Our Fridge

Right, I'm going to cheat and backdate over a week's worth of posts. I apologise for not posting, but I've had the Food for the Future event (photos will be posted!), I was in the newspaper (hopefully a scanned copy of the article will be posted), I had a birthday (photos of BBQ on Sunday will be posted), and I've had three lots of minutes and a report to type up for various groups (none of which will be posted).

So I'm sorry!

Anyway, here's some photos of our fridge and cupboards. It's a TINY kitchen, and I didn't take a picture of the 5kg of rice, 5L of rapeseed oil, and 5kg of haricot beans that sit on the floor of our airing cupboard because there is no other place to put them. I highly recommend buying in bulk, but it IS a bit of a pain.












Here's our shelves. Flours and various things on the top, baked goods on the second shelf on the left, some random seeds and things on the second on the right, and the bottom is tins and condiment type things. There's wholefoods in the other one (nuts on top with some beans, then beans and pulses on the second shelf, and some pasta, rice on the bottom shelf)

We realised early on that we had a) too many oils and vinegars to fit in any convenient place, and b) that we had LOTS of herbs and spices (we often buy in bulk and keep the bags they come in ontop of the bread box. Mac found this drawer that had slots for . . . . stationary? cutlery? I don't know. We turned it on its side (you can see the drawer pulls on the right) and use it as a spice rack. It looks great.

The oils and vinegars sit on one of those things you're supposed to put in your bathroom. It wouldn't fit in our bathroom, but works well in the corner of our kitchen.







Here's our fridge (I couldn't get the door in the shot, and I cut off the mini-freezer that sits on top). It's about the size of a college dorm fridge. With a kitchen this small, nothing else would fit. On Wednesdays (when we get our milk delivered AND our vegetable box) it's a bit of a tight fit, especially if we have lots of leftovers, but we manage okay.

Later this day, I took the kohl rabi out as it turns out they shouldn't be refrigerated. I also keep tomatoes out of the fridge (pictures to follow many posts from now!).

We have a LOT of food at any one time, but 95% of it requires some kind of preparation. Apart from a box of falafel mix (to which you still have to add water, make the patties, and then shallow fry them) and a chocolate chip bread mix I got as a gift, and maybe a couple of sauces, everything is pretty much raw ingredients. It DEFINITELY cuts down on the bills.


Any tips?
BUY IN BULK! Set up a food co-op with friends and family, or see if you can order in bulk from an independent health food shop (Naturally Healthy on Bedford Place is usually willing to order in for people). Get at least 2kg at a time of things you use a lot (for us that's oats, cous cous, rice, and possibly one kind of bean) and 1kg of other things. We bought (months ago!) 800g container of vegetable stock powder. We'll probably have it for almost a year, but it means we won't run out and it was LOADS cheaper than buying those little cubs.

Spices are a MUST for buying in bulk. Find your closest world food/ethnic/halal whatever they call it shop and buy it in bulk. People say not to use spices after 6 months because they'll lose their flavouring, but if you cook them in oil it will usually perk them right up. Plus, if you get whole spices (cumin, coriander, mustard seeds, etc) and grind them as and when you need them, they'll keep a LOT of their flavour.

ALWAYS STOCK UP - If you want to save money, always have a lot of staples (and I include a range of oils, vinegars, spices, pulses, grains, pasta, cans of tomatoes, quorn/TVP mince, vegetable stock powder, ginger, butter, and garlic in the word "staples") on hand. It means you won't be so tempted to buy a jar of something or a frozen meal because you know you have at least something that you can make. Plus, it helps bring a bit more of a routine to your shopping so that you can start skipping certain aisles which will really help you save money.

Day 10 - rice and broad bean salad

Robin suggested that I take a picture of our fridge. Tomorrow I'll try to remember to upload photos of our fridge before and after we get our veg box, as well as our herbs&spice rack and our cupboards for dried beans/grains/potatoes/pasta and bakery items/tins.

Actually, speaking of photography, there is a journalist from the daily echo who is coming to our flat tomorrow morning with a photographer to talk to me about doing a feature article. I'm not entirely sure whether it's about the Buy Nothing New year or about the £2 a day diet. I guess I'll find out tomorrow morning. Hopefully I'll have a chance to clean up the flat before she comes. I don't want to try to suggest that our flat is a paragon of freecycled loveliness if it looks horrible. Okay, so maybe we're going for college-student school of interior design in terms of our furniture not matching, etc, but you have to remember that we paid £50 for our futon couch, £5 for the bed frame, £190 (full price) for a new mattress, and EVERY other bit of furniture we got free. Not bad.

I"d like her to focus on the £2 a day diet, but mostly because i think that's achievable by people, and I'd love to get more people going to farmers' markets, getting an organic veg box and cooking from scratch. Why buy crappy food that's going to make you obese if you can whip up something cheap, filling, and healthy while watching your soap (you know how often I watch an episode of Numb3rs or Angel while cooking?) It's so important to get people to realise that healthy and organic food (even fair trade stuff) isn't beyond their budget. It really bugs me how often people assume that organic food has to be really expensive. It's a load of bull when you consider how much CRAP people buy.

Right, rant over.

Mac made a nice rice pilau tonight with the broad beans from Riverford that he got off the BBC website. Here you go:
Broad bean pilau

• 200g basmati rice
• 300g podded broad beans(RIVERFORD)
• 50g butter
• 4 spring onions , finely sliced (RIVERFORD)
  
• ½ tsp ground allspice
• bunch of dill , fronds removed and roughly chopped (Mac used mint from the garden instead)
  
• handful pine nuts (used 40g walnuts)
  

Wash the rice in several changes of cold water until the water runs clear, then soak in warm water with a pinch of salt for 30 mins. Meanwhile, cook the broad beans in boiling unsalted water for just 2 mins. Drain the beans, then tip into ice-cold water and leave to cool. Remove the beans from their skins and set aside.

Heat the butter in a saucepan, then sizzle the spring onions, pine nuts, allspice and half the dill for a few mins until pine nuts are toasted. Drain rice, then add to the pan and stir to coat in the butter. Cover the rice with about 1cm of water, then cover the pan and bring to a hard boil. Stir once, then reduce heat to a minimum, cover again and leave for 5 mins. Turn off the heat and leave rice undisturbed for 10 mins. Finally, stir beans through the rice, pile onto a serving platter, scraping any golden crispy bits from the pan, and scatter with the remaining dill.


Breakfast: porridge, 13p
Riverford: 85p (stupid not switching to a small box...)
Lunch: leftover Lentil and vegetable stew. 26p per serving
Post-work snack - Megan had a cup of tea 3p and a tortilla (10p) with 10g of peanut butter (2p) and 5g of jam (2p)
Dinner: Broad bean pilau. 20p per serving and LOTS of garden salad (all RIVERFORD) with 1/2 tsp of cider vinegar (1p) Mac: slices of cucumber and 1 tortilla 10p both with hummus 13p
Bed-time snack: Megan, while typing up all of these stupid recipes and ingredient lists decided she was really hungry so had 50g or so (I couldn't find the scale) of bran flakes (9p) and 1/2 cup of milk (15p).

Total: Mac 1.65 Megan £1.86 - If only I'd figured this out earlier, I could have eaten WAY more!

Day 9 - two original(ish) recipes

Right. The hummus recipe I started using on Monday evening was terrible, so the recipe below is kinda made up. I'm sure there are better ones elsewhere online, so find another one. The hummus I ended up had a good texture and consistency but was just a bit bland.

The lentil stew, on the other hand, started out as a recipe from the Wartime recipe cookbook that I bought while at a secondhand/antique book sale in Sherborne, Dorset because it has a whole section devoted to "protein dishes" (as an aside, wartime recipes seem to be ALL the rage with the frugal/credit crunch crowd AND the self-sufficiency gren crowd. For example, look here.) The recipe ended up becoming one of those "a little bit of what's in the fridge" dishes.

Lentil and Vegetable Stew - serves 6 - £1.54 total, 26p per serving

1 head cabbage (we used pointed cabbage from RIVERFORD)
15g butter - 7p
3-5 carrots (RIVERFORD)
3-4 small onions (we used a bunch of salad onions with the scallion-like stalks cut off--RIVERFORD)
500g potatoes (50p)
1 1/2c lentils (74p)
1Tbsp veg bouillon (5p)
2tsp marmite (or cheap ASDA fake marmite like we use!) (4p)
10g of yeast flakes (14p)

Chop up the cabbage into 2"x2" pieces. Cook it on medium heat with half of the butter. Keep turning the leaves so that they are all covered in butter and cook evenly.
Meanwhile, cut the carrots and potatoes (both unpeeled) into fairly large chunks. Boil a kettle and add the lentil, carrots, potatoes, veg bouillon and marmite. Allow water to boil and then reduce to simmer for 35 min. Alternative is to cook until potatoes are tender-ish and then put into a casserole dish and bake for 20min.
If adding yeast flakes (add a bit of thickness and some vitamins/protein), add just before serving and stir in.

Hummus
Cost: £1.51 It ended up making a whole marge tub FULL of hummus. Plus I'd already eaten some... I'm going to guess that it will make 12 servings. 13p per serving.

110g chickpeas (ended up having to add another 110g--how ridiculous is that?!?) 42p total
2 cloves garlic - 15p
5 Tbsp lemon juice - 16p (ended up adding another tsp once I'd made it to add a bit more flavour)
4 Tbsp olive oil - 45p
5oz tahini paste - (I added all I had left--about 3oz) about 31p
(added a dash of paprika at the end because it was so bland - 2p

Turned out okay, but no thanks for this horrible recipe from Delia. The proportions were ALL wrong. She suggested keeping 5oz of the cooking liquid which was FAR too much and having 5oz of tahini... I didn't have 5oz of tahini, but I can't imagine that would have stopped it fro being so runny.

Breakfast: porridge, 13p
Riverford: 77.5p
Lunch for Mac: leftover beans and pasta 44p, Megan: leftover bean salad 27p, two tortillas 20p and homemade hummus 13p.
Dinner: Lentil and vegetable stew, 26p per serving plus the end of the sourdough bread with a bit of butter - 16p
Total: Mac £1.77, Megan £1.93

Day 8 - Mac fails, Megan wins!

I think Mac didn't pay too close of attention to his recipes that he made over the weekend. If he had, he would have seen that the mushroom and quinoa salad with walnuts was fairly expensive AND meant to serve six. Instead it gave him two Mac-sized portions.

For dinner, I brought a bean salad (which fit in the £2 a day nicely at 27p per serving) to a Transition Southampton marketing meeting and it got compliments. I was pretty impressed because it took next to no time but managed to taste and smell great. For my bean salad efforts, I ended up getting a slice of quiche, some nice garden salad, some cake (which I may have bought and was totally cheating, but tough) hummus and pita, and some boiled new potatoes.

What was organic?
Oatmeal, milk, (tea was Fairtrade), quinoa (also FT), mushrooms, walnuts, the main ingredients in the curry (aubergine, chickpeas, tomatoes, potatoes), tomato puree, and the haricot beans.

Breakfast: porridge, 13p + Megan had a cup of tea 3p
RIverford: 77.5p
Lunch for Mac: Quinoa and walnut - half of total amount 75p because he obviously didn't read the whole "serves 6" thing.
Megan: last little bit of curry, 44p
Dinner for Mac: 200g pasta (48p), 1 clove garlic (7.5p), 2 Tbsp tomato puree (17p), 1/4c beans (10p), 2tsp cumin seeds (6p) Total: 88p, 44p for dinner. Megan brought the bean salad listed below for 27p per serving.
TOTAL: Megan £1.65 (1.92 if you count one portion of bean salad), Mac £2.10




Haricot bean salad (which got compliments and was super easy to make) £1.35 total. 27p each for 5 servings
* 8 oz (225 gm) haricot beans 40p
* 1 bayleaf (skipped)
* 8 Tbs olive oil or half olive, half vegetable oil (I just put in a few good glugs. Probably about half of this) 60p
* juice of 1 lemon (2-3 Tbsp lemon juice) 9p
* 1/2 pint (150 ml) water
* 2 cloves garlic, crushed - 15p
* 1 onion, peeled (skipped)
* 1 tsp sea salt
* freshly ground black pepper
* 2 tsp tomato puree (probably 1 Tbsp) 4p
* 2 sprigs thyme (I used 1/2tsp dried) 7p

Soak the beans for a couple of hours or so, then drain them and rinse them and cook them in plenty of water until nearly tender; drain.

Heat the oil in a good sized saucepan, add the beans and cook them very gently for about 10 minutes, then stir in the garlic, sea salt, tomato puree, thyme, bayleaf and water (you can use some of the water in which the beans were cooked) and simmer gently, without a lid, until the liquid has reduced to a thick, terracotta-coloured sauce and the beans are tender.

Cool, then add the lemon juice and the onion, sliced into thin rounds.
Season with more sea salt and freshly ground black pepper if necessary.

Chill the salad and serve sprinkled with chopped parsley.

Day 7 - even more leftovers

So this is day three of me eating the Aubergine and Chickpea Balti. It's still good, but I am getting a little tired of it. It's also day two of me eating quinoa and tomato salad. I also ate leftover stale-I'm-leaving cake, which I really wish I hadn't (it was TERRIBLE!) Unfortunately, I also served the stale cake to a guest who was doing me a favour. I am a horrible hostess. Luckily I'm not going for any sort of domestic goddess award.


Breakfast - Porridge and a cup of tea 13p + 3p
Riverford - 77.5p
Lunch - 150g of quinoa salad (30p) and LOTS of garden salad (with 1/2tsp of white wine vinegar [1p]). Then I had a tortilla (10p) with 15g of peanut butter (3p) and 10g of jam (4p). Plus stale cake (which I'm still not counting) and a cup of tea 3p and a glass of cordial 0.4p
Dinner - more chickpea curry 44p and some more garden salad with another 1/2 tsp of white wine vinegar (1p)

£1.90

So now I'm deciding to have another tortilla with a tiny bit of jam and peanut butter. Good thing I like the taste of tortillas, because I could barely make out the jam or peanut butter. Unfortunately, I had forgotten about the white wine vinegar on my salad until after ate the tortilla, so I finish on £2.02. Oops.

Day 6 - many many leftovers

Now that I've been able to have lunch and dinner without expending any effort greater than heating up leftovers, I'm kinda liking this whole Mac makes three dishes before he goes away thing. I just hope I still feel that way when I'm having them for the third day in a row.

Tomorrow I'm going to the farm to check out the space, number of tables, etc. It's one week until the ethical food day. I feel like I still have SO much to do. I'm now wondering if I should do a presentation (as in, actually talk in front of people) on the £2 a day diet. Lissie, who volunteers at the Art House, mentioned that she's really interested in the day because money is getting tighter and she wants some ideas. I'm not entirely convinced that we're giving people concrete tips/suggestions about how to eat better. Yes, we're giving cooking tips and gardening ideas, but will that help people in the long run? I don't know...

Thoughts?

Breakfast: Porridge and a cup of tea, 13p + 3p
Riverford: 77.5p
Lunch: Mac's will have to wait until he comes back from holiday
Megan had garden salad (all from Riverford) and 30p for a portion of the quiona, chickpea, almond and tomato salad. Plus some of the probably-too-old crumble for 32.5p
Dinner: Megan's was aubergine and chickpea balti leftover from last night with rice - 44p. Mac probably ate dinner at a pub with the conservation folks.

Total
Megan: £2.00 (I wish I hadn't had my dessert at lunchtime.... )

Day 5 - Mac makes enough food to feed a small army

Mac's away this weekend on a conservation project, so he had to bring lunch with him for the next couple days. In doing so, he managed to fill up our whole fridge with lots and lots of food. I've been instructed not to bring it to the Art House, but I don't know how else we're going to get through this much food. See below for recipes for the aubergine (eggplant) and chickpea curry we had for dinner, and the two quiona salads that are now sat in our fridget--quinoa, almond, roasted chickpea and roasted cherry tomato salad (the catchier name for it from the vegweb site is "Quinoa to Win Over Your Boyfriend's Family" and the quinoa, walnut and mushroom salad that was supposed to be mostly arugula (check out the picture on the website we got it from to see what I mean). Both look delicious, but the quantities are approaching ridiculous.

Aubergine, Potato and Chick Pea Balti (Birmingham Balti) - Serves 6
£2.64, 44p per serving
10 minutes preparation time (unless you cook the chickpeas from dried, which is 2 hours), 30 minutes cooking time

Ingredients:
For the vegetables
2 Tbs vegetable oil - 30p (Mac used rapeseed oil)
1 onion, peeled and finely sliced - 27p
½ tsp cumin seeds - 1p
1 aubergine, cut into 1 cm cubes - RIVERFORD
1 potato, peeled and cut into 1 cm cubes - 42p
200g chickpeas, rinsed & drained (it was 1/4c of chickpeas soaked since this morning and cooked for 2hours) 8.5p
1 tsp ground coriander - 3p
½ tsp ground cumin - 1p
¼ tsp ground turmeric - .5p

For the sauce
2 Tbsp vegetable oil - 30p
1 onion, peeled and finely sliced - 27p
2 cloves garlic, crushed - 15p
2 tsp root ginger, peeled and grated - 3p
4 cm cassia bark (optional-skipped)
6 whole cloves - 6p
450g tin chopped plum tomatoes 49p
¼ tsp ground turmeric - 5p ½ tsp
ground coriander - 1p ½ tsp
ground cumin - 1p
1 tsp sugar - 1p
1 ½ tsp salt - 1p
1 tsp red chilli powder to taste (skipped)

To finish (Skipped all of this)
4 tbs fresh coriander, finely chopped
200ml water
½ tsp garam masala

Rice
2c basmati rice - 12p
4c water.

For the vegetables
1. Heat the oil in a large saucepan and add the sliced onions and cumin seeds. Cook for 3 minutes
2. Add the chopped potato, aubergine, ground coriander, cumin and turmeric. Stir to coat vegetables evenly and then cook over a high heat for 3 minutes stirring occasionally. Remove from pan and set aside.

For the Sauce
1. Heat the oil in the pan. Add the onion, crushed garlic, grated ginger, cassia bark and whole cloves and cook for 1 minute.
2. Add chopped plum tomotoes, turmeric, coriander, cumin, garam masala, salt, sugar and chilli to taste. Cook on a high heat for two minutes, then lower to a medium heat and cook for a further 3 minutes stirring occasionally.
3. Remove the cassia bark and blend the sauce roughly with a hand blender, then add the vegetables to the sauce with 3 tablespoons of chopped coriander, the water and the garam masala.
4. Cook over a low heat for 20 minutes, stirring occasionally. Garnish with remaining chopped coriander and serve with Basmati rice and/or naan bread.

Spring greens - 27p total, 13.5p per portion
one bunch of spring greens cut into 2" slices - RIVERFORD
Head a pan on medium and add 2tsp Pratt's rapeseed oil (10p)
Place 2 sliced cloves garlic (15p) in the pan and cook slowly. When they are approaching golden, add the spring greens. Stir to coat with oil. Cook 10 min.
Just before serving, add 1tsp lemon juice - 2p.

Today's Breakdown
Breakfast: 13p porridge and Megan had a cup of tea 3p
Lunch: Mac had half of the wild rice salad: 14p AND mushroom and spinach curry 31p.
Megan had a work lunch at the Fat Fig (www.fatfig.co.uk/)... oops and just remembered that half a falafel wrap is still sat in her bag the morning after. Oops. Megan also managed to get free Krispy Kreme donuts from the other guy who is leaving from our team...and then proceeded to eat a bunch of them. And then brought some home, and we both ate some after work....and then again after dinner.
Dinner: Aubergine, potato and chick pea balti over rice for 44p and some cooked spring greens from Riverford. 13.5p
Megan had half a glass of apple juice (100mL) for 20p
Total: Mac: £1.93 Megan: £1.71 Plus a whole bunch of Krispy Kremes...



Quinoa to Win Over Your Boyfriend's Family by envirogirl- Serves 3-4

£1.39 total, per serving 35p for 4 people, 46p for 3.
Ingredients:
2 cups quinoa (Mac only used 3/4c) - 34p
3 cups water
3-4 tablespoons olive oil - 50p
200g chickpeas, rinsed & drained (it was 1/4c of chickpeas soaked since this morning and cooked for 2hours) - 8.5p
2-3 cups sliced almonds (Mac used 45g of whole almonds - 44p)
1-2 oz. sliced sundried tomatoes (used RIVERFORD fresh cherry tomatoes)
1 Tbsp Rosemary (from the GARDEN)
garlic salt to taste

Directions:
Pour water into a sauce pan and bring to boil on high heat.
Pour quinoa into boiling water. Turn heat to medium high once foam starts to rise.
Allow to boil uncovered until water level reaches quinoa level. Cover & let simmer until water is absorbed.

If using cherry tomatoes, put in a roasting dish or baking sheet, and roast in the oven for 20min or so. Take out, and add other ingredients for roasting.
If using sundried tomatoes, just add olive oil, chickpeas, garlic salt and rosemary onto baking sheet.
Broil in oven on 400 degree F heat until chickpeas are crispy and/or start to crackle.
Toast sliced almonds in a pan on high heat until browned and aromatic.
Add chickpeas, almonds, and sun dried tomatoes to quinoa and stir. Add more spices if needed.
Preparation time: 20-30 minutes



Quinoa, walnut and mushroom salad tossed with watercress or arugula - serves 6 - £1.51, 25p per serving
By THE CANADIAN PRESS

250 ml (1 cup) water
125 ml ( 1/2 cup) quinoa - 35p
(Mac used 3/4c) 50 ml
(1/4 cup) olive oil, divided - 50p
125 g (4 oz) shiitake mushrooms, stems removed (used chestnut mushrooms from RIVERFORD)
1 clove garlic, minced - 7.5p
15 ml (1 tbsp) soy sauce - 9p
2 ml ( 1/2 tsp) each salt and fresh cracked black pepper
10 ml (2 tsp) maple syrup - 14p
5 ml (1 tsp) Dijon mustard (Mac used 1/2tsp Coleman dried with 1/2tsp water to make a paste) 4p
8 cups arugula or watercress - (Rocket from our GARDEN!)
250 ml (1 cup) toasted walnuts, roughly chopped (only used 50g) - 31p

In a small saucepan, bring water to a boil. Add quinoa and bring back to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer, covered, until water is absorbed, about 10 minutes. Remove from heat; leave covered for 15 minutes.

In a large skillet, heat 30 ml (2 tbsp) of the oil over medium-high heat. Add shiitake mushrooms and brown on both sides, about 5 minutes. Add garlic and cook for 1 minute. Stir in soy sauce, salt and pepper. Remove from heat.

In a small bowl, whisk together remaining oil with maple syrup and Dijon mustard.
Add arugula and walnuts to hot mushrooms in pan.
Stir in quinoa and drizzle with oil mixture, stirring to combine.
Serve immediately.

Nutritional information per serving: 320 calories, 8 g protein, 22 g fat (2.5 g saturated fat), 29 g carbohydrates, 5 g fibre, 0 mg cholesterol, 380 mg sodium. Source: www.walnutinfo.com.