The Simple Bare Necessities feat. Gratitude & Recipes

greenbee

joey - can you send all your friend into your little MrT asking for the avocados? If there's enough demand maybe they'll give in?

It's worth bearing in mind that there may be a glut of pumpkins after halloween. They keep well (a couple of years ago I picked up a bootful for free). And they're good for you apparently http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/09/04/pumpkin-health-benefits_n_1936919.html

EssexHebridean

Greying_Pilgrim wrote: »

I lied. We stopped in a little market town on our way back. DH needed the gentlemans *excuse me* to spend a penny. It cost 20p

Greying X :rotfl:

I trust he spent 20 of them to get his money's worth? :eek: :rotfl: some of the mainline stations now want 30p for this "privilege" - when I was at Waterloo the other week I declined to pay and elected to wait until I was on the train!

Pumpkins - bear in mind that the ones the supermarkets sell for carving are "bred" specifically for the purpose - and are not always terrifically pleasant to eat.

I have to ask - can someone explain to me about the frozen avocados please?!

Loving that about that young lad using T&T'ing to help his local Foodbank - great idea.

Greying_Pilgrim

joeyjimbles - hello :wave: Good on your DS2 - I know what you mean about choices of how to do things, but bravo to him and bravo to you for supporting him Oh, yes, what an enlightened teacher. However, how many of the children would take them up on the suggestion - for one reason or another Valid or otherwise

I must look at the R4 Food Prog website, for the recipes that they did with the pumpkins. My mind was only half listening, as I was concentrating on things other. I'm not an overly huge fan of pumpkin, I must admit. I have settled for BNS, and that rarely is discounted Although our local NT property had grown a mass of them this year. I would love to get back to growing.

EssexHebridean wrote: »

some of the mainline stations now want 30p for this "privilege" - when I was at Waterloo the other week I declined to pay and elected to wait until I was on the train!

EH - that is just taking the 'P' :rotfl: At waterloo :rotfl:

EssexHebridean wrote: »

I have to ask - can someone explain to me about the frozen avocados please?!

mrT sell THEM, I have found them to be OK, particularly for cooking with. The texture is different - most negative comments online seem to be from bloggers who've tried them and say they're nothing like creamy fresh avocados..... um well, no, that would be because freezing alters any food to a greater or lesser extent. They do taste of avocado, don't go brown on de-frosting, and save on you throwing out avocados that have turned to mush. However, they won't be to everyone's taste and they aren't like a 'fresh' avocado. I think they are OK as a standby, although I wouldn't invite the boss round and serve them prawn cocktail in one........

EssexHebridean wrote: »

Loving that about that young lad using T&T'ing to help his local Foodbank - great idea.

I agree. I'm looking forward to hearing how he got on tomorrow.

Right, CC sorted.

Time to nip up the high street and do the chores needed there.

Greying X

wishus

Hello Greying, and happy shiny diary!

I dunno, I disappear for 5 months to come back and find you disappeared too and only flipping came back with a baby! :shocked::shocked::happyhear:happyhear:happyhear:dance:I am full of happy squeaks for you!

All the bestest... Wishus xxx

Greying_Pilgrim

Good Evening :hello:

wishus wrote: »

Hello Greying, and happy shiny diary!

I dunno, I disappear for 5 months to come back and find you disappeared too and only flipping came back with a baby! :shocked::shocked::happyhear:happyhear:happyhear:dance:I am full of happy squeaks for you!

All the bestest... Wishus xxx

I know! Dunna you go disappearing orf again - I ain't going nowhere, far too unpredictable as to what would happen next! :rotfl: Lovely to *see* you - thanks for wandering back to us

Well, I achieved some things on my list today. I even plucked up the courage to make a phone call that I've been putting off. I'm still getting mucked about by a large organisation. I get the distinct impression that a) they ain't used to folk pulling them up, and b) they think I'm stupid/or will capitulate if they out-wait me long enough. Ho hum.

We wandered on round to the community hub with our donation of milk for the FB. I forgot my shopping bag to carry the milk in, which was really stoopid (? maybe other people have got a point.......... :think:) as 6L of milk is actually quite heavy. Anyhoo, I decided to buy a 10p bag for life and leave the milk in it - i'm sure that they can use a bag for something. Anyway, the lovely cheery receptionist was on duty today - haven't seen her in an age - and so I left the bag of milk with her. On leaving the centre, I saw 10p *roadkill* on the ground! It wasn't glued down (:D), so I picked it up. Perhaps I wasn't supposed to buy a bag, or perhaps it is *someone's* way of telling me to buy one again next week, who knows?

I splashed out £6 on a new oblong pyrex casserole dish. I could have got a huge (pyrex) one for much cheaper, but of course, I wanted a medium/small size one, so naturally they are proportionally more expensive........ I also was tempted by w1lkinsons own make dishes, which were on sale, but the square one would have presented me with storage issues, and the others were too big. But they were barginacious for the price, they had their version of a pyrex jug (£1) and some glass bowls too. Very cheap. Still, I'm happy with my purchase (just not the price) as the one that DH accidentally cracked was also a pyrex, but in ceramic, and it was just the right size for so many dishes. And I had had a look in every charity shop I passed on the way back from the community hub - naturally none of them had anything resembling a oblong casserole dish. You wait, I'll see 47 in 10 minutes, tomorrow........ :rotfl:

Sounds like much fun and scariness was being had outside earlier. Fare dos, the parents seem to have organised house-hopping between them, and we've not been disturbed. For that I am grateful.

We had a *version* of Pumpkin & Kale pasta bake for tea. It was OK. I wasn't mad about it, but must say that I did make changes to it, to use what I had, so I'm not being terribly fair to the recipe originator. I used wholewheat macoroni for a start, which is immediately going to make a taste difference. I used cooked pumpkin and parsnip, and didn't have any mushrooms. I used spinach rather than kale, as I'm not a huge fan of kale, but do keep spinach in the freezer. And I didn't put mozarella in. I appreciate it would have made it oooey gooey, but wouldn't have added in any extra flavour, so I have gone on an economy drive and kept the mozarella for Friday night's pizza. I used HM red pepper pasta sauce in the dish, and used a bit more as a 'gravy' at the end to drizzle over the bake. The one advantage of this dish is that it is infinitely adaptable. I'm sure meat-eaters would love a bit of crisy bacon shoved in there I wish I had grated some grano padano on the top - I scattered nutritional yeast over the top, but it could have stood a more robust cheese. i bought the ricotta from mrAl - I thought it was ok for... 85? pence. Served with frozen broccoli and cauliflower and carrots. Picture here;



Today I am grateful for these 3 things;

perseverance - I was going to put off buying our donation to the FB until another day, due to forgetting my bag. Glad that i persevered and just got 'im dun!

pumpkins - my purchase did 2 different dishes. The other purchase is residing in the composter. That's probably our pumpkin quota for 2016. Until next year........

phones - didn't make every call on my list, but one was for payment of a bill, and one was for progress chasing. Useful

Ta for popping in, reading and joining in. Mucho, mucho appreciated.

Greying X

joeyjimbles

Didn't think of Wilkos for pyrex - DH broke my last pyrex dish a little while ago and I've been meaning to replace it. I didn't like it at all, it was brown glass and vast, but I've come to realise that it was very useful. I shall potter into Wilkos and see if they have something suitable - and preferably not brown.

Greying_Pilgrim

joeyjimbles wrote: »

Didn't think of Wilkos for pyrex - DH broke my last pyrex dish a little while ago and I've been meaning to replace it. I didn't like it at all, it was brown glass and vast, but I've come to realise that it was very useful. I shall potter into Wilkos and see if they have something suitable - and preferably not brown.

Their own make stuff is clear glass, and they had some white ceramic stuff that was in the sale too - but there wasn't any left on the shelf where I looked. The glass stuff was like £1.50, and £1.25 - really good price, and presumably heat proof etc etc, as they've had the range a long while.

Edit: Also, I looked in h0me bargins first - they have a range of pyrex stuff (as in the actual brand). Some of it is pricey (well, in comparison) but they also had a large rectangular and large oval casserole for....... something like £2.49? I know that they were proportionately cheaper anyway. If it is the size you need, either W1lks or HB could have what you need for a lot less than i paid, [STRIKE]due to being stubborn [/STRIKE] because I was wanting a specific dish size.

Greying X

EssexHebridean

Greying_Pilgrim wrote: »

We wandered on round to the community hub with our donation of milk for the FB. I forgot my shopping bag to carry the milk in, which was really stoopid (? maybe other people have got a point.......... :think:) as 6L of milk is actually quite heavy. Anyhoo, I decided to buy a 10p bag for life and leave the milk in it - i'm sure that they can use a bag for something. Anyway, the lovely cheery receptionist was on duty today - haven't seen her in an age - and so I left the bag of milk with her. On leaving the centre, I saw 10p *roadkill* on the ground! It wasn't glued down (:D), so I picked it up. Perhaps I wasn't supposed to buy a bag, or perhaps it is *someone's* way of telling me to buy one again next week, who knows? I'd suggest it was paying you back for being so good as to give the one you bought to the foodbank! Take that win!

We had a *version* of Pumpkin & Kale pasta bake for tea. It was OK. I wasn't mad about it, but must say that I did make changes to it, to use what I had, so I'm not being terribly fair to the recipe originator. I used wholewheat macoroni for a start, which is immediately going to make a taste difference. I used cooked pumpkin and parsnip, and didn't have any mushrooms. I'm shocked... :eek::eek:;)

No 'shrooms? Honestly - what IS the world coming to?!

No disturbance from Trick or Treaters here too - although as we didn't get in until 7pm I'd already said I had no intention opening the door to any anyway. I have no issue with the small ones coming round with parents, but to be honest by the time they reach teenage levels they really ought to have grown out of it, IMO!

Greying_Pilgrim

Good Morning :hello:

Well, Connor did it! He collected a wheelbarrow load of items for his local foodbank. Way to go, Connor. He went out with his Mum & Dad and brother Lewis/Louis (sp?), and some friends, Holly, Finlay & Matthew. Even Chris was moved by the good deed and said it was probably the best thing that they'd featured in the slot. Bravo! for our young people :j

EH - I did have mushrooms last week, when I first intended to make the dish, but they got used up. And actually, the ones in the S6 were dearer (proportionally) than mrAl's essentials box of mushies, and they had some chestnut mushrooms in those boxes. It would have meant sending DH to get them and trying to explain exactly what to get - too onerous, so we omitted the mushrooms on this occasion.

I've some life admin to attend to up the high street today. I need to get on and start making some phone calls for quotes. I need to organise the recipes that I have recently made and make sure that those that I intend to keep are transferred to my recipe index. There's always tidying, if I have any free time

Tea this evening is soup. It is a new to me recipe It is not very exciting, and it will be brown, as the lentils are brown. However, I was attracted to it by it's use of lentils and vegetables, of the sort that I generally have 'in-stock' at this time of year, so I'm hopeful it will be a keeper.

A very busy person took time out of their day to respond to an e-mail. I read it this morning - funny how acts of kindness can just make life even better.

Right, best shift-a-tail-feather, and go seize the day

Ta for popping in, reading and joining in. I remain grateful. Always.

Greying X

joeyjimbles

Thanks for the info Greying - the original bowls were a wedding present many many years ago and have been incredibly useful if not aesthetically pleasing. I want to replace only the medium/large size I think, the vast one was always too big for anything other than soaking pulses or dried fruit and I have more than enough alternatives for the long departed smaller sizes. I shall investigate.
The brown slow cooker soup is delicious if a little too thick - added ground coriander, cumin, leftover roasted garlic and some fresh bay leaves as it was puttering and it turned out really well.