Cooking for one (Mark Three)

[Deleted User]

oh I am busy!! but glad my order came early. Scones are made, the easiest job. Cream/milk/vanilla/sugar is almost boiled and now cooling before I add egg yolks and will likely churn tonight. Granola is half baked, two halves as I make a lot. Bread is rising, took more liquid than stated as I had no honey and the oats absorb liquid.



Lunch is cooking, great big yummy lamb burger, will eat with spring greens and peas and some of the sweet potato fries I made this morning. I did the whole lot in my order, am loving the fries and they freeze nicely


Second part of custard is the most boring ie hovering over and stirring but I get much more than I could buy ie I know what is in it and it is far nicer than the best


I ate some cherries, no drinks, concentrating lots on the go at once. Need water soon

[Deleted User]

all done and a nice haul it is, sitting down having my dark chocolate, tidied up and just waiting for the bread to rise in my 3lb tim. I think I will be having soaked oats and berries at teatime. The burger filled me. I just need to get scones and fries into the freezer

moneyistooshorttomention

Quick query re the "grow your own" aspect of food - and I've now got some small sharp objects planted and facing upwards in one of my raised beds I'm growing food in for the purpose of pricking any furry backsides that try to get onto it.

Reason being - there was me weeding away and then thought "What's that there on the surface of that raised bed?" I was a little slow off the mark realising - as I picked it up and threw it outside my garden to waste ground. Fortunately, I had gardening gloves on and equally fortunately they didn't have much "life" left in them anyway (as I've just thrown them away). It was cat poo_pale_ .

They'd done it on some bare earth in a raised bed I have sprouting broccoli growing in. The stalk bit of said sprouting broccoli is a couple of inches above the soil and am wondering if I can still eat it? Does any gardener on here know?

Am also wondering whether I need to "deodorise" that bit of soil one way or another and, if so, how?

PasturesNew

Once a cat poops somewhere ... it likes to return. I've got an occasional pooper, I think he lives next door ... he scrapes up my bark and pulls at the weed thing, poops, kicks stuff everywhere and goes, about twice a week.... the rotter. It's on my list "to address" or at least "to look for/be aware of".

It's not nice.... if you do accidentally touch it. I've a shovel and I'm looking for it in one area, but it's easy to do what you did .... "what's that..."

My cat poop is a very similar size/colour to the bark, which is a bit of a nuisance ... if he's not scraping up the stuff before/after pooping so that I've got a clue, then I could make the same mistake of just not realising in time.

Farway

Back again, yesterday was out in torrential rain with the grandchildren, luckily it was a Cathedral city, with museums and other indoor, free, attractions. No CFO involved

More rain overnight, saved any need for watering.
Due to rain & knackered from yesterday's outing staying in today

My first tomato has flowers on, Cherry drops. Given a shake to pollinate, sit back and wait now
My black runner bean seeds have shot up like Jack's one. I'll have to get them out and planted sharpish once summer returns

Breakfast was healthy one again, fresh pineapple, sliced banana, HM yoghurt & honey

Lunch, back to cheese salad sarnie

Dinner is very CBA, frozen breaded cod thing, frozen chips & baked beans.

moneyistooshorttomention wrote: »

Fortunately, I had gardening gloves on and equally fortunately they didn't have much "life" left in them anyway (as I've just thrown them away). It was cat poo_pale_ .

They'd done it on some bare earth in a raised bed I have sprouting broccoli growing in. The stalk bit of said sprouting broccoli is a couple of inches above the soil and am wondering if I can still eat it? Does any gardener on here know?

Am also wondering whether I need to "deodorise" that bit of soil one way or another and, if so, how?

You can still eat it once it has grown, it will be ages before it is ready for cropping yet, same goes for the soil, the rain & microbes will sort that out. Lettuce or similar would be different, shorter cropping period

Ignore what poos & pees on crops in the fields, it all gets washed off with rain and time

moneyistooshorttomention

Thanks.

I've stuck sharp/pointy objects in the bare earth in all my raised beds now just in case. It certainly became quite clear what it was when I realised those (now thrown away) gardening gloves smelt bad. I do have some lettuce growing on currently (well - hopefully - as its currently at "not shown its little head above the soil" at the moment stage). The rocket I've got growing in trays currently is starting to show signs of life and so I'm hoping to transplant it into a raised bed at some point soon.

Bit of a nuisance re the feeling I've now got that I ought to wear gardening gloves all the time - when I've read that it's beneficial to people on a more restricted diet (like myself) to get various beneficial bacteria etc on hands from soil - as it helps to make up for the fact we don't have the full range of food a lot of other people do.

Cats aren't logical thinkers are they? #sighs. Duh! Why would I expect them to be when most people aren't either imo.....?

If they were then they'd be sussing things out and lining me up to do the same as Caron and keep treats in stock for them if they decide to "visit" - as I like cats:cool: and there is certainly a nearby neighbour cat that has taken to running towards me as fast as its little legs will carry it if it spots me passing. But I could cheerfully tan their furry little backsides when they misbehave themselves like that.

PasturesNew

Today I've grazed on odds and sods.... I started with a bread roll with margarine.... a bit later I had a fishcake followed by the remainder of that ice-cream .... and I just scoffed a packet of Walkers c/o crisps (part of the 12-pack bought Saturday).

moneyistooshorttomention

PN - imo it's astonishing just how one doesnt work out that "teeny things" about how best to deal with things in ones home for some time.

I've been here a few years now - and I'm only just tidying up the "odds and ends" of things as to how the house will function best. Cue for the last few weeks seeing odds and sods of things done - eg the wardrobe rail is best "there rather than there", the clothes horse moved to a different location, ornamental bits just washed and put out of sight as they're more appropriate to "country style" and I'm personally "city style" etc etc etc.

It does take some time imo to work out the logistics of every tiny little thing and ensure it's in the most logical place to suit oneself personally.

I think it's probably called "keeping your options open" and there has to come a point where one thinks "This or that is 'ME" and chuck out all the other stuff" imo.

wort

Lo day.
No breakfast, lunch was other half of frittata made for tea yesterday, with Greek yogurt and seeds and kiwi after.
Tea was jersey royals ,from tesco 49p! With rest of tinned salmon from Monday, with a salad and egg.
All eggs used up now.
Cloudy and dull, with rain starting at 3.30 stopped now so not given my parched soil a good drink.:o

Brambling

Money one of my colleagues swears by the devices that give off a high pitch sound only audible to cats he says he's had no 'presents' left since he got it. I have heard that citrus peel works but I've not tried it and I don't suppose I ought to drive my own cat out of my garden :rotfl:

Heavy rain woke me last night not that late only 12.30 but I was in a deep sleep and once I shut the window etc I couldn't get back off to sleep properly, so I've been bleary eyed and tired all day and really glad when 5pm came around. I was going to potter in the garden when I got home as it's dry but to be honest I'm too tired, a mix of lack of sleep and my underactive thyroid.

Lunch was the last of the LO chicken and new potatoes made into coronation chicken and added to salad. Dinner I defrosted a fish cake reduced from Waitrose fish counter (3 for the price of 1) I was going to cook new potatoes and veg but seeing the time I may just cook the fish cake and open a tin of sweetcorn definitely feeling cba tonight.

PN if it's been in a box and not used for more than 2 years do you need it? When my sister moved 20 years ago she threw out about 10 boxes from her loft not opened in the 7years they were in that house her husband who can hoard (like his father could) twitched when she told him. She says she never missed anything she threw away