The Simple Bare Necessities feat. Gratitude & Recipes

Greying_Pilgrim

Good Evening :hello:

gemini12 wrote: »

Just to butt in on changing costs and prices. I got married 46years ago and my housekeeping money was £10.00 a week and we ate very well ( I could only cook certain things and have a fussy eater DH).

Wow! the early 1970's were tough times in the UK; inflation, strikes, oil shortages. £10 would have been good going indeed






Been a bit of a funny auld day. Sorted out the money-shuffles, but that is about all I can say I've achieved


Can anyone tell me where all the little green lentils have gone too? HB has nary a trace, no SEL and no gaps on the shelves. MrA didn't have them neither (our local mrA is pretty poor on stock at the best of times, I would normally be less surprised at this, but teamed with the absence in HB........)


Oh, mentioning mrA, i swanned down an aisle today that included a chilled section and happened to include pre-cooked/sliced meats. What jumped out at me? Haslet! (not literally, my gaze just fell upon it.....). clearly 4 slices in the packet..... for £1. I mean, the price has got to have all but stood still on that hasn't it? I remember it as a cheaper sliced meat product, but £1 for 4 slices? Mum used to always buy ours from the food counter in W00lw0rths. Tell me I ain't the only one to remember W00lies selling food........ I also spotted the ham slices with the egg in the middle. Again, I didn't realise at the time, but we used to have that if money was really tight - but I always thought it so 'exotic' - coz how did they squeeze the egg in to fit???? :rotfl:


Enough with the nostalgia - not too rose-tinted I hope, there was good/bad and grey areas then, as there is today.


Tea was lentil bolognese and pasta. I used tinned green lentils from mrA, 55p a tin. OK, but 'different' to our usual lentils. I'd use them again, but prefer to cook dried pulses.


Today i am grateful for these 3 things;

integrity

cheerful conversations

the bills all are paid for this month - never a foregone conclusion.


Ta for popping by. Appreciated. Greatly.


Greying X

gemini12

No you are not the only one to remember Woolies selling food. In fact my DD stole a yoghurt from there. My fault she was in her push chair and I had given it to her to hold and then completely forgot it when I paid. One red face when I realised and an embarrassed trip back to the shop.

Paspatur

1960's into 1970's Woolies for loose biscuits eg custard creams, loose peanuts for Hogmanay. Butcher for meat, fish was free due to fisherman father and lots of family working in the trade, we were 6 kids and 2 adults and ate decent home cooked food. Lunch for 6 days was home cooked soup eg beef broth,beef and tattie soup, ham shank lentil soup followed by rice pudding or apple/rhubarb crumble and custard. Saturday was tinned soup as a large pot of home made soup lasted 2 days both for quantity and freshness. Fish and chips, fishcakes, cullen skink soup were all cheap due to free fish and a big sack of potatoes every week. Mince & tatties, stewing steak and tatties and veg, Sunday breakfast was fry up of sausages, bacon, black pudding, fried potatoes/tomatoes. Sunday dinner was always a roast beef, chicken was too expensive and for the number of people would have needed 2 chickens. Bedtime/evening snacks were from the 2nd day bakery but it wasn't 2nd day as the bakery had 10 vans that went out delivering in the streets and returned all unused stock at 3pm so we might have pancakes, soft rolls, croissants, tipsy cake, broken meringues or even sometimes meal food like mince rounds or pastry squares to bulk out meals. How the hell they did it I don't know as the milk delivery was 6 pints a day alone. We never had lots of stuff at Xmas just a tangerine, a sixpence and a small toy. Neighbours had Chopper bikes/watches etc for Xmas and fancier house stuff but were given a meal that consisted of a slice of boiled ham, half a tomato and half a packet of crisps! I know what I would prefer! I can still make reasonably priced meals even paying for fish. Just made a big pot of Cullen Skink and 16 fishcakes with reduced price potatoes, milk, spring onions and smoked haddock that cost £6 for a half kilo and I did not use all the fish. Looking back our meals were carb heavy lots of potatoes and home cooked chips to bulk meals out but we were active kids and not one of us has ever been overweight and we are now aged between 55 and 65. I wish I could remember prices as I was often sent to the butcher, baker etc as a child

Greying_Pilgrim

Good Morning :hello:


For some inexplicable reason Paspatur you have reminded me of the 'boiling bacon' we used to get served for Sunday 'roast'. Always so salty, despite being sat in a bowl of water in the pantry from the moment it was bought on a Saturday, and tough and stringy enough to keep you chewing away at your meal for hours...... Oh and parsley (curly variety - none of that flat stuff) white sauce to go with......... not a good thought to start the day with :rotfl:


Mind, I'm still here to tell the tale, so there must have been goodness in it somewhere along the line. And I agree, our meals were carb heavy too, but work was manual, and we kids were active/cycled to school/played outside etc etc.


What a shame about the football, a good watch though. Infinitely more interesting that many, many of the games the chaps play. The US deserved the win though, despite England's tenacity.


Tea ended up being a right 'cobble', due to various reasons - including an over-tired toddler...... It was 2 egg omlette with a bit of l/o garlic mushroom (from a pizza topping) stuffing, mash (made from an ancient box of mrT instant potato flakes bought to try to make gnocchi) and baked beans. I couldn't work out what it was about the instant mash that I didn't quite like, there was a slight flavour that was off. I checked the ingredients....... (ho hum)...... and the one thing that sprung out was 'rosemary extract'. I think it was a bit too dominant, and left the slight soapy aftertaste, that you get with too much rosemary in a dish. However, the consistency was good, and it was easy to make up. Either we're gluttons (strong possibility) or the 'servings' was on the light side, as I ended up prepping a sachet each for DH and me (BG doesn't like mashed potato...... sigh), and it was all eaten up. Not sure if that version is still available in mrT - might have been bought pre product 'rename'. Undecided whether I would buy it again. More likely to plump for the mrS version, which got good reviews and which I have donated to the FB in the past.


I think it will be 'some sort' of chilli and rice for tea. I've not been able to do a 'big' shop yet, so we're out of more than we 'have in'. In terms of easy, nice, chi-chi ingredients, anyhoo.......... There is food in the house, it's just a bit of a mixed bag...... Mind, I shop at so many different shops, I'm not sure i do a 'big' shop anywhere anymore.



I bought a punnet of mrA nectarines (79p) the other day. There were 5 in the punnet I picked. I have tried one, it was just on the wrong side of being fully ripe - still a bit too firm. But sliced nicely and came away from the stone OK. If they fully ripen, and don't just moulder away, they should be pretty juicy/tasty. I also have been purchasing the m&$ avocados in their 65p offering. I've been reasonably pleased with the ones I've had - some black bits that needed cutting out, but thus far all have ripened/been edible. i think I've had all peruvian produce thus far, although I did pick up a pack from Colombia the other day - but then chose a different pack which turned out to be from Peru.


The value-for-money punnets of cherry tommies have disappeared from the market. Downside of nice weather I guess, salad prices rise. Ah well, they were good whilst they lasted. I noticed m&$ were back to charging £1 for their cherry tommy offering and their salad tomatoes still hail from Poland. I'm a little surprised that we can't have some tomatoes hailing from the UK by now - we do grow them commercially? Thus far we have no tomatoes in the house this week


Right, best go and greet the day and prep snap. Make hay whilst the family snores


Ta for popping in. Appreciated.


Greying X

Silver_Queen

I hated mashed potato as a child. The texture was just disgusting to me. I love it now and could eat plates and plates of it on its own

Greying_Pilgrim

A quick saunter around mrA (I'm not on their payroll - just needed to purchase something needed that they have at the right price.....) has yielded;


UK grown salad tomatoes (75p for 6 - same price as M&$)

A giant cos lettuce grown in Lancashire - 65p

fresh coriander grown in Kent - 50p

Strawberries grown in Fife - £1.29 for 227g


:j I do like to support british growers when I can - and availability is part of the equation.


Greying X

beanielou

Hurrah for strawberries grown in Fife

EssexHebridean

Strawberries & raspberries we only buy when UK ones are in season. Tomatoes I'd love to do the same but refuse to go all winter with no tommies so a compromise must be struck there. Mushrooms are always British though. Best tomatoes I've found about currently are the "British tomato selection" from ThaT supermarkeT - absolutely gorgeous!

Suffolk_lass

Ooh GP - I meant to say that I sent two big bags of stuff to the FB after reading your thread - so thank you - your donation inspired me. I sent all the untried deodorants, shower gel and soaps, toothpastes and toothbrushes I already had, and then did a quick check on the site and spent a bit in the local SM including some treats in a couple of big treat bags that the little ones can enjoy - down to you my dear!

Greying_Pilgrim

Suffolk_lass wrote: »

Ooh GP - I meant to say that I sent two big bags of stuff to the FB after reading your thread - so thank you - your donation inspired me. I sent all the untried deodorants, shower gel and soaps, toothpastes and toothbrushes I already had, and then did a quick check on the site and spent a bit in the local SM including some treats in a couple of big treat bags that the little ones can enjoy - down to you my dear!

Oh hun, how good are you? i take no credit tho. Our dearest friend beanie is at the coal-face, making a difference at her own FB each week, and i don't think anyone of us can fail to be moved when reading any of numerous cases of the chaos caused by UC changes. 5 weeks is too long - far too long. And that's without the summer hols fast approaching. Plus there are the any one of a gazillion reasons why any one of us may need to call upon the safety net of some bags of groceries at any point in our lives - whatever our circumstances. So thank you for your donation i'm sure it'll be appreciated and without doubt - distributed to where it is actually needed.


Co-incidentally I'd been looking at the 2 local FB 'Items most wanted' today, to see what, if any, help I could give. Small plan formulating :think:


Purely co-incidentally, i bumped into someone in mrA that I used to work with, many moons ago. Last time we had a chat, I wasn't even pregnant, never mind having BG in our life, and i knew that since that time they had had cancer - as I saw them talking with colleagues when they were obviously in the middle of treatment. They have a family, they would not have had the wherewithal to have financially planned for time off work due to illness and lengthy treatment. They didn't invite cancer to come calling. None of us know, we just don't know when we will need to lean on others, and what help we will require, or for how long. All we can hope is that there are people willing and able to offer what support they can.



Waves to beanie and EH :wave:


Hopefully my british tommies will be ready for a greek-style salad for tomorrow night's tea. I picked up a cucumber in m&$. I was happy that it was 5p cheaper than the mrA offering (country of origin unknown) and bigger. However, i've subsequently noticed it's from the Netherlands...... *sigh* - don't we grow cucs now??? I'm sure they are normally kentish produce in m&$ :mad:


Tea this evening was indeed bean chilli and rice. Totally wrong choice for the weather conditions but........................... Anyhoo, I used up some l/o frozen black beans, a tin of mrAl red kidney beans and some red pepper sauce that I'd made previously and frozen. I also used up a very juicy, but very aged lime. Rice was from the storecupboard. Dessert was strawberries and yogurt for two and strawberries and ice-cream for one. Using up the last of the jersey ice-cream snagged from h3r0n for a bargainacious price some months ago. BG declared the strawberries 'yummy', so thank you Scotland we didn't wear white, didn't have to 'shhhh' anyone as we ate, nor take out a small mortgage to enjoy our lucious berries Game, set and match to us! :rotfl:


Today I am grateful for these 3 things;

seasonal Scottish strawberries

BG's imagination and role-playing

for a Greying family 'dance like no-one's watching' moment after tea :rotfl:;)




Ta for popping by. Appreciated.


Greying X