Cooking for one (Mark Three)

moneyistooshorttomention

Caron - you're correct about amount to plant in first place of veggies for a single.

I do wonder about the quantity sold in a strip of vegetable plug plants, for instance, sometimes.

Am learning to "stand up" for us and spotted some veggie seedlings advertised as a price for family-size quantity at a recent plant fair I went to. Duly turned round and asked them how much for a suitable quantity for a "single" and they did adapt accordingly.

A lesson to be learned about us standing up and asking for the quantity we need for ourselves - rather than just accepting "family size" is all "whoever" does all the time. Time to make them think on....

PasturesNew

I thought I had frozen bread rolls, but when I looked, there were none..... I'd kind of resigned myself to having a burger in a bread roll and some chips.

Instead, I dug out a chicken curry I made a couple of months ago and am having that with chips.

I did a "round Robin" earlier, dropped off stuff at the tip and picked up some archive boxes from Argos.

Farway

Up early again, pot of tea & porridge, banana, honey, Hm yoghurt

Lovely sunny day, decided to do a spot of volunteer gardening before the heat started. Potted on my multi headed sunflowers and a 3 mini roses. A supermarket gives us the pick of their "best before" stuff instead of binning it. These roses were such an item

I'd finished by 10ish, popped into Morries for a change, plant hunting, found some non stop begonias to fill the spaces left after winter, and a fresh & warm apple pie.

Grabbed the pie, I've got space because scales were down a pound on the week

Back to tinned salmon & cucumber sarnie for lunch, fancied a change from cheese

The weather is ideal for another salad, so it's LO cheese / onion quiche plus salad for dinner

I did have some of L's hash browns yesterday, I enjoyed them, did them in the oven. Gives me another CBA option from frozen chips

Been checking grape pruning, I thought I'd seen them grown as standards at Wisley, yep, they can be grown as standards, may take 3 years, along with my goosegog, If I had a proper portal I could have fruiting lollipop standards either side of my door

moneyistooshorttomention

Still summer weather here:D

So - bit more planting of seeds done and I've been counting just how many food type items I've now got at one stage or another now in the garden (ie from seed to fully-grown).

Not counting that hosta and the tomato plants I bought (I just have this suspicion that tomatoes don't like windy areas??? - as I just don't seem to get very far with them here?);

So - another possibility for "suitable to grow for singles" is Asturian Tree Cabbage - so just potted up some seeds for that and time will tell. But it says one can pluck a few leaves at a time and it's perennial and easy to save seeds from (organic seed), etc - so hopefully it'll be a goer. If so - that should tick a box for "singles growing list".

So there's sprouting broccoli, kale, pak choi, leeks, lambs lettuce, flower sprout (whatever that is - and hope it's not another name for the Japanese beefsteak vegetable seeds I've sown), perpetual spinach, rocket, mixed lettuce, Good King Henry gone in in last few days.

What's there already - the strawberries and wild strawberries are coming on and the apple and plums. The currants and chuckleberries look hopeful, as does the black chokeberries (which I hope I can beat the birds to this year). Nasturtiums just about starting to show. The quince, eleagnus and gooseberry are too young yet to turn out anything for me. The rhubarb is now nearly ready to eat (could get a bit already) - errrm...I've still got some in the freezer from last year. Sorrel is ready and chives are permanently there. Looks like I've got some weed fat hen started up too.

I've got some comfrey guerilla-planted nearby. Must have - another - go at guerilla planting some ramsons nearby (had a couple of goes in previous years - but they didn't take). Nil desperandum - I'll try another site. Got quite a lot of catching-up to do here to ensure that as many of the food plants as possible that I'm used to are growing somewhere or other quite near me....for some strange reason LOL. There's some stuff I'm used to that is just not going to grow here and/or would take years to get going here....but I'll get what I can planted around the place that will cope with clay soil/lots of rain/lots of wind/etc (and try not to think about mulberries, medlars and grapevines....).



Making progress - slowly....

[Deleted User]

Thats a fine mix of plants money. I have got mine down to what I actually use now and pretty easy plants at that, small green and red cabbages, 4 types of dwarf kale, carrots, beetroot, chard, parsnips, shallots and garlic, courgettes, green beans, cucumber, squash, lettuce and leaves, parsley, swede, mint, chives, thyme, sage. Gooseberries, blackcurrants, strawberries,raspberries, blueberries, apples, rhubarb. There was a time when I grew much more but cba the blight worry re tomatoes or leek moth or onion rot or onions bolting or spinach bolting. I might as well just buy them


I opened a jar of home bottled home grown blackberries, grubbed the plants out in 2014 so these were bottled prior to then. They became too rampant and I have more sedate fruits now. Enough for the whole year. Bottling is a brilliant way to preserve fruits and I intend to bottle half the blackcurrants this year because I don`t want to use the spare freezer in case of moving


I am thinking of tomorrow now and have just taken out some turkey breast and a small container of carrot and swede. I will have some peas with that and maybe a bit of shredded sprout top. Minty nice green drink later and half a tin of sardines on crispbread for lunch with a no-lettuce side salad of fennel, red onion, beetroot and tomato. Got to actively use my veg up so I can see the bottom of the drawers and I want the drawers empty by tuesday evening. I will definitely have bottled blackberries, they are nice and tangy, with a little creme fraiche and rhubarb and yoghurt in the morning


I grow a lovely patch of well behaved comfrey on my allotment, it does not self seed and is called bocking 14. Beautiful bee-friendly flowers and it makes comfrey water for the plants or I put it in my compost to heat it up fast. It has never spread away from where I planted it and is very productive, I get 3 cuts a year

caronc

Good evening everyone,

Glad the tooth cavity is settling brambling
Sounds as though there is lots of CFO gardening going on:).
After the earlier sunshine & heat it clouded over a bit this afternoon and a "stiff breeze" (strong gusts actually!) developed. It was actually a lot more pleasant to be out in though I did have to pop a cardi on. The weather change had it's usual impact on my balance:( so avoided anything that involved bending but did manage to get the majority of the remaining toms potted on and my baskets of patio cherry toms made up so a reasonably productive day. On a less positive note the warm, dry wind which we have had a lot of recently has damaged some of my flower plants:(, there's not much I can do to avoid this but I think most will recover okay:).
Easy meal tonight of baked spud, previously make buttermilk chicken, sweetcorn and spinach.
My sister has invited me for dinner tomorrow night so I'm hoping I'm steady enough to make it as she is a fab cook. Only drawback is her loo is up the stairs:eek:.

[Deleted User]

I had to get back to having oats so thought I would have them as a breakfast starter. My body misses jumbo oats. I soaked 2 heaped tbs in soya milk last night and popped them in the fridge. They were nice this morning,cold, no sweetner added. Now I wait for some turkey to braise and some swede and carrot to re-heat with sprinkled frozen peas on top.



I watched more of the wedding than I had intended, pottered around and did all my washing. I enjoyed the pomp, the clothes, the episcopalian preacher who was uplifting but too long and watched the faces of the straightlaced congregation while he spoke and danced. Lets hope that the couple are true to each other and this time maybe she will keep her vows and won`t try for a fourth time


So today I must get out and the allotment is ideal for that, didn`t go to the village party, not my cup of tea at all, that false socialising. I had enough socialising all my life, its my choice now

moneyistooshorttomention

I caught a few glimpses of That Wedding - definitely not a royalist myself (how could I be - as everyone is equal imo?:rotfl:).

I admit to watching that as "observation of my Society" - and I was laughing at the expressions on the faces of many of the congregation - as they were determined not to enjoy themselves if they could possibly help it. Errr...hello...people...it's a wedding/lighten-up/weddings are supposed to be happy occasions - so break out a smile. Hence my laughing at the American style preacher - bet that gave them a shock to their system:rotfl:. Cue for me seeing a Facebook message from my best friends husband - commenting on how much he thoroughly enjoyed that sermon (as my best friend and her husband are both evangelical Christians - though I'm not any 'brand' of Christian).

Socialising Kittie - well I like it personally - but it is as well that I'm pretty much an "only child" mentality - ie eldest child in a family of two children. That and the Armed Forces childhood (ie I didnt have a chance to "put down roots":() has served me well in some ways as an adult. I make up my own mind about things for myself and don't give way to peer pressure and, faced with a choice between giving way to peer pressure to abide by some currently fashionable opinion (even if it's widespread across our country) and heels get dug in/I refuse to be pressurised and would be on my own sooner than give in to pressure. That is just as well - after email from local friend here today - in which she is actually telling me how she proposes to bring some "peer pressure" to bear on a woman (who I don't know) in order to try and make her conform or move away. I told her what I thought of her wish to pressurise this poor unknown woman in no uncertain terms:cool: (ie that I'm shocked and she shouldnt do it) and hope she'll act a bit more grown-up than that & remember my Home City is a "questioning/independent" city and stop expecting any different attitude than questioning/independent from me ever - won't be happening.

Food-wise - still basically in quite a prolonged spell of being cba about it (can't think why obviously:cool:).

Must tend to the garden before the "heat of the day" then...looks like it's going to be another nice day thankfully. Got over 30 varieties of "summat edible" out there now:D

PasturesNew

moneyistooshorttomention wrote: »

....conform or move away. ...

Quite often, "these types" (aka bullies) are on the "wrong side of what's right". Question is, whatever it is, is the other woman legally correct to do what she's doing .... and are they just bullying her so they can get something "illegally"...

Increasingly these days it seems that "people who are clearly/entirely in the wrong" are making the most noise and getting their faces in the paper moaning about others who are, technically and legally correct.

I'm intrigued what the woman's doing.... is she going shopping in her onesie and doesn't care who sees her, making the road/area look shabby? Or is she holding all night parties?

[Deleted User]

What a long stretch at the allotment, no weeds to zap but lots of other work to do with structure, chatted to 2 people up there. I wore a canvas smock, perfect for the first 2 1/2 hours then I got hotter and hotter, came home after 3 hours and couldn`t get my smock off because of me perspiring, it felt like a strait jacke for a few minutes


I was so tempted to just dive into my salad, prepared earlier but wanted that ice cold cucumber minty drink to cool me down. I cannot believe how I got the strength to make it and clean up. I need to relax my back now, it is aching, zero gravity chair for that and hoping not to snooze