Cooking for one (Mark Three)

Fire_Fox

I feel honoured Brambling! Salads help me enjoy a much wider variety of vegetables. I dislike the soft texture/ sweet flavour of most cooked root vegetables and the squash family. Learning that many can be eaten raw was a revelation.

Wednesday2000 Roasted tomato and harissa soup sounds delicious.

My 'East End Foods' spice order (cumin/ cinnamon/ amchoor/ korma masala/ madras masala) arrived yesterday. :j However a couple are not in the usual resealable packaging.

Threw together a jumbo prawn curry (jar sauce/ chickpeas/ sunblush tomatoes/ mini peppers/ red onion). Verdict? Sharwoods dopiaza sauce is not a patch on Morrisons 'The Best' Punjabi dopiaza sauce. Added so many extras that I might as well have made the curry from scratch! :mad:

Went to Wilko for basics - also came home with YS mange tout, YS ripe pears, new-season strawberries and raw beetroots.

Late last night I made a quick blue cheese and green veg soup (broccoli/ leek/ YS organic leaves/ beetroot leaves/ garlic/ spices).

Green sludge soup for breakfast today! :eek:

Craved bangers yesterday, so got four 'The Best' pork and ale sausages out of the freezer. Had two with tomato ketchup. Then the other two with more ketchup. YUM. Credit to Heinz: the 'no added sugar or salt' version is tangy not sweet. Ooooh there is YS 'Taste the Difference' bacon in my freezer .... :think:

Hard-boiled six eggs for easy meals or snacks but don't fancy them. Ready meals in the freezer cannot be cooked from frozen. Chinese takeaway is closed on Wednesdays.

Food waste: Third of a tin of chickpeas. Tray of cat grass that I put in the laundry cupboard and forgot.

Brambling

Fire_Fox wrote: »

I feel honoured Brambling! Salads help me enjoy a much wider variety of vegetables. I dislike the soft texture/ sweet flavour of most cooked root vegetables and the squash family. Learning that many can be eaten raw was a revelation.

Food waste: Third of a tin of chickpeas. Tray of cat grass that I put in the laundry cupboard and forgot.

I only made a basic salad lunch time but i did add raw sugar snap peas, fennel, carrot, mushrooms, spinach and pepper to the usual suspects. I don't particularly like sweet potato cooked but I do enjoy it raw, it's a slightly milder carrot taste.

What is cat grass?

PN I usually buy small cucumbers, they may work out more money but they last longer than half a cucumbers and I'm not throwing any away.

Busy day at work full of meetings which meant lunch was slotted in late between them annoyingly it had stopped raining so I missed my walk :cool: hopefully I will be able to get out for at least a half hour tomorrow

Lunch was a prawn and egg salad with loads of raw veggies as well the usual salad bits
Dinner was a repeat of yesterday to finish off a pack of YS breaded quorn steaks with LO green veg. I picked up some YS fresh pineapple yesterday so had that after lunch

Fire_Fox

Brambling wrote: »

I only made a basic salad lunch time but i did add raw sugar snap peas, fennel, carrot, mushrooms, spinach and pepper to the usual suspects. I don't particularly like sweet potato cooked but I do enjoy it raw, it's a slightly milder carrot taste.

Sugar snaps make good salad! I also like baby courgettes and fine asparagus raw in salads, but neither are cheap. Romanesco cauliflower is nice too.

Just added sweet potato to my shopping list, thanks.

Brambling wrote: »

What is cat grass?

Feline salad: oat grass or wheat grass. Comes as grains in a plastic tray of dry vermiculite. Add water and wait impatiently.

My cat gnawed at my plastic Monstera ('cheese plant') in protest at having no grass, so I put the tray in the laundry cupboard. Six inches tall and bright yellow when I found it. Ooops.

Cat still yelled at me when she spotted the tray. :rotfl:

Brambling

The advantage of growing your own courgettes is you can pick them fresh and young I add raw cauliflower to salads when I remember, I might investigate with the romanesco to give it a try. As I like a good variety of vegetable CFO I have to find ways to using it all up and raw in salads is a great as long as it's still fresh and going too bendy, I love raw mushrooms but only for a couple of days after buying.

I'll let his lordship eat my lawn he's spoilt enough without me growing him cat grass (we won't mention the cat mint plants in the garden )

Lunch today will be the last of the Mexican rice and vegetable as it needs using up and I'm out to dinner at my sister's tonight she's promising sweet and sour chicken and noodles it's M&S so she's not cooking but it's taking room up in her freezer so I'm happy to do her a favour :rotfl: if it stays dry we may walk it off afterwards.

Right I best get on with work

PasturesNew

Farway wrote: »

PN, now you've given me an idea with my new loaf, cucumber sarnies, I like them. I must check on my LO cuc, could be a soggy mess in fridge by now, they are not the longest lived things are they?

I had one of my Wide Awake Club nights last night, so at 3am was watching one of the BBC Supermarket programmes where the bald gurner looks at things in the food industry. He was looking at supermarkets and competition - how they chase trends to get customers - and the latest "less plastic" trend. Asda aren't chasing that trend and he visited their salad factory. In there they looked at cucumbers/why they're wrapped in plastic. Without plastic a cucumber has a 2 day life. With plastic it's 6 days. The plastic limits its ability to breathe, so it loses less water.

I suspect a lot of my groaning about cucumbers is from the pre-plastic days when they were manky after 2 days - but even with a lifespan of 6 days it's still arduous to have to get through a whole one.

Yes, there are things I could do with it ... but life seems to be a never-ending cycle of "having to now eat X because you bought Y and need to use it up", rather than having the "freedom" to choose many meals across a week.

Brambling wrote: »

PN I usually buy small cucumbers, they may work out more money but they last longer than half a cucumbers and I'm not throwing any away.

I shop at 4ldi/L1dl - it's a cucmber, or nothing. 54p I think this one cost me.

To have "more choice" would mean having to spend £2 in the car, or £4 on the bus, to get to where there might be more choice, which doesn't make economic sense bearing in mind my whole food bill is £10/week including chocolate/treats etc.

flubberyzing

The thing is, with cooking for one, sometimes you do have to make sacrifices over what you can buy. Yes, a bit of cucumber is nice in a salad, but if you know you're going to end up with lots of a food left over, which you don't much like... Then don't buy it. Swap it out with something else you like, that'll be gone quicker, or that you're more willing to snack on later. Perhaps a bell pepper, or some cherry tomatoes.

There are things I can't/won't buy any more, because I know I won't get through them before they go bad. For me it's things like bags of salad leaves, or bags of potatoes. I literally only buy salad stuff in the height of summer, with the full understanding that I'm committing to this particular meal for at least 3 days, come what may.
And with potatoes, I know I won't get through a bag, even a small one. So I only buy one or two potatoes at a time, or I buy the tinned ones, which make really nice mash when well-buttered.

I also find that making a weekly menu cuts down massively on wastage. Even though I live alone, I feel like it's important to make sure I'm eating "proper" meals and not just living on snacky, pre-packaged food. Although I know YMMV.

[Deleted User]

I grated a k of carrots so some will be used later today to make soup and some to make carrot souffle - savoury - some of which will be portioned for freezer, would have had for dinner with some chopped up bacon bits but have just been invited out for lunch with dd and dgs so will do cooking when I get back, bacon etc will be for tomorrow then.

elona

I have been checking bank account online and found out just how often I "pop to the local small shop!" It is scary how it mounts up so I have a delivery of fruit and veg coming tomorrow and used the offers to save money. I also have an approved food delivery tomorrow with good deals on beer for dds' husband, boyfriend and fiance for when they are all over for a meal in the garden over the Spring and Summer, some food cupboard staples and some nappies for when grand baby comes over for the day.

Porridge for breakfast and then putting lamb steak, asparagus, baby potatoes and stock into the pressure king pro for a late lunch and a portion for tomorrow.

DD comes over with baby tomorrow so she will just have toast and coffee with me and then I will make either sausage and mash if weather is miserable or home made burger with wedges for lunch.

No idea if family are coming over on Sunday but if they do I will make a salad, home made burgers and wedges. If I feel in the mood I might bake a quiche or make homity pie as well or instead.

Wednesday2000

I was looking at weight loss stuff on Pinterest as my weight loss seems to have stalled again. I'm not sure if it is because of my stupid thyroid as I have exercised 6 times this week as well.:mad:

One guy was saying how you should confuse your metabolism by having one high carb day followed by one low carb day. He said you should add healthy fats on the low carb days.

Worth a try anyway.

I had already had rice and beans so today is high carb.

I used the harissa soup base and added kidney beans, onions, peppers, jalapenos and some more tomatoes to some basmati rice. Lovely. That was my brunch. I'm just having a glass of water and a banana.

I'm going to have the leftover bean without any rice and add sliced avocado tomorrow to make it low carb.:)

PasturesNew wrote: »

I had one of my Wide Awake Club nights last night, so at 3am was watching one of the BBC Supermarket programmes where the bald gurner looks at things in the food industry.

That is mean, but it did make me laugh.:rotfl:

Brambling

PasturesNew wrote: »

I shop at 4ldi/L1dl - it's a cucmber, or nothing. 54p I think this one cost me.

To have "more choice" would mean having to spend £2 in the car, or £4 on the bus, to get to where there might be more choice, which doesn't make economic sense bearing in mind my whole food bill is £10/week including chocolate/treats etc.

I've got the opposite to you the nearest 4ldi /L1dl /4sda /Morries /iceland are all in the next big town which means a 15 - 20 mile round trip to go to any of them. We have a L1dl due to open the end of this year or the beginning of next :j I'm also told the Sainbobs near to work is known to be an expensive one, to be honest the prices look the same as the one at home which probably means ours is as well, I know the W*itrose prices compare to them.

flubberyzing wrote: »

...There are things I can't/won't buy any more, because I know I won't get through them before they go bad. For me it's things like bags of salad leaves, or bags of potatoes. I literally only buy salad stuff in the height of summer, with the full understanding that I'm committing to this particular meal for at least 3 days, come what may.

I tend to either buy little gems or the next size up to them as they keep well and I will make cook peas and lettuce if I need to use them up i also buy baby spinach in bags to use as leaves and when it looks like it needs using I can throw it into something cooking it goes in anything from pasta to curry to risotto

Wednesday2000 wrote: »

I was looking at weight loss stuff on Pinterest as my weight loss seems to have stalled again. I'm not sure if it is because of my stupid thyroid as I have exercised 6 times this week as well.:mad:

I only too well understand your thyroid fustration, I've been on tablets for 10 years and occassionally it plays up again, for 6 months last year i was having monthly bloods to monitor it as it was going up and down and the doctor didn't want to increase my dosage. Which is a pain when you are trying to lose weight. Some times if you up your exercise it can take a while to show on the scales, are you able to tell if you're losing any inches?

I find the trouble with low carb days if I miss my carbs :rotfl: but it's whatever works for you as we're all different