Cooking for one

Hollyharvey

Afternoon everyone,


After a wet and miserable start to the day here it has now brightened up into a lovely sunny afternoon.


I went to wave a friend off at the start of annual 10k run. I'm quite happy to wave other people off for this sort of thing but would never contemplate doing any sort of running myself. The nearest I get is a fairly local pier to pier walk in aid of the local hospice. My niece talked me into it 3 years ago and it has now become a family tradition.


There are was a sort of mini market in the streets near the start so I had a look around at the food stalls, but apart from the fast food like hot dogs, burgers, doughnuts and pancakes the normal day to day food was more expensive than I can get elsewhere so I didn't bother.


I had porridge with blueberries for breakfast today and a chicken salad sandwich for lunch, and dinner is...yes you guessed, chicken salad. That should see the end of the chicken, at least for this week. I need to get the other half of the chicken out of the freezer at the end of next week just to clear it out of the freezer. I fancy something nice for a pud tonight but I'm not sure what yet. I do have a few things in the freezer that I have made this week so at least I have choices.


I hope that you are all having a good sunday.


Caronc I'm glad you enjoyed your meal last night, but I don't envy you the washing up.
PN I would love to know what you have bought, and shall look forward to finding out what it is when you eventually use it

PasturesNew

Hollyharvey wrote: »

PN I would love to know what you have bought, and shall look forward to finding out what it is when you eventually use it

In short: A dud ... I think. But I can use most of the components to make what I thought it was....

It turned out (google is your friend) to be a meths burning food warmer. I will convert it into a method of cooking using tea lights as I was planning on doing that anyway. I can use it almost as it is ... just dispense with the meths burning pots and replace those with old tuna cans holding about 4 tea lights. There's 2 tiny frying pans with it .... but I'd only be CFO with it.

If it works out OK ... it'd be a good alternative to a BBQ-CFO solution... and more portable for a beach BBQ as there'd be no charcoal to buy/haul and then cool/cart away... and no huge/hot BBQ to deal with and store (size wise the whole box is the size of a small shoe box. It could just be dunked in water and cool instantly.... pop into a plastic bag and away

caronc

Good afternoon everyone,

Glad you revealed what your secret buy was PN - I have one of these somewhere in the shed as part of a "home-smoking kit". The smoking tray is fab but I didn't get on so well with the burner found it easier to pop the tray on a bbq:)

The kitchen has returned to relative clean & tidiness - I could do with giving the floor a mop but CBA. I've just had a lovely snooze after doing my physio & rehab so heading out into the garden to get a bit more planting done.

My lunch was all leftovers- spring rolls, salad from Friday and a splodge of burger sauce so apart from the cooked ribs there isn't much hanging around needing used up:D. For tonight I've taken a piece of steak out of the freezer which I'll have with a large flat mushroom, asparagus and steamed charlotte potatoes. The weather forecast is rubbish for tomorrow so don't think I'll be straying far so a good excuse to give the fridge a clean up especially the veg so I don't end up wasting anything. I haven't meal planned for ages so might try and plan a few days worth of meals as well.:)

caronc

Well my LO pork ribs have been "liberated" LOL, my Dad popped by to pick up tomato plants and we were chatting about the meal my son & I had last night. "These ribs sound good" said my Dad, "There's some left would you like them?"...... so they have been re-homed LOL:D

moneyistooshorttomention

LOL Caron at your fathers version of dropping hints:rotfl:

I got that in a different direction the other day - being that a friend that was looking round my garden goes "Oh you're going to have a lot of that fruit (ie one I've got growing) soon". Cue for me going "I've still got some of last years in the freezer. Would you like some?"

Lunch today was meal out at an event I went to - so turned out to be vegetarian pasty with salad. Well - I feel quite virtuous today from the fact I left one of my 2 slices of toast at breakfast and then left a bit of my meal at lunchtime. Yep....trying to do the "mindful eating" bit again and ask myself after every mouthful if I'm still hungry enough to have another mouthful. Hopefully that resolution should help trim my waist back down a bit.

Another resolution of mine should also help - I'm likely to buy only half as much wine as I have been. Reason being I've decided I'm "too old to economise any longer" all round (in my 60s - I could land up economising for the whole of my life if I don't stop doing it soon). So - I've been reading that the optimum price to pay for a bottle of wine to get good quality but without overpaying for it is reckoned to be £10. Hence it's more likely to be one bottle of decent wine per week than 2 bottles of plonk then...so that should also help the waistline:cool:

caronc

moneyistooshorttomention wrote: »

LOL Caron at your fathers version of dropping hints:rotfl:

I got that in a different direction the other day - being that a friend that was looking round my garden goes "Oh you're going to have a lot of that fruit (ie one I've got growing) soon". Cue for me going "I've still got some of last years in the freezer. Would you like some?"

Lunch today was meal out at an event I went to - so turned out to be vegetarian pasty with salad. Well - I feel quite virtuous today from the fact I left one of my 2 slices of toast at breakfast and then left a bit of my meal at lunchtime. Yep....trying to do the "mindful eating" bit again and ask myself after every mouthful if I'm still hungry enough to have another mouthful. Hopefully that resolution should help trim my waist back down a bit.

Another resolution of mine should also help - I'm likely to buy only half as much wine as I have been. Reason being I've decided I'm "too old to economise any longer" all round (in my 60s - I could land up economising for the whole of my life if I don't stop doing it soon). So - I've been reading that the optimum price to pay for a bottle of wine to get good quality but without overpaying for it is reckoned to be £10. Hence it's more likely to be one bottle of decent wine per week than 2 bottles of plonk then...so that should also help the waistline:cool:

LOL being subtle has never been his strong point :rotfl:At you've liberated some freezer space

Farway

moneyistooshorttomention wrote: »

LOL Caron at your fathers version of dropping hints:rotfl:

I got that in a different direction the other day - being that a friend that was looking round my garden goes "Oh you're going to have a lot of that fruit (ie one I've got growing) soon". Cue for me going "I've still got some of last years in the freezer. Would you like some?"

. Reason being I've decided I'm "too old to economise any longer" all round (in my 60s - I could land up economising for the whole of my life if I don't stop doing it soon).

Hint dropping, fail for me. My neighbour, since moved, had pear & apple tree dripping with fruit and telling me there was too much & she could not use them. Cue my puppy eyes and begging thoughts heading her way, FAIL, never did get any. Luckily the new neighbours just do not pick them, so I scrump those I can reach over the wall

Good idea, bit older than in 60s but I stopped economising some time back, OK if you can afford not to and splash out on good stuff now & then, but still watch out for those YS must haves

Doom_and_Gloom

Breakfast - nutri-brex with coconut milk.
Lunch - fruit and home made nakd bar.
Dinner - (cooking, nearly done) vegan sausages, sweet potato chips (OH is having some as he suddenly fancied them again! Had planned on using the other half of the potato for sweet potato mash tomorrow but oh well, all of it is finally gone.), salad, salsa and houmous.

Been drinking water and coffee.
Will probably have a coconut and cherry flapjack later. May even have some chickpea crisps and a vodka and lemonade (or 2 )

Cooking all 6 sausage and will eat them tomorrow (same as today just with mash out of the freezer) and Tuesday in a pasta salad. Ah cooking for one, needing to justify an oven needing to be on.

caronc

Farway wrote: »

Hint dropping, fail for me. My neighbour, since moved, had pear & apple tree dripping with fruit and telling me there was too much & she could not use them. Cue my puppy eyes and begging thoughts heading her way, FAIL, never did get any. Luckily the new neighbours just do not pick them, so I scrump those I can reach over the wall

Good idea, bit older than in 60s but I stopped economising some time back, OK if you can afford not to and splash out on good stuff now & then, but still watch out for those YS must haves

Have you tried asking your neighbours for the fruit? The reason I say is my newish neighbour has a lovely and prolific apple tree but just lets them drop off. We were chatting and she said that they were overun with apples but weren't keen on them, I then chanced my arm and asked for some. She was delighted as she has assumed because they weren't keen no one would be. I've no idea what type as sort of tart red eating apple but they make lovely crumbles and HM apple brandy liquer:)

Doom_and_Gloom wrote: »

Breakfast - nutri-brex with coconut milk.
Lunch - fruit and home made nakd bar.
Dinner - (cooking, nearly done) vegan sausages, sweet potato chips (OH is having some as he suddenly fancied them again! Had planned on using the other half of the potato for sweet potato mash tomorrow but oh well, all of it is finally gone.), salad, salsa and houmous.

Been drinking water and coffee.
Will probably have a coconut and cherry flapjack later. May even have some chickpea crisps and a vodka and lemonade (or 2 )

Cooking all 6 sausage and will eat them tomorrow (same as today just with mash out of the freezer) and Tuesday in a pasta salad. Ah cooking for one, needing to justify an oven needing to be on.

You had me at the sweet potato chips - are there any left? :)

Doom_and_Gloom

caronc wrote: »

Have you tried asking your neighbours for the fruit? The reason I say is my newish neighbour has a lovely and prolific apple tree but just lets them drop off. We were chatting and she said that they were overun with apples but weren't keen on them, I then chanced my arm and asked for some. She was delighted as she has assumed because they weren't keen no one would be. I've no idea what type as sort of tart red eating apple but they make lovely crumbles and HM apple brandy liquer:)



You had me at the sweet potato chips - are there any left? :)

I'd ask about the apples too. Free apples if they say yes! Compote, pies, crumbles, cider etc. The uses are nearly endless.

There are a few left at the moment but only because I'm such a slow eater. Soo good. Normal paprika was used as somehow there was no smoked paprika in the cupboard :eek: . Can't believe there's no smoked paprika.