This meal originated from the Anglo Indian community using the British Réchauffé cooking method of using left over roast meats the next day.
Particularly popular during the Christmas and festive seasons when there is a lot of roasts left over next day.
Its a very quick, easy and economical meal to prepare and digest.
Meaning of the word ‘Jhalfrazie’ – hot fry
Shredded beef
Children will enjoy this meal (without the chilies!).
Recipe Ingredients:
Roast beef, chicken or turkey pieces (500 gram minimum quantity) (If roast meats are not available, you can choose to use raw beef or chicken pieces)
1-2 chopped onions
Ginger – sliced finely (1 inch piece)
Garlic – 4 sliced finely
Dried red chillies (optional – quantity according to taste)
Tomatoes – 2 – chopped
Potatoes – peeled and diced – 1/2 kg
Method:
Prepare all the above in separate bowls.
Beef and chicken pieces can be diced or shredded.
Put a medium size cooking pot on stove on low heat.
Add a few spoonfuls of cooking oil and allow to heat gently.
Add the diced onions, ginger, garlic, chillies and stir well. Allow the onions to become soft.
Add the chopped tomatoes and stir well and let this mix cook and caramelise (if possible)
Add in the meat or chicken and stir well.
Add salt to taste, not too much (as the meat will have had salt from the roast).
Add a little water or stock to have a little gravy.
Take off the stove and set aside.
In a separate frypan, add oil, heat on low fire, add the diced potatoes and stir well.
Allow the potatoes to cook while stiring occasionally, till soft. Sometimes they may turn slightly brown, depending on the oil you use. Test the potatoes with a fork to check if it is cooked. Remove with a slotted cooking spoon into a separate bowl and allow the oil to drain.
Next add the fried potatoes to the meat. You can stir in the potatoes into the meat mixture if desired.
Keep in mind that all cooked meals should be cooled and refrigerated if it is to be recooked the next day. Note also that during hot weather, all food should be kept covered and cooled in the fridge rather than on the table or kitchen benchtop.
Some variations to the recipe have added the fried potatoes which are cooked slightly (not crisp or browned) while the meat is being cooked. Another variation is using more gravy to the meat mix. Some methods use a dry mix. All methods are equally delicious!
Another accompaniment to this delicious meal is Pepper Water!
In this day and age, cost of living rises and one has to pay off the necessities first. Food is essential to our health and well being. Reducing the food bill can be achieved with a bit of creativity and clever budgeting, whilst keeping yourself and your family healthy.
Here are some tips:
Before you head off to the grocery store, check out your Pantry and fridge for food supplies that you can still use.
Write down a list of meals required for the week for yourself and family.
Do not waste the food that you have already purchased and stored in your pantry and fridge. With a bit of creativity you can create some delicious and nutritious meals from your food storage. Such as – pancakes, crepes, scones (for breakfasts/dessert). Savoury Omelet for lunches/dinner.
Write down the $ you have to spend on groceries and stick within that range.
Do not be sidetracked in the grocery store with attractive deals that look cheap and not on your list. Usually these items do not last long in your home and will need to be recycled or donated in the future.
The foods listed below are the most economical to have on hand and stored for longer periods:
Oats
Rice
Lentils (Red lentils, Brown lentils, Yellow lentils, etc.)
Pasta
Flour
Eggs
Milk powder or condensed milk (for emergency shortages of milk supply)
Tinned tomatoes, tuna, sardines, salmon
Spices (to add flavor) such as black pepper, tumeric, chilli powder or paprika powder, cummin, bay leaves, cloves, cardamon, cinnamon, mustard seeds, coriander powder, curry powder.
Dried herbs. These can be added to meals depending on the type of food you are cooking – e.g. pastas, or Asian meals. You can make your own dried herbs as well.
Fresh economical produce:
Chicken, eggs, mince, soup bones (chicken or beef), cheaper cuts of beef if available
Onions
Potatoes
Carrots
Pumpkin
Spinach
Zucchini
Beans
Broccoli
Ginger/garlic
Capsicums
Herbs
Fresh economical Fruits:
(These fruits are the cheapest in the market and the left over ripe fruit can also be used in cooking cakes, breads, sweet treats)
Bananas
Apples
Oranges
Dried fruit (sultanas, dates). These can be added to lunch boxes for snacks or added to cooking)
Grapes. As you only need a few grapes to add to lunch boxes or in fruit salads, it is economical to add to your food supplies.
These items can produce very simple, economical and nutritious meals, just as an example. Depending on your budget, you can add or deduct.
Meals to prepare from above list:
Breakfast: Oats porridge, poached eggs, omelet or scrambled eggs. The cooked eggs can also be added to sandwiches for lunches. Pancakes for weekends when there is more time to cook. (use flour, eggs and milk).
French toast: Use up left over bread slices to make this french toast, dip each slice in a mix of eggs, milk, a dash of cinnamon powder (optional) and fry in oil for a minute each side.
Left over bread slices can be stored in freezer or crumbed for cooking any meals that require breadcrumbs. Stored in freezer.
Bread – home baked bread, rolls.
Bake a simple cake for a treat during the day or weekend, using flour, baking powder, eggs, milk or grated carrot, left over banana, grated apple, lemon zest, grated zucchini. Muffins are easy to prepare and bake as well which can be added to lunch boxes or afternoon tea treat.
Lunches: Steamed rice with a vegetable curry and dhal using lentils and vegetables such as zucchini, cabbage, chick peas, pumpkin.
Chapatis using flour, wholemeal flour. Serve with a Curry, salad or raita (spiced yogurt).
Curried egg sandwiches for lunch. A little boiled egg mashed with added mayo and another finely chopped gherkin or salad ingredient.
Dinners: Stock made with beef or chicken bones can be made into a nutritious vegetable soup lasting a few days. The cooked meat can be shredded and added to pasta, noodles meals.
Soups: Stock can be made into a variety of vegetable soups, such as Pumpkin soup, zucchini soup, broccoli soup, Lentil & veg soup (very nutritious!). Even more adventurous meals such as Minestrone Soup, Mulligatawny soup are easy to cook. Don’t be afraid to try out new meals!
Noodles: You can cook a very quick and simple stir fry noodle meal with just steamed noodles and using left over veggies in your fridge – sliced carrots, beans, cabbage, spring onions and flavor with soy sauce and sesame oil. If you need added protein to this meal, you can add a cooked omelet slices, steamed shredded chicken.
Pastas: Simple pasta meals include pasta with basic Bolognese sauce which can be cooked with mince and grated vegetables to add bulk and nutritional value, pasta with lemon parmesan cheese, or pesto sauce, basil and herbs. Pastas can be cooked under 10 minutes and the cooked water can be added to the sauce as well.
Casseroles and curries are a delicious, nutritious and economical meal to feed a family or freeze for later. Use beef or chicken bones to add flavour, add spices, herbs or vegetables for added nutrition.
Bread: Yes you can bake bread! You just need flour (all purpose flour, bread flour, wholemeal flour), yeast and water. Sourdough bread is made from scratch with preparing the starter first.
Desserts: For that extra treat after a meal, cook a baked bread and butter Pudding with left over bread pieces or cake, make a custard with eggs and milk. If you don’t have fresh milk, substitute with tinned milk. I always keep a tin of condensed or evaporated milk in my pantry. Also Full Cream Milk Powder is handy to keep in your cupboard in case you run out of fresh milk in the mornings. Milk powder can be substituted in making pancakes where fresh milk is required.
Jelly: The jelly crystals are cheap to purchase and can make a quick dessert.
Banana bread: Using left over bananas, eggs, flour, milk, sugar. This is a delicious and economical treat to cook and add to lunch boxes during the busy week or for an afternoon tea treat.
Cost of cooking fuel:
Reduce the cost of cooking with cooking in bulk quantities and freezing for later use. Allow the food to cool down quickly before storing in containers and sealing well. Don’t leave food lying around on your benchtop for lengthy periods as bacteria could develop.
If you don’t have a cooker, for example you can use an electric instant cookpot, rice cooker/steamer, microwave.
Save time in prepping your food in bulk by washing and chopping ingredients, before cooking. Washing up before and after cooking in one session saves time and water usage. Its a good idea to set aside a few hours to prepping your food to save time and other costs.
The wise cook prepares in advance by planning well balanced meals in advance which are nutritious, economical and time saving.
Write down a list of meals you are planning for the week which will save time in thinking what to cook during a busy week. This way you can also save on wasting food ingredients which does cost you money.
Cook in bulk quantities and freeze in well sealed containers will reduce your energy costs, labor, cleaning up before and after cooking.
Foods that freeze well – stocks in small containers (250 ml = 1 cup serving), soups, curries, casseroles, pasta sauces.
Vegetables can be washed, prepped and stored in zip lock bags in freezer to add to cooking. E.g. chopped carrots, beans, broccoli, celery, spinach, herbs.
Now is the time to turn a new page and start making plans for a better year ahead! This should include organisation of home, family routines, exercise routines, and most importantly eating well balanced nutritious meals.
Start with writing in a new Diary or Journal. Make a list of meals you can plan for the week ahead or even a month. This includes:
Breakfast
Snack
Lunch
Tea
Dinner
Ensure the 5 important food groups are included regularly throughout the week.
Protein – meat, chicken, fish
Dairy
Carbohydrates – cereals
Vegetables 5 serves each
Fruit 3 serves each
As well keep in mind other health requirements for other members of your family or household, or individual tastes. Some people may have food allergies. Most children (and adults too!) don’t like to see vegetables on their plate! Forcing people to eat something they don’t like and creating a hostile atmosphere at the table when this occurs, can lead to other dietary problems later on in life. I agree it is very stressful for the person who does all the cooking and cleaning at home to cope with this situation, but if you focus on simple meals which you have tried out before or passed down through your family, life will be a lot more manageable!
Tip 1: When all else fails, grate the raw vegetables into foods like soups, casseroles, sauces, so that your family get their daily dietary requirements. For example grated carrots, zucchini, finely chopped spinach, cabbage, are very nutritious and hardly noticed in gravies and sauces. Our ancestors had to be very economical in cooking meals for their families, due to wars, and shortages of food at various times of history. Adding grated vegetables to sauces and gravies increased the taste of food and added bulk to the food for all the family.
Tip 2: Decorate the food platters with a attractive theme and encourage children in decorating meals and dining table as well. Eating those colorful veggies may not work first time, but in time it will change.
Tip 3: During working week, focus on planning simple meals, rather than following recipe books, videos on the internet, because reading up the recipe takes time and preparation which may double the time on cooking the meal.
Steamed Rice with Spicy Dhall – Serves 2-4 Preparation and Cooking time: 1/2 hr. Rice – 1 1/2 cups of Basmati rice or any rice of your choice 1 litre of water 1 teaspoon of Salt In a 2 litre pot, fill with water, bring to boil. Wash rice till water is clear. Add rice […]
Securing a potable water source and the means to purify less-than-ideal water sources — Examples include stocking up on water purification tablets or drops, and/or independent water filtration systems such as Berkey that can filter out pathogens and other impurities (meaning a filtration system that is not tied to the tap in your home, in case pumps go down and you have no tap water).
Even a small survival water filtration system is better than nothing, as drinking contaminated water can result in serious illness and/or death. Having a rain barrel connected to your gutter downspout is a good idea. You can use it to water your garden, and in a worst-case scenario, you have a source of fresh water to drink, cook and take sponge baths in.
•Buy shelf-stable and nonperishable foods in bulk — Freeze dried foods, for example, have a shelf life of 25 years or more. Canned foods and dry staples such as rice and beans can also stay viable long past their expiration date under the right conditions.
Other good options include canned salmon, canned cod livers, sardines in water (avoid ones preserved in vegetable oil), nuts, powdered milk and whey and other nutritional powders you can mix with water.
Ideally, you’ll want to store food in a cool, dark place with low humidity. Bulk packs of rice and beans are best stored in a sealed food-grade bucket with some oxygen absorbers. Vacuum sealing food can also extend shelf life.
•Energy backups — To prepare for eventual energy shortages, brownouts, rolling blackouts or a complete shutdown of the power grid, consider one or more power backups, such as gas-powered generators and/or solar generator kits such as Jackery or Inergy. Having backup power can prevent the loss of hundreds of dollars worth of food if your home loses electricity for more than a couple of days.
Scale up and diversify according to what you can afford. Ideally, you’d want more than one system. If all you have is a gas-powered generator, what will you do if there’s a gas shortage and/or if the price skyrockets into double digits? On the other hand, what will you do if the weather is too overcast to recharge your solar battery?
•Cooking backups — You also need some way to cook water and food during a blackout. Here, options include (but are not limited to) solar cookers, which require neither electricity nor fire, small rocket stoves, propane-powered camping stoves and 12-volt pots and pans that you can plug into a backup battery.
•Start a garden and learn some basic skills — The more food you can produce at home, the better off you’ll be. At bare minimum, stock up on sprouting seeds and grow some sprouts. They’re little powerhouses when it comes to nutrition, they’re easy to grow and are ready to eat in days rather than months.
If you have the space, consider starting a garden, and if local regulations allow, you can add chickens for a steady supply of eggs. (Just remember that they too may need additional feed.)
Also, start learning some basic food storage skills such as canning and pickling. While it can feel intimidating at first, it’s really not that difficult. For example, raw, unwashed, homegrown eggs can be preserved in lime water — 1 ounce of lime (calcium hydroxide, aka “pickling lime”) to 1 quart of water — thereby extending their shelf life to about two years without refrigeration.21
The lime water basically seals the eggs to prevent them from spoiling. Before using the eggs, be sure to wash the lime off. This does not work with commercial eggs, however, as the protective coating, called “bloom,” is stripped off during washing.
Fermented vegetables are also easy to make and will allow you to store the proceeds from your garden for long periods of time. For inspiration, check out my fermented veggie recipe. In the video below, I explain the benefits of using starter culture and kinetic culture jar lids. They’re not a necessity, but will cut the odor released as the veggies ferment.”
How to ferment food for health purposes and storing foods:
Its the season for plums now, so what can we do with an abundance of this fruit. There are many varieties of plums to choose from. Many people grow this fruit in their backyard too. Apart from eating this juicy fruit, we can preserve them in jars which can be used later on. Note: ensure you store fruit in a clean, sterilized, dry jar with fitting lids.
Here are some examples:
Fruit liqueur – Wash the fruit well, dry well with a clean tea towel. Place in a large jar, sprinkle with sugar, pour in a bottle of vodka (the cheapest you can find) close, give it a few shakes for a few days till the sugar dissolves, then put away for a few months. After a few months this will become a lovely plum liqueur. Strain into a bottle. Also serve as a dessert with fresh yogurt, cream or ice-cream.
Stewed fruit – add fruit to water in a saucepan, add sugar and cinnamon (optional), cook until tender. When cool, pour into individual containers and freeze.
Sweet and sour sauce – Cook with chilies, garlic, onion, vinegar, ginger and a little sweet soy sauce.
It is so important to keep hydrated, even as we get busy and can forget to drink fluids throughout the day. Soon our body can react and show symptoms of tiredness, headaches, dry skin, weakness.
Here is a simple home-made concoction for electrolyte to keep hydrated in the event you or your family suffer dehydration due to diarrhea or vomiting illness or during hot summer season.
34 ounces (1 liter) of water
6 teaspoons of sugar
1/2 teaspoon of salt
Combine them in a large bowl or pot and stir until the sugar and salt dissolve.
Keep in a bottle with fitting lid in fridge and use when required.
We are in middle of winter here, so I thought of making a cake with honey, lemon and cinnamon which are some of the ingredients that can cure colds and coughs. The pantry is stocked with plenty of honey, lemons, so why not add these ingredients to make a cake!
Ingredients
1 1/2 cups flour
3/4 cup (72g) almond flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
8 tablespoons unsalted butter, at room temperature
1/2 cup sugar
2 large eggs, at room temperature
1/4 cup honey
Grated rind of 1 lemon
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon powder
1 cup buttermilk or plain yogurt, at room temperature
Glaze
1/4 cup honey
2 tablespoons unsalted butter, cold
1 tablespoon lemon juice
Method:
Preheat the oven to 350°F. Grease a honeycomb pan or 9″ round cake pan.
To make the batter: Weigh the flours, or measure them by gently spooning them into a measuring cup and sweeping off the excess. In a medium bowl, whisk together the flours, baking powder, baking soda, and salt.
In a large mixing bowl, beat together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy.
Add the eggs one at a time, beating for a minute or two and scraping the sides and bottom of the bowl between additions. Beat in the honey, zest, and extracts.
Stir in the flour mixture in three additions, alternating with the buttermilk or yogurt, beginning and ending with the flour mixture.
Spread the batter into the prepared pan; if you’re baking in the honeycomb pan, we recommend tapping the pan firmly on the counter to help eliminate any air bubbles at the bottom.
Bake the cake for 30 to 35 minutes, until it’s a deep golden brown and a cake tester inserted into the center comes out clean.
Remove the cake from the oven, allow it to cool in the pan for 10 minutes, then turn it out onto a rack.
To make the glaze: Combine the honey, butter, and lemon juice in a microwave-safe bowl or in a small saucepan set over medium-low heat. Heat until the butter is melted and stir until smooth.
Brush the glaze onto the warm cake. Allow the cake to cool completely before cutting.
Store leftover cake, well wrapped, at room temperature for several days. Freeze for longer storage.
We are in middle of winter here, so I thought of making a cake with honey, lemon and cinnamon which are some of the ingredients that can cure colds and coughs. The pantry is stocked with plenty of honey, lemons, so why not add these ingredients to make a cake! 
Simple meals 
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