The Simple Bare Necessities feat. Gratitude & Recipes

TalesfromtheAvenue

Greying_Pilgrim wrote: »

Ha ha ha TalesfromtheAvenue - come on in and join the library [Greying most definitely pulling own leg - very hard :rotfl:] I think I remember you, under a different username, as a stalwart on Lilty's diary? Buddha bowls in their truest incarnation are brilliant, as you can feel great about eating a plate of leftovers I know what you mean about cooking for one, but be kind to yourself, you deserve nourishing food

Ah, yes, your super-sleuth skills are of top form GP! 'Tis I indeed, or the shiny new version.
I'm impressed!
Btw, I am still in touch with Lilty in RL. She no longer posts on here, but we speak more than weekly. She's had a tough time of late, but those who know Lilty know that she is a tough cookie.

Thank you, I look forward to library visits, although I'm not so good at keeping quiet so may get thrown out for being too noisy!

Ave
x

EssexHebridean

Buddha Bowls are ace - no question. I've got one to put together for tomorrow evening I think in the spirit of "not quite knowing what else to cook on a night when MrEH is out until later" - it'll almost certainly start off with the ubiquitous brown basmati, and needs to use some merguez chickpeas that are cluttering the freezer, but beyond that I have NO idea as yet! There will be both tomato and cucumber left so i suspect those to feature.

Greying_Pilgrim

Good Evening :hello:

TalesfromtheAvenue - best sure to give our best to Lilty and the jellytotster when you next speak with them Don't worry about being noisy - this is a 'modern' library, you can even eat crisps here, should you so desire

rtandon - i'm clinging to that there hope, clinging! :rotfl:

EH - sounds like a feast already

Well, we went for a wander to the library and dropped off one book and picked out two more I must admit, they were both newish books - and i didn't bother flicking through, so the one will probably go back soon, as there isn't as much in it along the vegetarian line as I hope (thai cuisine). The other book is the 'happy pear' cookbook. A cafe/enterprise I had not heard of in S. Ireland, but it looks good - seems to be a bit of a hot-bed of veggie cuisine does Eire

We pootled through m&$, just in case they were giving stuff away...... they weren't :rotfl: and we went in to mrW - and clearly a maverick had gotten hold of the yellow sticker gun and had been knocking "random" (ie not 25p) amounts off tack!!!!! Still, my 72p was not worth a bean, and I'm pleased to report that I left the French brie for other, far worthier cheese lovers, who perhaps would appreciate that the price had been slashed by 67p to..... £3.19.......for a triangle....not a whole wheel......a single triangle....... *ahem*.

Tea this evening was a hotch-potch of leftovers, otherwise known as a buddha bowl Picture here;



Clockwise, from the bottom we have; black-eye bean chilli (leftovers out of the freezer), a (small) piece of brocolli bake, that was too small for a main portion - also out of the freezer, carrot dip made with m&$ YS'd carrots and creamed sweetcorn made with 3/4 of a bag of sweetcorn languishing at the bottom of the freezer, along with chilli flakes, parsley and yoghurt. Plus a serving of boiled basmati rice. Filled a plate, filled a stomach and made a gap in the freezer :j

Today I am grateful for these 3 things;

Public Libraries :j - I couldn't have afforded to buy the 2 books I have on loan 'on spec', just in case they had some recipes in I wanted to follow, and I've been able to borrow them for 'free'

that I achieved 3/5 things on my list, whilst caring for BG - and still can do the other two this evening

that the baby monitor going off a little while ago was a false alarm...... _pale_

Thank you for popping in, reading and conversing. Appreciated.

Greying X

beanielou

I am ploddi9ng on thanks GP

Greying_Pilgrim

Good Morning :hello:

Well, I'm already grateful that we had no further 'alarming incidents' false or ......

A reasonable night's sleep, so I'm fresh(ish) to greet the day.

I'm going to have to check the bread situation, but that will be the only spend today, if we need some. I've a feeling we do.

I'll have a flick through the library book I got yesterday, if there is nothing of interest - might be some curry paste recipes, I noticed, need to take a closer look - then we'll pootle down to the library to return it, so that someone else can create thai feasts

I need to wash some clothes, fold some dried ones and put some baby clothes in the 'outgrown, donate to charity pile' :eek: How does that happen??? :rotfl:

Tea this evening will be a 'bowl'. Not quite as 'leftovery' as yesterday's, but utilising what I have in stock. It will have a South African slant, as I intend to use one of the remaining blocks of paneer that I bought from h3ron and do something with 'Bobotie' flavourings and also make some green bean and tomato bredie. I'm not sure whether to make rice (again) or to do polenta - we'll see what the weather has in store. I should be doing Samp, but having tried it once - when I was very kindly given a bag to try by a South African shop keeper who had opened a store in Greying Town - I'm not keen to repeat the exercise

Right, don't think that I have anything else MS to report, so I had best vamoose.

EDIT: I forgot to add last night that both the remaining avocados were rotten inside - despite the one actually still being rock hard. So £1 wasted It's no one's fault, buyers nor sellers can't see inside an avocado, but I'll not buy avocados from the greengrocers for a while. I don't recall where they were from (the greengrocer is a little bit bad at providing that information, which is a missed opportunity in my book), so i'll wait until some stock comes in from elsewhere and perhaps tentatively buy some again. Just because I'm all but out of budget, I can't help thinking that that £1 could have bought more than compost fodder

Ta for popping in, reading and letting me know you're OK. Appreciated.

Greying X

Cheery_Daff

What disappointing avacados Greying! Most vexing indeed. I am, as ever, in awe of your cooking But I have been enthused by you to investigate recipes for inspiration a bit more, and I shall be forever grateful for you to inspiring me to try calzones - we now have them roughly once a week and use up all kinds of things inside them :j :j

Not sure what tea will be tonight as we didn't even write a meal plan this week, oh dear can't wait til we get a proper freezer back though - our one shelf barely has room for frozen peas and a few ice pops, most annoying. We are both at home this evening though so Mr Cheery may have made something by the time I get there, you never know!

I adore libraries although I confess I make poor use of both my local one and the city one these days. I am so fortunate in having access to wonderful libraries at work though and frequently sneak off for a small wander through the shelves. I just love the thought of all those pages waitig to be read (although sometimes feel faintly overwhelmed at the thought that I'll never be able to read them all!)

Have a good day all

beanielou

I am the library queen.
I love the library.

rtandon27

Hee hee - Beanie - care to share the crown?
Libraries - I live & breathe for them!
Dare I say two of my closest friends are librarians? (or is that TMI!;))

Greying_Pilgrim

Good Evening :hello:

Ay up Cheery - thanks for popping by. I ought to take a leaf out of your book and be more adventurous with my calzone fillings, I think I've only done broc/moz up to now!

beanie & rtandon - any supporters of libraries are welcome on this thread, and you don't have to wear a crown to sit in my parlour - jeans and fleeces are totally acceptable.....

Well, we didn't end up getting out and about today - not even to return the library book. The weather definitely conspired against us, and every time that I thought, 'Right, we'll go....' it either started raining, or the sky went dark as anything, and it looked like we were going to have a downpour. I love walking, I love the outdoors, but didn't consider it appropriate for either of us to get soaked, just to return a library book.

We've had a nice time though

I got to have a look through the new library book, and it looks like it has some good recipes in it. I looked up the cafe, and the boys have a website, on which there are plenty of their recipes, so if you fancy upping your plant-based meals, you can find more at the Happy Pear. There are certainly some recipes that I will be trying out from the duo. But some of the ingredients don't come under the 'budget' category, some are quite expensive ingredients/foodstuffs. Whilst I agree that health is wealth, it's not like I'm giving up a 60-a-day smoking habit, and have additional money to spend on foodstuffs. And it's not like you can liquidise 3 savoy cabbage leaves in lieu of spirulina powder......... But there's some interesting things. Plus, it made me laugh that they've done versions of 'chocolates' - their version of a 'jAffAr' cake particularly made me laugh, as somewhere on this site, in the dim and distant past, there was a thread that had 'readers makes', and for some reason, the attempt to make a 'big' jaffar cake resulted in some hilarious creations.

I have only spent 45p on a loaf today (DH bought it and I paid him back). 27p may yet get spent on a banana or two, we're getting low......

Tea this evening wasn't quite as stipulated. I decided that the bobotie and bredie would be too similar (I was actually right for once) and the plate would be awash with tinned tomato, so instead I just (over) steamed the beans in the microwave, and made carrot fry (a dry curry) instead, which was in keeping ingredients wise, used up more YS'd carrots and used another tub (of ginger, garlic, onion paste) out of the freezer. I fried the paneer, to give it another texture, although you can't tell in the picture, and you couldn't really tell in the finished dish. I know I'm a one-trick pony, putting the rice in a mould again, but it helps to get everything on the plate, and it costs nowt to do! I'm sorry that the paneer looks mahoosive, I cut one block into 8 pieces - they were all the same size on both plates - doesn't look like it though, does it? Picture here;



My carrot fry looks a bit more rustic, as I used the onion paste - I don't think there is garlic and onion in the original recipe.

Still, tea didn't break the bank, used what I had and needed nothing buying in to prepare it. It filled us up, had nice textures and tastes and didn't take overlong to prepare.

Today I am grateful for these 3 things;

sharing of information - ie recipes

time to watch a little person do things - so absorbing

A DH who is at least respectful of what I'm trying to achieve with the budget - even if I sense he doesn't entirely agree with 'going without'....

Thanks for popping in, reading and telling me all about your library '6 degrees of separation' stories. I'm miffed, as I'm only able to offer that a local librarian lives a couple of streets away from Greying Towers, and another one lives on the next housing estate along....... :rotfl:

Greying X

beanielou

My cousin was a librarian. RIP