General Chat

Oh well, I thought the programme was being poo-pooed as patronising because housewives have been doing it for years :-S :-)

I'll put any dried up rashers and prunes in the post for you Merlin ;-) :-D

Of course,anybody can put chopped pork,peppers and paprika in a slow cooker with some water.It will come out tasting like pork that has simmered in water for hours.

What people need to know is how to make the stuff taste palatable cheaply.

Our friends in Africa eat off the barbecue a lot, which is just as well because they boil their meat indoors in water which,apart from how insipid it must taste,makes it stink.

If you have not cooked before,or been shown how to,you may not know how to seal meat before stewing it. Then you can't cook meat so you don't try again. Too much bother and smell for something you don't want to eat.

Ignore them Julia, just get on with my Shallots. and Bobble hat. And Island, those couple of dried up rashers,wrap them round some prunes and cook. :-D :-D tastes rather good but take the stones out. ;-) ;-) ;-)

Island, I have read your posts where you state that some people do not know how to cook, so these types of programmes are more for them, than for such as myself, and others that have been cooking for years.
But, we would all still like to know how to make the pennies go further

Julia in Derbyshire

Didn't learn a thing Julia?

That's 'cos you know it all :-D :-D :-D

I keep saying lots of people can't cook so the programme is most likely aimed at them but nobody bothers to read/comment on my posts. Stuff 'em I say LOL

PS I think a couple of dried up rashers would make rather good insoles :-D

PPS I think Merlin is right. Some cultures (I imagine) still use the good old fashioned water method rather than fancy loo paper.

I have listened to the programme this morning, and to the best of my ability, have remembered much of what was said. She advised:-
Menu Planning
Canny Shopping
Have a good store cupboard.
Watch Bogoff's, are they worth it.
Watch 3 for 1 offers on fruit and veg.

She mentioned more than once, what she could do with the "two dried-up rashers of bacon" at the bottom of the fridge.
And, this morning before she had come out of the home to do the programme she had chopped into cubes, a cheap cut of Pork, and added chopped Peppers and Paprika, to make a mouth watering meal in the slow cooker, to provide a meal whence she got home. No mention of what was going to be served with this Goulash, to make it into a meal.
This interview lasted 5 mins. at the most, and I did not learn a darn thing.

Off to embroider the features on a crochet cat. Won't be long to Santa time. Much more enjoyable.

Julia in Derbyshire

They had a different name then, they were outside Lavies and a Bucket of water. :-D and open backed so they could be removed and used on the garden. :-S

No Merlin,I think you will find there were no bidets in the average labourers cottages .

Sharron,the answer to toilet rolls, Constipation. :-D a cork, :-D then Whoosh> :-D or a bedet. but ensure the jets are not set too fine. :-D :-D

People don't use washing soda much any more but,if you use it on greasy pots instead of washing up liquid,which is a very recent invention,it turns the grease into soap in the water.

That was the same principle as when people made their own soap from lye,which is wood ash water, and the fat left from their meat.

When I said the hedgerow fruit went off I meant that I had no time to make something before it went mouldy overnight. Cherries I bought from a stall went mouldy overnight,not rotten but mould from the damp atmosphere.

As for toilet rolls. What did people do before there were toilet rolls? Don't tell me about newspaper,been there,but how about all the preceding centuries when nobody read newspapers. You can't rely on dockleaves and sponges were an expensive luxury. I am not prepared to try it but there must be an alternative and it will probably be free.

My atitude to cooking is that it is the way you make what you have available palatable,Seasonal is usually the best value and Marguerite Patten is often the woman who can give you a good idea of how to do that.

Years ago, hubby and I used to pick Elderberry and Elderflower from the along the towpath at Lapworth. I used to make wine. If I got the chance of Blackberries I would include them in with the Elderberries or make Blackberry Jelly. When our rhubarb plant was ready I would make Rhubarb and Ginger Jam which I learned to love in Shetland as my Great Auntie Annie made it.

A couple of years ago, Sainsbury's had some silly prices on Raspberries and Blackberries. They weren't cheap enough to buy loads to make jam so I bought some of their cheap Gin and Vodka and made enough for little gifts and a treat for us on a cold day.

I so want to get back into jams and wines again. It sounds like we are big drinkers but we're not. I've always been more fascinated by creating something from basic ingredients. I'm just a mega-crafter.

Because of both kids and hubby having individual dietary requirements and restrictions, I often cook different meals for each of them. This means that I cook virtually everything from scratch anyway because there is always something in shop-bought stuff that one of them will react to.

I am just glad that I learned to cook at a time when convenience food was buying a bag of Birds Eye Peas.

Happy to share my pizza recipe if anyone wants it. I do a variation when we have a picnic with friends and kids love them.

xJ

Phew, just come in for a warm. I am emptying the hanging baskets, and cleaning them of for next year. I havn't got the heating on, but it is warmer her in the kitchen, than outside.

Sharron, I did very well for blackberries from the hedgerow on the allotment, and will make it into Bramble Jeely in a few weeks. Meanwhile they are in the freezer. Similarly with our own strawberry harvest.
But, I did not 'come across' any cooking apples and plumbs this year, for the first time in quite a few years. I have some lovely recipes using them, that freeze well.

We grow as much of our own fruit and veg., as we can. But we can't grow soap, toilet roll, wash powder etc. and all the other comestables that a household needs to get by, week after week. I know that Sharron and Island are both vegetarians, so meat is not in their trollies, but other things are.
We, that is the OH and myself, have gone from eating meat probably 5 out of 7 days a week to 2-3. This is not only down to cost, as I am a dab hand with the bottom oven, but as you get older, you don't need it as much.

I was bought up just after the war, and rationing was still about where we lived. My mother never got over rationing, and it was many years before we saw any kind of luxury, food or otherwise in our house. So, I have not been bought up to squander money, especially on food.

I will listen to the programme I mentioned, and report back.

Take Care All

Julia in Derbyshire

Too much of the stuff out of the hedge went off this year before I could use it. The apple blossom was destroyed by rain, many fewer apples,terrible cereal harvest.

I think we should be grateful we are living in the 21st century where we are only facing difficulty paying.

Not so very long ago, and in other places on Earth, that would mean difficulty sustaining life.

Notice some food prices are cheaper. A dozen frozen snails in garlic in my local Lidl are £1.99 or 2 packs for £3. Far less expensive than 20 years ago. My current treat.

But food had got so expensive generally. 30% off 6 ordinary looking apples in Lidl and I still paid £1.50. For something that grows on loads of trees round here. And I have never understood why I can buy a Mars Bar for 5p on holiday in India and same thing is 60p here.

Food, insurance and gas and electricity price increases must have hurt all of us badly.

Personally, I would like to know a lot more about choosing ingredients and cooking, I must admit. And most of my career was supermarkets:-D But when I started, an exotic fruit was a grapefruit. Nowadays, I can't even pronounce half of them. :-(

I've never seen them bring the prices down Island, in a way that we feel it, in the purse.

Julia in Derbyshire

I see food is to rise in price due to the wet summer affecting British crops.
I expect imports will rise too :-S
Will they go down if there is ever a glut?

Surely it is aimed at people who can't cook or manage a domestic shopping budget? Not those who have been doing it for years.

I didn't have cookery lessons at school or home, it was common sense, tight purse strings and wanting to eat that got me cooking.
I'm always interested in money saving tips though :-D

Well said JustDinasaurJill. That is just how I feel. LOLOL

Julia in Derbyshire

Why so defensive? :-S Is someone pointing and saying this is for YOU? :-S

A lot of people can't cook! Generations reared on convenience food might just benefit from being given some practical advice if they wish to save themselves a bob or two.

Talking of Bob :-D Do you have Beanos with your Toppers? :-D
I take it a topper is the crust? We just eat them :-D

ah! what about the toppers that get left over? not in my house,

they get recycled as bread pudding