The Simple Bare Necessities feat. Gratitude & Recipes

Greying_Pilgrim

Pippilongstocking wrote: »

feasted on <24hr old wobblesome wedges who knew pink fir apple tatties could be so entertaining! Each one a unique shape of crazy.

Mmmm, less than 24hrs out the good earth I've only ever grown PFA's once, but yes, deliciously wobbly and knobbly

I reluctantly passed up an opportunity to try some 'Shetland black' potatoes a few weeks ago. They were garden grown, but I wasn't 'at home' at the time and didn't want to transport them all around and about in a hot car boot and then be disappointed in them because they'd not been cooked within a few hours of them being dug up A missed opportunity for sure.

And :rotfl::rotfl: to the multiplication of runner beans Which is why I laugh my socks off when I see shops charging over £1 for about 200g of the blessed things. But I remain grateful to the chum who so willingly hands over such garden bounty

Not sure whether to make the 'new' runner bean curry recipe, doesn't seem more interesting that the one I already have......Could do I suppose. There might be more runner beans again, so I could always make my original curry if the new one didn't pan out.

Greying X

Greying_Pilgrim

Good Evening :hello:

Oh, a lazy day has been had today I'd like to say that I've not spent any money, as I've not been anywhere, but DH picked up some things for me from mrL this morning.

We had brocolli and cheddar soup for lunch - kinda made up, and it only came together (taste-wise) when I thought to add several tatties (out of a tin ) to the soup and whizzed them up. Until that point, it was like watery brocolli....... Dunno what went wrong, but it was transformed, edible, and quite frankly, YUM!

We did pop out to the recreation gound for a breath of fresh air and a push on the swing. Much needed, as cabin fever threatened to overwhelm [STRIKE]me[/STRIKE] us

Tea was kinda frugal, as it featured gifted produce, storecupboard stuff, a S6 (last week) lime and some of my £1 a kilo basmati rice. I've found that the down side of buying a 10kg bag of rice is that it is difficult to man-handle to fill up the rice jar that i keep in the kitchen, and the integrated handle on the bag is not fit for purpose and ripped. Luckily, I did not drop the bag of rice on the kitchen floor......

I made 2 curries from THIS list that I found on the net. I made the Courgette curry and the Bean Kari. I would make both of them again, should I be lucky enough to have the gifted produce to work with. I didn't put coconut milk in the courgette curry - simply because I was serving it with the bean kari, and I thought it was overkill in this particular instance - the resulting curry was really nice, I think it worked well without the coconut - and would probably work well with the coconut if teamed with something else IYSWIM. So I did; Courgette curry, bean kari, lentil dhal and steamed basmati, picture here;



I liked the idea of the cook stirring the curry spices into the cut vegetables by hand, to impart 'soul' into the meal. However, I'm a wuss, who has to touch a baby and doesn't want to give them chilli burns, and I have no inclination to look like I've a 40-a-day smoking habit, and have to explain to everyone, 'but it's the turmeric.....' :rotfl:

Today I am grateful for these 3 things;

gifted produce that can make a meal

the simple pleasures of a swing in some sunshine

a mid-afternoon power nap, knowing BG was safely with papa

Ta for popping by, reading and joining in. I appreciate it. Greatly.

Greying X

Silver_Queen

Greying_Pilgrim wrote: »

I've found that the down side of buying a 10kg bag of rice is that it is difficult to man-handle to fill up the rice jar that i keep in the kitchen, and the integrated handle on the bag is not fit for purpose and ripped. Luckily, I did not drop the bag of rice on the kitchen floor......

Bring the rice jar to the bag

Dip jar in, scoop up rice, no manhandling necessary!

Greying_Pilgrim

Silver_Queen wrote: »

Bring the rice jar to the bag

Dip jar in, scoop up rice, no manhandling necessary!

A perfectly laudable suggestion! And one that I will consider in the future The only difficulty at the moment is that the rice bag can't be stored upright (no room) and has to be laid flatish in a box (keep weevilies at bay), so i haven't cut the top of the bag open completely - which would be needed to get a mug/scoop/jar into the bag with.

But it is something that I will consider as the rice level goes down - the irony of course being that the bag will be lighter........ :doh:

Thanks for thinking of me though - if I can make that suggestion work, you know I'll try

Greying X

Verbatim

Logistics eh?!

muddywhitechicken

Good morning Greying & friends :wave:

I can recommend the courgette curry and tomato & coconut dal from The Grauniad as well - Mr MWC cooked them last weekend and they're on the plan for this coming Friday :drool:

Greying_Pilgrim

Good Morning :hello:

We were out adventurising yesterday, having a high old time, despite indifferent weather We took in a wonderful garden attached to a grand auld NT pile. We didn't (yesterday) even bother with the house, and spent the entire time in the garden. Mucho, mucho free fun and entertainment - for us and BG alike. I could listen to BG's squeals of delight all day long................. We're lucky that the (well-tended) veg bit of this garden produces produce fit for the restaurant on-site, plus a bit extra, so I snapped up 'blue' french beans - possibly cosse violette? or Blue coco? and some (not named, but apparently victorian varieties) of windfall apples suitable for a pie/crumble. They smelt wonderful - almost bordering on the perfume of quinces - but not as powerful, but certainly intoxicating (and no, they ain't rotten! ) We ate a picnic lunch in the garden on a secluded bench (there were also picnic benches in another bit of the garden - good to see 2 were getting heartily used by families whilst we were there ), watched bees going mad for cerinthe, cosmos and verbena bonarienensis (sp?). Hope we can make a return trip to see a bit more before the end of summer.

My only dispappointment yesterday was on popping into a Aldee's looking for bananas. Now, it may have been peculiar to this store (not in Greying Town) - but the only bananas I could see were 'bagged up' fives, for........ 76p? or if you wanted 'loose' bananas, they were 12p EACH. No weigh scales, no 72p a kilo like mrL, mrT, m&$........ Tell me it was this store - tell me not all Aldees do that? Otherwise I have yet another reason to not bother shopping there. I don't want bananas in plastic bags (they were all battered, bashed and their skins were already blackened for a start), bananas sweat. Also, over the course of a week, even little family Greying would have to buy approximately five bags of bananas. Excuse me mrAl, YOU may not care about plastic waste, but I do. I do not bag my bananas when I buy them, I put them carefully in my shopping bag and take them home where I put them on the counter-top. No bag required. Let us hope not all retailers follow suit. I had to leave the bananas in the co-op I then went into - 99p a kilo? I don't think so.................

Tea this evening will be...... dunno. Changed my mind regarding what is 'on' the planner, for a good reason, but not rethought it out yet. Tea best involve beans (not tinned) I think....... :rotfl:

Right, mustache. Chores to do. Coffee mug to drain.

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

Greying X

Pippilongstocking

Morning - I'm so with you as you know on the crazy war against plastic - its so irritating - I should have put that on my 50 list be plastic free. Arg.

Sorry to hear you are banana-less - I hope the great banana gods provide sometimes soon. Can't have you running low on potassium.

Just lost myself for a good 20 mins reading up about French Beans - thanks for that! How interesting that the Blue Coco has been know since before 1775 en france etc - I find heritage veg really interesting - perhaps I shall be more dilligent and grow more at home and at work - be good to think we're preserving some interesting varieties.

Sounds like a nice day out in a gorgeous garden - love all the flowers you mentioned. I've all of those above at home - a wee (tall) VB 'hedgelet' outside the kitchen window on the patio in recycled fishboxes I love the bees and butterflies on it. I also had no idea that the sparrows go crazy for the seed heads in the winter - discovered that last year so now I leave it alone and watch them land and then zoom downwards until the stem holds their weight - its an easy way to loose a good couple of hours watching their capers. Just love it as a plant.

Oh dear I'm waxing away - have a great day today and look forward to hearing what you do with those beans. I tried the HFWhotsit recipe before and liked it linky here. Although I think I used random seeds instead of nuts and still worked well.

Have a good un!

Greying_Pilgrim

Hey hun :wave:

We got back to Greying Town in time to go to mrL - and I bought bananas loose, weighed them and they were 934g (from memory), not bagged, carried out to the car, put in a reuseable shopper and carried into the house and are now hanging on the 'tree' in the kitchen.

Funnily enough I was reading up about Dame Ellen MacArthur the other day - she campaigns (amongst other things) to reduce the amount of plastic in our seas. It all comes from somewhere.......

I have all the ingredients for that recipe..... mmmmm :think:

Have a great day hun

Greying X

in_need_of_direction

I agree totally re packaging. I once contacted sainsbugs and asked if they couldn't do multi buys of individual items rather than multi packs that are wrapped in plastic. Any supermarket visit will let you see how far that one got!