Cooking for one

PasturesNew

It's a good job I type here about food... just reading yesterday's stuff and I've realised I've got chicken/sauce to chuck into the slow cooker

It was a random pickup while in L1dl; never bought anything like it before, it was a BBQ pack of four thighs ready marinated...£2.49, but it had a 30% off sticker on it and I thought "that'll cook up fine in the SC" so I went for it.

EDIT: That's done/on.

I'll be eating sweet chilli chicken on basmati today then!

Hollyharvey

I've just had the usual scrambled egg on toast for breakfast. I was going to have some Greek yoghurt with raspberries but I dropped the raspberries when I got them out of the freezer and they broke into little tiny pieces . I guess I will have to blend them with some yoghurt shortly to make them into a smoothie so that I don't waste them.


I bought some small sweet peppers during the week to go with salads, but as it's dull and overcast again, I have used them up by making a beef goulash. That is in the slow cooker now, so that will be 2 or 3 meals. I will have to decide whether to eat it for 2 or 3 days running, or freeze the leftovers.


Don't know what I'll have for lunch yet. I am meeting a friend in town this morning, so will have a look for anything y/s while I'm out.

Anne_Marie_2

moneyistooshorttomention wrote: »

50C !!!!!!!!:eek:

Think we need a smilie of a figure collapsing in a puddle on the floor to cover that one:eek:.

I discovered - during a Turkish holiday - that my "Just got to get in that swimming pool and collapse with a cold drink" temperature is about 34/35C and definitely can't walk that far in it (though my definition of hot climate dressing is loose maxis and a head covering).

Visions of you lying there on tiled floor indoors with fans or air conditioning running full tilt to cope.

Hope it cools down soon for you. It's a shame you can't send some of that excess heat our way and we could get our summer back and you could cool down a bit.

Smiley that you envisage is spot on. Try to do without the a/c on during the day just now, but have ceiling fans and floor fans on.
Really wish that we could swap heat/cool.....would be perfect and we'd all be happy.

I've made the fruit salad, still to do the veg one, as needed to get outside in the shade, where there is a slight breeze and have a cuppa.
Had my breakfast, traditional Cypriot one of boiled egg, tomatoes, olives and slice of home made bread, although didn't have yoghurt. Saving that for the fruit salad later.

HH I'd still have had the raspberries with the yoghurt....they end up all mushed up anyway.

poppystar

PasturesNew wrote: »

It was a random pickup while in L1dl; never bought anything like it before, it was a BBQ pack of four thighs ready marinated...£2.49, but it had a 30% off sticker on it and I thought "that'll cook up fine in the SC" so I went for it.

Well I hope they're better than my pickings from MrM&S yesterday. Marinated chicken and the cooking smell was good, filled the house, but the actual chicken once on the plate was totally tasteless. So not worth it even YS. Not sure how it is possible to marinade something and leave it so bland! To be avoided in the future only problem is I still have half left which was intended to be eaten cold in salad tonight - so really looking forward to that now:(:(

PasturesNew

When I "cook" I'll quite often just think of the initial thing - then, as it's cooking I'll remember other things I could chuck in. Then, once I'm serving it I'll remember something else I WISH I'd remembered to put in it - and after I've eaten it I'll frequently realise I had something else I could've put in it or served it with.

About a week ago I bought a 39p pepper - it'd been sitting unused in the fridge. I had intended on making a crustless quiche with it (yesterday's fruitless search for milk/eggs) .... but I just realised I could lob it into the slow cooker later on. So I've chopped it up - half ready to go into the slow cooker in about 3 hours' time - and the other half I've frozen.

I've been wondering whether I should slice up a red onion to go into the slow cooker too .... I'm coming down on the side of "no, I'd not bother" .... as I did buy a bag of those 2 weeks ago. But, they do last and they do freeze, so it's not urgent to use those. I'll end up making a cheese/onion crustless quiche no doubt, when I finally find/buy milk/eggs; that'll get rid of one onion.

Slow cookers are good like that - once the meat bit's in and going .... you still have several hours to work out what the heck you're actually making

Savannah02K

I have a 'never the same flavour twice' soup box in my freezer. Any leftover veggies at the end of the week gets chopped and put in there, ditto any 'washouts' from jars of sauce I've used, tins I've used etc. When that box is full, it's tipped into a saucepan, hot water, couple of veg cubes, good shake of chilli flakes and whatever 'thickeners' I have in the store cupboard (instant mash, red lentils, split peas, dried peas etc) added, cook up, lovely home made soup which can be portioned and frozen.

And don't forget, loads of jar sauces, tinned sauces etc can be opened, one portion used and the rest portioned up and frozen. they might occasionally split on defrosting, but you just give a quick stir and they're back to normal. As a long time 'cooker for one' I've found that all sorts of stuff that you think you can't freeze, you can. I don't get through a jar of salad dressings in a couple of weeks so I pour what's left into ice cube trays, let them freeze and then pop the cubes into a box in the freezer (so I can use the ice cube trays for something else - rarely ice LOL!). Then when I know I'm having a salad, I'll get a cube of dressing out, put into ramekin dish and on my windowsill to defrost, quick stir and it's fine to use.

And, there's nothing wrong with home made soup and then sandwich or beans on toast for tea, cheap, filling, and healthy!

moneyistooshorttomention

poppystar wrote: »

Well I hope they're better than my pickings from MrM&S yesterday. Marinated chicken and the cooking smell was good, filled the house, but the actual chicken once on the plate was totally tasteless. So not worth it even YS. Not sure how it is possible to marinade something and leave it so bland! To be avoided in the future only problem is I still have half left which was intended to be eaten cold in salad tonight - so really looking forward to that now:(:(

An idea I've seen in various places recently is putting a dollop of yogurt with a little bit of harissa mixed into it on top of things.

Wonder whether that might be an idea for that tasteless bit of chicken?

What would I know - not having eaten meat for decades (apart from 2 or 3 inefficient people mistakenly serving me something with meat in cafes:mad::mad:) - but it sounds like a thought.

PasturesNew

Chicken "looks cooked" to me. Just flipped them over so any residue of marinade stuff can dissolve into the wet stuff.... and I'll hook them out in about 20-30 minutes or so.

They're more cooked than I thought they'd be, so having shredded them and discarded bones/skin I'll probably just lob it all back in for 45 minutes or so. Lunch will end up quite early today I think.

I might whisk up more sweet chilli sauce to add to the shredded meat & peppers.... I'll just go by eye when I see what I've got. It's not rocket science to whisk up a bit more.

I think I'm tempted to combine the chicken and rice, rather than having the chicken sitting ON the rice..... again, I'll go by eye as I progress through the stages of it coming together. I might par-cook the rice, strain/drain the starch off it then lob it in the sc to finish off.

I'm already starving!

EDIT 12:00: Chicken shredded, peppers added, back in the pot on high now.
Guess I need to ponder rice..... I think I'll cook the rice and keep it separate until it's on the plate.... I might then mix it together once it's got that far.

EDIT 12:30: Almost ready to go now. Chicken's all cooked, rice is cooking.... hope this bl00dy tastes OK after all this effort.....

EDIT 1:20: All gone. All eaten. All washing up done. That was pleasantly edible. I've got 1-2 portions boxed up and in the fridge..... not sure what to serve that with.

I'd not rush to ever buy those again.... but it was worth a go, see how it turned out.

moneyistooshorttomention

Typical singles lunch here today - ie repeats - again! So same as yesterday's dinner then = roast vegetables and marinated tofu.
Then a pear and an orange.

Followed by handfuls of berries - as I've been gardening....and ...yep...I've now got a glut of berries:rotfl:

Resisted temptation to head off to corner shop for some booze - triggered by 2 bits of inefficiency and 1 bit of peer pressure over yesterday/today. I'm learning what my triggers are for reaching for the booze and I think peer pressure is probably one of the biggest ones (as I stand up to it and won't change a course of action I've decided on if it's logical:cool:).

Silken tofu is one of the things I can't manage to buy around here - cue for having just received a delivery of it from Amazon. Right - that's me trying out a recipe for orange chocolate pots made with silken tofu this weekend then....:D

Now has anyone got any suggestions for using up the odd bit of leftover silken tofu I'm going to have - as the packs are 340 gr each and quantity I require for the recipe is 125 gr (that's with "Sighs - yet another cookbook written on the default setting of quantities for 4 people. Meaning I've halved the recipe and will be having it 2 days running anyway - again:cool:"). So there'll be 215 gr of the pack still there to use for something-or-other.

Doom_and_Gloom

Silken tofu can be used in smoothie to add protein and it does add a bit of creaminess (sp? A word?) to it as well.
Or add in some avocado and cocoa powder and make a chocolate pudding.
Creamy tofu sauce.
Tofu mayo, yes seriously.
Vegan quiche.
There are loads of things you can do with silken tofu.

Breakfast - loads of coffee. One of those days.
Lunch - potato salad.
Dinner - onigirazu (like a rice ball but sandwich form basically) and vegan sushi.
Snacks - fruit.
Drinks - other than coffee, water, orange passion fruit drink, vodka lemonade.

Going round a friends place today, hence the easy travel food (bento eat your heart out day lol).