Living on next to nought - is that the key?

Piquant_2

I am always ready and willing to test the gin for you GP. It's the least I can do for you.....

Welcome back, I've missed your daily missives a lot. Your holiday sounds like it was great, just how a holiday should be.

miss_empty_piggy

I would second that - been checking to see if you were back. I look forward to your posts every evening. Really pleased you had a great holiday and that ops went well. x

Greying_Pilgrim

Good Evening :hello:

Again, for your kindness, I thank you

Well, I hope the weather has been as wonderful with y'all today as we have enjoyed here at Greying Towers. I wonder if we are in for an extended summer? I do hope so. Although was it Memory Girl that was reporting snow in Scotland on her blog??


Well, dinner last night, was not as recorded in my post. I'd lost the last bit of energy by the time I'd wandered back to the kitchen, so we had toast, scrambled egg and (by request of DP over baked beans...) mushy peas..... I apologise to Essex Hebridean who sometimes pops into this diary and loathes mushy peas .........

Interestingly enough, I was awoken in the wee small hours of this morning by DP communicating with the porcelain......... As DP hadn't had a lot of alcohol and had eaten the same as me, I cannot blame neither food nor drink for this episode......very strange. Thankfully, it seems to of been one of those strange episodes and DP felt mucho better as the day wore on.

Today has been a day of sorting and rationalising. Most everything that can be packed away, has now been. I've washed the walking boots ready for our next adventure. Our clothes/bedding will be washed tomorrow and all the food items I bought have been stashed away/put in jars or the fridge. I got a load of spices, some fresh produce (tomatoes) as well as potatoes, nectarines and avocados. The tomatoes were from a roadside stall, we bought enough for our stay and a bag to bring home with us - intentionally underripe, as they are ripening beautifully now. Tell me, Dear Reader, would you not of bought produce from this stall?



The supermarkets just haven't got *idiosyncrasy* have they?

So, for dinner this evening, we had the courgette pasta dish that I talked about last night. It was better than I anticipated, because I picked up some lemon thyme from MrW YS'd to 95p - not a huge saving, but a small discount on a product I've not used before. It worked well with the dish and there is some left. I think it would flavour a stock syrup well, and you may recall I put a link up to that gin & blackberry cocktail recipe - well, I think lemon and blackberry work rather well........ Furthermore, whilst away, I dropped on a reasonably priced bottle of rose water - so I'm gonna get me some gin and try the original cocktail!! Although I have Silverwhistle'swords of warning in my ear and I will be careful from whence I source the gin........

Anyway, enough of the cocktail meanderings, here is a pic of dinner tonight....



Under £1 per portion, but it tasted great. I suspect a little grana padano or parmesan would of added to the dish, but I had none, so meh!

Today I have been grateful for these 3 things;

stores - DP (feeling mucho better) set about loading up our fuel shed with seasoned wood for the log burner. This wood - which has been seasoning outside - has mostly been gifted or acquired because someone lopped down a tree and didn't know what to do with the resultant *waste*. I am grateful for the generosity of others and for DP's hard work.

sunshine - OK, so it would of been nice to of been bathed in sunshine all the while whilst at our holiday location, but seriously, doesn't sunshine help to make things seem a little better?

roadside sellers - our lunch constituted the ripest tomato sandwiches, adorned only with a little salt, a little pepper and some oregano. The tomatoes were brought back from our trip. They tasted wonderful and I am thankful to the seller, for their character-filled wonky stall and their sense of humour at taking on the supermarkets.


I'm outta here now. But before I leave, I just had to add one final pic. I'm sorry in advance folks, because it is a holiday snap (*yawn* - gerrrofff will ya Greying....booo, boooring). But please indulge me just this one gratuitous turnip photograph* - for BoB.......



And for the interested parties that are still reading at this point..... We bought the swede third from the left on the bottom row. It cost 79p, and weighed in at near 1.5kg. About the size/cost of swedes in netto when such stores existed in the UK. Still, at about 50p a kilo, it actually works out dearer than the local spuds that we got for 40p per kilo...... Still, economy rations are called for, post holiday I'm away to look up all the recipes BoB kindly linked to in earlier posts......

Thank you as ever for reading, commenting and joining in. I appreciate it.

See y'all later.

Greying

* I defy you all to find 'gratuitous turnip shot' stated anywhere else on the world-wide wunder webby:rotfl::rotfl:

beanielou

Sorry have missed the courgette pasta recipie.
Any chance you might repost?
Ta.

Greying_Pilgrim

Edit: all the photos are the same size this morning on my screen..... um odd... but obviously better........

[STRIKE]If the above shots skew your enjoyment of MSE for goodness sake shout up and
I'll delete them. I'm so annoyed - I've tried everything and how come
the dinner shot complies and the other two don't - what's the bleeping
difference????[/STRIKE]

*ahem* Greying adopts a 'Charlotte Green R4/ClassicFM' well modulated tone and thanks Upsidedown Bear, Fortune Smiles, mouche, Beanie, Piq and miss empty piggy for all your very kind words of 'welcome home'.

Greying signing off...... nighty night all.

Greying

Greying_Pilgrim

beanielou wrote: »

Sorry have missed the courgette pasta recipie.
Any chance you might repost?
Ta.

Oops, sorry Beanie - not a recipe as such. I just fried up some onion, garlic and celery in sunflower oil, until soft but retaining their colour. I then added in the diced courgette - I had 4 small courgettes, umm, I suppose the size of 'smarties' tubes???? They happened to be 2 yellow, 2 green, but that's by the by. I stirred them in and added a splash of white wine (stock or water would be easily as acceptable). Whilst I was doing this, I'd put on 2 portions of pasta to cook - again, I had fusilli, but any would do. Once the courgettes had softened, I added salt and pepper to taste. I then picked the leaves of the lemon thyme off the stems and set the leaves to one side. I chopped up the stems and added them to the dish. Stirred. it was off the heat at this point. Added in half the thyme leaves. Drained the (now cooked) pasta. Added the pasta to the courgette mixture, stirred and then checked the seasoning. I dished the pasta onto plates and then scattered the remaining thyme leaves onto the top of the pasta.

The lemon thyme was fresh (but reduced from the supermarket). Dried thyme would work too, but I'd use less and add cautiously - better too little than too much

HTH.

Greying

7_week_wonder

Ooh exellent - Greying is back and so are the pictures of her yummy meals!

Just on my way to bed, but looking forward to catching up on your diary over the next few days:)

Greying_Pilgrim

Good Morning :hello:

Well, I'm enjoying the last few days of 'holiday' at home.

We'll be off to the gardening and non-gardening parentals later. Apparently there are some *jobs* that need doing.......... Still, there was also mention of 'picking the sweetcorn and taking some home with you......' so maybe chores are not all without reward

I will also need to do some washing of clothes etc today. And I must remember to get the TV listings guide. I forgot yesterday and the new one for next week will be out tomorrow if I don't pull my socks up! So a TV listings guide and the top up of fuel for the car should be the only spends for today. Although now I'm thinking it would be nice to have a lime.......

Dinner this evening will take us down 'old mexico way' - and yes Dear Reader, I am making it sound far more interesting than it will turn out to be......:D But I bought 2 peppers from the farmers market whilst away, 1 hot/spicy and 1 sweet - according to the vendor, who doesn't eat hot/spicy chillis :rotfl: Anyway, they are both green chillis, so should incorporate well into the dish. And yes, I am thinking of saving the seed, because, well, the Farmers Market, which was always a good market, with affordable prices had....... um.... got a little pricey this year.......I mean 40p for one brown onion???? To be fair, I think it was organic and the people who bought it, didn't flinch at the price - but did fluff about between the 3 of them trying to scrape together the pennies to pay the stallholder for the produce they bought. I suppose I only buy things if I can afford them.

Oh, I forgot to tell you the funniest bit of the hols (well, I though it was funny). I was 'tidied off' a beach by a 'film security guard' :rotfl::rotfl: It must of looked very dramatic, a person of a *certain age* being accompanied off by a 'man in dayglo yellow'. We had been given permission to be on the beach, but I'd got immersed in a *little project* I was trying to do (DP had wandered back to find the WC), so of course, I had ventured to almost the furthest part of the beach - just when the conditions were *right* and the First Assistant Director had wanted to *go* :rotfl::rotfl:Poor security guard - he'd had to walk the entire length of the beach to wrangle some 21st century *debris* out of shot of the 18th Century setting of a pirate movie :rotfl::rotfl: He was very nice about it all......:D And the irony of filming in the UK? During the nice sunny weather, they'd had to use the fog machine during filming - they were loving the foggy, gloomy, can't see a hand in front of your face weather that particular day, because it was 'atmospheric' :rotfl:


It was good to see all the sets - apparently they had taken 3 weeks to set up, and looked lovely from the front......... As DP and I were leaving, we were marvelling at the one bit of the set, only to see...... one *muy autentico* ships rat scampering about all over the props ....... *shudders*.

Right, I'd better get up and at the day. DP needs brekkie and I need to gather in some motivation from somewhere....

Thank you for reading, commenting and joining in - Me? I greatly appreciate it

See y'all later.

Greying

boredofbeingathome

Greying_Pilgrim wrote: »

Good Evening :hello:

Again, for your kindness, I thank you

Well, I hope the weather has been as wonderful with y'all today as we have enjoyed here at Greying Towers. I wonder if we are in for an extended summer? I do hope so. Although was it Memory Girl that was reporting snow in Scotland on her blog??


Well, dinner last night, was not as recorded in my post. I'd lost the last bit of energy by the time I'd wandered back to the kitchen, so we had toast, scrambled egg and (by request of DP over baked beans...) mushy peas..... I apologise to Essex Hebridean who sometimes pops into this diary and loathes mushy peas .........

Interestingly enough, I was awoken in the wee small hours of this morning by DP communicating with the porcelain......... As DP hadn't had a lot of alcohol and had eaten the same as me, I cannot blame neither food nor drink for this episode......very strange. Thankfully, it seems to of been one of those strange episodes and DP felt mucho better as the day wore on.

Today has been a day of sorting and rationalising. Most everything that can be packed away, has now been. I've washed the walking boots ready for our next adventure. Our clothes/bedding will be washed tomorrow and all the food items I bought have been stashed away/put in jars or the fridge. I got a load of spices, some fresh produce (tomatoes) as well as potatoes, nectarines and avocados. The tomatoes were from a roadside stall, we bought enough for our stay and a bag to bring home with us - intentionally underripe, as they are ripening beautifully now. Tell me, Dear Reader, would you not of bought produce from this stall?



The supermarkets just haven't got *idiosyncrasy* have they?

So, for dinner this evening, we had the courgette pasta dish that I talked about last night. It was better than I anticipated, because I picked up some lemon thyme from MrW YS'd to 95p - not a huge saving, but a small discount on a product I've not used before. It worked well with the dish and there is some left. I think it would flavour a stock syrup well, and you may recall I put a link up to that gin & blackberry cocktail recipe - well, I think lemon and blackberry work rather well........ Furthermore, whilst away, I dropped on a reasonably priced bottle of rose water - so I'm gonna get me some gin and try the original cocktail!! Although I have Silverwhistle'swords of warning in my ear and I will be careful from whence I source the gin........

Anyway, enough of the cocktail meanderings, here is a pic of dinner tonight....



Under £1 per portion, but it tasted great. I suspect a little grana padano or parmesan would of added to the dish, but I had none, so meh!

Today I have been grateful for these 3 things;

stores - DP (feeling mucho better) set about loading up our fuel shed with seasoned wood for the log burner. This wood - which has been seasoning outside - has mostly been gifted or acquired because someone lopped down a tree and didn't know what to do with the resultant *waste*. I am grateful for the generosity of others and for DP's hard work.

sunshine - OK, so it would of been nice to of been bathed in sunshine all the while whilst at our holiday location, but seriously, doesn't sunshine help to make things seem a little better?

roadside sellers - our lunch constituted the ripest tomato sandwiches, adorned only with a little salt, a little pepper and some oregano. The tomatoes were brought back from our trip. They tasted wonderful and I am thankful to the seller, for their character-filled wonky stall and their sense of humour at taking on the supermarkets.


I'm outta here now. But before I leave, I just had to add one final pic. I'm sorry in advance folks, because it is a holiday snap (*yawn* - gerrrofff will ya Greying....booo, boooring). But please indulge me just this one gratuitous turnip photograph* - for BoB.......



And for the interested parties that are still reading at this point..... We bought the swede third from the left on the bottom row. It cost 79p, and weighed in at near 1.5kg. About the size/cost of swedes in netto when such stores existed in the UK. Still, at about 50p a kilo, it actually works out dearer than the local spuds that we got for 40p per kilo...... Still, economy rations are called for, post holiday I'm away to look up all the recipes BoB kindly linked to in earlier posts......

Thank you as ever for reading, commenting and joining in. I appreciate it.

See y'all later.

Greying

* I defy you all to find 'gratuitous turnip shot' stated anywhere else on the world-wide wunder webby:rotfl::rotfl:

Wibbles happily:D:cool::rotfl:

Nice to see you back Greying

Greying_Pilgrim

Good Evening :hello:

Wow, what a lot we've packed into today. Most importantly, I remembered to get the TV listings guide! I also bought a lime and then promptly forgot to use it in the dinner dish - doh! Never mind, it'll come in for something else.

We went out to the parentals. The *job* that needed doing was to fork over a patch of very stoney ground - a piece about 20' by 3' which is 6.5m x 1m in new money, in order to plant some garlic and Japanese red onion sets. Guess who got to wield the fork?? Correctomundo Dear Reader Never mind, didn't take too long and I'm sure the stiffness will wear off.....eventually :rotfl:

Still, the reward was a) a job well done due to team work, b) a happy gardening parental who feels the garden work is not slipping away, despite post operative recuperation and c) bags of produce....carrots, sweetcorn, courgettes, leeks, beetroot.....:D runner beans :D

Also, by the time we returned it was time for lunch and the non-gardening parental offered a *cheese sandwich*. DP said 'yes' so I felt honour bound to indulge also.......

So, dinner this evening was the Mexican 'one pot' dish I'd planned. I'm sure I mentioned before that a franchise company prepares ready meals for time poor but cash rich folk, and I'd seen this dish. It's an approximation, rather than a direct copy - as I always make mine fresh...... But it also allows for improvisations. For example, the original dish had butternut squash in it. It is near the end of the month and I have neither the cash to buy one, nor any 'in store' so tonight, Dear Reader, I used......... turnip!!! :rotfl: Actually, even though I say so myself, it worked well. I cooked the turnip in the microwave and then added it to the dish (would take forever otherwise) and it absorbed the chilli and other flavourings well - whilst imparting a 'nuttiness' which was nice. It also has the two chilli peppers in it from the farmers market. The *hot* one wasn't too bad, unless you tried so much as a seed or the white membrane inside the chilli :eek: I served it with boiled rice (Mr S basics left over from hols - still more left to use ) and sweetcorn from the swag *earnt* today. I decided to chop the corn off the cob once it was steamed to be easier to eat. We ate a little late and I'm afraid we had it on us laps in front of the goggle box, Dear Reader.......... Here's a pic



I have also boiled up the beetroot, and left it to cool. I will peel it just now and re-fridgerate it now that it is cold. I must also make some yoghurt tonight, as it's been weeks (seemingly) since I last had some. Oh, and I should add that I have saved the 'cobs' from the sweetcorn, they are useful for flavouring veg stock - I saw it on TV somewhere and they do add a lovely depth to stock. And it is using up the whole cob (having composted the leaves, despite the fact that they can be used to wrap and steam...... mmm, what's the dish called... can't remember, but basically a steamed cornmeal dish, with or without meat) so very :money: Edit: Tamales - of course, thank you dear go0gle......

So, all in all, a low spend day and a productive one. Tomorrow is going to be busier - hope I'm as content by the end of it

Today I am grateful for these 3 things;

earthworms - digging stoney ground is hard, jarring work. But the earth was lovely and crumbly, and there were masses of worms as I turned the earth over. Mr Darwin was right about the power of the humble earthworm.......

lunch being made for you - I've mentioned before that I like to cook and have been happy *catering* our caravan holiday. But do you know, it was so nice today to have a sandwich made for me, and then implored to have a toasted teacake with homemade jam.......

fresh produce - I'm sorry, but it does taste different, and it makes cooking and eating a pleasure when you know the provenance of things......... and the fact that it is free has absolutely no bearing on things whatsoever........:rotfl::T

If you've dropped by, read and joined in this diary today - I thank you. I greatly appreciate the motivation that it has on my spending and thinking each day.

See y'all later.

Greying