Thrifty Cooking Tips For Coping In Tough Times

It is second nature to many older people who were bought up in the era after the war to economise and make the best use of what we have available. I thought it may be useful for anyone trying to suvive the downturn with little money to have the benifit of some of our tips and experiences.

FOOD:
Good quality nourishment is very important and with little money to go round a few tasty but thrifty recipies may help anyone on a limited budget. Maybe some of us on the forum could come up with their money saving recipies.

Some budgeting tips are obvious and most people are already putting these into practice.
1) Work out a weekly budget for food and stick to it if possible
2) Cut out buying unnecessary items like crisps and pop etc but do have one or two items for a special treat sometimes.
3)Seek out the bargains regularly, or buy own brand goods.
3) Whenever you can, add to or build up a stock cupboard, buy in bulk if something is on offer and store an item.
4) Cook more than you need and keep some in the freezer for quick meals.

With the failure of the Russian wheat harvest bread may be expensive so you could try an Irish potatoe bread recipe to fill up on for breakfast instead of toast:

225g cooked mashed potatoe
25g melted marg or butter
50g plain flour or fine oats
1/2 tsp salt to taste
Method:
While potatoes are still warm mash in the salt and marg and then work in enough flour to make a pliable dough. Divide the potatoe dough into 2 peices and roll each of them out to form circles about 1/2 cm thick, then cut them into quarters. Lightly grease the bottom of a pan or griddle and turn each side for about 5 to 6 min until browned. Great with off-cuts of bacon and eggs for breakfast.

Anyone else have any tips or recipes?

I can recommend these potato cakes with any good quality champagne.
Eat cheap, drink expensive, that's my motto.
VM

Alice, you are so right, but the trouble with todays folk, they are not used to scrimping and scraping, (blimey sounds like war times again).
in a way I wish it was, I have a wonderful book entitled " We'll eat again" and just for want of something to do I've been trying some of the recipes, and they are wonderful, basic ingredients, easy to do and very tasty, don't get me wrong I can buy anything I want to, but I have simple tastes, and like plain home cooked meals, ie; cottage pie, corned beef and cabbage with boiled potatoes, baked beans on toast, stew,
porridge with fruit, etc.
I also like exotic meals of any description, but tend to keep to the simpler, and, much healthier meals, also far cheaper and easier to prepare.
IFonly the likes of Margaret Patten were to come back again, the people of this country would be far healthier.
I will post a daily recipe under a new thread from this book, and I bet no-one on here tries it.

Further to my last post, it has been proven that war time children are far healthier, and are living longer than any other generation, I was
brought up on bread and dripping and still eat it today.

John all the food you list is simular to my own taste although I am game to trying new stuff.

My own thrifty tip is learn to cook....properly.

Alice
i have made a potato bread before, with yeast, and liked it, but mine did not have so much potato, so will have to have a go at yours. I think I might like it with egg & bacon
mike

I have always been one for plain English cooking myself. If I started listing the things that I don't eat I would be still typing tomorrow.

The only exception to this rule is curry, but that as good as an English meal now. I bet there is as much curry eaten in England as there is in India. Especially around 12 o clock on a Friday & Saturday Night.

Phi

John I couldnt agree more todays folk are not use to scrimping and scrapping to get by but they may have to learn soon if things get any worse.

I dont suppose many of them would eat the type of meals that older people eat anyway even if they are more ecconomical and the family are on a tight budget. The Jamie Oliver School meals project is a point in question, there was a lot of resistance to any change there from pizza and chips etc. I like to eat everything in moderation.

Some of the ecconomical meals here in Ireland are: (We love our spuds)
Potatoes, bacon and cooked mashed swede fried in a little of the bacon fat.
Potatoes, bacon and cooked white cabbage fried in a little of the bacon fat.
Potatoes, any type of meat, sausage or bacon and carott & parsnip mashed together with gravy.

In the winter Broth is made and stored in the freezer to use either as a quick meal with a sandwich when it is cold or used when someone is ill to tempt their appitite :
We can buy ready chopped soup vegetables in the shops here or a packet of assorted veg for you to chop yourself. I have never seen red celery growing anywhere but in Ireland where some houses grow it in the garden but then I have never really looked for it in England.
Broth:
1/2 lb steak pieces or stewing beef finely chopped
2 or 3 carrotts finely chopped
1 or 2 Leek chopped finely using all the leek including the green
bunch parsley finely chopped
about 4-6 pieces of red celery, you can use white celery but it doesnt flavour up as well.
large handful of country soup mix (sainsburys)
handful of red lentils
Salt to taste

Half fill a large saucepan with boiling water and simmer the country soup mix with the fineley chopped meat and added salt for about 45 minutes and skim off any scum on the surface. Then add all the washed chopped vegetables to the saucepan and simmer until the vegetables are soft, if the water runs low keep topping up with boiled water, but dont add too much to make it very thin, broth is always thick. About 20 minutes before the end of cooking add the lentils to the saucepan and keep stirring the broth to prevent it burning at the bottom, until it thickens up. Allow to cool and put in containers for the freezer.

Phil
i always understood that the dish "curry" didn't exist in india before the europeans came, though they might call the same dish by another name, possibly something less easy for the English to pronounce
Mike

Alice
i've never heard of red celery, though i'm not a gardener. Does it just have a stronger celery taste. or is it a different taste?
M ike

Mike
It is a different taste, if you use white celery you can definately tell the difference.

You can get seeds of Red Celery and in Ireland nurserys sell the small plants in the spring for you to grow on.

Alice

Mike

I suppose red celery is much the same as red onions, not that I know because like yourself I am completely ignorant when it comes to gardening.

As far as curry is concerned I have been told often by Indian friends that half the muck served up in this country to us English they would not eat themselves. Most of it was invented for sale to us. Masala curry mixed with tomato soup a Scottish concoction. Balti a dish invented for Brummies down Sparkbrook. OK I know that a similar dish was eaten in the Kashmir before that. I have had home meals prepared by Indian friends and they are nothing like what you will get in a restaurant.

I don't doubt that some of their language has slipped in to common usage in our language as some of ours will have into theirs.

Phil

I was brought up during food rationing time, very often towards the end of the month things would be tight.I very often had for tea bread and lard with a tiny bit of brown sauce on. if it was a time of plenty sunday tea was boiled sheeps brains on toast, that was luxury.

Although I wasn't around when food was rationed, I remember the simple foods of my childhood.
One of my favourites, well into my twenties, was dripping on toast with a salt and pepper dusting.
The dripping was from the Sunday roast, so it wasn't just lard.
The best dripping was when it was warmed in the bowl to make it softer and the beef jelly at the bottom was mixed up into the fat.

the dripping jogged my memory, old family stories of my grandmother boiling down animals for dripping - one story goes they threw soveriens in the hot oil when they were raided by the police and granny being booked for driving too fast down corporation street with a pony and trap, wish I could prove some of the stories, but they we often recited