The Simple Bare Necessities feat. Gratitude & Recipes

Suffolk_lass

Morning Greying, I love the slaw recipe - I may have to try that - I also add a tiny birdseye chilli to my slaws for a bit of unexpected zing - always a supply in the freezer as they are a regular YS bag at the SM. Have a lovely day - the weather here looks promising

Greying_Pilgrim

Good Morning :hello:


It is a good recipe Suffolk lass - I just grated my couple of carrots, and it still tasted good.



Well, we've been up with the larks (third shift division ) and got mucho of our chores done before the sun starts to crack the pavements........


We've [STRIKE]spent[/STRIKE] invested our MrT vouchers. Gee, I need to get out more. The prices :eek: I don't think the supermercados cater for people on limited - for whatever reason - budgets anymore As much as anything, even a large-ish store didn't have the 'value' type ranges in. I realise the valoo range as a brand is not in use anymore, but there wasn't the 'next one up' either, if you see what I mean I had got to £5 worth of stuff, and was looking around for something to take up the last £1 of vouchers (i wanted reasonably priced tinned potatoes - but no dice ), when I spotted that they had one of the brands of tinned meat products on offer. Whilst mrT claimed it was a 85p saving, I was aware that I could get the same product elsewhere for £1.50. But a notional 33% saving, I'll take that, so I used my last £1 voucher and credit to get 4 tins - for the FB - whilst I was there. Daft thing to do, as I was walking a long way, and the tins made my bag heavy :rotfl:But still. Anyway, on double-checking in h3r0n foods, my 'bargain' wasn't as good as it seemed, as the mrT tins were 300g - the h3r0n tins for £1.50 were 400g.......... Anyway, gram for gram, I have still saved 17p a tin, so I got best bang for my buck for the FB - my avowed intention!



I've completed the money shuffle. A day later than anticipated, but still in time to meet the D/D commitments, so all's well.


Tea this evening will be pizza and sweet potato wedges, as I've a load of YS'd SP's to use up. They were 38p in M&$, so I want to make sure I use them all up - savour the saving!


I can't think of owt else :money:to report. So I best push orf.


Ta for popping in. Appreciated.


Greying X

Greying_Pilgrim

Good Evening :hello:


We had black olive pizza, roasted sweet potato 'chunks' and fresh corn salad for tea. I would love to include a link to the corn salad recipe, but it t'ain't no more - I keep on getting a '404 error' Thank goodness I copied it down after the first time I tried it, as it's a keeper for me - although I make it with frozen sweetcorn these days, as that is the cheapest option for me - in the american midwest, whole corn cobs sure are the cheapest option .


Tea used up stores - including the last of the (original) cheese - I won't have broken into the 'new' cheese until tomorrow, first of the month :j I did, however, use some tomatoes (not cherry) that I bought in mrT today with my vouchers. Whilst I'm in agreement with eminent MSE'rs who liken most tomatoes that hail from glass houses across the North sea as resembling 'snooker balls', I'm happy to report that the 'vine ripened' (?) tommies that were in the mrT 49p offering, are DELISH! Very, very ripe....... :cool: where's a'pand a pand' street market, when you need one???' but none the less, I'm happy with my 98p purchase


Today I am grateful for these 3 things;


The ability to walk from A to B

nice, conversational shop staff

line-dried laundry :j


Ta for popping in. Appreciated.


Greying X

Greying_Pilgrim

Good Morning :hello:


First of June already :eek:


We're up and at 'em (;)), kinda, sorta, maybe......... :rotfl:


I'm determined to get back to good MSE ways this month. The 'cheap' (?) tomatoes yesterday got me thinking. We're all supposed to eat 'healthy', including lots of fruit and veggies in our diets, and yet food is sooo expensive - especially the supposedly 'good' stuff. I mean, take English Asparagus, there is a defined season for it (6 weeks or so), and we are getting to the end of that season now, and the weather has been pretty good in the growing areas for the last part of that. Has the price come down - in supermercados or greengrocers? It hasn't - it's still the same price it was at the start of the season - when the product has rarity/scarcity/newness appeal! I was looking at some of the premium 'thick' stuff in m&$ the other day. There were 2 YS'd bunches - which they still wanted over £2 for. The bottom 2 inches (at least) of the stalk would have been inedible - you could see they were crumpling and drying out and would have been woody/stringy inside. And yet to me, the produce was still 'top dollar'. Greyhound (pointy) cabbages in m&$ were 80p the other day - the same price they are in the middle of winter. What about seasonality? Oh how I wish we had a decent market on hand with plenty of healthy competition and choice!


Still, I've been inspired by other people on MSE and I'm going to try much harder. I don't know whether I suffer from a need to have 'full' (ish - not really bulging) cupboards, or whether I always have to have 'plenty' on a plate, when 3 would suffice or whatever....... :think:


Definitely curry this evening. i will look out summat to 'curry' :rotfl: I will be using the tikka masala sauce that we didn't use last week. I saw the 'meditteranean' versions of this brand in mrT yesterday - all at £2 a jar :eek: I know they are organic, but wow, just wow as to fielding costs like that. I know I couldn't do it


Right, apparently there is a piece of toast available, so I best go and secure it for myself


Ta for popping in. Appreciated. As ever.


Greying X

Suffolk_lass

Gosh that makes me grateful for the local produce available here. My neighbour is a farm manager and has 65 chickens the other side of the field behind us - £2 a dozen - fantastic free-ranging woodland eggs. We grow a fair bit of veg here - I have a new asparagus bed (3rd year) and now there are pea-shoots and salad snippings - I had homegrown french radishes (literally 6 weeks from seed to crop - and the leaves are yummy and peppery) with coleslaw (bought, £1 a big pot that needed finishing) and although I don't think you eat it, I had grilled mackerel fillets - never have them when DH is here but a treat on my own (he is away until Sunday) from the market, and a small piece of granary bread. Lovely simple supper.

Have a good weekend

Greying_Pilgrim

Oh I agree Suffolk lass - the worst thing that ever happened was the 'coporatising' of our market. It's now all chi-chi, whereas it used to be democratic and open to all to come, rent a foot or two of selling space (more if you could afford), and sell the excess eggs from your hens/ducks, the glut of plums/pears/apples from your trees or summat you'd knitted outta itchy, vile green nylon wool that you'd got cheap orf the back o' someone's van! :rotfl: Maybe communications weren't as good in those days, but I don't remember 'mass-food poisoning cases being reported from eating fresh picked broad beans, or spuds that came to market with a bit of soil still on 'em


But I am also giving some thought to what we eat. I mean, we've incorporated more 'stuff' into our diet. Am I being boring saying that we don't 'need' crisps, or a flap-jack or and apple and an orange? We don't have those things every day - although we often have more than one piece of fruit in 24hrs. But should they really, really, really be relegated to 'treat' as in once a month? (not the fruit, but the other stuff) Whilst I know how we run our household is up to us, you've got to admit, it's not really how the rest of society goes on. I'm not sure how much of an outlier I want to be - and more so, I'm worrying about BG - but of course, you've got the dilemma of raising a healthy child not addicted to sugar/salt/carbs etc etc etc. So there is a very fine line to try to tread and negotiate.


As ever, no one answer to fit. Just got to bimble along and try our best I suppose.


I've done a meal-plan for next week. The shopping list to go with is really quite nice and straightforward, but does include 'extras' such as fruit (no biscuits), so I don't necessarily think I can get away with only spending tuppence........


Greying X

Suffolk_lass

Me too on what we eat. I have just made elderflower cordial - full of sugar but I know what is in it. I can tolerate some pure cane sugar, with lemons, locally picked elderflowers, water, citric acid and 2 campden tablets as a preservative. For me it is the use of artificial colours, sweeteners and potassium sorbate (preserving salt) that I want to avoid. I also avoid beet sugar, for reasons I cannot substantiate in any scientific way.

It is the inconsistencies in our diet that I remain uncomfortable with, but it does not stop me indulging. My fruit consumption is typically a piece of bowl fruit every day but I might also have berries up to twice a day - normally stuff that grows in the UK but no tropical fruit, unless it is a treat on an occasion.

Greying_Pilgrim

Good Monring :hello:


Damp start with us Not too sure if it is enough to put the kibosh on any DIY activities for DH, we'll have to see. Pity for the majority of kiddies on the last day of half-term though. Although listening to R2 yesterday the London-centric presenters were going on, and on about pavement splitting sunshine, so i guess some places have it good.


We ended up having the jarred tikka masala sauce with sweet potatoes and chickpeas last night, and a splodge of dhal from the freezer with boiled basmati rice. It was OK, a different flavour to how I would normally make a version of that sauce, but the downside was that in re-heating it (I made it in the afternoon, to try to let the flavours meld), it caught the bottom of the pan The pan wasn't ruined, but it took some time to soak off, and of course, we lost a bit of the curry in the process BG positively refused to touch their dhal I'd only put a spoonful on their plate Eventually through much patience and coaxing from papa, they ate a teeny bit of it (as much as anything to prove to them that it was edible, and not 'yukky' as they claimed, did we persevere), I guess about half. But honestly, how can a child go from eating a bowl and a half of summat, to refusing point blank to eat it?



It's chickpea nohutlu (chickpea street pilaf) for tea tonight. can you see a theme emerging? #toomanypulses....... :rotfl: The recipe is turkish in origin, but I got it from one of Silvena Rowe's cookbooks - 'Orient Express'. It's a reasonably straightforward recipe, I have all the ingredients in, and it's not got too many - ergo doesn't cost too much to make :j Unfortunately, i can't find a link to the recipe



I could do with going shopping today, so that may well be on the cards if the weather refuses to play ball I have a list (even DH commented on it! - like I don't always make a list???)


Can't think of owt else MSE to mention, so best push orf.


Greying X

brizzlegirl

Hello GP :hello:

Just popping by after MUCH too long. Love to see the recipes and conversations about food are still blissfully the same. So creative with your combinations of yummy food - and always loads and loads of colour to the imagined plate

Kids and food...am not sure there is a rhyme nor reason apart from exercising control of course. Just pick your battles...you won't win them all. We always prioritised food over lots of other 'battles' and never made our kids anything different to what we had from a very early age. We also always eat together in the kitchen. Same time each evening. Think it helps but maybe we were just lucky? Opinions abound

Enjoy your Sunday

Lots of love

Brizzle xx

brizzlegirl

PS. It was a beautifully hot day here in the SW yesterday..today started OK but I have just dragged the washing in with DD2...showers scheduled for rest of the day so the Lakeland heated airer is on...in June. Ugh. What a pain..