The Simple Bare Necessities feat. Gratitude & Recipes

Good Morning :hello:

Gosh, time is whizzing - must be a Bank holiday or sumfink! If you are working all, or any part of this BH, I hope that time is not dragging for you.......

hex - I was in mrA yesterday, and saw their 20p offering. Very similar to mrM with spring greens and turnips (as well as carrots, parsnips and leeks )

My lentil kedgeree concotion was scoffed on Thursday night. I didn't take a pic, as it would never win any glamour awards, but it filled a gap, utilised some of the S6 leeks and some store cupboard ingredients. I did get DH to buy feta for it (not a traditional ingredient!), due to bought eggs at the moment seemingly being cracked - I can no longer rely on buying 6 eggs and having 6 eggs at my disposal to use! I'm currently avoiding buying eggs from mrL, as it ended up that I couldn't use 3 out of the 12 I bought from them the other week - that's too high a waste percentage for our household I'm afraid

I met up with my chum, we had a ball and a laugh and a walk. Perfick.

Tea last night was black olive pizza. I'll not post a pic, as apart from the fact that the wedges didn't burn last night, it looks exactly the same as the black olive pizza we had a couple of weeks ago! :rotfl: I used the mrL 29p King Edwards for wedges, they cooked well - not super crispy, like roasties, but ok.

Hopefully today we will complete a mix of banking, shopping, charitable donating and then taking a sanger for a wander in a local beauty spot That's the vague plan anyway. Although I have not yet detailed it to DH who will probably moan the entire time that he's got chores to attend to at home...... ho hum. There is truth in that statement, but we'll also achieving stuff by getting our toot out of the house and to a chazza, so that they can sell it and raise money and ensuring there is money in our accounts to pay bills and meet our commitments.

And of course, I have not yet looked out of the window in sufficient light to check that it is not pouring with rain.......... :rotfl:

Right, I've no more MS stuff to report, I don't think. So best shift-a-tail-feather and start making sangers.......

Ta for popping in, reading and joining in the right-priced vegetable hunt

Greying X

Good Morning :hello:

Well, start of the working week...... ah yes, Tuesday!

Hope the weather was better for you this long weekend (unless, of course, you were having to/wanting to work). We had the best of the sunshine whilst we ate our pancakes on Easter Sunday. I don't think I'll bother to repeat the recipe which can be found HERE, not as per anyway. I don't think it would harm if you cut the almond meal down and replaced with flour (assuming you're not gluten intolerant - that would obvs be a no-no), as, in economic parlance, the marginal utility of almond was somewhat wasted. I added orange zest and vanilla extract into my batter, and was rather glad that I did.

As the weather declined, we seemed to sleep most of Easter Sunday - which was obviously needed by us all. Tea on Sunday was fush, chups and mushy peas, and apart from inadvertently picking up the fish in batter (yuk! - the grease that came out!), rather than in breadcrumbs, it was just the ticket - low prep, easy eat.

Pants weather here yesterday meant much more sleeping, although I seemed to miss out on this round I did pop up the high street in the afternoon, as I had to get one or two necessary items. I popped into M&$ - by far the busiest place in greying town - I think everyone was yellow sticker shopping. I got some bananas and then noticed that they had reduced their 'bagged' bananas - organic and one pack of non-organic. The non-organic normally retail for £1 a bag (I think) and had been reduced to 35p. I was almost tempted to buy them, but then thought to weigh them. Had they been sold loose, they only would have cost 42p (ish) anyway, and one of the bananas in the bag was bashed and bruised, and would have needed using straight away. I put the bag back for someone else to 'bag a bargain.....' And purchased my bunch of nicely ripe bananas from the 'unbagged' section. It pays to check................... Although I have noticed that in line with mrW, m&$ have started to knock less off some of their YS'd items. A lady in front of me in the queue was buying 2 pork chops that had been reduced from £5-something, to £1.40, which I thought was a good reduction (although the chops were only thin), but I noticed a pizza in the chiller that was £4-80something reduced price - goodness only knows what it was priced to start with.

Tea last night was 'shepherdess pie', made with 2 types of lentils and the topping was 3 veg mash (carrot, parsnip & potato) to make use of the mrAl and mrL bounty. I wouldn't bother with the leeks from mrAl S6, again, this promotion. They didn't last 5 minutes before going yellow and mushy - I have one left to use. The potatoes were excellent (make gorgeous mash) and the carrots were good. I threw the equivalent of one bag of parsnips from mrAl in the compost, they went all sticky, mushy and smelly MrL's tiny tatties were OK, but the mrAL offer of white potatoes was much better. MrL's carrots were OK as were the parsnips. In theory these offers are good, but are dependent on having good storage - how i wish I had a paper sack, so I could have more mrAl tatties! but in practice, I think that the freshness of some of the produce was geared toward one meal, on the 16th, rather than for frugal households to eke out their grocery bill. Still, as I've said, there was a difference between the quality of product between retailers, and I know some branches don't necessarily have the best rotation/presentation of fresh produce. And perhaps I was just unlucky with the parsnips......

Tea tonight will be Afghan Carrot hotpot, a dish that MWC told me about yonks ago. We've not had it in a while, and have a surfeit of carrots....... I bought some yellow split peas from HB (500g 49p) yesterday for it.

I think that is about all MS that I have to report, so I'll vamoose orf.

TTFN, Greying X

Good evening :hello:

joeyjimbles - the courgette dish sounds grand - no wonder it went in a flash! The leeks I had were very fiborous, I made cream of leek soup (but with yoghurt) and it couldn't be described as velvety...... still, my big and small colons will probably thank me.....

I grated some fresh turmeric earlier, and caught some on my finger. I look like I've a 40 fags a day habit. It's most distracting....... :rotfl:

BG was a bit fractious today, so we didn't go out and make the most of the fine weather But then we spent no money either Not claiming a NSD though, as DH bought supplies from mrL, so money has been spent.

The afghan carrot hotpot was really nice. Quite a simple, straight forward dish, and relatively frugal too I served it with basmati rice and broccoli. Picture here;



Today i am grateful for these 3 things;

for health and well-being

for frugal recipes

for the freezer

Ta for popping by, reading and joining in the vegeable discussions. Appreciated.

Greying X

Good Morning :hello:

We've clearly been having way too much fun, as time has just flown.

Spending has been kept in check - just as well, as the credit card bill is in for some necessary items for DH, so we'll be getting the penny jar out and beginning to count!

I did pop into mrT yesterday, as it was a rare day where Mrs Greying had a hold of the car keys! :j I picked up some of their lincolnshire style veggie sausages, as whenever I actually purposely put them on my list, they are OOS! When I was driving home, I was thinking what to do with them, and thought that toad-in-the-hole would be good, but knew I was out of eggs. That's where serendipity stepped in, as I got chatting to a neighbour as I walked down our street, and ended up being gifted several duck eggs (never used duck, nor goose eggs before) - how cool is that? I didn't even mention about tea/sausages nor lack of eggs. So toad-in-the-hole was on.....................



The parsnips were mrL, tatties mrAl as was the leek. Carrots probably a mix from Al & L. YUM!

Tonight should be pizza - probably just cheese, as i don't think we have anything else. wedges will be conjoured up from the wide assortment of tatties at my disposal!

I can't think of anything else MS off the top of my head, so I'll vamoose.

Ta for popping by and talking baked tatties - I do mine in the microwave then oven, but only if I've the oven on for summat else, coz I is tight............;)

Greying X