Living on next to nought - is that the key?

liltdiddylilt

Hopefuljoy we had a lovely little yorkie terrier for a while when I was small. (About 8?) - he was a real sweetie, and easy to look after. As they are small, they are easy to carry around if need be, and easy to discipline. My Granddad had a few when I was growing up, they lived to be ripe old ages, 21, 23, 19 etc. Have you thought about things such as going away, how much they cost to feed, injections up to date, bedding, insurance etc? I had a Doberman in my first house once I left home. He cost substantially more than the yorkie, chewed furniture as a pup, not to mention walls and £400 of DVD boxsets.

Love dogs, would always get another but would have to fit right with me and Jelly xx

Pippilongstocking

Hopefuljoy wrote: »

Does anyone out there have a dog? Would like to get a yorkie but am cautious...... your words of wisdom would.be.welcomed!!

Love to you all xxxxxx

Morning - we have a couple of cairn terriers (think toto in wizard of oz) or think westies but a muddier brown version. They're fab, we call them cogs, half cat/half dog cos they'll happily romp for hours or sleep like cats. Handy when working or busy, also handy when you want a long walk or someone that doesn't take all the sofa up to cuddle.

liltdiddylilt wrote: »

Hopefuljoy we had a lovely little yorkie terrier for a while when I was small. (About 8?) - he was a real sweetie, and easy to look after. As they are small, they are easy to carry around if need be, and easy to discipline. My Granddad had a few when I was growing up, they lived to be ripe old ages, 21, 23, 19 etc.

My mum had yorkies - crazy things with crazy hair. She loves them. I must admit they are cute and easy to train. I love my rufty tufty cairns, got a soft spot for terriers.

Good morning dear greying and chums.

A fine day - hope you're all well.

Greying dear heart you'll be so pleased I stuck to my meal planner.

It said 'something with fish' so that's what we had. All from the cupboards mind.

Happy Wednesday folks.

Fills the tin at greyings with M21's delish Peanut and White Choc Chip cookies. Shameful link to her recipe as its lush and she took the time to share it, thanks m21!

Karmacat

Love the idea of "cogs", Pippi **files away for future reference**

Greying, I was thinking of you yesterday - I had some posh dried apricots I needed to use up (about 10 months out of date!) they're not quite posh enough to eat straight from the packet (I'm a slob, I'm not kidding ) so I chopped some up and made a sweet and sour veggie thing, with lentils, it was brill

Thank you :beer:

NoOneAround

Greying_Pilgrim wrote: »

Good Evening :hello:Of course I don't NoOneAround - you make conversation all you want Dear Thing! I'm going to use lemon juice in my paneer. I've been reading up - do you make ricotta out of the l/o whey? Or keep it to cook lentils in? (gotta give that one a try)
Greying

The problem is Greying, that to do either of those things you have to remember to put something under the colander!:p
At the moment my brain is like a sieve itself so am ashamed to say it goes to waste mostly:D but it is meant to have health benefits and on a day that my mind is less hole-y I would save it for boiling stuff in - Have never made ricotta? let me know if you have a go.
And I am equally bad at remembering to collect water from boiling spuds for gravy etc


xx

Upsidedown_Bear

Greying_Pilgrim

Good Evening :hello:

Well, look at all the visitors - and Upsidedown Bear, your smilies are the best...... I'm definitely loving the 'tiptoe' one - but how come you're tiptoeing out? Oh yeh, that's right, coz I haven't updated for yonks! Soz

Karma - I thought ST had wormholes in their galaxies - they had 'em in their ears too????? :think: DP didn't explain that episode very well...... And was I the 'sweet' or the 'sour' prompt that made you think of me over lunch??? :rotfl:

INOD - thank you so much for popping in and leaving such a lovely comment I know how busy you are.

Hopefuljoy - have you yet emerged from your full immersion in 1st C Palestine? I see folks have responded to your query regarding dogs. I've only ever owned a border collie, so can't be of any assistance sorry

Lilt - it always amazes me how 'quickly' the info is on H D U K. And that was a very mashed up message - not clear at all that it was region specific. I think the current battle between mrAl, MrL and MrM may yet prove interesting in terms of prices......

NoOneAround - there is always something to think about isn't there! And I've never any room in my sink or on my worktop - so I may well not have any 'whey' to do anything with meself yet That's assuming I don't louse up the paneer making process full stop :rotfl:

Well, I'm going to put you out of your misery and let you know that I bought a cauliflower today :j I got it from MrM, and it was 69p - 10p dearer than mrL, but, I took a punt, and it paid off, as it ended up being bigger than the ones in mrl (weighing in at 1.4kg) and it was fresher looking. I'm afraid the caulis in our particular branch of mrL looked slightly jaded...... which is a shame, as I do buy veg from there, and indeed, the red peppers at the weekend were bright, plump and tasty. So it was just one of those things. I managed to get a big cauli in mrM - they were supposed to be 'medium', and most were (in fact small mediums to my reckoning ), but there were about 3 that were definitely bigger, so I selected carefully

I spent money today - and yesterday, so not doing too well on the NSD's But making careful selections and only buying what is on the list, so.......

Also, I'm making sure that every scrap of the cauli is used, get my money's worth :money:

Now, I want to tell you about dinner, but I must admit, I am a bit nervous, as I am worried that I made it sound interesting, when it isn't What prompted me to do what I did for our meal tonight was a conversation over on Supersaver's thread with Lilty about shaping of burgers and whether a burger press would be a worthwhile investment - or simply another piece of kitchen kit that gets put at the back of the cupboard and never used. Well, I pointed out that cookie cutters could be used as moulds to make burgers too. Anyway, I'm always very keen that anything that I 'claim' is accurate, and truthful, so whilst I knew that biscuit cutters could be used - and I've used them in the past, I figured it would be a good idea to make sure I was giving out correct information. In addition, I have taken to measuring out the mix when I make burgers in my press, to ensure that each burger is 100g - to ensure even cooking. I pondered whether you could do the same with a biscuit cutter.

So, I put Jack Monroe's Smoky Lentil Burgers on the menu planner for October, but with the intention of making them as 'sliders' (an Americanism, which just seems to mean 'small burgers').

I won't lie to you, this took some preparation time. As I always freeze my burgers prior to cooking them, I made them last night. Dinner took long enough to plate up as it was!

Anyway, I had a dig through the various cookie cutters that I own, and came up with 4 shapes. I then decided to try to make each burger a set weight - and decided on 50g. Actually, this was an ideal size (pure fluke!). So, tonight, Dear Reader, we had; Smokey Red Lentil sliders, on shredded cauli leaves with lemon rice, cauli ribs, broad beans and broccoli (and a red pepper and tomato sauce - not shown). Picture here;



I have to say, although it was a faff (I gave up after making 8 'shapes' the remaining sliders were round!), it did work, and I think that I have found a new way to make 'little' burgers. The heart cutter is from a set of 2 from M&$ (the other heart is bigger) they were reduced to 79p from £2.50 the other week, and I looked at them, and DP pressed a £1 coin into my hand and said, 'get them' The round is from my scone/biscuit cutter set, and the square from a very cheap and cheerful set of 3 square/3 round cutters I got in a hardware shop for 72p - I only wanted the squares and donated the round on to charity. The oblong metal cutter is my shortbread cutter I liked that 50g made a nice little burger size Oh, and I should have said, I made 'double' quantity of the mixture and I got a nice round 'bakers dozen' - 13 sliders out of the mix.

This was a cheap meal. The cauli leaves and ribs are obviously part of a cauli that is mostly discarded - but as they were so fresh, it would have been immoral to waste them. The broad beans were some left over in the freezer from a couple of months ago. The broccoli is 'half' (so I suppose 1/4 is on the plate) of the broccoli that was in the cauli/broccoli/carrot mix bag from Ic3land. The sauce (I couldn't think of a way to have it on the plate without obscuring the sliders! ), was some leftover passata and the last half of one of the mrL red peppers, blitzed up with onion and celery and made into a sauce. It was from the freezer.

Would I make this again? YES. And at least I know that it is possible to make burgers/sliders with a wide variety of shapes to mould the mix into - irrespective of whether you are using meat or lentils/beans. I hope this helps.

Oh, as an aside on Jack's lentil burgers, I use jumbo oats, toasted and blitzed rather than bread, and I don't bother using an egg - the mixture always binds fine how it is. But I do use smoked paprika - the original recipe just states paprika, and I fail to see how else it get's 'smoky'. I get my smoked paprika from mrM at 72p a jar - about the cheapest of the supermercados. If you have a Turkish or middle eastern shop near you, you can probably source it much more cheaply.

Today I am grateful for these 3 things;

that I had options and an available budget to secure those options

for the vision of the moon early this morning - DP and I scoured it's surface to see a small boy, a bicycle and an alien...... but alas, it was not to be.........:rotfl:

for being made to think, to revisit accepted techniques and check that they still have validity, or can adapt - they do, it has helped me, I hope it may have helped you............

Thank you so much for popping in, reading and commenting. I do hope you weren't expecting a 14-course banquet for 94p.................:o:(

See y'all later.

Greying

Upsidedown_Bear

Greying_Pilgrim wrote: »

Good Evening :hello:

Well, look at all the visitors - and Upsidedown Bear, your smilies are the best...... I'm definitely loving the 'tiptoe' one - but how come you're tiptoeing out? Oh yeh, that's right, coz I haven't updated for yonks! Soz

Evening

Not tiptoing out because you haven't posted. Just letting you know I'm reading and generally lurking.
Don't feel I can contribute in the same way as the others on here hence the smilies

I am always impressed with your cooking, recipes and photos. They really do make me feel hungry.
Reading this thread is like being a small part of your - and everyone who posts - lives and I like that.

Thank you everyone - you are all lovely

beanielou

Upsidedown Bear~~Like you I never feel I contribute like other people.
Not helped by my slow typing :eek:
I love your smiles

mothernerd

I don't often say anything either but I did have some good news on Monday - I am getting a new hip and it should be before Christmas, managed to do 90 years of wear to this one in 56 years apparently, too far gone for injections to be any use.

Greying_Pilgrim

Upsidedown_Bear wrote: »

Don't feel I can contribute in the same way as the others on here hence the smilies

beanielou wrote: »

Upsidedown Bear~~Like you I never feel I contribute like other people.

Can I politely point out - you are both wrong!

You are both STALWARTS of this and a whole host of other threads.

Upsidedown Bear the work that you do (in conjunction with others on the DFW board) to warn newcomers of the actions of trolls, and the over all support you give them is BRILLIANT. Please keep on doing it - you are appreciated and you are certainly appreciated for all the support that you bring to this thread and to me - THANK YOU

Beanie - you're ACE. You support no end of posters and you are always amongst the first to encourage new posters on this thread and others on the forum. You pop in with timely 'keep plodding' reminders when folks are feeling beat, and you know so much about oodles of things. You have supported this thread from the get - go. And for that, I'll never tire of saying THANK YOU

Right, now that we've cleared that up, I'll go and have a mooch round the forum.........

Greying