Building The Burrow!

Pearla*Merle

Oh dear, I've just remembered I mentioned buying a jacket a couple of weeks ago, I must sound like some jacket-buying fiend! :rotfl: To explain, the most recent one is for those blustery, miserable days & not high summer.. I walk everywhere so must be prepared for all eventualities

apple_muncher

I'm impressed you found something so lovely in Primani! I find clothes shopping a real chore. Not that I need anything, anyway! I have to go with a specific item in mind, as 'mooching' just saps all my energy and good humour! I think I'm a bit of an oddity...whereas you are undoubtably a jacket buying fiend indeed!

Habibiboo

Pearla*Merle wrote: »

Completely forgot to take M&S vouchers with us, so no shopping done in the end and this was the last day for them. A bit gutted. And no plastic containers in £land, annoying as I could seriously do with some more for my batchcooking adventures.

:wave:

:wave:
Soooo frustrating when this happens with vouchers, I try to keep them in my purse for all eventualities but always end up moving them out the week before I end up wishing I had them on me! I think there's a special law relating to this.

Have you tried the foil / lid containers from £land instead? I use these a lot and they work well as you can reheat in them too if you're using the oven (not microwave, obviously)!

Any more snow where you are P*M?

Pearla*Merle

apple_muncher wrote: »

I'm impressed you found something so lovely in Primani! I find clothes shopping a real chore. Not that I need anything, anyway! I have to go with a specific item in mind, as 'mooching' just saps all my energy and good humour! I think I'm a bit of an oddity...whereas you are undoubtably a jacket buying fiend indeed!

:rotfl:

I'm usually the same, apple muncher. I get overwhelmed with the vast selections & cross at the prices far more quickly these days, I tend to be more of a charity shopper when it comes to clothes (life's easy when you have a £5 limit for everything, haha), and the weird selection makes it easier to disregard a lot of items more quickly(!). Plus I like the treasure-hunt element

Pearla*Merle

Habibiboo wrote: »

:wave:
Soooo frustrating when this happens with vouchers, I try to keep them in my purse for all eventualities but always end up moving them out the week before I end up wishing I had them on me! I think there's a special law relating to this.

Have you tried the foil / lid containers from £land instead? I use these a lot and they work well as you can reheat in them too if you're using the oven (not microwave, obviously)!

Any more snow where you are P*M?

No more snow, alas Not that it would really lie here anyway, but a girl can dream! Apparently more is forecast for later in the week, I have all my fingers and toes crossed.

I was contemplating the foil ones but I thought it might be a waste? (Do you need to just chuck them out or do people reuse them?) I like that I can reuse the plastic ones... or rather, just chuck them in the dishwasher. Usually it's only me eating the meals (Mr M doesn't like stuff that's been frozen) so I tend to pop them in a pan to heat up rather than the oven. Could see them being good for veg & things though, shall have a ponder!

I forgot about the voucher law. :doh: I shouldn't have been so surprised!

Pearla*Merle

Long overdue an update!

Wonderfully lazy Saturday, read The Garden Cottage Diaries which is all about this lady who decides to live in an 18th century cottage for a year. I didn't realise this until I started reading, I thought it was just a vaguely self sufficiency quaint country living type thing but it's seriously hardcore... and has made me realise how much I love electricity. :rotfl: I shall not be following her example any time soon. Still, makes for interesting, thought-provoking reading.

In the evening we popped to Morrisuns, about £50 spent, oops. So much for just going in for meat. The cupboards are well & truly brimming over again though, and what with some meal planning tonight we again should make things stretch for a fair few weeks with only smallish spends in sight. Also found a bamboo chopping board for only £3, quite chuffed with that as I'd been looking for a while. We only have a plastic one and it didn't really stand up to lots of veg cutting (things skidding all over the place and sharp knife do not a happy combination make!).

Yesterday we went out on a jaunt about the country and out to the coast. Such a beautiful, sunny day for it, dreamy Sunday drive. Highlights of the trip included driving by the Grimsby docks and seeing the decapitated head of Postman Pat (what sort of people has he been mixing with?!) and then the happier sight of donkeys on the beach at Cleethorpes. :smileyhea I've never been there before (had been promised a visit there for years!), so glad to tick that one off the list. Brought home a couple of pretty pink & purple shells, simple pleasures.

Full roast dinner with all the trimmings last night at the in laws.

Have had a day full of little MSE activities today ~ took the labels off and cleaned several jars that were kicking about waiting to be used for chutneys, so they're ready to go now. Lots of random bits I'd popped into the freezer (ends of chopped tomato cartons etc) have been taken out to thaw to be used up in a slow cooker sausage casserole tomorrow (which is then destined for the freezer again). Excess red wine put into ice cube trays for future meals. Hiked the laundry mountain and have set an alarm to put the socks on later tonight (determined to do short washes on economy 7! I'll be awake anyway so might as well make the most of it!).

Decluttered the cookery book shelf and organised it, went through some Waitflower magazines I'd stuffed in there and took out the recipes I wanted to keep, have so many ideas now... sadly can't eat feasts every day. :rotfl: Will slowly start introducing some new dishes though methinks. I want to (when I have more space/can be bothered to find myself some more folders) divide the recipes up into seasonal collections, that might make them more usable? And save me some time trawling through them and getting overwhelmed (I have so many torn out recipe pages, can't bear to let them go though, must keep hold of the dream that I'm a genius in the kitchen!).

Tonight's tea (pastito) was made using only half a pack of (small) mince (other half will be chilli tomorrow), and thoroughly padded out with grated carrot & onion. It made mammoth amounts, I have a small bit left over for lunch tomorrow and then two other portions into the freezer for a later date.

No exercising today Was pottering about doing things all day and rather tired myself out with that. And then did chocolate cake lift ups... into my mouth, oops. Shall get back on track with Operation Get Fit tomorrow.

Not really any money news, just trundling along ala Mr Tortoise.

ETA: How the heck do I always end up writing so much?

janineh1982

Hi P*M - I've been lurking for a while, but thought I'd surface finally and say :hello:

I sympathise with 'menu overload' it seems to literally take me hours to meal plan for a few weeks (including listing shopping to buy) - I'm Sure I'm going wrong somewhere (maybe trying too many recipes - instead of loveable favourites??) but can't really figure out why?!?

I love the idea of seasonal recipes and might give it a whirl later this year!

One thing I have started over the last few months is to write all meals down in s/sheet (thins includes name of meal, chef/cook book/location of recipe (online link), page number etc and comments/marks out of 10) what I'm hoping to do is build a bit of a menu database over the next 12 months to refer too when meal planning - instead of sitting at the breakfast bar for hours upon end with dozens of Cook books/ torn out sheets of paper

BlueMoo

Ooo, that trip sounds lovely. Glad you had a good time.

*****

Someone on the GC batch books, and puts in bags, then in the tubs, then freezes, and once frozen takes the new 'bag birck' out of the box and re-uses the box all over again.

Not sure if I have explained the idea there at all.... hmmmm....

******
Something I find useful when cooking to stop repitition is cooking different countries - i.e. Monday England, Tuesday Asian, Wednesday Moroccan, Thursay French, Friday American, etc. etc.

in_need_of_direction

I do a similar thing with soup. I line a large mug with a freezer bag, pour in soup and freeze. When frozen, I remove the soup from the mug. The other advantage is that this means each soup bag contains one portion

Pearla*Merle

janineh1982 wrote: »

Hi P*M - I've been lurking for a while, but thought I'd surface finally and say :hello:

I sympathise with 'menu overload' it seems to literally take me hours to meal plan for a few weeks (including listing shopping to buy) - I'm Sure I'm going wrong somewhere (maybe trying too many recipes - instead of loveable favourites??) but can't really figure out why?!?

I love the idea of seasonal recipes and might give it a whirl later this year!

One thing I have started over the last few months is to write all meals down in s/sheet (thins includes name of meal, chef/cook book/location of recipe (online link), page number etc and comments/marks out of 10) what I'm hoping to do is build a bit of a menu database over the next 12 months to refer too when meal planning - instead of sitting at the breakfast bar for hours upon end with dozens of Cook books/ torn out sheets of paper

Janineh, hello! & how funny, I was lurking on your diary the other day I shall surface on there properly soon... you've been warned! :rotfl:

I sometimes go overboard with the trying out of new recipes as well, I'm trying to make myself only do one or two different ones a week, that way I don't give myself too much work (& also then use the same ingredients for other dishes - if, as often is the case, I've had to buy something in bigger quantities that I actually needed - or use them in a tried & tested favourite & make that slightly different to liven things up), that way I don't have too many exotic things lurking in the fridge that then get thrown out. :rotfl:

I have to admit, I've been dreaming of having a spreadsheet like that! Something I can whip back out and use again, or at least get a good dollop of ideas from. That sounds like some serious spreadsheet action though... so many columns.... which might even need colour coding! Oh the possibilities, I'm definitely going to have to give it a go sometime soon. :smileyhea