Cooking for one (Mark Two)

caronc

Cooked beetroot peeled and left whole freezes really well.

PasturesNew

poppystar wrote: »

Definitely let us know. I love beetroot but was put off cooking it as the one time I tried the kitchen ended up looking like the site of a massacre and I was finding pink spots in unlikely places for weeks after:(

This is the beetroot reality - it will always look like a massacre .... at some point.

I stick to buying one jar of pickled beetroot per year and even then I have to be super careful I don't slop a bit of red down my front! It's evil!

PasturesNew

Right .... so I "only went out to see if 4ldi had big bread rolls reduced". I knew it was madness to go a 1 mile round trip just to try to save 10p, but I do like those rolls! So I was off....

When I got there, no reductions, but I grabbed a bag anyway, dated 30th, so loads of time to enjoy them "fresh" this week, instead of the usual frozen/defrosted.

Next was a series of "randomly wandering around and grabbing things that I like, could eat, usually eat, or could do with".

I only had a basket, but managed to exit with:

A swede (39p this fortnight in their deals); 4 bread rolls (wanted!); 6 crumpets (no need, still got some in the freezer, but these looked nice); jar of jam (had run out, so needed); a smallish carton of cherry tomatoes (£2.09/Kg, so a good price). 2m of tinsel - because you HAVE to!

Then the "lucky find" (or not) - they had their cheapo pasties reduced by 30%, so I got two (dated 27th), 34p each instead of 45p.

Then it was just a box of cocktail sausages and 10 eggs.

Cost me £6.15 in total.

Sunday Lunch is therefore a cheapo pasty, mashed spuds and beans. That uses the last of the spuds I'd bought the other week and uses some of the beans in a pot in the fridge.

Those pasties aren't "great", but they're a tasty little 34p worth.

EDIT: Lunch was cooked and has already been eaten. Very tasty and warming it was too!

PasturesNew

And now, can I have a grumble ..... 4ldi had some "wonky veg" stew packs. A couple of small parsnips, a tiny swede, a couple of small carrots. £1.

"Great" I hear some people muttering .... a stew pack's good as you get small quantities..... but hold on, what's this! It's a con.

£1 for a 1Kg stew pack.

Parsnips are £1/Kg, so that bit of the bag matches OK
Carrots are a LOT cheaper than £1/Kg, probably 50-65p.
Swedes are currently 39p for a WHOLE one that's 4x the size of the one in the bag.
Maybe there's a tiny onion in there, I didn't really look after I was outraged.
To be honest, I only checked the price of the pack as I expected to be outraged at their pricing....
Worra rip off.... *grumbles*

A pauper might have felt "forced" into buying the stew pack, but with more money you could buy a whole Kg of parsnips, a whole swede and a 500g bag of carrots for a total of £1.72.

karcher

Funny you mention pasties PN, I was just about to confess to scoffing 2, yes two, cheese and onion pasties last night.

That was all I ate all day though and just one wasn't enough

PasturesNew

karcher wrote: »

Funny you mention pasties PN, I was just about to confess to scoffing 2, yes two, cheese and onion pasties last night.

That was all I ate all day though and just one wasn't enough

Two is good. There's no food shaming on the Thread for Ones. It's what we do. After all, the smug marrieds are ALWAYS telling us "you can eat what you like" - and by heck we DO!

karcher

PasturesNew wrote: »

Two is good. There's no food shaming on the Thread for Ones. It's what we do. After all, the smug marrieds are ALWAYS telling us "you can eat what you like" - and by heck we DO!

It was a pack of two too so no leftovers

PasturesNew

karcher wrote: »

... no leftovers ...

Hurrah! A double win
No leftovers .... the Holy Grail of One.

PasturesNew

It's 16C/61F here (according to my digital thermometer sitting beside me, which is probably the warmest spot).

That hot pasty is in the oven, the spuds are cooked and ready to mash - and the hot beans will end up as a lovely winter warmer It's a 50p Hot Dinner too ... 50p of "green salad leaves" wouldn't have hit the spot would it!

EDIT: Eaten! Done. Just the washing up now and I've already done most of it, just one bowl, one fork and two mugs to do!

moneyistooshorttomention

PasturesNew wrote: »

Two is good. There's no food shaming on the Thread for Ones. It's what we do. After all, the smug marrieds are ALWAYS telling us "you can eat what you like" - and by heck we DO!

I did try explaining to a married friend the other day your comment about a packet of pasta is gone in one meal with a family, but a single person knows they've got to use that pasta up and it will be several more meals based around pasta (ie instead of being able to have something "new" instead). She just looked at me blankly and responded with words to effect of "What's the problem?"

:wall::wall:

I did try to explain and I could see (from her uncomprehending look) she just couldnt see what I meant:cool:

Whereas we all know it means:
- difficult to get as much variety in our diet as a family member if we are having to repeat the same ingredient several times
- storage space in kitchen for the remainder of that packet of pasta and remainder of a packet of "summat else" and remainder of a packet of "summat else" again etc etc
- you're probably pretty fed-up of pasta anyway and only wanted it the once (having had it so often - as an economy food - courtesy of singles having less money after bills than similar marrieds do).

But I should have known I was bashing my head against a brick wall trying to explain - as I'd had an episode of explaining why we need just as big a kitchen/not much (if any) smaller a house than marrieds do. That message hadnt got through either and I couldnt get them to understand:cool:

Still - coulda been worse - I watched that "#MeToo" debate on tv earlier today and was sitting there mentally hitting that Petronella wotsit (in between wondering how many drinks she'd had before she got put in the hotseat) - as she kept interrupting any time anyone else tried to get their "fair share" of the say....to extent that the exasperated presenter was trying to explain the "rules of debate" to her.

On a cooking today front - yep my kitchen duly looked blood-spattered earlier today - courtesy of me thinking "About time I used that pomegranite" and preparing it. Now, if anyone can think of an easier/less messy way to get the seeds out of a pomegranite than = cut it in chunks and then painstakingly remove all that membrane stuff from the seeds (preferably without sending red liquid spattering up the kitchen walls and cupboards) do share.