The Simple Bare Necessities feat. Gratitude & Recipes

rtandon27

Greying_Pilgrim wrote: »

...Bargains in mrA today included 4 punnets of mushrooms, YS'd to 20p each. They will adorn our pizza tonight and go into our curry tomorrow night ...

Great bargains GP! Love a good YS bargain!

We managed a few packages of fancy bread rolls at 20p each - and since we've eaten down 1/2 the freezer stores, there was just enough room for 2 of the 3 packs. Ate the other ones for dinner last night with fixings to make fake McChook'ish' burgers - cheap easy meal - with lots of salady bits. Too hot for anything that took longer then 12 minutes!

In other food adventure news - Today was leftovers - a bit of this and a bit of that from the fridge to fill the plates - and no waste!:j:j:j

Tomorrow, a one pot stove top biryani to use up tomatoes, carrots, green beans & cauliflower - lovely seasonal fresh veg. Have discovered that OH actually likes brown rice?!? (will wonders never cease) - so will mix half-half with white.

That is as exciting as our weekends get.:rotfl::rotfl::rotfl:

Greying_Pilgrim

Good Morning :hello:


rtandon - I love that you always make the very best use of what you have and what you can get. I was thinking about you last night - and I think it is you that always seems to be able to get really got YS'd priced lemongrass. I was flicking through my curry recipes and my eyes fell on a thai green mushroom curry, and I was lamenting that I currently have no lemongrass in the freezer - YS'd or otherwise. I've kinda given up on our local waitr0s3 - and they are the only place that I go that I could find YS'd lemongrass occasionally. They're apt to only knock tuppence off stuff, and the staff aren't very nice to deal with (the staff at H3ron and HB could show them a thing or two ref pleasant transactions with customers)


So I love mushrooms And having bagged 4 punnets for 80p - could have had more, but didn't want to be greedy and hadn't got enough hands to carry them - I used them all up. No waste! 2 punnets got sliced up with a small onion and loads of garlic on friday night, and were sauted and then put atop our pizza. Luverly, and we ALL tucked in Last night, I went for the obvious choice of prepping the final 2 punnets into a Kodovan Curry, as I had all the ingredients for it. It was teamed with left over courgette dalcha (turned out to be a celebration of the recipes of Madhur Jaffrey! ) and basmati rice.



We have the wherewithal to have cardboard box fish and oven chips for tea tonight, so we'll see what happens. DH is well immersed in doing DIY prep - what he can do is always done 'as well' or better than any trades we ever get in, because he cares about what he's doing and doesn't want to live with eyesores. But it's a muncher of time, no mistake. I do hope that BG is not suffering as a result of all this blessed work, as we've definitely railed back the adventurising on account of cost, but as importantly, time.



DH did some shopping interspersed with visits to 'big box' DIY stores yesterday. He got some cucumbers from mrL's PoTW. I'm not sure I would have bothered with them, on seeing them. They were...... 35? pence, and weren't very big, and one was already 'yellow-ish', and the other wasn't exactly dark, bottle green. So not so much of a 'give-away', Thanks fer nowt, mrL. We will definitely be having cucumber salad asap to use up the rest of the first cucumber (used half in sangers for snap yesterday). I also have frozen vegetables back in the house for the first time in ages :j


There seems to be a national shortage of 'fr3dd0s' - Cheery can you shed any light on this calamitous situation?? Neither HB nor H3r0n are currently stocking them in our neck of t'woods - WOT is going on!???!! :rotfl:


I've had lots of good news lately, of friends achieving things, getting recognition of their talents; of things I've done being 'of value' to chums; of friends living the life with their children/grandchildren that i sorely hope to achieve with BG. 'Possibility' is in the air It's a nice feeling.


I've been researching what is needed by the food bank for their summer programme. i've decided on a budget in my mind, and spent some time yesterday, seeing how I could get 'best bang' for my buck, without compromising on quality. At the moment, there is nothing on the list - with the exception of tinned meat products, which I've not eaten since being a child - that I haven't eaten, or wouldn't eat, myself. I'm going to set the money aside, and start to gather things together, as the one downside of getting value for money, is that you can't get everything from one store........But I want my donation to be the best that it can be; we're not rich, but perhaps we can add value, and give 'more' (but retain quality) by being savvy.



Right, best go and get some breakfast. BG is with their beloved papa, watching something on TV - a Sunday morning treat, for them both.



Ta for popping by. Appreciated.


Greying X

rtandon27

mmmm - GP that mushroom curry looks lush! - given that it is coconut based, OH might be convinced to give it a try - and since you found that recipe on good old CBC it's got to be a keeper;):D

Saw this article from 2016 & thought of you - inflationary food for thought?!?

beanielou

Possibility is always good

Greying_Pilgrim

Good Morning :hello:


Well, the time is flying.


I'd love to say that all is going swimmingly, and progress is being made........



However,


One word.


Tradespeople...............................


tis funny, we test, test, test our little people. And then we test them some more. We attribute them scores, pit them against unseen, unknown 'peers' in their age group; label them as failures in reports that contain more grammatical and spelling errors than you can shake a stick at. And yet. Once these 'babies' reach the age of consent - by anyone's definition of how old that may be; we no longer worry if they can't perform simplistic tasks like communication, planning and task sequencing. Especially task sequencing.



Yesterday was not a good day.


And the drivetime show on R2 got so bad, even I switched off. I really didn't think that it could get any worse, and then the holiday substitute for Simon was so intent on making 'smart' comments, that they demonstrated that they weren't even listening to what the texter to the show had said, and where they were located.



Did I mention yesterday was not a good day........ :rotfl:;)


At least tea was frugal. We had been gifted some runner beans, so made sri lankan runner bean curry - which I'm sure I got from a newspaper recipe, but I can't find it now, although THIS version is very similar, but I used sri lankan curry powder, which is from R1ck St31ns 'far eastern odyssey' cookbook. Served with basmati rice, and used half a tin of coconut milk, 1slad suN brand, 59p in HB.


I don't know what, and I don't know how, but DH and I have got to take some time out with BG this weekend. We have put so much 'on hold' this summer, in order to make progress with the house. We have done well, but at the cost of family time - well, 'quality' family time - we've been together, at least. But to prioritise 'work' over making memories with BG only to be continually let down by other people is just not on.



Not sure what is for tea tonight, but we'll need to get out and about for a breath of fresh air, and see if we come across any bargains. I shall be picking up a couple of bitsa bobs for our FB donation as well. I've made a plan, and made a start. I'm doing it in sequence , to get best value for money, and make best use of transport availability.


Right, off to shake off yesterday's grump and seize the day today


Ta for popping in. Appreciated.


Greying X

Cheery_Daff

Oh dear Greying, I do feel for you. I know how much Mr Cheery and I put things on hold 'to sort out the house', and how that task just went on and on and on and on to the detriment of all else. We felt SO much better when we downed tools for a day, or took a sneaky weekend off (or even a week or two in one case). It all got done eventually. So difficult when you're being held up or let down (and I agree about inability to communicate etc too - I've still only had ONE quote out of the four people who've been round - and that was so ludicrously out of our league that it would have swallowed up the money we'd put aside for the job AND our entire emergency fund! :eek: )

Hope you do manage to put off the grumps and do something cheery today

beanielou

Sorry to hear that.
Some tradespeople are just so dire.

Talking of the foodbank I was so sad yesterday that we had someone in yesterday with little uns & we had not a sweet in the place. Not even any little people biscuits or any crisps.

Fortune_Smiles

Blimming workmen :mad:

I have a friend who is developing a house at the moment and she has just turfed her builders off site. They came across an unforeseen issue and were suggesting she just left it which would have resulted in an unsafe building :eek:

Give yourself a little break. It's so stressful having work done in the house. You've done really well so far and all will come right in the end. You just have to ride out the storm.

I find nothing ever goes entirely to plan where building work or DIY is concerned. I suppose that's why it's called a plan and not a certainty :rotfl:

Hugs

Fortune x

Greying_Pilgrim

Thank you all for your understanding, It does help


Well, we've been out and about to see how far it was, and it was just far enough.


The sun was hot, but not too hot, so it made it a bonny, summery jaunt, rather than a scorchio slog The fresh air and exercise has blown the cobwebs and grumps away too



MrM was our destination, and we got what we needed for the FB donation - (beanie, how sad, as it sounds like your FB is well run/organised and you manage to cover all eventualities the vast majority of the time ) I actually went for a branded product on special offer. I could have got the 'savers' version for 3p a tin less, or bought for 1p less in mrL (bigger tin size by 20g), but decided for a few pennies extra, I'd go for the branded. My cupboards are full of unbranded products and products from the discounters - i'm no slave to brands, and it doesn't matter to me, but know that sometimes it's nice to have labels that aren't covered in SAVE or VALOO or BASIC


I got some avos - hass from s. africa. I resolutely refused to buy the Peruvian ones, which were in the box too - as I've had too many failures now to warrant any more expenditure on them. Fingers crossed the ones I got will be ok. There were 4 in the net for £1.56. I also got some onions, as I'm all out. Not the cheapest, but I needed them, so...... A few other wee pieces and the bill came to over £5. And no bargains fer us tea :rotfl: However, on the way home, we popped into a 'corner shop' and got; a cucumber, 250g of 'large' mushrooms and a lump of broccoli for the grand total of 84p :j Tea sorted!


Right, a restorative cup of coffee is in order.

Ta for popping in. Appreciated.


Greying X

Greying_Pilgrim

Good Morning :hello:


Fortune - it worries me the way things are going







I suppose having watched 'GrAnd d3s1gns' from the get-go, firing off builders is more common than perhaps first thought. And sometimes it is the fault of the client, as much as the builders, but there is alot of bodging going on out there......... And most of it was done in my house at sometime or other :rotfl: But I worry that if a job is 'small', but is not necessarily totally 'take out old component, slot in new - bill client' nobody seems to want to know.



It's somewhat impractical to buy a 'new house' should your built-in cooker conk out, but what happens if you can't find anyone to fit a new cooker? Do you really have to consider getting a whole new kitchen fitted, by a firm, for thousands? Ditto when your shower goes caput? Or a radiator needs bleeding? Re-turf, each time your mower won't start? :rotfl:


Tea last night ended up being greek style casserole. I've no longer got the link to the recipe, but I'm thinking that it is a vegetarian version of a greek dish that uses beef and orzo pasta. Anyway, I make it without meat, and normally, I vaguely follow the recipe, but when I can, throw in seasonal veg/what I have. So last night, I used up the mushrooms - chopped up they were no different to the YS'd closed cap mushies that were 66p for 300g, compared to my 30p for 250g :j And I used up another gifted courgette - still got some more and some more runner beans too :j and served the YS'd brocolli (18 pence - dunna mind if I do ), steamed on the side.



Tea this evening will start with, 'take a courgette and some runner beans, firmly in hand......... ' :rotfl:


A few bitsa bob to get from the shop today. And a tidy up is in order - again


Right, think that is all the :money:I can witter on about. So I'll vamoose.


Ta for popping in. Appreciated.


Greying X