A random thread for food things that don't really warrant a thread of their own

[citoyen]

I made blackberry & apple crumble tonight, using buckwheat flour in the crumble instead of regular wheat flour.

It is not an experiment I shall be repeating in a hurry.

[citoyen]

Reading the nutritional information allows you to calculate how much of the product is water.

Reading the ingredients list can also be enlightening. From this morning's shop...

Sainsbury's own brand cream cheese is half the price of Philadelphia. Basics cream cheese is half the price of Sainsbury's own brand. However, added ingredients in the Basics version include wheat fibre and citrus fibre, presumably to enhance the texture and flavour. Presumably because the flavour and texture *need* enhancing. I went for the own brand in the end.

Interestingly, Philadelphia also contains stabilisers, which Sainsbury's own brand appears not to (no ingredients list, so I presume nothing added).

When I was a student in Leeds, I wrote a piece for the student newspaper comparing the price of a basket of typical student shopping in all the different Leeds supermarkets (and the Kirkgate market). There was a discount warehouse place called Giant where you could buy things like lard by the hundredweight. They had cans of tomato soup for something obscenely cheap like 6p. However, as I noted in my piece, the label of this tomato soup didn't count tomatoes (in any form) among the ingredients.

Does anyone else do what I do in supermarkets, namely walk round with a calculator in hand to work out the unit price of "special offers" and check whether they are actually the best prices?  Often I find that "X% extra" or multibuy offers can be very misleading and aren't necessarily the bargains they appear...

[hellymedic]

The cranberry sauces all have much the same ingredient list. It's hard to know the proportion of water till you 'do the math'.

[citoyen]

Good point.

[rachel t]

Does anyone else do what I do in supermarkets, namely walk round with a calculator in hand to work out the unit price of "special offers" and check whether they are actually the best prices?  Often I find that "X% extra" or multibuy offers can be very misleading and aren't necessarily the bargains they appear...
[/quote]

Yes I quite regularly get my phone out to use the calculator to check what is the best value due to differing pack sizes

[hellymedic]

Does anyone else do what I do in supermarkets, namely walk round with a calculator in hand to work out the unit price of "special offers" and check whether they are actually the best prices?  Often I find that "X% extra" or multibuy offers can be very misleading and aren't necessarily the bargains they appear...

Yes I quite regularly get my phone out to use the calculator to check what is the best value due to differing pack sizes
[/quote]

Yes and no.
All my shopping is online so I don't have to 'think on my feet' but I take a long, hard look at what I'm buying so I can work out whether things are real bargains. I have some 'personal rules'. For example, I like Tropicana orange juice but try get it at 15p/100ml. I *won't* buy it at full price and 2 x 1 litre cartons for £4 is not much of a bargain. when I can get these for £3 a couple of weeks later, I stock up. Then there are 1.75 litre cartons which get discounted...

[Ham]

Does anyone else do what I do in supermarkets, namely walk round with a calculator in hand to work out the unit price of "special offers" and check whether they are actually the best prices?  Often I find that "X% extra" or multibuy offers can be very misleading and aren't necessarily the bargains they appear...

If it is that close that my mental maffs can't tell them apart I don't care.

[Bledlow]

I made blackberry & apple crumble tonight, using buckwheat flour in the crumble instead of regular wheat flour.

It is not an experiment I shall be repeating in a hurry.

Thanks for the warning.

I once used molasses in the crumble. Never again. Too cloying & heavy flavoured.

[Ewan Houzami]

YACF Top Tip. Why go to all the bother of collecting and roasting sweet chestnuts on an open fire when after giving them a soaking overnight, you can forget you've left your pan of chickpeas to boil so that after all the water has evaporated, the ones on the bottom end up burnt (and tasting exactly like roasted chestnuts). 

[mrcharly-YHT]

In a fit of lazyness Because the eldest step was home for just one more night, we ordered a curry.

As usual, I ordered a veggie dish for me and an amazing rice that is full of potatoes, chick peas, etc. Usually someone shares this with me.

Nobody wanted any. So I ate both. Two full-sized curry-take-away aluminium boxes. Afterwards I had to go and lie down, carefully.

So why am I so hungry this morning?

[Biff]

Peanut butter is proof that evolution is bunk.

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/v/_ASzDDOaLyk&rel=1" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/v/_ASzDDOaLyk&rel=1</a>

I wonder if the crunchy bits are angels or proof that Satan is in our midst?

The really scary part is that Peanut Butter guy is Chuck Missler, former Branch Chief of the guided missile systems at Lowry AFB, former CEO of Western Digital and a few other technology companies, finance whiz, cryptologist, computer engineer, and a statistics expert.

[jsabine]

I'm quite sure the Basics tinned tomatoes are the same as the next range up.

I believed this for an awfully long time, but after a while of Mrs JS complaining that our bolognese sauces (and similar dishes) weren't tomatoey enough I eventually tried an experiment.

Several different meals over a couple of weeks using every variety of chopped tomatoes we could find in Sainsbury's convinced us both that I'd been wrong. (To be strictly accurate, it convinced me - she already knew I was wrong.)

Blind tasting by her - she knew the experiment was going on but never knew which tins had been used, and I tried quite hard not to give anything away as I wanted the cheap ones to come out well.

Ah well, Cirio it is - bulk bought on offers that have made it only about 25-30% more than the Basics ones. About time we started looking for another offer though, otherwise it's 3x the price.

[Cudzoziemiec]

I'm quite sure the Basics tinned tomatoes are the same as the next range up.

I believed this for an awfully long time, but after a while of Mrs JS complaining that our bolognese sauces (and similar dishes) weren't tomatoey enough I eventually tried an experiment.

Several different meals over a couple of weeks using every variety of chopped tomatoes we could find in Sainsbury's convinced us both that I'd been wrong. (To be strictly accurate, it convinced me - she already knew I was wrong.)

Blind tasting by her - she knew the experiment was going on but never knew which tins had been used, and I tried quite hard not to give anything away as I wanted the cheap ones to come out well.

Ah well, Cirio it is - bulk bought on offers that have made it only about 25-30% more than the Basics ones. About time we started looking for another offer though, otherwise it's 3x the price.

They do tomato Cheerios now?

[Ham]

They do tomato Cheerios now?

Must be sort-of like this


In other news, I have just purchased the first xmas present^*, I feel I have let some side down by this simple action.

*renewal of a magazine sub for Mrs Ham, subsequent to a marketing email.

[Biggsy]

Don't remember about Sainsbury's', but the Morrisons and Tesco bottom-end tinned toms I tried have thinner juice and more skin than standard or branded ones.  Frankie Dettori's are good.  He grows them all himself, and hand-picks only the best, in person.

This reminds me.  It's been a while since I had cold tinned tomatoes on bread.  Soggy yum yum.

[Illegal Combat Ant]

See, I told you all to read it pages ago. It's too late now, it's gone viral, it's even on HuffPo and reddit and all that cool shit. You could have been on it from the very beginning, but no, you all ignored the link. Well, ner, ner, ner, ner, ner, I know an internet sensation when I  see one.

https://yacf.co.uk/forum/index.php?topic=61324.msg1552840#msg1552840

[mcshroom]

Robinsons double concentrate blackcurrant and apple does not taste nice neat. DAMHIKT 

[L CC]

Just realised that 175+175=/=250.

Obviously, I knew this, but momentarily failed to know this while baking¹ last night, and my biscuits are not as sweet & lovely as I'd like. It also explains why the dough was a bit sticky.

 

[1] Perhaps if I hadn't been doing 3 other things at once the realisation would have struck me while I was pouring the icing sugar, not 12 hours later.

[Bledlow]

I'm quite sure the Basics tinned tomatoes are the same as the next range up.

I believed this for an awfully long time, but after a while of Mrs JS complaining that our bolognese sauces (and similar dishes) weren't tomatoey enough I eventually tried an experiment.

Several different meals over a couple of weeks using every variety of chopped tomatoes we could find in Sainsbury's convinced us both that I'd been wrong. (To be strictly accurate, it convinced me - she already knew I was wrong.)

Yeah. What Biggsy said. Thinner juice, more skin. OK for cooking if you use more, reduce them a bit, & don't mind the skin. Usually cost effective because the price is so low.

Bought some cheap pork shoulder for stewing today. The Basics diced shoulder was slightly more expensive than the non-Basics steaks which I'll have to cut up myself, & had some skin.

[hellymedic]

I'm quite sure the Basics tinned tomatoes are the same as the next range up.

I believed this for an awfully long time, but after a while of Mrs JS complaining that our bolognese sauces (and similar dishes) weren't tomatoey enough I eventually tried an experiment.
Several different meals over a couple of weeks using every variety of chopped tomatoes we could find in Sainsbury's convinced us both that I'd been wrong. (To be strictly accurate, it convinced me - she already knew I was wrong.)

Yeah. What Biggsy said. Thinner juice, more skin. OK for cooking if you use more, reduce them a bit, & don't mind the skin. Usually cost effective because the price is so low

I don't think manufacturers have to declare how much water they add to their product.
I looked at the Sainsbury's website for nutrition information for chopped tomatoes.
For 100 grams there are 18 kcal in Sainsbury's Basics, 29 kcal in Cirio and 22 kcal in Napolina.

This would suggest to me that Cirio contains 60% more solids, weight for weight than Basics. Napolina is nearly as watery.

Mrs B is quite right!

[jsabine]

I'm quite sure the Basics tinned tomatoes are the same as the next range up.

I believed this for an awfully long time, but after a while of Mrs JS complaining that our bolognese sauces (and similar dishes) weren't tomatoey enough I eventually tried an experiment.
Several different meals over a couple of weeks using every variety of chopped tomatoes we could find in Sainsbury's convinced us both that I'd been wrong. (To be strictly accurate, it convinced me - she already knew I was wrong.)

Yeah. What Biggsy said. Thinner juice, more skin. OK for cooking if you use more, reduce them a bit, & don't mind the skin. Usually cost effective because the price is so low

Cost-effective, certainly, but it was the insufficient tomatoiness of the finished dish that was the root cause of complaint ... Didn't seem to matter how much they were reduced.

I don't think manufacturers have to declare how much water they add to their product.
I looked at the Sainsbury's website for nutrition information for chopped tomatoes.
For 100 grams there are 18 kcal in Sainsbury's Basics, 29 kcal in Cirio and 22 kcal in Napolina.

This would suggest to me that Cirio contains 60% more solids, weight for weight than Basics. Napolina is nearly as watery.

Mrs B is quite right!

I hadn't thought of using the nutritional info as a proxy for other info, like water vs solid content - it's comforting that the numbers back up our unscientific research! One factor may be that Cirio has tomato paste as an added ingredient, while the others have tomato juice.

(Interestingly, when it comes to peeled plum tomatoes, Basics has 22kcal/100g where Sainsburys Premium has only 18kcal/100g, despite supposedly being 60% tomato rather than 65%. (Cirio 27kcal.))

[Arch]

In other news, I have just purchased the first xmas present^*, I feel I have let some side down by this simple action.

I've just received my first one - courtesy of Mum who wanted to chip in towards the preserving pan I was planning to buy, so I said she could for Christmas, but I'd get it now. Bless her, she's insisted on buying it all for me, and then I found one cheaper, so I've got a jam funnel too now!

In other news, last week I tried a new recipe for me, Apple, Cinnamon and Raisin conserve.

 

Like an apple Danish in jam form.  I took a jar to Mum at the weekend, and she reports that it's jolly good in a sandwich with smoked cheddar, and she was about to try it as a relish with sausages too.

As an aside, is there a word for the compulsive collection of jam jars? And is there a cure? Thanks to my opportunities at work, I now have so many I'm considering forming a layer completely covering my kitchen floor, laying planks on it and just starting a new floor....

[Gattopardo]

Yeah it is horder, I do it and it annoys me no end.

[Gattopardo]

So I have some frozen prawns that were defrosted and the stuck in the fridge.  Tempted to cook them with something are they safe to eat still? Smell fine.

Or will I die?

[Arch]

Yeah it is horder, I do it and it annoys me no end.

Yeah, I know i have the squirrel gene.

My grandmother had a whole single wardrobe-sized cupboard packed with bars of soap, bought whenever it was on offer.

I'm doomed.