Lately I have started to cook from scratch, I’ve thrown out all my oven chips, chicken dippers, and other frozen crap and have started to stock up on herbs and spices. I buy my meat in bulk and freeze it. I’ve spent about £40 on meat in the last two weeks but once you’ve got a well stocked freezer, cupboards full of ingredients you can keep the costs at a minimum. When we go out and do the shopping we only get vegetables, and can manage on £25 a week in shopping. Ok, every couple of months we have to buy more meat, but it still works out cheaper I get my chicken from the Sun Valley shop in Hereford, it’s guaranteed to have been supplied from a local poultry farm and freshly killed. I get my lamb chops and pork steaks from the market and my mince meat and stewing steak from the supermarket.

Anyway, I made a chicken soup today and it was very tasty, but it made me realise how much we have become used to artificial colourings and flavourings. When you open a tin of Heinz chicken soup it’s all creamy looking and looks good. The soup I made didn’t look anything like what Heinz produce, but I’d say it was better.

People say that they haven’t the time to cook from scratch and it’s far easier to stick some frozen chips and some chicken dippers in the oven for half an hour. I say that’s not true, people still work eight hours a day like they did thirty years ago, so why do you think we no longer have time to prepare a home cooked meal?

I’ve even lost weight since I’ve been cooking from scratch, so what does that tell you?

I used to make my own soup a couple of times, was oxtail soup, and it was amazing, much better than the heniz stuff. My soup was much lighter in colour, but was also more creamy than heniz one, and it took a day longer to actually cook, but it was worth it
I found it was very filling too compared to branded soup

The VAT hyke hits us tomorrow, so I'll be scanning through my recepie books to see how I can save money.

I make my own chicken noodle soup, but I never put cream in it and it looks and smells amazing. I love cooking from scratch although recently I've lost the heart to do any real cooking :/

I've been cooking alot of things from scratch in the last few months since i found out i'm intolerant to wheat. We bought a slow cooker and make loads of things in that these days and generally other things as well..

Slow cookers are fantastic my mum swears by one - we went to my folk's yesterday and she made pork chops in ketchup in the slow cooker and they were delicious!

I need a slow cooker! I love the meat it makes

AB the pork chops sound good. Is it literally just pork chops and ketchup or is there anything else in there with them?

I'll get you the recipe off Mum tomorrow - I think she mentioned white wine in there.

Sounds lovely thanks

This is that curried lamb cobbler I mentioned the other day. Absolutely delicious.

http://www.deliciousmagazine.co.uk/recipes...b-mince-cobbler

I use diced lamb instead of minced, but either is great.

Thanks Eric we'll be making that

Have started making quite a few soups from scratch recently which are all really easy, taste nice and do well for taking to work. Smoked Bacon and Tomato has to be my favorite at the moment.

Stopped bothering with frozen chips/roast potatoes too. Wedges have to be the easiest thing to cook in the world, and frozen chips pale in comparison.

Sorry it took me a while to get this I have only just seen my mum today. Recipe for the pork chops as follows: -

Ingredients

6 Boneless pork chops
1/4 cup brown sugar
1 teaspoon ground ginger
1/2 cup of soy sauce
1/4 cup ketchup
2 cloves garlic, crushed
salt and pepper to taste

When mum did this for us she omitted the garlic as MRSAB76 doesn't like too much garlic and they still tasted great. She also added white wine to add liquid to it but says it is not necessary really.

We are trying this tomorrow night without a slow cooker and I will post the results after the directions below are for using a slow cooker.

1. Place pork chops in slow cooker. Combine remaining ingredients and pour over pork chops.
2. Cook on low setting for 6 hours, until internal temperature of pork has reached 160 degrees F (70 degrees C).
3. Eat. (I added that bit)

Let me know if you try it?

Thank you! I'll add this to the list of things we are planning to try.

We're gonna make this tomorrow morning in the slow cooker for dinner tomorrow night. We dont have wheat free soy sauce and dont have time to get it but we're gonna try beef stock instead and maybe worcestershire sauce. Do you think that would be ok?

To be honest that measure of soy sauce was way too much for our liking - maybe because we did it in the fan oven but it was too salty with that quantity in anyway so I wouldn't worry too much about the soy sauce.

So it went ok cooking it in the oven?

Yeah we had them in on a low heat for an hour and they where really tender.

for MRSAB76

Ah ok, i'm looking forward to it

Its currently cooking while we're both at work I added to it a bit: White wine (as you mentioned before), beef stock and onions. It smelt great when i left home.

AB we loved it thanks!

Awesome - glad you liked it.

So today I was making Cookies and a cake.

Lovely! Do you / will you have a pic of the cake when you cut it?

yes if it looks good i will

My friends recipe for the meals he made us when was up they're gorgeous you should try them:

all his words not mine!

So I promised some recipes and here they are.

Step 1 Music - Ensure Quentin Tarantino soundtrack or similar is playing lightly in the back ground.

Step 2 Company – Ensure that you are cooking the meal for some truly lovely and bubbly friends, I recommend flat 5 / 198 gorgie road Edinburgh. There banter couldn’t be bettered.

Step 3 cook! -


Soup – Pea and Watercress with mint

Find a large saucepan, add a small amount of oil and bring to a medium heat
Gently fry 1 finely chopped opinion and 1 finely chopped garlic clove. For 5 min or until soft. Add 500ml of vegetable stock then bring to the boil and simmer.

Next we add 300g of peas and 75g of water cress, let it simmer for 3min, or if using frozen peas, bring back to the boil and then let it simmer for 3 min stirring all the time. Add mint to your own liking (I used one slightly heaped teaspoon).
Then you blitz it with a blender.
Then add 100ml of double cream.
DO NOT BRING IT BACK TO THE BOIL ONCE THE CREAM IS ADDED. Or blend it after the crèam is added.

Main course - Chicken parma ham cheese on a bed of vegetable cous cous.


Cut a slice in the chicken breast and stuff with soft cheese (Feta/goats/monzeleralo) and herbs of your choosing (I used thyme and basil). Wrap the chicken in Parma ham and place in an oiled baking tray. Drizzle with olive oil and a fruity white wine (So as the chicken doesn’t dry out) The chicken takes around 30min at 200 degrees Celsius to cook, but check it after 20min as the fan assisted oven is quicker. When you take the chicken out drip a little lemon juice over it.

After the chicken has been in the oven for 15 min fry up some vegetables. Your choice of veg so long as it is thinly sliced. Crush two garlic cloves and some finely chopped onion in the mix. Fry it to your liking.
Lastly the couscous. Some people will tell you that Couscous takes 5min to cook, these people are liars and swindlers, it takes 30 seconds when done right.

Prepare chicken stock instead of water. (bring half of it to the boil in a saucepan)

Add all the couscous. Stir for 10 seconds, add the other half of the chicken stock and keep stirring until it is hot.
Then you just mould the couse couse into a bed, place the chicken on top and add those there vegetable. Smashing huh? Garnish with some basil of your that way inclined.