Saturday, July 30, 2011

Budget meals ideas - from the Super Saturday

Red Lentil Loaves:
Makes the equivalent of four loaves and serves 24-32. Can also be cooked in muffin pans to make lunches or individual serves – can also be baked in a casserole dish and scooped out – can freeze and then thaw and reheat in oven
1 kg red lentils

10 cups water

3 bay leaves
6 cloves of garlic, chopped

6 onions, sliced

75 g butter

6 eggs
6 cups grated cheese

810 g tinned chopped tomatoes or 3 cups chopped fresh tomatoes

9 slices wholemeal bread, crumbled (I save crusts in the freezer and crumb them in a food processor). 

6 teaspoons salt

1 1/2 teaspoons curry powder
1 1/2 cups chopped parsley
*To un-bulk and make one loaf only, serving only 6 - 8, reduce the lentils to two cups, water to three cups, and all other ingredients to 1 /3.
Simmer the lentils gently with the water, bay leaves and garlic until they are tender and the water is absorbed. You will need a LARGE saucepan. Boil away any excess water.
Meanwhile, saute the onions in the butter until transparent.
Once the lentils are thoroughly cooked remove the bay leaves and add the cooked onions and the remaining ingredients. Stir thoroughly then spoon into well-greased or baking paper-lined loaf tins or muffin moulds. You can also pour into a casserole dish and serve from this, without unmoulding.
Bake at 180 degrees for about 45 minutes (slightly less for muffin sized mini loaves), or until firm in the middle. 


Brown Rice, Peas and Cheese

Cook some brown rice (soak it first to make it a bit softer and start the germination) – cook some frozen peas – grate some cheese – serve in bowls with soy sauce.


Black Bean Chili and Corn Bread

Cornbread:
1.5 cups yellow corn meal
1 cup plain flour
1/3 cup sugar
salt
1 teaspoon baking powder
2 eggs
½ cup oil
1 cup milk

mix with a fork in the order shown – greased tin – 180-200 degrees – 35 – 40 minutes.

Black Bean Chili:
Sauté a chopped onion (or two) in a little olive oil, add some minced garlic, and spices (eg cumin, coriander, chili powder), and a chopped capsicum.

Add around 2 or 3 cups cooked black beans and say 2 tins of chopped tomatoes.  Simmer for few minutes then add tinned or frozen corn.  Simmer a couple more minutes.

One loaf of cornbread and a pot of chili will do about 6 – 8 people.  Sour cream, grated cheese and salad are all nice additions but it’s till good without them

Mexican Skillet Rice

In a large pan heat:
2 Tab oil
Add:
1 cup uncooked rice – white, brown or brown basmati
Fry 1 – 2 min, stirring to coat
Add:
1 small onion, chopped finely
2 cloves garlic minced
½ cup water
½ teaspoon salt
Cook, stirring, until water is absorbed.
Add:
1 cup boiling stock (Massell chicken stock is good and keeps it vegetarian) – a little more if you are using brown rice
2 chopped capsicums
1 can (or a bit less) corn – drained
Cover, simmer 20 minutes without stirring – till liquid is absorbed.
Spread over the top:
250 ml sour cream
a bit of grated cheddar
Grill for a minute or two – or just let it stand for a few minutes – or just serve with the sour cream and cheese on the side.
Serves 4 – 6




Sweet and Sour Lentils

Bring to boil and simmer 20 min:
1 cup lentils (I usually use brown)
2 cups water
2 beef stock cubes
1 bay leaf
1 teaspoon salt
Add:
¼ cup apple or pineapple juice
¼ cup apple cider vinegar
¼ cup brown sugar
1 clove garlic crushed
1/8 teaspoon ground cloves
1 cup peeled chopped apple (optional)
sautéed onion (optional)

Serve the lentils over rice. Serves 4.

Pumpkin

Pasta – bake some pumpkin with a few chili flakes, or with some honey.  Cook some pasta and mix pumpkin through – or just bake the pumpkin plain and fry some sage leaves in butter to serve over the pasta.  Some parmesen cheese is good.

Pumpkin Soup

Pumpkin Risotto – bake pumpkin (chopped quite small), make a basic risotto, add pumpkin at the end – dress it up with chopped rosemary or parsley – or serve with a tangy cheese (eg labna) or even some yogurt or cream.

Tomato Scones

Fry some onions with mixed herbs and garlic, then add a tin of chopped tomatoes.  Let it simmer down till a bit thicker then thicken with a little cornfour and water. (You can also fry up a couple of slices of chopped bacon.)
Make a scone dough – roll it out into a long strip that is about 8-10 inches wide.  Spread the tomato mix along the strip.  Roll the strip (like a sponge roll) and slice into rounds.  Put them in a baking dish, sprinkle with grated cheese, bake 10 – 15 min in a moderate oven.

Ginger Sesame Noodles with Broccoli
2 T. tahini (sesame paste)
1 T. light brown sugar
45 ml. mirin
1/2 tsp. red pepper flakes
1/4 c. tamari (or soy sauce)
1 ½ tab. water
500 g. spaghetti
2 heads (or more) broccoli florets, cut into 1" pieces
1 ½ tab. toasted sesame oil
15 ml canola oil (or any type of oil)
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 ½ tab fresh or bottled minced ginger
Toasted sesame seeds (optional)

Put the pasta water on to boil in a large covered pot. In a small bowl, combine the tahini, brown sugar, mirin, and red pepper flakes until well blended. Set aside.

When the water comes to a boil, salt it and add the linguine. Cook the linguine until it is al dente, about 10 minutes. During the last 5 minutes of the cooking time, add the broccoli and cook until just tender. When the noodles and broccoli are cooked, drain and rinse with cold water. Toss with the sesame oil and set aside.

Heat the canola oil in a large skillet or wok over medium heat. Add the garlic and ginger and stir-fry until fragrant, about 30 seconds. Add the noodles and broccoli and the sauce, and toss to combine and heat through. Server hot, sprinkled with sesame seeds.  Serves about 6.

Cannellini Bake with Zucchini and Tomato

1 tab olive oil
4 zucchini, halved and sliced
1 garlic clove crushed
some mixed dried herbs
3 ripe tomatoes – diced
2 x 400 g cans of cannellini beans – or about 3 cups of cooked cannellini beans
feta

Heat the oil in a large frying pan on medium high.  Cook zucchini for 5 minutes until golden.  Stir through garlic and herbs and cook for a moment longer.  Fold through tomato and beans cook for 4 minutes or so until heated through.
Transfer to baking dish – crumble feta over and drizzle with olive oil then grill for 5 minutes or so till the feta starts to brown.  Serves 4.


Tuna and Rice

Soak some brown rice – make a white sauce with onions and garlic – add a tin of tuna (drained) and some grated cheese – serve with cooked brown rice.

Baked Potatoes and Coleslaw
(Of course, this relies on potatoes actually being a reasonable price.) Put some fairly large potatoes in the crock pot – either wrapped in alfoil or not – prick the potatoes – cook on low for most of the day.  Serve with a coleslaw made with shredded cabbage, grated carrots, some parsley (if you have it) and some dry roasted sunflower or pumpkin seeds (or both).  Dressing: 1 egg, 1 tab white wine vinegar, 2 teas salted capers (rinsed), 1/3 cup veg oil – mix in blender.

Red Lentil Pasta Sauce
1 cup red lentils
1 onion - chopped
2 teasp minced garlic
1/2 cup tomato paste
4 large tomatoes chopped
1 tablespoon rosemary - or more
2 tablespoons chopped basil - or more
grated rind of 1 lemon
4 cups stock - chicken or veg

Put all the ingredients into a pre heated slow cooker and cook on low for 4 -5 hours or high for 2 -3  hours.  Serve with pasta – this will be enough for around 800 gm of pasta – which will easily serve 10 people – but the sauce can be frozen so you can use half and freeze the other half.

Other ideas:

Tomato and Bacon Pasta
Pea and Ham Soup
Hummus with tabouli and flat bread (make the hummus by putting a drained can of chick peas with about ¼ cup tahini, some lemon juice, a clove or two of garlic, some olive oil and a bit of water, into a food processor and whizz).
Baked veges (if they are ever cheap again.)
Roti and Dhal
Rice with eggs and tomatoes (fry some scrambled eggs, then cooked some chopped tomatoes with some soy sauce and serve with rice)
Risotto


Web sites: links at side
www.thyhandhathprovided.blogspot.com
www.section89.blogspot.com
www.lessmeat.blogspot.com




Sunday, May 29, 2011

BYUtv - Chef Brad: Fusion Grain Cooking: Teff

Part 3 of the Chef Brad series. He does make these grains look amazing and so simple to use.

BYUtv - Chef Brad: Fusion Grain Cooking: Teff

Friday, May 27, 2011

This Was SOOO Good!


Today in our welfare class we checked out the Whisper Mill. After watching the Whisper Mill in action we got to enjoy some very delicious Barley Nut Bread. So here's the recipe.

Barley Nut Bread

2 cups barley flour
2 1/2 cups whole wheat flour
4 teaspoons baking powder
2 teaspoons salt
1/4 cup honey
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
2 eggs
1 1/4 cups milk
2 cups chopped nuts (I used 1/2 packet of crumbed walnuts)

Preheat oven to 180c (375F). Stir together flours, baking powder, and salt. In another bowl, blend honey, oil, eggs, and milk. Beat liquid ingredients into the dry ones until smooth. Fold in nuts. Pour into greased bread pan and bake for 45 minutes.

Friday, May 20, 2011

BYUtv - Chef Brad: Fusion Grain Cooking: Chef Brad: Fusion Grain Cooking


Part 2 of Chef brad. To good to miss!!

BYUtv - Chef Brad: Fusion Grain Cooking: Chef Brad: Fusion Grain Cooking

One point that he makes is to aim for when cooking for your family is to "try to have 80% nutrition on your plate and the other 20% don't worry so much about". Removing all their comfort food in the long run doesn't work so well, so leave 20% of the comfort food but increase all the nutrition that you want.


He uses his Pressure cooker & wonder Mill but also gives us a heads up that he will be doing a class on the pressure cooker. Having seen one of these classes in the past, I have to say he was the one who inspired me!

Thursday, May 19, 2011

Electric Pressure Cooker $59 Aldi



Electric Pressure Cooker


$ 59 *

1000W electric pressure cooker
Removable ceramic pot for dishwasher cleaning
3-in-1: pressure cooker, rice cooker and slow cooker

In store from Thursday 26th May


Yes that is me you can hear weeping at home after I saw this in today's Aldi catalog. What really has caught my eye with this one is the ceramic pot inside. I think a healthier alternative to the Teflon then mine has.

Saturday, May 14, 2011

BYUtv - Chef Brad: Fusion Grain Cooking: Chef Brad: Fusion Grain Cooking


I absolutely love Chef Brad so you can imagine my excitement last night when I was on BYU TV to find his show. This is going to be a 13 week, yes 13 week series. I will embed them here on the blog each week and I really encourage you to watch them.
To subscribe to his newsletter click here. The link will take you straight to the sign-up form. Also spend some time looking around his website. Some things are only available through membership which I don't even have because there is so much available to you for free on the site.

This man is a lover of pressure cookers as well, and it was him that sparked my love of the very handy kitchen appliance.

BYUtv - Chef Brad: Fusion Grain Cooking: Chef Brad: Fusion Grain Cooking

Have fun !

Tuesday, May 10, 2011



The Brisbane Welfare Coop is a fantastic was to get bulk grains, nuts, eatable seeds and all those things that we have been learning about the last few months. Membership for this Co-op is $10 and you must organise that with your order. Talk to Sally or Malcolm in our ward for this, others feel free to contact us about joining or see the home page which has all the information that you need to join.

You just head to the homepage and click on 'preview Order'. Now anyone can do this, you don't need to be a member but you must be a member to order and due to our State Laws we can not take third party orders. You must only order for yourself.



Now the exciting news in this order is that the Whisper Mills are the cheapest I have ever seen!! For me this was the best, oh I know I have use that word loosely because we all know I'm addicted to a lot of my kitchen appliances, but with a grain mill the sky is the limit for what you can use your grains, seeds etc for.

For the May 2011 - Grains, Sugar offer, will close on Sun, 22 May 2011 and the Apr 2011 - Herbs Spices Vinegar etc offer, will also close on Sun, 22 May 2011. So you need to order and pay for that by that date.

The steel drums are available through the co-op as well. For those of you wanting to order the plastic containers through people in Plastic click here for a direct link to their price list.


Those of you who haven't been able to attend the Simple Living Classes, we are planning a bulk order together of these containers. I use the 4.5lt & 2.5lt, so look through the catalog and email or phone me with that order so we can get that in. Note that the steel drums sold at People in Plastics are NOT food grade, but all the containers are unless stated otherwise.

We have the Heat Sealer available in the Ward or at my place if that's more convenient ready for you to store and USE! Remember any questions contact me.

Wednesday, May 4, 2011

3 Month Food Storage Supply

This video is worth watching to help you understand where we're heading with the Welfare course we have begun in the ward. A little long at 9 minutes but worth watching.

Monday, May 2, 2011

Ribollita - soup

This is a slow cooker recipe - and is great the next day too.

Ribollita
2 tins drained and rinsed cannelini beans - or about two and a half cups of previously cooked cannelini beans
400 g tin chopped tomatoes
1 clove garlic crushed - out of a jar is fine
1 diced carrot
1 celery stalk diced
1/4 head of cabbage thinly sliced
300 g potatoes diced - skin on is fine
2 tablespoons tomato paste
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 litre chicken stock
200g or so of crusty bread torn into chunks
50 g grated Parmesan

Puree half the cannelini beans with all of the tomatoes in the food processor.

Put the puree in the slow cooker with everything else except the bread, Parmesan, and the reserved whole beans.  Cook on high for 4 hours - add the rest of the ingredients (including the bread).

Heat till the beans are hot and the cheese has melted.

This will serve 6.

Red Lentil Pasta Sauce

This is the pasta sauce that Donna made in the Simple Living class in March - Donna made it in a pressure cooker - I make it in a slow cooker so that is the way it's written here.  But talk to Donna for how to adapt to a pressure cooker.

Red Lentil Pasta Sauce
1 cup red lentils
1 onion - chopped
2 teasp minced garlic
1/2 cup tomato paste
4 large tomatoes chopped
1 tablespoon rosemary - or more
2 tablespoons chopped basil - or more
grated rind of 1 lemon
4 cups stock - chicken or veg - or even just water

Put all the ingredients into a pre heated slow cooker and cook on low for 4 -5 hours or high for 2 -3  hours.

I usually use around 750 gm of pasta for this and we always have leftovers.
We sometimes add green olives, sun dried tomatoes, grated cheese or feta cheese.

Skillet Rice

This is easy and cheap and really is delicious.  It's from a Mennonite cookbook called Extending the Table - which is a great book with lots of recipes using various cheap and store-able ingredients.

Skillet Rice.

In a large heavy based pan, heat:
2 tab oil (or a bit less)
Add:
1 cup uncooked rice
Fry 1-2 minutes, stirring gently.
Add:
1 small onion, chopped finely
2 cloves garlic, mince (out of a jar is fine)
1/2 cup water
1/2 teasp salt
Cook, stirring constantly, until water is absorbed.
Add:
1 cup boiling water or chicken stock
2 medium chopped capsicums
1 can corn drained
Cover and simmer about 20 minutes without stirring till liquid is absorbed - remove from heat  Then serve as is - or with sour cream and grated cheese - or put in in a casserole dish and spread a thin layer of sour cream over the top, cover with grated cheese and grill for a few minutes.

For our family I usually make one and a half quantities - and have a little bit left over.