Living on next to nought - is that the key?

EssexHebridean

Co-Op's Y/S'd bargains are nothing like as good as they used to be, sadly. We used to be able to reliably grab our bread for 10p a loaf when we were in the Hebrides - as thanks to the issues with getting unsold produce back off the Islands again, they adopted a "price to sell" policy across the more remote stores - now there is a maximum mark down policy instead - to 75% if I remember rightly, meaning the days of the real 10p bargains are gone.

No NSD for me today, so you're inching ahead! And I STILL haven't made Jack's burgers - must give them a try - wonder what I can use in place of the carrot though as MrEH will rebel if I serve him anything too carroty. :rotfl: Parsnip, maybe?

starnac

greying I loved the salad from yesterday. The presentation was fab. I struggle with salads as I find them boring. You are showing me that they are not boring though so I thank you for that :kisses3:

Hope today is a good one for you

supersaver1000

EssexHebridean wrote: »

.........Jack's burgers - must give them a try - wonder what I can use in place of the carrot though as MrEH will rebel if I serve him anything too carroty. :rotfl: Parsnip, maybe?

EH I used my stick blender to part blend the mix and once cooked there was no sign of grated carrot although there were big chunks of beans. I'm sure though you could use parsnip or swede?

They really are delicious. I will definitely make again and do want to buy a burger press soon, although they kept their shape (I stored in fridge overnight which is supposed to help).

Bee problem now resolved.......buzzed off. :shhh:

Greying_Pilgrim

Good Evening :hello:

Thanks EH - perhaps I am not missing out as much as I *think* I am - and I must admit, the coop policy had begun to change before it closed down, certainly fewer bargains to be had each day.

I tend to agree with supersaver - the blitzing in the processor tends to make the carrot less noticeable - especially since you grate it first. You can also, gently fry your onion, carrot and garlic first, which will get rid of the water in the carrot and will 'shrink' it - so that when it actually gets into the patty, you'll have a hard time noticing it. Other than that, parsnip would work just as well - or even a bit of sweet potato.

starnac wrote: »

I struggle with salads as I find them boring. You are showing me that they are not boring though so I thank you for that :kisses3:

starnac - lovely, I could have written that!!! I'm also from a culture of manual work, so a *salad* isn't robust enough repast if you see what I mean. But I'm learning about all these different types of salad, and to be fair, the minute you start adding in beans, nuts or other veg, it certainly begins to become more substantial and satisfying. It's all a far cry from the slimy square of processed ham, a leaf of *webb's wonderful* flat-leaf lettuce and a quarter tomato we used to get for Sunday *tea* at me gran's house :rotfl:And yes, with tinned fruit salad and evaporated milk to follow - yeuk!

supersaver - you are going great guns - well done I do like my burger press, I am glad that I got it, and it does make uniform burgers (of you put similar quantities of mix in each time ) I tend to make up a batch of burger mix (Jack's recipe or other) refridgerate that. Then make it into burgers and then freeze the burgers on a tray. When they are frozen, they can be boxed up without sticking to each other, and they really hold their shape well when cooked from frozen. HTH.

Glad the bees have vacated your home - pesky things, bet they didn't offer to pay any rent.......

Cool, calm and confident tomorrow supersaver - we'll be sending good vibes around 10 am ish

Well, today has been a typical Thursday No triumph no tragedy, quite a bit of hypocrisy, but there ya go

I had a NSD :j I got out in the sunshine :j And I enjoyed making dinner this evening to the extent that I was able to whip up a batch of buns too :j <-- actual video footage of DP

So, Scheherazade casserole. I have made it before, and it was on the planner this month in order to use up some of the bulghar wheat that I have in store - and enable me to snag another May *b*. It worked, as there was only just enough in the jar this morning for the recipe. This means that I am down to my last bag of bulghar wheat from AF. This is slightly saddening, as I am just really getting into the use of bulghar wheat. However, AF ain't really on my retail radar these days, and as it was, the bulghar was the one product that consistently arrived damaged (bust bags in the box). So, I'll have to find another source, or perhaps bid farewell to bulghar from our diet........

In addition to the Scheherazade Casserole, I made some carrot, celery, sunflower seed and walnut salad; cut up the last of the little gem lettuce and mixed in some rocket leaves and blanched some sweetcorn and then mixed in a little parsley and chilli flakes. In addition, I wanted to use up the last avocado - which I thought was going soft (turned out to be utterly perfect - better than the one I used with the barley bowl) so I made up a batch of Avocado salad dressing. My inspiration came from Allegra McEvedy and Jaymee O - as their books have near identical recipes, although I followed Allegra's recipe, I have to admit, I used coriander, not mint, so a little of Jaymee snuck in They both said to use yoghurt - guesss who had none :huh: So instead, I held back some of the cannellini beans from the casserole and used them instead. Worked fine, just gives a slightly thicker consistency is all Picture;



If you'd like to make the casserole, the recipe is HERE sorry for the cups measurements - but the recipe is actually American in origin, from Molly Katzen's Moosewood Cookbook. I would however, strongly advise against using 2 cups of onion - 1 small/medium onion will be sufficient

The dressing recipe can be found HERE look for the second paragraph down and the first part is the instructions for making the dressing - he only uses half an avocado, in the version I had, you use a whole avocado. Oh, and I read a tip - somewhere - that if you are not using guacamole/dip/avocado dressing right away and need to store it in the fridge, place the avocado stone on top of the mix before you cover and refridgerate it. It is supposed to help the mix stay green. Seems to work..........

Today I am grateful for these 3 things;

for my cooking mojo - it was relaxing to be cooking this evening too

for team-work - a small kitchen means washing up piles up fast

for mrM's special offer avocados - at 4 for 99p, they have allowed me to experiment/be creative and enjoy a fruit that I never thought that I liked

Thank you so very much for popping in, reading and supporting me. I greatly appreciate it.

See y'all later.

Greying

Cheery_Daff

Oooh, that looks super tasty Greying! I love all the pictures of your dinner

We have a co-op in walking distance and YS are rubbish! Battered and torn box of cornflakes, reduced from £3.14 to £2.97 and suchlike. An entirely broken (Mr Bump :rotfl: ) easter egg, reduced from something like £4.99 to £4.49. Nonsense. I assume it all gets wasted if it doesn't get bought. Only thing worth having is (very) occasional fresh bakery stuff.

Glad you're enjoying avocados! :j I've not had them for ages and right now have two waiting for the perfect moment

Pippilongstocking

Hey lovely great food here.

I did like the salad v much looked yummy

Following the linkie I scrolled down tattie wrapped prawns - sorry but they also looked lush.

I like the Moro twins

I just wanted to say thank you for just being about. I love being able to peek into your kitchen. Everyday.

And as 'her wot's scary in Devil wears Prada' would say.

That's all.

Pippilongstocking

Waves to cheery - co-op by me is getting rubbish.
although I did snag some 16p muffins the other day

Few and far between, I think its a real sign of belts tightening.

Well done on the triathalon

Greying_Pilgrim

Good Morning :hello:

Cheery - thank you for your lovely comment. You're all definitely making me feel better about not having a coop nearby. And Cheery - your coop sounds like our mrA - it's almost as though you should be grateful that they knocked 10p off a totally demolished easter egg and let you buy it off of them :rotfl:

Pippilongstocking wrote: »

Following the linkie I scrolled down tattie wrapped prawns - sorry but they also looked lush.:D

Bizarre! When I saw those in Arthur's book, I thought they would be exactly the type of thing that you would like! oh, I hope you make them sometime in your *new* kitchen :D brizzle is talking about Jack Monroe's rhubarb soda bread which is something that I thought you could add to your rhubarb cookery classes (after all, they are location independent, can't see why you can't be doing them in the future ), plus I've been meaning to tell you about THIS Jack recipe for like forever - seems like you and J are on the same wavelength :D

Pippilongstocking wrote: »

I just wanted to say thank you for just being about. I love being able to peek into your kitchen. Everyday.

Ha - snap! :rotfl:But thank you for the lovely compliment - you don't know how lovely it is to *hear* someone say that :D:D:D Makes such a change from *you still 'ere?* :rotfl:

Edit: Just to add, the left over avocado dressing, that has been in the fridge overnight, with the avocado stone left on top, really seems to have kept it's colour quite well. It's not eau de nil green, but it's not mud brown either. I think the stone idea may have some validity - either that or there was sufficient lime juice in it to stop it oxidising.... AT ALL! :rotfl:


So Friday here already

Still, feeling quite organised. Snap is all packed up and ready to go. Today may well be a NSD and all is well in the state of Denmark.....Erm, sorry, got me posts crossed - all is well in the princess-a-pal-IT of Greying Towers

Dinner choice is currently up in the air. Twill remain a mystery until I make a decision this evening...................... This is not as interesting as it sounds - I may well be dependent on the actions of someone else for me dinner tonight, so plans are currently in abeyance

Looks to be shaping up for a pretty nice day out there. We currently have sun

Hope you all have a lovely day - whatever you are up to.

Thanks for popping in, reading, and leaving such lovely, supportive comments. PREE-SHE-ATE-it

See y'all later.

Greying

Greying_Pilgrim

Good Morning :hello:

Well, here we are at the weekend again, and I don't know about you, but technically, I've a list of chores as long as my arm to be getting on with

Dinner last night was lovely - on returning home, there was a bag of British asparagus awaiting us on the doorstep :j I love seasonal eating :j Plus there was a huge bundle of rhubarb too :j Which DP has already envisaged *transformed* into crumble

So actually, dinner became 'use-up' :rotfl:There is absolutely no recipe for what follows;



The base is pasta twirls, red onion, garlic, celery and (jarred) courgette with a couple of tomatoes running through it, plus the remainder of the bag of rocket, seasonings and some cubes of feta - I defy you to spot any of that in my, frankly, awful pic! :rotfl: Then I char-grilled some of the asparagus, laid that on top and 'knapped' it with the remaining avocado dressing (thinned down a little with some water and oil) and crumbled some of the remaining feta on the top. Rounded off with some ground black pepper and a sprinkle of sumac.

T'was YUM. I wonder what you think of the 'greenness' of the avocado dressing - I think it kept well. The lime was a little bit wrong for the dish - lemon would have been better, but we used up things, so a little bit of compromise was in order

I don't know what we will have for dinner this evening, but I suspect it will involve asparagus - we have a bundle I will also be freezing some and making stock with the stalks

Yesterday wasn't a NSD, and neither will today be.

Right, I best get up and at 'em.

See y'all later.

Greying

mrsinvisible

Good morning, Your meals look lovely, greying, go, you! Have had a busy couple of days here, because the sun was shining, so the garden has had my attention more than any other area. Meals have been ad hoc but enabled me to 'use up' odds and ends with very interesting (if peculiar) results. On the plus side I have an empty shelf in the freezer, on the minus side I have eaten a whole litre of ice cream! (or is that another plus?) Now I have so much to do I have stayed in bed and caught up on the threads and made me a list which I have now prioritised and given time limits on them, so that I don't overrun on nice tasks as an excuse to avoid the less pleasant ones. Up and at 'em now tho, xx