Cooking for one

caronc

PasturesNew wrote: »

I've been thinking overnight, I can't take the bread roll and 3 fish fingers out of the freezer as I've got half a tin of beans and some 6 week old potatoes to use up... and I remembered a small cheese pasty in the freezer, so that's what I'm having today

Cheese pasty, mash, beans.

Could you not have the fishfinger bap if you fancy it and use the space created to freeze the beans? After 6 weeks unless they are seriously going over your potatoes will keep for another day Just a thought if you really fancy a change from spuds & beans.:)
Pizza went well last night - will do again. Appreciate that a shop bought one woud have been easier or using a naan as a base but for a from scratch one it took less than half an hour from getting the flour out the cupboard to serving and I made just the size I knew I would eat. Portion of chilli con carne liberated from the freezer for tonight.

Love the idea of a seperate thread for large families - I suspect some of the issues that would arise might be similiar to those faced buy us solo diners. Waste (picky kids not eating what's prepared etc.), inclination (dead on your feet and still loads to do), spare portions (still happens with families), storage space or lack of it, cost etc. Would be different reasons but the same issues when drilled down.

PasturesNew

caronc wrote: »

Could you not have the fishfinger bap if you fancy it and use the space created to freeze the beans?

I prefer to see things gone, not frozen.

caronc wrote: »

Pizza went well last night - will do again.

Some form of base + random fridge stuff is a popular way for me to use up odds and sods.

caronc wrote: »

Love the idea of a seperate thread for large families

By now, if there were enough of them, they'd have started one - there is a board for families already. They don't go short of spaces to post.

What tends to happen is the "for one" threads tend to get hijacked by those living with many .... giving out their "advice" ... "oooh freeze it! or stick it in the garage or utility in one of your 3-4 freezers everybody's got.... "

caronc

PasturesNew wrote: »

I prefer to see things gone, not frozen.


Some form of base + random fridge stuff is a popular way for me to use up odds and sods.




By now, if there were enough of them, they'd have started one - there is a board for families already. They don't go short of spaces to post.

What tends to happen is the "for one" threads tend to get hijacked by those living with many .... giving out their "advice" ... "oooh freeze it! or stick it in the garage or utility in one of your 3-4 freezers everybody's got.... "

Fair enough

fuddle

Anywhere else - and careful selection is necessary. Some places are full of what I call "1980s pubs" (old-fashioned/boring and when they say "brown bread" they don't mean wholemeal, they mean dyed processed white bread).

So - if you're living in the latter type of place - then you eat at home a lot - as at least you know your own food passes muster on the healthy enough/modern enough front.

What is modern food? Don't be letting yourself fall into the clutches of the marketing industry or getting into bed with the fashionable foodie blogs there money. Even if you're talking about traditional ingredients from the world over that appears under a modern day must have, must try backdrop. Maybe ask yourself why or more to the point, how and allow your mind to think about the pollution that affects the fish you talk about or the organic aspect of the vegetables you're after. Air miles my dear.

Modern food? nah, I'm too wise and switched on to go for that.

PasturesNew

fuddle wrote: »

What is modern food? Don't be letting yourself fall into the clutches of the marketing industry or getting into bed with the fashionable foodie blogs there money. Even if you're talking about traditional ingredients from the world over that appears under a modern day must have, must try backdrop. Maybe ask yourself why or more to the point, how and allow your mind to think about the pollution that affects the fish you talk about or the organic aspect of the vegetables you're after. Air miles my dear.

Modern food? nah, I'm too wise and switched on to go for that.

I agree. Most can't see it ... they believe who they are following on social media and then there's the whole mob mentality and, with it, the food shaming.

If you post anything, somebody will pop out of the woodwork banging their personal drum ... from following some blogger's words.

That Ella woman did clean eating; then everybody was doing it - but it has no definition, so lots twisted the meaning just for their blogs to make money, backed by the big brands. She's now saying "I want nothing to do with clean eating - look at these scamsters leaping on the bandwagon".

I notice Mr Oliver's now changing what he's flogging ... he's now banging on about stuff .... superfoods often - superfoods are not a thing, there is no definition. It's a term people are hanging on things just to flog books and get clickbait.

Even Davina McColl's jumped on the "no sugar" bandwagon.

Watch Hairy Bikers this afternoon, bbc1 3.45 and you won't see "two regular guys cooking food anybody could cook" ... no - they've had the marketing makeover and are now, increasingly, cooking with "best ingredients" and expensive/new fad foods. They've done this to appeal to a "smarter/wealthier audience" who they can sell books to - and so they get more TV programmes made of their cooking ... and there'll no doubt be some Hairy Bikers branded cookware soon.

Nobody much makes money blogging about food, or cooking food, if they eat beans on toast... it's all big money behind the scenes.

Listen up shouters ... if I want to eat a pie, don't shout at me "ooh trans fats, high fat, eat more superfoods".



Modern food shamers, who don't really know what they're on about - are the next "big thing" to be shouted down.... it'll happen soon.

"Healthy cake" .... cake isn't made healthy by sticking a carrot on the top.

meg72

PasturesNew wrote: »

I've been thinking overnight, I can't take the bread roll and 3 fish fingers out of the freezer as I've got half a tin of beans and some 6 week old potatoes to use up... and I remembered a small cheese pasty in the freezer, so that's what I'm having today

Cheese pasty, mash, beans.

I would have two fish fingers, baked potato and beans today and the pasty beans and mash tomorrow, that only leaves the roll and one fish finger, Do you eat lunch?

fuddle

Here here. Whether your fish is landed in Port Isaac or Grimsby it's still fish from our waters.

Eating leftover mince and potatoes might be boring to some but there's a satisfaction to be found in local sourcing, the making good use of and not wasting.

If you can find a positive in any situation that you find yourself in then you're doing alright.

I'm never cooking for one and apologise for butting into your thread so i'll leave you with this...

You come home, you make some tea, sit down in your armchair and all around you there's silence. Everyone decides for themselves whether that's loneliness or freedom.

Have a good day.

PasturesNew

meg72 wrote: »

I would have two fish fingers, baked potato and beans today and the pasty beans and mash tomorrow, that only leaves the roll and one fish finger, Do you eat lunch?

For me, fish fingers doesn't go with a baked spud.

The roll is a big "bap" so needs three fish fingers. Big floppy Aldi bap.

I don't really "eat meals".... with names.

I eat. Sometimes I eat twice. Often I snack. I'll mostly focus on "one meal" per day as "the main one" and I might eat another snack/meal at another point in the day, which can be at any time.

If, say, I'm tucking into a big cooked breakfast of beans and scrambled eggs on toast, maybe with a sausage ... then, even eaten at 8am, I'd consider that my "main meal of the day".

Naming meals doesn't really fit with the random way in which I eat. This is further complicated by the term "dinner" and what time of the day people mean that to be. Is dinner at lunchtime, or at dinner time. Is 6pm dinner time, or tea-time. Too confusing for me to get my head around

So, mostly, I'll set out with the intention that at some point in the day I will put onto a plate what I see as the "main food of the day" - defined as being the biggest plateful and the most coherent looking as a "meal".

PasturesNew

fuddle wrote: »

Here here. Whether your fish is landed in Port Isaac or Grimsby it's still fish from our waters.

Port Isaac's not where they land fish, as a rule, unless you actually know a fisherman who is going out with your name on a list as a customer if he catches anything.

No, you want Looe, on the opposite coast, where the harbour's shallow so can only accommodate day boats, which only catch with a line. Line caught daily fresh fish at Looe is where it's at - and it's where all the top/posh eateries of London will get their fish from.


Looe fish market/auction.

The other place, Grimsby ... well, you're just buying supermarket quality fish there.

I buy supermarket own brand fish based on £/100g to be honest. Price is king in my book. Price enables me to have something.... or not. So that's where it's at.

I usually spend £10/week max on food, unless I am very specifically "over spending" on a treat, which might add, say, £5/month to the overall bill.

fuddle

There's no comparison is there. A sweet little southern traditional fishing village (also a historic harbour for unloading cargoes of stone, coal, timber and pottery) compared to a harbour/docks in the North that was the busiest fishing port in the world in the 1950's. Both steeped in a hard grafting history... one in a picturesque setting and one not so - to some.

I do see you're on the same wavelength. I thought you might have used Rick Stein's Cornish port of choice, Pastow.