Cooking for one (Mark Three)

Brambling

It's good that you're being rewarded for being a good tenant PN 

food wise I've been a little off what was planned  lunch was going to be courgette soup from the freezer but it hadn't frozen very well and I didn't particularly like it 😐 I had a afternoon of meetings starting at 1pm so I ended up boiling a couple of eggs.  The two remaining portions of courgette soup are being defrosted to bin, no point in taken up valuable freezer space for blah soup  

I had planned to have cod tonight but went off the idea by the time I finished work after 6pm so I used a burger to make a quick wrap type pizza thing in the frying pan which comprised of wrap, cheese, fried onions, pepper and tomato with cooked burger chopped up on top.  Simple but very tasty 🙂

PasturesNew

Sitting here; sitting on a shopping list.  

The trouble I have is that I go to many shops to get different things because one shop is better than another.  Going to any shop is a faff - but if you're going into a shop, perchance they have the ONE thing you're after, with all the distancing, finding it, queueing, getting out again .... is bad enough.  Multiply that by several shops and I just CBA.  Few things can be bought from all/several shops

List currently says: 
Mr T: Lasagne, cheesecake, crumpets, bread
L1dl: Chips, cheesecake, beans, crumpets
1celand: Burgers, fish cakes
4ldi: Burgers, beans, crumpets, bread
4sda: See the size/feel the weight of a particular Pyrex jug I want (wider than it is tall) as they're allegedly (on website) for £3 so I'd like to get one.  4sda's quite a drive out though.

So, if I want burger and chips I have to go to two shops.  They're the core items of importance.... L1dl don't have a range of burgers, just one.  I'd like the 1celand lamb/mint burgers, but not their chips.   I can see I'll have to end up going to L1dl/chips/beans, Mr T/lasagne/cheesecake & 1celand/burgers.  That's three shops.

So, yet again, I sit here, not fancying any of that trip .... and another day will go without me having burgers.  I really really want burgers and I need more chips (<1 portion remaining).  

Farway

PN, at least the sun's out for us Southerners today should you get out shopping.

Like you I used to go shop to shop but now I'm online only I get what they have, but I do appreciate you are not me and like things "just right".

The jug, on the off chance Middle of Lidl maybe? Mine used to have all sorts of odds & ends knocking around, even if not that week's "specials"

Caron, the mustard / cheese mash was good, unfortunately come the critical moment I discover I'd used up & not restocked the grain mustard so used bog standard Coleman's

One for the next shopping basket

The OOD batter mix worked just fine, a lovely Toad ensued, with lots of LOs for cold pickings as I prowl in the fridge   Plus piles of LO mash & cabbage for B & S

Today's meals

Lunch I've some HM bread LO so looking like another sarnie, but may morph into cheese on toast

Dinner, cold LO toad, with some HM AF chips & some salad I think for healthy style option

Or maybe LO toad, nuked LO mash & beans for CBA option?

One certainty is LO toad will be there

caronc

Good morning everyone,
Hope the choccies were for you PN
I've ditched frozen courgette soup too in the past Brambling as it went all grainy and sort of slimy🤢
Glad you enjoyed the mash Farway, the Coleman's would have given it a nice kick. I made 8 croquettes from the mash and had two roast chicken thighs and veg for dinner. However, I must have been rather haphazard in my breading and they leaked a bit in the oven. Still really tasty though. I'll  probably give the remaining ones another dip in egg then crumbs and hopefully they'll not do the same.
Dryish here this morning which is helpful as my son has headed to helped a mate shift a lot of muck and rubble from digging out his garden. He's been promised a bacon butty and home made millionaire's shortbread  .
While he's out I'm enjoying a quiet  before heading to the kitchen to cook Lamb Saag Aloo for dinner tonight.

PasturesNew

Still not got an answer re Choc-gate, it's Mars and Twix.  

In the end I just went to Mr T and bought stuff.  If I had "my own place" I'd be buying entirely different food, which is a thought that consumes me every time I wander down the aisles.   Spotted: Mr T's cheapo pouch rice (plain or pilau) is just 35p!  

Came away with: 2 lasagnes, 1 cheesecake, tin of rice pudding, tin of beans, 2x100g jars of instant coffee, 1 pilau rice pouch, pack of crumpets, loaf of bread, 6 packs of doritos.  Total spend £6.57.

Had four pieces of toast/marg and a pack of doritos for lunch.  Four's excessive, probably never had four pieces before, ever... but the loaf's dated 15th, so I wanted to get a good start on it and couldn't think what I could've chosen to "cook" instead. 

As I had frozen food I had to then come home to get it into the freezer, rather than going to a 2nd shop.  It involves: coming indoors, carrying shopping upstairs, washing hands, changing outdoor shoes for indoor shoes, separating out the frozen, giving it a quick wipe down, wash hands again, out of room, lock door, down all those stairs, through two fire doors, to the freezer.  Bit of a faff compared to one's own home where the ideal is: drive up to door, carry shopping in, kick shoes off, do any wiping/washing as set up by yourself, open freezer door and toss things in.... having bought more frozen because there's a whole freezer there just for you  

"In my own home" I'd not be trying to shoot out and do these round robins as I could stagger which shops I used as I'd be bulk buying as I'd not have to be concerned about space or the potential of having to lug it up so many stairs, or pack/lug it away again in the future if I'd not eaten it.  Today I bought 1 can of beans... typically I'd grab two 4-packs.  With my own/whole freezer I'd have also picked up two cheapo pizzas and some other bits/bobs.  I try to mostly only buy what I can eat fairly soon as I have no desire to be lugging uneaten food down stairs when I do move... I hate lugging stuff up/down stairs and in/out of doors and unlocking/locking the car between each trip, it's just not for me. 

PasturesNew

Don't quote, will delete. 

Had one of those "sad moments" this morning re family history; I saw a post by somebody on the other side of the world who was trying to find out who her grandmother's father was.  She'd died in 2015 and spent her life always wondering who he was, she never knew... but the grand-daughter wanted to try to find out who it could be. 

The post was a day old before I stumbled across it, nobody'd been any good, so I took a look and immediately found out everything.... the man's name, how they met, what'd happened, what he'd said when she told him she was pregnant and how much he was ordered to pay for paternity.  All those years it was simply sitting there... names, addresses, part-family-setup/history to boot ... sitting in plain sight in an old newspaper and the (deceased) grandmother had never known.  It does make me mad that women know the father's name but don't tell their children. 

Anyway, she'll find what I typed in a few hours when it's dawn in her country.... I then saw the father'd married the girl he'd been dating and had many children and died over 30 years ago.  So she's at least got more than she'd expected to find out, quicker. 

MrAPJI

Agree PN, a really sad story. Last year a friend took a DNA test and attached it to a skeleton tree on Ancestry. Imagine his shock and horror when a match appeared suggesting he had a brother. Not sure how accurate those tests are, but my own results have been quite accurate (glad to say that there were no surprises of that nature though).

Hope everyone here is well - what a year it has been!

I was wondering whether anyone has any experience of using air fryers - are they any good?

Brambling

Nice to see you again MrAPJ 🙂 I have a airfryer (not a actifry with a paddle) and use it quite a bit  HM chips, jacket potatoes, breaded fish or chicken and if you're a pastry eater they warm up quiches etc and keep the pastry crisp.  I bread crumbed some chicken for dinner tonight and it definitely saves on putting the oven on.  I will say get one with a basket some of the cheaper ones are a trivet and not so good

PN it was very good of you to do the research, my exSIL was raised by her grandparents and didn't find out until her grandmother died that they weren't her parents (very common as you know) her birth mum who had her at 15 died this year and would never tell her who her father was other than he was same age as her.  

Hair cut and colour today and then I had agreed to work for a couple of hours, unfortunately there were IT issues after they completed our system maintenance which if I could have reached IT in the US would have taken 15 minutes to resolved (it happens a lot) but no one was responding to emails or voicemails and the emergency hotline numbers were switched off 🤬 I was an hour on the phone to our service desk offshore trying to log a critical call as it's a critical system, unfortunately it didn't fit into his set questions so a 15 min fix took over three hours to get resolved.  It's happened before so they are meant to stick around for 20 mins after releasing the system back to us so we can test. I was hungry and spitting feathers 9pm tonight when I got a call back by the team 

so today for food has been another strange one, my hair dresser called and had mixed up times could I go 1pm and not 2pm so I grabbed some cereal (Tesco mini sheddies with apricot filling) for lunch as I'll eat them dry and ate them on the way to town,  I was going to have a sandwich at my sisters.  Work overrunning meant dinner wasn't as planned either, I quickly crumbed the chicken thigh fillets I had defrosted and airfried them and they were dinner at the laptop so no veg today 🤫. I did pick up some YS fruit during a flying visit to M&S after the hairdressers raspberries, blueberries, apples I wish I had remembered whilst working I would have eaten the berries 

PasturesNew

After yesterday's 4 pieces of toast & doritos for lunch, I had a lasagne for tea... then some doritos ... then a jam sandwich  

I did try to get bananas yesterday, but buying fruit/veg while distanced is nigh on impossible as people loiter there and stand for ages mulling.... and, it's just inside the door, where everybody's also arriving/leaving, so a very busy spot as everybody entering the store HAS to walk through fruit/veg.  It's busy there even if people aren't going round the fruit/veg carousel several times.... I did loiter for a bit, but gave up in the end as there were just too many people queuing, loitering, fiddling about and choosing bananas... I just wanted to approach, spot, grab, keep going, bananas in basket.  You don't need 2 minutes to stand and think about bananas.... 

I was wide awake at 4am this morning.  Of course, in one's own home I'd have: gone outside for a cig, then into the kitchen and knocked something up (toast, or eggs/toast).  You can't do these things in a shared house.  I did eventually "crack" and creep down/outside at 5am for a crafty fag, but the stairs are ancient and SUPER creaky, so you always have to "creep about" even if it's not 4-5am!  The house will've been built about 1860-1890 at a guess, it's all still original throughout.   As for food .... I've managed to sit it out for now, rather than reaching for doritos. 

Farway

Good one on the FH PN, to be fair though it's only fairly recently newspapers have started appearing on line.

I've been perusing some Australian ones lately, nothing as juicy though, registering a Buick in Nov 1923 is not in same league as missing fathers

On FH though I've joined Ancestry this week, there was an offer 3 months for a $1, trying to sort out my DNA matches.

Most mysterious, someone has recently listed my paternal grandfather & another has my mother. I've messaged & await responses

Sunny day ahead but nothing planned. I may go to RHS Wisley on Wednesday weather permitting, been a while really with lock down etc

I finished up with the salad option for last night's dinner and glad I did

MrAPJI, I've an air fryer which replaced my broken Actifry. Following advice here I made sure it had a basket, and in my case suitable for a dishwasher

It has a thermostat & timer, but in true bloke style both are at Max regardless

I prefer the AF and I mainly do chips in it, possibly because I have a gas oven which is no trouble or great cost to turn on for the twenty minutes or so to heat something through

I woke about 5, must have heard PN's creaking stairs, up at 6 and quick dash downstairs to over ride the heating timer, turned very chilly now

Lunch probably toasted stale crust & jam

Dinner CBA today so it'll be one of the frozen pizzas, whichever is on top