Recipes.

I was typing away merrily when I got interrupted by a massive storm, which knocked the power off. Grrrr. So I'll try again.

Can anyone recommend recipes for cheap, yet nutritious meals?

The cost of living here in Aus is so ridiculously high - food being one of the commodities which is now suffering by incredibly expensive basics, such as flour, rice, potatoes, etc. It's very difficult affording meat these days. Lamb used to be a weekly luxury but at $70 a kilo for lamb chops (discounted to $$39.99) as an example, meat is now an absolute luxury and is now confined to mince and other cheap cuts.

I let loose yesterday and bought a piece of T-bone, which was $36.49 a kilo. Wow! What a luxury! People used to be able to afford steak as a fairly common choice of meat here but not any more.

I'm really interested in what other's eat from your country and am hoping for some recipes I can try out. It gets extremely boring making soups, for example.

 

That's brilliant lonewolf, thanks! I'll have a crack at it for tucker tomorrow night and let you know what it was like. (What brand of Irish Stew do you personally use?) The supermarket near here only sells Heinz or Campbells. Both leave a lot to be desired.

 

Cheers lonewolf.

We don't get Lidl here unfortunately. I'll try Heinz and see how it goes.

 

Thanks lonewolf. I didn't use chicken, but swapped with what I had, being various veggies. I cooked some spuds and chucked it on top. Delicious!

 

Has anyone made "hardtack" survival biscuits, like the explorers used to take on expeditions to Antartica and the like?

 

I haven't heard that expression for years!

I imagine it would be ok with lashings of butter, fresh out of the oven.

 

A favourite 1st night at camp meal is a cheats stew, can of potatoes, can of diced mixed veg and a can of stewed steak in gravy, all in a pot, on the stove and ten mins later your eating it

Another camping favourite is corned beef hash, dice a can of corned beef, add to 400ml of boiling water to break it down and add a packet of Idahoan dried potato (best dried spud on the market. You can dish up with a can of peas and make gravy with Oxtail 'cup o soup'. At home I use fresh spuds, add diced spring onion and mash it all together then into a baking tray and top with sharp grated mature English cheddar, 20min in a hot oven.

 

Great ideas, thanks Max!

I've never used dried spuds before. I didn't even know you could buy them. We don't have Idahoan dried potatoes in Aus, but I'll see what the supermarket here sells. I too would use fresh spuds, but am intrigued to get some dried spuds and try them out.

I absolutely love corned beef. Haven't had any for a while now, so you've inspired me to get some. Corned beef hash sounds delish and quick, easy and fairly cheap to make. I'll give it a whirl and let you know what I think.

Thanks again.

 

Absolutely divine! My favourite used to be Devon and tom sauce in a sandwich.

I used to slow cook corned beef over several hours and serve with a white or mustard sauce, spuds and veg. My mouth is watering now ...

 

Quick but tasty curry.

I use Pataks curry pastes which come in various flavours and readily available in the USA/Aus/UK

With Chicken I use the Tikka Massala or Korma, with minced Lamb I use Balti (I'm not a great fan of beef curry) I fry off the meat, add one 500ml carton of passata and as much paste as you want to use, this is the basic sauce recipe. You can add things like extra garlic, onions, bell peppers, chopped coriander (that cilantro to our colonial members), lentils etc. Thats enough for two good eaters.

If you want 'stickier' rice use long grain (1 cup rice to 2 cups water), I use Basmati rice (1 cup rice to 1.5 cups water) plus salt.

 

Did one of our members step on a "rapid aging" land mine?

 

Yes Max! I confess I use Pataks Curry mixes. I used to make my own curries from scratch using a mortar and pestle. Very hard work! I love curries. All manner of them. Now I can't be stuffed so succumb to the bottle variety. Patak are very good. I will try your further suggestions, adding some extras.

And yes, only Basmati rice with Indian curries. Jasmine rice with Thai.

Thank you!

 

Huh? What are you talking about?

 

I've tried a few curries here in Spain and the best I've found are in Granada and Alicante town but your looking at a 1 hour and 1.5 hour drive

Todays recipe is Cauliflower soup, plenty of recipes online but its basically cauliflower, potatoes and chicken stock boiled then whizzed with a blender, cream is optional. I like this with croutons or slices of well cooked buttered toast to dip in.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_Morse

 

Ah yes, Calvinism.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_Morse

"Anti-Catholic

"Morse was a leader in the anti-Catholic and anti-immigration movement of the mid-19th century. In 1836, he ran unsuccessfully for mayor of New York under the anti-immigrant Nativist Party's banner, receiving only 1,496 votes. When Morse visited Rome, he allegedly refused to take his hat off in the presence of the Pope.

"Morse worked to unite Protestants against Catholic institutions (including schools), wanted to forbid Catholics from holding public office, and promoted changing immigration laws to limit immigration from Catholic countries. On this topic, he wrote, 'We must first stop the leak in the ship through which muddy waters from without threaten to sink us.' "

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"The under-seasoned riddle of Dutch cuisine"

https://cafebabel.com/en/article/th...le-of-dutch-cuisine-5ae00b75f723b35a145e787c/

"Why is Dutch food so bland? Stamppot, the kroket, and even the infamous kapsalon might reveal something telling about Dutch culture: a distaste for pretentiousness that can be traced back to the Netherlands’ Calvinist past.

"If you ask a Dutch person, they might point to Calvinism as an explanation. This strict form of Protestantism, for a long time dominant in the Netherlands, has supposedly made us stingy and wary of any form of excessive earthly pleasure as sinful. But something about this isn’t quite right. Anyone who has ever walked through an orange sea of intoxicated revelers on King’s Day, or observed rosy-cheeked merrymakers in Golden Age Dutch paining knows that pleasure, comfort, and enjoyment are far from taboo in the Netherlands. We drink. We eat. We feast. We just don’t seem to want to make a big deal about how sophisticated we look while doing it."
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Thanks for the ideas Max. I do look online but it gets a bit overwhelming due to the amount of recipes that come up. Plus, a lot of them are for people who actually have a shite load of money to spend on food. Hence, I was hoping through this thread, to find some cheap, tried and tested recipes from members.

(I seem to have put this reply in the wrong thread. Apologies).

 

Ooooh. Actually, I've got a friend who is Dutch. She was born in the town my father was shot by a sniper in WWII (Arnhem). I'll ask her for any recipe ideas next time I see her. She's in her 80s and has a wealth of information. Really interesting to talk to.

 

I think more of Morse as the (co)inventor of Morse code, a system I've now mastered and prefer to use in ham radio than using a mic...your signals go way further using less power. Using a mic my output power is typically 100w or higher, using morse I've made contacts all over the earth using 5w...he was also a respected artist.

Anti Catholic - anti muslim - anti jewish bla bla bla same old same old crap, not much changes in life.

 

Bulk cooking and batch freezing will save you money. Don't make a small pan of soup, make a big pan and freeze down portions sort of thing.

Don't by jars of sauces for pasta etc, they are packed with preservatives, salt and sugar.

Basic tomato sauce for pasta
I use passata instead of tinned tomatoes, very little difference in cost over canned toms but straight away you have a flavour packed smooth base for your sauce. A basic sauce can have mushrooms, bell peppers, diced courgette, garlic, basil and garlic.

Even 500ml of passata with a squirt of tom puree, little salt, garlic and herb of choice will happily coat 1kg of the pasta of your choice for a cheap filling meal. I've just costed that out and it comes in at less than £2

 

I confess I do at times buy the sauces for pasta. I actually had a spag bol from a Leggos jar this evening, as I couldn't be bothered fart arsing around cooking a proper meal.

I have only used passata once. I found it incredibly bland so now I just use tom puree. What brand passata do you use?

You can't do much better than a meal for less than 2 quid.

I can't really do bulk. I don't have a large freezer any more, only the small freezer at the top of the fridge. I'm also wary, as during the 2019 bushfires, we had power cuts that went for a couple of days. I had to throw everything in the freezer out. Wasn't I pee-ed off! That's kind of stuck with me. Now living in QLD, there are fairly frequent power cuts due to storms.

Whenever I make soup in winter, I do make a large pot and just keep adding to it. I got that from my late husband's father (whom I adored and still do). He reckoned in hard times, his mother would keep a big pot cooking constantly on the fire. As it got lower, she'd just add more to it. They used to catch rabbits and throw them in the pot.

 

But wait lonewolf! We can't do that. We have to desist immediately. It's too much of a health risk! (Yes, I'm being sarcastic, re your other post on idiot humans).

 

I've just ordered a sausage maker, hand cranked, anyone here use one?

 

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Wild game recipes:


"40+ Squirrel Recipes for Small Game Hunters"

https://practicalselfreliance.com/squirrel-recipes/


Cooking with Crow Meat: A Recipe for “Blackbird” Pie

https://www.outdoorlife.com/blogs/cast-iron-chef/cooking-crow-meat-recipe-blackbird-pie/


25 Best Venison Recipes

https://insanelygoodrecipes.com/venison-recipes/



7 Best Breading Mixes for Fried Fish Recipes

https://www.gameandfishmag.com/editorial/7-best-breading-mixes-for-fried-fish-recipes/339107

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Wild boar, locally killed and sold at a local market two days a week. Whole shoulders come in at 8 euros a kilo, about 12-15 euros whole shoulder which is a good price. I've got natural hog casings coming and a mix of different spice blends. There are some fabulous sausages on sale here but I just fancied having a go myself, just another skill to learn.

My next post SHTF skill I want to work on is smoking meat and fish, I've access to plenty of olive wood. I'd like to make my own smoker.

 

OG have you cooked venison in a 'Hangi' ?

 

Southern cuisine is, in a word, unhealthy. We salt everything. Fatty food is the norm. We fry everything in grease. We eat little seafood, unless you count tuna. Barbecue sauces are laden with salt and sugar. Jerky is loved and as we all know, jerky is beyond salty. Jerky is a good idea for survival purposes, but sure shouldn't be often consumed during times of plenty.

Heart disease and stroke are WAY too often seen here in the South. Black folk eating this diet are doubly at risk because African blood lines are salt-sensitive for high blood pressure. Sad.

Anything deemed "foreign" is deemed "suspicious" or overtly evil. Usually it is only veterans of oversees conflicts who eat foreign dishes.

Me, I'm open to foreign dishes because I've had friends from all around the world. I particularly dislike Persian food and Middle Eastern dishes (even though I've been served tons of the stuff; I never grew accustomed to the way they prepared tea; adding rose water, what's that about?!). Now, Asian food, I really like that -- even if spicy.

Ask me if I know this dish or that dish from another country and I'll unlikely have a clue about what it is you're talking about. When visiting in the homes of people of other cultures, I never paid any real attention to what was happening in the kitchen. Even in "enlightened" foreign lands, the women are the ones cooking and the men gather to tell stories and smoke.
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Here in the States, wild hogs are totally out of control.

One game warden in Texas stated, "We can't BBQ our way out of this." Y'know what he meant. Hunters could never kill them fast enough. These monsters must be penned and slaughtered en masse. The meat must go into freezers and be provided to the poor. Boar can be tough meat, but then we have tenderizers, plus there's the matter of jerky.

 

I've an upright and chest freezer and yes I have boar joints frozen down. As I said, I'll be getting a smoker asap and what could be better than boar sausages with home made smoked bacon as part of a 'full English' breakfast

Wild boar are causing problems in Spain, way too many of them. They will rip up vegetables, tear polytunnels ect so more and more people are having to put up strong fencing to keep boars out.

 

Hahahaha! A lot of bangers indeed!

 

I'll bet they're as unhealthy as F. The western diet is absolutely atrocious.

I love food from all cultures. There's none I don't really like. Though Germany probably isn't my fav. When living in the UK, a boyfriend was working for some German company, so we went over and stayed a couple of nights. At the "business" dinner, this German dude ordered snake. It was sort of wrapped cleverly on a stick thing. Very dramatic looking. Made me want to puke. Breakfast would consist of a piece of hard, dark bread, no butter and some disgusting meat spread. Reminds me of eating brains as a child. Spew time.

 

Yes, they are, aren't they? Hahahahahaha!

 

I don't reckon it would be hard. Wouldn't be much different from pig, would it? It's a great way of cooking.

Here's a bit of info on it, though no doubt you've probably researched it anyway.

https://www.newzealand.com/au/featu...e baskets are placed on,on the amount of food.

 

Talking about recipes, a month ago, I stopped eating all sugar and all flour, rice, pasta, etc, as well as any processed food. I was surprised how easy it was.

Working out some amazingly simple meals. For example, tonight I had minced beef, Worcester sauce, mustard, a shite load of salt, onion and egg (I do have some processed food I guess - the Worcester sauce and mustard, as well as balsamic vinegar aren't strictly non-processed. Eh, you get that).

Takes literally 10 minutes to prepare. The most time consuming part is dicing the onion. Stick it all in a bowl and scrunch it about with your hands, then fashion into meat patties and fry in olive oil. So simple and delicious. Whack an avo and some leafy greens with it, and you're done.

 

I found German food fine when I was based out there, breakfast would be things like bread or pastries, sliced cold meats/salami, fresh fruit and things like sweet pancakes.

Here's one of my favourite German dinner dishes which is very simple to make and well worth trying
https://www.quick-german-recipes.com/beef-rouladen-recipe.html

 

Oooooh, that looks really good and really easy, as you said. I'll have to have a crack. Thanks Max!

 

Its not expensive to make, works fine with cheaper cuts of beef just needs cooking a little longer, you can adapt the recipe to pork loin steaks too.
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I love cooking and all modesty aside I'm a good cook and I'm very active on a couple of online cookery groups. For me cooking is not about making a fine meal from the best ingredients, its about making a great meal from fresh simple ingredients.

Seeds are coming on strong now and today I've planted 30 cucumber seeds of the Beth alpha variety which are a thin skinned low seed medium size which actually picked small make great gherkins. Abundant fruit and around a 70 day seed to pick cycle so I'll plant more next month for a second late summer crop.

I've fenced off my growing garden and I'm driving to a garden centre on Monday to pick up some grape vines I can plant and trail against the fencing, never grown a grape in my life but I just fancy giving it a go.