Meals for Picky Eaters
As ever, thanks for your comments. Valerie: It was so interesting to read about the food and fuel shortages in Cuba which led to such a massive increase in good health. This certainly should make us think more about the amount we buy and serve. Something similar happened during the last war, food was rationed, virtually no cars on the road, and they said, as a nation, we ended up healthier than ever before (although some say this was an overall average, as many before had been so poor and starving). But it did show that everyone could live on a small amount of food just as long as it was nutritionally good. No junk food of course, and very few sweets. Just think of the money we could be saving.
To your query about split pea recipes. So far, the only ones I have come across have all been for soups. Looks like I will need to buy a pack and start experimenting. I am sure I could whizz the peas in a grinder to make a type of flour, and also use them in similar ways to lentils. Give me a few days to experiment and I will let you know the outcome.
SweeterRita: Something that I forgot to mention re home-made yogurt, is that if you need to start by heating milk (usually blood heat), then heat it slightly higher for as soon as you stir in cold yogurt the temperature of the milk will drop. If the yogurt has first been chilled in the fridge, then it will go down even more, and may take some time to heat up to what it should be. If your machine is automatic it should eventually heat to the right temperature, but if it works on a timer, it won't take extra time needed into account, so allow for that by switching it on again for up to an hour or until the yogurt has set. Nearly always, yogurt won't set because it hasn't been given enough time, and the lower the temperature the more time it will need.
Today I am including recipes which might suit children, teenagers, and possibly even older folks who won't touch certain foods even though should because they are very good for them. It often helps to name a dish in a certain way such as Bart Simpson's Super Soup (or in Grandma's case: The Queen Mum's Favourite Soup) Let whoever you are cooking for believe their idol actually has eaten it, and they almost certainly will give it a go.
Sunshine Soup: (F) (V)
1 oz (25g) butter
1 lb (450g) carrots, chopped or grated
1 medium potato, chopped
1 small onion, chopped
2 pints (1.2 litres) vegetable (or chicken) stock
4 oz (100g) cheddar cheese, grated
5 fl.oz (150ml) milk
Melt the butter in a pan and add the carrots, potato and onion. Fry for about 10 minutes until the onion has softened. Pour in the stock, bring to the boil, partly cover the pan and simmer for 20 minutes, until all the vegetables are very soft. Remove from heat and pour into a blender or food processor (or use one of those electric wand mixers you can use in a saucepan) and blitz until a smooth puree. Add the cheese and blitz again. Reheat adding milk (cream is even nicer), and let them add their own seasoning. Serve with whatever they like best: buttered toast, crusty bread rolls, breadsticks or croutons.
Tip: This is the type of soup where you could include just a little of another vegetable such as butternut squash, or parsnip. Even blitz in cooked yellow peppers as they are quite sweet (most children like to eat anything sweet). If you prefer to omit the grated cheese, you could blitz in some cream cheese.
Tuna Fingers or Balls: (F)
1 x 200g can tuna in oil
3 oz (75g) fresh breadcrumbs
2 oz (50g) cheddar cheese, finely grated
1 large egg, beaten
oil for frying
Tip the tuna, together with its oil, into a bowl and add the breadcrumbs, cheese and egg. Mix everthing well together. Either form into 12 balls, the size of pingpong balls, or make 6 -8 larger ones and form into fish-finger shape. Chill (or freeze) until ready to cook.
Heat 2 tblsp oil in a pan and fry the chilled shapes for 8 - 10 minutes (allow longer if from frozen), turning often. They need to be golden brown. Drain on kitchen paper and keep warm until the rest of the dish (which should be whatever they like to eat) is ready.
Tip: use canned salmon AND tuna together if you wish, include any bones as these are packed with calcium and grind down to nothing anyway. Herbs add extra flavour. So does tomato ketchup which can be served with the meal or some incorporated into the mixture.
Not normally recommended, but favourite crisps crushed and used with egg to coat fish balls, fish cakes, chicken or what you will (as you would use egg and crumbs) will often get picky eaters gobbling up whatever they cover. Once they accept what they have eaten, use less crisps and more crumbs next time, and eventually you can leave out the crisps altogether.
Beckham's Burgers: makes 8 (F)
Full of healthy ingredients, start by incorporating very small amounts of any that are disliked, then increase slowly each time you make them. By using more of the ingredients they DO like, the less favourite ones can usually be disguised.
2 tblsp olive or sunflower oil
1 large onion, finely chopped
3 oz (75g) porridge oats
1 lb (450g) fresh turkey or chicken mince
3 oz (75g) no-soak apricots, finely chopped
1 carrot, grated
1 egg, beaten
Heat 1 tbslp oil in a pan and fry the onion for five minutes, stir in the oats and fry two minutes longer. Tip into a bowl and leave to cool. Add the rest of the ingredients and using hands, mix together well. For a smoother texture blitz them all together in a food processor. Season to taste and form into 8 patties. They can be frozen at this point, thaw before cooking. But see tip below).Heat the remaining oil in a pan and brown the burgers on each side (3 - 4 minutes) then transfer to a baking sheet and cook in the oven for 15 minutes longer at 200C, 400F, gas 6. Serve in baps with favourite toppings: fried onions, pickle, cucumber slices, salad...
Tip: Quite a few things can be added to burgers without them being noticed. Grated cooked beetroot is another good addition and if blitzed with the turkey or chicken will colour it to look more like beef, the flavour will be hardly noticed. (If using thawed frozen mince to make the burgers DO NOT refreeze).
Sweet 'n Spiced Your Choice: serves 4
This dish is made with chicken wings, but - as the name suggests - you can choose another main ingredient. Could be chicken fillets, sausages (best split lengthways), even baby burgers, and a good way to introduce meat substitutes to youngsters.
4 tblsp runny honey
4 fl.oz (125ml) soy sauce
2 cloves garlic, peeled and crushed (opt)
small piece of ginger, peeled and grated*
6 tblsp sweet chilli sauce
16 - 20 chicken wings (or your choice)
Mix together the honey, soy, garlic, ginger and chilli sauce. Put the chicken wings into a roasting dish and pour over the dressing. Leave to marinate for an hour, preferably overnight in the fridge, turning and basting from time to time. Cook in the oven 200C, 400F, gas 6 for 35 minutes, again turning and basting. Cook until crispy and browned. Serve with a favourite salad.
Tip: * Keep root ginger in the freezer and grate it from frozen. The peel usually keeps on the top side of the grater so you may not need to remove it first.
Sweet Roasted Vegetables:
Choose favourite vegetables that will roast, and include some of the less favourites, then dress the lot with this:
zest and juice of one orange
1 tblsp honey
leaves from a few sprigs of thyme
1 tblsp olive oil
Mix everything together and pour over a bowl of prepared vegetables. Toss to coat and roast in a hot oven (the usual 200C etc) for about half an hour or until the veggies are cooked, sticky and golden.
Subs for Students: serves 2
2 sub rolls or 1 ciabatta
1 tblsp mayo or horseradish sauce
1 small (pref. sweet or red) onion, finely sliced
1 tblsp sunflower oil
thinly sliced cooked roast beef*
thinly sliced tomato
grated cheese
salad leaves (pref. watercress)
Split the rolls or the ciabatta down the middle (leaving one side just attached) and spread the cut sides with mayo or horseradish. Heat half the oil in a pan and fry the onion until soft and tender (10 minutes) or longer if you want it crisp. Drain and set aside. Put some salad leaves on the base of the sub, top this with grated cheese, cover this with the tomatos, then the beef and finally top that with the onion. Add more salad on the top of that if there is room. Close the subs and start eating. If using one ciabatta loaf, once filled, cut this in half to share.
Note: * It doesn't have to be roast beef (unless home-cooked this will be expensive), use instead thin slices of corned beef, or those wafer thin slices of ham or chicken. Or even cooked and split (lengthways) sausages or those ready-to-eat thin slices of chorizo/pepperami.
Join the Club: serves 1 (V)
This American club sandwich can be filled with favourites, tucking in a few 'extras' (if you know what I mean). We all know the BLT (bacon, lettuce and tomato), but here is a veggie version which of course, can be adapted to suit.
3 slices bread (preferably granary)
2 dessp. hummous
1 handful watercress (or rocket)
1 carrot, grated
lemon juice
2 tomatoes, thickly sliced
1 oz (25g) cheddar cheese, grated
1 tblsp olive oil
Mix together the watercress, carrot, and oil with a squeeze of lemon juice. Toast the bread and spread the hummous on each slice. Top one slice with the cress mixture, lay over the second slice of toast and top with with the tomatoes and grated cheese. Cover with the final slice of toast, hummous side down. Press down and eat as-is or cut across diagonally. If serving to adults, you can spear the diagonals with a cocktail stick to keep the layers in place.
Tip: Instead of hummous you could use peanut butter, or mayo. Or - if you want something a bit upmarket - introduce cooked prawns and cucumber with a guacamole spread.
Banana Smoothie: serves 2
Into a blender put 1 pot of natural (pref. live) yogurt, one ripe banana, a drizzle of honey and a good splash of apple juice. Whizz together and serve into a couple of tall glasses.
Tip: Other fruits can be used, on their own or combined. Likewise use another fruit juice. If wishing to make a spoonable dessert from the above, double the amount of yogurt, add extra fruit and be sparing with the juice. Sprinkle over some grated dark (70%) chocolate and mixed chopped nuts to serve.
Nutty Nibbles:
Whisk together equal amounts of olive oil and honey, season with a pinch of sea salt and a pinch of spice according to taste: cayenne, paprika, or chilli. Pour this over a bowl of mixed unsalted nuts (almonds, cashews, walnuts etc), stir so the nuts are all coated, then roast in the oven 200C, 400F, gas 6 for 10-15 minutes, stirring and turning halfway through. When golden leave to cool before serving.
Tip: include some of the larger seeds as well - the sunflower, pumpkin etc. as they will look like small nuts anyway. Best coat the seeds separately as they need adding halfway through the cooking stage to prevent burning.
Of course I cannot finish without including a cake recipe. One that is full of goodness, and - as ever - add a few more bit and pieces (nudge, nudge, know what I mean!). The nuts are optional and again can be what you have rather than going out to buy what it says.
Apricot, Nut and Chocolate Loaf: cuts into 12 slices (F)
4 oz (100g) no-soak apricots, chopped
5 fl.oz (150ml) orange juice, pref fresh
4 oz (100g) butter, softened
4 oz (100g) light brown sugar
2 eggs
4 oz (100g) ground almonds
6 oz (175g) self-raising flour
3 tblsp milk
2 oz (50g) chocolate chips or grated chocolate
3 oz (75g) pecan or walnut halves
icing sugar for dusting
Butter and line the base of a 2 lb (1.2ltr) loaf tin, it helps to butter and flour the sides as well. Put the prepared apricots in a small pan with the orange juice and simmer for five minutes. Cool. Into a bowl put the butter, sugar, eggs, almonds, flour and the milk and beat until smooth (this part can be done in a food processor if you wish). Into this mixture stir in the chocolate and two-thirds of the nuts (these can be chopped if you wish) and finally stir in the apricots with their liquid. Mix well then pour into the loaf tin, smoothing the top. Scatter over the remaining nuts and bake for 50-60 mins at 180C, 350F, gas 4 until firm and a skewer comes out clean. Leave to stand in the tin for 5 or so minutes before turning out onto a cake airer. Dust with icing sugar. When completely cold wrap tightly in foil. It will then keep moist for up to a week. Can be frozen for up to 3 months.
Tip: If using the juice from an orange, grate the zest and add this to the mixture along with the sugar, eggs etc. If no ground almonds then substitute with plain flour (the gr.almonds have no raising agent), but the end result may not stay moist as long. If the cake is wolfed down (as it surely will be) next time you make it use half apricots and half prunes.
A final Tip: when making a dark cake, such as chocolate brownies or a fruit loaf, blitz a couple or so (stoned) prunes into a puree and mix these into the cake batter. They will make the cake darker, more succulent and will almost certainly not be noticed.
To your query about split pea recipes. So far, the only ones I have come across have all been for soups. Looks like I will need to buy a pack and start experimenting. I am sure I could whizz the peas in a grinder to make a type of flour, and also use them in similar ways to lentils. Give me a few days to experiment and I will let you know the outcome.
SweeterRita: Something that I forgot to mention re home-made yogurt, is that if you need to start by heating milk (usually blood heat), then heat it slightly higher for as soon as you stir in cold yogurt the temperature of the milk will drop. If the yogurt has first been chilled in the fridge, then it will go down even more, and may take some time to heat up to what it should be. If your machine is automatic it should eventually heat to the right temperature, but if it works on a timer, it won't take extra time needed into account, so allow for that by switching it on again for up to an hour or until the yogurt has set. Nearly always, yogurt won't set because it hasn't been given enough time, and the lower the temperature the more time it will need.
Today I am including recipes which might suit children, teenagers, and possibly even older folks who won't touch certain foods even though should because they are very good for them. It often helps to name a dish in a certain way such as Bart Simpson's Super Soup (or in Grandma's case: The Queen Mum's Favourite Soup) Let whoever you are cooking for believe their idol actually has eaten it, and they almost certainly will give it a go.
Sunshine Soup: (F) (V)
1 oz (25g) butter
1 lb (450g) carrots, chopped or grated
1 medium potato, chopped
1 small onion, chopped
2 pints (1.2 litres) vegetable (or chicken) stock
4 oz (100g) cheddar cheese, grated
5 fl.oz (150ml) milk
Melt the butter in a pan and add the carrots, potato and onion. Fry for about 10 minutes until the onion has softened. Pour in the stock, bring to the boil, partly cover the pan and simmer for 20 minutes, until all the vegetables are very soft. Remove from heat and pour into a blender or food processor (or use one of those electric wand mixers you can use in a saucepan) and blitz until a smooth puree. Add the cheese and blitz again. Reheat adding milk (cream is even nicer), and let them add their own seasoning. Serve with whatever they like best: buttered toast, crusty bread rolls, breadsticks or croutons.
Tip: This is the type of soup where you could include just a little of another vegetable such as butternut squash, or parsnip. Even blitz in cooked yellow peppers as they are quite sweet (most children like to eat anything sweet). If you prefer to omit the grated cheese, you could blitz in some cream cheese.
Tuna Fingers or Balls: (F)
1 x 200g can tuna in oil
3 oz (75g) fresh breadcrumbs
2 oz (50g) cheddar cheese, finely grated
1 large egg, beaten
oil for frying
Tip the tuna, together with its oil, into a bowl and add the breadcrumbs, cheese and egg. Mix everthing well together. Either form into 12 balls, the size of pingpong balls, or make 6 -8 larger ones and form into fish-finger shape. Chill (or freeze) until ready to cook.
Heat 2 tblsp oil in a pan and fry the chilled shapes for 8 - 10 minutes (allow longer if from frozen), turning often. They need to be golden brown. Drain on kitchen paper and keep warm until the rest of the dish (which should be whatever they like to eat) is ready.
Tip: use canned salmon AND tuna together if you wish, include any bones as these are packed with calcium and grind down to nothing anyway. Herbs add extra flavour. So does tomato ketchup which can be served with the meal or some incorporated into the mixture.
Not normally recommended, but favourite crisps crushed and used with egg to coat fish balls, fish cakes, chicken or what you will (as you would use egg and crumbs) will often get picky eaters gobbling up whatever they cover. Once they accept what they have eaten, use less crisps and more crumbs next time, and eventually you can leave out the crisps altogether.
Beckham's Burgers: makes 8 (F)
Full of healthy ingredients, start by incorporating very small amounts of any that are disliked, then increase slowly each time you make them. By using more of the ingredients they DO like, the less favourite ones can usually be disguised.
2 tblsp olive or sunflower oil
1 large onion, finely chopped
3 oz (75g) porridge oats
1 lb (450g) fresh turkey or chicken mince
3 oz (75g) no-soak apricots, finely chopped
1 carrot, grated
1 egg, beaten
Heat 1 tbslp oil in a pan and fry the onion for five minutes, stir in the oats and fry two minutes longer. Tip into a bowl and leave to cool. Add the rest of the ingredients and using hands, mix together well. For a smoother texture blitz them all together in a food processor. Season to taste and form into 8 patties. They can be frozen at this point, thaw before cooking. But see tip below).Heat the remaining oil in a pan and brown the burgers on each side (3 - 4 minutes) then transfer to a baking sheet and cook in the oven for 15 minutes longer at 200C, 400F, gas 6. Serve in baps with favourite toppings: fried onions, pickle, cucumber slices, salad...
Tip: Quite a few things can be added to burgers without them being noticed. Grated cooked beetroot is another good addition and if blitzed with the turkey or chicken will colour it to look more like beef, the flavour will be hardly noticed. (If using thawed frozen mince to make the burgers DO NOT refreeze).
Sweet 'n Spiced Your Choice: serves 4
This dish is made with chicken wings, but - as the name suggests - you can choose another main ingredient. Could be chicken fillets, sausages (best split lengthways), even baby burgers, and a good way to introduce meat substitutes to youngsters.
4 tblsp runny honey
4 fl.oz (125ml) soy sauce
2 cloves garlic, peeled and crushed (opt)
small piece of ginger, peeled and grated*
6 tblsp sweet chilli sauce
16 - 20 chicken wings (or your choice)
Mix together the honey, soy, garlic, ginger and chilli sauce. Put the chicken wings into a roasting dish and pour over the dressing. Leave to marinate for an hour, preferably overnight in the fridge, turning and basting from time to time. Cook in the oven 200C, 400F, gas 6 for 35 minutes, again turning and basting. Cook until crispy and browned. Serve with a favourite salad.
Tip: * Keep root ginger in the freezer and grate it from frozen. The peel usually keeps on the top side of the grater so you may not need to remove it first.
Sweet Roasted Vegetables:
Choose favourite vegetables that will roast, and include some of the less favourites, then dress the lot with this:
zest and juice of one orange
1 tblsp honey
leaves from a few sprigs of thyme
1 tblsp olive oil
Mix everything together and pour over a bowl of prepared vegetables. Toss to coat and roast in a hot oven (the usual 200C etc) for about half an hour or until the veggies are cooked, sticky and golden.
Subs for Students: serves 2
2 sub rolls or 1 ciabatta
1 tblsp mayo or horseradish sauce
1 small (pref. sweet or red) onion, finely sliced
1 tblsp sunflower oil
thinly sliced cooked roast beef*
thinly sliced tomato
grated cheese
salad leaves (pref. watercress)
Split the rolls or the ciabatta down the middle (leaving one side just attached) and spread the cut sides with mayo or horseradish. Heat half the oil in a pan and fry the onion until soft and tender (10 minutes) or longer if you want it crisp. Drain and set aside. Put some salad leaves on the base of the sub, top this with grated cheese, cover this with the tomatos, then the beef and finally top that with the onion. Add more salad on the top of that if there is room. Close the subs and start eating. If using one ciabatta loaf, once filled, cut this in half to share.
Note: * It doesn't have to be roast beef (unless home-cooked this will be expensive), use instead thin slices of corned beef, or those wafer thin slices of ham or chicken. Or even cooked and split (lengthways) sausages or those ready-to-eat thin slices of chorizo/pepperami.
Join the Club: serves 1 (V)
This American club sandwich can be filled with favourites, tucking in a few 'extras' (if you know what I mean). We all know the BLT (bacon, lettuce and tomato), but here is a veggie version which of course, can be adapted to suit.
3 slices bread (preferably granary)
2 dessp. hummous
1 handful watercress (or rocket)
1 carrot, grated
lemon juice
2 tomatoes, thickly sliced
1 oz (25g) cheddar cheese, grated
1 tblsp olive oil
Mix together the watercress, carrot, and oil with a squeeze of lemon juice. Toast the bread and spread the hummous on each slice. Top one slice with the cress mixture, lay over the second slice of toast and top with with the tomatoes and grated cheese. Cover with the final slice of toast, hummous side down. Press down and eat as-is or cut across diagonally. If serving to adults, you can spear the diagonals with a cocktail stick to keep the layers in place.
Tip: Instead of hummous you could use peanut butter, or mayo. Or - if you want something a bit upmarket - introduce cooked prawns and cucumber with a guacamole spread.
Banana Smoothie: serves 2
Into a blender put 1 pot of natural (pref. live) yogurt, one ripe banana, a drizzle of honey and a good splash of apple juice. Whizz together and serve into a couple of tall glasses.
Tip: Other fruits can be used, on their own or combined. Likewise use another fruit juice. If wishing to make a spoonable dessert from the above, double the amount of yogurt, add extra fruit and be sparing with the juice. Sprinkle over some grated dark (70%) chocolate and mixed chopped nuts to serve.
Nutty Nibbles:
Whisk together equal amounts of olive oil and honey, season with a pinch of sea salt and a pinch of spice according to taste: cayenne, paprika, or chilli. Pour this over a bowl of mixed unsalted nuts (almonds, cashews, walnuts etc), stir so the nuts are all coated, then roast in the oven 200C, 400F, gas 6 for 10-15 minutes, stirring and turning halfway through. When golden leave to cool before serving.
Tip: include some of the larger seeds as well - the sunflower, pumpkin etc. as they will look like small nuts anyway. Best coat the seeds separately as they need adding halfway through the cooking stage to prevent burning.
Of course I cannot finish without including a cake recipe. One that is full of goodness, and - as ever - add a few more bit and pieces (nudge, nudge, know what I mean!). The nuts are optional and again can be what you have rather than going out to buy what it says.
Apricot, Nut and Chocolate Loaf: cuts into 12 slices (F)
4 oz (100g) no-soak apricots, chopped
5 fl.oz (150ml) orange juice, pref fresh
4 oz (100g) butter, softened
4 oz (100g) light brown sugar
2 eggs
4 oz (100g) ground almonds
6 oz (175g) self-raising flour
3 tblsp milk
2 oz (50g) chocolate chips or grated chocolate
3 oz (75g) pecan or walnut halves
icing sugar for dusting
Butter and line the base of a 2 lb (1.2ltr) loaf tin, it helps to butter and flour the sides as well. Put the prepared apricots in a small pan with the orange juice and simmer for five minutes. Cool. Into a bowl put the butter, sugar, eggs, almonds, flour and the milk and beat until smooth (this part can be done in a food processor if you wish). Into this mixture stir in the chocolate and two-thirds of the nuts (these can be chopped if you wish) and finally stir in the apricots with their liquid. Mix well then pour into the loaf tin, smoothing the top. Scatter over the remaining nuts and bake for 50-60 mins at 180C, 350F, gas 4 until firm and a skewer comes out clean. Leave to stand in the tin for 5 or so minutes before turning out onto a cake airer. Dust with icing sugar. When completely cold wrap tightly in foil. It will then keep moist for up to a week. Can be frozen for up to 3 months.
Tip: If using the juice from an orange, grate the zest and add this to the mixture along with the sugar, eggs etc. If no ground almonds then substitute with plain flour (the gr.almonds have no raising agent), but the end result may not stay moist as long. If the cake is wolfed down (as it surely will be) next time you make it use half apricots and half prunes.
A final Tip: when making a dark cake, such as chocolate brownies or a fruit loaf, blitz a couple or so (stoned) prunes into a puree and mix these into the cake batter. They will make the cake darker, more succulent and will almost certainly not be noticed.
posted by Shirley at 5:16 AM
2 Comments:
still enjoying your blog, Shirley, i see you have a recipe for students, more of these would be good as they would be quick and cheap but nourishing, would also do for people on their own with limited means
Marlene
Dear Shirley,
Apologies from yoghurt corner. I have not been chipping in recently but I have been looking in each day and very much enjoying the blog. I have managed to sign in to blogger without difficulty today.
I have been fooling about with yoghurt ingredients over recent weeks and have been reading your advice to Rita with interest.
My best results so far have been with ordinary full fat milk with some easi-yo culture stirred in - either the powder or from an earlier batch.
In my view this is the tastiest and the cheapest, at the same price as the milk for greek yoghurt as nice or better than you would buy.
I was interested to read your advice on heating milk before introducing the yoghurt culture. I have "scalded" the milk by microwaving it until it is quite hot but not boiling so you do not get the residual taste of boiled milk. You advise heating to a bit above blood temperature so it is at the right temperature for the bugs to work.
I scald the milk first just to kill off any alien bugs as I have a fear, perhaps unfounded of serving a dose of botulism for breakfast. However, I wonder if I am being too fastidious. If I use fresh milk from a freshly opened bottle and just warm it to working temperature I wonder if we would come to any harm. I think I will give that a go.
It makes with the easi-yo culture in about 8 hours so I do not think too much can go wrong in that time and hopefully the rapacious easi-yo bugs do for the others. An african friend says they make their yoghurt just by churning milk about in open bowls in warm air for a day or so and that works.
I have nicked the easi you idea by putting the yoghurt mix in a lock and lock box and then put that in a small rigid plastic cool box and pour in some boiling water round it as a water jacket. It gets put in the airing cupboard and settles to about 100 degrees F.
I have tried sterilised milk as a short cut. However, I can still taste the sterilised milk in the yoghurt and it is dearer. I have not yet tried adding evaporated milk as it is rich enough for us as it is with full cream milk.
Semi-skimmed milk works but has neither the texture or flavour we like so until we get so fat that we must eat it I have scratched that.
Going the other way, I have used a mix of UHT double and whipping cream in a hope of making something like creme fraiche. Not so successful as it is too rich. I suppose it could be easily strained through muslin to make a cheese but the calories in it would not do any favours!
So, keep it simple is my news, just use ordinary milk for that miraculous transformation with easi-yo greek yoghurt mix.
I was surprised to see that you cost bread at one pound a loaf. I have asked you about your breadmaking and it sounds much better than mine - using a good pre-mix and then baking in the oven. However, at a quid a go, I would be inclined to save the bother and buy some really good bread! Obviously, not home made but our local stuff is baked daily has walnuts in it etc.
The stuff we churn out of our breadmaker is so cheap I do not cost it. I use the cheapest flour on offer and buy a trolley full at a time and cut it with as little strong bread flour as I can get away with - about a third strong flour. Then I use dried yeast. I have not missed out the dried milk yet as it is cheap and seems to work. One day when we have run out of milk powder we will see!
If I use strong brown flour and chuck in some nuts at half time it is pretty good and still very cheap to make.
Now, thinking out of the box; as we don't say in Millom; If you weren't to use your oven but just keep it in the breadmaker and you were to use my cheap ingredients rather than the packets, I would value your advice.
Do you have any ideas for making my cheap and easy bread any better without adding much to the cost?
I think I will always be hampered by the low baking temperature of the bread machine which is cooking at only about 120 degrees C rather than in an ordinary oven. I have tried, with fire extinguishers at the ready supercharging my breadmaker by blanking off the thermostat with foil so it heated to a higher temperature but I only got a few more degrees so I do not take that fire risk any longer! The machine makers never tell you their working temperatures so it is difficult to compare makes in order to get a really hot one. I suspect they are much the same and there isn't a real hottie out there.
The only idea I have had is that when I go for a trip north up the coast, buying a sack of bread flour from Carrs, but I expect it would just go off unless I divided it with friends.
Last week, I was reading the Daily Mail on Saturday. My father gets it for the telly rather than for the folorn advice on every page to David Cameron.
Incidentally, I heard a wonderful description of the Eton Mess -
"Willy Whitelaw with an iPod"
- which I thought summed him up but was rather a slight on Whitelaw who was of more substance.
But, I digress from the more important home economics where we still are allowed some control.
The Mail has some very well presented cookery pages. This included some quite good quick recipes for one course telly dinners each night. These were seemingly designed to be made while the adverts were on.
But apart from that two things particularly struck me on other pages.
Evidently, Hugh F'-all's mum is muscling in on your act and has published a book in his halo or shadow on economical home cooked dishes. The recipe I saw was shepherd's pie from leftovers but incorporating other ingredients - such as beetroot. Where have I seen that before? Was young Hugh a picky eater? Have you read any reviews of it as yet?
The other point of interest was comment on the much disparaged Nigella. The piece on her was notable for being one of few in the paper not giving advice to the flagging Cameron. I think her programmes are a hoot. There are some interesting twists but it looks like a good act as for her. The kitchen just seems to be unknown territory that she is exploring and introducing to us as Michael Palin might the Sahara.
However, it was the photo that caught my eye - a portrait with a generous smile - which brought to my mind a strong resemblance to ... the younger Shirley!
Best wishes,
CP
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