Cooking for one (Mark Three)

caronc

Good morning everyone,
Black fly are decimating some of my nasturiums but thankfully no sign so far of any in the veg plot:).
It rained constantly overnight but is drying up now, it's still very warm and humid. All my plants are looking very fresh & perky:). I've lots of dwarf french beans ready so having some tonight with lamb steaks, HM pesto and new potatoes. My basil has gone into overdrive so I'll make a big tub of pesto and freeze the excess in CFO portions. I've no pine nuts so will use walnuts or cashews instead.
I had the usual toast for breakfast and lunch I think will either be a blt or cheese & salad in a piece of stottie.

moneyistooshorttomention

That reminds me - I must try and figure out suitable organic way of dealing with the fact my apples are being attacked. Farway told me (on another thread) what the problem is, ie codling moth.

I know I've got several apple trees and only me to feed from them - but, by the time the birds have a go at some too and I want loads to store in the freezer - then I do need to deal with that.

Bit cooler here today thankfully - though, with a couple of things having cropped-up unexpectedly, I've not got round to thinking about food yet.

Farway

Cooler this morning, bit cloudy earlier but sun now out

Decide to have a use up breakfast, healthy though. Last wrinkly peach, with sliced banana & 1/4 of my Galia melon, with HM yoghurt & honey. Glowing with goodness

More bean watering after breakfast, and spotted loads more ready. I cut back on number this year, think I'll halve them next year, which no doubt will be cue for a poor bean year in 2019
I've got some black fly on them, but I organically squish them with my fingers. I also organically squished some cabbage white eggs & caterpillars while I was in genocide mode this morning

The YS veggie flatbread last night was very tasty, not sure I'd rush at "proper price" of £2, but YS £1 is fine. I've got over half left, and thinking of having my runners with the LO cold remains for tonight dinner.

Money, I tend to use most of my apples, I just cut out the manky / grubby bits, stew & freeze those that are not A1 for eating fresh

moneyistooshorttomention

cba again time - so "go to" quick/quick stuff. So it was watermelon and then salad with "nice" bread and some home-made hummus. Then fruit with oat "cream" and "choc chips" again.

CBA time again - as I try to figure out what to do re a type of situation I've come across before and I know just how to react - ie "walk" basically sums it up and that's exactly what I would do prior to moving here. But in different context here - t'aint so easy to just "walk" and think "blow it".....much smaller place/and very different...the wine came out as I thought "Just what do I do about this - in this very different context?"

The difference was blindingly obvious/summed-up when I spotted an "ages ages old" thing going on in my home city recently (ie on social media) and no-one paid a blind bit of notice whatsoever - and I certainly never bothered with it at all whilst I was there (was only very vaguely aware about it). In this context - the crowds would be there/loadsa attention/treating it as "important" - and so I look at things like it the once - and then move straight back to normal attitude of not paying a blind bit of notice/don't get what the fuss is about.....

Yep...dinner was based around wine and "much pondering" LOL.

The pondering centres round just how much many of us are products of our environment - even if we don't realise it....iconoclasts 'r us.....LOL - because we've assumed our local norm is the norm.

[Deleted User]

codling moth. Thin your apples, best in late june but still time, they need to be about 5" apart. Too many apples= tree stress but apples cheek to cheek with another apple is a sure way to get codling. Grease bands work to an extent, so does clearing below the tree. Attractant traps just attract and you get more. There is nothing organic, except grease bands and thinning


Just so flipping hot constantly, I feel as though I am wasting my day. Runners are not good, blackfly and ants are now making them sticky. Hooray, I spotted a ladybird today. It is the weather and I left the wind net in place so it is cosy for blackfly

PasturesNew

Sausage rolls for lunch.
Toast/beans/cheese for tea.

Nothing else to declare at all.

Brambling

I'm happier now there is a breeze, temperature dropped to about 24 today so I can stop moaning at least about the weather :rotfl:

Work is busy and I'll be working on Saturday from home, we usually take turns to work one Saturday every couple of months but staff shortages mean a couple of us are doing one every month :cool: we get a day holiday in lieu of working it's just a bit of a pain, but at least I'm not like my colleagues in India where it will be 2 or 3am when we finish.

Lunch was salmon salad and dinner was the last of my LO lamb with braised fennel, new potatoes and veg. Not hungry but I'm sitting here thinking about picking at something, nothing 'naughty ' in the house at the moment and I'm not baking. Just mouth hunger I will win even if I have to fish my knitting out:o or tape my mouth shut :rotfl:

PasturesNew

I finished my day with two slices of toast topped with chocolate spread, then, a bit later, 4 squares of chocolate .... then, a bit later, 4 more squares of chocolate.

[Deleted User]

Its too hot to go shopping or have the oven on, so I am running out of stuff. No eggs left, only a few slices of bread, my granola is being eked out. No cakes but I have healthy stuff aplenty, lots of meat and fish and lots of allotment veg and many berries, enough milk and butter for 2 more weeks in the freezer.


a case in point, breakfast is almost ready and is freshly cooked turkey breast, just poached in a little beef fat in a frying pan with a lid, should taste lovely and a big plate of salad. I have one slice of bread available and will look forward to that later, with peanut butter. Upside is that there is no point in me getting mouth hunger and the weight is nicely dropping off and starting to make a real difference. Its the non-eating window that is doing it

[Deleted User]

an hour later and have eaten breakfast but it was hard going, all of it was. I will feel good, having eaten it but this weather has sapped my appetite. Having eaten that salad, I can get away with anything later, not that there is much to choose from


I am going to change now and try and grab a couple of hours in the big shed/insulated outbuilding. I am going to miss that place when I go. I still have my husbands drawings for it, I think I will get another one built, on the site of the summer house, which looks as though it won`t last more than 2 winters. I can store everything in there