How to make bread without bread flour

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Now You Know how to make bread without any bread flour!

I got through January spending less than £30 on groceries for the household but ran out of bread and bread flour. As they say, necessity is the mother of invention, so let's get inventive.

 

Running out of bread and bread flour is normally unheard of in this household but it can happen to the best of us, especially when trying to empty cupboards and stick to a grocery challenge budget of £1 per person per day, so I spent less than half my allocated budget just cooking from what is already here.
As long as you have ordinary flour, eggs and milk then you can make pancakes.
If you have just the flour and milk, you can make flour tortillas.
Better still, as long as you have yeast and good old-fashioned, all purpose, plain flour then you can make your own budget bread.

BARGAIN ALERT

Brown Bread and Roll Mix only £1 for 3.5kg*

Here's how to make bread without bread flour

• 1 1/2 cups warm water (approx.)
• 2 tsp dried yeast
• 1 tsp of salt
• 2 tsp oil
• 4 cups plain flour

I added a scoop of wheatgerm to mine, so it needed another spoonful of water, then made the loaf in my breadmaker. You do not need a breadmaking machine, this recipe will work equally well by hand in the usual way - knead the dough well for 5 minutes, rest/prove for an hour, knead for another 5 minutes, rest/prove for another hour, then shape and bake as normal, either in a lightly greased loaf tin or on a tray.

 

I was quite sceptical about whether or not this loaf would rise, as I have never learned the actual differences between each of the various flour types other than the obvious differences between grain types like wheat and corn but as you can see, the loaf rose as it normally would had I been using proper bread flour.

 

The load was baked as normal white bread on the 1.5lb setting and this did it perfectly. The loaf turned out the tin without a problem and sounded hollow when tapped on the bottom. It got wrapped in a clean, cotton tea towel until it cooled enough to slice. Don't get me wrong, this isn't the first time I have baked bread with plain flour, as I do tend to dilute bread flour with plain flour to save money when handbaking or if the bread mixes aren't available on offer, but this was the first time I had tried baking a full loaf in the breadmaker without having any strong bread flour in the recipe.

 

Once cooled, the load sliced as any other bread would slice - so we had to sample it with some homemade blackcurrant and bramble jam. It tasted delicious!

From now on, I will not be paying extra for strong bread flour - I'll sit back and wait for the bargains to appear and, in the meantime, keep a better stock of cheap, all purpose plain flour, which currently costs 45p per 1.5kg bag from most big supermarkets. I have, however, managed to order 3 x 3.5kg of cheap bread and roll mix from Approved Food to replenish stock and I'll add on an extra couple of bags of plain flour next time I get the chance of it. I'm guessing that I'll can dilute the bread mix in similar fashion as long as I add an extra sprinkle of dried yeast.

You can add herbs, spices, garlic, sultanas, seeds, grains, nuts or whatever else takes your fancy - play about with it to find what you like best and don't forget to share your results and photos with fellow followers of frugal living in Frugaldom's forums.

* My affiliated link

Cheap Meals on £1 per Person per Day

February Food Trial Triumph!

Frugal Lasagne

It was decided that we had to analyse a few of the meal costs in order to ascertain if it is still possible to cover the costs of groceries on the sum total of £1 per person per day. Having stuck to this challenge for so long, I suspected that it had to be true, otherwise I'd have been failing in my challenge and, as you all know by now, failure cannot be an option.

Spurred on by the ridiculous claims made by some recent television shows quoting families spending over £9,000 per year on food alone, it was easy to prove that my methods were sound. I had been invited to participate in one such show, but swiftly declined. I am most certainly NOT the type to go on TV, as anyone who knows me will agree.

The unfortunate part of having chosen February to fully explain how this can be done was that my kitchen was being ripped out, so that took its toll on the final results. I was hoping for a result of less than 95p per person per day but, instead, got landed with 96.8p per person per day. The full breakdown of all meals and costs can be found HERE.

The porridge post is a few pages back on this blog, so you can try making your own frugal breakfast for 9p per serving. Likewise, all of the soup recipes are included on here, so they will explain the 4p per portion, and the bread recipes will explain how I accounted for the cost of breadmaking.



Ginger sponge

 Restricted access to the kitchen made things very difficult, juggling cooking, baking and food preparation with interupted power supplies, no worktops and, in the latter stages, no ready access to the food supplies, so it was very much a case of using what could be reached and/or prepared and heatd or cooked on the day. The slow cooker, microwave, breadmaker and electric steamer are certainly the most important items I have as far as the (non)kitchen is concerned, but I did manage to get some baking done so we weren't without cakes, sponge and biscuits.

Not living near a supermarket can increase the pressure on a limited budget, which is why I'm trying to grow as much fruit and veg as possible. Moving here in June 2011 to a house with a patch of land that hadn't been touched in years meant lack of planting and growing time before autumn arrived. Home produce was limited but, all things considered, I think we did OK. We were a little short on eggs after the mink got in and killed some of the hens, but we still had quail eggs until the quail stopped laying. Now, what's left of the hens are back laying and pretty soon the ducks will be, too.



Spring bulbs flowering

 Spring 2012 will soon be here, so preparations are underway to get the microholding project up and running. This, of course, still has to fit in with the full renovation of the house, which includs the completion of the kitchen. That's my primary goal, but if the sun happens to shine, priorities must lie outdoors, in an effort to produce as much basic foodstuffs as possible.



Herb garden

 In the meantime, I have crates and boxes piled throughout the house with enough bread flour, custard powder, semolina, hot chocolate, blancmange and cous cous to last us all year. The freezer is full with an assortment of stews, soups, vegetables and berries, plus the last of the garden onions hanging in the outbuilding. And to top all of that, the herb garden survived the winter, as did all the cuttings from the rosemary and thyme.

Top tips for keeping the cost of meals down:

• Bulk buy your favourites whenever they're on offer.
• Make the most of long shelf life products bearing 'best before' dates, which can pretty much be ignored, because the the food contained within can last for years. I don't think sugar even carries a best before date. eg: Approved Food offers some great bulk bargains.
• Get stocked up on sugar before the jam making season is upon us once more.
• Cook everything from scratch in big batches.
• Grow some herbs, fruit and vegetables, even if it's nothing more than salad leaves in a tub.
• Learn to love porridge, soup and milk puddings.
• Waste nothing.

So, the moral of this story is that in 2012, thirteen years after my very first grocery budget challenge, it IS still possible to feed a family based on a budget of £1 per person per day. Your 5-a-day may be a little erratic durig the mid-winter months but you more than make up for it during summer. Oh, and cranberry sauce makes a lovely topping for semolina once all the Christmas turkey has gone - no point wasting that!

If anyone would like to sponsor this project, I'll happily continue to write up a daily meal plan along with the frugalised recipes, moneysaving methods and sneaky tips.

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Playing 'Pass the Banana' with Friends and Neighbours.

Closing time at the supermarket seems to reveal a host of surprises. I'm not near any, but a friend lives close to one. She often gets fantastic end of trading day bargains for just a few pennies, so she's great at appearing with bashed fruit that can be used for stewing, jam making or marmalade making.  This is fresh produce that would get binned at the end of the night, so last minute shopping pays well, especially if you're into baking, stewing, winemaking or preserving.

I'm lucky to live within a community where sharing is par for the course. Many of us make the most of our GallowayLETS membership - part of the LETSLinkUK network - by swapping and trading our surplus.

Yesterday, this friend sent neighbour and I over some pretty black speckled bananas that had gone a bit soft and squidgy. I guess that's putting it mildly - I mean these looked vile after being in a bag overnight from Saturday! They turned to mush when attempting to peel them but, joy of of joys, they weren't dark chocolate coloured mush all the way through.

Let the banana breadmaking begin.

DRY INGREDIENTS
Cup of plain flour
Half a cup of sugar
Half a cup of sultanas
Pinch of salt
Pinch of icarbonate of soda
Pinch of baking powder

BEAT TOGETHER:
2 tablespoons melted margarine (or butter, if you're posh/rich/fussy)
Tablespoon of milk
Squirt of lemon juice
1 egg

Mix dry ingredients then combine everything before pouring into your loaf tin. Mine is baking in the breadmaker, so there'll be hot sliced fruit bread for having with coffee soon.

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Contemplating Self Sufficiency in the 21st Century

Self Sufficiency in 21st Century - Can it be achieved?

How could it possibly be made to work from an ordinary house with an ordinary garden? My answer to this isn't smallholding, it's microholding! We haven't any land for grazing livestock or cultivating orchards but we do have a garden and that's enough to be going on with for now.

Self-sufficiency needn't exclude generating cash, it just means gainful employment and state benefits don't count. Being self employed means we need to earn sufficient money to pay bills, taxes, National Insurance, overheads, running costs and day to day living expenses.  Self sufficiency is simply the term we use to mean personally sufficient in all our needs, bill paying included. The lower the overheads, the less need to worry about how to generate sufficient cash to survive. Understanding the overheads is paramount to success, as is fully comprehending the differences between needs and wants. At this precise moment in time, we are entirely self-sufficient on the financial front but not in the homegrown produce department. The proof that it could be done is something I have always wanted to witness.

The following is a breakdown of the estimated amount we, as a household of two adults, would NEED in order to survive until such times as the microholding was working to its fullest potential. As an ordinary household, rearing livestock is out, but there's still space for poultry.

Groceries £600.00

Toiletries £35.00
Cleaning £10.00
Electricity £450.00 - £1 per day plus standing charge
Coal £115.00 - multifuel stove for hot water, heat, cooking
Logs £200.00 - multifuel stove for hot water, heat, cooking
Internet £216 including phone calles
Mobiles £0.00 - no mobiles
Telephone £144 - line rental
TV Licence £0.00 - no TV, it isn't an essential
Clothing & footwear £40.00
Gifts £0.00 - homemade
Extras £70.00
Travel £180.00
Household Insurance £45.00
Other insurance - £360.00 - 2 lots
Livestock £350.00
National Insurance £250.00 - 2 lots
Council Tax £935.00 - no water rates as no water mains, reservoir fed
TOTAL - £4,000.00

Although a TV is not an essential, the telephone and Internet access are. These are your basic contact networks with the outside world, a source of income, advertising, marketing and PR. Most of all, it's the quickest way of keeping in contact with what's happening in the world of finance - where you can source the best bargains and really work your money. The above scenario assumes that you own your own home outright - no mortgage, no rent. Between two people, it's only £5.47 per person, per day that needs to be earned in order to survive. If you have rent or a mortgage, add that in, too.

But move on from that for now, we're still preparing the microholding. We need to grow fruit and vegetables as well as have fresh eggs. Cheap Fruit Bushes - Aldi special offer was 3 for £2.49 in February 2010, so that's at least a dozen fruit bushes for under £10. I set aside a tenner.

I was still mulling over the incubator conundrum for quail egg hatching and had decided to sell 2 of the 3 portables and invest in a more substantial one. Promptly listed them on eBid and sold the first one overnight. Result!

The usual chores get done on a daily basis - sorting out the fire, stocking up the kindling (cones and sticks), chopping logs, breadmaking, laundry, seeing to the feathered friends and stopping for coffee whenever a visitor arrives. Rural living doesn't need to mean being anti-social, there are always friends and nearby neighbours who'll visit.

Reducing the overheads pound by pound or penny by penny - whatever it takes - do it. Managed to shave £2 per month off the Internet and got all standard telephone calls included, an overall annual saving of around £115.00 by the time the BT online paperfree billing discount and free calls were taken into consideration.

Dug up a few more potatoes that had survived the winter frosts, food is food, waste not, want not. The garden wasn't looking too productive at the start of the year. The coal bunker was almost empty - we were down to the dross, but the log store was full. By the end of January, there was £3641.19 left of the household budget. £210 of the £358.81 spent had gone into the electricity meter! February arrived with sub-zero temperatures.

Despite the frozen ground, we pushed on at getting the new raised bed completed in the front garden. The railway sleepers allowed for 64 square feet but I wanted 16 of those squares to form a path along the middle, so every square was easy to reach. Filled up both sides with compost and molehill soil. The hens and ducks had a great time helping by scratching and pecking, so they got left to do the job of breaking up the clumps of frozen soil.

Aldi fruit bushes came on special offer. Remained strong, though, and only bought the 4 packs of 3, as planned. Managed to get:

2 x Tayberries
4 x Raspberries
2 x Gooseberries
1 x Redcurrant
3 x Blackcurrant

On the 5th of February, I noticed that the first of the tomato and pepper seeds had germinated and popped their heads through the soil in their pots on the kitchen windowsill! That same day, the postman delivered the 2 free packs of Allinson's baking yeast, so it was a good start to the day. Dry weather meant getting into the garden so preparations were underway for getting the new fruit bushes planted.

Indoor jobs included the making of more marmalade, in order to use up some oranges and limes that I'd traded for via LETS, some kidney bean pate and a game/veg pie.

Bean Pate Recipe
Kidney beans

2 Tablespoons Olive Oil

Finely chopped onion

2 cloves garlic. crushed

Teaspoon Chilli - finely chopped or powdered

Teaspoon Paprika

Lightly fry the onion and garlic in the olive oil then blitz everything in a blender. It's so easy to make that you can adapt the recipe to suit your own taste. Seems to keep fine in the fridge for a couple of weeks.

The incubator was ready to set half a dozen Silkie and Pekin eggs. Wasn't 100% sure which were which, so set half a dozen.

I started a rag rug using an old hessian peanut sack and strips of material from a bag of scraps. Was full of great intentions until I got bored with it! I'm not very good at sitting still for any length of time and, apart from that, the weather had taken a peculiar turn - I ended up getting sunburned on 6th February.

We managed to get a much larger growing area dug in the furthest corner plus the fruit bushes got planted - all 21 of them from what was supposed to be 12. Last year's fruit bushes got fenced in to safeguard them from ducks, the new square foot garden got topped up with more compost and we discovered a few more potatoes that had been missed. Got a couple more meals out of them. The following day, the raised bed/square foot garden got fenced and a gate fitted. It's the only way to keep the feathered marauders from demolishing whatever gets planted.

Took some time out to go over the 2007 challenge notes to see if there were any glaring differences and there's an entry about seeing the first bumble bee of the year - in February! There's also a note saying that cigarettes were £4.29 per 20. Same brand now is £5.30 That's a 23.5% increase! If only I'd invested heavily in cigarettes, I could have made a small fortune! Are there sell by dates on them? No!

By the 9th February, we were getting 9 hours of daylight, almost two thirds of the way to the magical 14 hours that the birds need for optimum laying. Still weren't getting many eggs at that point but it was enough to avoid the need for buying them. It was also sufficient to keep the lemon curd production line operational. Soup making was at its peak, to the point that I needed to increase production to keep up with demand. Managed to find a 6 litre slow cooker for under £20 including delivery - excellent!

Despite the continuing sub-zero temperatures, the sun kept shining that week, enough for line drying laundry, which was great. By the 11th, it was -7C This was good for emptying the contents of the freezer to reorganise it, not so good for digging a duck pond! By the 13th, we saw the arrival of the first lamb in the fields adjoining Frugaldom.

13th also brought news of Aldi's fruit tree offer - cue more cheap trees! Keeping control of a strict budget is difficult but fruit trees at under £5 each is fantastic! Perhaps it's safest not to know about these bargains; what the eye doesn't see, the heart doesn't grieve over, and all that. Then again, look to the future and all that extra potential for homegrown apples, pears, plums and cherries.

Still spending £30 a week on electricity while trying to keep the place from freezing, but the budget is being adhered to; if money gets spent on anything outside of the basic household budget, it has to come from residual income - egg related sales, commissions, eBid, winnings and bank interest payments on existing savings. With luck, there would be a few more chicks hatching soon.

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Another Frugal Soup Recipe for 2012

It's all over for another year - Christmas has been and gone, Hogmanay has been and gone, New Year has been and gone. We're now marching boldly into 2012, ready to do battle with whatever life throws at us and hopeful of grabbing any new opportunities that may present themselves along the way.

There was no winter snow over the festive week, instead, we had wind and rain with the odd smattering of sleat and hailstones. Occasionally, a glimmer of sunhine managed to sneak through the clouds. Sadly, we lost a 'runty duckling' that prefered to stay in the pond than seek shelted from the torrential dowpours, but the rest of the Frugaldom menagerie seems happy enough. The cat loves her new toys and the rabbit has been out for a run about the garden to work off all the extra carrot peelings she managed to consume over Christmas.

The breadmaker had been playing up for quite some time; it had lost all the little washers from between it's baking pan and the mixing blade which, itself, was almost worn out. Everything was crossed that it would see us through Christmas. As (good) luck would have it, mum had passed her's on to one of my sisters who had ended up putting it into her attic, so a quick phone call of pleasantries and pleading - OK, I simply asked her - meant she had time to fish the breadmaker from the attic and bring it on her trip to the family get together.

Despite it being a few years old, this machine is in almost new condition, as neither of its previous owners seemed to enjoy (or have time for) breadmaking. I think I won out on this, as it's now safely ensconced in my kitchen, replacing my old one. The old one, however, hasn't been thrown out, as it does still work! It might come in useful sometime in the future, or may even find itself with a shiny new baking pan and mixing blade.

Two loaves are better than one, apparently, as the 'new' machine makes two tiny loaves simultaneously. The settings allow for different types of mix to be used in each pan, so we can have white and wholemeal or cake and bread baking at the same time. Right now, I have a couple of bananas needing used up, so I'll probably do a wholemeal loaf alongside banana bread tomorrow morning.

The post-festive period is a great time for using up leftovers. Let's face it, most of us have them around this time of year, whether it's turkey from Christmas or steak pie, gammon or roast beef from New Year. I used half the stuffed turkey breast for Christmas day, so the other half went into the freezer, cooked. I had pheasants in the freezer, so one of them got cooked up with all the trimmings and served with puff pastry in suitable pie-like passion on New Year's Day. The cat is happy, as she has had all the extra meat chopped into catfood-sized nuggets and then everything else that remained of the fine bird went into my slow cooker.

Cue another one of those rather 'interesting' Frugaldom soup tales...

GAME AND TOMATO BROTH

Everything remaining from the pheasant went into the big crock pot in the slow cooker, along with a couple of onions and the leftover potatoes. This was set on the timer to simmer for a few hours overnight. At the same time, I rinsed off a 500g pack of broth mix and a cupful of butter beans, then left them soaking in cold water overnight.

In the morning, the stock was strained and then returned to the slow cooker, along with the broth mix, butter beans and half a carton of passata that I had lurking in the fridge. (I buy store's own 'basic' passata, as it's cheaper than tins of chopped tomatoes and works well as a base for turning the end slices of homemade bread into frugal, speedy pizzas.) Season the soup with salt & pepper, then leave to simmer until all the beans, peas, lentils and barley are tender.

That's it, that's the frugal game soup of the day and it works equally well using a shin of beef, although this would add to your costs by around 65p.

The pheasant cost me nothing, as I had traded for a brace through our LETS group, so stock from leftovers is an extra bonus, as we'd already had the bird for New Year's dinner. The broth mix and butter beans had been on special offer last year, when I made a bulk purchase, so I reckon they cost me no more than 50p in total. If I recall correctly, the cheap passata costs 23p and I'd already used half of it for lunchtime pizzas. The onions and  potatoes were leftovers from New Year's dinner and they were all homegrown, so I don't bother counting them. At a rough estimate, I got 4.5 litres of soup for no more than 73p plus the cooking time (20p).

I'd say 20 portions of soup for 93p was a fairly frugal meal, wouldn't you?

Looking forward to getting back into the frugaling spirit this year, with plenty of new projects and challenges. Don't forget you can follow the day to day activities of frugal living in our frugaldom forums, where the brand new 2012 Frugal Living Challenge has just begun.

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