Cooking for one (Mark Three)

Farway

That tinned rice looks a good buy PN, I'm also a  lover of tinned rice but not a T*sco shopper so unable to sample that one

Dull day out today, only thing I have to do is collect the dried bean seeds ready for 2021 before rain arrives

I was very miffed last night, my F & C using a frozen breaded cod fillet was a swizz.

Turned out the cod fillet was "formed from cod caught in blah blah & may contain bones"

In other words it was a fillet shaped large fish finger. Partly my own fault,

I usually check to see just what is within but I'm guessing these were on some sort of offer, buy two for £xx etc and unable to check on line.

One of the problems of on line shopping but now I know to avoid Youn6s in future

Tasted OK, just the feeling of being cheated somehow

Today's meals are less of a problem

Lunch I think boring cheese & salady sarnie

Dinner, I have last two pork sausages so it's them, with HM AF chips + couple of fried eggs & open a tin of beans

caronc

Good morning everyone, 
Yes Youngs are guilty of that (as are others), how disappointing Farway   
Hope you get the chance to see your sis Brambling
Yesterday evening my son had to run an errand in a neighbouring town. On his way home is very good chippy that uses dripping and treated us to F&C. They were delicious  as was their HM tartare sauce. 
HM pizza for us tonight, my son is making the dough while I noodle online with a cuppa. He wanted left to it so like GBBO I've given him basic instructions and left him to it. 
BLT for brunch and then if stays dry the remaining  baskets of toms are getting taken down. 

PasturesNew

I'm working up to an 8 mile round trip to a huge 1celand.  The fizzy pop Mr T sells at £8.50 (£6.50  with the unachievable clubcard) is sold at 1celand for £7 ... and, since I need to park close by to cart off 2 cases of 24 AND I want a couple of other 1celand bits it makes sense to go to the biggun, that has trolleys and its own free car park outside.  

Not sure what I'll get.... a box of 4 burgers, probably their cheapo fishcakes... maybe their £1 steak cut chips (give up on going to L1dl as a separate shop now).... so hard to know what to get as I don't know what'll fit in the small freezer + what the 'crowds' will look like until I get there.  If it's busy I'll just grab the essential items and not linger or mull.  

If 1 in 160 people have "it" (no idea where I got that figure from, could even be Liverpool for all I know) + I'm in a rising area, or is it falling ... as everything you hear/see/read says different things.... I'll be staying away from places that are too peopley.

Fizzy pop, burgers at worst.  fish cakes and chips if reasonable/feasible .... and a surprise purchase if the aisles are nearly empty of people and I get to look properly.

EDIT: Did that.  It's a miracle too as the fizzy pop was cheaper than the website said and was £6.49/case, so 1p cheaper than Mr T with his annoying clubcard.  
Also picked up: a pizza (cooking it now), 4 burgers, 30 fishcakes, 400g cheddar, 15 mixed size eggs... but they had no bags of chips I was after.  Their website has some £1 bags, the superstore just had mega bags (2.55Kg) which I don't have room for. 

With frozen on board, I didn't want to run into L1dl just for a bag of chips, so came straight home.  "Oh .. we use insulated bags..." you might say - and I say "Yes, but all mine are in storage"  

Brambling

Evening 🙂

i walked into town today to meet my sister for lunch and we brought a birthday present for the sister who is hopefully coming to stay.  My sister I was with also chose her birthday present which was in the sale 😁 she can't have it yet 🙂 I meant to pick up some chilli jam from the farmers market as it appears a lot of recipes in the JO book but we were putting the world to rights and I forgot 🙄 

i quickly went to lidl to pick up some fresh stuff (no chilli jam) I had hoped as the car park was half empty it would be a quick visit but there were only two tills and one assistant was calling for a manager for ages, the girl serving me gave up waiting for a response and went looking for an item for the guy in front herself

lunch was a very nice macaroni cheese in a small cafe in town, we went in for their wonderful bacon rolls but they have stopped doing them 😐 not sure why but it was served in a disposable coffee cup everything else seemed to be served in China 🤔  Dinner was a beef lo mein using a piece of feather steak from the freezer 

PasturesNew

Crumpets for breakfast. 

I'd like to win the lottery so a menu could be put in front of me at mealtimes by my resident cook ... and I could just point to what I fancied and it'd appear.   I'd have opted for a full fried breakfast this morning... sausages, fried eggs, scrambled eggs, beans, hash browns and some well done/dark/squashed fried bread and 1 tinned tomato.  

Farway

Restless night so up later than normal today

Scrumped from neighbour's tree pear diced in porridge with Greek yoghurt & honey for breakfast

Had I won the pools then like PN I would've had the same as wot she 'ad. In the past I have partaken of same in Morrison's when on holiday

Good haul in Ice£and PN, I keep wondering about venturing into my little Lidl but suspect it will be  "too peopley" for me, it was a PIA sometimes before Covid

On the plus side, I managed to grab a slot from W8rose.

Because I'm on the their vulnerable old codger list I get first dibs at new slots which worked out for once

Now they are down to £40 min delivery it suits at times, especially as they do stock items that 4sda doesn't, plus I get the option to add comments for the picker, such as small bananas & mushrooms, and not chipolatas if substituting my bangers.

Of course one can only hope the pickers read & follow the comments. Time will tell

Lunch, use up time again. The LO faux Spam in a sarnie with some pickle or mustard

Dinner, curry time, I'm trying one of these posher Ice£and chicken masala, with one of their Naan breads.

The reviews read well, and not too spicy apparently so quite looking forward to nuking it

It's a large portion so not having rice with it

PasturesNew

Farway said:

  I keep wondering about venturing into my little Lidl but suspect it will be  "too peopley" for me, it was a PIA sometimes before Covid

 

It's not PC to say this ... but the problem mostly comes from people with kids in tow as the kids are all over the place.  Then there's the constant stopping/conversations they're having.  Next are the couples, especially very very large couples, where one's as much use as a chocolate teapot and the other one wants to have an entire discussion about every item and whether to buy it, or which to buy.  Whichever type it is they like to spread out across the entire width of the aisle.

I've heard stories of some stores this year putting in place "one person, one trolley" rules where possible ... which is ideal as people on their own just know what they're after, decide and move on.  

Where I am "struggling" is, I've absolutely no idea where anything is - so can sometimes have to go round 2-3x to find the simplest of things as they hide them.  In Mr T I found rice pudding in the same aisle as coffee..... I'd have expected to see that near tinned fruit; indeed, I'd have expected to see tea/coffee pretty soon in the store, but they tuck it up between the freezer aisle and the booze.   I am not familiar with the layout/goods of any of the shops I enter, so I start off disadvantaged and will often emerge dissatisfied at my haul, so I try to enter the store having only 2-3 KEY items that I MUST get - and if I discover anything else on my list that's a bonus.   There's no time for mulling, or finding, or asking most of the time.  

The worst sections are: 
1/ fruit and veg. Invariably just inside the door and invariably where most people cluster, loiter and mull/discuss.
2/ bread aisle.  Again, a source of great conversation between people who are shopping together. 
These aisles are also where you can have your 2m from somebody, but then everybody reverses back to the thing they saw at the start of the aisle    I often find the actual bread tray I want is hindered by slow shoppers, or that's where the shelf stacker leaves the whole trolley of breads they're currently working on. 

Farway

PN, Plus of course the stores and packaging are designed to make people loiter & look with more chance of impulse buy, and shuffling items around to make people search the store for it

The lack of loads of choice [and lower prices] was what I like about Lidl, just buy bl00dy cornflakes, you don't need 18 choices

Brambling

I usually find L too peopley as well Farway however after six last night the shop wasn't too full of people but trying to pay was blah due to lack of tills. i usually find the people in our M&S or W8itrose seem to be more on top of social distancing but I haven't been to the 'big' Tesco since the beginning of the year so not sure what it is like there

My furry alarm failed to wake me this morning and I overslept, I woke up with a head full of cotton wool and all of the fun of a hangover with none of the joy of the alcohol 🥺 so a day busy doing nothing, housework will need to be done tomorrow 😐 I caught up on some TV and finished a book my sister has been nagging me to finish so she can have it 

lunch was some fruit and cheese and dinner a nice easy Iceland pizza sub and as per Farway I added extra cheese

Farway

Another restless night & thus up later then normal.

Caught myself watching "Homes under the Hammer" this morning and that was the tipping point to get off my bum and do something

Brambling said:

and dinner a nice easy Iceland pizza sub and as per Farway I added extra cheese

They are nice & easy those pizza subs, I think we can safely recommend them PN once you get settled. Handy grab & go when CBA to think about it

Last night's curry was very tasty, not too spicy for me.

But doubtful I will buy again because it is a large 400g size, and being frozen could only be divided once heated, then left with what do I do about this LO smallish portion of cold curry?

I had to go back and amend my W8rose order, forgot sugar, which oddly enough it is cheaper in W/rose than 4sda

I use so little of it, not used in drinks but mainly cake / jam making, that it's not a regular buy but with my sudden cake making episode and thinking about maybe a ginger or chocolate one another bag would come in handy, especially with CV & Brexit etc

A lazy day ahead I think, lunch a really idle Sandwich spread sandwich

Dinner, nuke the last chilled MFO RM macaroni cheese

I have lots of celery lurking, could be C O celery soup except the Fake Philly I thought I had seems to have been stolen

I'll check on availability & cost in the Co-op tomorrow, I don't like waste but paying pots for an ingredient makes no sense