The Simple Bare Necessities feat. Gratitude & Recipes

Greying_Pilgrim

Good Evening :hello:

I feel that I have been away hours, and yet accomplished very little. Everyone is fed and watered, and two of our number are washed and a-bed. So not all bad I guess.

Tea last night was a curry plate. I did use the Coconut & Red Lentil Dhal recipe. It's an Adele McConnell recipe from her vegan cookbook. It wasn't the best dhal I have ever had - although in fairness, I used masoor dhal, not the red lentils stipulated in the recipe. However, it is sufficiently different to keep in my recipe index. I also did a Thai-style tofu, mushroom and green bean curry. This curry was made up, using a homemade thai green curry paste. I omitted the basil - you are supposed to use thai basil, and I didn't have any, and there was none YS'd in mrW And as I have no idea what the coconut aminos are, I omitted those too. I don't have soy sauce, so didn't use that either. Served with boiled basmati, picture here;



The thai - style curry was nice, I would make it again.

Tonight we had homemade cottage pie - made with speckled green lentils. No recipe as such, I bunged in what I had, so; lentils, onion, garlic, a leek, carrots, bit of tomato paste, a tin of plum tomatoes - chopped, herbs, salt and pepper. Mash was from the leftover estima potatoes bought in h3r0n f00ds. They make better mash than they do wedges Served with broccoli and green beans and mrT own make gravy. I think they have meddled with the granules formula again, it wasn't as dark as it used to be and tasted different. I am unlikely to buy it again. Picture here;



We went to the supermercados today. I stuck to my list and got the outstanding items for our christmas 'box' to the FB. That can be dropped off next week when the car is available. I almost got it in budget - 23p over I bought some clothing items for BG - not too happy with mrM items, but will give them a chance. Would have liked to have bought some items in mrT but they were OOS for the relevant size. Bought something else from there, went to mrL and found the same thing, but more appropriate and £1 cheaper. mrT will be asked for a refund.... I managed to get 2 items in a charity shop yesterday for 50p each One can be used within the loose theme of christmas and was originally from n3xt, and the other item is a mrT special, is everday functional, and will be used loads :j

Today I am grateful for these 3 things;

for an invite to something in the 'Christmas Spirit' - hopefully not a fake santa suit in sight........

for saving £1 on BG's clothes - baby clothes are a blooming lottery in terms of price and quality

That despite a glitch, team Greying worked well together today - we would have achieved less had we not sorted out our difference of approach......

Thanks for popping in and reading. Much appreciated. As ever. By me.

Greying X

Greying_Pilgrim

Good Morning :hello:

Whilst the weather looks as though it'll struggle to get past lousy today, at least we've not had the extreme cold. I hope Beanie & Pippi are issued with state-sponsored thermals to keep them warm

I was lying in bed last night and it occured to me that whilst i do think that mrT have messed around with their gravy granules recipe, it is in fact quite along time since I last had them, as the last gravy granules that I used were the b1st0 red box ones. Which i learnt - from on here I think - are veggie approved; despite being 'beef' gravy iirc. I'll buy them in future, it's nicer gravy. Will use up this tub first though - it's not huge, thank goodness.

I suspect Baby Greying and I won't be venturing overly far from the homstead today. A breath of fresh air and some excersise might be about it. I'm not prepared to go all the way to the community hub, with the risk of heavy downpours. We can double up our donation next week when we take the Christmas donation - we'll need the car anyway for the 2 lots, so an extra lot won't make a difference.

Tea this evening is 'bake' and I'm trying out a new to me recipe - Wild Rice Casserole by Heidi Swanson (101 Cookbooks blog) The slight fly in the ointment is that I won't be making it with 'actual' wildrice as I haven't got any and it is quite expensive. I'm going to make it with brown basmati and shove interesting things in instead :D

Thinking about it, the veg accopaniment might be a bit sparse. we're running out of frozen veg and the freezer is full Mmm, thinking cap on......

Right i'm away whilst BG is smiling and blowing bubbles Might even get to finish my coffee :j

Greying X

beanielou

Have a lovely Monday Graylings and friends.

Katzen

Thanks for the tip on veggie sausages. I have a nice recipe for sausage in puy lentils that I want to turn veggie as it's not tomato based, which will
make a nice change as most of what I make relies on the old tinned toms.

I must say I'm amazed you don't have a slow cooker GP. I used mine loads when DS was tiny. I'm now looking at a Pot of the Instant variety though so I can pressure cook dried beans as well.

I hope you manage to get outside today and otherwise enjoy some cosy indoors time.

EssexHebridean

Mooooooorning! All sounding good with you - my goodness that pizza looked amazing - quite made my mouth water! Thanks for the recipe on the tomato sauce for pizza too - I'll almost certainly be sticking with my "faff-free" version though I think. Generally speaking, when I do Pizza it's at a weekend, when I'm loking for something "zero effort" - so the BM takes the strain of the dough, and everything else is as simple and quick as I can make it! Lazeee? Moi? (yes!)

The sausage & lentil casserole has made it to this week's meal plan. :T

*waves at Gallygirl* - long time no see! :hello:

Greying_Pilgrim

Katzen wrote: »

I must say I'm amazed you don't have a slow cooker GP. I used mine loads when DS was tiny. I'm now looking at a Pot of the Instant variety though so I can pressure cook dried beans as well.

I'm happy to be persuaded otherwise, but I've never seen a slow-cooker veggie recipe that gives me the impression that it is a vast improvement on that cooked on the stove top or in the oven. I do think they would yield us nice baked potatoes, and whilst they are relatively cheap to buy, I have a tiny kitchen where counter top and cupboard space is at a distinct premium. It would have to transform my cookery to make it into the house I think. My PC on the other hand, I would rugby tackle anyone trying to remove it! i was a late-comer to PC's, but now I've got it, I wouldn't be without it. That has opened up a whole world of pulse cookery because I can cook them in winter without creating 47L of condensation per batch.......

Greying X

Verbatim

What's a pc?

Greying_Pilgrim

Verbatim wrote: »

What's a pc?

Sorry, Pressure Cooker hun.

Or a chap who's about 6 foot in his stockinged feet, bobs up and down alot and has a pechant for sayin' 'Evenin'awl'..............:rotfl:

XX

EssexHebridean

Greying_Pilgrim wrote: »

Sorry, Pressure Cooker hun.

Or a chap who's about 6 foot in his stockinged feet, bobs up and down alot and has a pechant for sayin' 'Evenin'awl'..............:rotfl:

XX

Pfft - not these days Greying - in London at least they mostly seem to hover around the 4'11" mark! :eek::rotfl:

No PC here for similar reasons to you not having a SC - storage space! (plus they're a bit scary )

Upsidedown_Bear

Verbatim wrote: »

What's a pc?

Greying_Pilgrim wrote: »

Sorry, Pressure Cooker hun.

Or a chap who's about 6 foot in his stockinged feet, bobs up and down alot and has a pechant for sayin' 'Evenin'awl'..............:rotfl:

XX

I thought it was....





although I was wondering how that related to cooking :doh::rotfl: