Living richly; simply and debt-freely

beanielou

I do worry about the difficulties of getting older & what it means rather a lot

joeyjimbles

Thank you for the sweet potato curry recipe - duly bookmarked for next weekend, if not sooner, I wonder how well it might freeze? Sweet potatoes have a bit of a tendency to mushiness in my past experiments.

Struggling to believe that its Monday. The weekend seems to have flown by with very little to point at as achievements. I even managed to miss the Rick Stein programme despite looking out for it - ah well there is always iPlayer or it will be repeated in the week, but I did catch Blue Murder at St Trinians which was a joy.

wishus

Just wanted to pop by and say my hellos. Hello!

Recipes looking great and nummy, as per usual, GP! I am going to make a lovely lentil dhal tonight with a bit of mint raita and rice. Maybe a chapati too if I have WW points left for it!

Upsidedown_Bear

Smilie of the day.

Greying_Pilgrim

Good Evening :hello:

beanielou wrote: »

I do worry about the difficulties of getting older & what it means rather a lot

beanie - thank you for your post. It's made me think - and ponder a bit more on what I wrote yesterday. I think that this additional cogitation is helping me get to the bottom of what I actually need to address.

I don't think my worries are centered around getting old per se - after all, I may never get there I think they are centred much more firmly on needing to adapt to change - which can come about at any time and at any age. It's the needing to be mindful that you are actually in that transitional period, and that you need to do something. If you don't, things slide, and they can slide pretty quickly.

I know that some people think that *signs* are a load of hogwash mumbo-jumbo, and I respect that. But I tend to keep an open mind, and an open ear and an open eye to what is going on around me. And it seems like at the moment, there are a lot of scenarios where folk are stubbornly holding on to *what they know*, at the expense of their quality of life - and for sure at the expense of quality of life for others. Now. I cannot get these folks to change course, direction or their attitudes (unfortunately ) but I can think very closely about what attitude I have about it all. What my reaction should be, what my course of action should be. And all that points towards..... make changes....... Thing is, I thought I was ok-ish with change. Quite bold about some things, nervous but gritted my teeth with others. Always try to not hold entrenched views about anything, but try to see both sides. I'm wondering whether actually, life is showing me that I'm not good with change and I've been stuck for too long. After all, my head knows that the only constant in life is change, but is my heart listening?

You all know that DP and I want to move away from Greying Towers. We made great strides towards that aim, then due to a set of circumstances, we let things slide, re-gathered a little momentum at the tail-end of last year and then, I have to be honest, let things slide again to the point that we've done very little this year to move things along. All indications are that we need to shift our behinds again, and *hiding* behind low-level changes that are going on at the moment is not helping matters. Darn!

I still haven't got THE answer, but I'm getting there, I'm getting there. Really need to make sure that DP is with me all the way though, It needs team-work and we're both shaping our futures, so we need to get stuck in.

..................................

Anyhoo, on a lighter note.........

A young man absolutely made my day today. I was walking along - minding my own business, as I am apt to do - and up ahead I spied a young man, sitting on a bench, eating his lunch as I thought. I carried on walking and as I came level with him, he called across the path to me;

'Excuse me Missy, would you like some of my sweeties?' and immediately thrust forward his arm, at the end of which, a small bag of horribleO sweeties were gripped in his hand.

I replied (kindly I hope), 'Oooh, that's ever so generous of you, but I'm on a bit of a diet. But thank you for asking.'

I do believe that the young man was quite sincere in his offer - and had I taken him up on it, I could of had a sweetie. But it made my day, because he called me 'Missy', could have legitimately been my son - without any redress to enquiry about 'age of consent' - and genuinely seemed to just want to share his sweeties DP got a bit jealous when I told him :rotfl:

I was lucky at lunchtime as M&$ had started their YS'ing. Not humungous discounts, but I got 1.5kg of new potatoes for 45p and a cauli (medium) for 35p, and 2 punnets of mushrooms for 30p each :j

The cauli - well, part of it - got used in our dinner Leanne Brown kept us on the culinary budget straight and narrow again, and helped us have a delicious meal I made her Green and White Chilli which is in her 'From Scratch' cookbook. I made it last year and we really liked it - it has so much flavour for a relatively simple set of ingredients - and is actually quite frugal to make - even if you use tinned beans. I put it with some basmati rice and some mrM frozen 'savers' broccoli - which is not the best broccoli on the market, but is the cheapest Edit: totally forgot to add; I didn't put cheese in my chilli - it is fine without it. What I do do however, is to gently blitz a little bit with my stick blender - this thickens up the chilli instantly, without you losing texture of the cauli or beans - just a couple of *whizzes* is all that is needed. PLUS - if you are a slow-cooker user, Leanne tells you how to cook this in the slow-cooker at the end of the recipe. HTH




wishus - how did the dhal go? Did you have room for chappatis?

joeyjimbles - I know what you mean about the sweet potatoes, but I'm cantankerous and freeze regardless!

Upsidedown Bear - see, even smilie is imploring me to 'think outside the box' :rotfl:

Today I am grateful for these 3 things;

kind, sharing people - how nice

that I didn't let YS bonanzas go to my head and actually remembered what I went in for (onions) :rotfl:

for people who post on this thread and the constant source of help that they freely give to me....... :kisses3:

Thanks so much for popping in, reading and contributing. Mucho, mucho appreciated. By Me. Always.

See y'all later.

Greying x

little_sweetie

Hellooo Greying (creeps in guiltily) :hello:

I'm afraid I have been absent from this thread for an absolute age and in many ways have taken my eye off the ball regarding meal planning. As a result I feel sluggish and not a little guilty

OH has just upgraded our PC to Windows 10 and I am trying to find my way around an unfamiliar system having been logged out of just about everything and forgetting my passwords (don't ask!) But....here I am....I do hope you will accept me back into the fold

I have missed so much on here but I can see that foodie heaven is still very much in evidence which is just what I need. I am so glad you are still here :j

Greying_Pilgrim

Good Morning :hello:

little_sweetie wrote: »

But....here I am....I do hope you will accept me back into the fold

You betcha! Always. Any camper van travails to impart?

Well, here we go again. Tuesday. TV mag and soup night :rotfl: Lawks, I can tell what day it is by what food we are having :rotfl:

Thanks for popping in, reading and joining in. Appreciated.

See y'all later.

Greying x

Greying_Pilgrim

Good Evening :hello:

Well, today has been fine. But if you don't mind, I'll not hang around, as for some inexplicable reason, I am zonked.

Dinner this evening was indeed soup with black onion seed piadinas (or flatbreads to you and me ). I wasn't too sure what soup to make, as it has been lovely weather here today, and I was ruing having made the pineapple soup last week in the rain - it would have better suited today's weather However, a fortuitous duck into the *StoneWaters* bookstore at lunchtime saw me perusing through blogger Sarah Britton's new book, where my eyes fell upon her 'Four Corners Lentil Soup'. I know that I have a lentil soup recipe very similar to it, but I figured I would ramp up the lemon content to reflect the summer, and serve it at roomish temp (actually, it hadn't really cooled enough, but it was ok). I made up a batch of piadinas (originally a JO recipe out of his *save with* book). I haven't linked to the recipe in a while, and I see that my link to the Australian website that listed it, no longer works. However, I found a blog where someone has been trialling the recipe, so the recipe for flatbreads that I use (first 4 ingredients only needed to make the breads) is HERE - nice lunch idea too, if you eat tuna



Another good, low-cost recipe that fills you up and satisfies. It delivers on taste too But no. I don't know why the yoghurt *drizzle* went all wiggly

As it happens, it has gone cooler here now, although the promised humidity and mugginess is starting to build So the soup ended up being just right.

Today I am grateful for these 3 things;

parcel tracking

inspirational bloggers/authors

texts - let's someone know you are thinking about them

Thanks for reading. There is a strong possibility that I'm away to ma bed... #lightweight :rotfl:


See y'all later.

Greying x

joeyjimbles

I think the wiggling drizzle looks artistic. And thanks for another flatbread recipe, I use a different JO one that is flour, yoghurt, salt and Baking Powder though I often dispense with it by using SR flour in the first place.

Was Fettucine in this house tonight (thanks to Tosco Orchard). With YS carbonara sauce (9p! and I got 4 for the freezer) for the boys and tomato and basil for me as there wasn't quite enough white stuff to stretch and there is always loads of T&B in the freezer, and a loaf of Aldee garlic bread and some salady bits.

Tomorrow will be something with sweet potatoes again, as they are apt to go soft if left too long.

little_sweetie

Greying_Pilgrim wrote: »

Good Morning :hello:

You betcha! Always. Any camper van travails to impart?


Greying x

Aw thanks, Greying. Re the camper van...it is no more! OH decided that he fancied a caravan instead (and they say women are fickle?) so in April we exchanged the van for a caravan ( plus cashback) and the surplus cash went towards a tow vehicle IYSWIM. The whole thing about towing terrifies me though. I hate it until we get to our destination and all set up then it's lovely. The main advantage is that we are not dependent entirely on the bus system once we get set up as we now have a car to get about in. Buses are fine if OH's joints allow but he had a problem with his foot earlier in the year when he was unable to walk very far which, I think, made the decision for him. The caravan will also be much warmer in the winter as it has 'wet' central heating instead of blown air (which was a booger for drying the air and making the skin on your face feel tight as a drum :cool: ) So that's what's been happening with the sweeties!


Hope you and DP are well x