Cooking for one (Mark Three)

unrecordings

JenL said:

I like to create my own recipes for one and I'm currently working on a tomato and paprika marinade for chicken or pork, trials one and two were unsuccessful but I'm hopeful that trial three will be great. I'm testing it out tonight on a chicken breast I jointed from a whole chicken. I'm serving it with baked potato and fried courgettes.

Sounds good. If I were in that frame of mind it'd probably go with some kind of pasta. As it stands it's LO chilli in pittas tonight

JenL

 it's LO chilli in pittas tonight

I can't remember the last time I had chilli. I think I might add that to next weeks menu.

Glad

I hate dressing for the wind too! I'm not really a hat or hood person and end up wherever I'm going looking like crystal tips   
off for a run tonight so treated myself to an iced bun to give me energy, another portion of fish curry for dinner when I get in

PasturesNew

I really miss having any form of a kitchen... having all my bits and bobs in storage ... and having to live off pot noodles   It's the whole lack of control over my space that's doing my nut in.  Not my house, not my home.... and can't make it so.  Grim.
Lunch today was a pot noodle, a bit later I had some honey nut cornflakes. 
STARVING!
Not had a "hot meal" now for about a week or so, when I had an all you can eat breakfast... hope the weather clears up so I can go out and get another of those this week. 

unrecordings

JenL said:

 it's LO chilli in pittas tonight

I can't remember the last time I had chilli. I think I might add that to next weeks menu.

Mine are very simple affairs - mince, onion fresh tomatoes tin of Kidney beans, garlic, chillis, padrons or similar rather than bell peppers, lots of dried herbs from the garden, streaky bacon, lots of red wine. With my Dr Strangelove hand takes around three hours to get close to eating even with help from Mrs Un

caronc

Good evening everyone, 
Hope puss gets snipped before he gets too dominant Brambling ✂️✂️  
Welcome to CFO JenL 👋 - fingers crossed your marinade worked out well this time.
I can't imagine not having hot food in this weather PN , hope you can venture out for something filling soon.
Your chilli sounds delicious unrecordings, though I'd be picking out the kidney beans. For some reason, as I'm generally a pulse & bean fan, I'm really not keen on them. I usually use pinto or black beans instead. Would something like the OXO Good Grips veg chopper https://www.lakeland.co.uk/71653/OXO-Good-Grips-Vegetable-Chopper help you with the prep?
It's absolutely perishing here though the lumpy rain has eased off for now. There's quite a bit of snow round about but so far we've escaped. My sis has invited herself for dinner tomorrow as my nephew is out and their flat is still in a bit of an uproar - I'm going to make pot of turkey broth/stew as it is to be cold and horrible again tomorrow. She'll bring some crusty bread and we'll both be quite happy.🍵🥖
My pork steak tonight is going to be griddled with mushrooms, onions & peppers. I'll have it with mash from the freezer and nuke steamed savoy cabbage. Then it's a bit of telly for me as Masterchef is back and I always enjoy that though usually some of the efforts in the early stages are scarily awful.

Brambling

Hi JenL 👋 

BT have impressed me and my phone line is working, in a minute I'll test it on one of my sisters😁

I prefer cannellini beans in my chilli I think it comes from when my nephew was little and he wouldn't eat it with kidney beans in and I lied and told him cannellini beans were baked beans.  My sister has eyed up the lamb in my freezer and is not so subtle hinting about dinner soon  🙄 

Farway did you see a third off gammon joints in W8itrose? 

I believe we had a visitor today, the cat food dishes looked washed up and my messy eater leaves food around his dish and that's gone to.  I need to find a way of checking they are feeding him enough without accusations as he is certainly very hungry, he doesn't just come in for a snack but clears everything in sight, unfortunately his lordship is a grazer so there is food especially biscuits left throughout the day.

i definitely CBA to roast once I got in, I defrosted quickly on the draining board a thin piece of frying steak and had it with air fried chips, mushrooms, onions and tomatoes 

Caronc I'm another fan of master chef 🙂

caronc

Do you think he might be eating at yours to establish dominance and leaving food uneaten at home? My sis had this issue with a previous neighbour's cat who was being well looked after at home but nipping into hers to scoff her timid puss's grub even though they were both being fed the same SM option.

PasturesNew

I keep chilli simple.  Mince, onion, chilli powder, tin of baked beans. 
Or variants.  e.g. if I've a carrot or two I'll grate them in; if I've fresh chillies I'll toss a couple in. If I've peppers, in they'll go.

I rarely use tinned tomatoes as it makes it too watery.

I've never been keen on red kidney beans because when you're cooking small meals one tin's just too many... which is probably why a tin of tomatoes tends to turn out too watery as I'm typically working with 500g of mince. 

A tin of mixed beans can give just enough kidney beans so you spot some, while still bulking it out with the other beans.  Mixed beans do cost 2x what baked beans do though, so they're not used every time.

Sometimes I'll toss in a tin of spuds, on a whim.  I've even been known to open a tin of carrots and pop those in too... sometimes as they come, sometimes chopped a bit and sometimes mashed. 

I don't like Masterchef. Lots of poncy nonsense, with patronising judges. 

Brambling

caronc said:

Do you think he might be eating at yours to establish dominance and leaving food uneaten at home? My sis had this issue with a previous neighbour's cat who was being well looked after at home but nipping into hers to scoff her timid puss's grub even though they were both being fed the same SM option.

My neighbour told me about a month ago that she through he was eating too much because he had a 'tummy' so I did wonder if they had cut back on his food but I need not to accuse them because as you said it's possible he's trying to show he's boss.  He doesn't look overweight to me but then I have a solid (but not overweight)  adult male