Living on next to nought - is that the key?

EssexHebridean

Welcome to the gang Enjoying Life More - will check your diary out when I get a minute.

Dreaming - we gave up on the idea that Xmas puddings would get eaten after the big meal years ago - always do something lighter now, this year will be lemon & lime cheesecake topped with home made lemon & lime curd, hopefully!

GP your pizza looks scrummy! Absolutely gorgeous. Mr T's was quieter than we expected yesterday too - the lass who served us said it had been steadily busy all day, but not as mad as she was expecting. Pleasant surprise. Obviously we've got to go back today for the bits we forgot...well, we have when we remember what they were, anyway! :rotfl:

rtandon27

:hello:having a little sit down before attacking our cleaning marathon!

OH & I have decided to have an unconventional holiday season - eating from the freezer/cupboard stores & having a major house upending (tidy-up)!

Seems like all the shoppers must have been in our neck of the woods - traffic in our little village was at a standstill! We unwisely ventured into our local W*itr0se yesterday to pick up some bread & were horrified by the general excesses & bad behaviour of the Saturday morning shoppers! Came out wondering what had happend to the spirit of Christmas? (We shall not be doing that again - breadmaker will be brought out of the cupboard for the next two weeks!)

Today's brunch was comprised of homemade egg m(muffins - far healthier & very filling! OH can do a good meal when he puts his mind to it - lol

Karmacat

Hope your cleaning marathon went well, RT - as for the supermarket, I was lucky with mine, although it was absolutely jammed solid, the atmosphere wasn't frantic or rude, people were smiling and being helpful, quite different from what we've normally been seeing, thank heavens.

Rail tickets are now in my grubby mitt, so thats it. Harry Potter is on in 15 mins, and even tho I have the DVD, I shall watch its nice to do it with others :rotfl:

Greying, hope you're enjoying a lovely meal and a lovely bottle of wine, and that your plan is furthered tremendously by all your planning and plotting over the holibob season.

See you all soon.

:hello:

Greying_Pilgrim

Good Evening :hello:

Hey up rtandon - I'm liking the sound of your brunch - bravo to mr rtandon I hope your tidying session went better than ours. A slight disagreement about hoovering.... yep, you did read that right, led to an argument of epic proportions and I was considering putting the house up for auction, getting a 'divorce' and running away to sea....... all before lunchtime!!! :eek:

I was only thinking the other day that DP had managed to keep on a relatively even keel lately - there has been mucho work 'stuff' to contend with - and we were possibly due a 'blow'. Today seemed like the day..... *sigh*. I did eventually get an apology, as actually, I hadn't (on this occasion) done anything wrong. But it kinda put the mockers on the day

Never mind. The weather amongst other things meant that I've not ventured away from the homestead, so I can legitimately claim a NSD

I don't feel very Christmassy.

Dinner this evening worked quite well - it was 'hot' and yet had the taste and texture of a 'light' salad IYSWIM. I made red lentil polpette - I got my recipe off the internet eons ago, but there is a good recipe in Green Kitchen Stories - they have a blog of the same name - but unfortunately it is not on the net in a recipe form I can find. If you google red lentil Kofte, you will get an idea of how to make them - but as usual, everyone's recipes vary I served them with bulghar wheat, grated raw carrot and spinach that was de-frosted, then lightly cooked with red onion and celery, with a touch of nutmeg added at the end. I then made a creamy lemon dressing to pour over the top - which was warm, as you make it with beans, and they were fresh out of the PC and I used a little hot water to thin the sauce. As you can see from the pic, the sauce is a little 'gloopy', but that is because I made it in the mortar and pestle, as there was too little to make it effectively in the food processor. I honestly can't recall where I picked up the dressing recipe from, which is a very great shame, as it is so much more than the sum of its parts

Photo here;



Sorry about the camera shy grated carrot - but it is under there somewhere! Totally inadvertently, this was just what I needed to eat - nothing fancy, but zingy fresh flavours. It was also a very cheap dish to make Oh, and yes, that is sumac sprinkled on top.

Today I am grateful for these three things;

for the humble lemon - and the transformative properties of it's zest and juice.

for the rare glimpse of a woodpecker in the garden - it reminded me of the wonderful moments we spent watching a woodpecker family from our holiday apartment back in the summer

that I had no pressing engagement to make me venture out in the rain today.

Right I am going for a warm by the stove. Tomorrow is another day - a day which I'm going to be mindful of kissjen and her team And karma - wishing you safe travel to be with your family

Thank you so much for popping by and joining in - I like hearing what you're all getting up to

I greatly appreciate you all.

See y'all later.

Greying

EssexHebridean

With you on the lemon thing...several are currently being transformed into curd, along with some limes, here!

rtandon27

Morning GP!

Your meal looks delicious! How did you cook them? Baked? Pan Fried? Deep Fried? I think we'll give them a go one evening. Last night we had a Mac & Cheeseburger casserole - would have like to do it veggie, in fact it was very packed full of veggie goodness & wholewheat pasta - but OH wanted 'meat' - :rotfl: he got lean ground turkey - and the ultimate compliment was 'if I didn't know what you had used in it, I couldn't tell it wasn't real meat' - what a laugh!:D

Greying_Pilgrim wrote: »

I hope your tidying session went better than ours. A slight disagreement about hooverinquite g.... yep, you did read that right, led to an argument of epic proportions and I was considering putting the house up for auction, getting a 'divorce' and running away to sea....... all before lunchtime!!!

GP, rest assured, you are not the only one with OH challenges!!! I started our holiday season by asking my OH if he was ready for two weeks of driving each other crazy - let's just say the drive home from the train station on Friday evening was frosty! Saturday was focussed on mother-in-law so it was easier for us to get along. Yesterday morning OH asked if we could have at least one day without an argument - so we tried really hard to be nice to each other while putting our frustrations into cleaning & tidying - :rotfl:- so here we are on day 3 ready to continue the deep clean marathon - bathroom shiny, kitchen tidy & blissful silence while we try not to tell each other what to do & decline into the inevitable argument! :rotfl::rotfl::rotfl:

xo
RT

Greying_Pilgrim

Good Morning :hello:

Well, I decided to walk over to mrT's before the weather closed in......... Think I should of set off at the crack of dawn

Still, I'm dry now and have a cup of coffee to my side, so all is well in my orbit

mrT's was busy, but on the whole folks were polite and in good spirits. So for that I am grateful Oh, and I must report that my £9.99 coat stood up to the drenching really well. I was dry wherever was covered by the coat

Think I'll make a start on a curry for boxing day, that way if the weather is better than anticipated, we can go for our walk and know that a meal is already prepared on our return. Dinner this evening is going to be really simple, I am going to make the one Persian soup or 'Ash' that I've not yet made - I mentioned it a little while ago, it has prunes and pearl barley in it - as it will fill us up without excess and it will also make use of the rest of the prunes that I bought for Saturday night's stew :money:

EH - I'm assuming that you are an 'auld hand' at curd making? I was thinking of you when I was watching DDD on f00d n3twork last night. There was a fish dish, wrapped in a banana leaf and the chef put in slices of star fruit for extra flavour/texture. I was thinking how good your curd would be in a pavlova with tropical fruits - lovely and light and zesty Have I got it right, are you making a lemon & lime curd - not lemon curd and lime curd separately? I was pleased to be able to get a couple of dark green limes from mrT, I need them primarily for the zest, so the darker the better, but most of their limes were pale yellow (doubtless great if you are needing the juice - mojito anyone? )

Right, better get on as the coffee has been drained, the feeling has returned to my legs and amongst other things, whisper it; there is hoovering to attend to :rotfl:

Sending all good vibes to kj - hope you and the team are on tip-top form and it all goes well

Ta muchly, for popping by, reading and commenting. I continue to be appreciative

See y'all later.

Greying

Greying_Pilgrim

Ay up rtandon - thank you for making me laugh out loud - so glad it's not just our household But DP has got to handle stress better - it's no good for anyone's health

Yep, the polpette were made, 'open frozen' on a tray and then pan-fried. I've never done deep frying (too scared ), so I find that pan frying is the better than baking, although it does get hard to warm them all the way through without the outside getting too brown. But by freezing first, it allows you swirl them in the pan, to get them cooked on all sides, without them immediately disintergrating - which they are apt to do it you make them 'fresh'. I know that makes it sound a faff, but they really don't take long to freeze at all. I've tried baking - I reckon it may work if you could use spray-oil on them so that the outer remains crispy, but not dried out. But the one time I baked them (well more of a falafel version, but you get my drift) they turned out hard and dry. The other thing to do of course is to make them into patties, rather than trying to emulate 'spheres' - far easier to cook :rotfl:

Oh, and as you cook the lentils - very fine line between just cooked and lentil mush, ask me how I know this?? :rotfl:You will find lots of lentil kofte recipes are served 'raw' - but I like the crunch that cooking gives

Hope that helps

I'm liking the sound of your mac 'n cheese 'extra' - it's something that I should make more often, as you really can go to town with ingredients or keep it simple...... mmmm

Right. Hoovering is calling

Greying

rtandon27

Greying_Pilgrim wrote: »

Right. Hoovering is calling

Good Luck!

(I hear grinchness is in the air!:rotfl::rotfl::rotfl:)

Greying_Pilgrim

Ha ha rtandon - I hear ya. But thankfully, Greying Towers is a 'Grinch-free' zone....... I am 'home alone'

So the hoovering is being undertaken with joyful abandon

The *teamwork* begins after Chrimbo, when DP has a few days off....... :rotfl:

Greying