Cooking for one (Mark Three)

Brambling

Ouch re your thumb Farway

I've been fishing in the freezer and today's and tomorrow's meals will be fish based :rotfl:

Lunch was chilli salmon and watercress salad, I love watercress and IMHO the English one is a lot better than others even if a little more money . Although my sister popped round last night with a laptop query and acquired half of it :cool:

Dinner will be soused mackerel, I can't cook it the same as my mum so I found a recipe on line and I'll have to see later if it's a keeper. Not sure yet what I'll have with it my mum always had it with bread and butter but I'm trying to avoid bread so it may be another salad I've new potatoes to go with it if I do

Farway

Change of dinner menu, now decided on mash + salad with the pork chop, if I do a big pot of mash that'll give LOs for another day

Sun's out now, still no rain despite promises, so I've watered the large pots because another dry week is ahead


PS Brambling, The watercress is local around here of course. I grew it once, when I had a pond with a pump & flowing water

Brambling

Farway wrote: »

PS Brambling, The watercress is local around here of course. I grew it once, when I had a pond with a pump & flowing water

I find the English watercress is hotter, more peppery than the Spanish stuff I've brought previously. During the summer I grow American land cress which doesn't need the running water and tastes and looks very similar, you just need to pick when young as it can get woody if you let it row too big

I've been picking at rubbish all afternoon so the mackerel may have to wait until tomorrow now

Fire_Fox

Just had YS seabass with harissa paste plus sweet and sour vegetables (jar sauce/ mini peppers/ purple broccoli/ fresh pineapple/ shallots/ ginger/ garlic). Overly sweet even with a generous slosh of rice vinegar.

Food waste: YS mange tout.

I will be reading your 'fishy' posts with interest, Brambling. There are mackerel fillets (fresh and hot smoked) in my freezer but never fancy it these days. And I always have salmon fillets (lightly smoked) in too.

Perhaps I will have mackerel with rhubarb and orange in the week. :think:

Brambling

Fire_Fox wrote: »

Just had YS seabass with harissa paste plus sweet and sour vegetables (jar sauce/ mini peppers/ purple broccoli/ fresh pineapple/ shallots/ ginger/ garlic). Overly sweet even with a generous slosh of rice vinegar.

Food waste: YS mange tout.

I will be reading your 'fishy' posts with interest, Brambling. There are mackerel fillets (fresh and hot smoked) in my freezer but never fancy it these days. And I always have salmon fillets (lightly smoked) in too.

Perhaps I will have mackerel with rhubarb and orange in the week. :think:

Rhubarb should work with mackerel as it has the same sharpness as gooseberry.

You've reminded me I have either a sea bass or a bream in the freezer and harissa paste in the cupboard so I may try that next, maybe without the sweet and sour sauce .

I've tasted the soused mackerel and it lacks a little something I think mum added pickling spices to the vinegar :think: I may have to check with one of my big sisters, I also used cider vinegar as I had some to use up I probably should have stuck to malt.

Kitchen floor had its second wash of the day :cool: butter fingers dropped a bottle of oyster sauce out of the fridge door just now :eek: yuck it was sticky and unfortunately it looks like it's taken a small chip out of a floor tile :mad: i was only moving it not trying to use it.

caronc

Good evening everyone,
Been awol longer than I intended but have enjoyed my "staycation" with my son and complete change from my normal routines, it's been a very welcome break after all the sadness and stress of the past few weeks.:)
Back to CFO today and tbh not sad to get the house back to myself and a good bit tidier! My fridge is full of "bits" but I'm sorely lacking in staples, I've a big grocery order arriving tomorrow to re-stock. My friend mentioned last weekend that M&S in a nearby town had started selling white pudding and as my son was passing it one was duly purchased. It was only a tiddler but I thoroughly enjoyed some fried with bacon and eggs for brunch today.:D
A new fishmongers has opened in town and we paid a visit on Friday buying some beautiful haddock and hake. My son made us proper fish & chips with haddock, it's a right faff but oh it was good and the fish was gorgeous. Between that, brunch today, lunch out on Thursday and a steak dinner last night I definitely need to get back to more normal eating. Tonight I'm roasting chicken thighs and veg with jerk spice to use up various lurking veg bits and I'll have a think tomorrow about meals for the next few days.

So far I seem to have managed not to kill my sourdough starter and fed it earlier. I couldn't believe how well the bread my son's gf made last Sunday kept, I used the last bits today - yes it needed toasted but the flavour was still excellent. I'm going to have a bash at making my own this week:).
My seedlings are all doing well especially the courgettes, I only grow mine in pots and they usually do fine. I don't think you get as big a yield as you do when they are ground grown but they definitely do ok.

PasturesNew

Fire_Fox wrote: »

Food waste: YS mange tout.

For the first time ever I bought a bag of mange tout about 3-4 months ago, it'd been an 4ldi special/cheap item one week I think - and it had a YS on it, so I bought it.... and tossed it, still in the bag, in the freezer, where it lurked for weeks. Finally got fed up of seeing it, so just steamed the whole lot one day and munched through it as a side dish to a SC beef stew, just to get rid of it.

Won't bother again. While one portion, fresh, is fine, eating a whole bag just to get rid of it because one's fed up of seeing it in the freezer, is a whole different level of unenjoyment

flubberyzing

Good morning.

Breakfast yoghurt duly consumed. I'm currently nearing the end of a 6-pack of Yeo Valley yogs, that I got on a good offer in Waitrose the other week, when they were cheaper than their own brand. Gotta say... Don't love them. A bit too "sour" for me. I much prefer the cheapy ones I usually buy from Tesco, that work out 10p a yog.

Coffee will happen later. I've got a few jobs to do first, as well as a Lidl run, so a nice cup of coffee and a few biccies can be my reward.

I didn't bother with the pizza in the end, last night. By the time it got nearer eating time, I just wasn't feeling it. Wasn't really feeling much like anything at all, so fell back on my default "don't really want anything, but must have SOMETHING" meal. A bowl of cereal. Not terribly nutritious, but it was something. Chased it down with a cheeky choc-ice, which have been sitting in the freezer for ages.

Next job is to consult the store cupboard to see what I fancy for meals this coming week, so I can take a list to Lidl.

Fire_Fox

Could not remember whether I had taken my medication last night so have had no sleep. At 4am I had a caffeine boost and at 6am half of the remaining hybrid curry. The rest of the time I have lounged on the sofa, which is obviously great for the digestion. Feel a bit queasy now, and the walls of cookbooks are closing in on me. _pale_

Anyone want to join my CFO pity party?

I agree that mange tout are unenjoyable, PasturesNew, I quite like sugar snap peas though. Should not have bought the purple broccoli or the mange tout.

Got two small packs of tenderstem broccoli tips for 20p each last night. One can go in a salad, the second in the remaining half jar of sweet and sour sauce.

Farway

Sunny start to the day, usual porridge breakfast, with YS sliced pear, again avoiding fingers:)

Then out for hunt the wheelie bin, found it next door, the bin men tend to dump them where's convenient for them:(
Not that it matters too much except next door has cats and I don't want pongy old cat food pouches in my bin this weather:eek:
Last night's HM mash was superb, with plenty LO. I think it was down to the spuds, unnamed "reds" from W'rose, no good for chips but super for mash as it turned out

flubberyzing wrote: »

I didn't bother with the pizza in the end, last night. By the time it got nearer eating time, I just wasn't feeling it. Wasn't really feeling much like anything at all, so fell back on my default "don't really want anything, but must have SOMETHING" mealA . bowl of cereal. Not terribly nutritious, but it was something. Chased it down with a cheeky choc-ice, which have been sitting in the freezer for ages.

Next job is to consult the store cupboard to see what I fancy for meals this coming week, so I can take a list to Lidl.

I can just see myself here, bowl of cereal sometimes is just the right thing to do, and follows all the CFO rules

Best of luck in L's, as PN & I are finding out it is all change in there, old favourites gone forever, replaced by up market or just weird stuff

Lunch last of the bacon in a buttie

Dinner, one YS W/rose single chicken pie out defrosting, maybe with LO mash?