So this week I signed up to Live Below the Line, a challenge to eat and drink for less than £1 a day for 5 days. It’s day 3 so far, and interesting! I’ve learned a few things:
1. I’m addicted to caffeine. I spent Day 1 caffeine free, suffered from headaches and intense someone-hit-me-with-a-pole-axe drowsiness, and then caved and spent some of the little money I had left on some tea bags. Life is normal again. But I think maybe I need to cut down on caffeine generally…
2. I can make potato farls with value instant mash potato (see photo – mash made up with water, flour, salt, marg – done).
3. Lemon squash is an entirely feasible acidic liquid when making soda bread. The result is a slightly dense, slightly lemon flavoured bread with a great crust.
4. Less is more – Mum liked my limited ingredient pasta sauce (canned toms, chilli, stock cube and onion) better than the more complicated ones I make!
5. Things like rice pudding are actually sweet enough as is.
I am missing milk in my tea, and vegetables, but otherwise so far so good…
The Potatoe thing looks NICE. What is the ratios of the ingredients in that?
It’s lush! I shall be making this one again…
I didn’t measure anything unfortunately as I was using ‘some’ of the mash each time (made it twice now) but it’s fairly simple. Take value mash, add hot water (from kettle) until it starts to be mash, let it be mash for half a minute or so as it will thicken so might need a bit more water. Note that the packet of mash says make with milk and water – I did not, as I didn’t have any milk, and it was fine. Add a lump of marge/butter of choice as you would for mashed potato. Once it’s like normal mashed potato, add in plain white flour and a dash of salt until it forms a dough, you’ll keep needing more as it looks like it’s ok, and then it gets sticky again. Knead it lightly (more flour), and flatten and roll into a disk about 1/4 inch thick (more flour, esp. on surface). Then dry fry in a non-stick frying pan (note, when picking it up it stretches and is delicate – falls apart easily) on medium-hot until it looks cooked. It may retain the texture of mashed potato inside, or may not, depending probably on whether you cook it slower or faster. Lovely hot, but even better once it’s cooled down. Would be fab with a fried egg!