Vegetarian Fried Chicken Steak

So the recipe promised a meal made out of oats that promised to taste exactly like fried chicken - so much so that even grown men wouldn't know they weren't eating meat! Click here to see the original blog post and recipe.

Did it taste like delicious fried chicken? No. Was it edible? Absolutely. Would I make it again? Probably, with some tweaks. I used regular oats, and I wonder if using really fine oats like you find in 'creamy porridge' might be better. I also think adding even just the teensiest bit of actual chicken mince, say 100g, would perfect this recipe (unless you're vegetarian of course). And I think I'd need to make the patties a little flatter next time, to absorb more of the mushroom sauce.

It was really neat though to make something that came off as totally different to its actual ingredients!

Give it a try!

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Deliciously Ugly Poor Mans Steak

Can you just take my word for it that this is a hundred times tastier than it looks?! It's comfort food to the max PLUS it's an extremely economical meat stretcher.

The ingredients are simple: 1kg of mince, 1 cup of cracker crumbs, 1 cup of water, salt and pepper. Combine and form into patties. Roll in flour and quickly pan fry in oil just until each side has gone a little golden. Place patties in a casserole dish and pour over a can of condensed mushroom soup. Bake in the oven on 180 degrees for around an hour. And voila! A cheap, mouth-wateringly yummy dish that can be served with a variety of cheap sides to stretch it out further. 

Click here to see the original posting of this recipe.

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How Vegetarian Cooking Saves Time and Money

Cooking vegetarian meals not only means a much cheaper outlay than meat meals, but they also save in other ways too.  The main advantage is that multiple meals can be prepared at the start of the week, and stored in the fridge for use over the entire week.  For meals that contain meat, I'm only comfortable keeping them in the fridge for 3 - 4 days.  However I'll happily eat a vegetarian meal that has been in the fridge for 7 days.  I don't have to try and find extra room in the freezer, I don't have to worry about freezer burn, and I can have a meal on hand instantly - no need to wait for it to thaw.  And there is always the risk that the meal won't taste as good once thawed.  Also my time is saved - spend a couple of hours cooking one day, and we can eat for the whole week!

Don't get me wrong, batch cooking is good no matter what the ingredients - however the humble vegetable does hold some advantages!

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Frugal Eats This Week

As I mentioned, one of my frugal finds were blueberries for $1 per punnet. These were past their best but still suitable for smoothies. The first day I made a blueberry, apple, tangelo and almond smoothie, and the second day was blueberry, apple, tangelo, banana and linseed. It was good to use up fruit that was getting past the point of being appealing to eat.

I made chickpea, potato and pea red curry:

And some delicious cornbread:

As well as regular bread, half white half wholemeal:

I roasted a chicken for multiple meals this week:

As well as tried my hand at Sri Lankan breakfast roti - topped with peanut butter! The recipe made enough for four, at a cost of around $1 - a great frugal weekend breakfast.

It can be messy business:

But the after is very satisfying:

Handy tip: Annoyed because you can't find a funnel? Make one with a toilet roll:

Tomorrow: Portioning to make your groceries stretch.

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Cheap Takeaways Stretched Further

For a cheap treat, buy a couple of $5 pizzas for the family from either Pizza Hut or Dominos (both have a $4.95 range). Before eating, cut off all the crusts, pour some tomato sauce in a small bowl, and you now have pizza and breadsticks. The crusts would normally go to waste, whereas this way they become a component of the meal.

Serve with homemade oven chips or garlic bread if you need the meal to go even further.

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Preparing For The Week...

I love having some of my meals organised before the week starts, it puts me on the right track and saves money. This weekend I made enough bread for the week ahead, as well as wholemeal banana bread for snacks. Breakfast each day will be porridge, cooked in bulk and portioned into containers.  Porridge is one of the cheapest breakfasts you can make, each portion costs only cents.

I've added small handfuls of sunflower seeds and sliced almonds (both cheap) to each portion. Each morning I will add frozen berries (you can use any type of fruit, this is just something I had in the freezer) and a frozen cube of cream to each container, and will microwave for a minute or two before I head to work (I eat once at my desk).

I make my porridge with water so a cube of cream, coconut cream or milk adds flavour without being expensive. And because it's only about a tablespoons worth, it's not unhealthy. I buy cream or coconut cream when it's on special and freeze it in half-portions of an ice cube tray, and store in a container in the freezer.

Makes it go so much further. First day back at work tomorrow after the Christmas break!

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Cheap Cost, Gourmet Look

Here's a way to impress for next to nothing! It looks great and doubles as a way to use up odds and ends in the fridge, and have a healthy meal.

Simply cube and boil several potatoes and spread out over a dish to cool. Then chop and add anything you have in the fridge - I used red and yellow tomatoes and red onion. Then add any flavouring you have - I used fresh basil and parsley that I grow in pots. Drizzle over olive oil, add salt and pepper and you're done!

You could basically add ANYTHING to this dish, and it could be served on its own, with homemade bread, or with any other cheap items such as boiled eggs, canned beetroot slices, etc.

P.S. The leftovers taste even better the next day, pan fried with some egg scrambled through and BBQ sauce drizzled over!

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5 Minute Artisan Bread

This is hands down the easiest bread I've ever made. It's also the only bread I've ever made, because I thought making it yourself was quite a process. Not so!

Measure 6.5 cups of flour, 1.5 tbsp of yeast, and 1.5 tbsp of salt into a bowl.

Pour over 3 cups of lukewarm water and stir to combine.

Put a lid on the bowl or make one with tinfoil (once you've finished, save the tinfoil for next time) and let it sit somewhere for 2 - 5 hours.

After a couple of hours your dough will have magically risen!

Separate the dough into two or three portions - it will come out of the bowl quite easily - and roll each portion into a ball on a floured surface. Lightly cover a baking tray or pizza stone with flour and place each ball of dough on it to sit for 30 minutes. Preheat the oven to 230 degrees. Just before you put the loaves in the oven, shape them however you like and then use a sharp knife to make a couple of cuts across each loaf to let the steam out. Also, place a pan in the oven with a couple of cups of water in it - this will create steam which makes for a crispier crust.

How long they will cook for depends on your oven. For me it took 20 minutes on fan bake, even though the recipe said 30 - 35 minutes. So you'll need to trial and error this one! Anyway - once golden on the outside, they'll be perfect on the inside.

Take out and place on racks to cool.

It seems like a lot of steps written down but it was super easy and having done it once, I won't need to look at the recipe again. 

So there you have it! Delicious and easy, this bread is a good balance between dense and light and fluffy, and so much better than store bought bread as there is NOTHING except natural ingredients in it. Enjoy!

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QUICK & EASY Homemade Bread

I CANNOT wait to try out this bread!  It looks delicious and the only ingredients are:

• 3 cups lukewarm water
• 1 1/2 tbsp dried active yeast
• 1 1/2 tbsp salt
• 6 1/2 cups flour

That's it!  No fiddly ingredients and no fiddly process either - it's called 5 minute artisan bread.  This could be the end of buying cheap-and-nasty or good-but-expensive store bought bread - and you know it's all natural ingredients!  The dried yeast is bought in a jar in the baking aisle for around $3.80, and will last a long time.  Flour is cheap, especially when bought in bulk.  I'm going to use white flour the first time, then experiment with adding greater amounts of wholemeal flour.

I'll post my efforts tomorrow!

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Celebrating the New Year... Frugally!

Greetings 2014, may you be a good one. And so Frugal '14 begins! January 1st 2014 has dawned warm and sunny and I'm relaxed and looking forward to my year of frugality. 

When I woke up this morning I wanted something special for breakfast to celebrate New Years Day. The old me would have got up and gone out for breakfast. Instead I decided to 'eat out' at home - have a special brekkie from what I already have. So I made scrambled eggs (cheap), avocado (free, given to me) drizzled in olive oil and salt (cheap), and leftover real berry and feijoa juices I had in the fridge. It was delicious!

So I feel like I've had a treat, but it didn't cost me anything. I think it's important to recognise occasions so that you don't feel like you're going without, but to do so as cheaply as possible.

One note I want to make is that I will be blogging entirely from my iPhone - posts, photos, everything. So my formatting may not be fancy and my photos certainly won't be the quality of many blogs', but this is what technology is for, right? :-)

Happy New Year everyone.

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