Cooking for one

Hollyharvey

Well today has been a bit of an odd day. I couldn't decide where I wanted to go to get the last few bits of shopping that I needed that I couldn't get in Aldi yesterday. It was either Tesco or try again at Aldi. In the end I decided to go back to Aldi based on the thought that I could always go to Tesco tomorrow. So, as Aldi didn't have everything I needed again (I think I have finally realised that is because they don't stock what I wanted) being new to the shop I didn't know this. So I'm off to Tesco in the morning.

Breakfast was scrambled egg on toast with some baked beans that needed using up.


Lunch was a tuna and sweetcorn sandwich with salad on the side.


Dinner is going to be a lightly dusted plaice fillet with salad and new potatoes.


Snacks have been a crumpet, a choc ice and I have a cake in the oven and I will have a slice of that on its own and probably another slice warmed up with cream or custard for pudding tonight.

Farway

greenbee wrote: »

I have a ghost pigeon too Farway

I love that description, duly pinched to trot out when the younger grandchildren visit :T

Bit cooler today at last

Lidl was zero YS but did get boring "stuff" like milk & bread @ 45p, which is my normal one, white toastie. I would prefer the wholemeal but the sliced Lidl ones always have some sort of defect with a "bent & dippy in crust", not normal loaf shape IYSWIM. Just cosmetic I know but it rankles with me

No breakfast as per normal
Lunch had a change and used some of the LO tinned salmon in a sarnie with salady bits, plus one more Ferro choc

Dinner, just not sure. It is cool enough for a baked spud, but think it will be cheese on toast with beans & fried egs on top, remembering to use the Worcester sauce splashed on mentioned on here. Hope it turnas out as tasty as the anticipation

I enjoyed the cherries yesterday, and some still left on the tree, amybe tonight. The ice cream was abit of a let down. I am not a big eater of it anyway, so perhaps that is why, never as nice as I think it will be. Never mind, no doubt I can put some on the Christmas pud, only 185 days to wait :rotfl:

greenbee

poppystar wrote: »

So am thinking my first foray might be into savoury muffins so I can cut down on the sweet stuff.:)

On my flights this week I had two savoury muffins - the first was dill, fennel and apple (the american lady next to me was distinctly unimpressed, and didn't seem to appreciate the lamb, millet, celery, yogurt and mint salad either) and the second was pea and mint. Both were delicious.

SunnyGirl

Good afternoon. It's been a busyish morning here and very pleasant as it is my middle childs (eldest son) 23rd burthday. He had requested brunch at my Mum and Dad's house so we met up there with him and his boyfriend, me and my parents obviously! My daughter and her boyfriend are both working and my youngest son is in America so it was only 5. Mum excelled herself and we had grilled bacon, grilled tomatoes, scrambled eggs, american style pancakes, maple syrup and fresh juice. It was all lovely. I am not a huge fan of american style breakfasts but I ate the bacon, eggs and tomato first then the pancakes as a type of pudding afterwards Cake was served afterwards and all had a good time.

On kitchen gadgets I used to have all sorts when the children were younger - food processor, blender, smoothie maker, coffee machine, rice cooker....... As they've broken over the years I haven't replaced them as the family shrank they weren't really needed. I now have a microwave, a stick blender (£5 at Tesco), an electric mixer and a grater and they do everything between them that I need now.

I hate clutter and can keep all of the above - apart from the microwave :rotfl: - in cupboards keeping the worktops mostly free.

Have been doing my shopping list and planning July's menus out as I shop on payday, which is the 28th, and then I only occasionally have to venture into a shop during the month. I hate shopping of all forms whether it's clothes, food, shoes, anything!

My old dog is suffering a bit today and is a bit more wobbly than usual. I'm hoping that it's just the heat over the last week and that he'll be ok tomorrow.

No breakfast or lunch today due to birthday brunch but I'm doing a roast chicken dinner tonight. A chicken breast roast from Iceland that serves 2-3, mashed root veg with potatoes added to cut down on pan use, peas and gravy inside a frozen yorkshire pudding The 2 leftover portions of chicken will go into sandwiches for work over the next few weeks as I remembered to buy muffins (or whatever they're called in your part of the world )

PasturesNew

I love giant yorkies. I never eat enough of them..... I think it's the immediacy that's off-putting - as there's rarely any spare space in the freezer they'd need to be bought and cooked immediately and/or put in the fridge and cooked within 24 hours ....so I don't get round to it.

While my own large Yorkshire mix has proven on many occasions over the years to be splendid....the reality is that to get the right dish/size and quantity of mix to cook in the toaster oven would probably yield a dud or two, so I CBA to even contemplate it. The heat in those are quite awkward and unpredictable with some items ... mine also rise by a HUGE amount, so I'd be constrained to the bottom shelf, which is then too close to the elements (the bottom burns on pastry items on the bottom shelf)...so it'd be a hit/miss couple of events and I hate to fail, so I won't bother.

I can tell what's going wrong - and fix it - but in fixing it that's for "next time" - leaving you, right now, to eat what you massacred ....

It was always "my job" to make the Yorkshire mix. I've no recipe, you do it by eye. Pile of flour, drop in an egg (or two, depending on how much you're doing), add the milk and mix until "it looks/feels right".... I've even got "the perfect mug" to mix it in! Just not the right sort of oven. Maybe next year I'll bother... just need to work out how big a yorkshire/dish I need and see what I've got that works/fits.

PasturesNew

I would mention one oft-overlooked thing about CFO .... "the right sized dish". While it's easy for families to just have a lot of big dishes ... when you're CFO you seem to need either a VERY carefully curated collection ... or a vast one.

I've got quite a collection of "retained ready meal plastic dishes", the see-through plastic "steam meal" dishes (I use those for pasta as they're deep) and some assorted small dishes/bowls picked up in recent years from £land/similar. Also, my two falcon tins ... but it's still difficult to always have the right sized dish for what you're cooking.

Smaller dishes are less flexible when it comes to getting "the right fit" so to speak. The size/shape/depth of the dish becomes more critical when you're dealing with smaller portions.

Just thinking through Yorkshires, the closest I have is a small/oval Pyrex dish ... which wouldn't really be quite big enough, but it's the widest I've got.

SunnyGirl

PasturesNew wrote: »

It was always "my job" to make the Yorkshire mix. I've no recipe, you do it by eye. Pile of flour, drop in an egg (or two, depending on how much you're doing), add the milk and mix until "it looks/feels right".... I've even got "the perfect mug" to mix it in! Just not the right sort of oven. Maybe next year I'll bother... just need to work out how big a yorkshire/dish I need and see what I've got that works/fits.

I'm similar in that I use my Nana's recipe which is 2 of everything - 2 tablespoons of flour, 2 tablespoons of water, 2 eggs and 2 tablespoons of milk. I add enough milk to make it sort of like single cream if I'm making pancakes with it. Works every time and makes 12 yorkshires in a bun tray. I make 6 at a time usually now as I'll have 3 with dinner and the other 3 afterwards :rotfl:

Would a cake tin work for your homemade giant yorkshire? My sons like them as snacks with some Bisto gravy and I used to make them in cake tins when I couldn't be bothered faffing about with bun trays as they're a pain to wash afterwards and can't go in the dishwasher as they're non stick.

SunnyGirl

PN I'm finding tin size a challenge at the moment as I have casserole dishes, baking tins etc that were used to feed a large family. I'm currently using a small square tin - probably about 5" - that was in a starter pack of kitchenware when my son went to uni last September and has come home for the summer. I need to look out for another one (without buying another £50 starter pack) so that I can give him his back when he goes again this year!

PasturesNew

SunnyGirl wrote: »

....

We gave up little ones when I was about 10 - and we'd make a Yorkshire in a huge/wide dish. For four of us, I used to slice it into 8 pieces, as it worked out that some like corners, some liked middle bits, some liked one of each and mum'd only ever take one small piece at most (not a fan of it)... so cutting into 8 gave four corners and four middle pieces, which, magically, kept everybody happy that they could have the bits they liked.

I like what I call "the soggy bit in the middle" - our family weren't really keen on dry/crispy brown yorkshires... we liked them moist.

SunnyGirl wrote: »

Would a cake tin work for your homemade giant yorkshire?

It'd probably be too deep - never had one/don't own one. I don't bake cakes

SunnyGirl

I don't either but I was thinking of the ones that are only about 1" deep. It only sprung to mind as the cake that was made for my son today was 8 layers but they were only thin