Slopalong #2 You can’t polish a turd, but you can cover it in parsley

[That Forensic Man]

Slop fans, I’m going to do another one. I feel a strange determination to find a Jack recipe, and make it work. I have found the below. I have everything but just need to purchase some lard.

What do we think? I’m not sure if this is in any of her books, if someone has the original?

Jack Monroe’s lardy cake recipe | Food | The Guardian

<strong>Jack Monroe:</strong> This sweet, fatty, carb-laden treat is a satisying, occasional comfort on a winter’s day. Just don’t eat it every day!

amp.theguardian.com

Friday is the day I don’t work and usually when I bake, while my wee girl naps. I therefore volunteer as tribute for Friday afternoon again. 🫡

Cooking on a Bootstrap has 'Lardy Buns' which I would assume are the same thing? @Notmycat
But the guardian version might be the original from 2014 vs book 2018.

ETA lardy buns also appeared on her website the day after it was in the guardian (as lardy cake)
Guardian - 26/11/2014
Website - 27/11/2014
Pretty funny she has "First published in the Guardian, November 2014" when it was the day before haha
How does that work then

Lardy Buns, 16p.

I had my first lardy cake this summer, picked up from a surprisingly baked-goods-laden petrol station on the way home from Kent, and subsequently slept all the way home in the passenger seat off th…

cookingonabootstrap.com

 

[lurkerfrau]

Cooking on a Bootstrap has 'Lardy Buns' which I would assume are the same thing? @Notmycat

If so, I’d be grateful for the original in the event of any sub editor edits in the Grauniad version?

 

[hoopdedoo]

I think it was @Valiofthedolls who suggested doing a collection of our own budget-friendly recipes too. That could be put on a website or some such so that food banks and organizations helping folks in need could send their clients there instead of sloppingonabootstrap.com

 

[That Forensic Man]

If so, I’d be grateful for the original in the event of any sub editor edits in the Grauniad version?

I edited my post above but I think the most unadulterated version would be her website, she goes on about yeast being living and how she used to use boiling water etc. lol which has all been removed for The Guardian. The basting egg becomes optional for The Guardian and she has costing on the website.

Lardy Buns, 16p.

I had my first lardy cake this summer, picked up from a surprisingly baked-goods-laden petrol station on the way home from Kent, and subsequently slept all the way home in the passenger seat off th…

cookingonabootstrap.com

 

[Smol Pixel]

Slop fans, I’m going to do another one. I feel a strange determination to find a Jack recipe, and make it work. I have found the below. I have everything but just need to purchase some lard.

What do we think? I’m not sure if this is in any of her books, if someone has the original?

Jack Monroe’s lardy cake recipe | Food | The Guardian

<strong>Jack Monroe:</strong> This sweet, fatty, carb-laden treat is a satisying, occasional comfort on a winter’s day. Just don’t eat it every day!

amp.theguardian.com

Friday is the day I don’t work and usually when I bake, while my wee girl naps. I therefore volunteer as tribute for Friday afternoon again. 🫡

I don’t know how you will follow the recipe. She tells you to make a well with no further explanation. How will you figure out what this means???

I want to make a dessert to follow my “inside of a food waste bin” main course. Can’t decide between these two. Anyone want to cast a vote?

‘Jaffa Cake’ Mug Pudding from Good Food For Bad Days by Jack Monroe

This is a very dangerous piece of knowledge to have; the ability to rustle up a hot sticky pudding in a matter of minutes that tastes like a pile of melted Jaffa cakes. Once you know it, you can ne...

app.ckbk.com

Sleazecake from Good Food For Bad Days by Jack Monroe

Not quite the baked, creamy succulence of a traditional cheesecake, but a reasonable substitute in a hurry.

app.ckbk.com

Or actually even this potential monstrosity

Ice Cream Cake from Good Food For Bad Days by Jack Monroe

Ice cream is my catch-all, cheer-up indulgence, eaten by the pint in front of light comedic television or crime-scene dramas, depending on my mood. One Saturday evening, alone, I found myself partw...

app.ckbk.com

 

[colouredlines]

I don’t know how you will follow the recipe. She tells you to make a well with no further explanation. How will you figure out what this means???

I want to make a dessert to follow my “inside of a food waste bin” main course. Can’t decide between these two. Anyone want to cast a vote?

‘Jaffa Cake’ Mug Pudding from Good Food For Bad Days by Jack Monroe

This is a very dangerous piece of knowledge to have; the ability to rustle up a hot sticky pudding in a matter of minutes that tastes like a pile of melted Jaffa cakes. Once you know it, you can ne...

app.ckbk.com

Sleazecake from Good Food For Bad Days by Jack Monroe

Not quite the baked, creamy succulence of a traditional cheesecake, but a reasonable substitute in a hurry.

app.ckbk.com

Or actually even this potential monstrosity

Ice Cream Cake from Good Food For Bad Days by Jack Monroe

Ice cream is my catch-all, cheer-up indulgence, eaten by the pint in front of light comedic television or crime-scene dramas, depending on my mood. One Saturday evening, alone, I found myself partw...

app.ckbk.com

Mmmm, food poisoning.

 

[Captainmouse]

View attachment 1728812

Mmmm, food poisoning.

Another one for her list

 

[Serafina Pekkala]

Good Evening dear Ninnies,

Fat garlic cloves info...🧄🧄🧄

I was reading the Delia book with the eggs on the cover last night and she refers to fat cloves throughout.

I thought this was a Jack/Nigella thing but it appears not... is this an actual cooking term?

If this is obvious to you all then sorry, go well
Eta. Thanks for your brave slopping your are Heroninnies

 

[HotesTilaire]

I don’t know how you will follow the recipe. She tells you to make a well with no further explanation. How will you figure out what this means???

I want to make a dessert to follow my “inside of a food waste bin” main course. Can’t decide between these two. Anyone want to cast a vote?

‘Jaffa Cake’ Mug Pudding from Good Food For Bad Days by Jack Monroe

This is a very dangerous piece of knowledge to have; the ability to rustle up a hot sticky pudding in a matter of minutes that tastes like a pile of melted Jaffa cakes. Once you know it, you can ne...

app.ckbk.com

Sleazecake from Good Food For Bad Days by Jack Monroe

Not quite the baked, creamy succulence of a traditional cheesecake, but a reasonable substitute in a hurry.

app.ckbk.com

Or actually even this potential monstrosity

Ice Cream Cake from Good Food For Bad Days by Jack Monroe

Ice cream is my catch-all, cheer-up indulgence, eaten by the pint in front of light comedic television or crime-scene dramas, depending on my mood. One Saturday evening, alone, I found myself partw...

app.ckbk.com

I made the ice cream cake. It was terrible. It tasted of ice cream but not in a good way, in a cloying “freezing changes the flavour and once unfrozen it isn’t that nice” way. It went in the bin.

 

[CuriousCat92]

I edited my post above but I think the most unadulterated version would be her website, she goes on about yeast being living and how she used to use boiling water etc. lol which has all been removed for The Guardian. The basting egg becomes optional for The Guardian and she has costing on the website.

Lardy Buns, 16p.

I had my first lardy cake this summer, picked up from a surprisingly baked-goods-laden petrol station on the way home from Kent, and subsequently slept all the way home in the passenger seat off th…

cookingonabootstrap.com

I made the Lardy buns once. I shan’t say anymore but fascinated to see how they turn out if you make them.
I have been lurking on this thread and enjoying it. Particularly because I hadn’t realised how much making her recipes had turned me off cooking because I felt they were my fault if they didn’t work. Seeing that they are just not designed to work (in most cases) is very reassuring.

 

[Cantthinkofausername]

Disingenuous to say the least - a reasonable amount of dried pasta for an adult (especially if that's your main meal in the day) would be 100g. She has done and is still doing so much damage.


Yep.

Pasta is still pretty cheap anyway if you buy the basic version, it's invariably included in food bank supplies, so there's no real need to stint on it. Pasta isn't just a carb, it also contains a decent amount of protein (as does bread) due to the wheat so it's really a very useful food to eat on a low budget diet.

I don't who is keeping score, but I donated to 2 of our local food banks, £5 each. Had to do it instore, sorry no screenshot so I don't know it it counts?
Just in recognition of the great slopslingers on this thread.

 

[lurkerfrau]

I edited my post above but I think the most unadulterated version would be her website, she goes on about yeast being living and how she used to use boiling water etc. lol which has all been removed for The Guardian. The basting egg becomes optional for The Guardian and she has costing on the website.

Lardy Buns, 16p.

I had my first lardy cake this summer, picked up from a surprisingly baked-goods-laden petrol station on the way home from Kent, and subsequently slept all the way home in the passenger seat off th…

cookingonabootstrap.com

Let’s go direct to the source. After all, we are nothing if we are not forensic.

 

[Lostcat]

I made the ice cream cake. It was terrible. It tasted of ice cream but not in a good way, in a cloying “freezing changes the flavour and once unfrozen it isn’t that nice” way. It went in the bin.

Yeah, there's too many added things in standard icecream, like emulsifiers, stabilisers and various oils for it to be a simple substitute for fat and sugar in a cake. Especially on the cheaper end of the ice cream scale, where the milk and cream is replaced with milk powder and vegetable oils. It's a bit better if you're using a really good cream/custard based icecream, but a small tub of that is generally more expensive than buying a cake in the first place.

It's fine when it's frozen, as you experience and taste very cold foods in a different way to hot food (ie a lot of vanilla or fake strawberry flavourings will not be so cloying or overpowering in a frozen treat as it will be when warmed and a lot of the aromatic compounds become more volatile and more easily perceived by the person eating)

 

[lurkerfrau]

I made the Lardy buns once. I shan’t say anymore but fascinated to see how they turn out if you make them.
I have been lurking on this thread and enjoying it. Particularly because I hadn’t realised how much making her recipes had turned me off cooking because I felt they were my fault if they didn’t work. Seeing that they are just not designed to work (in most cases) is very reassuring.

I’m intrigued …

 

[hoopdedoo]

I want to make a dessert to follow my “inside of a food waste bin” main course. Can’t decide between these two. Anyone want to cast a vote?

Something billed as tasting like a pile of melted Jaffa cakes sounds absolutely horrid, I'd go for that one.

 

[FunnyFuneral]

that's a brilliant idea

I'm tempted to do a comparison of jack's slop 'tattie scones' versus some good old fashioned basic ones - taste, nutrition and cost

ìf we are going to do a jack tweek of recipes this should be on a separate thread, there should be no mistake that the nice tasting stuff is anything to do with her recipes (depressipes)

 

[hoopdedoo]

Warning: gross details below, possible trigger..

Melted ice cream is supposed to be popular among people with eating disorders because allegedly when it's eaten it helps other food slide out more easily if you purge . That was the first thing that came to my mind when I saw melted ice cream as an ingredient in some of her recipes. I mean, not too many other cooks use it, probably because of the potential for food poisoning that @colouredlines mentioned.

 

[I'm not actually here]

Slopportunity Knocks Gnocchi AKA Slop Knocks Gnoc Slops AKA SKGS

We begin.

At the start of this I vowed to follow the recipe to the letter and not make any presumptions/adjustments, I don’t want to be responsible for trying to save her crappy recipe - I see the point of a recipe book is that you have paid someone else to guide you. From what we have seen here so far, JM’s recipes are the equivalent of a Sat Nav slowly, gently, guiding you to drive into a lake.

I did some voice notes as I cooked to help work up my review. My OH was also on hand to forensically document the SKGS

Spoiler: Ingredients

I assembled my ingredients

1 Egg - already had in FREE
100g Flour (no specification so went with plain) - already had in FREE
500g (drained weight - WARNED) tinned potatoes - 55p x 3 = £1.65
A handful of fresh parsley x 60p per packet

= AT LEAST £2.25

I couldn't find how she had costed it - if anyone has a version that estimates a £ per portion please share!

Each tin of potatoes had a drain weight of 180g so I had to decant three tins to reach the 500g goal - Obvs the weights are approximated on the tin but it left me with 132g of potatoes leftover. What do I do with these potatoes Jack - do I bung them in a curry!?!? Why 500g in the recipe?
View attachment 1727291
View attachment 1727305

Spoiler: Method

I was then directed to place the potatoes in a saucepan with water - cold or hot water was not specified so I went with cold. As I was told to use the drained weight (WARNED) I sieved the potatoes and then added them to the pan and put cold water on top.

“Bring to the boil reduce to a simmer and cook to warm through - around five minutes.”
Let’s time this tit, no specification what heat to have on the hob so I went with a happy ‘medium’. 6.27 minutes we reached boiling point so I chose to let them simmer for another 5. Voice Note “These potatoes are going to be hotter than the sun.”

I grabbed a handful of should I say fistful (bit gauche) of parsley and chopped finely. A handful is a lot of parsley.

View attachment 1727318

Once a total of 11 minutes, 27 seconds was up I forensically followed orders and took the potatoes out of the pan with a SLOTTED spoon and mashed them QUICKLY. Here is a video of me mashing quickly rather than my normal ambling, laissez-farre slow mashing style so you can see I fully committed. Steamy!

View attachment 1727299
Stir in parsley and egg. Voice note - “smells so bleeping weird.”

Next add the flour and ‘work’ it into the mash potato. I didn’t sift it because she didn’t direct me to. If she thinks for one second I am using my hands (sorry Caroline) to do this, she is having a laugh, instead I used my cheapest whisk I was okay sacrificing,

It all got so stuck in my whisk. Voice note - “it smells so weird, it’s really hot and I am frightened.”
View attachment 1727321

Spoiler: The Sloppening - WARNED

Warning ahead - this is so gross and sloppy - skip if you are of a delicate disposition

Spoiler: Hot Slop!

After some spoon in whisk action my slop was free. Now comes the part where we are told to ‘tip the mixture our onto a floured surface and USE MY HANDS to work it for a few minutes to create a soft dough." As I had already committed to following the instructions, I could no longer avoid getting my hands in there. It was so WET! I did wear the gloves that came with my purple conditioner and reader, they may have saved my life. I could still feel the hot, slimy lumps oozing around my fingers but as you can see I could still be stuck to my kitchen surface had I not worn the gloves, perhaps that's where those kitchen counter thot shots came from - her Mediterranean arse was stuck to the counter top with wayward gnocchi slop .
View attachment 1727322
Hot Slop Video - work that slop!
View attachment 1727320
It was soft alright but a dough it was not. I think the last time I made this I added more flour to try and get it to a firmer consistency - this time I stuck to the recipe as written. It was physically impossible for me to roll this slop into a long thin sausage - so I used a knife to arrange about a quarter of the slop into 2.5cm long pieces - I even attempted a ridge effect with a fork.
View attachment 1727323

Spoiler: The finished 'product'

The gnocchi did indeed rise in the boiling water to signal they were ‘done’. I was also done. Here is the finished product (the eagle eyed of you may spot that I have added a shop bought gnocchi in the meal - see if you can guess which it is!)
View attachment 1727324
I fed a bit to OH and the texture made him do a little ‘gip’ which was a review in itself. Once he recovered he declared it “dire - it feels slimy and tastes of nothing, but also too much parsley all at the same time.” I tried a bit too - and the closest comparison is what I imagine eating of lumps of old wallpaper paste would feel like, if you mixed it with a duck tonne of parsley. It is inedible, makes a huge mess, takes far longer than just boiling some gnocchi and potentially costs more to produce, whilst also wasting food because of the weird measurements of ingredients - why not base it on the drained weight of one tin of potatoes - why 500g? Why am I even asking this?

Spoiler: Scoring

View attachment 1727326
Ingredients -3 - easy to get but the required amount of potatoes mean you have to buy more than you need. The parsley is pointless and expensive.
Recipe - doesn’t work - 0
Visual Appeal - gip 0
Texture - double gip - 0
Taste - parsley gip - 0

Overall rating - 0.5 somewhere between Dire and Dog tit. BINNED!

Now duck off! x

Crying. Grunking and crying. Is there a legs crossed emoji?!

Now, all of you duck off. This shouldn't be allowed on t'interweb.

 

[ChocolateMuffin]

Is there a list of what's been done so far?

I'm not volunteering btw. Just so we're clear.

 

[I'm not actually here]

Why does she always recommend tinned potatoes? I must admit I didn't even know there was such a thing until the slopalong began. I can see that they would be good for quick prep or for those who don't have the physical skills to peel a fresh one. They'd also be easier to store than fresh ones, although fresh ones will keep for some time in a cool dark place.

Are tinned potatoes that much more grifty thrifty than fresh ones?

Of course not!