I’ve just harvested these little beauties… My first attempt at growing coriander myself.

Put them in my tomato dahl recipe, with delicious consequences!

tomato dahl and rice, full nutritional breakdown

recipe

500g dry weight red lentils
300g chopped onion approx 3 medium onions
2x 400g tins tomatoes
75g veg oil
2 heaped tspns garlic, garam masala, salt and pepper to taste

Fry onion in oil and add spices. When turning golden, stir in lentils and tomatoes, chopped up and their juice, so oil coats the grains, then add a pint at a time of liquid, waiting til it looks absorbed. (orangy brown and gloopy)

Add enough water to make a consistency like thick soup, and all the lentils fully disolved. A taste teste will show you, if it’s still ‘powdery’ add more liquid and keep boiling!

serve with 125g dry weight rice each

Taste and adjust seasoning as desired. 15 pence per serving, 802 calories for entire meal.

a very generous sized dinner with the following percentage of your daily needs:

sodium is in red, because the percentage is what you shouldn’t exceed, not what you should aim for!

Calcium 14.70%

Iron 50.69%

Magnesium 33.33%

Phosphorus 52.80%

Potassium 24.34%

Sodium 8.98%

Zinc 59.00%

Copper 107.25%

Manganese 61.95%

Selenium 25.29%

Vitamin C 28.14%

Thiamin 45.36%

Riboflavin 17.18%

Niacin 29.91%

Pantothenic acid 36.18%

Vitamin B6 50.92%

Folate 39.41%

Vitamin A IU37.17%

Vitamin A RAE 1.86%

Vitamin E 27.36%

Vitamin K 1.83%

It’s ok folks, I’ll get my reward, I’ve heard that ‘the geek shall inherit the earth’, or sommat like that.

Love Weezl x

Well I know what we’re having for supper tonight! With 125g raw weight rice, we’re eating for 17p each! Billy bargain!

750g red onions 33p at Lidl
50g butter 17p asda
1 carrier bagful nettles washed- free! trim any fat stems (more than 3-4 mm) as these can be fibrous
3 dessertspns cumin seeds, 5p
same of ground turmeric 5p
1 dessertspoon garlic powder, 2p
half teaspn chilli powder
2 cans tomato, chopped up, and slooshed out with a third of a can water into the pan -38p
teaspoon salt

fry spices and onions in butter til softened, then add nettles and tomatoess, simmer for 10 mins. Taste and imagine you have died and gone to heaven. Makes 8 portions, 10p a portion for a generous serving.

Well hello there!

Welcome to my blog.

It’s main purpose: to chronicle my journey in discovering whether I can have a super thrifty diet, that’s also super-healthy.

The target is 50p each a day. £15 each a month. There are 2 of us. Let me introduce you…

Me: Female, 34, 5’6” Will eat most things. Have eaten fish eyes and duck’s tongue to prove it. Becoming a big fan of foraging for my food. Have secret hankerings to live a Hugh Fearnly-Whittingstall kinda life.

Mr Weezl, 33 (toyboy), 6’3” Not fond of fish, and wouldn’t want to be a vegetarian every day. But manfully manages to be meat-free for about half the week. Requires lots of cake, or becomes uber-skinny….

We’re going to live on this budget til Christmas 2008.

Nutritionally, I’m going to see that each day we get all of the nutrients we need. I can turn my hand to a spot of geeky spreadsheet creation when needed, so I’ll let you know how my recipes break down, in case you’d like to try them.

The background is that we’ve just finished doing a 3 month grocery challenge of £40 per month. When I realised we’d be finishing with nearly a month’s worth of lunches and dinners still in the freezer, I thought ‘We can go lower!’. So here it is, my journey. Any companions along the way will be warmly received.

How do we do it? Surely 50p for a meal is nigh on impossible, let alone all day?!

No no, gentle reader, I promise you it’s not!

Let me introduce you to secret weapon number 1….