Living richly; simply and debt-freely

Greying_Pilgrim

Good Morning :hello:



We took egg mayo sangers for a car ride to a natty trusty place yesterday. I think that a good time was had by all Certainly sitting in an English country garden, watching all manner of insects, along with Robins and Greenfinches flit about, takes some beating. The garden cat has obviously been sleeping on the job, as we watched a little mouse flitting about too It was very much like being in Mr McGregor's patch

The catering facilities onsite were very, very up-to-date. I wondered actually whether they had been outsourced? Is that the way the trust is going? There were sofas and easy chairs, alongside tables, and the ubiquitous wood-pellet stove (which wasn't on, as we were basking in late summer sunshine ) Brunch seemed a very popular turn - and I must admit, the pricing was very, very good. There are places in GreyingTown that charge more, for less food, and in less salubrious surroundings.

So all in all, we had a good weekend. Some chores attended to, some toot thrown out and lungfuls of fresh air taken in Not bad The disappointment at the NT place was that they sold produce from their gardens. However, as per usual, there are obviously not enough volunteer pickers, and the produce had been left to go over. The few bits in the box - for sale by donation - weren't actually very good; blighty tomatoes and a beetroot the size of a football The waste 'on the vine' as it were, in the garden, was absolutely heartbreaking to see I don't think that they supplied the on-site restaurant, so I don't suppose that helped encourage regular harvesting. Unfortunately, it is a NT property that is too far away to volunteer at - otherwise I would be there like a shot! And probably end up being their no. 1 purchaser

I was thinking about Cheery's words yesterday, about 'find your tribe'. It's amazing how tribular we have got as a nation. Perhaps it was always thus, but on our journey, we saw; Biker groups, lycra clad cyclists, mx5 owner convoys, tvr owner convoys, caravan owner convoys..................... I suppose we were in the 'Trust visitor' tribe, and yet.... we didn't belong to the 'going out for brunch with the children & grandchildren' set, and a gaggle of parents, with their tiny tots were totally different to us (younger for a start! ). And if I ever say, 'Heads up, guys' to a group of toddlers, when I want to show them something, please remove me from their supervision. Immediately. Tribe finding remains elusive.

Sunday's entry on the meal-planner is 'bake', which is possibly not the best if we are out for the day. Although in theory, if i get my act together, I can pre-prepare it and just have it to cook on our return. As it was, there was enough time to make Tricolour Avocado Bake (well, a version of it) from scratch. I had forgotten to remove the last mozarella out of the freezer and into the fridge to defrost, so used feta instead. I used the frozen avocado halves from mrT that greenbee told us about - and which now are discontinued! I have to say, for the size of the avocados (you got 8 halves in a pack), £2.50 was a little bit pricey. However, as a product, I actually thought that they were very good. They didn't go brown the minute they started to defrost in the oven, and the finished dish tasted nicely of ripe, 'fresh' avocado. If you benefit from the convenience and needed ripe avocados for a dish, i think that these would be a good compromise. However, mrT don't sell 'em no more! But I am glad that I have got to try them at least

I served our tea with the remaining YS'd organick new potatoes that I got from m&$ t'other week and some carrot and frozen green beans. Picture here;



Right, Baby Greying is getting fidgetty, so we'd best move on to the next activity

Thanks for popping by and reading. Much appreciated.

Greying X

Cheery_Daff

Ooh, your picnic sounds most jolly Greying :j :j "heads up guys" indeed :rotfl: :rotfl:

I really need to go on more picnics

greenbee

I'm clearing out the fridge as I'm off out of the country for work for a few days. So i've made the aubergine curry again All the green stuff is currently being turned into soup...

Greying_Pilgrim

Good Morning :hello:

I am up, showered, dressed, breakfasted and I have even iced a cake! Go Me! :rotfl::rotfl::rotfl:

Baby Greying has been looked after too, although i will be waiting until a bit later to dress them properly, as we are off perambulating about, and there is too much time twixt then and now for spillages, dribbles and accidents :rotfl:

Time is just flying at the moment. I have sort of kept up with my menu planner. Lawks, I can't remember what we had on Monday - but I do know that it kept to the plan in using up things in the freezer; Tuesday was Soup - butterbean and thyme. Wednesday escaped and we ended up having a 'friday' feeling, in that I raided the freezer for oven chips and leftover pizza Last night we were back on track, and I made a 'buddha bowl'. I made a 'sort of' pilau, using long grain rice, YS'd mushrooms, a gifted courgette, the 59p bag of mrL spinach, curry powder, an onion and some garlic. I then topped this with fried cubes of the paneer that i got from h3ron f00ds for 69p then froze (defrost before cooking), which I tossed in some of the remaining Kadai sauce, which I talked about HERE. It was topped off with a sprinle of onion seeds - fresh coriander would have been better, but I didn't have any Picture here;



Tonight should be pizza night. I am going to try to make the dough for the base before I go out. That way, it will definitely happen, as it won't matter what time we get back.

Greying Towers has received a small tax rebate this week. Whilst it would be wonderful to splash the cash on something fun like lunch out, I fear we have to be more prosaic and stick it in the jam jar named 'new windows fund'

Baby Greying has been spoilt yet again, receiving some pre-loved toys. They are indeed a lucky baby And we are grateful to know such generous and thoughtful people Baby Greying continues to change and delight everyday I am truly one blessed mumma

Right, well we're off out to support a friend at an event that they are featuring in. We have baked a cake to help the refreshment stall raise funds, so our mission is to get ourselves and the cake to the venue, looking presentable and in one piece (version 1 of the cake got dropped - not on the floor - and is now languishing in the cake tin, much, it has to be said, to DH's delight!)

Thanks for popping in, reading and joining in the conversation. Mucho, mucho appreciated.

Greying X

Upsidedown_Bear

Hello and happy Friday Pilgrimers

Today's forecast....




So Smilie and I will be doing....





Hope you all have a good day whatever you are doing and stay dry if you're near the storms and wet weather

Greying_Pilgrim

Good Evening :hello:

Well, I am cross-eyed with exhaustion, and will be away to my bed in a minute.

Today has been wonderful. I have seen some wonderful creativeness, missed the opportunity to peruse a produce stall , eaten cake and drunk coffee :j and spent time in the company of my wonderful friend, the Learned Lady of Letters, met some other people, and spent time with a former work colleague who I've not seen in an age. Baby Greying got cwtched and cooed over and behaved impeccably - dare I even say, 'took it in their stride'?

I remembered 2 minutes after switching off the computer this morning that we had Caponata for us tea on Monday night - also known as aubergine stew - the 'using up' was predominantly of the aubergine that was languishing in the fridge, but i did use up half a bag of mixed peppers out of the freezer. It was served with wet polenta which had the remainder of the feta crumbled into it. I did however, forget to put fennel seeds in the stew - stoopid me. I love fennel.

We've just finished up tea this evening. No pic I'm afraid - it was just cheese and tomato pizza with oven chips. At least I made the dough before I went out, so it was easy enough to just roll it out, put the tomato sauce (hm) on top and top that with grated cheese. I had meant to say, I saw a pizza in m&$ t'other day, that was nearly the size of my oblong tray. Cheese and tomato - I had meant to commit the price to memory, but I thought how much 'my' pizza was worth each week.............

Today I am grateful for these 3 things;

creative people who share their talents with others

interesting people and interesting conversation

a super DH who is tolerant enough to wait 45 minutes to be picked up by his gad-about* missus :eek::rotfl:

Ta for popping by, reading and wishing your fellow MSE'rs well Always appreciated. Always.

Greying X

* It does happen very rarely (the gadding about), i'm usually early and waiting for him, but when I'm late, I'm very late

beanielou

Sounds li.ke you had a lovely day

tunathe_cat

Hi
please can you tell me where you buy onion seeds?

Pippilongstocking

Sounds like a fab day.

Tunathecat - most health food shops and some decent supermarkets have onion seeds as do international food shops like indian or chinese.

Although some folks call nigella seeds black onion seeds too. Its very confusing. So maybe GP is better to help, I've got myself in horticultural turmoil.



have a great weekend folks.

My three things GP were

Watching butterflies on the verbena that's too tall but as it is i can see it from the kitchen window.

A nice card in the mail from a lovely chum

Free fruit and veg from work and the garden which is buzzing with bees. And GP there are similar problems in our garden too, we leave veg for sale out all week, on a Friday I leave for the weekend, and no one thinks to top up the water in the lettuces, remove the odd gone over bean (which rots the rest) or deslug the cabbages so I come in to carnage of soup/slug sogginess on a monday, not very appealing to buyers.

PS can we start our own tribe.

Greying_Pilgrim

Good Afternoon :hello:

Argghhhh, was trying to compose a piece of writing - wot needs written - that is just making me angrier and angrier. So i thought I would pop in here a bit for some respite, and........

Visitors! How luverly

Beanie - :wave: It was, it was I also got to drive through some delicious countryside Life is good

Tuna - my esteemed coll-E-gwee, Pippilongstocking, is absolutely correctomundo - about the onion seeds. I get mine from the asian grocers, in the next city along, they are normally referred to as 'Kalonji' and are (relatively speaking) cheap as chips A quick goggle, confirms what Pippi said and 'Nigella' seeds are available in most supermercados (in little jars, unless you have a really excellent 'World foods' aisle) for between 80p (mrT) and £2.20 (BarT brand, mrW). HTH

Pippi :wave: I get the 'frothing soup' on a Monday morning, but this stuff wasn't fit to have been put in the basket in the first place. Someone must have bought the beetroot - can't imagine how 'woody' it was likely to have been. Perhaps they were getting ahead for all hallows eve and wanted to carve it........ Oh, and I'm not knocking gardens run by volunteers. Heck, we wouldn't have so many nice gardens if it wasn't for them But it just, well, broke my heart that they had made such a nice garden, had grown such an abundance of produce - and yet most was rotting on the 'vine' and that which was for sale was an extremely poor reflection of the bounty available. What's the solution though? Mmm, more muscle power - and I was unable to provide it - so it's no good me carping

You would have approved of the bee and bird-infested garden I was ambling around yesterday It was a plantswomans garden, organic and slowly but surely, losing its lawn in favour of more plants and seating You also would have slapped my wrists for not supporting the produce stall! In my defence, i thought I would be returning that way, but time eluded me and I had to go orf in the other direction.

Baby Greying is being a bit crotchetty today. Unlike them really. But all par for the course

I am hopeful that Saturday night will remain 'curry night'. I have some gifted produce to use up, so no worries over ingredients. I also bought some more coconut milk in the week, and then promptly found the punnets that I thought that I had frozen, in the freezer......... :whistle: Ah well, it's good enough in the tin for long enough

Right, I best go. Suspicious pops, gurgles and burbles eminating from my lap, usually mean one thing.................

Greying X