Cooking for one (Mark Three)

Wednesday2000

Brambling wrote: »

:T:T:T:T well done that woman sometimes it takes a while for the scales to catch up

Thanks, hopefully that is the case.:A

Brambling

Decided against tuna with new potatoes and veg, I stir fried some shallots, peppers, sugar snap peas, chilli with noodles and bean spouts and coated the tuna in black sesame seeds and cooked it medium rare . A splash of soy sauce and yum

Just talking my self out of something sweet now

Fire_Fox

An online order of ingredients arrived yesterday (vinegars/ hazelnut butter/ harissa paste). :T

Later headed out to a cluster of grocery stores - Tescon, Aldi, Farmfoods - largely because I needed spices for salad dressings. Also came home with yellow sticker peri-peri chicken legs/ purple broccoli/ British brie. A whole pineapple and mini bananas from the current Super Six. Frozen raspberries/ avocado/ jumbo prawns/ crispy duck .... wine ....

.... yet still had to go to H&B today to get dried fruit for salads! :doh:

Made a broccoli and blueberry salad (red gem lettuce/ spring onion/ walnuts/ Greek feta/ pom vinaigrette) with loads of YS ingredients. Not as filling as it looked, but still got bored chewing!

Halfway through making a carrot and beetroot salad (orange/ dried apricots/ aronia berries/ flaked almonds/ spices). The korma blend I just bought is based on coriander, cumin and cinnamon so has a Middle Eastern vibe. Will eat with a YS hot smoked salmon fillet from the freezer.

Food waste: Last of the green sludge soup (smelled bad _pale_). Half a punnet of chestnut mushrooms.

PasturesNew wrote: »

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.

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.

PasturesNew wrote: »

As a rule of thumb, if you need to keep a list you've probably got too much in there

At any one time, if my freezer broke, I could usually replace the entire contents for £5-10.

Posting sensible stuff like these is really helpful, PN. Things I (should) already know or already consider, but need reminding of. Thanks! :A

Farway

Dull & windy, but indoors today anyway, except quick nip outside with hardening up plants

Porridge breakfast

I toyed with idea of making a fruit loaf, even have the eggs out, but remembered I bought some apple pies yesterday so no need to bother

Lunch will be another YS bacon sarnie, trouble is I've now been spoilt by using posh old fashioned bacon that cooks like bacon used to, and the YS pack I have now, W/rose essentials, just doesn't cut it anymore, it fails to crisp up, at least before my grill goes up in flames from the spitting fat:eek:
Dinner, no idea but tin of beans is on standby;)

PasturesNew

flubberyzing wrote: »

....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. ...

Not sometimes, ALWAYS.

I do stick to only buying what I can eat, I throw no food away - and I shop at 4ldi/L1dl which have few food options in any case.

But every year, about once a year, I make the same, stupid cucumber mistake .... and bl00dy buy one

It's still there....

Wednesday2000

I was going to have mash and veggies for brunch but remembered I have some bagel thins in the fridge so I had one toasted with cucumber and Marmite.

I will have the mash and veg for lunch instead.

[Deleted User]

Brambling wrote: »

I'm sure you can train the courgettes to climb if you put them in pots, I don't think you have to buy special plants but not sure so you might want to check

Thank you, did not realise they could climb. Have planted 3 chitting potatoes in tub and 4 cougette seeds (they are big !!) between them. Will either work or not but the potatoes worked last year.

[Deleted User]

Its gone cold and windy so am having to keep an eye on the little pots I planted seeds in. Covered them with plastic film (was a dustcover so recycling). Even if I only get a few plants they will go towards my meals.

PasturesNew

I suddenly saw something out of the corner of my eye - in this wind the shed felt's come away/ripped from the tacks - and was flapping about. So I had to rush out and buy some tacks, then wobble precariously on top of an inadequate ladder to bang some tacks into it. A piece has ripped off, so there's a 1' length of the chip board showing ... and a 1" gap straight into the shed.... but, for now, I've managed to stop the rest flapping about.

I struggled to reach though, so tacks not fully in as I don't have the reach/strength.

There's a bit that ripped off and slid down behind the shed that I should retrieve and bang tacks into to cover that hole up, but, in this wind and it being at the top of the roof in the middle, I'm not very motivated... but, as soon as it rains it'll rain inside the shed. So, I do need to at least get in the shed and move some stacked stuff about a bit so I can put a bucket under the hole *sighs*.

Need to get a little man onto that, but it looks like a price might be "a bit of a daft price", so putting that off too for now.

Bummer.

I'd been out to 4ldi this morning, thinking there might be some red stickers about as fewer people will have braved last night's weather to go shopping, but there was pretty much naff all... although I did manage to get the only reduced pack of sausage rolls - so it was sausage rolls for lunch ... and some chocolate biscuits.

Farway

PN, would a "tarpaulin" cover do as temp fix? I appreciate you may not be tall enough, especially in this wind, but once it gets calmer maybe chuck over & tie down?


My neighbour had this temp fix for years and he only knocked down the shed last month