Supper for a Song (Day 4 of The spendthrifts challenge)

   

Carrot and Coriander Soup with Creme Fraiche

 

Day 4 dawned, and I am starting to get slightly concerned at the dwindling cereal stocks, especially the children’s cereals which are almost empty.  By some miracle, they have just started taking to eating bran flakes. They think they are ‘Daddys Shreddies’ and I have yet to put them straight. I think I can just about stretch it out for another few days.   

Lunch was no effort at all as I managed to retrieve some Carrot and Coriander Soup from the freezer that I had made in February in a Martha Stewart moment , along with a couple of ready to bake rolls. 

 

I was more concerned about what I should make for dinner.  My daughter was having a friend over for a playdate and my usual freezer supply of meatballs and sauce had run dry. A quick stocktake last night led me to the answer. I have about 10 types of flour in the cupboards. I also have a few cans of tomatoes and passata. There is spinach and garlic in the freezer, butter, dolcelatte and feta in the fridge. The answer was obvious. Pizza. I just needed some mozzarella and maybe a topping or 2 for the grown ups.  Additional expenditure, £1.49. £1 for a large packet of Galbani Mozzarella (on offer at Sainsburys) and 49p for a large Aubergine in Lidl.  No wonder the pizza chains have done so well in the recession.  They are so cheap to make, they should blush when they present the bill.

 

Home made Pizza

 

We have for some time now been having a ‘Pizza Night’ at least once a month at home.  It’s not the fastest meal to prepare, as you have to allow time for the dough to rise, and to do a little prep for the toppings, but if you have a dough hook for your mixer, and a dishwasher to clear up, its easy, very cheap, and quite a lot of fun. With the money you save on the cost of eating out, you can have a bottle of wine (or discount fizz), buy in some dessert, rent a movie, and still have a stack of change compared to the usual bill you would face in a pizza restaurant.  In fact, if you are feeding a crowd, and don’t mind spending a bit of time in the kitchen while they are there, this has to be one of the cheapest meals you can make. And once you have tried the home-made variety, the ready to heat or takeaway version can never be considered as anything other than the poor relation.   

There is of course the faster method of making pizza that I have referred to in Pizza Pronto.  But if you want dough balls too, you are going to have to make the dough.  If you have a mixer with a dough hook, this is nothing much more than weighing and adding some ingredients together and allowing the mixer to do the work. You have to leave it for about an hour to rise then knock it back and you are ready to go.  In fact, I have quite often made the dough first thing, then covered it in oiled cling film and left it in the fridge all day to do a slow rise, then it is ready to go just when you need it. At the moment, I tend to employ the recipe and method  provided by Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall  (HFW) in his book River Cottage Everyday. Most of the ‘celebrity’ chefs offer a version of pizza dough. I have followed a few recipes, and I have found that there is not a lot between them taste wise, so try one out and see how you like it.   

    

Dough Balls, and other shapes too!

 

 Dough Balls are a must in this house, although they should perhaps more accurately be described as dough shapes when the children have a hand in the preparation.  These are a great way to get the children involved, as the worst that can happen is you have a few odd shapes.  

Home made garlic butter

 

 I generally make a double portion of HFW’s dough, as we are quite greedy, and any leftovers can go in the freezer. We probably use about half a portion of the dough for the dough balls.  While they are cooking in the oven we make the garlic butter. If your butter isnt soft, try it for a minute on defrost in the microwave, keeping a close eye on it. Mash in some pre chopped garlic from the freezer (to taste, but as a guide I use about 3 tsps for 1/2 packet of butter)  

For the sauce, heat 2 tbsps olive oil in a pan, gently fry a dessertspoon of the garlic, a tsp of salt flakes and sugar, and add a 500ml carton of passata. Simmer for 5 mins. Sauce is ready  

 A few tips   

• Pre-heat the oven and get it as hot as you can
• Roll out the dough as thin as possible.
• Place dough on pizza stone or baking tray before adding toppings. Or you have no hope at all of transferring the topped pizza without it collapsing or turning into a Calzone
• Go easy on the sauce. Less is more. More is a soggy, not so nice pizza.
• Scatter your toppings. Dont crowd the pizza. Too much and the base wont cook.
• Drizzle with a little  oil before you bake. It does make a difference.

I just love making these, as it’s the perfect opportunity to clear out the fridge of all those odds and ends that look like they will never find a home. A couple of slices of salami, some cheese drying out around the edges. The end of a jar of chutney. Today we had the following combos   

A Pizz a Heaven!

 

   

Margherita Pizza for the kids

• Tomato sauce and mozzarella
• Spinach with Dolcelatte and Walnuts
• Red onion chutney with feta and aubergine
• Tomato sauce, feta and aubergine

Thanks to the unexpected warm end to the day, and the equally unexpected appearance of Mr Mummyinahurry at the children’s tea time, we were able to eat these in the garden. I am convinced that everything tastes better when you eat it in the sunshine.   

Day 4 Summary    

As a result of my week of thrift, we have completely run out of rice cakes and breadsticks, the after-school snack of choice in this house. The completely unexpected upside of this has been a sudden interest in carrots from the children. Yes carrots. Which they ate reluctantly yesterday because nothing else was on offer.  Today when I offered carrots after school I was greeted with shrieks of delight, only previously heard in conjunction with the words ‘crisps’ or ‘chocolate’. These are the same carrots that I have served up several times a week for the past few months that have always been rejected. Well I never!   

   

   

 

Happy Eggs and Fabulous Fishcakes (Day 3 of The spendthrift’s challenge)

Keeping a close and slightly anxious eye on the challenge budget, last night I decided to bring the bread maker out of retirement, and before I went to bed put in the usual flour, yeast and water and left it to work its magic while I dreamed of a night of unbroken sleep. It was just a dream!  

This morning I descended the stairs, half asleep, nose in the air like the bisto kid,  inhaling the irresistable aroma of freshly baked bread. Every time I use the bread maker I am struck by its genius, and wonder why I don’t use it all the time.  

Breadmaker Bread

 

Dippy Egg and Soldiers

 

LUNCH – Dippy Eggs and Soldiers  

The fresh bread was a helpful head start to our quick and thrifty lunch of ‘dippy eggs’ (soft-boiled eggs to the uninitiated). This is one of my favourite midweek lunches with the children and is on our menu at least twice a week. Quick, easy, nutritious. A sure-fire winner for any busy person.  

The Egg Cooker

 

I am, I confess, a bit of a kitchen gadget collector, but in my defence, I only keep the things I use. One of my favourite and most used pieces of kit is the egg cooker that I bought from Lakeland last year. I am eggstatic about it! While I know that in theory, it doesnt take a genius to boil an egg, I used to always get distracted and get the timings wrong. Since the egg cooker found a home here we always have perfectly cooked eggs.  

Now for a little word about the eggs. For eggs that I am poaching, or soft boiling, or putting in a salad, I favour those from Clarence Court above all others. We usually have their pretty pastel coloured Cotswold Legbar eggs, or alternatively Burford Browns. They are unrivalled by any other brand I have tried. They have the most incredible deep orangey yellow yolk. They tend to induce a fit of nostalgia, reminding me of the eggs my Gran used to serve up in my childhood.  

I prefer to use freshly baked bread (from a bakery or the breadmaker) for the ‘soldiers’. With butter. Lots of butter.  

Smoked Mackerel Fishcakes

 

   

DINNER – Smoked mackerel fishcakes  

My fridge was looking very bare this morning, and I was starting to suffer from ‘almost empty fridge’ anxiety. A quick chat with a good friend, Rita, gave me the inspiration for using up the half  bowl of mash left over from Monday. Smoked mackerel fishcakes. Cheap, tasty, and full of good stuff.  

A quick dash up to Sainsburys after lunch found me in possession of 252g of mackerel for only £1.87. Could I be any more thrifty?!!  

I can honestly say I have never made these before. I had gained a rough idea of the framework for Rita’s recipe, then adapted that to suit the fridge contents. It took about 10 minutes in total to make them, then probably another 10 minutes or so to fry them in the pan.  

INGREDIENTS  

Fishcake Ingredients

 

• 560g cooked mash
• 250g smoked mackerel
• 10g wilting chopped parsley (the fresh unwilting kind will do just as well!)
• 1 teaspoon Dijon mustard
• 2 dessert spoons chopped chives
• 2 dessert spoons crème fraîche
• zest and juice of 1 lemon
• breadcrumbs (from freezer). If you don’t have any, or are short of time, you can miss these out
• 1 egg, beaten with a dash of milk
• I almost forgot. I had half a cooked salmon fillet from yesterday left over so I added that in too)

METHOD  

I get the kids to wash their hands while I am gathering the ingredients together. They take a while and it gives me a chance to get everything out before they start bickering!  

The mix

 

1. Take skin off fish, and using fingers check for bones. Then rub the fish between your fingers until it flakes.
2. Put fish in large bowl with mash (or split between 2 bowls if you have 2 kids to save arguments)
3. Mix the mustard with the crème fraîche, then add and mix to the potato/fish mixture
4. Combine all the additional ingredients, tasting as you go
5. Shape into patties, then dip in egg and coat with breadcrumbs
6. Fry in a little oil and butter on a gentle/medium heat for 5 mins each side.

This made 11 medium-sized patties. Enough to fill a few hungry stomachs.  

I served this with broccoli and cucumber for the kids. Mr Mummyinahurry and I ate ours with the remains of the spinach and beans from Monday, some beetroot (the vacuum packed kind) , a couple of lemon wedges and a generous dollop of mayo.  These freeze well so you can always make a double batch and freeze them ready for a quick supper another day.  

Fishcakes, bean salad and beetroot

 

The children loved making these, and despite my reservations about the overly fishy taste, they literally licked their bowls clean when we had finished the prep, then ate all their dinner and asked for seconds.  

So, day 3, a great success. But the kitty is not looking so good, and I am wondering if I can really do this….  

  

 

Speedy Smoked Salmon Fishcakes

Can I just first set the record straight, before you get the idea that I am living some ridiculously luxe lifestyle eating smoked salmon and drinking pink champagne (if only…)I am not in the habit of feeding smoked salmon to the toddlers.

My inspiration for this particular ‘recipe’ came quite by chance. On this particular occasion last year we had stayed late at the park and suddenly realising that it was way past tea time, and that the fridge was almost bare, I stopped in the small local supermarket on the way hoping for something halfway healthy that could be served up in under 15 minutes.

I had a vague recollection of some leftover mash back in the fridge and set out on the hunt for some half decent sausages. Always popular with the toddlers, (and Mr Mummyinahurry come to that). It was at that moment that the smoked salmon leapt (metaphorically of course) from the shelf. The fact that the smoked salmon ‘trimmings’ were on offer and less than a quid had absolutely no bearing on my decision. Really.

Back home a further rummage in the fridge revealed a ‘not long for this world’ lemon, and some spring onions that had seen better days. The joy of a packet of smoked salmon trimmings (other than the price of course) is that you don’t even have to do any chopping. So a quick mix around in a bowl, a few minutes in the frying pan, and dinner on the table before the complaints got too loud. I was quite astonished that my little fussy eaters wolfed the lot down. My son thinks that the smoked salmon is just another form of salami.I have yet to put him right on that one.

That was several months ago. Now these little money-saving beauties have become a regular feature of our mealtimes, for all the family, so only one meal to cook for all of us. Result.

I have more recently been known to turn the making of them into a home ‘we can cook’ * episode for Annabel and David. They love it, and I tend to find that they actually eat their dinner having made it themselves. The other hidden bonus of this recipe, is that they freeze really well, so I tend to make a larger batch and have a few tucked away in the freezer for those days when there really is no time to cook.

METHOD

The way that I make these varies every time, depending on what is left in the fridge, but here is a rough guide.

500g cooked mash

100g smoked salmon trimmings

rind and juice of 1/2 to 1 lemon

spring onions chopped (usually with scissors by me), or pre chopped shallots or chives that I tend to buy ready prepared and frozen

parsley (if i have it) chopped (or more likely, scissored) into the mix

an egg (to bind, but not essential)

Mix together.Form into patties. Fry on a medium heat for 3/4 mins each side.

I have from time to time coated these in breadcrumbs. In my opinion it helps to keep them together when frying but it’s not essential. If you chill the patties before cooking that also helps them to stay in one piece too.

*for those of you unfamiliar with cbeebies , ‘we can cook’ is a programme of great educational importance for young children under 5, keeping them informed and up to date with the latest developments in diet and nutrition, allowing Mummy to get on with very important ‘work’ like updating her Facebook page.

Smoked Salmon Fishcakes