Cooking for one (Mark Two)

caronc

Good evening everyone,
My back is still majorly playing up so it's been strong painkillers and mainly snoozing. Thankfully it has eased a wee bit so I'm back on my feet. Dinner will be something quick from the freezer, probably sausage and mash:).

katkin

PasturesNew wrote: »

that made me really LOL... thank you ... and thank you for your kind words.

It's also available on Facebook ... where you might spot stuff you missed

I CBA ever these days to cook fish fingers properly. I still continue to tweak methods, but the blog doesn't overload people with the nuances and tweaks or it'd become overwhelming.

My thinking is that the bottom line is: can I do it/is it safe/edible ...and how?
If you hunt round .... you'll also see I've done full sized fish in breadcrumbs portions too "as a test" .... they work too (to save you searching). Bigguns!

It was the fish finger toasty that got me salivating first haha, had it yesterday for lunch and even ate it off a napkin as I worked at home. Very mess free, though i had ketchup AND mayo on it!

I made your marmalade pud at the weekend (upsized) in a rectangular dish, had to turn it once in the micro but it came out perfect and was devoured by 4. That seen the end of the 30p marmalade that had been in the fridge since xmas. The main course was a ridiculous priced whole pork belly with bone in from the butchers that took 4 hours to slow cook and a nervous breakdown trying to source sezchaun (sp) peppercorns locally to make it fancy. Off course the pud got the major compliments...lol

Wish a blog like yours had been about when my boys went off to uni, and for us frugal minded folk who like a bit of retro cooking its up there with the jack munroes and jocastas of the world in terms of good value, filling, tasty foods. However, your's is right on trend for the real world we live in.

Ps: the pics are good, no need for candle light or lavender filled vases btw, some of us just like looking at the food. I do hope you keep on with it.

PasturesNew

katkin wrote: »

Ps: the pics are good, no need for candle light or lavender filled vases btw, some of us just like looking at the food. I do hope you keep on with it.

My kitchen is dark, with inadequate lighting - and the evenings are drawing in, making it difficult to get light shots... but I will be continuing.

Also, sometimes, I'm in a rush so shaking too much to take a non-blurry photo ... or, like earlier today, the food was too good to wait for, so no photo. Blurry or no photo = no post about that then Those were cheesecake ...and cheese omelette.

In a way, I started it to try to "improve" what I'd been eating - as I'd got in a rut - and I'd eaten so many other great things in years gone by, so decided to try to continually cook "new/old" things and keep an eye out in the shops for something unusual... but it's "tough going" when you openly admit "I don't bother cooking.... I eat toast" as new content is required all the time ... so that "forces" me to make a bit more effort than I'd have done if I'd not started.

So it's "mission accomplished". It's had nearly 1million views so far, even with the dodgy lighting

I've still not got round to "my favourite dinner mum used to make", but it's on my list to get round to it... I need to go to 4sda to get some specific sausages I tried/ate/liked the other week though (when I went out for my tea)....

katkin

Glad to hear you will keep adding to it and I'll look forward to your mum's favourites. At heart i'm a traditional Scottish home cook so i enjoy other's family favourite recipes.

When i started experimenting with microwaved clootie dumpling my old dad refused to try it, but I got him round in the end lol by pretending to have boiled it for hours in a clout. After mum died he was pretty open to trying my "experiments". My mum was a cook and grandmother who lived with us had been in service and housekept / cooked for "big" houses - so I was up against it!

If the Gaurdian offered you a slot would you take it?

ps: the pics are good enough to see what you are writting about, if you feel you need more like just move a lamp nearby! Though I like the realness of them, your blog is very professional as is, so I'd not be too bothered by that. Million views may just indicate to you that others like it just the way it is x

Well I better scoosh out of CFO before I'm caught!

PasturesNew

katkin wrote: »

If the Gaurdian offered you a slot would you take it?

Money's always good .... but they do expect a photo and I've a fear of having my photo taken I've never looked good in photos. Plus ... I'm sure their readers would expect me to be a shiny, smart looking 30+ London girl
If I can ghost write it and they use a stock photo of a shiny girl, I'll bank the money ....

On the subject of photos, that isn't actually just my opinion. Nearly 15 years ago I worked for a top award-winning national (in all the national papers every month) lifestyle photographer - and he always had other top/national newspaper award winning photographers dropping in for a laugh and cup of tea. One day one of the top "portrait photographers" for the Times etc had his camera in his hand and "bet" he could take a good photo of me. He had me standing, sitting.... he was standing, crouching, aiming up, aiming down, changing the light ... and finally he said "You know, you're right - you CAN'T take a good photo can you!".

katkin

PasturesNew wrote: »

Money's always good .... but they do expect a photo and I've a fear of having my photo taken I've never looked good in photos. Plus ... I'm sure their readers would expect me to be a shiny, smart looking 30+ London girl
If I can ghost write it and they use a stock photo of a shiny girl, I'll bank the money ....

Haha. Yep money is money!

Shiny, smart looking 30+ hipsters are so last year now. We need to see real women, representative of the millions of the rest of us in the media more. So don't let that put you off if an offer comes in! :T

PasturesNew

katkin wrote: »

don't let that put you off if an offer comes in! :T

If an offer came in I could actually be 10x better to be honest. Once you have a steady/known income you can actually "focus" and spend time "thinking about it a bit more" and being more relevant/useful - rather than relying on what you fancy while shuffling round L1dl with £1 that'll work in the nuke box ... you can even do "fancy stuff" such as ... having 2-3 different plates to present it on AND ... having another go if a particular end result fell off the spatula or "looked a bit !!!!!!" on the plate as you'd put it on the plate in the wrong positions ...

Sometimes I tip too many beans on the plate, or wish I'd put a few chips on - but having cooked dinner .... I'm now going to eat it, not do it all again just for a 2nd photo!

Farway

PasturesNew wrote: »

My kitchen is dark, with inadequate lighting - and the evenings are drawing in, making it difficult to get light shots... but I will be continuing.

I have a little battery powered mini LED light on a tripod from Lild, only about 6 inches high, it does give a nice bright light. Thought I'd mention it in case they have camera weeks come round again and you fancy a look at it, would fit in your trolley with the sausage rolls

"... and finally he said "You know, you're right - you CAN'T take a good photo can you!"." I concur with this, I take photos for a rogues gallery of our volunteers, one lady said she always came out like a corpse. Despite everything, including Photoshop she did look like a nice pink corpse

Dinner scoffed. It was the last 1/2 pork pie, with bowl of oven chips & ketchup. The chilli is now earmarked for tomorrow

Could be tea & biscuits later

elona

Pastures

If you want to use up lasagne sheets you could cook a couple in boiling water, let them cool and then slice into noodles, tagliatelle shapes and use like that or put a filling like bacon, onions, tomato and cheese on it , roll it up and nuke under a small amount of white or cheese sauce. You could even break it up and add it to soups or another dish to bulk it up.

PasturesNew

elona wrote: »

Pastures

If you want to use up lasagne sheets you could cook a couple in boiling water, let them cool and then slice into noodles, tagliatelle shapes and use like that or put a filling like bacon, onions, tomato and cheese on it , roll it up and nuke under a small amount of white or cheese sauce. You could even break it up and add it to soups or another dish to bulk it up.

I was going to soften in water, then make a lasagne filling and make my cheese sauce and layer it. All in the nuker... I'd have then looked at it and thought "you could brown that...." but then decide to scoff it anyway as "there are no extra points for presentation" and the extra time's not usually worth the improved end result

I don't use/buy/eat bacon ... and rarely have soups.

I am not short of ways to use it up - I have no enthusiasm and there's already far too much choice to choose from to get round to most things most of the time.

You can only cook/eat so many things per year.... and I'm not really a "fan" of pasta, so it gets to the back of the list. I was discussing lasagne Friday night with somebody - and how I never get round to it because ... it's not really that interesting ... only one type of lasagne's "good" ... a fat pile of really stodgy lasagne, cooked for you in a works' canteen, where they cut into a HUGE one and you get a big fat square that stands in its own right and is about 4" high.