Cooking for one (Mark Three)

moneyistooshorttomention

I'm pretty okay with this weather personally. It was a pain in my last house (courtesy of its particular construction) and I'd groan at the thought of sleepless nights with the heat. It's just such a pleasure to see blue skies/sun/no wind/no rain imo.

You just reminded me to open my backdoor and a window to let the air blow through before it heats up.

I've got one particular window (one of the sitting room ones) that will let a lot of heat into that room and it then transmits to the rest of the house - so I just keep the curtains permanently closed at that one in this weather.

I still can't quite get my head round a carbon dioxide shortage - I've got no idea how/where one gets carbon dioxide. Does anyone know the process/source?

Don't even know if it's part of the method on making the bottled beers I like to have one of sometimes? Fingers crossed it isn't - because a cool bottled beer is nice sometimes in this heat.

I've got some lemon balm in the garden and must get my act together to see what the possibilities are of making a cool drink with it - I've done tea sometimes - but never a cold drink.

The "pretty" weeds are taking over rather in the garden too - now I've decided on a "Let 'em roll - at least they are starting to hide all those cracks in the concrete bits" policy. One of them is that type of sorrel with little leaves/tiny flowers (can't remember the name - think it might be creeping sorrel??). I gather it's possible to steep a handful of those leaves in hot water as a "tea" and drink it - guess I ought to have a go at that, now that there's so much of it out there and the stuff grows at a rate of knots.

caronc

Good morning everyone,

Absolutely re plenty of fluids to avoid dehydration. I've been half filling 500ml bottles and freezing them. Easy then to top up with water or squash for a cold drink and because the ice is in a lump it defrosts much more slowly than ice cubes:).


My poorly hose is now completely kaput:(, I really don't fancy managing without one for the next week plus until my son visits so I'm going to see if I can cannibalise something from the existing one to tide me over.



Foods plans are non-existent at the moment, I'll see what I fancy later:)

moneyistooshorttomention

Not a lotta point in having that much in the way of food plans in this weather - the point having struck me as to just how many recipes involve having the oven on or keeping a hotplate on for some time.

I'm rather thinking of "cheat rice" (ie the readycooked wholemeal with bits packets I sometimes buy) or maybe couscous and stuff along those lines - very brief (if any) hotplate use.

Anyone else got ideas along the lines of little/if any cooker use (don't want to add cooker heat into the mix in this weather).

Brambling

Money they make it as a byproduct of fertiliser manufacturing, it seem this time of year factories tend to shut down for maintenance as it's a 'quiet time' for the fertiliser business. I saw some breweries had stopped producing beer so it will probably affect your bottled beer :shocked:

Thanks for the reminder about fluids Kittie if I'm not careful I drink less at home than at work which leads to a hangover with out the pleasure of the drink

No idea about food today, I haven't taken any meat or fish out the freezer yet so will need to think quickly or go veggie today. I have some quiche in there so that could be lunch with salad :think:

Now you mention it Money I too have 'cheat' rice and lentils in the cupboard may use one for dinner

PasturesNew

moneyistooshorttomention wrote: »

I'm rather thinking of "cheat rice" (ie the readycooked wholemeal with bits packets I sometimes buy) or maybe couscous and stuff along those lines - very brief (if any) hotplate use.

Anyone else got ideas along the lines of little/if any cooker use (don't want to add cooker heat into the mix in this weather).

I've never liked the texture of that pouch rice... I've tried numerous over the years, of an assortment of brands and the texture's simply not right. I just nuke basmati in a steamer, but that is a pain as it takes about 10-12 minutes and then I have the steamer to clean/rinse/dry and put away again. Laziness knows no bounds.

That rice, in pouches, is already cooked - so you can use that as a basis for a rice salad. Buying food doesn't require cooking either, so if you have shops close by, then just wander in and buy food that doesn't need reheating. A nice scotch egg's good when it's hot....

My current/new addiction is the L1dl ready cooked cocktail sausages... they're better now. They changed the range about 2 months ago and they're better looking and "oven baked" - and they also do variations, e.g. lincolnshire sausages. I bought another box of them yesterday and had some for breakfast this morning.

I do like to open the fridge door, reach in and grab 1-2 and nibble.

You can also nuke pasta, if you want to knock up a pasta salad... or make a spud salad from tinned spuds....

There's lots of food that requires no cooking... hard to know when to stop listing it.

caronc

Anything that that doesn't involve having to stand over a hot stove works for me. I don't mind popping the oven on as I can then go off somewhere cooler while it's on:). Slow cooking a gammon joint the other day worked well as it covered me for a good bit of the week afterwards. I've a chicken crown in the freezer so might do similiar tomorrow.

The cheat packets are ideal for this weather:)

PasturesNew

It started off, with the crows, before 5am this morning ... they were making a heck of a din. It was overcast and blowy - with the crows' sound it was really quite "spooky" out there! End of the world stuff.

For breakfast I c0cked up, but then recovered... I'd spotted a small "end of bag" in the freezer and assumed it was the last 2 hash browns... so I thought: hash browns, sausages, scrambled eggs, beans.... and started, but when I opened the bag I realised it was about 20 chips. Doh.

So there I was, mid cook.... beans/sausages/eggs all prepped and started... and no hash browns... but I did have some slightly spicy bubble/squeak I'd cooked/frozen some time back and hadn't found an opportunity to use up - so I got one of those portions out and nuked that instead

Served with a squirt of the brown stuff and a black coffee.

For food for the rest of the day, I've a fridge stuffed full of nibbley goodness. I've sausage rolls, cocktail sausages, corned beef slices. I've got tomatoes, cheese, eggs. I've got wraps, pitta breads and (only 1 day out of date) bread.

So I have no idea what I'll eat later, but I won't starve.

caronc

Picnic at yours then PN?:)

moneyistooshorttomention

Brambling wrote: »

Money they make it as a byproduct of fertiliser manufacturing, it seem this time of year factories tend to shut down for maintenance as it's a 'quiet time' for the fertiliser business. I saw some breweries had stopped producing beer so it will probably affect your bottled beer :shocked:

There's my "I didn't know" fact for the day then. Ta.

Presumably the fertilisers concerned are "yer modern chemical" type ones?

In which case - what did we all do before that came along? More to the point - what will we all do when "yer modern chemical" type stuff doesn't get used any more - as we go back to organic etc?

We've been drinking beer for centuries and I believe some sort of light ale was as standard as water in medieval times in this country for instance? - ie because drinking water could be rather a risky thing to do back then (well - riskier than it is these days even - with chlorine/chemical run-off from fields/fluoride if we're unlucky with our water authority/other womens contraceptive pill residues/etc/etc).

What products exactly use this?

[Deleted User]

another thing I needed to do this morning, actually I said heat for 2 weeks, it is very likely to be for 8 weeks. Two of my water butts are empty and I have filled these with a hose this morning because quite frankly it is too tiring to take a watering can often to the kitchen tap. Hose pipe bans come on very suddenly with no warning and it will be nice to have water more accessible for areas where it will be much needed. Some plants cope well, russian sage, lavender, geranium, semperviviums but not others and especially when the humidity is low and the wind picks up


Starting to get warmer now 22.1 out in the shade, my solar shading blinds are part down and fan is on, it will be a cave in here soon. Food in this weather, pah don`t feel like it but I had compote, granola and yoghurt and have taken a small portion of lamb and caulie stew out for later. Got to go up and sort the bedroom out now