Living on next to nought - is that the key?

Greying_Pilgrim

Ha ha! Maddiemay - I was supping a cuppa tea HERE earlier on this summer....... And had the most wonderful HM picnic on the edge of the Cricket pitch and avoided buying anything at the Italian market that was on in the square...... I know exactly where you mean

It was also the first time we have been over that side of the county and were able to use the tunnel.......

And as for the beaches........ THAT sound of the waves on the pebbles..........

Greying

maddiemay

Greying_Pilgrim wrote: »

Ha ha! Maddiemay - I was supping a cuppa tea HERE earlier on this summer....... And had the most wonderful HM picnic on the edge of the Cricket pitch and avoided buying anything at the Italian market that was on in the square...... I know exactly where you mean

It was also the first time we have been over that side of the county and were able to use the tunnel.......

And as for the beaches........ THAT sound of the waves on the pebbles..........

Greying

I did not manage a visit to Mr & Mrs M's garden, although over the years visited most of the other lovely houses. His previous home was this one

It was so awful when the tunnel collapsed killing that couple, my friends also tell me that trade in the town has suffered greatly during the closure:(

When we first took one of our dogs onto the beach she was really worried and could not work out what the sound of her footsteps on the pebbles was:D

Greying_Pilgrim

Good Morning :hello:

Cool start to the morning, but the weatherman on R4 has just said that this high pressure belt, bringing fair weather to the majority of the UK is set to last into the weekend and maybe into next week - that we can cope with :j

I shall aim for a NSD today, the TV guide can wait, and we are good for everything else

Dinner this evening will be late, but I'm following a Jack Monroe recipe, and most of it is already prepped, just a cook/reheat and assembly job. Just as well, as our visitor could be with us sometime, going on previous experience

Right, best shift a tail feather - everyone's doing it ya know!

Thanks for popping in, reading and joining in. Greatly appreciated

See y'all later - hopefully.

Greying

Pippilongstocking

Hello to all

Yay to high pressure. How lovely.

Slowly catching up, you'll have to excuse me I've been away and returned with a strong viking cold.

recovering now.

Peeks backwards and reads......

Have a great tuesday folks.

Greying_Pilgrim

Good Evening :hello:

Ay up Pipster - how lovely to have you back in the 'fold'

Ha! So much for snagging a NSD! I'm afraid that I dropped lucky at lunchtime and the smart supermercados had decided to lavish yellow stickers over a lot of tack that I needed, 'fer me tea' in forthcoming days..... so I'm afraid, Dear Reader, I indulged Mind, considering that it was all stuff that I needed, I'm not too disconsolate at losing a nsd........

I found 5p *roadkill* :j

Our visitor came on time and left in a reasonable amount of time So we were able to cook up the dinner that I had planned and thoroughly enjoyed it For this evening's meal, I went to Ms Jack Monroe and had a bash at her, 'Not-Meat bAlls' Which I served with herby tomato sauce and the rest of the rigatoni pasta that I bought for the 'Cheap and Good' recipe; Pasta with Aubergine and Tomato, the other evening. Picture here;



I thought that the taste of the 'Not-meat bAlls' was ace. Mine kept together quite well, but they had been frozen since the weekend - when I made them - so burgers/bAlls tend to cook better from frozen - in terms of staying together. However, given the comments on the website for this recipe, I think that 'sticking togetherness' is an issue. If I made the recipe again (no reason why not) then I would look to make the mixture much more robust and malleable. However, a good, interesting dish that actually cost very little to put together. Again, Jack, like Leanne, is demonstrating that budget cooking is far from producing boring, beige, c*ap........ If you'd like a go at Jack's recipe, have a look HERE Serve with the pasta sauce and pasta shape of your choice.......

Today I am grateful for these 3 things;

people who do what they say they are going to do - :T

for meeting new 'additions' to the street for the first time - babies, YEH!!! :T:T:T

for an evening meal that wouldn't look out of place at a restaurant, eaten together with the love of my life, whilst being able to shout 'been there' at the telly - simple pleasures.......:rotfl:

Thank you for popping by, reading, catching up and spreading love, rather than viruses around :D:D;) Always appreciated

See y'all later.

Greying

in_need_of_direction

That's such a lovely, uplifting post. Thank you.

Hopefuljoy

Hello Greying and chums! Just popping in to say I hope you've all had a lovely day! Dinner looks fab as ever and I've thought of a new project for myself- going through every one of your posts greying and gathering every recipe.:rotfl:

You are a real inspiration to me. :A You work, you share your life and times with us and you still cook every evening! I work, think about cooking and then cobble something together!!:o

Getting used to my new school at the moment. It'll take a long time but so far so good. There are some real characters!! :eek: I'm in school at half seven but home at five. A break for an hour then planning until nine or so while DD does her homework next to me. Tiring but very satisfying! I'm sleeping very soundly!

You are so fortunate to have DP, he sounds really great. He's the unseen silent partner of the thread!!:cool:

Goodnight all, I'm off to bed before rejoining the fray tomorrow.:T

rtandon27

Greying_Pilgrim wrote: »

...'Not-Meat bAlls' ... kept together quite well...

Wow Greying! I'm amazed you got them to stick together - absolutely beautiful meal!

I made the A&C version and they became not-meat burgers after adding a ton of extra flour!

Very scrummy but didn't actually go with the spagetti!

Greying_Pilgrim

Good Evening :hello:

A-ha - Hopefuljoy - you are very kind, but I ain't no superwumman. Sommat has to give if you 'appear' to have it together in one area - in my case, I regularly cook meals from scratch (but not tonight again), but I'm a complete stranger to housework! I don't have dust bunnies in my house - they are dust hares - and tbh if I don't get my arris shifted and waft the vacuum about a bit, I'll be getting stampeded by a gaggle of dust Wererabbits on a regular basis! :rotfl: What we eat and my attitude on a daily basis are two of the things over which I have some control in my life. I'm apt to focus on these because of this...... Hope I'm not painting a too rosy picture, I don't mean to. But I like cooking and I try to keep a positive attitude - most of the time...... but I fail, and have failures. Yes, DP is a good egg. He has his moments, but on the whole, we work well together, always have. But it has been a joy to see his confidence growing as we've got older together. When he's not being a nuisance, he's a jolly nice chap........ :rotfl:

rtandon - the mixture was very sticky wasn't it? I honestly think that if I'd not frozen them, I would have had to call it Not-meat Bolognese....... The recipe definitely needs a tweek - but not the addition of an egg as was suggested in the comments. That'll just add more moisture.

Right, what happened today from an MSE perspective?

I snagged a NSD

It's a Wednesday, so that makes it 'Workers Wednesday' on the auld meal planner. Hopefuljoy - you would have had all your visions of my domestic goddessery shattered if you'd seen into my tiny kitchen earlier. It was absolute chaos - and that was with a partly 'pre-prepared' meal under way :rotfl: I had made and frozen the bread rolls and burgers in advance. It was supposed to be a case of cook the burgers and prep a couple of salads and just put everything together........... :rotfl:

I decided to 'go' to Mexico and make the street food, 'Cemitas'. Which is (usually) a pulled pork or fried chicken sandwich on a sweet bun with all the trimmings on the bun. Well, I made the bun - which I found a recipe for on the internet, but I won't share yet, because it didn't really work for me - the dough was far too wet, so I added more flour just to make it workable, but of course, this alters the recipe, so until I work out the adjustment, I cannot recommend the recipe (although the resultant dough that I made did make perfectly edible bread rolls). In place of the meat, I made up some 'Spicy Man-Approved Black Bean Burgers' as black bean paste is actually a constituent in a 'Cemitas'. If you want to see what the 'layers' of a cemitas are 'supposed' to be, and what one *should* look like, then take a look HERE If you would like to see what my version looked like......



The photo isn't very informative, as I'm afraid that I was battling fading light and a sandwich that wouldn't stay upright. Chipotle mayo (HM) makes everything slide around! :rotfl:

my layers from bottom to top are; bun, chipotle mayo, S M-A burger, lettuce, tomato, pickled red onion, cucumber, avocado, coriander (in place of the Mexican herb papalo) more chipotle mayo and the bun top. I should have wrapped it in greaseproof paper to mush it together! I didn't add the equivalent of the Mexican cheese, as I thought that the dish wouldn't benefit from it (no room!) and it only adds an additional cost. The salads are potato salad made with gifted spuds from the gardening parental (last week) and a made up carrot, coriander, orange and jalapeno salad - which was hot and zesty and worked reasonably well..... until DP bit into an overly large piece of jalapeno..... :rotfl:

The buns did work - they rose well (I actually did an overnight rise, which wasn't in the recipe, but did them no harm ), cooked well and freeze well. So it's a recipe I'll bear in mind, but would need to tweek before making again. I am singularly unable to make sesame seeds stick to buns though. Think I may give that a miss in future - the dust hares are feasting on the resulting *sesame seeds everywhere* as it is...... :rotfl:

So, considering the buns and burgers were pre-made - why the h3ck am I posting at past 9.00pm, and why did the kitchen look like an explosion had gone off? :rotfl:

Today I am grateful for these 3 things;

that I could try out a new food style - and we got to *assume* the DDD *hunch* (Pippi will get that one )

for the warm weather again - really, really nice to be in the sun, not too hot, yet really uplifting

that teamwork got the kitchen back to *normal* -

Thank you for popping in, reading and being so supportive. Not sure I am worthy, but thank you, it is appreciated

See y'all later.

Greying

Maryland_Cookie

Wow GP that looks amazing, I'll add that to my list to try as well as the meatballs x