Cooking for one (Mark Three)

PasturesNew

Farway wrote: »

Once upon a time you could buy cheese left overs / odd shapes in SMs, like bacon bits or smoked salmon bits. But I looked and that seems to have vanished from the shelves.

I used to buy that. It was good/cheap and handy as it was all good cheese, just a mixture of the ends of cheddars, whites and reds, randomly bunged into the bags and sealed.

PasturesNew

I've randomly decided to pop out and buy a shelving unit because, even though it's ugly, it's cheap and needs no tools... it's a black plastic one, but strong. (Head says "you could decoupage that"; Thinking Head says "yeah, but you won't"). I've got it into my head that it'll be "handy" to organise the various piles of "stuff" in the 2nd bedroom .... I've already got shelving in there to be honest and that's not working for me, so I've no idea why I've randomly decided another shelving unit's going to work - but maybe getting everything off the floor will then enable me to move things about/between the 3 units to get everything in some semblance of order, which is a pre-cursor to actually "sorting it all out". A lot of it's "handy kitchen stuff I don't actually use, but might wish to use randomly and I'll be glad I've got that". Then there's a raft of paperwork I've lugged about because you have to keep papers and stuff .... and every time I "tidy" the living room it involves putting all random stuff into a bag, opening the door to bed2 and plonking it on the floor

Food is therefore delayed.... might see something new while out - I'm going to the shop where I buy "my favourite chocolate biscuits", so I expect to buy those

caronc

IMHO you can never have too much shelving or cupboard space PN

Pineapple - one of the joys of CFO I find is that meal times are when you want them to be:cool:

We under the bed has been swept, my I shed a lots of hair.......:o

My Dad popped by after his art club bearing milk. It was his turn to buy it this week and he bought a 4 pinter and only a bit got used. Nobody else wanted it and he already had one so could I use it? Well actually yes for a change as while I have most of a 4 pinter in the fridge I plan to make bechamel later and also need some for the gratin so it's now in my fridge:). I thought it only fair to offer him the remaining sardine pate in return which he accepted like a shot so he must have enjoyed it yesterday.....:rotfl::rotfl:

moneyistooshorttomention

Had my french toast and berry drizzle then.

Yep...sorta...it tasted nice. But notes made to use biggest frypan in future and a firmer bread than my own homemade. Eaten with an orange, a banana and some walnuts.

Must work out some more new recipes to try shortly - as I've not got many left. Summat to do whilst waiting for legs & arms to stop feeling a bit shakey (guess I've got shakey legs at the moment because I've "stood up for myself" on summat over the last 24 hours - and I know I'm not on the popularity list currently with person that likes to "tell others what to do"). Bet she's wishing - again - that I didnt come from somewhere where we tend to function more democratically in groups...:rotfl:..so I don't do "being ordered around"....You can take the girl out of the city - but you can't take the city out of the girl:rotfl:

Time to head for some of my mouthblasting off strong coffee and my recipes again - whilst I await return of legs/arms to normal and can get on with the housework I really should be doing right now...

pineapple

Martin Lewis was on TV recently showing just how much you can save by timing your shop till just before the produce is marked down. Has anyone done this? As long as 20 years ago, I used to work with someone who shamelessly shadowed store staff as they went round with the reduced stickers. He used to boast about how much he saved.
That said, it is generally more difficult for the single person. For example - all these bumper bargain bags of veg that are better value even when not marked down have to be cooked or blanched then frozen otherwise they are wasted. :mad:

pineapple

PasturesNew wrote: »

I've randomly decided to pop out and buy a shelving unit because, even though it's ugly, it's cheap and needs no tools... it's a black plastic one, but strong

Keep your eye on freegle/freecycle. Got some fabulous heavy duty wooden shelving for the shed that way.

caronc

pineapple wrote: »

Martin Lewis was on TV recently showing just how much you can save by timing your shop till just before the produce is marked down. Has anyone done this? As long as 20 years ago, I used to work with someone who shamelessly shadowed store staff as they went round with the reduced stickers. He used to boast about how much he saved.
That said, it is generally more difficult for the single person. For example - all these bumper bargain bags of veg that are better value even when not marked down have to be cooked or blanched then frozen otherwise they are wasted. :mad:

Not recently because I can't but when I was still working the bus used to drop me off near a tesco express just after 7pm which timed beautiful with them doing some serious reductions. A lot of it was ready meals or processed stuff but there were some really good buys less good for CFO though as you say. The shop wasn't used much (it's away now) as unless you were using the bus it wasn't in a great location for parking but I did make some great savings at the time especially on chilled fish.:)

PasturesNew

pineapple wrote: »

Keep your eye on freegle/freecycle. Got some fabulous heavy duty wooden shelving for the shed that way.

Things like this are area specific .... and I've never lived anywhere where anything worthwhile was ever advertised.

I'm hooked into all of them and did used to watch, but you end up watching 24/7 for nothing to come up.....

Many things work well in big cities, or big towns, especially where you've got several big towns close by and/or for people with smart phones/alerts ... but if you're in a small place and have to be glued to the PC they are simply not a useful use of time.

I drove to the shop and they didn't have the shelving at all. I plucked up the courage to ask a member of staff as they were in the right aisle ... and she checked with the manager and said they'd never had them ... and I should try ordering online, or phoning round all the other stores ... so faffery.

Spent £18 in there .... it was mostly useful. Loo rolls (36), 50 heavy duty bin sacks, some swing bin liners, shower gel (which I'd completely run out of already) .... and a bag of chocolate biscuits and some marshmallows for drinking chocolate.

EDIT: I went to the shop website - and I could see they do Click/Collect, so I went through the pain of registering with them and ordering it - and it'll come to my local store

I expected there to be "a problem" at various stages of that.... e.g. that they might say it's out of stock, or they won't deliver there, or all sorts of problems one can encounter with seemingly straight forward things.... but it all worked out OK. 1-3 days and I can go and collect

The thing about this shelving is it needs no tools and is lightweight/plastic... you literally build it up piece by piece, pressing down on the corners to secure it. So easy for me ... achievable ... and then movable at any future point. To try to get one free would end up finding a 10 year old scruffy one that'd been in somebody's garage and had paint pots on it, so scuffed and with splashes. I wanted a new/clean one for a bedroom area. £9.99 so what's not to like

PasturesNew

pineapple wrote: »

.... timing your shop...

It's often bleated out, especially by people trying to draw more attention to their website - but the reality of it is that few people are in a position to take advantage of it.

For starters, you have to be close to the sort of shops that do that stuff. Then you have to work out when, theoretically, they do the last reductions.

So, if you happen to have one of those shops close to you - and happen to be passing at the correct time (or go shopping regularly and can change that time) - then it's still hit and miss whether there'll be anything at all, stuff you want/like and/or whether the person who usually does it's changed shifts and they're doing it later/earlier today ... not to mention running the gauntlet of those "regulars" who know the shop/system and live next door and are in there to elbow newcomers out of the way

Even if you shop once a week and time your visit to coincide with that you'll soon change your mind because you'll find the shelves that should contain what you NEED are already empty by that time of day .... so you end up having to go twice, which is then costing you time and money ....

For me to even try to see it'd cost me £2 there/back "just to look", so it's never been any kind of priority for me to try to work out the best times etc.

PasturesNew

Lunch ended up being: an egg/sausage toastie with a splash of brown and TWO large handfulls of chocolate finger biscuits