Living richly; simply and debt-freely

supersaver1000

Thanks for keeping up this lovely thread GP.

Tonight was a veggie curry - a packet of YS diced stew pack, fried an extra onion and added curry spice, tin of toms and a bit of water. Oh and a can of lentils loitering in the cupboard plus the leftover lime pickle. Will be a day or two more to squeeze out of it now

Greying_Pilgrim

supersaver1000 wrote: »

Tonight was a veggie curry - a packet of YS diced stew pack, fried an extra onion and added curry spice, tin of toms and a bit of water. Oh and a can of lentils loitering in the cupboard plus the leftover lime pickle. Will be a day or two more to squeeze out of it now

Hey hun, thanks And that ^ sounds super lush and well thrifty :T You've also reminded me that we're on curry tomorrow night and I've forgotten to soak the chickpeas :doh:Better toddle orf and do it now!

Greying x

rtandon27

Greying_Pilgrim wrote: »

*bounces mojo ball over to rtandon's crib*

GP - I think OH caught the ball! - He made the most lush salad today to go with dinner - lettuce, cherry tomatoes, shredded carrot, chopped celery, the last of the sad strawberries with a homemade vinegrette with some mango flavoured vinegar - he even spruced it up with salt & pepper & then asked me to taste it for balance! - He doesn't even like salad!

GP - what did you coat that ball in?!? - My OH is channeling a cordon bleu chef!:D;) - I'd almost say he's been sniffing magic dust!!!

He also boiled some potatoes that were lurking - I'm not sure they are allowed to be called 'new' potatoes if they've been around since May...

My only contibution was to bbq some red stickered pork steaks - I'm feeling rather inadequate...:o:o:o

Am rather envious of your four item dinner bowl! Have been g00gling grape salads & roasted cauliflower - maybe if I print and leave the recipes in plain site it will inspire they OH to be creative again? Surely it can't be a one time occurance?;););)

Greying_Pilgrim

rtandon27 wrote: »

GP - what did you coat that ball in?!? - My OH is channeling a cordon bleu chef!:D;) - I'd almost say he's been sniffing magic dust!!!.......................

My only contibution was to bbq some red stickered pork steaks - I'm feeling rather inadequate...:o:o:o

Ha ha! GO Team rtandon! :D

rtandon27 wrote: »

maybe if I print and leave the recipes in plain site it will inspire they OH to be creative again? Surely it can't be a one time occurance?;););)

I hope not, as I'm setting the sat nav right now, will be with you at tea time

Greying x

rtandon27

Greying_Pilgrim wrote: »

...I hope not, as I'm setting the sat nav right now, will be with you at tea time...

GP - you are both welcome anytime! - not sure my veggie cooking skills are what they once were but I'm pretty sure we could cobble something together!

(and if my student veggie cookbook ever gets unpacked, there are a couple of recipes I'd love to make again! - I'm 100% sure you'd love them!)

Greying_Pilgrim

Although the purpose of 'Tilly's Tiffin Tidy Thursdays' is supposed to be a clear out of all the food stuffs at Greying Towers that have accumulated and need using up to avoid waste, I'm not finding it easy to do that, if I'm honest I mean, in theory, it should be a 'bottom of the fridge' salad or soup, but when there ain't alot in the fridge anyhoo............

I had thought a little about tonight's meal as the week progressed. Which actually, turned out to be beneficial. As, yesterday, when I saw some reduced melons in the 'YS'd' tray at the veg stall (and believe me, they give nothing away, the stuff ain't going to win any 'best in show' prizes........) I wondered whether it would be worth a punt of 29p to add to my (intended) salad plate. I bought the biggest (naturally) on the basis that if it was rotten-ish, then there may be some salvageable bits, whereas with the smaller melons, there would be nowhere for the rot to hide. One delight this melon gave, even if it's destination was to be the compost heap, rather than our plates, was THE.MOST.DELICIOUS.AROMA It was gently fragrancing my walk home and scented the kitchen beautifully overnight

I'd been thinking alot about food/my budget/the price of *good*, healthy foods this week. I was on course, for the 3rd (at least ) month running, to *bust* the budget before pay day I was grateful for supersaver's comment the other night about *thrifty* curry Because I realised that I'd perhaps strayed a little too far away from budget in chasing recipes. The more I thought about it, the more I decided that the only thing to do would be to re-write the menu-planner for the remainder of July. So that is what I did

This re-vamp meant that I had to purchase considerably less in order to achieve *some* food on the table next week. I decided too, that most of what I needed could be purchased from A$da, using a £2 *we got it wrong* giftcard that I got several months ago. As it happened, I was able to buy what I wanted for £2.02, and actually was able to buy an extra tin of potatoes (for salad), because the cucumbers were only 35p (whole) whereas it had said that they were 49p online (If you are interested, they had celery for 35p too ) With the tuppence and voucher out of my purse, I had a small bag of shopping, and absolutely no money on me.

As I came along the high street this afternoon, a gentleman sat on a bench called over to me. I didn't quite catch all of what he said, but he ended with, 'have you any spare change?'.

Whilst I think that this gentleman's problems stretched far deeper than a lack of cash, and that cash wouldn't solve much for him, I did feel a tadge disingenuous when I turned to him, and said, actually perfectly truthfully, 'I'm sorry, I have no money on me'. If you were to see the pair of us side by side, you would not have assumed it was me that lacked the cash....... And yet, I had no more than him - as without a knife or a tin opener, the contents of my bag would have got neither of us very far................

As I got nearer to home, I spied a shiny 20p piece, laying in the gutter of the road. As I straightened up from picking it out of said gutter, I caught the eye of a very neatly dressed, attached to her phone thingy by ear-plugs, young lady. Her face was a picture.

I don't routinely carry money anymore. Sometimes because I don't have any. Sometimes because I don't want to be tempted to fritter away the resources that I do have. But I do value money, and will stop - most of the time - to pick up *roadkill*. Funnily enough, several months ago, I was asked by gentleman had I any spare change. Again, on that occasion, I hadn't got my purse, and had no money. I politely answered him, and walked on a few steps. There on the pavement there was a shiny 5p piece. I stopped, picked it up, turned to him and said, 'this must be yours.' He thanked me. Perhaps if nothing else, he recognised that I had genuinely given all that I had, at that moment in time.

I am grateful to supersaver for coming on to tell us about her super veggie curry, because it made me think. I always like it when I'm made to think, or challenge my way of doing things. I don't think that there will be any surplus in the grocery budget by next Friday, but neither will there be a huge deficit incurred by continuously holding on to the idea that the budget is flexible. It isn't. I think I needed that reminder. But it was nice to be up 18p on the day :T

Oh, and as for the melon? Well, see for yourself, and if you want to know what I did with it, well, come back in a little while......



Greying x

Greying_Pilgrim

Sooooooooo............... On finding that my 29p melon wasn't a pit of black mush on the inside :j I set to work with a teaspoon (I don't possess a melon baller, even though I was alive in the 1970's ) Most of the flesh was perfectly fine in the melon. The bruises/rot had pretty much only affected the skin. I easily used 90% of it, and probably scraped out an extra 5% as *cook's perks* to eat whilst I prepped the meal. Pretty much only the seeds and the skin went into the compost bin (and now someone is going to tell me I wasted the seeds, because they can be made into...........)

Picture of dinner;



The melon salad was heavily influenced by a post on The First Mess. I didn't use balsamic vinegar, I 'blanched' the red onion in some white wine vinegar and lemon and lime juice and added in the lime zest. In addition, I chopped up a small handful of my YS'd grapes, and added them in...... because I could The melon was actually perfectly ripe, and the perfume! Oh, absolutely intoxicating with eat bite. I made Morrocan Carrot and Orange salad, very similar to this BBC Good Food version, although I dressed it with oil, sesame oil and lemon juice and incorporated sesame seeds and sunflower seeds in it too. I didn't use cumin, but did add in cinnamon. I made Pugilese Salad, which is one of my favourite ways to eat beetroot And finished it off with a *quenelle* of HM hummous from the freezer - which was done as a quenelle for no other reason, than to make a small amount of hummous look a whole lot bigger......... It was actually all topped off with a single egg omelette, cut into ribbons, but i'm not sure it added anything to the picture......



Today I am grateful for these 3 things;

Good conversation

budgetary *re-boots*

that a humble, battered melon, yielded so much pleasure for 29p

Thanks everso for popping in. I do appreciate it. Greatly.

See y'all later.

Greying x

beanielou

Bargain melon :drool:

rtandon27

mmmmm - a melon and grape salad - the piccy is making my mouth water!

as to melon seeds...

the beeb says thus...:p

Greying_Pilgrim

Good Morning :hello:

I was thinking last night, I didn't identify (to myself) just what ingredients in dinner last night, had, in fact been *tidied*;

Last orange from the mrL 99p bag and 3 bendy carrots from the bottom of the fridge (2 left to use - recipe identified). 2 lemons bought but only 1 used and they were *bought* with a voucher

Single pot of hummous used up - *space* revealed in freezer

1 pack of vacuum packed beetroot used out of stock of 4 - should have had pugilese salad earlier in the month, but substitution taken place. Using up stores bought with July grocery budget. Mint from YS'd m&$ plant used (which is growing on nicely )

1 melon bought albeit heavily reduced in price 1 cucumber bought albeit at a bargain price and only half used and I bought it with a voucher The last red onion used from the store But I still have half of it left With a use identified for that 1 YS'd lime used up , 1 left to use

Tonight we will have cheese and tomato pizza and wedges (using up the last of the *dirty* potatoes that I got from HB last week )

All good wishes to everyone having interviews today - *knock 'em dead* And hope everyone has a great Friday. I intend to

Thanks for popping in and drooling over me melon :D

See y'all later.

Greying x