Look I’m not obsessed with portion sizes, but she’s really getting 30 cornflake cakes out of 50g of cornflakes? I know they are light but really?
Slopalong: Cooking with Jack Monroe
- Start date
-
- Tags
- Jack Monroe Threads Wiki
- Status
New to Tattle Life? Click "Order Thread by Most Liked Posts" button below to get an idea of what the site is about:
Tragedy mash? 
Also battered anchovies everyone.
Battered. Anchovies.
Also battered anchovies everyone.
Battered. Anchovies.
If this gets to a second thread this would be a great title.
Pretty sure it’ll be the reaction of my OH when I present him with ‘self love stew’.
We still have 50 Frau to cook their slop. I’m sure it’ll get to a second thread!
Where do the inexplicable carrots come from?
Today I cooked Bread, Bean & Fennel Stew
A couple of points before I start:
1. Even though it would have been more authentic not to, I did wash my hands before and throughout making this, as needed.
2. I don't have any rolls of wallpaper lying around so I used wrapping paper instead. Hopefully whoever ends up getting a present wrapped in this doesn't mind a few stray crumbs.
I actually thought this looked quite nice from the recipe photo but compare what you can see in the bowl with the ingredient list:
The version in the photo has at least two different types of beans, I see some sweetcorn, cheese, and it looks a bit oily. None of that is in the ingredient list. She says in the intro that you can use any type of beans and she sometimes uses kidney beans but baked beans are best. I think it's misleading to show a photo that is not actually of the recipe as written. I followed the written instructions as closely as I could.
Step 1. Rinse the baked beans and put in a pan. This is a tomato based dish so I don't really see why you'd bother rinsing the beans. I think this was written with a tin of kidney beans in mind. But, it says rinse, and so I rinsed.
Step 2. Bring the beans, tin of tomatoes, herbs and stock to the boil and simmer for 20 minutes until the beans start to soften. Again, this was clearly not written with baked beans in mind. They were very soft straight out of the tin. Also, in the intro she says to use either fennel or mixed herbs plus some sugar, but there is no sugar listed in the ingredients so I just use mixed herbs.
Step 3. Rip the bread into chunks, mix through and heat for another few minutes.
Step 4. Enjoy! At this point I realise that the lemon juice was never used. Good job I didn't buy it just for this.
You can see this looks nothing like the recipe photo. This supposedly serves four so one portion is essentially half a slice of bread, a quarter of a tin of tomatoes and a quarter of a tin of baked beans. Yum. So filling.
Rating scale from the Wiki:
1- Dire
2 - Terrible
3 - Middle class
4 - Inhale greedily
5 - Ovary groaner
Taste: 3. It just tasted of tinned tomatoes.
Texture: 1. Snotty. Imagine eating a jar of baked-bean-on-toast flavour baby food. I think I could only eat it because I used crusts of bread so they held together ok. Slices would have just turned to slime. I had to eat a bag of crisps straight after this to apologise to my mouth and give it some flavour and crunch.
Look: 2. a dry yet gloopy looking mush dotted with baked bean skins.
Process: 3. It's a very easy recipe: rinse beans, simmer with other ingredients, add bread, eat. But this scores only a 3 because of all the inconsistencies - different ingredients mentioned in the intro, ingredient list and instructions.
Nutrition: 2. It's got carbs, fibre, protein and veg but the calories are woefully inadequate:
1 tin beans: 364
1 tin tomatoes: 88
2 slices of bread: 188
stock: 16
total = 656 so one portion is only 164 calories which is ridiculously pathetic. You'd have to eat over 12 portions of this to hit your daily calories. (ETA this is actually an overestimate because the bean sauce was all washed away)
cost: 5 I already had everything I needed so I looked up prices online. I didn't have the cheapest version of all the ingredients e.g. Kingsmill rather than value bread so you could make this cheaper if you wanted. I gave this a high score because the ingredients you need to buy in bulk (bread, stock cubes, mixed herbs) are not unusual and would easily by used up for other meals before they go off. One thing I noticed was that prices for smart price beans and chopped tomatoes seem not to have really changed since she published this at the beginning of 2018:
1 tin beans: 27p (27p for tin)
1 tin tomatoes: 32p (32p for tin)
2 slices of bread: 12.5p (£1.25 for loaf)
stock: 10.4p (£2.50 for box of 24 cubes)
1/4 teaspoon mixed herbs: 2p (£1.05 for 30g tub)
Lemon juice: not used
total cost: £5.39
cost for just amount used: 84p
cost per portion: 21p
Overall Rating: 2. Edible but boring and gloopy and not very nutritious. The worst thing about this recipe is that I think the original version that the photo is of was probably quite nice. It looks like maybe you would have fried up some onions and added different veg and multiple types of beans. But probably that worked out too expensive and so she just crossed out half the ingredients, didn't test it and called it done.
A couple of points before I start:
1. Even though it would have been more authentic not to, I did wash my hands before and throughout making this, as needed.
2. I don't have any rolls of wallpaper lying around so I used wrapping paper instead. Hopefully whoever ends up getting a present wrapped in this doesn't mind a few stray crumbs.
I actually thought this looked quite nice from the recipe photo but compare what you can see in the bowl with the ingredient list:
The version in the photo has at least two different types of beans, I see some sweetcorn, cheese, and it looks a bit oily. None of that is in the ingredient list. She says in the intro that you can use any type of beans and she sometimes uses kidney beans but baked beans are best. I think it's misleading to show a photo that is not actually of the recipe as written. I followed the written instructions as closely as I could.
Step 1. Rinse the baked beans and put in a pan. This is a tomato based dish so I don't really see why you'd bother rinsing the beans. I think this was written with a tin of kidney beans in mind. But, it says rinse, and so I rinsed.
Step 2. Bring the beans, tin of tomatoes, herbs and stock to the boil and simmer for 20 minutes until the beans start to soften. Again, this was clearly not written with baked beans in mind. They were very soft straight out of the tin. Also, in the intro she says to use either fennel or mixed herbs plus some sugar, but there is no sugar listed in the ingredients so I just use mixed herbs.
Step 3. Rip the bread into chunks, mix through and heat for another few minutes.
Step 4. Enjoy! At this point I realise that the lemon juice was never used. Good job I didn't buy it just for this.
You can see this looks nothing like the recipe photo. This supposedly serves four so one portion is essentially half a slice of bread, a quarter of a tin of tomatoes and a quarter of a tin of baked beans. Yum. So filling.
Rating scale from the Wiki:
1- Dire
2 - Terrible
3 - Middle class
4 - Inhale greedily
5 - Ovary groaner
Taste: 3. It just tasted of tinned tomatoes.
Texture: 1. Snotty. Imagine eating a jar of baked-bean-on-toast flavour baby food. I think I could only eat it because I used crusts of bread so they held together ok. Slices would have just turned to slime. I had to eat a bag of crisps straight after this to apologise to my mouth and give it some flavour and crunch.
Look: 2. a dry yet gloopy looking mush dotted with baked bean skins.
Process: 3. It's a very easy recipe: rinse beans, simmer with other ingredients, add bread, eat. But this scores only a 3 because of all the inconsistencies - different ingredients mentioned in the intro, ingredient list and instructions.
Nutrition: 2. It's got carbs, fibre, protein and veg but the calories are woefully inadequate:
1 tin beans: 364
1 tin tomatoes: 88
2 slices of bread: 188
stock: 16
total = 656 so one portion is only 164 calories which is ridiculously pathetic. You'd have to eat over 12 portions of this to hit your daily calories. (ETA this is actually an overestimate because the bean sauce was all washed away)
cost: 5 I already had everything I needed so I looked up prices online. I didn't have the cheapest version of all the ingredients e.g. Kingsmill rather than value bread so you could make this cheaper if you wanted. I gave this a high score because the ingredients you need to buy in bulk (bread, stock cubes, mixed herbs) are not unusual and would easily by used up for other meals before they go off. One thing I noticed was that prices for smart price beans and chopped tomatoes seem not to have really changed since she published this at the beginning of 2018:
1 tin beans: 27p (27p for tin)
1 tin tomatoes: 32p (32p for tin)
2 slices of bread: 12.5p (£1.25 for loaf)
stock: 10.4p (£2.50 for box of 24 cubes)
1/4 teaspoon mixed herbs: 2p (£1.05 for 30g tub)
Lemon juice: not used
total cost: £5.39
cost for just amount used: 84p
cost per portion: 21p
Overall Rating: 2. Edible but boring and gloopy and not very nutritious. The worst thing about this recipe is that I think the original version that the photo is of was probably quite nice. It looks like maybe you would have fried up some onions and added different veg and multiple types of beans. But probably that worked out too expensive and so she just crossed out half the ingredients, didn't test it and called it done.
Last edited:
Multiple fistfuls
Go well pal x
ETA wait why are all the ingredients different quantities to the book version? This requires closer examination
Slopalong: Cooking with Jack Monroe
Are you going all out and trying the luxury version? Nooo the corned beef version surely? Grated corned beef. @Lucky Escape your user name now doesn't seem so apt? 😂
tattle.life
Is anyone doing Car-brie-nara or
Roman pasta with mandarins and a creamy basil sauce?
I know I said tinned fruit in savoury dishes is my aneurysm but that second one sounds so rank I think i have to give it a go. Don't ask me why - I'm wondering if I need an intervention.
Roman pasta with mandarins and a creamy basil sauce?
I know I said tinned fruit in savoury dishes is my aneurysm but that second one sounds so rank I think i have to give it a go. Don't ask me why - I'm wondering if I need an intervention.
Why wasn’t she cancelled for this, and this alone?
If hard boiled eggs mashed in a cup with butter is a recipe, then this is too.How is that a recipe??
Did I read that correctly? You cook the bacon in lemon juice?Multiple fistfuls
Go well pal x
ETA wait why are all the ingredients different quantities to the book version? This requires closer examination
Slopalong: Cooking with Jack Monroe
Are you going all out and trying the luxury version? Nooo the corned beef version surely? Grated corned beef. @Lucky Escape your user name now doesn't seem so apt? 😂tattle.life
Last edited:
What the duck is wrong with you all? 
@GladysMcHaggis here is both recipes for you my tender one.
Attachments
Oh screw it I’m doing it again. Oh My Dinner, serves 2, 80g pasta. She says “oh I ate it all myself”.
Well of course you did love, because 40g of pasta is not a bloody portion. And this matters because people are trying to cook on a budget with limited money and you are lying to them about what is going to fill them up.
edited to correct it from 70g to 80g. There’s nearly as much bacon as pasta in this sodding recipe.
I see that her other pasta recipes posted after have a reasonable amount of pasta suggested. Maybe she forgot to double that Oh My Dinner one, or she’s massaging the costs.
Well of course you did love, because 40g of pasta is not a bloody portion. And this matters because people are trying to cook on a budget with limited money and you are lying to them about what is going to fill them up.
edited to correct it from 70g to 80g. There’s nearly as much bacon as pasta in this sodding recipe.
I see that her other pasta recipes posted after have a reasonable amount of pasta suggested. Maybe she forgot to double that Oh My Dinner one, or she’s massaging the costs.
Chapeau @OwlChampagne !
The picture in the recipe really did look appealing and completely different, I wonder if it was a pic of a Jamie meal
Excellent reminder (WARNING) to ignore good sense and follow the instructions to the letter.
The picture in the recipe really did look appealing and completely different, I wonder if it was a pic of a Jamie meal
Excellent reminder (WARNING) to ignore good sense and follow the instructions to the letter.
I think she just has no concept of weights. I can't remember which recipe it was but one of the ingredients was something like 2 medium potatoes (40g). In what world does a regular sized potato weigh 20 grams. She's no clue what she's talking about.
Last edited:
Melted Brie and lemon juice? Wouldn't that just curdle?
Point one - Genovese sauce (which has nothing to do with Genoa) is a culinary masterpiece from Naples, takes *7* hours to cook, it's expensive because of all the meat required and also very much required is culinary skill. So you're out, Jack. If you meant pasta with pesto I'll let you off, because all you need is a jar of sauce (won't go on an onther rant on making real pesto this time...).Multiple fistfuls
Go well pal x
ETA wait why are all the ingredients different quantities to the book version? This requires closer examination
Slopalong: Cooking with Jack Monroe
Are you going all out and trying the luxury version? Nooo the corned beef version surely? Grated corned beef. @Lucky Escape your user name now doesn't seem so apt? 😂tattle.life
Also - breaking spaghetti? Really??? What are you, two?
Yeah I think you’re probably right, and I don’t think anything is tested properly. Which pisses me off in an ordinary recipe, there’s a Nigella cake recipe that is just WRONG and that bugs me. But when you‘re target market is allegedly people without much cash, risking their food budget for the week is unforgivable.
Good evening, you nefarious lot!
I made this:
I made this:
All the spoons
- Status