Flour Power
To make cookery more interesting, I like to set myself challenges. Many years ago I would maybe set a price to make a dessert say 40p) or set about making a three course meal for under £2 to feed four. This helped me learn the only way to serve up cost-cutting meals was to use the least expensive ingredients. Discovering what's cheap and what's not, it is far simpler to keep within a budget, yet still serve tasty and healthy meals.
Costing every dish is not usually a domestic chore, but has to be done in the catering profession so that they can find out how to make the most profit. Chefs presumably know down to the last ounce (or gram) how much ingredients cost, and once I'd learned this for myself it became fairly easy to find an economical recipe, and with a bit of adapting, cut the cost down even further.
Take flour for example - there are hundreds of recipes using flour being that is one of the basic ingredients of pancakes, biscuits, pastry, pasta, cakes, muffins, bread, sauces......
Milk and eggs also are not expensive, so making a pile of pancakes is not going to break the bank. Layered with parchment and bagged up to freeze, they are there ready to use whenever you want. So when you have leftovers make a quick Pancake layer. To impress guests (or just to spoil yourself, rustle up some Crepe Suzettes.
Pancake Layer - You need pancakes, cheese sauce, and leftovers.
Place one pancake on a baking sheet and spread over a thick tomato sauce (see preceding posting), top with another pancake and on this spread some left-over meat (bolognese or chili) sauce. Top with a further pancake and spread this with a cooked vegetable in a cheese saice (mashed cauliflower or broccoli, or cooked leeks etc). Then repeat once, preferably twice more, finally finishing with a pancake. Pour over cheese sauce and sprinkle over grated cheese and bake in a hot over for about 20 - 30 minutes until golden. To serve, cut into wedges as you would a cake.
Tip: This is a dish worth planning ahead to make after you have served spag.bol or cottage pie the night before. Just keep back a cupful of the meat sauce, thaw one tub of frozen tomato sauce, and make up a batch of cheese sauce (saving some grated cheese to put on top). Cooked vegetables can be done earlier in the day.
Crepe Suzettes
These are simply pancakes which can be sprinkled with sugar and then folded to make a wedgeshape. In a pan melt a knob of butter and add the zest and juice of a large orange. When heated, slide the suzettes into the pan and keep spooning over the liquid. Finally pour one or two dessertspoons of brandy into the pan and set alight (and please be careful when doing this). Then serve the pancakes with the sauce.
Tip: The most expensive part of this dish is the brandy. Canny cooks request a bottle of this as a birthday or Xmas present. Rum, vodka, sherry, kirsch and liqueurs also make good presents and can last for years when used only for cooking purposes.
I dessertspoon measures 1 cl. so check the number of centilitres in the bottle and divide into the price to see how much each spoonful with cost.
Cost out for yourself one or two recipes for steamed puddings. They can prove very inexpensive to make and quite filling. Serve with custard (another cheapie when made with custard powder- which, incidentally, was one of the first convenience products on the market).
Save time and money by making your own 'convenience' foods. Make bulk amounts of crumble, scone and pastry mixes, and box or bag up to store in fridge or freezer. When the oven is on hot, then making and baking a few scones to takes little time. If you have a bread making machine, make up bags of your own bread mix (each bag containing enough for one loaf) using the basic recipe that usually comes with the machine (strong flour, salt, dried milk, sugar, butter etc.) until you have bagged up enough for a week or more, then keep at room temperature. All that needs to be done then is tip the contents of one bag into the machine adding the yeast and water in the amounts and order recommended.
Costing every dish is not usually a domestic chore, but has to be done in the catering profession so that they can find out how to make the most profit. Chefs presumably know down to the last ounce (or gram) how much ingredients cost, and once I'd learned this for myself it became fairly easy to find an economical recipe, and with a bit of adapting, cut the cost down even further.
Take flour for example - there are hundreds of recipes using flour being that is one of the basic ingredients of pancakes, biscuits, pastry, pasta, cakes, muffins, bread, sauces......
Milk and eggs also are not expensive, so making a pile of pancakes is not going to break the bank. Layered with parchment and bagged up to freeze, they are there ready to use whenever you want. So when you have leftovers make a quick Pancake layer. To impress guests (or just to spoil yourself, rustle up some Crepe Suzettes.
Pancake Layer - You need pancakes, cheese sauce, and leftovers.
Place one pancake on a baking sheet and spread over a thick tomato sauce (see preceding posting), top with another pancake and on this spread some left-over meat (bolognese or chili) sauce. Top with a further pancake and spread this with a cooked vegetable in a cheese saice (mashed cauliflower or broccoli, or cooked leeks etc). Then repeat once, preferably twice more, finally finishing with a pancake. Pour over cheese sauce and sprinkle over grated cheese and bake in a hot over for about 20 - 30 minutes until golden. To serve, cut into wedges as you would a cake.
Tip: This is a dish worth planning ahead to make after you have served spag.bol or cottage pie the night before. Just keep back a cupful of the meat sauce, thaw one tub of frozen tomato sauce, and make up a batch of cheese sauce (saving some grated cheese to put on top). Cooked vegetables can be done earlier in the day.
Crepe Suzettes
These are simply pancakes which can be sprinkled with sugar and then folded to make a wedgeshape. In a pan melt a knob of butter and add the zest and juice of a large orange. When heated, slide the suzettes into the pan and keep spooning over the liquid. Finally pour one or two dessertspoons of brandy into the pan and set alight (and please be careful when doing this). Then serve the pancakes with the sauce.
Tip: The most expensive part of this dish is the brandy. Canny cooks request a bottle of this as a birthday or Xmas present. Rum, vodka, sherry, kirsch and liqueurs also make good presents and can last for years when used only for cooking purposes.
I dessertspoon measures 1 cl. so check the number of centilitres in the bottle and divide into the price to see how much each spoonful with cost.
Cost out for yourself one or two recipes for steamed puddings. They can prove very inexpensive to make and quite filling. Serve with custard (another cheapie when made with custard powder- which, incidentally, was one of the first convenience products on the market).
Save time and money by making your own 'convenience' foods. Make bulk amounts of crumble, scone and pastry mixes, and box or bag up to store in fridge or freezer. When the oven is on hot, then making and baking a few scones to takes little time. If you have a bread making machine, make up bags of your own bread mix (each bag containing enough for one loaf) using the basic recipe that usually comes with the machine (strong flour, salt, dried milk, sugar, butter etc.) until you have bagged up enough for a week or more, then keep at room temperature. All that needs to be done then is tip the contents of one bag into the machine adding the yeast and water in the amounts and order recommended.
posted by Shirley at 8:56 am
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