Hey shrimpy. So something I've found For a perfect soft boiled runny yolk chill the eggs boil for exactly 6 mins and then run under cold water 30 second which also makes them easier to peel :) Hope this helps.
Would you consider picking and sending me horse radish? I live in Ireland so it is native but its hard to find, people here seem to do their best to kill it off
I had always thought that if you go into M&S with only 25p an alarm repeating the word "poor" goes off and the staff all point at you and make that noise Donald Sutherland made at the end of Invasion of the Body Snatchers
I bought a £1.50 "nearly" out of date veg box yesterday from Lidl, came with so much stuff, including 2 huge aubergines, potatoes, carrots, pepper, parsley, tomatoes. I Made a Carrot, roasted Tomato and red pepper soup. Absolutely Banging. As a person basically skint, these videos have really given me the confidence to do more work when it comes to cooking and making the best of what you've got. Thanks for inspiring what looks like a huge amount of people!
One of my friends is on a budget and buys from M&S. She waits until the 6pm discounts, runs over. Last time I was with her she got a packet of 6 rashers for 10c. She bought 8 packets and froze them. (Btw I'm Irish and Ireland is more expensive than the UK)
I know one voice is small, but I very much appreciate the generosity of sharing your hard work with us. It’s been a wonderful experience to see another region and to learn about foraging in such a lovely presentation. I hope the negativity doesn’t drag you down, because your content is excellent and very enjoyable. The nitpickers must add up, but the rest of the thousands and thousands of viewers were obviously happy to simply watch.
totally agree! I'm very much one of those thousand - thoroughly enjoy every one of these videos, an instant click when they pop up in my sub feed, but I rarely, if ever, leave a comment it's just such a fascinating, educational and entertaining watch, and I look forward to it every time
I like how Eva is just doing what she feels is important. Barking at rocks, and then apparently burying them in a big pile of wood chips. Maybe the rocks got they got what they deserved?
@@AtomicShrimp One of my cats (who has anxiety and is scared of most things) has figured out that he can just turn away from scary things. I really want to know what he’s thinking when he does that.
@@AtomicShrimp I think understanding animals is much easier for children, because adults have too much practice in reasoning and i dont mean that in a negative way, just as is. a kid loves to jump into a puddle, just because. an adult would think about the danger and their shoes.
Same, i love this series so much because 1- i am about to move out and have to fund my own diet. 2- i lift weights and have to eat 4000-5000 cals daily and have to fund that without going broke. This guy is a life saver
Dear Mr. Mike, This video is over a year old, (from July 2022 and it's November 2023, now) I have no idea if I saw it a year ago. Anyway as I was watching it today, I noticed that you were sort of unhappy about your lovely little soup. I think you would be pleased to know, that your little soup looked excellent to me, because it looked exactly like the soups of my childhood. I didn't have a boiled egg in mine, but everything else looked exactly like I remember from those days, now long past, it's brought tears to my eyes as the memories came back to life. Such simple things forever gone and so precious to the soul. I'm sorry if I'm rambling on about something like this, but actually all I want to do is express my appreciation for all of the effort you go to, to make these videos. Thanks for the unexpected trip down memory lane. Stay safe and healthy and happy, together with your family and little Eva. Kind regards, Sandra.
I'd like to see what you'd do if you only use 100p worth of food for 2 days but you'd be allowed to either buy things or split up things by their unit price. So if you have a 89p bag of flour you could use 10p worth of it and be left with 90p. This would A. be closer to the reality of being on a small budget and B. would allow for a lot more creativity/more satisfying meals potentially.
Interestingly, bread doesn't go stale because it dries out - the starches essentially crystallize inside it making it harder, and heating the bread up breaks down that crystallisation, reverting the bread to a softer texture.
@@radicalcartoons2766 generally with microwaves they work on heating the water particles in the food you're heating first, which is why stuff can be unevenly warmed or come out soggy. There's nothing inherently more unhealthy about microwaving it over baking, it's more like comparing steaming to pan frying. Microwaves will make your food wetter, ovens will dry it out. That being said I prefer reheating in microwaves for baked goods because they tend stay softer and less risk for overcooking by accident.
@@radicalcartoons2766 I would say, since it's only a few seconds, probably not. Though, in my experience, the texture would be better out of the oven. Years ago, I saw an experiment where nearly identical plants were watered with A. Water directly from the tap B. Water boiled on the stove C. Watered boiled in the microwave (Obviously the boiled water was cooled before using it.) I don't remember how long the experiment lasted, several weeks at least. In the end, the plant that received the water boiled on the stove was thriving, nearly twice as tall and full as the one that received tap water. The poor plant that received the microwaved water looked quite sickly; it didn't appear to have grown much and a good number of the leaves had fallen off. Assuming that the results were true and honest, it makes one think twice about cooking vegetables (or anything else) in the microwave. I only use mine for reheating leftovers, softening/melting butter and making popcorn in those prefilled bags. I've never been comfortable with actually cooking anything in it, even before seeing that documentary.
My father who passed away when I was 7 also told me the old tale about witches making boats out of eggshells. So really cool to hear it from a TH-camr I respect and trust. He crushed them in his hand though, which I still often do subconsciously. We always had chickens when I was growing up though, and we used to put eggshells back in their scraps. Later I realised the story was probably to ensure that the chickens remained unaware their eggs are edible.
I’ve seen chickens eat their own eggs, they can do it to get more protein/calcium. They do it in the wild and owned - but if you’re owned chickens do it it can be bc you’re not feeding them right.
This might be a strange takeaway, but I absolutely love how you interact with Eva. I'm not sure if you have children but you give the impression of an excellent paternal figure.
As a Canadian, it's crazy to see so many reduced items at your local grocery store. Here stores would rather throw out everything as waste than let someone buy 'soon to expire' eggs at a $1 discount.
Same here in the US. Some stores in my area have a few produce items and breads that are discounted, but most don't. Hopefully that will change with inflation rising at such an alarming rate.
They don’t do it out of charity. They’re not allowed by law to give it away for free & waste disposal is more expensive than price reductions so that’s how they try to cut costs
Regarding the soup, bread was used as a soup or sauce thickener a few hundred years ago. Boil or soak bread pieces in water for a time, then remove the larger pieces left over. The liquid is then used as the base for the soup or sauce
Old fashion cheese and bread soup is really nice. Just add any cheese to that liquid. If you want to be more 'modern day', putting the bread chunks and water into a food processor would be a little less wasteful
I'm utterly fascinated by how much stuff you were able to get by foraging. Also, thank you for finally letting me learn what an egg with soldiers is. I had read it in a Terry Pratchett novel when I was a kid and until now never remembered that I meant to look it up.
Googling is a great tool, but sometimes I do like to think about something I don't know and wait to organically learn more about it, just for the fun on occasion:)
1:40, just an aside, that olive sourdough from the co-op is lovely. It's still only the second best one though - the one with cheese and jalapeno? Absolutely amazing. I used to work at Co-Op and my main job was the reductions (It was, believe it or not, a full day's job - just reducing!). There may have been occasions where a reduced loaf of either one of those fell into the bottom of my reduction trolley TOTALLY ACCIDENTALLY and somehow got covered up with the spent label print rubbish...
In terms of the lentil issue, I personally don't consider it a fail, or really even an issue. You used only 100p worth of ingredients that were purchasable for 100p. Unless the challenge is meant to test your measuring skills, nothing about the challenge was actually failed. As you mentioned, there was a way to avoid the overspend that you chose to avoid in order to avoid waste. But, as it would have been perfectly legal and thus within the rules to leave those lentils in the store and measure out 25ps worth of lentils, I do not see this as a failure condition. You can say in some hypothetical where you literally only had 100p you wouldn't be able to buy 29ps worth of lentils, but if you were truly and that limited a scenario, it would be 100% justifiable legally, morally and ethically to bin the 29p bag and try again.
@@Rissa_1322 Stealing is wrong. There are alternatives. Should be more better alternatives but still. Plus I mean if you are gonna steal steal something good lol.
I'd be interested as a gardener myself to see something like £2 a week but you can use your vegetable garden. Could demonstrate how much 'money' you can grow.
really like this idea. I have been eating something from the garden every day for months now, even if it is just herbs. I am trying to make it more of a real resource.
I was thinking this as well - making a few notes, getting some ideas. While you'd need to be able to have the space or resources to begin with, and you would be planning and know when certain crops are ready, you could make an argument that it would be pseudo-foraging. You'd know what was there and could plan accordingly, but even a few pots of sprouting seeds and herbs on a windowsill would make all the difference in having a guaranteed item and a bit of flavour.
In theory you could grow every bit of food you eat for a week without difficulty. I live in the countryside and between wild food and what i grow i could quite easily live on nothing but that for a week, add hunting to the mix and you'll have a better diet than 99% of people
I just want to say I love how kind and thoughtful you are in all your videos as well as being hugely knowledgeable and informative. You really are a pleasant drop in a sea of vacuousness
Going through the paces of harvesting, processing, and baking with the wild rye you spotted would be super interesting. I think a lot of viewers would enjoy the content. Your budget challenge vids are amazing and the amount of knowledge you share about foraging/plant identification never ceases to impress me.
My favorite series next to the scambaiting, and I immediately tap it when I see the notification. This one was really tough but I always enjoy the foraging, and the reconstruction of items like the veggie burger this time. And I always respect that you eat most, and usually all of your meal regardless if you really enjoy it or not, so it feels like a real challenge. I know COVID has made urban foraging awkward and possibly unsafe, but I really did enjoy that initial episode. I get it though. Thanks AS
You mentioned Iceland and frozen food at the start which gave me an idea, what about a challenge to take some cheap frozen stuff and make it in to a fancier more palatable meal?
A fantastic tip for when you have a whole loaf of stale bread is to wet it under the tap for a moment then put the whole loaf in the oven for a couple minutes. It steams it back to a soft crisp loaf.
A little tip from somebody who used to work in a supermarket, at least here in the US, generally the best time to get reduced priced items is Tuesday morning. Generally most employees "weekend" is Sunday Monday for grocery workers and Tuesday morning they process all of the damaged/dated products from the weekend. Never fails for me to be the best time to score deals.
I was actually waiting for a “not the cheapest place” for one of these videos but I’m amazed that the bulk carrots at the expensive place are still 5x cheaper than my local store in Canada… and they don’t do discount foods other than maybe a couple of dollars off expensive meat.
Sweden has those discount items that are left out like the bread was individual items soon to go over best before date or on the date. But with vegetables there's almost never anything you can buy under £1 = 12,50 kronor, and nothing can be bought for a single krona. Those lettuce or ruccola bags he passed by would be almost twice as high price even at reduced price here. Fruit and vegetables (except potatoes, onions, white cabbage and carrots) are all very expensive here, even local in-season ones. I never buy onions though I'm self-sufficient in onions, leek and garlic from my garden. Potato I grow enough for about half a year's consumption (and i eat less potato than most swedes). So in about february I have to start buying potatoes. Everything is expensive here and sure the average salaries are high here, but also the lower salaries are not so high, and if you're on pension/disability allowance, or for any other reason live on state handouts, the prices are actually very harsh. Electronics are fairly cheap tho, and dentistry is fairly cheap in comparison with most of the world. Petroleum and diesel prices are very high here and that is probably the reason for the high food prices too. Electricity is some of the cheapest in Europe though, mostly hydropower, nuclear, wind and solar, no fossile fuel like gas or oil used for electricity generation except in emergency situations like if a nuclear plant goes down for repair in the coldest part of winter or something like that, we have ONE oil plant we can fire up for such situations. I almost always buy tomatoes and cucumbers and such at middle easter type stores though they usually have better quality and prices. Like tomatoes (from sweden cost a third of what they cost at the big chains like coop, ICA.
You did well considering today's economical climate. I didn't realize that fat hen was edible and weed it out regularly. Unfortunately electricity is the major factor now and maybe you would consider a non cooking day's meals sometime. Thanks for some great ideas.
To both help with controlling your garden, energy prices and cupboards. Fat Hen seeds are literally Quinoa. When they're ripe, just plonk a gert handful or few in a bag. Give them a good smooshing up/rolling around to break the husk off. Then sit in a gentle breeze and pour them from a bowl to a bowl a few times back and forth. The wind will take your husks, and then your left with just seeds. And cook them anyway you would raw Quinoa. (we have a ton of grains well psuedo grains. Dock seeds quite good this way too. Just always go through them after winnowing for any sneaky tiny bugs or other seeds. But from the garden that should be fairly easy/neglible). If you have a ton of weeds with edible seeds and some patience to mill it too. Mixed wild grain flours can make some incredible baked goods. If you use Fat Hen for ex, you can pop it like popcorn too, just keep the lid off with them vs Corn which wants a lid on.
@@jonahtwhale1779 second this. With some foil covered wings to catch the sun too. These will work in late autumn winter too. Will take a whole day to cook things, but it can be done.
I think the key is to know when to go to the store to get the best pick of the reduced items. For me, my local Co-Op closes at 10pm so any time from 6pm onwards. They do reduced pre-packed sandwiches that usually cost 3 or 4 pounds for like 50 or 60p. The bread is usually not bad condition. The M&S yellow labels differ depending on when you go but I found getting great reduced sushi works well on Sunday mornings for me.
Some of the co-op sandwiches are actually really quite high quality too. it's a love it or hate it thing but I will forever be mad that they stopped doing the Smoked Salmon, Egg, Spinach and dill sandwiches. getting one of those for 80p reduced made me feel like a chad considering buying the ingredients to make your own is like 20+ quid
Also, as someone who's worked in shops/supermarkets for years, feel free to ask when we do the reductions. Not everyone will know a concrete time but sometimes you'll come across an old hand who tells you exactly when the cheapest reductions are.
I’m so glad to see this on my TH-cam page; I’ve been struggling with depression lately and feel so alone. Your videos never fail to make me smile, and I can fall asleep watching something interesting tonight!
I hope your life gets better - it can be very hard sometimes, and I'm glad you have found this channel. It always cheers and interests me as well. Peace x
Greetings from East Texas. That soup made me drool. I thought it looked good, as I like a brothy soup more than thick or creamy. Overall, I thought it was healthy because of the egg and foraged greens, and filling with the lentils and bread. Boiled egg and toasted soldiers the way you prepared it was new to me; I usually prepare an egg over easy and a slice of toast. The patties were a creative meal, right up my alley. I love your sweet Eva and how you share with her. Thanks for an inspiring presentation. Very cool video, much appreciated.
When I was studying diet at university, we had an experiment with eggs. They lasted 1 year after the date had expired. You just have to turn the eggs every 14 days. The egg white becomes thinner but otherwise we noticed no difference in either taste or quality.
Great work once again Mike. Ive been watching an American woman do $1 a day challenges and its like M&S where you can buy just a handful of oatmeal, pearl barley, lentils, rice etc so there is decent variety and enough for 3 meals. Those eggs and the bread was a bargain, Id have bought the same thing but wouldn't know about the bulk lentils so would have just ended up buying a 25p potato. The crow garlic looks like a great lil bonus, I would have tried to spread it on the bread and bake a kinda garlic bread with it.
I've watched several channels doing that and get sad because alot of those stores are regional in the US. Of course we don't have stores like Winco near me
@@jacquelinejamesx5049 Yeah same, Food is very expensive in Australia, I see people getting a 25 pack of tortillas for $1 and here the cheapest is $4 for 10.
@pek5117 wow that's crazy! One thing that I love is about 1 hour away I have a salvage store and I absolutely love it. Many foods are still good past their sell by date if stored properly and it saves so much money
@@jacquelinejamesx5049 nothing costs $1 here anymore. I did manage to do Mike's first challenge but it was like 6 years ago. Just a loaf of bread here is $2.70, can't even buy flour for $1.
The fact that Co-Op are now officially more expensive than somewhere like Sainsbury's is fucking astounding to me. They really are a bunch of robbing bastards these days if they're charging M&S prices.
But m&s prices have come down a lot... still a high end food store like waitrose because they have a great choice of amazing items..ie £20 balsamic vinigar(unbeleivably good but i make it last a year)... but they also have price competitive items... waitrose Essentials range for instance and the late afternoon reductions are genuine...go to the delicatessan counter and they have fresh ham offcuts..they are used to single particularly older people buying very small amounts..
@@jeanniewarken5822 All the more reason that it's ridiculous that Co-op are trying to get off with similar pricing. Traditionally Co-op is not a high end supermarket chain, their stores tend to be local convenience store to service a small neighbourhood. Therefore it would make sense for them to sell basic essentials at affordable prices... However, they're charging almost as much if not more than some of the higher end competitors for worse products with no signs of stopping.
Sharing a little knowledge from one Forager to another. For sauce on bread collect wild Alium, Watermint, wild radish (roots), sedum Album (for a nice paprika taste) and Diplotaxis tenuifolia, blend with little water and salt, makes really fresh paste and counters "dryness" quite well. For Oil/Fat a quick/"dirty" way is to collect a good hand of beechnuts, grind them then use to grease your pan (don't leave parts in also only with low heat, cold pressed beforehand is preferable but if it has to go quickly/without tools...). Also regarding baverages ever heard of "chicory coffee" (using Cichorium intybus preferably)? No caffeine but taste. Good foraging to you.
i remember learning about Yarrow from my grandma. apparently it was common practice to steep it in freshly rendered lard and let is sit until the fat starts solidifying. then you remove the leaves and you've got yourself an antiseptic oinment.
I think one thing that has to be pointed out the reason you buy your food the day before is because that's the only time discounted food is available, just an FYI for the American viewers. If it was £1 spent on the day, you'd most likely just have to starve yourself if you wanted bread till late afternoon.
Another excellent addition to this series! I would like to see an estimate of the time it takes to shop, forage, and cook. It might be good to see the trade-off between spending less money at the cost of spending more time.
I really like these videos! Of course, anyone can survive a day on a £1 budget, you can just drink water and survive, but this is quite a sustainable way to live. In real life tight budget though, you would buy some things like a bag of oatmeal and you can make breakfast porridge for many days. 1 kg of oatmeal might cost you £2, but, with medium size portions of about 60 grams, breakfast will only cost about 12 p per day. In short, this challenge is easier to do if you have a £14 budget for two weeks than a £1 budget for one day!
Why is it that I love watching folks on YT go grocery shopping, but I hate to do it myself?! 😂 Thank you for another great video. Your foraging was fascinating.
never heard of the eggshell boats, but that might be either because it totally went by me or because its not a thing in germany.... but as a child i actually made a habit of placing my eggshells back in the little egg cup upside down over the broken shell pieces (i always peeled instead of "beheading" and peeled into the cup) in a way that made it look like i never ate the egg.
your M&S with the filling station is awesome, I wish supermarkets around here would do this. Also yarrow tea, together with lady's mantel and sage, is great for period pain and cramps in general
You did amazing with only a pound! This exercise points out why oil is so often included in food pantry parcels. Also why being a gardener, or friends with one, can make budget meals better. If you had oil and a tomato you could have made a panzanella salad. The horseradish leaves would have been really good in that I do really enjoy your foraging adventures. Both urban and wild. I've started thinking of ways to perk up work lunches with the condiment packets we have stashed in a drawer.
I think a challenge with 7 Pounds for one week would be very interesting since it’s technically the same amount for every day, but you can buy more various things.
I would love to see both variations that you talked about at the end there, going back to see how much your previous one pound challenge ingredients would cost now, and also to see what you could do again with a pound at cheaper stores like tescos. It'd be a very interesting exercise in seeing how much food prices have gone up lately. Great video as always, your budget challenges and food vids are always the best, super educational and interesting!
I was interested in the linden flowers for infusions. We have a number of mature linden trees in our garden and I want to see what could be done with them. I'd like to see what you can do with one of the Lidl £1.50 random fruit and veg boxes; see how many different meals you can do to use them all up (adding extras where needed).
The £1 challenges are probably my favorite series on this channel, just seeing how creative you can be and how far you can stretch food items. I also love seeing your dog!
My middle son used to ask for brave soldier toast, when he was young. Good call on the egg shell superstition. Witches can't cross running water but can use eggshells as boats is why you smash them. Obvious when you think about it 🤔.
I'm always surprised by the prices at the supermarkets you go to. Generally the prices for fresh produce are about 20% cheaper than I would pay in the middle of America roughly converting the currency. I would have thought given all of the farmland around, prices would be lower here. Also, there's pretty much never anything on discount more than 50%. At that point I'm guessing the store would rather just throw it away.
Yeah same here in Italy, it's really rare to find anything with more than a 50% discount. Which is annoying because sometimes there's some brand stuff that I would buy if it was cheaper than the generic stuff, but it's only marked down 30 or 50% so it costs the same. They're going to toss it anyway if it doesn't sell, why not mark it down 90%?
@@demoniack81 at a guess, I would say it's because they would have too many customers waiting for the discounts. Especially if those discounts became the norm.
Differences on prices on produce in different countries are so wild. I'm an Australian who recently moved to Finland - and for some reason ginger here is usually under 9 euros a kg (14.29 AUD.) In Australia it's more often around $30 a kg, and we grow ginger *in Australia*, whereas the Finns would have to import it from somewhere. Same goes for sweet potatoes - they're a lot cheaper here. Probably something to do with trade tariffs. We can grow the vast majority of crops in Australia because we have almost every biome - berries (other than strawberries) are the one exception, they don't grow terribly well in most of Australia because there usually isn't enough water. But it doesn't make them cheaper!
My daughter has an app on her phone where shops advertise free food. Today she got about 50 bananas, most of which she froze, she got a huge bag of different types of lovely bread and a big bag of croissants and pain au chocolat. All free, rather than thrown away. None will be wasted, she shares with others too
Currently fully clothed in my bed with my heated blanket on full yet still being warmed by the very courteous nature from yourself and the living world 😊
I love seeing your ingenuity in the kitchen and how these challenges let you experiment and flex your foraging and cooking knowledge. Thanks for all the great videos!
You know that old questions about "if you could have a dinner party with anyone who would it be?". Atomic shrimp would be at my table. Such a wide variety of knowledge.
Mike and fellow commentators, I'm still smiling. Eva's inner dialogue..."Here's a great pile to hide this rock in. Darn, it got away!" The soup looked great to me and the crispy bread rounds were very creative. Ironic that the inexpensive burgers you created were better than the pre-made expensive junk from the supermarket, now you know what to do if you want a decent veggie burger (that you can actually season and decently fry up) But for me the revelation was crow garlic which I've never seen before in my life (or even heard of) . I love alliaceous plants of all kinds and these looked yummy. It appears that it grows all over the world. I'll be on the lookout for it here in Oaxaca... Thanks again for fun and frolic in the Lovely English countryside (rapidly becoming cityscape). JIM
This is my favorite series on your channel, the creativity of the meals never ceases to amaze me and it’s a bonus to be able to see the foraging (and Eva of course). I actually love it when you include urban foraging! It gives me ideas on using the seemingly never ending packets of things that restaurants put in my orders. Thanks as always for the content, always happy to see it in my feed! Best wishes from Colorado
Don't know if it irrelevant but I have researched sunflowers a fair bit and if you dry out their leaves and use as a tea it's actually quite beneficial for your lungs, also noted that every part of the sunflower is in fact edible and the stalks can be great for making and alternative flour. Just to add to your future foraging list if you happen by some :)
Truly a most useful videos in these times of inflation. I'm a big fan of your channel, and videos like these do help, especially with meal preparation!
Halfway through the video and I have to say, I love when you forage and find and show more than 1 edible plant. It is very interesting actually seeing what you can get from this that you would actually use. I have seen other foraging videos where they pick 1 plant and use that together with some other ingredients which isnt as entertaining.
I'm always amused by how hard the captions try - in this case, they put up (Music), when you had the shot of your egg pan lid rotating. On another of your videos, when the wind could be heard soughing through tree branches, the caption (Applause) appeared. Good challenge, today. I don't think I've got the bottle to go to M&S to only spend 25p, though! The staff in my local branch are ever so slightly intimidating. I buy clothes there very occasionally, and have, at least on one visit, been followed round by a staff member, as if they thought I was going to 'liberate' something. I generally do my shopping in Co-Op; there are three within walking distance of home, and each stocks different stuff - one has a great cheese selection, another stocks local beers, another has lots of different veg, etc. I went to the nearest (which I can remember going to being pushed in a pushchair, when aged about three, so I have probably been there well over 100,000 times by now) last night, and got some reduced price packs of couscous, at the wallet troubling price of 13p each. Had one with some fried bacon and cockles. Very good indeed. Could you pickle Radish pods? That might be nice. Baguettes are traditionally made without fat, which is why they go dry so quickly.
I once did research and found that eggs have nearly every nutrient you need to survive and the rest can be found in broccoli. I just always remember this. Love your channel, so glad I found you today! I'm in love with your humor! 😂🤣🌼😁👍🌼 God bless 🌷🌻🥀🌿🌱🍜
I really like these episodes. But my favourite episode was the one where urban foraging was allowed. I loved how you made use of all the condiments and sachets. Hope you could do one of those again one day.
I wonder if a teeny tiny bit of those apples mixed with something else would make a acidic relish to go with your burger? I have no idea though. I’m not someone who eat a lot of fruity stuff with savoury (except tomatoes and similar things).
Suggestion: WW2 British rationing limited challenge. A lot of cheap staples you use a lot in these challenges (eggs, onions, rice, bacon, even bread in ‘46) were rationed. I know in the US at least there’s government documents compiling average prices, even for war years, so basing things on period pricing wouldn’t be impossible. Something like 1 pound and no coupons in 1946
I'm in the U.S. Ohio. You can't find anything for a $. Nowadays the pound shop is $1.25. I gave up and now I have my chickens, the neighbor gives me food scraps and he gets eggs. I also use Marguerite Patterns war time cook books. I'm dead glad too find your channel. Thanks and blessings.
Your creativity with minimal ingredients is so encouraging! It adds a bit of positive excitement to cooking during a cost-of-living crisis. Sadly, here in Canada we can only dream of the food prices in the UK, but what can you expect when you live “in the cold middle of nowhere” 😂. Your videos still do provide a lot of inspiration for us!
jus so you know, i picked up the same lentils from my local M+S for a recipe, a bag of 300g came to 1.20, my local one doesnt have one of those pour your own station, but it seems the pour your own in that case was a little cheaper. though with them machines dispensing more than you intended, i sorta get a feeling theyre supposed to do that, as the one time i used one at a local health food place for organic poppy seed after my usual bulk bag was delayed due to postage issues, i tried dispensing 500g (which should have been about 7 pounds) by the end of the absolute landslide of poppyseed that raced out, i got charged 11 pounds, was almost going to walk out the store when i was told you cant take any out of your bag, a little discussion later aparantly you can take some out of your bag, especially when they found out i only had a tenner in my pocket. but doubt that would be a option at M+S
I really love seeing your creativity in coming up with different things to try with the same limited ingredients. Every time I watch you foraging it makes me want to learn.
for stale bread , if you spray some water and put it in the oven for a couple of minutes it will soften a bit more,it will regain some of the softness as well as some crunch to it... in Portugal where I come from,there is this recipe that uses stale bread, it´s called "Açorda", just olive oil, garlic, stale bread, water(to soak the bread) and coriander, with an egg on top, if you add more water you get a soup out of it too, it´s gorgeous, simple but very tasty!
I love this series! You are lucky that supermarkets reduce the prices of foods that are close to their sell by date. Here, in the USA, it is rare to find anything reduced. They'd rather throw it out than let people buy it at a discount. BTW, the bread you bought costs $2.99 minimum here and a dozen organic eggs cost about $6.00.
Now that I think about it, I've never seen you being utterly disgusted by what you've cooked. Has this ever happened while recording a video ? Anyhow, it's always a pleasure watching your videos, such a unique style !
Keeping eggs in the fridge I find they're usually good for several weeks after their best before date! Fill a bowl with water and put an egg in, if it floats, you've got a bad egg, if it doesn't float, they're good to eat! Waste not want not :)
I was just watching all the older food challenges and wondering if there will be a new one. I can't wait to watch! I'm currently isolating due to covid and in need of something to pass the time. Thank goodness for you! 🥰🙏 Your wide range of videos are so entertaining, informative and you make the food look so delicious in these budget videos! Also your voice is so relaxing and enjoyable to listen to! I usually listen to your scam baiting vids when I'm on a walk with my dog. Really gives me a good laugh and makes me feel less anxious being outside :)
![[MV] A leap of faith...ความเชื่อใจครั้งสุดท้าย (From "Petrichor the series")](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/U1piZH2CNXA/mqdefault.jpg)
*Erratum* - I boiled the egg for 5 minutes 45, but when I was opening it, I said 4 minutes 45. Obvious mistake.
Thank you for the clarification Mr. Shrimp.
Cleck might undo it if we ask nicely
Hey shrimpy.
So something I've found
For a perfect soft boiled runny yolk chill the eggs boil for exactly 6 mins and then run under cold water 30 second which also makes them easier to peel :)
Hope this helps.
Would you consider picking and sending me horse radish? I live in Ireland so it is native but its hard to find, people here seem to do their best to kill it off
Unsubbed
I had always thought that if you go into M&S with only 25p an alarm repeating the word "poor" goes off and the staff all point at you and make that noise Donald Sutherland made at the end of Invasion of the Body Snatchers
Can confirm - used to work in there, there was a training video showing us how to screech and point
That scene in Invasion of the Body Snatchers was so scary- I had nightmares for weeks!
@@milquetoasted that’s funny!
😂🤣 that's how it feels, like that will happen!
However, I have seen at my local M&S, an off duty came in at the time her colleague was just lowering the prices!
In a world of hyper-specificity in TH-cam channels, I really appreciate the variety in your content!
I agree ! This guy knows so much i always learn random things...and he really knows how to make things informative and interesting.
@@bobbybobstar1496 don’t think that was the point
@@bobbybobstar1496 no , this remains interesting data as time progresses
@@bobbybobstar1496 well do you want me to actually like it so it goes to 2? If it proves you wrong I will
@@bobbybobstar1496 what's embarrassing is your attitude
I really had my doubts when he excluded cannibalism but he actually managed to do it despite the strict rule. Kudos!
😂😂😂 this made me burst out laughing on the train so many people were looking at me lmao
I bought a £1.50 "nearly" out of date veg box yesterday from Lidl, came with so much stuff, including 2 huge aubergines, potatoes, carrots, pepper, parsley, tomatoes. I Made a Carrot, roasted Tomato and red pepper soup. Absolutely Banging. As a person basically skint, these videos have really given me the confidence to do more work when it comes to cooking and making the best of what you've got. Thanks for inspiring what looks like a huge amount of people!
"I honestly don't know what happens if you try and spend 25p in M&S. Do you get arrested?" Had me in absolute stitches!
I wouldn’t dare walk into M+S with only 25p in my pocket 😂
One of my friends is on a budget and buys from M&S. She waits until the 6pm discounts, runs over. Last time I was with her she got a packet of 6 rashers for 10c. She bought 8 packets and froze them.
(Btw I'm Irish and Ireland is more expensive than the UK)
I know one voice is small, but I very much appreciate the generosity of sharing your hard work with us. It’s been a wonderful experience to see another region and to learn about foraging in such a lovely presentation. I hope the negativity doesn’t drag you down, because your content is excellent and very enjoyable. The nitpickers must add up, but the rest of the thousands and thousands of viewers were obviously happy to simply watch.
Well said kitty 👏🏻👍🏻
Agree I really learn so much from Atomic Shrimp. I really enjoy the videos.
totally agree! I'm very much one of those thousand - thoroughly enjoy every one of these videos, an instant click when they pop up in my sub feed, but I rarely, if ever, leave a comment
it's just such a fascinating, educational and entertaining watch, and I look forward to it every time
Well put, there are over 200 people who agree with your comment, myself included.
What religion is he?
I like how Eva is just doing what she feels is important. Barking at rocks, and then apparently burying them in a big pile of wood chips. Maybe the rocks got they got what they deserved?
I would love to be able to hear her inner monologue. Her plans are beyond my comprehension.
@@AtomicShrimp One of my cats (who has anxiety and is scared of most things) has figured out that he can just turn away from scary things. I really want to know what he’s thinking when he does that.
@@AtomicShrimp she probably says the same about you...😉
@@AtomicShrimp I think understanding animals is much easier for children, because adults have too much practice in reasoning and i dont mean that in a negative way, just as is. a kid loves to jump into a puddle, just because. an adult would think about the danger and their shoes.
I love the capacity for joy that dogs have. “Ooh, a rock!”
"Time once again for a limited budget food challenge"
This sentence is like heaven to my ears, I love this series so much!!!
Same, i love this series so much because 1- i am about to move out and have to fund my own diet. 2- i lift weights and have to eat 4000-5000 cals daily and have to fund that without going broke. This guy is a life saver
Dear Mr. Mike,
This video is over a year old,
(from July 2022 and it's November 2023, now)
I have no idea if I saw it a year ago.
Anyway as I was watching it today, I noticed that you were sort of unhappy about your lovely little soup.
I think you would be pleased to know, that your little soup looked excellent to me, because it looked exactly like the soups of my childhood. I didn't have a boiled egg in mine, but everything else looked exactly like I remember from those days, now long past, it's brought tears to my eyes as the memories came back to life.
Such simple things forever gone and so precious to the soul. I'm sorry if I'm rambling on about something like this, but actually all I want to do is express my appreciation for all of the effort you go to, to make these videos.
Thanks for the unexpected trip down memory lane.
Stay safe and healthy and happy, together with your family and little Eva.
Kind regards, Sandra.
We're meant to be in the middle of a food crisis and he's still banging out £1 videos mad respect.
I have found Tesco hardly have any reduced prices !
@@Liverpoolboy01 They still do, go in evening after rush hour.
@@Liverpoolboy01 also depends where you live
This is nothing compared to what's to come.
@@voetbal12 What will come?
I'd like to see what you'd do if you only use 100p worth of food for 2 days but you'd be allowed to either buy things or split up things by their unit price. So if you have a 89p bag of flour you could use 10p worth of it and be left with 90p. This would A. be closer to the reality of being on a small budget and B. would allow for a lot more creativity/more satisfying meals potentially.
I like the idea of that
good idea
He's not trying to be realistic
Really good idea. More ingredients and possibilities while still having the constraints of a budget
You might enjoy Struggle Meals, then. The cost of each ingredient is calculated, and the price per plate given at the end.
Interestingly, bread doesn't go stale because it dries out - the starches essentially crystallize inside it making it harder, and heating the bread up breaks down that crystallisation, reverting the bread to a softer texture.
I bung slightly stale bread in the microwave to soften it, is it more unhealthy ( compared to wrapping in foil and putting in the oven)?
@@radicalcartoons2766 generally with microwaves they work on heating the water particles in the food you're heating first, which is why stuff can be unevenly warmed or come out soggy. There's nothing inherently more unhealthy about microwaving it over baking, it's more like comparing steaming to pan frying. Microwaves will make your food wetter, ovens will dry it out.
That being said I prefer reheating in microwaves for baked goods because they tend stay softer and less risk for overcooking by accident.
@@radicalcartoons2766 I would say, since it's only a few seconds, probably not. Though, in my experience, the texture would be better out of the oven.
Years ago, I saw an experiment where nearly identical plants were watered with
A. Water directly from the tap
B. Water boiled on the stove
C. Watered boiled in the microwave
(Obviously the boiled water was cooled before using it.)
I don't remember how long the experiment lasted, several weeks at least. In the end, the plant that received the water boiled on the stove was thriving, nearly twice as tall and full as the one that received tap water. The poor plant that received the microwaved water looked quite sickly; it didn't appear to have grown much and a good number of the leaves had fallen off.
Assuming that the results were true and honest, it makes one think twice about cooking vegetables (or anything else) in the microwave. I only use mine for reheating leftovers, softening/melting butter and making popcorn in those prefilled bags. I've never been comfortable with actually cooking anything in it, even before seeing that documentary.
@@radicalcartoons2766 Why would it be more unhealthy?
@@radicalcartoons2766 No. Microwaves only heat up the food, the radiation used by them isn't any more harmful than the heat radiation from the oven.
Sometimes I feel like I’ve spent my day barking at rocks, so I feel you, Eva.
Hey! Get out of my head!! 🤣
My father who passed away when I was 7 also told me the old tale about witches making boats out of eggshells. So really cool to hear it from a TH-camr I respect and trust. He crushed them in his hand though, which I still often do subconsciously. We always had chickens when I was growing up though, and we used to put eggshells back in their scraps. Later I realised the story was probably to ensure that the chickens remained unaware their eggs are edible.
Go ahead and crush your eggshells. Witches are buying yachts these days.
I’ve seen chickens eat their own eggs, they can do it to get more protein/calcium. They do it in the wild and owned - but if you’re owned chickens do it it can be bc you’re not feeding them right.
@@oliviaj9037 our chickens were free range. If they weren’t eating right on top of the scraps, and grain we gave them, it was their fault.
This might be a strange takeaway, but I absolutely love how you interact with Eva. I'm not sure if you have children but you give the impression of an excellent paternal figure.
This is my favorite series in this channel, because it showcases your culinary creativity, and it teaches people lots of things.
As a Canadian, it's crazy to see so many reduced items at your local grocery store. Here stores would rather throw out everything as waste than let someone buy 'soon to expire' eggs at a $1 discount.
Same here in the US. Some stores in my area have a few produce items and breads that are discounted, but most don't. Hopefully that will change with inflation rising at such an alarming rate.
They don’t do it out of charity. They’re not allowed by law to give it away for free & waste disposal is more expensive than price reductions so that’s how they try to cut costs
That's terrible! So much waste when people are struggling.
When maintaining market prices is more important than the survival of the population... Trou d'eau must be poisoned, in the head!
@@Madge104
By law? I would have assumed it was by contract with the suppliers.
Regarding the soup, bread was used as a soup or sauce thickener a few hundred years ago. Boil or soak bread pieces in water for a time, then remove the larger pieces left over. The liquid is then used as the base for the soup or sauce
Blend bread with olive oil, tomato, peppers and cucumber, get some salt and herbs there and you got a italian classic. Eaten cold.
Old fashion cheese and bread soup is really nice. Just add any cheese to that liquid. If you want to be more 'modern day', putting the bread chunks and water into a food processor would be a little less wasteful
They used to cut off, or grate off, the crust and only eat the crumb. Then, the remains would be used to thicken stocks and soups.
yeah eveyrtime in see him using bread i wonder why he doesn't use it to make the actual soup...
@@devlentbh here is a nice Olde Fashioned Cheshire cheese soup:
th-cam.com/video/-heI0TqcxFo/w-d-xo.html
I'm utterly fascinated by how much stuff you were able to get by foraging. Also, thank you for finally letting me learn what an egg with soldiers is. I had read it in a Terry Pratchett novel when I was a kid and until now never remembered that I meant to look it up.
Googling is a great tool, but sometimes I do like to think about something I don't know and wait to organically learn more about it, just for the fun on occasion:)
1:40, just an aside, that olive sourdough from the co-op is lovely. It's still only the second best one though - the one with cheese and jalapeno? Absolutely amazing.
I used to work at Co-Op and my main job was the reductions (It was, believe it or not, a full day's job - just reducing!). There may have been occasions where a reduced loaf of either one of those fell into the bottom of my reduction trolley TOTALLY ACCIDENTALLY and somehow got covered up with the spent label print rubbish...
In terms of the lentil issue, I personally don't consider it a fail, or really even an issue. You used only 100p worth of ingredients that were purchasable for 100p. Unless the challenge is meant to test your measuring skills, nothing about the challenge was actually failed. As you mentioned, there was a way to avoid the overspend that you chose to avoid in order to avoid waste. But, as it would have been perfectly legal and thus within the rules to leave those lentils in the store and measure out 25ps worth of lentils, I do not see this as a failure condition.
You can say in some hypothetical where you literally only had 100p you wouldn't be able to buy 29ps worth of lentils, but if you were truly and that limited a scenario, it would be 100% justifiable legally, morally and ethically to bin the 29p bag and try again.
Or just scoop out however much you went over from inside the bag and just throw the 4p worth of lentils out
@@Muntan_ surely could have shaken a few back in also
Honestly if it's that much of a crisis scenario I even think it would be justifiable to steal them, lol
@@Rissa_1322 Stealing is wrong. There are alternatives. Should be more better alternatives but still. Plus I mean if you are gonna steal steal something good lol.
@@windows95leon Kantian ethics gone wild.
Re: Barking at rocks.I'd like to think Eva was filming her own video explaining to other dogs how to identify rocks.
Best comment. Thank you
This is so wholesome 🥰
I love that 🤣
Thanks guys 😁
Eva would be on the menu of a dedicated forager...
I'd be interested as a gardener myself to see something like £2 a week but you can use your vegetable garden. Could demonstrate how much 'money' you can grow.
really like this idea. I have been eating something from the garden every day for months now, even if it is just herbs. I am trying to make it more of a real resource.
I was thinking this as well - making a few notes, getting some ideas. While you'd need to be able to have the space or resources to begin with, and you would be planning and know when certain crops are ready, you could make an argument that it would be pseudo-foraging. You'd know what was there and could plan accordingly, but even a few pots of sprouting seeds and herbs on a windowsill would make all the difference in having a guaranteed item and a bit of flavour.
I think he does have one very similar to this but he does some foraging in that too
In theory you could grow every bit of food you eat for a week without difficulty. I live in the countryside and between wild food and what i grow i could quite easily live on nothing but that for a week, add hunting to the mix and you'll have a better diet than 99% of people
@@mrcaboosevg6089 for an entire year? you're joking right, sustaining yourself on just gardening and foraging is a full time job, if not more
I just want to say I love how kind and thoughtful you are in all your videos as well as being hugely knowledgeable and informative. You really are a pleasant drop in a sea of vacuousness
Going through the paces of harvesting, processing, and baking with the wild rye you spotted would be super interesting. I think a lot of viewers would enjoy the content. Your budget challenge vids are amazing and the amount of knowledge you share about foraging/plant identification never ceases to impress me.
My favorite series next to the scambaiting, and I immediately tap it when I see the notification. This one was really tough but I always enjoy the foraging, and the reconstruction of items like the veggie burger this time. And I always respect that you eat most, and usually all of your meal regardless if you really enjoy it or not, so it feels like a real challenge. I know COVID has made urban foraging awkward and possibly unsafe, but I really did enjoy that initial episode. I get it though. Thanks AS
I laughed ridiculously hard at the "FAILED - I dispensed 29p worth of lentils", it's just such a funny sentence
You mentioned Iceland and frozen food at the start which gave me an idea, what about a challenge to take some cheap frozen stuff and make it in to a fancier more palatable meal?
A fantastic tip for when you have a whole loaf of stale bread is to wet it under the tap for a moment then put the whole loaf in the oven for a couple minutes. It steams it back to a soft crisp loaf.
he did that
Isn't there a trick with salad leaves a bag and bread in the fridge also? The tap route sounds way easier though.
A little tip from somebody who used to work in a supermarket, at least here in the US, generally the best time to get reduced priced items is Tuesday morning. Generally most employees "weekend" is Sunday Monday for grocery workers and Tuesday morning they process all of the damaged/dated products from the weekend. Never fails for me to be the best time to score deals.
I was actually waiting for a “not the cheapest place” for one of these videos but I’m amazed that the bulk carrots at the expensive place are still 5x cheaper than my local store in Canada… and they don’t do discount foods other than maybe a couple of dollars off expensive meat.
i feel you. i live in alaska and what he got would probably cost me 5 USD even on sale.
Yes! I am always suprised at the low prices! (From the home of the $11 lettuce - Australia.)
Half a kilo for 25p is insane. Kinda wish he went for the carrots, but the lentils were just as good
Sweden has those discount items that are left out like the bread was individual items soon to go over best before date or on the date. But with vegetables there's almost never anything you can buy under £1 = 12,50 kronor, and nothing can be bought for a single krona. Those lettuce or ruccola bags he passed by would be almost twice as high price even at reduced price here. Fruit and vegetables (except potatoes, onions, white cabbage and carrots) are all very expensive here, even local in-season ones.
I never buy onions though I'm self-sufficient in onions, leek and garlic from my garden. Potato I grow enough for about half a year's consumption (and i eat less potato than most swedes). So in about february I have to start buying potatoes.
Everything is expensive here and sure the average salaries are high here, but also the lower salaries are not so high, and if you're on pension/disability allowance, or for any other reason live on state handouts, the prices are actually very harsh. Electronics are fairly cheap tho, and dentistry is fairly cheap in comparison with most of the world. Petroleum and diesel prices are very high here and that is probably the reason for the high food prices too. Electricity is some of the cheapest in Europe though, mostly hydropower, nuclear, wind and solar, no fossile fuel like gas or oil used for electricity generation except in emergency situations like if a nuclear plant goes down for repair in the coldest part of winter or something like that, we have ONE oil plant we can fire up for such situations.
I almost always buy tomatoes and cucumbers and such at middle easter type stores though they usually have better quality and prices. Like tomatoes (from sweden cost a third of what they cost at the big chains like coop, ICA.
I live in the US and I've never in my life seen discounted produce. It's a bummer tbh
You did well considering today's economical climate. I didn't realize that fat hen was edible and weed it out regularly. Unfortunately electricity is the major factor now and maybe you would consider a non cooking day's meals sometime. Thanks for some great ideas.
In the 1975 heatwave people were frying eggs on the bonnets of their cars, it's possible!
@@radicalcartoons2766 I've cooked many a casserole on the engine of my car before. 😁
Build a solar oven. A black box with a glass top will store the heat from the sun and cook anything in it. Has to be sunny of course.
To both help with controlling your garden, energy prices and cupboards. Fat Hen seeds are literally Quinoa. When they're ripe, just plonk a gert handful or few in a bag. Give them a good smooshing up/rolling around to break the husk off. Then sit in a gentle breeze and pour them from a bowl to a bowl a few times back and forth. The wind will take your husks, and then your left with just seeds. And cook them anyway you would raw Quinoa. (we have a ton of grains well psuedo grains. Dock seeds quite good this way too. Just always go through them after winnowing for any sneaky tiny bugs or other seeds. But from the garden that should be fairly easy/neglible). If you have a ton of weeds with edible seeds and some patience to mill it too. Mixed wild grain flours can make some incredible baked goods. If you use Fat Hen for ex, you can pop it like popcorn too, just keep the lid off with them vs Corn which wants a lid on.
@@jonahtwhale1779 second this. With some foil covered wings to catch the sun too. These will work in late autumn winter too. Will take a whole day to cook things, but it can be done.
I think the key is to know when to go to the store to get the best pick of the reduced items. For me, my local Co-Op closes at 10pm so any time from 6pm onwards. They do reduced pre-packed sandwiches that usually cost 3 or 4 pounds for like 50 or 60p. The bread is usually not bad condition. The M&S yellow labels differ depending on when you go but I found getting great reduced sushi works well on Sunday mornings for me.
Some of the co-op sandwiches are actually really quite high quality too. it's a love it or hate it thing but I will forever be mad that they stopped doing the Smoked Salmon, Egg, Spinach and dill sandwiches. getting one of those for 80p reduced made me feel like a chad considering buying the ingredients to make your own is like 20+ quid
Also, as someone who's worked in shops/supermarkets for years, feel free to ask when we do the reductions. Not everyone will know a concrete time but sometimes you'll come across an old hand who tells you exactly when the cheapest reductions are.
Boots do too...reduced sandwiches, pasta and salads used to charge 10p now charge 50p after 3.30 pm Even prices of reduced to clear food has shot up 😄
I’m so glad to see this on my TH-cam page; I’ve been struggling with depression lately and feel so alone. Your videos never fail to make me smile, and I can fall asleep watching something interesting tonight!
I hope your life gets better - it can be very hard sometimes, and I'm glad you have found this channel. It always cheers and interests me as well. Peace x
Hey! I hope you're feeling better now :) random stranger here thinking and rooting for you!!!
Greetings from East Texas. That soup made me drool. I thought it looked good, as I like a brothy soup more than thick or creamy. Overall, I thought it was healthy because of the egg and foraged greens, and filling with the lentils and bread. Boiled egg and toasted soldiers the way you prepared it was new to me; I usually prepare an egg over easy and a slice of toast. The patties were a creative meal, right up my alley. I love your sweet Eva and how you share with her. Thanks for an inspiring presentation. Very cool video, much appreciated.
Getting to watch Eva get a little treat out of the food you make is always my favorite part of your cooking/food videos
You are such a lovely person. I look forward to your videos every week. And Eva is so dainty and polite when you give her treats 🥺
When I was studying diet at university, we had an experiment with eggs. They lasted 1 year after the date had expired. You just have to turn the eggs every 14 days. The egg white becomes thinner but otherwise we noticed no difference in either taste or quality.
Amazing !
That is surprising to say the least
is that american or metric? (ie in the fridge or on the shelf)
@@kaiseremotion854 In the refrigerator or in a coldroom. What do you mean by american or metric?
@@maidsua4208 american stores have eggs in a freezer thing but iirc other countries just have them at room temp
Great work once again Mike. Ive been watching an American woman do $1 a day challenges and its like M&S where you can buy just a handful of oatmeal, pearl barley, lentils, rice etc so there is decent variety and enough for 3 meals. Those eggs and the bread was a bargain, Id have bought the same thing but wouldn't know about the bulk lentils so would have just ended up buying a 25p potato. The crow garlic looks like a great lil bonus, I would have tried to spread it on the bread and bake a kinda garlic bread with it.
I've watched several channels doing that and get sad because alot of those stores are regional in the US. Of course we don't have stores like Winco near me
@@jacquelinejamesx5049 Yeah same, Food is very expensive in Australia, I see people getting a 25 pack of tortillas for $1 and here the cheapest is $4 for 10.
@pek5117 wow that's crazy! One thing that I love is about 1 hour away I have a salvage store and I absolutely love it. Many foods are still good past their sell by date if stored properly and it saves so much money
@@jacquelinejamesx5049 nothing costs $1 here anymore. I did manage to do Mike's first challenge but it was like 6 years ago. Just a loaf of bread here is $2.70, can't even buy flour for $1.
@pek5117 I feel your pain. I went to food lion and 1 loaf was $4.99!
I just love that Eva runs around and does whatever she wants while you forage. :) So cute!
I'm really impressed by what you managed to do for those meals.
I love your foraging and cooking videos. The only thing better is seeing dear little Eva. Love her ❤
The fact that Co-Op are now officially more expensive than somewhere like Sainsbury's is fucking astounding to me. They really are a bunch of robbing bastards these days if they're charging M&S prices.
They are more like a convenience shop that's why they are expensive
I’ve worked there it’s awful. They don’t spend a shred of the money they make from their ridiculous prices on paying staff.
But m&s prices have come down a lot... still a high end food store like waitrose because they have a great choice of amazing items..ie £20 balsamic vinigar(unbeleivably good but i make it last a year)... but they also have price competitive items... waitrose Essentials range for instance and the late afternoon reductions are genuine...go to the delicatessan counter and they have fresh ham offcuts..they are used to single particularly older people buying very small amounts..
@@jeanniewarken5822 All the more reason that it's ridiculous that Co-op are trying to get off with similar pricing. Traditionally Co-op is not a high end supermarket chain, their stores tend to be local convenience store to service a small neighbourhood. Therefore it would make sense for them to sell basic essentials at affordable prices... However, they're charging almost as much if not more than some of the higher end competitors for worse products with no signs of stopping.
I take it you or your nearest and dearest will not be hiring them to put you underground or cremate you?.
Sharing a little knowledge from one Forager to another.
For sauce on bread collect wild Alium, Watermint, wild radish (roots), sedum Album (for a nice paprika taste) and Diplotaxis tenuifolia, blend with little water and salt, makes really fresh paste and counters "dryness" quite well.
For Oil/Fat a quick/"dirty" way is to collect a good hand of beechnuts, grind them then use to grease your pan (don't leave parts in also only with low heat, cold pressed beforehand is preferable but if it has to go quickly/without tools...).
Also regarding baverages ever heard of "chicory coffee" (using Cichorium intybus preferably)?
No caffeine but taste.
Good foraging to you.
i remember learning about Yarrow from my grandma.
apparently it was common practice to steep it in freshly rendered lard and let is sit until the fat starts solidifying. then you remove the leaves and you've got yourself an antiseptic oinment.
just be careful not to confuse yarrow with hemlock
I think one thing that has to be pointed out the reason you buy your food the day before is because that's the only time discounted food is available, just an FYI for the American viewers. If it was £1 spent on the day, you'd most likely just have to starve yourself if you wanted bread till late afternoon.
Old items usually go on sale in the mornings here.
"i said i was gonna make it not weird, and i've made it weird" perfectly sums most of your channel up.
great video as always - loved it
Another excellent addition to this series! I would like to see an estimate of the time it takes to shop, forage, and cook. It might be good to see the trade-off between spending less money at the cost of spending more time.
That would be interesting, but you could argue he needed to walk the dog anyway so may as well forage on walks!
I have more time than money
I really like these videos!
Of course, anyone can survive a day on a £1 budget, you can just drink water and survive, but this is quite a sustainable way to live.
In real life tight budget though, you would buy some things like a bag of oatmeal and you can make breakfast porridge for many days.
1 kg of oatmeal might cost you £2, but, with medium size portions of about 60 grams, breakfast will only cost about 12 p per day.
In short, this challenge is easier to do if you have a £14 budget for two weeks than a £1 budget for one day!
Why is it that I love watching folks on YT go grocery shopping, but I hate to do it myself?! 😂 Thank you for another great video. Your foraging was fascinating.
never heard of the eggshell boats, but that might be either because it totally went by me or because its not a thing in germany....
but as a child i actually made a habit of placing my eggshells back in the little egg cup upside down over the broken shell pieces (i always peeled instead of "beheading" and peeled into the cup) in a way that made it look like i never ate the egg.
I did too, so did my siblings... probably every kid in Europe did that
your M&S with the filling station is awesome, I wish supermarkets around here would do this.
Also yarrow tea, together with lady's mantel and sage, is great for period pain and cramps in general
You did amazing with only a pound! This exercise points out why oil is so often included in food pantry parcels. Also why being a gardener, or friends with one, can make budget meals better. If you had oil and a tomato you could have made a panzanella salad. The horseradish leaves would have been really good in that I do really enjoy your foraging adventures. Both urban and wild. I've started thinking of ways to perk up work lunches with the condiment packets we have stashed in a drawer.
Ah, M&S: where even the in-store music is too expensive for a limited budget food challenge!
I think a challenge with 7 Pounds for one week would be very interesting since it’s technically the same amount for every day, but you can buy more various things.
I would love to see both variations that you talked about at the end there, going back to see how much your previous one pound challenge ingredients would cost now, and also to see what you could do again with a pound at cheaper stores like tescos. It'd be a very interesting exercise in seeing how much food prices have gone up lately.
Great video as always, your budget challenges and food vids are always the best, super educational and interesting!
*Please do another one, this is easily my favorite style of content on this channel.*
Always a treat to wake up to a new limited budget challenge
I was interested in the linden flowers for infusions. We have a number of mature linden trees in our garden and I want to see what could be done with them. I'd like to see what you can do with one of the Lidl £1.50 random fruit and veg boxes; see how many different meals you can do to use them all up (adding extras where needed).
The £1 challenges are probably my favorite series on this channel, just seeing how creative you can be and how far you can stretch food items. I also love seeing your dog!
I absolutely love the budget videos. Your creativity and ingenuity is unmatched
My middle son used to ask for brave soldier toast, when he was young. Good call on the egg shell superstition. Witches can't cross running water but can use eggshells as boats is why you smash them. Obvious when you think about it 🤔.
My son asked me when I gave him beans on toast, they're not HUMAN beans are they🤣
I'm always surprised by the prices at the supermarkets you go to. Generally the prices for fresh produce are about 20% cheaper than I would pay in the middle of America roughly converting the currency. I would have thought given all of the farmland around, prices would be lower here. Also, there's pretty much never anything on discount more than 50%. At that point I'm guessing the store would rather just throw it away.
Yeah same here in Italy, it's really rare to find anything with more than a 50% discount. Which is annoying because sometimes there's some brand stuff that I would buy if it was cheaper than the generic stuff, but it's only marked down 30 or 50% so it costs the same.
They're going to toss it anyway if it doesn't sell, why not mark it down 90%?
@@demoniack81 at a guess, I would say it's because they would have too many customers waiting for the discounts. Especially if those discounts became the norm.
All that farmland is used for corn to feed cattle, and for high fructose corn syrup
Differences on prices on produce in different countries are so wild. I'm an Australian who recently moved to Finland - and for some reason ginger here is usually under 9 euros a kg (14.29 AUD.) In Australia it's more often around $30 a kg, and we grow ginger *in Australia*, whereas the Finns would have to import it from somewhere. Same goes for sweet potatoes - they're a lot cheaper here. Probably something to do with trade tariffs. We can grow the vast majority of crops in Australia because we have almost every biome - berries (other than strawberries) are the one exception, they don't grow terribly well in most of Australia because there usually isn't enough water. But it doesn't make them cheaper!
My daughter has an app on her phone where shops advertise free food. Today she got about 50 bananas, most of which she froze, she got a huge bag of different types of lovely bread and a big bag of croissants and pain au chocolat. All free, rather than thrown away. None will be wasted, she shares with others too
Currently fully clothed in my bed with my heated blanket on full yet still being warmed by the very courteous nature from yourself and the living world 😊
I really liked how you spun your pot lid. That made me smile.
I adore the lessons in foraging. It's very interesting. And Eva is just super!
Stail bread can be sprayed with water and brushed with butter when it is sliced and then reheated in an airfryer
Watching your video's makes me feel closer to my grandparents. Sometimes I wish they had stayed in Britain so I could try this sort of thing myself.
I love seeing your ingenuity in the kitchen and how these challenges let you experiment and flex your foraging and cooking knowledge. Thanks for all the great videos!
You know that old questions about "if you could have a dinner party with anyone who would it be?".
Atomic shrimp would be at my table. Such a wide variety of knowledge.
I hope this series never ends!
Mike and fellow commentators, I'm still smiling. Eva's inner dialogue..."Here's a great pile to hide this rock in. Darn, it got away!"
The soup looked great to me and the crispy bread rounds were very creative. Ironic that the inexpensive burgers you created were better than the pre-made expensive junk from the supermarket, now you know what to do if you want a decent veggie burger (that you can actually season and decently fry up)
But for me the revelation was crow garlic which I've never seen before in my life (or even heard of) . I love alliaceous plants of all kinds and these looked yummy. It appears that it grows all over the world. I'll be on the lookout for it here in Oaxaca...
Thanks again for fun and frolic in the Lovely English countryside (rapidly becoming cityscape). JIM
This is my favorite series on your channel, the creativity of the meals never ceases to amaze me and it’s a bonus to be able to see the foraging (and Eva of course). I actually love it when you include urban foraging! It gives me ideas on using the seemingly never ending packets of things that restaurants put in my orders. Thanks as always for the content, always happy to see it in my feed! Best wishes from Colorado
Don't know if it irrelevant but I have researched sunflowers a fair bit and if you dry out their leaves and use as a tea it's actually quite beneficial for your lungs, also noted that every part of the sunflower is in fact edible and the stalks can be great for making and alternative flour. Just to add to your future foraging list if you happen by some :)
Truly a most useful videos in these times of inflation. I'm a big fan of your channel, and videos like these do help, especially with meal preparation!
Halfway through the video and I have to say, I love when you forage and find and show more than 1 edible plant. It is very interesting actually seeing what you can get from this that you would actually use. I have seen other foraging videos where they pick 1 plant and use that together with some other ingredients which isnt as entertaining.
I'm always amused by how hard the captions try - in this case, they put up (Music), when you had the shot of your egg pan lid rotating. On another of your videos, when the wind could be heard soughing through tree branches, the caption (Applause) appeared.
Good challenge, today. I don't think I've got the bottle to go to M&S to only spend 25p, though! The staff in my local branch are ever so slightly intimidating. I buy clothes there very occasionally, and have, at least on one visit, been followed round by a staff member, as if they thought I was going to 'liberate' something.
I generally do my shopping in Co-Op; there are three within walking distance of home, and each stocks different stuff - one has a great cheese selection, another stocks local beers, another has lots of different veg, etc. I went to the nearest (which I can remember going to being pushed in a pushchair, when aged about three, so I have probably been there well over 100,000 times by now) last night, and got some reduced price packs of couscous, at the wallet troubling price of 13p each.
Had one with some fried bacon and cockles. Very good indeed.
Could you pickle Radish pods? That might be nice.
Baguettes are traditionally made without fat, which is why they go dry so quickly.
I once did research and found that eggs have nearly every nutrient you need to survive and the rest can be found in broccoli. I just always remember this. Love your channel, so glad I found you today! I'm in love with your humor!
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God bless 🌷🌻🥀🌿🌱🍜
Your channel is the only channel I watch from start to finish, always. It's the closest thing to a show I can find and I truly enjoy it.
I really like these episodes. But my favourite episode was the one where urban foraging was allowed. I loved how you made use of all the condiments and sachets. Hope you could do one of those again one day.
I wonder if a teeny tiny bit of those apples mixed with something else would make a acidic relish to go with your burger? I have no idea though. I’m not someone who eat a lot of fruity stuff with savoury (except tomatoes and similar things).
Some of the apple with nettle could be delicious
apple horseradish is quite famous where i live.
TRY IT. Might be a surprise. And why not
apple, cherry, crow garlic
Suggestion: WW2 British rationing limited challenge. A lot of cheap staples you use a lot in these challenges (eggs, onions, rice, bacon, even bread in ‘46) were rationed. I know in the US at least there’s government documents compiling average prices, even for war years, so basing things on period pricing wouldn’t be impossible. Something like 1 pound and no coupons in 1946
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I'm in the U.S. Ohio. You can't find anything for a $. Nowadays the pound shop is $1.25. I gave up and now I have my chickens, the neighbor gives me food scraps and he gets eggs. I also use Marguerite Patterns war time cook books. I'm dead glad too find your channel. Thanks and blessings.
Your creativity with minimal ingredients is so encouraging! It adds a bit of positive excitement to cooking during a cost-of-living crisis. Sadly, here in Canada we can only dream of the food prices in the UK, but what can you expect when you live “in the cold middle of nowhere” 😂. Your videos still do provide a lot of inspiration for us!
The scenes with Eva are always my favorite part of the videos, she's so adorable!
jus so you know, i picked up the same lentils from my local M+S for a recipe, a bag of 300g came to 1.20, my local one doesnt have one of those pour your own station, but it seems the pour your own in that case was a little cheaper. though with them machines dispensing more than you intended, i sorta get a feeling theyre supposed to do that, as the one time i used one at a local health food place for organic poppy seed after my usual bulk bag was delayed due to postage issues, i tried dispensing 500g (which should have been about 7 pounds) by the end of the absolute landslide of poppyseed that raced out, i got charged 11 pounds, was almost going to walk out the store when i was told you cant take any out of your bag, a little discussion later aparantly you can take some out of your bag, especially when they found out i only had a tenner in my pocket. but doubt that would be a option at M+S
If you want to cook with curly dock seeds you have to toast them first to make the husks easier to remove
I really love seeing your creativity in coming up with different things to try with the same limited ingredients. Every time I watch you foraging it makes me want to learn.
for stale bread , if you spray some water and put it in the oven for a couple of minutes it will soften a bit more,it will regain some of the softness as well as some crunch to it... in Portugal where I come from,there is this recipe that uses stale bread, it´s called "Açorda", just olive oil, garlic, stale bread, water(to soak the bread) and coriander, with an egg on top, if you add more water you get a soup out of it too, it´s gorgeous, simple but very tasty!
I love this series! You are lucky that supermarkets reduce the prices of foods that are close to their sell by date. Here, in the USA, it is rare to find anything reduced. They'd rather throw it out than let people buy it at a discount. BTW, the bread you bought costs $2.99 minimum here and a dozen organic eggs cost about $6.00.
Now that I think about it, I've never seen you being utterly disgusted by what you've cooked. Has this ever happened while recording a video ?
Anyhow, it's always a pleasure watching your videos, such a unique style !
I really love the work you do with these videos. So much insight into buying, foraging, and cooking that I've never seen before
Keeping eggs in the fridge I find they're usually good for several weeks after their best before date! Fill a bowl with water and put an egg in, if it floats, you've got a bad egg, if it doesn't float, they're good to eat! Waste not want not :)
Your coop must be a lot cheaper than my local coop as the only thing under £1 is sweets/biscuits and a small pack of wafer thin chicken
Well done for cracking the bottom of the egg shell. The witch armada is already too strong.
love these challenge videos, always a pleasant watch.
when I was little I do remember flipping the egg shell and smacking it with a tea spoon to stop the witch, it was something my grandad taught me
I love how much effort is done for a cup of tea cause there just cannot be a day without tea
I was just watching all the older food challenges and wondering if there will be a new one. I can't wait to watch! I'm currently isolating due to covid and in need of something to pass the time. Thank goodness for you! 🥰🙏 Your wide range of videos are so entertaining, informative and you make the food look so delicious in these budget videos! Also your voice is so relaxing and enjoyable to listen to! I usually listen to your scam baiting vids when I'm on a walk with my dog. Really gives me a good laugh and makes me feel less anxious being outside :)