Cooking for one (Mark Three)

Brambling

Caronc a friend works for family and children centres and has tried several times to arrange basic cookery classes for families on low incomes but there's never a budget for it. They provide emergency food parcels and she feels it would be a good combination of services to offer.

Mmmm soup so many different varieties and then there's the bottom of the veggie drawer soup which tastes different every time you make it :rotfl: I make vats of it for lunches during the winter.

Well I opened the fridge and beetroot jumped out at me :eek: time I cleaned the floor and me, then changed and put shorts in to soak I forgot lunch :cool:. Currently sitting with cup of tea maybe see later but it will be cheese and fruit probably or I will have a early dinner.

Farway

Melting again, windows wide open, I noticed that a large buddlia growing on a spare bit of ground is now starting to shrivel, and it's been there years. It is part of my "guerrilla gardening"project, should survive once the rains come back

Last night's free range posh, pricey, pig chop was super tasty. worth the extra for taste alone.

We never had pork chops when I was young, just wondering, years back, before factory farming, when animals just mooched about eating "stuff" they found in the fields / woods, or swill, did all pork taste as nice?
I'm tempted now to try some real lamb, once I can sort out the non Halal slaughter method. A job in progress

Into L's on way to volunteering, bagged 4 x YS mini pizzas @ 34p each, do for just these sort of too hot CBA days

My Harzfeur tomato, OK but still prefer the Balcony Yellow for flavour, still waiting on Gardeners' Delight

Loads of ripe blackberries, and some of the apples are dropping, could they be ripe already? It is an early tree in normal times. Crumble looming?

Lunch, I'd bought some Black Forest ham in L's, one of my occasional treats from there. I had some in a sandwich with salady bits

Dinner, working on the try the posh free range eggs, decidedon cheese, BF ham, on toast, with fried eggs, easy and not a lot of effort required

May have a grilled tom with it, just so it is not all high fat / calories, but I think brown sauce kills all calories?

[Deleted User]

A friend on the allotments gave me a handful of purple french beans from a short row he planted and they are only about 8" tall, he gets about 8 oz every day and no faff with canes etc. I am going to grow them next year, they were very nice.

bouicca21

I still remember DD's first cookery lesson at school. How to make a nutritious sandwich. And it didn't get any better.


She does cook though - learned rapidly when at uni!

Brambling

kittie wrote: »

A friend on the allotments gave me a handful of purple french beans from a short row he planted and they are only about 8" tall, he gets about 8 oz every day and no faff with canes etc. I am going to grow them next year, they were very nice.

Kittie This is the first year in a while that I haven't grown these I usually grow mine in pots on the patio, which suits my garden

PN I think we are going to have to agree to disagree on school cookery lessons I believe they should come under life skills for all kids from an early age. I still use some of the things I learnt 40 years ago at school. I was lucky I come from a family of good cooks and chefs not every one has that luxury and come from families who 'can't' cook /won't cook'.

Bouicca A friends son would cook his flat mates dinners when at uni if they brought the ingredients, said no hassle cooking for two extra and saved on his shopping bills

PasturesNew

For "meals", sometimes in my head the conversation goes like this:

I'll do a cheese omelette
Could have chips with that
And beans

Do you NEED all that food?

No... I'll just have the chips then

Brambling

We all do our own thing to get by PN one advantage of CFO is we can just have chips if the mood takes us . I enjoy cooking most of the time and when I'm stressed baking allows me to push everything else out of my brain including the thing which is stressing me because you have to concentrate to get it right.

I'll have your chicken you can have my sausage rolls

PasturesNew

I've dragged that veg curry from the fridge and tossed some garam masala at it ... and I'm serving it with chips.

caronc

Brambling wrote: »

Caronc a friend works for family and children centres and has tried several times to arrange basic cookery classes for families on low incomes but there's never a budget for it. They provide emergency food parcels and she feels it would be a good combination of services to offer.

We were fortunate in as much as care leavers seem to tick a lot of "funding boxes" (which says it all really sadly:mad:), in this case the Police funded the cooking lessons from a "reducing offending" on the grounds that these already vulnerable young adults were at an increase risk of developing offending behaviours or in some cases re-offending if they were under financial pressure. Seemed like a sensible use of resources to me;).

Brambling wrote: »

Bouicca A friends son would cook his flat mates dinners when at uni if they brought the ingredients, said no hassle cooking for two extra and saved on his shopping bills

Snap, my elder son was a chef before going to uni and when he was a student cooked most days for his flat mates (an old school friend & older his brother). They paid for the food including his share and they ate pretty well considering they didn't spend much. He actually taught the older lad how to cook as he wanted to learn before he moved in with his gf (now wife) as she couldn't cook either. They hadn't been taught at home before they left.


kittie - I've not seen the purple French dwarf beans but my dwarf French green ones are doing great this year. Last year I got hardly any all summer. They are really low maintenance, though mine are resembling a bad perm at the moment:rotfl:
Bouccia - if that's the standard I think I'm glad my 2 didn't have to take this, they would have been insulted as both were pretty competent in the kitchen from an early age. At their school if they played rugby/football/hockey etc. (which they did) they could drop "food tech" iand do extra sports my two wanted to do this instead. Scarily though I think even making a basic sandwich & drink might be useful for some kids who live on pre-made food and fizz.

Farway - wish I had defrosted one of the lovely pork chops I got last week. I used to think pork was a pretty wishy-washy meat. Factory farming must have hit when I was young as it was a "cheap" meat so we had it fairly frequently, it was a real revelation when I tried free range pork.
PN- at the end of the day we all manage the best that we can within the limitations we have.


A reasonable haul from the garden today of 6 tomatoes, 2 courgettes and a cucumber. After moaning that my cucumbers were slow to produce they are now ramping on. So far I'm keeping up with them but suspect that may change in coming weeks if all the wee ones thrive.
My wonkiness is resisting attempts to get it to recede so another enforced quiet day and meds upped:(, I had hoped to have my Dad over for lunch tomorrow but have put it back until next week when I'm hopefully on better form.
I had a real :rotfl::rotfl::rotfl: earlier as next door's cat was attempting (unsuccessfully) to come in through the velux window, don't think he realised that the near by kitchen door was open. He's a lovely fella but not the brightest at times....
I have decided tonight that in the interests of ease that dinner will be rest of the roast veg, steamed pollock and Ayrshire tatties.

Brambling

caronc wrote: »

We were fortunate in as much as care leavers seem to tick a lot of "funding boxes" (which says it all really sadly:mad:), in this case the Police funded the cooking lessons from a "reducing offending" on the grounds that these already vulnerable young adults were at an increase risk of developing offending behaviours or in some cases re-offending if they were under financial pressure. Seemed like a sensible use of resources to me;).

It's a shame more people don't think that way Caronc definitely forward thinking by your force

I went to school in the 70s we started basic 'none cooking' cookery very young I have a vague memory of making peppermint creams my first Xmas at school and things like kipper pate and fruit fool I don't remember what age they let us near heat :rotfl: We all had lessons in woodwork, metal work, sewing and home economics girls and boys until we made our O Level selections at 14 so 9 years of cooking. I'm of the generation where boys were steered one way and girls the other but they didn't stop you if you wanted to do 'boy' choices. One of the most useful things we were taught was writing a time plan before cooking I don't do it now but It was useful to learn when to put what on to cook when making a meal, which I know people sometimes find confusing. We would also have to do things like plan a meal for a elderly person etc I think making a sandwich came before we were allow to cook!

Caronc Garden haul is looking good, I'm about to pick my first cucumber tomorrow my tomato's are outside and even in this heat will be a while. My courgettes aren't doing so well I've had a couple which reach about 3 inches than shrivel and died I was given a gherkin plant which is looking good at the moment several baby ones.

Dinner was a chicken and fennel risotto Italians look away now, I microwaved it, saved having the hob on. I stirred through some spinach, Parmesan and parsley when cooked, enough LO for dinner tomorrow as I will be eating late.