Cooking for one (Mark Two)

Farway

Morning folks. Woke up to frosty sunshine, now morphed into warmer murk

Decided, yet again, I don't need anything at the shops, so indoors again

Last night Christmas came knocking, so I cracked open one of my bought in mince pie horde. Two warmed up in the mini oven, with Greek yoghurt. Very tempting to have more but I need to pace myself or I may pop from gluttony

Breakfast was pot of loose leaf tea, I may just treat myself to some extra special leaves for Waitrose / Marks, currently using PG. That is the trouble these days, choices for loose tea are limited in most places, but I admit loose leaf tea is probably not flying off the shelves

I had toast & ginger preserve with the tea

Lunch I think is cheese salady sarnie, waves to HH,

Dinner I think will be continuing the Christmas theme, I have 2 packs of different Lild frozen De luxe veggie type Wellingtons bought on offer a bit back, I think one of them with steamed frozen mixed veg for tonight

PasturesNew

I didn't need to eat .... but I've got two hot sausage rolls for lunch anyway (last 2/6).

I've just sliced the bread rolls I bought and popped them in the freezer. Freezer's almost full... it doesn't take a lot really.

I'm planning on buying a frozen turkey breast for Xmas Day, which I'd have put in the fridge the day before - so, as I've not really got much/any freezer space, I might as well buy that the day before and put it straight in the fridge, rather than buying it a few days early and having it cluttering up the freezer.

moneyistooshorttomention

Did find a half bottle of champagne on sale at Tesco today - so went in my basket.

Some consolation for buying 4 "bottles" of milk (2 pinter size) and coming back to find the puzzle of I'd hauled everything out of my bag and had 3 bottles and there was a nearly full "bottle" there on the worktop too that I didnt remember getting out of the fridge. Oh well - I'm up 3 "bottles" - as I had the feeling I'd been inadvertently sold a nearly full "bottle" instead of the full 4th "bottle" I'd just bought. Think some parent near here probably owes me for that "bottle" - as I thought "Little Johny or Jane must have grabbed that bottle and taken a couple of sips - and parent put the bottle back on the shelf, rather than buying it:mad:". Down the drain the rest of that bottle went for safety's sake....whatever the reason was for it being open and part gone.

Feel like I'm going to have to be more "alert" in that supermarket in future - not just for "Is there anything I've not tried yet?" grr. Two "not yet tried" items hopped into my basket today - Koko coconut milk now coming out in unsweetened version. Found a vegan bread spread without rapeseed oil in - so that did too.

So - main meal today is going to be some more of that leftover salad from Friday and posh cheese with whatever-French-name-it-was-its-got, lots of fruit and....that champagne may just be opened....just because I can...

PasturesNew

moneyistooshorttomention wrote: »

...."Little Johny or Jane must have grabbed that bottle and taken a couple of sips - and parent put the bottle back on the shelf, rather than buying it:mad:". Down the drain the rest of that bottle went for safety's sake....whatever the reason was for it being open and part gone.

Bl00dy annoying - a similar thing happened to me ....

At 4sda I bought 4 jars of drinking chocolate. At home I decided to put three upstairs as there wasn't room for 3 spares in the cupboard - and noticed one lid was loose.... opened it to see the whole foil had been punched in.

Not one for complaining ..... I decided for once to phone and tell them.... not expecting any outcome except I was a bit annoyed so I'd have felt I'd "said something" in any case.

Phoned the free number on the side .... and the little man said that if I take it back, with the receipt, they'll give me a replacement AND £2.58 to spend (didn't really understand it .... but he said something like that). Now, normally I wouldn't bother as I don't go there much, but I have been thinking of returning there pre-Xmas, so I've put the offending jar and receipt by my door so I don't forget

You should phone and moan..... rather than just putting it down to "one of those things" .... moaning and getting a result is a modern thing. In the olden days you'd have just put it down to an "annoying/one of those things".

EDIT: I just put the jar/receipt in the car, in case I unexpectedly find myself at 4sda without pre-planning.... I'd be annoyed if that happened and I didn't have it with me

moneyistooshorttomention

You're right Pastures I know.

I guess I shoulda thought of that before pouring the rest of the "bottle" down the drain (particularly at organic food prices- so that was £1.05 literally down the drain). Add that I can't see milk lasting as long as drinking chocolate (ie until my next supermarket visit).

I guess now irresponsible parent of "little Johny or Jane" has done this (presumably......) it's a bit late now that I have poured the rest of it down the sink.

But I will keep a more careful watch in future that I'm "getting what I pay for" (gawdknows at the prices I pay for my food:eek: I think I oughta do so).

Though non-organic food prices are also "summat that shouldnt be wasted down to some neglectful parents immorality or whatever-it-was" if someone is pushing it to be able to find the money to pay for the food in the first place.

I guess I tend to take the view that "Living on Planet Earth" in the first place is difficult/"What the hell did I sign up for (bl**dy idiot I can be sometimes)?" and therefore one has to "pick one's battles" a bit as to just what to "chase" to "get things right" to have some "Energy" left for Life. Just my personal take on things....

It's just the Annoyance Factor that "it ain't fair" and I'm not being "Literally havent got the money" on the one hand (which I do appreciate is how things are for a lot of people) or owt else on the other hand - as I will overpay people if I think they are being unfair to themselves (eg one told me he was going to charge me £x for summat over last month and I thought it wasnt enough to be fair to him - and so I paid him a substantial amount more than he had told me - as that was more in line with the amount I thought was fair). Okay - call me an idiot now....but "I can live with myself" is the phrase I use....

PasturesNew

moneyistooshorttomention wrote: »

I guess now irresponsible parent of "little Johny or Jane" has done this (presumably......)....

I'd imagine it is more likely to have been laddish behaviour by a younger adult in the warehouse/distribution chain.... it'd be a faff to get that off the shelf and to get little Johny or Jane to take some, then put it back.... but in the warehouse ... easily done.

moneyistooshorttomention

PasturesNew wrote: »

I'd imagine it is more likely to have been laddish behaviour by a younger adult in the warehouse/distribution chain.... it'd be a faff to get that off the shelf and to get little Johny or Jane to take some, then put it back.... but in the warehouse ... easily done.

You may well be right on that one and all....

Must admit one of the things I'm very aware of is "Pay peanuts = get monkeys" and it's not that surprising that, if someone is getting paid "peanuts" then they're not doing the job to "proper standard".

One of these days I oughta do a straw poll as to just how many of us would be prepared to pay more (if we darn well had to:() to ensure that people we are paying for services would "do their job properly in the first place" if we did so.

Ruefully thinking of those times that employers preferred to take on someone of NMW standard (rather than myself) for a job "back in the day" and hoping they'd regret taking on the "NMW standard" person, rather than paying half as much again and getting someone like me for instance:cool:. Oh well....at least that is one of the blessings of retirement - ie not thnking "Why did they employ that-person-that-is-useless-at-the job" for the job - when they could have paid 150% of that wage rate and got someone like me instead?".

Thinking of yesterdays meal out - and I would have paid twice as much as I did - if we'd got decent meals for our money instead of what we actually got...

Farway

moneyistooshorttomention wrote: »

You may well be right on that one and all....

Must admit one of the things I'm very aware of is "Pay peanuts = get monkeys" and it's not that surprising that, if someone is getting paid "peanuts" then they're not doing the job to "proper standard".

.

I think you should also factor in the Zero Hours culture of some employers, using workers as a commodity and cast aside when no longer needed. Not likely to promote much loyalty in any NMW worker, or me if I was still working

I have also come across opened jar, jam in my case. Only noticed when I opened it at home and it was mouldy, of course I should've checked when buying if the lid had been popped, I do now the horse is well down that road

PasturesNew

Just made a chicken/stuffing sandwich.... it was the final piece of a chicken breast joint I'd frozen and hadn't got round to eating - and as I was jiggling things round in the freezer to see what space I could free up I thought "might as well eat that" .... wasn't hungry, ate it anyway. It wasn't really enough to fill a sandwich .... but it's now out of the freezer.

moneyistooshorttomention

Farway wrote: »

I think you should also factor in the Zero Hours culture of some employers, using workers as a commodity and cast aside when no longer needed. Not likely to promote much loyalty in any NMW worker, or me if I was still working

I have also come across opened jar, jam in my case. Only noticed when I opened it at home and it was mouldy, of course I should've checked when buying if the lid had been popped, I do now the horse is well down that road

Valid point Farway - though I havent heard of Tesco employing people on those iniquitous zero hours contracts....

I've been off checking out the online calculator on Google and 1.5 times NMW wasnt far off. That came to c. £25,000 pa to get someone that would "make a bit of effort" at a job that wasnt "career and/or well-paid" - based on the 42 hours per week (including 5 hours paid lunchbreak) that I used to have.

All round - that phrase "You get what you pay for"....

So - after comments from yourself and Pastures - it does look like we need to pay some undue attention to checking that what we buy is what we've paid for.....darn it.