Cooking for one (Mark Three)

AndyCF

caronc wrote: »

Thanks Andy, I live on the often wet West Coast of Scotland and it's living up to "wet" at the moment!

Ah that might explain it then as the forecast I looked at I think was England rather than whole UK, sorry. I think I would like to visit or stay a week or two somewhere like Shetlands/Orkney or one of the lesser well known islands. I don't mind it being quiet/small community. I think I would probably fit in reasonably well eventually! I actually looked at the I.O.M too as that also seems to fit my 'potentially ideal' living too.

caronc wrote: »

In the end up I went for an easy option of HM spicy chicken & peppers from the freezer with salad and pitta.

That sounds like too much prep to me! Especially if cooking or heating chicken was needed. Me being me, I no doubt would of had an instant soup or thrown a few things into a pot, boiled it up for 15 minutes and that would of been it hehe. As long as you enjoyed it. Hope you feel better tomorrow anyway as I say.

caronc wrote: »

PS- chickpeas on their own are pretty bland, much as like them I'd be loathe to eat them straight from the tin!

Thanks. I don't recall trying them, its quite possible they might of been in something I've eaten before perhaps the odd few in a soup or something. That might not be a bad idea actually try a few 'on their own' first simply so I know what I am eating :rotfl: , then perhaps throw some into a pan of soup, sometimes I'll tip a few garden peas or baby carrots or (less commonly) sweetcorn into either a chunky beef or chunky veg soup to 'add' to it so I get what would be "a tin and a half" worth of food which seems ideal for me for a decent large but sensible meal.

The corn does not work too well its never soft enough unless you precook it in water first or leave it to soak in a mug of boiling water for 5 minutes before adding it. Tend to stick to extra pea's and baby carrots or a few slices of carrot. Just something to 'add to' really.

caronc

AndyCF wrote: »

That sounds like too much prep to me! Especially if cooking or heating chicken was needed. Me being me, I no doubt would of had an instant soup or thrown a few things into a pot, boiled it up for 15 minutes and that would of been it hehe. As long as you enjoyed it. Hope you feel better tomorrow anyway as I say.

It took much less than 15 minutes -chicken & peppers were nuked in micro, pitta toasted and salad was from a bag.;) No more than 10 minutes in total:).

PasturesNew

Down on the south coast it's still summer. Mostly sunny today. It's still been warm. Even now, 1am, I've got the window open. Heating's rarely on, it's probably not been on since Feb/Mar.

Earlier I had a naan pizza as I've onions to get through and I'd sliced some sweet peppers nearly a week ago in the casserole I made and I'd retained some sliced as pizza toppings, so they needed to be used. The topping was: chilli/tomato sauce, cheese, onion, sweet peppers. Having had the first one I thought "what the heck, might as well just eat the 2nd one and use up the rest of the onion I'd cut and the rest of the pepper bits", so I did. Two dinners in succession

pattypan4

I`m going to have another day off today, had one yesterday and my hands felt much less achy, so silly me did a job on some outdoor stuff, involved my hands as always and once again it has made me feel below par. Its just overwork and overuse


Second breakfast was just eaten, yummy home grown tomato sliced on sd with fresh pepper. I only grew a couple of plants in a cheap growbag, it blew over in the wind and I rescued 9 green tomatoes, covered them with a tea towel and they are now bright red, ripe and gorgeous. Maybe I will do a seed list for next year, no greenhouse or propagator any more, little veg space but may well get back to gro rings in black buckets of compost. I used to have loads of toms that way


Has to be LO salad for lunch with mushroom omlette and I may well make a nice apple crumble, easy peasy way with the buttery topping that I made and froze, I have one small pot of ambrosia custard left. Just right in this cooler weather

[Deleted User]

Got to be honest, I like tinned minced meat and peas too but just feel guilty as I do like to cook, mince especially. I made 5 portions with piri piri mix in SC yesterday, it was lovely, had with chips and am having some with parsnips today (fancied), other 3 will go in freezer. Was actually pleased it made 5 portions because that works out at 100g of meat in each as opposed to my usual bung a load on the plate without weighing it out (fat person). I have started to mix more herbs/spices/flavours into mash too.

AndyCF

No real lunch plans as of yet, sorry!

i decided to save the 'special tin' of potato's till later this week or the weekend, I do have a tin of the more usual 'B' brand that has been lurking in the cupboard for a few weeks so I suppose given a bit of rotation I should have that one first.

What is likely on the menu today at some point is peas/carrots and possibly some sweetcorn. If I miss the latter out it may have a nice blob of mash added. I just want something 'ultra simple' today somehow!

Mentioning sweetcorn again, I don't get through a lot, a 3pack will last me a couple of weeks, however there were none of the regular erm 'large person' brand ones so I got an alternative makers one. They are quite hard and not anywhere near as nice. The price difference was something like 1.50 for 3pack vs 1.05 for pack, to be blunt the increase is worth it for the fact they are actually more edible!

Having said that I did have some from Mo's last year and they were quite nice. I would go so far as to say suspicsously nice in that they may of come from the 'large person's factory rather than elsewhere they were just as good, or almost.

I have made a mental note to see what A1dl has though when I eventually get around to it.

Somehow the imported ones from the ethnic shops do not appeal that much, I have tried them and they are reasonable for taste/quality and price but I'd rather be able to read the tin, that's not meant in a negative way though and one shop in particular are very helpful and will tell me exactly what said tins say.

Its quite difficult to find (local shops) the ones with the few sprinklings of peppers in too, unless you want a very large tin or to pay a very silly price for the teeny tiny tin, as in 89p or so. That's far too many pennies for the tiny tin. Just offsets it slightly somehow to have the occasional one with the peppers in, I'm not even a peppers fan.

One slightly odd thing I have been doing occasonally (please do not laugh!) if I decide to have a quick mini bowl of say carrots/peas , and if there's nothing to add to it I will get a single cream cracker type and break it into the mix. Obviously after its been served in its bowl to eat. This does sound odd but it seems to nicely do something to it. Did not work well when I tried with those softer cornish round things nor with the (very difficult indeed to get locally) peppered crackers, just cheap regular square ones and its fine. I did try the rectangular yellowy ones but they were a bit too salty in that mix. As I say it sounds odd but just one cracker broken by hand into the mix when its ready to eat, and it seems quite nice.


On a slightly different note I ordered a WFF food catalogue as the newer one is out now, did not get anything from the summer range but did last xmas have a few random bits, probably will do the same this year. Just nice to have something 'special' in the freezer that does not taste like a regular ready frozen meal. I don't spend much anyway. Used to use them a lot when I was a full time carer.

I do have a .pdf of said new cat although I'm hoping others will agree a bit like other places catalogues there's something nice about being able to hold a paper book/booklet and look through it that way, I say that and I am into 'tech' within reason too. .pdf has its values for sure if you know exactly what you want but if you just want to have an erm 'lazy browse / leaf through' a physical paper booklet is best. Do others find this ?

EDIT... On a completely different note I was thinking earlier about next time its shopping time to get some of those piri type frozen chip fries and try those in the zapper instead of regular oven chips. The reason being the local shops tend to only have huge bags of 'regular' but the 'variety flavour' types they seem to sell in all sizes, its simply what the local population like I think, which suits me too as I like to see variety. I would be lost if there were no ethnic type shops around here, I'd have to pay a King's Ransom for instance for say a small bag of dried onion flakes otherwise.

Wednesday2000

I was feeling a bit off yesterday. I had to take some Benadryl and it knocked me out for about an hour. I still only got three hours sleep last night, though.:(

I only had a few crackers for dinner so I woke up starving. I've just had a jacket potato, a Quorn burger and a huge salad.

AndyCF

Wednesday2000 wrote: »

I was feeling a bit off yesterday. I had to take some Benadryl and it knocked me out for about an hour. I still only got three hours sleep last night, though.:(

I only had a few crackers for dinner so I woke up starving. I've just had a jacket potato, a Quorn burger and a huge salad.

Sorry to hear you were not quite with it yesterday
Jacket always a firm favourite, even if not 100% as it can be 'enough' on its own or with other things somehow.

Quorn burgers, I did try a well known supermarket brand of these a few years back but they were really terrible, grey too. I do think I may of just had a bad pack somehow as I only got them as they did not have any LM's sausage which I do enjoy! But I also thought "I wonder what the burgers are like" but got their own cheap brand, oops.

I did try another 'well known' saus brand too but did not like it so much, looked like mini hot dogs. I think its partly the fact the former sort of erm "look cooked" anyway perhaps. I did microwave them mind. Thanks to a well known Blog for very many helpful articles, to be frank I'd be slightly lost without it.

Random: I asked one manufacturer via email a long time ago about zapping them as there were only grill/oven instructions but they merely replied with a copy of the instructions as printed on the pack. lol.

Good to know you're a bit better today anyway, must be as you've had a nice treat by the sounds of it. I'm hungry now I've read that so I'm off to see what I can nibble at for a bit.

PasturesNew

AndyCF wrote: »

One slightly odd thing I have been doing occasonally (please do not laugh!) if I decide to have a quick mini bowl of say carrots/peas , and if there's nothing to add to it I will get a single cream cracker type and break it into the mix. Obviously after its been served in its bowl to eat. This does sound odd but it seems to nicely do something to it. Did not work well when I tried with those softer cornish round things nor with the (very difficult indeed to get locally) peppered crackers, just cheap regular square ones and its fine. I did try the rectangular yellowy ones but they were a bit too salty in that mix. As I say it sounds odd but just one cracker broken by hand into the mix when its ready to eat, and it seems quite nice.

For "odd bowl" additions, I head for instant mash and stuffing mix. Tip stuffing into a mug, hot water and a blob of marg, stir it and let it sit for as long as you can... loosening with a bit more water as necessary. Zap for a minute. Job done. It needs to be left to soak for 10+ minutes or so to give it chance to soak up the water... after that, how long you leave is up to you.

PasturesNew

No food for me today, my mind is occupied on other essential day tasks that cannot be changed/put off. I'll be in a position to think "God I'm hungry" about 6.30 ish.

Probably nuke some chips then