Cooking for one (Mark Three)

dreaming

Can I ask what other single people do about condiments please? Despite living on my own for over 20 years I have never thought about it - just kept opened bottles in the fridge as I'm sure most people do, but they can sit there for quite a while as I don't necessarily use loads. However, my present fridge and freezer (separate under counter ones) are both a bit ropy and I have been looking at smaller 50/50 fridge freezers. I looked at ones of 150 cm height but have an idea to put the microwave on top and free up a bit of worktop and think it would too high to use comfortably. I'm not that tall and have some mobility issues, which is another reson to go for a fridge freezer as I struggle sometimes to reach the back of the undercounter fridge shelves (which is why I have the sauce bottles etc. in a basket). So I have found a couple at 143 cm height which seem to still give a reasonable sizes for both the fridge and freezer compartments. I no longer need full size ones as quite honestly I find myself buying stuff just to fill the freezer up and my fridge looks bare most of the time. It's usually just cheese, butter,a few fresh veg. (although I tend to use frozen) - and whatever I have taken out of the freezer to defrost. But then I have a the basket of opened sauce bottles - ketchup, brown sauce, barbecque, mayo, pesto plus 2 or 3 jars of chutney which seems to take up most of one shelf. I realised that the smaller size fridge I want may end up being taken over entirely by sauces, even though I always buy the smallest bottles available. I'm not sure they would all fit in the door shelves.  I did try using  the sachets (bought in bulk off the internet) which I could store in the cupboard but I wondered if there is another solution as I'm not sure how cost effective the sachets are? Apologies if this has been covered before but I have never seen anyone disuss this. I guess I could just stop using the sauces entirely but they are nice to have sometimes.

justkeepswimmimg

Re. condiments, @dreaming, I have tried to minimise what I use now I have a smaller fridge but it helps that I don’t really use ketchup/brown sauce. I often have redcurrant jelly as it goes with multiple roast meats plus works as chutney with cheese. Pesto can be frozen in small pots of individual servings.

Very cold here today with snow this morning. Had a short walk at lunchtime to get a couple of bits from M&S f@dreaming

Scrambled eggs and avocado on toasted bagel for lunch. Chinese pork shoulder steak with stir fried veg and noodles tonight. I cooked two pork steaks so LO one will appear tomorrow 🙃

Brambling

I do keep small bottles of tomato and brown sauce in my cupboard and they last months as I don't eat much of it but somethings like bacon or scrambled eggs need it 🙂 Sometimes I menu plan so if I buy a small jar of something I can use it up within the week or ten days.  Definitely a disadvantage of cooking for one is buying smaller jars or bottles even if they work out more expenses per 100g. I can live without fruit on meat but I do like horseradish, chilli jam or tartar sauce. I make my own sauces when cooking so keep gherkins, capers, anchovies in my cupboard and herbs in my kitchen window.

We had a snow storm this morning but as it followed rain then sleet even the big flakes didn't settle, his lordship was not impressed but nor was I when he wanted to sit in the open doorway and watch.  He does have both a cat flap and a litter tray so I wasn't being mean 🙂. I popped out for a hour at 7pm and it was very cold so I'm assuming a frost tomorrow. Pictures on Petworth FB shows the snow did settle for a bit, we often get sheltered by the Downs here.

I forgot I had a 'quiche' left in the fridge unfortunately the base was soggy so I picked a little then had cheese and crackers instead.

Stirred fry some tofu for dinner with some vegetables and noodles.