Living on next to nought - is that the key?

Greying_Pilgrim

Good Morning :hello:

brizzle - I am lurrrving your siggie! WHOOP! :j Please stay on the boards - DF or MF, I care not, just stay on the boards - purleeeeeese :D:D

beanielou wrote: »

Great news on your CU total :j :j

Aw, thank you Beanie, supportive as ever Actually, I was working out last night that approximately £206 came from saving bits here and there, the *scrap metal* money and things like that. Not too shabby really, as I only started the account in October

mrsinvisible wrote: »

Lovely neighbour has started to re-fence our boundary, and is going to fence panel the part of mine which he doesn't share, too xxxxx.

WHOOP :j:j Lovely neighbour indeed!

mrsinvisible wrote: »

Got word that my greenhouse is ready to deliver, so I best get the base down this weekend, and contact my 'tame' electrician to be ready to put power into it. OOOO I am sooooo excited! this is going to be my major purchase this year, and is likely to be my 'holiday home' Off to get ready for the day. xx

Ha! home from home more like - a shout will go up - 'where's mrsinvisible?, I can't find her'

To which the reply will become, 'have you tried the greenhouse?'
:rotfl::rotfl: At least we'll know where to find you - and Pippi in hers when we need you both


Gosh, end of the week already.

I'm going to aim for a NSD today - can't think of anything that we need. Dinner is one that is inspired by a new recipe, although I'm not going to be following the recipe slavishly, as I rather think it can be improved...... however, it is one that I've not used as a base before

Right, best get a wiggle on and pack some snap.

Thanks for dropping in, reading and commenting. I continue to appreciate it.

See y'all later.

Greying

maddiemay

You are usually long gone by the time that I get "upandatem", but as for once I am operating in the same hour of the morning, just called in to say I am so pleased that you are back and posting, I love your attitude to life, recipes and the way you manage your funds, yay to the CU funds too:j

Reason for early start dawg (avatar) has to have a quick early visit to vet for a routine jab, so we are then off to a NT or possibly an English Heritage property, have a 2 for 1 to use before end of month on latter,

Have a great day.
MM

little_sweetie

Greying_Pilgrim wrote: »

Oh little_sweetie HOW I wish that you could have been a 'fly on the wall' to the conversation I have just had with a representative of Bee T - you would of wet yourself laughing.

It didn't help that this particular employee clearly is a devotee of Bee T and all that it stands for and had swallowed the company line hook, line and sinker... However, they put on their sincerest voice to explain - very s-l-o-w-l-y, (as I am clearly thick.....) that Bee T would never collect too much money and any money that is collected in error is given back immediately because they are signed up to Ofcom, and they would never hold onto money that is in fact the customers by right......... crikey, if the operative hadn't thought me thick already, I really would have tackled them on your behalf - but I figured the line would have gone dead if I'd of said, ' but little_sweetie off the internet said.....' :rotfl:


Greying

What can I say, Greying ..... Thank goodness you didn't quote me though 'cos they would have thought you completely off your trolley by then :rotfl::rotfl:I am still awaiting my refund and to top it all I had an email on the very last day of March to warn me that I was about to exceed my download limit for the month of 10 (is is meg? or Gig? I never know), and how much had I used? erm 6 :wall: If I don't get a refund from them soon I think I will go down the route of ring & COMPLAIN and see where that gets me. I have been very patient, methinks.

What a great idea of having Back to Back Jack! I am finding her book practical, easy to use and above all CHEAP. Isn't she fab.

If you don't mind me following your example, I think I will keep a note of my own foodbank donations too. I try to donate at least two items each week and I rang the local foodbank to ask what they needed the most. The answer was UHT milk, tinned fruit and toiletries. The latter because they have a lot of homeless people come for help. They give away beans on toast at the breakfast club too but the world and his wife all donate beans, it seems, so they have enough of those. I will begin my total tomorrow when I shop next.

Today, may I add a gratitude of my own?

Thank heavens that GP is back full of sparkling wit and happy posts.... how we have missed you :kisses3:

Greying_Pilgrim

Good Morning :hello:

Well, it's the weekend, and we at Greying Towers are already 'up and at 'em' Chores a go-go

maddiemay - thank you for your extremely kind comment :D Hope dawgy is ok after the vet trip. Did you manage to make it to a NT/EH property?

little_sweetie - Bless you too for your kind comment Gosh, everyone is so kind. This is a lovely place to be :D

Oh, I know what you mean about the Bee T e-mail - I had 3 of those - again, just like you say, on or around the last day of the month - and vaguely hysterical in tone. You won't be surprised to learn that over 48hrs on, my account page has not updated (knew it wouldn't) so I am no further forward in reclaiming the cash that Bee T have taken from my bank account and yet are not entitled to! I may well go down the D/D reclaim route with the bank and cross my fingers that the change to next month's D/D was actually carried out by the employee I spoke to on Tuesday.

Hey! Go You with your foodbank donation Yes, I'm pleased too that I can check online with my local one to see what is their 'most needed at the mo'.


So, yesterday was a NSD, must update siggie. Today won't be, so I'll have to check milk and banana levels

I didn't find any *roadkill* yesterday, so Independently Wealthy Status: currently on hold...... :rotfl:

Dinner turned out well, and Busymumofthreeplusdog should come forward and take a bow, for being the inspiration for this You may recall, that she told us that she had made 'Jack's 9p burgers' and everyone was tucking in swimmingly, until her son realised that, in fact, he was munching veggie grub, and decided that he didn't want to eat them Well, a couple of days later, I was perusing the worldwidewondaweb, and came across a veggie dish, that I thought was made for the lad :D

I found a recipe for Spicy, man-approved black-bean burgers. With a butch name like that, which fella wouldn't want to eat 'em??? :D

Anyway, I have to say, I'm a fan of the name of the dish, and of some of the ingredients, but that recipe doesn't do it for me. No-one, (with the exception of a veggie caterer possibly) needs 30 ounces of black-beans. Unless you grow your own, (which you can, I have) in this country, you will bust the bank buying that amount. And panko breadcrumbs are great, but sadly out of my budget range.

As it was, I got a 500g (500g cooks up to near 1kg) bag of black beans from mrW and cooked them up in the PC, and used 450g for my burgers. With onions, garlic, red pepper, red chill (HG by Unc - still eating 'em ), jumbo oats (toasted and blitzed), sweetcorn and Cajun spice seasoning (from a Dean&DeLuca recipe) I made my burgers. It yielded 4 x 150g 'Bostin Bloke Burgers' and 1 x 120g Elegant 'lass' burger In, quite frankly, HUGE HM burger baps, this was one heck of a feast! It was a pity I had no wholemeal flour, as the white dough always rises super well using the overnight fridge method.

Still, a picture of our 'piggi-ness' - technically, DP's as mine was a smaller offering, and at the rate DP is burning up the calories at present, this carb-fest is not a problem...... is here;



And yes, Dear Reader - even the lettuce is 'Black' - man approved 'stuff' obviously :rotfl: Actually, it is from a pack of 'living salad' I picked up from L*dl - 89p and grown in Lancashire :T:j:T Here's hoping it lasts well - supposed to be 10 days

The gherkins are from H0me BArgins, the tomato from fArmF00ds - 49p for 6, and the avocado is the second one of the pair I got from L*dl for 69p ea. The wedges (manly 'chunks', natch ) are from the 7.5kg bag of 'estima' potatoes from fArmF00ds - they're 'ok' not superdooper brilliant, but then we're coming to the end of the maincrop storage season - and they are still a better price than supermercados are charging.

The 3 remaining 'man' burgers are in the freezer and will be used for DP's snap in the coming months There are 2 HM baps left, and these will be munched for lunch, probably, today.

And yes, Dear Reader, I am still finding sesame seeds everywhere in in kitchen this morning! :rotfl:

Right, well, I'd better shift a tail feather and continue with chores.

Dinner this evening is biriyani and a thin omelette. I've also energy bars and cake to make for snap boxes.

Thank you so very much for popping in, reading and commenting. I continue to appreciate it - a lot

See y'all later.

Greying

Busymumofthreeplusdog

Aww shucks Greying! But I will certainly give those burgers a go! They look fab!

maddiemay

Good morning Greying, your meal looks scrumptious, I so need to find a way to get my digestive system to tolerate beans and pulses so that I can try some of your recipes (they have an unfortunate and very painful effect on me:(:eek::o

Dawg is fine thank you, sulking at present because OH has gone out without her (I keep trying to persuade him to buy one of those kiddie trailers to go behind his cycle so that she can go with him - but it falls on deaf ears:rotfl:, don't suppose I would like to have to pedal an extra 21kgs around either:eek:)

We had a wonderful visit to here:- http://www.britainexpress.com/counties/worcestershire/houses/witley.htm

The weather was warm, not too sunny but can't have everything, not too busy and just a delight really. Got signed up to English Heritage as they did 15 months for the price of 12 and yesterdays visit was included, I persuaded OH to buy the sub as my birthday present in June:j

Hope that you have a good and productive weekend:D
MM

Karmacat

Greying, I love the image of you shaking your tail feathers - can't find a good smiley for it, but I love it all the same

dreaming

Wow, what a plateful - that really does look "bostin".

I only use tinned pulses - as I live on my own it always seems a faff to cook them from dried. Should really get a slow cooker - as I have solar panels it would be "free" electric but can't quite decide.

Anyway, sun is trying to break through here:j so am off to walk around my garden (should take all of 2 minutes) and see what's happening. I can see the raspberry canes have burst into leaf, and the seeds on the window sill are poking through. Just love this time of year. Looking forward to hearing about the biryani - one of my favourite meals.


Have a great day yo'all.

Greying_Pilgrim

Good Morning :hello:

Busymumofthreeplusdog - do you think he'll go for those? Will it be worth getting him to make them with you?

Aw maddiemay - I saw one of those 'kiddie transporters' the other day - lovely bright luminescent pink - your dawgy would look the tops being chauffeured about in that eh?

Witley Court - as soon as I saw the name, I thought fountains! Glad you had a good day

Karma - I actually watched a sparrow doing that exact thing yesterday, he was fluffing and shaking and preening. I don't know if he'd had a shower in a puddle or something

dreaming - I used to think the same thing about dried beans, and even when I grew my own, the fact that they were 'free' rarely made up for the faff and 'steam sauna' effect in your kitchen. But the pressure cooker has changed all that. I don't use it to it's full potential, by any means, but it has transformed my use of pulses, so that is good enough for me :D Coincidently, I was sorting out *stuff* yesterday and going through my seed collection - one day I will garden again! And I came across some left over bean seed (they keep for ages, so well worth holding onto, with all the varieties I've gathered) and there were some black beans - I'd forgotten that they are dwarf beans (although I am sure that Cherokee trail o tears are pretty dark beans too, and they are definitely climbers), so could easily be grown in a small space.

Right, DP is already 'up & at 'em'. We have to go out for a *family* thing at lunchtime, neither of us are looking forward to it. I think he is using 'gotta get on' as an excuse to try to relax :rotfl:Still, we've told ourselves (quite sharply!) that it is not about us, it is someone else's 'day' and it is a couple of hours out of our life. No biggie............

I watched 'Another Year' - the Mike Leigh film last night. Lesley Manville is a very good actress. As is Imelda Staunton actually. I love 'Tom & Gerrie's' house - serious property interior/garden envy :rotfl: Even though it would be way too big - oh, but the kitchen.... big enough to entertain in.... *sigh*

Dinner was 'biriyani'. Although I make mine on a stovetop, so I accept I would be dimissed by proper chefs as making nothing like a biriyani..... :rotfl: So perhaps, rice with biriyani seasoning may be a more accurate description

Picture here;



There was no recipe as such, but just onion, garlic, carrot, sweet potato, yellow pepper, green beans and tomato chopped up and cooked with biriyani spice mix (recipe found on internet) and served with a 1 egg omelette, sprinkled with nigella seeds. Actually, the plate in the pic is DP's and the omelette was 2 very small eggs, so it was a weeny bit thicker than normal

Dinner this evening will be Lentil Bolognese and pasta. I'd better shift a tail-feather and make it before we have to leave.

Thank you so much for popping in, reading and commenting. You know how much I appreciate it

See y'all later.

Greying

brizzledfw

Biriyani looks lush. Very tasty. May be trying that..:)

Have a great day GP...any gardening to be done?