Cooking for one (Mark Three)

Farway

I've found some YS fresh mushrooms lurking which I'd forgotten about.

I'll grill them alongside the tasty bangers for dinner

And my Y DNA results are back, and I'm just confused now.

A Dr from Scotland was quick of the mark & has already made contact, I just hope he knows what it's about and will gently guide me.

No names I recognise but early days

PN, as another FH seeker I found this site today. https://archive.org/index.php   Only had a quick go but already turning up some of mine using the Text search

Looks like hours of "fun" ahead on a wet day

PasturesNew

Farway said:

And my Y DNA results are back, and I'm just confused now. 

A Dr from Scotland was quick of the mark & has already made contact, I just hope he knows what it's about and will gently guide me.

No names I recognise but early days

PN, as another FH seeker I found this site today. https://archive.org/index.php   Only had a quick go but already turning up some of mine using the Text search

Looks like hours of "fun" ahead on a wet day

For DNA look up the Leeds Method of sorting/organising.  I've not had my DNA done as it's pricey and I'm waiting until I'm settled + I'm not really searching for answers, but am open to the idea that I might find surprises.  After all ... none of us know what's out there and who slept with who do we! 

There is a lot on archive.org, they turn up in google results quite often.  Nothing has been of interest to me before, but it's good for ancient books to be found digitised by, say, Canada etc.  Dead handy if you do find somebody turns up in a book you never knew existed  

I've now brought these flatbreads into my room (I'd left them in the car as it's daunting to know you have to bring food into the house, then lug the bags up 30 stairs and along a landing ... and then find space for it), so I've only just lugged the flatbreads, stuffing mix (dated Mar 2021) and the crumble mix (Mar 2021) up the stairs.  I've still other bags of food I've been lugging about that are still in the car, that might as well stay there.  It's easy to accumulate random items over time + what my sibling turned out of her cupboards last Xmas and I've not been in a position to get through. 

Looking at them .... I think these are probably best used as pizza bases in all honesty.  Packed in bags of three there are 12 boxes.  So that's 36 pizza bases for £2.  6p each.  I also have in the car 5 unopened sauce bottles of jalapeno ketchup I bought from the OOD a couple of months ago and they weren't "hot" at all.  So I can use those up making 36 pizzas.  So that's bases and sauce sorted.  Just the toppings to go.  I predict lots of sausages and cheese will be bought this month.  Can't really add onions as onions are a faff to deal with as they do take a disproportionate amount of time to peel/chop and then pre-cook to use as a topping, harder than, say, sausages.  I want to be in/out fastest/easiest.   It's also harder to buy onions, economically as a one.  I tend to head for the cheapo 1Kg bags, which cost about 50p, mostly because the onions are small, so closer to CFO sized.  I might think about that....  baked bean & cheese pizzas can be tasty .... peppers are a bit of a cost/overhead, they're not cheap for starters and they can be endless if you try to buy them "cheap" as then you're forced to buy/use a whole bag.   Could do tuna, might have a can of that in the car if I have a dig around.  I've got a jar of harissa in the car, but don't want to use that as it means I've then opened it and then that's an overhead to be used. 

I'll work it out .... a month of pizzas here we come.  At least it'll use up that sauce that's been sitting, unused, in the car for 2 months now...  I've a shortage of baked beans right now else I'd have a cheese & bean pizza for tea.  I think, therefore ... tonight's main meal is just a one cheese pizza.  I'll go and do that now. 

Waitrose Alert: Just googled these flatbreads, Waitrose sell them at £1.79/pack of three. I have 12 packs, so that's £21.48 of them for just £2.   I'm only really paying for just over one pack... Buy One Get Eleven Free https://www.waitrose.com/ecom/products/crosta-and-mollica-piadina-flatbreads/817933-198092-198093 
"these artisan flatbreads are traditionally eaten as a hot folded sandwich" - well, there you go then... I'll cook it like a pizza, fold it over and eat them like a sandwich. 

caronc

Good evening everyone, 
It was similar problems PN in a shared house that prompted my younger son to get a small freezer for his room when he first moved out. He still uses it as in his current place the fridge only has an ice box rather than a proper freezer compartment. It holds a surprising amount of stuff. Would something like this be an option, they start at about £80 though second hand would probably be cheaper? You could always sell it when you get your own place. 
The boys did a great job in the garden and made a huge dent in the clearing which turned out to be a bigger job than we thought. We discovered that my compost bins had been breached with briars and ground elder so they've been emptied and dumped as I wasn't confident I could get all the bits out (my council converts garden and food waste into compost after it's been heat treated so it won't be wasted in the long term). While doing this they found my favourite veg peeler that went awol several years ago! Apart from being dirty it seems just fine and hasn't rusted. Finding it made me scarily pleased so I'm hoping the blades haven't dulled. 🤞

Brambling

I Definitely wouldn't want to house share again, as you say PN there are some very selfish people about

I had to smile re the peeler in the compost Caronc, as a child we were frequently sent out to look for mum's very old little paring knife in the compost heap usually after Sunday roast.  In later years she regularly threw away plastic peelers 

i hadn't meant to go into town today but I forgot I needed to pick up my prescription so used the opportunity to pop into savers and Wilkos to pick up DW / WM supplies as well as toiletries.  I also went into the small 'bin' shop in town which sells sugar, flour, rices etc in large bins as well as 'world' food and  small cheap envelopes of herbs and spices, he also had cannelloni tubes   i was tempted by the venison in the farmers market as it's now back in season but decided in the end that I didn't fancy it, she was trying to sell me a hare (which I've never seen there before) but although I'll eat rabbit I always think of boxing hares and don't find it appealing plus for CFO it's a bit much

Lunch was a cheese and HM coleslaw wrap and dinner a portion of mushroom lasagna (the fix worked and it was really tasty) with French beans and courgette 

caronc

I sympathise with your Mum's pain Brambling, I think my precious, very worn, paring knife which was my Gran's and then my Mum's got lost behind my cooker in 2001/2. When the day comes that it needs replaced I'm hoping it (along with a squillon forgotten things and lots of grime) may appear! At the time when the peeler disappeared as well as having every drawer out I thought I had been through all the rubbish and compost stuff but obviously missed it. My replacement, while okay, just isn't as good. It wasn't expensive I think it was 99p in Woolies!

PasturesNew

A (slightly) funny story that I'd forgotten.... yesterday, in L1dl, buying my little freezer net and new margarine, I was in a queue. There were six in front of me.  A man with pushchair started to queue behind me, I'd not really noticed him, but he suddenly asked "do you think I should panic buy some loo roll?"  I turned round, he was a smart/well dressed man about 6' high, with a toddler .... I shook my head and said "No". 

He then pointed to his mask..... and said "Ah, I thought not - and the lady in front of me in the queue has just confirmed it, so I'm getting the same story from both viewpoints".... he was on the bl00dy phone and not talking to me at all! 

 

Farway

Caron, my stainless gardening / pruning knife wasn't in your heap I suppose? It's been AWOL for a few years now.

By coincidence when DD visited last weekend and was taking the garden chairs out, my long lost veggie knife was discovered under a cushion

PN, pizzas + peppers + freezer space. I use frozen sliced mixed peppers, would they fulfil all functions for you? Including padding your freezer bag out?

Very good buy on the flat breads. I've never bought any but I can see the use at your price

Windy but sunny out, heating came on again this morning

I've a ready mix loaf on the go in the Panny, seems the sort of day fresh warm bread will be handy

My Y DNA, spent a couple of You Tube hours last night, think I'm getting it slowly.

One plus being male is my Y goes all the way back, forever, to the Adam DNA.

That would be some family tree wouldn't it?  Umpteenth great grandfather Ugg?

Lunch, a sausage sarnie is tempting but may just have a cheese + salady one

Dinner. Now I've opened the sausages I think it's rinse & repeat of yesterday's sausages, eggs, AF chips & LO beans

caronc

Good morning everyone, 
LOL PN that's the sort of thing I would do too 🤣🤣
I'm afraid not Farway but will keep an eye out   
Frosty but dry and bright here today. Once the properly frost lifts I hope get on with flower pot emptying. The forecast is rain for most of the week so I want to crack on. 
Lunch is tbc and I've a small FR leg of pork joint defrosting to roast for dinner. I have some LO cream needing used up so may make dauphinoise to have with it. 

Wednesday2000

Toast and lots of tea for breakfast. It really is more chilly. I have the garden doors closed which is unusual.

I'm making a veggie roast dinner today. I want to get my steps in but I'm waiting for an Amazon delivery and my husband is asleep so I can't go out yet.

PasturesNew

I CBA to make a pizza yesterday, opened the pack of flatbreads and decided to nuke one with sauce/cheese instead.  That works, they're nice and soft.  I think I might use them more as a flatbread than a pizza ... hard to tell.  I'd recommend them to try for anybody prepared to spend £1.79 on such a product.  They're almost doughy.  They're soft and pliable.  They don't have the harsh rigidity you tend to find in cheap flatbreads.   6p though ... whatever I do, even just for cheese sandwiches, they're a winner.... all 35 of them remaining. I'll tire of them  

I've just decanted the six hefty bags of stuffing mix into the same box as the 7 hefty bags of crumble mix.  The crumble isn't the sweet version.... "could put a spoon of sugar in", except that'd mean buying sugar (or getting it out of storage), then having another item cluttering up the place.... and everything brought in has to, one day, be carried down all those stairs, so trying to minimise what's up here.   

All these foods would be great in my own place, with space to store/stack them + the ability to freely go into the kitchen and cook what I like, by whichever method, on a whim, without having to step round others, or walk away if others are already mid-cooking or washing up.  

I think just sticking to nuking those flatbreads is best as it's quicker than trying to cook a pizza as that involves several trips to the kitchen/back. 1/ turn oven on and wait 2/ go back and put toppings on 3/ go back down and check  how it's going on 4/ go back down and stand for another 2-4 minutes if it's not cooked at that point.  Then remove a hot item from the oven and carry it back up.... all around the potential that somebody else has turned up at any unspecified time and decided to cook a massive stir fry, or the LL's decided it's a cakes/buns baking day.