Monday 2 September 2013

Stretching meat....

Welcome to my new follower Daniel Rolfe. Glad to have you reading and hope you enjoy.

For this weekend (and beyond), we bought a pork tenderloin for £2.75 and had a bit of a think on how to make it go as far as possible. In the end we decided on a kind of goulash.

The meat was cut into thick chunks and tossed in 1 heaped tablespoon of plain flour which had 1 level teaspoon sweet paprika and 1/4 teaspoon smoked hot paprika plus salt and pepper mixed in it.

Whilst that was absorbing I thickly diced one onion, 3 large carrots (free), 1 large courgette (free), 2 stalks of celery and fried them until soft and beginning to go brown, in 2 tablespoons oil. Once these were nearly done they were removed onto a plate and the meat got the same treatment.

Everything was then put back into the pan along with the courgette which had been salted to remove excess juice and rinsed. 1 pint of stock was added along with 4 or 5 big tomatoes (free) and the whole lot simmered for 1 hour. It was thickened slightly with  2 heaped teaspoons cornflour and a couple tablespoons of water. Finally, 2 tablespoons of tomato purée were added and it left to simmer for a few minutes to thicken.

I had also been cooking potatoes to make some mash and boiling some beans for the first meal. Here they are. Meal 1 for 2 adults:
Meal 2: Peas were added to this plateful.
Meal 3: Jacket potato was served with the remains of 4 ladles of the saved meat, plus a little grated cheese on the top!
I really am hopeless at calculating the cost of meals but would estimate maybe £3.60 or so? That is for 6 platefuls as 3 meals for 2 adults, at 60p per plateful. It shouldn't cost more than £4.00 if you have no home grown or free vegetables to use. It would go equally well with either pasta or rice - a win win situation.

This is the only way we eat meat now as it is just too expensive. The tenderloin melted in your mouth, but more importantly, you could taste it throughout the whole meal. So for those of you who have mega carnivores to feed, who are reluctant to cut down on their meat, give this a go and see what they say.

15 comments:

  1. I shall check the price of a pork tenderloin while I'm out tomorrow, as this looks very good.

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    1. It was good. Final part with the jacket potato and cheese tonight! We got ours from Morrison's. All shops seem to sell it at varying prices depending on weight.

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  2. I love goulash, beef or pork, long slow cooking tenderizes the meat and the flavours develop and soak into the meat, mashed potatoes are a must with lots of delicious gravy.... ooh looking at your dinners is making me so hungry!!

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    1. Can't beat a good bit of mash with some tasty gravy!

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  3. I will try this with the three pork chops I found lurking in the bottom of the freezer. I have all of the specs and veg and it looks a very tasty way of stretching 3 small chops to make 4 meals for two people.
    I am enjoying your War Diary by the way, it would surely make a very interesting book.
    Regards
    Judith

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    1. Thank you reference our war diary. You may need to cook the chops for longer. The taste got better each day. We particularly enjoyed our jacket potatoe, stew and cheese tonight!

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  4. Looks delicious, particularly as I've been fancying meat rather a lot lately!

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    1. It's cos you been away! I'm sure once you are back onto your regular way of eating, your body will sing out once more!

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  5. I've got a bag of value pork chops lurking in the freezer. Great suggestion

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    1. Hope you like it, nothing worse than trying something and not liking it!

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  6. This looks good DC and I imagine very tasty. An excellent way of stretching meat for six meals between you.
    Patricia x

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    1. Each day got better and the final meal of jacket potato, stew and cheese was yummy!

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  7. Thank you for my welcome, really enjoying your blog.

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