Cooking for one (Mark Three)

Novice_investor101

All those bags of veggies are way too big for me. I must admit, if I'm making a stew I buy those £1 cellophane wrapped packs of veg at T - the ones with two carrots, a parsnip, swede & an onion. Just enough to fill up the slow cooker & nothing much left to go to waste. Never tried to buy then separately. Probably would be cheaper, but I often can't find small Swedes.

caronc

PasturesNew wrote: »

I can't bear to touch meat.... gross... I do everything within my power to only buy lean meat, no bone/fat/whatnot ... and to devise a way to get it cooking without actually touching it at all...



It's very sad when the half that didn't "win" the child never hear/see them again.... from a kid's perspective, adults have "wiped out" half their entire family.... just because one pair of parents fell out.

It is good those people have made the effort to stay in touch.


Better than L1dl. Their offering is fewer veggies and from 20 Dec.
1Kg carrots, 500g parsnips, 500g brussels. All 29p.
Then it goes a bit Pete Tong as they're not offering cauli and their spuds are mini roasters....

I'll take a look at what sort of spuds Mr T's touting
Here we go: https://www.tesco.com/groceries/en-GB/buylists/christmas-food/vegetables
Proper spuds - and 2.5Kg of them. Just "white" though, not Maris.

The parsnips in their photo are thin.... I like fat/chunky ones... I might leave those to the last minute and see 4ldi's. Last year they were varying sizes in a 500g bag and I managed to get a bag containing only two - so they were both big and super-fat ones... nice, for roasting big fat rounds.

I've had parsnips from that range before and the bags do vary in the sizes within them. No idea what the spuds are but again had them before and they were ok as all rounders and a reasonable size. Worth a punt IMHO for the price:)

PasturesNew

Novice_investor101 wrote: »

All those bags of veggies are way too big for me. I must admit, if I'm making a stew I buy those £1 cellophane wrapped packs of veg at T - the ones with two carrots, a parsnip, swede & an onion. Just enough to fill up the slow cooker & nothing much left to go to waste. Never tried to buy then separately. Probably would be cheaper, but I often can't find small Swedes.

I know what you're saying, but the £/Kg price of those veg packs just makes me feel ripped off, so I've never bought one. They make me angry when I see them

It's one of the reasons I struggle to have enough ingredients in the house for things.... if I buy 1Kg of carrots, then I have a lot of carrots to eat, so can't buy/eat another veg until I'm through with the carrots There are times I can "take a chance" and have 2-3 veg in the house and hope to get through them.... but the last pack of carrots I bought ended up being quickly blanched/frozen, so became freezer clutter... I do plan to get the last two out and put in a SC stew with the beef, especially as I now have onions (bought yesterday) and there will still be a few unused/lurking spuds from that s0ddin' 4Kg of spuds I bought a month ago So, for a stew, I'm nearly there... ah, except: before I even think about starting a stew, I have to use up the milk that's dated 14th .... so that puts the stew back on the back burner... again.

There's always something to be used up that takes precedence... or a fear of being overladen with veg ... and not wishing to put it in the freezer as that fills so quickly.

I bought a swede the other week - cooked/sliced/froze that.... I did think I could serve some of that with the beef stew I can't make yet Meanwhile, it's cluttering up the freezer.

Should never have bought that milk....

caronc

Novice_investor101 wrote: »

All those bags of veggies are way too big for me. I must admit, if I'm making a stew I buy those £1 cellophane wrapped packs of veg at T - the ones with two carrots, a parsnip, swede & an onion. Just enough to fill up the slow cooker & nothing much left to go to waste. Never tried to buy then separately. Probably would be cheaper, but I often can't find small Swedes.

The packs are good for CFO but pricey for what you get in them unless they are on special offer. If you don't mind a bit of prep/chopping the veg (bar the sprouts) freeze well. I tend to make batches of mash with spare spuds and also bigger swede or just chop and freeze the swede.:)

candygirl

I love the cheap supermarket veg at Xmas .I make loads of soups, n veggie stuff n freeze it, n the Furnutters eat a lot of the carrots raw:rotfl:

PasturesNew

candygirl wrote: »

... n freeze it...

I simply don't have the capacity to freeze food... it's a struggle keeping the freezer clear most of the time, not because it's stuffed full of a gazillion uneaten things, but because it's quite smallish. I've 2½ baskets. Two are 14" square and 7" deep; the half is 14"x7" and 7" deep.

The half holds: bread, rolls, muffins, crumpets, pitta, tortillas, scones. In short, anything bread-like.

The top drawer tends to hold chips, hash browns and things I'm currently freezing.

The middle drawer contains the actual food... right now there's 4-5 flat packs of frozen mash; 4-5 flattened packs of ~250-400g mince/beef cubes/meatballs; two takeaway boxes of swede I froze; 1/4 of a 1Kg bag of peas, 2 portions of carrots I froze, two haddock fish/crispbakes ... and that's pretty much it/full to the gills.

I'm not a fan of soup, in the main. Don't mind a bowl of soup, if the flavour's right, as a pub lunch ... but, in the main, once a year for soup's enough for me.

I had the top drawer entirely empty the other day - then "stocked up" on two bags of chips and one bag of hash browns and it was pretty much filled completely again! Just three bags is enough to halt all thoughts of freezing anything.

Brambling

Congratulations on the weight loss Wednesday I can lose weight without exercise but it does take longer :cool:

We don't have any of the 'cheaper' supermarkets in this town nor in the town i work in they all seem to be 8 - 10 miles away.

Works Christmas lunch today I'm not used to large lunches, the cheesecake for dessert turned out to be baked and heavy which was better for my waistline as I only managed a couple of spoonfuls . A couple of glasses of red may have helped with the nap I had when I got home that and I got cold talking too my neighbour on the doorstep and put the heating up and put on my dressing grown, so wine and heat equalled snooze :rotfl: until the cat woke me

No dinner required as I'm still feeling full

PasturesNew

caronc wrote: »

. No idea what the spuds are but again had them before and they were ok as all rounders and a reasonable size. Worth a punt IMHO for the price:)

I was in Mr T's and spotted their 2.5Kg the other year, at that price. Not knowing that they all had these type of deals at Xmas time I grabbed a bag .... all excitedly (although they weren't Maris) ... only to discover the following week that 4ldi were doing Maris at the same price! I, again, fell a victim to "spud overload" as I bought the 4ldi ones too. *sighs*... me and big bags of spuds on the cheap.... I should learn to LEAVE THEM/PUT THEM DOWN ....

caronc

Good morning everyone,
Wine at lunch time always makes me sleepy so I'd of been snoozy too Brambling
Blinking baltic here this morning and not due to get much above freezing all day. I think my first job will be getting the stove going:).
Lunch will be another bagel with pastrami & cream cheese. I'm not sure about tonight I might have the other portion of stew & dumplings or might make pasta and keep the stew for tomorrow.

Hope to finish at least the cards that need posting today.:)

Farway

'Morning all, cold here as well, I've put the CH back on, normally I'm out volunteering on Friday & heating not needed, but centre has closed for Christmas break
I could've gone into town for the market, but ours is a carp one, OK for 'phone unlocking, plastic bin bags, overpriced veg, dubious meat off the back of a lorry & general tatty bling:(

Usual breakfast of porridge

I had intended to use the LO cold sausages from last night's dinner in a lunchtime sarnie, but changed my mind as I thought of making toad in hole for tonight

So, lunch will be cheese & salady bits

Dinner, if cunning plan works, is toad and maybe beans, only needs making the batter later

Had a bit of a wake up moment, it's my son's birthday today, he's 45:eek::eek:
Can't believe it, where have the years gone since I was taking him to footie and crawling under the floorboards with him in tow?