How to Get Through The Tough Times The Old Style Way.

GreyQueen

Morning all, just catching up with the thread since yesterday whilst waiting to call my dentist for the 2nd energency appt in 4 days...grrr!

TVP is "textured vegetable protein" i.e. soya in a granulated form which looks like mince. I was a bit dubious of it tbh as I go into the health food shop once in blue moon, see lots of weird sh*t at what I consider to be extortionate prices and have to be picked off the floor after being revived by smelling salts.....However, they had 2 kinds of TVP at exactly the same price but I chose the one labled as "savoury". Have thrown the label away now so I can't tell you what added extras contributed to savourness. I chucked a random quantity into a bowl and poured over a litre of boiling water into which I'd dissolved 2 veggie oxo cubes. Too much mince and too much liquid. I fried off the onions (h.g. can I have extra brownie points?) then added the gloop (it had stood about 15 minutes), 3 cans tommies, tube puree, about 3 teasp of cinnamon and the same Schwartz chili mix I use with beef mince. No other seasoning other than the cumin someone else suggested here. Cooked it down with the kidney beans and let it simmer a good long time (2 hours) and the liquid reduced it to a rich and glossy mixture which in no way had a different look or mouthfeel to beef mince.

I'll admit uncooked TVP ain't gonna win any beauty contests but then again uncooked beef mince is a bit gross, and the TVP can live in the cupboard until needed.

On the subject of Quorn, that has to be avoided as one of my guests ended up in A & E last time he had it (NOT served at Chez GQ I hasten to add!) and starts gagging whenever he smells it. I know several people who will throw up after a few mouthfuls of the Q-stuff even if they have no idea that they've been served it, which means it was a no-no for this particular meal and makes me suspicious of it as a foodstuff.

Dental Dramatics

Well, it's been a frolicksome 2011 thus far. Got a clean bill of dental health just days before Xmas but Dentist was concerned that the toothgrinding would cause me to wear or possibly crack my teeth (the grinding being caused by nearly 10 months of hell with Idiot Boy upstairs driving me to the edge of a mental and physical breakdown). So I ponied-up £75 for a silicone made-to-measure mouthguard which fits over my lower teeth at night. That got fitted 2nd week in January and teeth looked OK then. Last Friday just before work the three-quarter gold crown on Lower Right 7 (back molar as wisdoms are gone) popped off. It had developed a wear hole on the top and decay had started underneath. Saw my dentist's partner as emergency case Friday afternoon and had a temp filling fitted by he was suspicious that the tooth was cracked. Appt was made to do the propert X rays and repairs for 30/3.

Last night, only an hour before my guests came around, the entire back of the tooth cracked off at gum level and half the temp filling came out. Found the receipt for that crown and I paid £250 for it in Nov 2002 so it was a little older than I remembered but it was doing fine until IB started stressing me into the stratosphere. My dentist's starting tariff for a crown now is £350 and that will only be possible if the darn thing can be saved. Hurts like beggary this morning and I'm trying to drink tea on the opposite side of my mouth...owwww!!!

Anyway, could be worse, at least I haven't had a car to worry about since 1997. I well remember those hours waiting for The Call from the Garage. There was one particularly bad one where my friendly neighbourhood mechanic started it by asking me if I was sitting down (that car ended up at the scrapyard btw).:eek: ((Hugs to all who have poorly cars)). I'm also wondering if we are approaching the point where mass car ownership starts to slip beyond the reach of ordinary people, and what that will mean for us all.

Have a good day, everybody, and special thanks to whoever booted the spherical yellow object back yesterday afternoon; appreciate the favour.

littlecal

Oh GreyQueen,I know how you feel(not that it's much help!) just had dental work done:( only to be told the practice is shutting down-Grrrrr. I'm a real scaredy cat and trust my dentist now I've got to start all over again:(

(((())))

ceridwen

Admitted GreyQueen - that I wouldnt serve quorn to someone without checking out with them first that its okay - as I know some peeps do react to it (think must be to do with it being a sorta "mushroom" - which some peeps are allergic to).

Its part of the questions when someone comes for a meal "Are you vegetarian, vegan, allergic to anything, dislike anything?..." so I know I'm feeding them something that wont disagree with them in any way (visions of a - veggie - sausage standing up on the plate holding knife and fork in little hands and going "Are you looking at me?:mad:" all ready for a disagreement:rotfl:).

Re car ownership - I saw an article the other day that stated 90% of people think twice before driving their car anywhere now - to which I had the joint reaction of "Less cars on the road cant come soon enough" and "Cant say I've noticed any fewer cars on the road round here yet.....:cool:" on the other hand.

I know personally that I'm the sort of person that needs to live in a semi-rural setting - but bought into an urban house years back because it was clear "which way the wind is blowing" and have only EVER looked at jobs that are accessible by public transport or Shanks' Pony (the thought wouldnt cross my mind of getting or keeping personal transport in order to get to work - but then I've only ever been on too low a salary to be able to afford to cover work costs like that......:cool:). Guess its the legacy of being the child of someone who went through the horrors of World War 2 - ie "always..always...always take all possible protective action against any possible future alarums and excursions that might happen to Society"...

Our society has been so structured round Mass Mobility that I took it for granted for many years that the powers-that-be would move towards cheap and frequent public transport everywhere well in time before this moment came and was duly horrified when they started privatising buses and trains back some years back now. My first reaction was "How on earth will we all cope once private cars become a luxury in years to come with you (ie the Government) doing that? How shortsighted....."

Desperate_Housewife_2-2

Sorry to hear about your dental problems Greyqueen, try and get to the dentist before the end of the month as the cost of dentistry is set to go up. I'm going this morning for a check up...hope I dont need anything expensive doing but I can sympathise about the teeth grinding, some mornings I wake up with a headache because of it...

Sun is shining here this morning, off to walk doggy in a mo

Desperate_Housewife_2-2

[QUOTE=shegar;42181966
We havnt got any large chainstores in our local town, we have to travel 24 miles to get to a tesco, asda etc..........and with the price of fuel now you really have to work out if its cheaper to go out so far to shop.........48 mile round trip.....

....[/QUOTE]


just wondering f you would be better off doing an internet shop and getting it delivered? Would it be cheaper?

squeaky

Something of a catch 22 situation with regards to public transport now.

Public transport companies are reluctant to finance an increase in their travelling stock which will run at a loss until such time as enough people give up their cars and use them.

People are reluctant to give up their cars while public transport is limited, crowded on busy routes, and so on.

In urban areas I think taxis will be the winners.

I live in a village not far out of the nearest big town and had a car while I was working. Once I stopped working I realised that apart from (lazy) trips to the village shops I only used the car about once a month to shop in town to source things I couldn't get any other way.

So I did some "sums"...

I've no idea what the figure is now, but back then it was estimated that running a car cost £1500 per year.

Even though I'd reduced my insurance on my "heap" to third party only it was £30 per month... and I thought "Hang on... I'm paying £30 per month for one trip! Not only that but car parking fees in town cost more than the bus fare!". Then on top of that is Road Tax, fuel, MOT, maintainance..."

Binned the car. Caught the bus into town once a month, and then, because lugging a load of shopping home on the bus can be awkward - simply got a taxi home. Annual travel costs - about £120 per year.

Of course, everyone's circumstances and needs are different - but sometimes, if you're prepared to give up "some" of the convenience of having your own car, doing "the sums" can be a real eye opener.

Either way, I think that as time goes by the "convenience factor" is a) going to reduce, and b) become a lot more expensive.

I'll be back in ten years to say "Told you so!"

GreyQueen

Just had a little fight with the pooter; I'd taken it off it's dial-up so I could use my landline to ring the dentist and as I picked the phone up Pooter decided that it wasn't having any and tried dialling back on itself. Yes, I "Do want to work offline" matey.

Can see my own dentist as an emergency case today at 11.30 am when my shift starts at 11 am so just called the superivsor as my team work 8-6 and told her. She's OK with that. I'm intending to make the time up at then end of the shift as I feel bad as had to have an hour out of the middle of my shift last Friday for the first emergency dentist appt. Good job I'm not dental-phobic. Feel the urge to blurt at Dentist; "I don't care what it costs, save my tooth!" However, we may be stretching the boundaries of the possible to save it at all. Fingers crossed!

Someone up here recently mentioned bulgar wheat which is one of the few things I do buy at the health food shop, so I'd like to share a simple and flexible little recipe with it which is a rave hit at buffet-type meals. It's particularly helpful as is cheap, vegetarian, can be prepared ahead and stores nicely for the next few days in the fridge. Like all my favourite recipes it looks cleverer than it is.

Bulgar Wheat Salad.

Ingredients: 6 oz bulgar wheat, 1/4 pint lemon juice (fresh or bottled), tbsp of oil, one red pepper (diced finely) and a second veg or fruit (pomegrantate seeds are good) and 1 tbps of fresh chopped mint leaves if possible (it's nicer with them but perfectly OK without) and salt and black pepper to taste.

Method: Put wheat in bottom of a flat pan and shake to level. Pour over lemon juice. Add boiling water SLOWLY until just covers the wheat. Leave to stand until the water is absorbed. Stir in rest of ingredients and season to taste. Simples! My people love it.

Got all my potatoes planted yesterday (3 x 2.5kg bags of Kestrels) although they didn't all fit on what I intended to be the Potato Patch and I now have a secondary Patch where the peas stood last year. It's all good. Also had a wee bonfire as had had to clip invading brambles from someone else's plot and they were in a snarl and there was no way I was going to bike them down to the tip. I didn't burn anything at all in 2010 but there are some things which warrant it, imo, and brambles qualify.

Ceridwen, I've been thinking Deep Thoughts about cars and public transport for a long time now (need to have something to balance the majority of my thoughts which are decidedly Shallow). I've organised my life so that I'm only 10 minutes' walk from work and everything which I need (as oppose to want) is in easy walking distance. This is made easier by the fact that I'm in an ancient city with a streetplan laid out 900 years before the infernal combustion engine but it is so hard for people who live in rural or semi-rural areas.

About 8 miles beyond Provincial City there's what I shall call The Township. It sort of started life as a housing estate in the middle of the area between the City and the nearest Market Town in what had always been agricultural land. And it grew and grew and is now tha size of a small town but without the infrastructure. Apart from a handful of corner shops, there is nothing up there but thousands of private houses; no schools, no jobs, no GP, no library, no nothing. It is a dormitary town for the City. Trouble is, by moving out to the Township, people condemn themselves to spending their lives in their cars or on the iffy public transport. At 8 miles out, it's too far to be a viable cycle commute unless you're pretty fit and don't mind dicing with death-by-articulated-lorry. There have been complaints that the buses are so unreliable that they can't be counted upon to deliver people to their shop jobs in the city centre and some workers have been delivered ultimatums by their managers to get in on time or they'll be out of work. Beggars belief how said managers think low paid shop floor workers can afford to run a car on minimum wage or not much above it.

The Greens have long been banging on about the need to re-organise the way we live around travelling around a lot less than we do at the moment. I have read that we currently clock up 90% more miles that we did back in 1970. I was alive then although a nipper and didn't feel particularly hard-done by living in a home with only pushbikes for transport as a family and a Honda 90 which Dad could take one of us kids on as pillion. Still have a yen for motorbikes but know of too many crippling injuries to ride one myself...sigh, the deep rumble of a large motorcycle engine still makes me smile fondly.....I wonder if there might be a price fall in rural homes if the costs of the private car continue to spiral and people have to do a cost-benefit analysis of the price of a city home minus the need to run a car at all.

When I see people committing themselves to a commute I always remember the ghastly accident on the way to my mother's workplace where one of the colleagues overtook another and ran into a truck coming the opposite way. The woman responsible died outright, the very young woman who was overtaken was left tetraplegic and the trucker was the only one uninjured in body but left badly traumatised in soul. All because those 2 women had separately decided to live in the slightly smaller town 6 miles out....

Gawd, I'm distracting myself from Dentist so hard that I'm getting morbid. Must be due another cup of tea!

lostinrates

squeaky wrote: »

Either way, I think that as time goes by the "convenience factor" is a) going to reduce, and b) become a lot more expensive.

I'll be back in ten years to say "Told you so!"

I agree, but my goodness, in our rural but near a town location taxis are eyewatering. My neighbours were telling me they used a taxi at 2am from a nearby venue (about four miles away) and it cost £40. £40. Ten pounds a mile. DH wrote off our car a couple of months ago (and is trying to fix it having bought it back) as a very old landrover its a guzzler, but still doesn't come to half the £11-14 pounds he's paid for a taxi to the local train station on Monday mornings when we had no spare car.

Of course, our need is specific, we need a 4x4 to tow and to jobs about the farm, but when we had a smaller car too I used to drive to London, though would much have preferred the train. I had free parking, but even without, parking at a suburban station all day and using an oyster was cheaper. Our nearest station had us paying £124 EACH at peak and taking as long or longer than a car which cost, at that time, about £12-15 in petrol.

Things like holidays and business travel....it takes MUCH longer to go via train, and with changes hauling suitcases, AND the trains don't run early or late enough for many flights/check ins or arrivals! while holidays aren't too common here, business trips aren't infrequent and we resent those that see us spending an extra night apart.

But, we can't go on in this way: drivers. We have to expect to pay more for fuel because it IS a dwindling and damaging resource. Many many trips done via car are not necessary and I agree, there are cost effective alternatives for many. But its not just willingness to take public transport from us, its the next step up too....employers and government need to recognise that many people have to fit more in a working day now, commuting further takes more time and two working people in a household both commuting means there is still the house work, shopping, medical appts and life to fit in pressured days. Many people can't fit in an extra 15-40 mins wait with unforgiving bosses when connections fail or buses are late. Businesses can't stand the pressure of employees not turning up on time either. Something else has to give too!

the_cat

GreyQueen

Good luck at the dentists! I think you mentioned crown was gold? You prob know this already but just in case make sure you take it away with you. Them cashgold type places take old crowns I think so you might just be able to offset some of the cost

Primrose

At a local garden centre recently, they were selling strips of various vegetable seedlings for £2.99 for ten plants (and many strips only had half that amount because several seedlings hadn't germinated). For a packet of seeds for less than that price, you can sometimes get up to 400 seeds, depending on the type of vegetable, so sowing your own can be a huge saving, especially if you use your own home made compost. And if you want to grow chillies, peppers or tomatoes, you can simply save & dry the seeds from shop bought products (unless you want to grow a specific variety), in which case you seeds are effectively free.