biscuits

Day 3
Breakfast: porage made with milk, plus fruit for the boys (kiwi, banana, blueberries).
Lunch: Split pea soup, homemade flatbread, sweetcorn fritters, plus cheese for the boys
Tea: chicken and veg pizza, plus yoghurt for the boys.
Rice pudding
Snacks: oat and apple biscuits,

Day 4
Breakfast: porage made with milk, plus fruit for the boys (kiwi, banana, blueberries).
Lunch: Split pea soup, homemade flatbread, sweetcorn fritters, plus cheese for the boys
Tea: chicken risotto, plus yoghurt for the boys.
Rice pudding
Snacks: oat and apple biscuits

Day 5
Breakfast: porage made with milk, plus fruit for the boys (kiwi, banana, blueberries).
Lunch: Split pea soup, homemade flatbread, sweetcorn fritters, plus cheese for the boys
Tea: chicken risotto, plus yoghurt for the boys.
Rice pudding
Snacks: oat and apple biscuits

So what have I forgotten? Help me!

I must be missing something glaringly obvious and this lot takes me up to £19.97!

As I say I'm a bit light on veg at the moment, but I hope I'll be able to either find some cheap almost best before date veg/fruit bargains, or find some cheaper oil so I can get more veg.

I also think I might need more milk, I've put a 4 pint big bottle in the budget but I'm note sure that will see my milk guzzling boys through (as well as the rice pudding and all the porage making). Although they do usually leave quite a bit in the glass, so I guess it will just be a case of giving them less and then topping up if they want more to try and eke it out further.

I also need to look at my flour usage, I've not looked at my flatbread/pizza base/wrap/fritter recipes to double check how big a bag I'll need.

That's it for now.

Bistro Bumpkin

We have recently bought a saucepan, and taken a small cast iron griddle up to the allotment, so we can cook a bit better. And get that harvest, to pan, to stomach time down.

The first proper allotment meal was our first pea, bean, mint and feta salad of the year. This was a staple last summer, but the broad beans and peas seem to be a little later this year.

It involves lightly boiled peas and broad beans. These are cooled a little and the outer white skin removed from the broad beans. I warmed the pittas on the griddle (well more burnt them really).

Collected plenty of mint. We had the amount in the photo each. The plates came from the site skip, they are in perfect condition so I have no idea why they were there.

And plenty of salad leaves (Saladin lettuce in this case). And then mix, add oil and vinegar and eat. Enjoy!

flapjacks 2

They are still cooling, but I stole one to have with some vanilla ice cream and they are fab!

I ended up putting sunflower and pumpkin seeds in, as well as the raspberries. And it took nearer to 30mins in the oven, I think because of the added moisture of the fruit.


I'm looking forward to them being ready, I'm going to take some to the allotment next time I go to keep me going.

flapjacks

I'm getting my hand in with the syrup flapjacks today. Although I don't have any raspberries of my own yet I bought some local ones and am going to make raspberry flapjacks.

Well, I need to get my eye in before our raspberries come along, I wouldn't want to waste any of ours, so I need to do thorough tests!

I'll post some pics when they come out of the oven.

I'm doing 200g oats, 200g syrup, 100g butter, 100g sugar, and a small tub of raspberries.

Put the sugar, syrup, and butter in a pan and melt over a low heat. Remove from the heat and add the oats and mix thoroughly.

Then add the raspberries (or strawberries, or raisins, or chocolate chips, or pumpkin and sunflower seeds) and mix through.

Press into a shallow greased tin and put into a pre-heated oven (180°C or Gas Mark 4) for 20 mins. When they come out cut them into squares but don't take them out of the tin until they have cooled and hardened.

Jerusalem Artichokes

In a lovely bit of serendipity my first batch of 'seed' Jerusalem Artichokes arrived today, and Hugh Fearnley-Whitinstall featured some lovely recipes for this knobly veg in today's Guardian.

I know it will be a year before I will be able to use them, but it pleased me that they both came to my attention on the same day. I'm going to pdf them and save them.

We are going to try and get them into the ground tomorrow, but if they ground is too hard the (good and clear Organic Gardening Catalogue) planting instructions say that we should store them in damp soil until we can. So either way it is a trip to the plot.

We have another box to come (I confused myself when ordering!) so we are going to do a swap with another friend for something else. I'm hoping he has squash seeds.

Borscht

I have made borscht tonight, I'm just simmering it now before giving it a bit of a blitz.

The beetroot isn't homegrown unfortunately, but the cabbage is. I love how cabbage looks when you cut into it: like marble.



I softened onion in a pan, added the cabbage and beetroot (about half the amount of cabbage to beetroot, by weight) added a tablespoon of cider vinegar, a bay leaf, and some salt and pepper, and then added stock and am simmering for an hour or so. I'll leave it to cool a bit, before blitzing in the blender, and then reheat before eating and serve with a blob of yoghurt or sour cream.

I think I'll make some red coleslaw, and some braised cabbage with the other cabbage and a half I have left.

Chutney

Well although not much is going on in the allotment right now we are cracking on with our Christmas gifts of chutney and marmalade.

We have apple jelly and rhubarb chutney in the cupboard from earlier this year, have just made orange and ginger marmalade (not with homemade ingredients!), and have made the first batch of tomato and chilli chutney which has our chillies and garlic in it. I got this recipe from someone on the Guardian forums and it always goes down a storm:

Sweet Chilli Jam
This makes a pathetically small amount, in my opinion. So I double it. Or quadruple it (amounts in brackets are for the quadruple amounts which makes approx 5 x 8oz jars).

2 (8) cloves garlic, chopped
2 Inch (8 Inch) piece of fresh ginger, peeled and grated
3 (12) small fresh red chillies, deseeded if you wish, and roughly chopped. NB: you can use green chillis, but it may dull the eventual colour - doesn't affect the taste though.
8 oz (32 oz) tomatoes, skinned and chopped; you can use tinned tomatoes if you wish.
1 tsp (4tsp) vegetable bouillon powder
2 fl oz (8fl oz) cider vinegar
5.5 oz (22 oz) soft brown sugar.

Prepare all the ingredients down to and including the tomatoes. Put them, and the bouillon powder, into a blender and blend to a smooth puree.

Pour the puree into a pan and add the vinegar and sugar; stir well. Bring to the boil then reduce heat to a simmer and simmer for 30 minutes until thick, stirring occasionally and ensuring that it doesn't burn. Test for thickness/set on a cool plate, as you would with jam.

Cool slightly, and pour into sterilised jars and seal. If not using immediately, store in a cool dark place. Once opened, keep refrigerated.

It is lovely stuff and this batch is very hot! Our chillies are very spicy and we left the seeds in. Once we have made another 2 batches or so we will dry the rest of the chillies on strings hung up in our kitchen so that we have them for the rest of the year.

Do beware if you make this chutney as it gets very spitty when simmering, our kitchen ended up speckled with red.

Not quite the Whistle Stop Café

One of the branches of our plum tomato plant had bent with the weight of the tomatoes and broken so I brought home the green tomatoes. Not quite enough for green tomato chutney (I'm waiting til September for that) so I decided on fried green tomatoes.



I dipped halved tomatoes into egg (they were only small so I decided on halves rather than slices) then put those into a little tub of flour with chili flakes, pepper and salt in it and shook them around until coated. They then went into hot oil for about 3 mins each side.

I wasn't amazed by the taste, but they looked very pretty on the plate and I think I'll try them again another time.

Mmmmmmm-mmmmmmm

Harvests continue aplenty.


Latest recipe is a pea, bean, feta and mint salad. Equal amounts of peas and broad beans, then proportionally slightly more feta, and as much mint as you fancy (lots!). Mix in with salad leaves and add lemon juice and olive oil to dress. It's fantastic.

Also good were noodles with chilli (3 tiny ones from our plant), bacon and peas, topped off with caramelised shallots and finely sliced plum tomato. The tomatoes were the first from one of our plants and they taste fantastic, really fragrant.


I'm now wondering what to do with cucumber (no sniggering at the back) as we have two approaching readiness. I've seen a garlic chicken and cucumber recipe on the beeb site that looks promising, and also cucumber salsa to serve with fish, so I might try those. And there is always tzatziki (sp?) and raita.


We also made raspberry and strawberry cheesecake, doesn't really count as from the allotment as only the fruit on top didn't come from the shop, but I had forgotten how good proper homemade cheesecake tastes. Really simple too: digestives, butter and sugar for the base; cream cheese, greek yoghurt, double cream, and icing sugar for the top. Just add fresh strawberries and raspberries.


Mmmmmmm-mmmmmmm

from cane to oat

Today there were a lot of rasberries (and a few gooseberries, strawberries and redcurrants).

I had been planning on making some flapjacks to I decided to combine the two.



Which worked quite well I think. I put a layer of flapjack in the tin and then added a layer of raspberry, and then added another layer of flapjack.

Rhubarb Watch

It is hugely prolific, isn't it? I now have several jars of rhubarb marmalade and a kilner jar full of more rhubarb chutney.


I'm not sure about this batch of rhubarb chutney, it just doesn't feel quite right although I haven't tasted it yet - last week's batch was great.

I fried red onion in olive oil, added crushed garlic and coriander seeds, added the rhubarb, some sugar and some cider vinegar, and ground cumin, and this time some dried red chilli seeds. It worked last time, so just I hope it has worked again. It is certainly a good colour.