Living richly; simply and debt-freely

joeyjimbles

That melon looks delicious - how often does pretty fruit end up being disappointing? So its doubly pleasurable when it goes the other way. Now can you please work that magic on pears - I cannot remember the last time I had a properly ripe one.

I've just bulk cooked risotto to freeze to use up vegetable remnants and the smallest amount of roast chicken found lurking in the fridge but still smells fine. Don't tell but the rice is also remnants including some posh italian stuff (thank you MrT Orch@rd) and some bargain basmati (HB) and some long grain value stuff - and it seems to have worked just fine which is something to remember for the next time.

Greying_Pilgrim

Good Evening :hello:

Ah yes. The elusive *just ripe* pear......mmmmmm. You're right joeyjimbles - they are a rarity - unless you have a pear tree or know of someone that has. The last luscious pears that I had though were actually from a supermercado - mrAl. They were Portugese little pears - I can't remember the variety, but they ripened beautifully. So different to the ubiquitous conference......

Dinner this evening was very pedestrian........ And yet....... do you know what, Dear Reader? It ended up being utterly delicious.

The pizza dough rose beautifully, and for some reason, was soooo soft, and it made a beautifully *pillow-like* pizza. And yet I did my normal recipe, and did nothing different. The cheese (last of my mrL block) melted just perfectly into oooooey-goooey cheesey loviness There was enough HM pizza topping sauce to cover a large swathe of the pizza and it melded into the dough as it cooked And the potatoes, although not 'spectacular' at least did taste of potato Cheese and tomato pizza with chunky chunk chips;



We had just finished watching the GrAnd Deesigns prog about the 'wilderness' and had finished our meal, when a pizza delivery chap - from that 'well known' dominont pizza chain walked past the house, looking for their delivery recipient. How nice to think that their services are not needed by this household - don't think I've even ever tasted one of their products.....

Today was a NSD :j Not hard really There was no glass of red to go with the pizza either But, that's no hardship in the grand scheme of things. Getting back onto budgetary track is important. I'll have to be more mindful of it as I draw up August's menu-planner. I don't want August to be 'Austerity' month, I want August to be *Awesome*, because I stay in budget and perhaps even save a bit. Perhaps I ought to set myself the challenge of having £X left at the end or something.

Today I am grateful for these 3 things;

It was perfect weather for pizza and chips - as I had no salad ingredients! :rotfl:

that a simple recipe worked and made a nice meal for us

that unsubscribing from Bl0ddy Terrible's sport e-mails is apparently easier than any other dealings you may have with the company.......... Hmmmmmmmm :think: we'll see.......:rotfl:

Ta for popping in. I appreciate it. Always.

See y'all later.

Greying x

joeyjimbles

Looks delicious as always - love it when the cheese does the spready thing. Have you given your recommendation for a pizza base recipe and I've missed it? Would you mind giving it again please? I use Sam Stern's recipe and its good but I would like one with more chewy depth.

So far tonight three pizzas - cheese & ham, pepperoni, and a red pepper, mushroom and red onion - and a package of @ldi garlic bread have filled up DSs and friends, and in a few minutes I will be putting my own in the oven - I used the time the oven was on to pre-bake a few potatoes and need to give them a few minutes more before blasting the oven again for my pizza - cheese ends (blue, brie and mozz), red onion, red pepper, chili and soft baked egg yolk (egg white has gone in the freezer with the others for when meringue is required).

DS's friends have gone and boys are pottering before bed, OH has gone out and I have the end of a bottle of pink wine and a good book - bliss. Happy weekend all.

Greying_Pilgrim

joeyjimbles wrote: »

Have you given your recommendation for a pizza base recipe and I've missed it? Would you mind giving it again please?

I spoke about it on my other diary joeyjimbles - but I don't appear to have on this thread I use Richard Bertinet's bread recipe. Luckily, it was blogged about some time ago, you can find it HERE The only differences I make, are that here in the UK, our yeast sachets are 7g, so I use 1 of them (only) and I don't put 8g of salt in - I'm sure in the book originally he uses 10g. I tend to do it by eye these days, but I certainly put no more than 5g in to any dough batch (remember it makes 8 pizza slices, or a big loaf of bread/rolls etc) I don't always bother with the olive oil, although it is good when making the dough for pizza - but I put a tbsp or so in, not 50ml (can't afford it ). Edit: I forgot to add that I usually add in a bit of sugar to my dough mix - anything from half to a scant teaspoon, this is because most of the time I am cooking in a cold kitchen, and the yeast needs all the help it can get The recipe does work without added sugar though.

IIRC my pizza sheet is something like 12" x 14", so I roll the dough out and let it rise. It makes a 'deep dish' style pizza, rather than a thin and crispy, baked on the base of a wood-fired oven IYSWIM.

We've just caught up with the last Ainsley Harriot programme about street food. He was in Jordan. They showed flatbreads being baked in an oven, that had like pebbles on the oven floor. They were to retain heat, obviously, but I have never seen that before - plus it helped to make the flatbread 'bumpy' on the surface. Fascinating.

Sounds like the drop 'o pink is hugely deserved after your culinary duties :T

Greying x

Greying_Pilgrim

I was lying in bed last night, pondering why I had not mentioned my other 'go to' pizza dough recipe to joeyjimbles :doh:

I of course mean the recipe from Leanne Brown's wonderful (free to download) PDF cookbook 'From Scratch'. Funnily enough, I was catching up with Leanne's comings and goings this week. Her '$4 a Day Cookbook' has been a marvellous boon and is now in it's second edition! :T The opportunity to purchase a second copy for a family in receipt of Food Stamps (in the US) has been automatically included in the cover price :T And Leanne is touring the US, giving talks and demonstrations to community groups about recipes from her books The girl is a marvel Did I mention she is a proud daughter of Canada?

Anyway, I have used both her 'Good' pizza dough recipe and her 'Fast' pizza dough recipe - to great effect. I had forgotten that they are nice and economical, and make a nice crispy base pizza - an alternative to my 'default' deep dish base

I posted about making a pizza using Leanne's recipe HERE and you can see the recipes in the PDF booklet (pg's 44 & 45) HERE

'From Scratch' was Leanne's first cookbook, the 'Good & Cheap - eating for $4 a day' book came after as part of her masters in Food policy at University in NY. Leanne has always offered both these books as free downloads on her website, if you'd like to take a look, or download them for yourself, her website is HERE

Last year, I did a month where I cooked a lot of recipes from Leanne's books (she does include some meat and fish cookery, but there is plenty of choice for veggies). It was a great success, and I know that the late Rosieben put the links to the books onto the Grocery challenge, because she recognised them as a great resource for MSE'rs. And I know that Upsidedown Bear very kindly highlighted the books on OS and I posted some of the pics of the recipes that I made onto Bear's thread Funnily enough, with thinking about her earlier this week, and my need to 'get a grip' in August, I had considered doing this again. I think the 'ether' has spoken - don't you?

Greying x

Greying_Pilgrim

The link to the thread that our dear friend, Upsidedown Bear started over on the OS board, to highlight Leanne's books is HERE

It's funny isn't it. How an online forum can link you with people who you'd probably never meet in 'Real' life. It makes you care about them. Cry with them over their misfortunes, cheer with them over their triumphs. Of course, no forum is without its twots, and they never seem to 'get' that they are so far removed from your way of thinking, that you'd never bother with them in a million years in RL. That's life I guess. Hopefully people can work out the 'sort' of person I am - I think I'm pretty much WYSIWYG. I don't think I do hate, vitriol or diatribe, and I don't have (nor want) connection with anyone that does - here or in RL. I don't belong to any groups that do, I don't patronise any organisations that do (not knowingly, anyway) and I don't have a blog - neither do I supply links for people to use on their blogs. I supply links, that I think might be useful for people to use/know about. It's a great shame that twots cannot see the distinction.

Today I am very sad on behalf of a fellow MSE'r. They are a wonderfully warm, generous and kind person. I've never met them in RL, but I care that they are hurting. I'm glad that I've met them via MSE. It's on days like today that I want to carry on contributing to MSE, both with this thread and on others. On the days where the twots loom, I really do think about pulling the plug............

Greying

Upsidedown_Bear

in_need_of_direction

Hello there bear

Where have you and smilie been lurking?

Greying, we drop in here because we like what we see and I, for one, never think of you having an alter ego in real life. For me, I also get inspiration seeing what you achieve along with the wake up calls needed to see what this world truly blesses us with

Thank you.

Greying_Pilgrim

Hey Bear :wave:

INOD - thank you.

Well, that's the menu-planner done for August.

I've got, um, I think it was about 15 of Leanne's recipes included, and a couple of Jack Monroe's. Of course, all the school children will be (quite rightly) wanting August to be a pavement splitting sunshiney month, but if it is, we're stuffed, as there ain't a lot of salad going on the plate at Greying Towers

I'm not going to repeat my Thursday Tilly Tiffin Tidies, as I'm afraid it doesn't work for me (but I will be doing my last July one this Thursday). But I have certainly tried to incorporate stock items into the dishes, and limit what I actually have to buy. There are 5 weekends in August, and we will be having 5 Saturday curry nights, as those seem to work well. I have 4 Buddha bowl nights planned, along with 4 soup nights....... You're beginning to get my drift re: weather appropriate eating aren't you? :rotfl:

I don't think that there are any *new* recipes included in August's planner. But that is somewhat on purpose. I just don't think that buying *new* ingredients is necessarily always conducive to staying on budget. I'll admit, I have been tremendously lucky, and haven't bought anything that we despise - I'm now quite comfortable handling the different types of tofu, and miso was a revelation

Edit: I lied :rotfl:There is one *new* recipe on the list, but it is basically a pilau/pilaf from a country who's cuisine I have not attempted before. The method is pretty similar to other pilaf/pilau dishes though........

I've just cooked the mung beans in the PC, ready for tonight's curry So quite a productive morning on the QT.

Thanks for popping in. Appreciate it.

Greying x

joeyjimbles

Thank you so much, Greying, for all the links and pizza recipes - I'll try them both and let you know how I get on. I don't think I followed your last diary so it is particularly good of you to track all the info down and share. And thanks so much for the link to Leanne's book, I will be downloading and donating - also will be so handy for DS1 who is trying to learn budget cooking ahead of NCS, and generally for life. I am trying to instill good practice regarding money, food and resources into both boys with varying degrees of success.

I found the Ainsley programme on Jordan to be fascinating - not a part of the world that I know much about, which is also true for many of the places he visited. That lamb looked amazing. Rather sorry that its the end of the series but hope there'll be another.

Procrastinating right now - need to get on with the job of doom that I am doing again despite my decision not to do so. Weak woman! I did feel a bit browbeaten by the account handler, and as the boys are off and other work is less demanding, I gave in. Ah well, its money I wouldn't otherwise have had so I will gird myself to complete it with good grace and attention to detail, and at least I'll have the satisfaction of having done a good job (and the quiet knowledge that I won't have to do it next month as they don't want it done in August :T).

Enjoy your weekend lovely people.