Cooking for one (Mark Three)

Farway

Good news on move PN, and a Toby which I assume is fairly near, one good thing about holiday areas, usually plenty of food places around.

The annoying thing I find though is the 2 meals for a tenner sort of offer, wasted on single diners:(

Into L's this morning, mainly looking for anything YS to inspire for dinner, nothing at all except bags of ready mix salad, no wonder that's left with the weather we've had

Andy, yep, by fake I mean copy cat own brand item

Lunch last of the YS seeded rolls, with cheese & chutney

Dinner is a race between which defrosts first.

Without YS idea from L's I'm now defrosting YS Morries beef & dumplings & YS Asd's beef pie.

Whichever defrosts first will be tonight's dinner, the other will be tomorrow's

I think pie may win because it's smaller, in which case I'll nuke some frozen mash to go with it, and maybe frozen peas

The yoghurt starter I sent for has arrived, could be a job for the weekend

AndyCF

@PN Its good to know things went reasonably well, 'box mix mayhem' aside. I think if that is the worst that went wrong then all-in-all its safe to say its gone well.

Ah foods yes understand why you'd be hungry. I lost some weight a couple of years ago (and its only now starting to come back, they never did actually find out why its too complex for here) , the giant yorkie sounds perfect! , actually that's not too far off a certain Blog reciepe I saw not that long ago.

Talking of prefilled y.puddings I noted that A1di do something along that line, or did. Recall a chicken one. Morrs do at least a couple too, inc pigs/blankets, not tried one of those but they do visually appeal, the mincemeat one too actually. :T , its best to Google as their own search does not always show them for some reason, despite them being in stock. Mind you they are on the chilled shelves area anyway.

Hopefully when its shop time you'll find what you need locally, assuming that the "old shops" are now too far out of 'sensible' range. Unlikely you'll be far from a new favourite though I suspect.

Confession time: I don't think I've ever tried marmalade that I can ever remember. It is something I do mean to get a tiny jar of at some point (A1di? perhaps)*** theory being here if I hate it I've not wasted too much monies, mind you one of the neighbours would be happy to take it no doubt anyway!

*** Waiting to hear back for new app from them actually hopefully next week when I am bug-free!

@Farway, thanks for confirming you meant a 'own brand copy' I thought that was the case, plenty of them about Does add a bit of variation in flavours too which is always a good thing.

Farway

Andy, marmalade, I love it but beware, it is one of the jams that can be very variable, some are "strong" like Dundee or Oxford type, some thin cut peel, some chunky / thick cut peel

What I'm trying to say is they vary so much it would be wrong to try one and judge all on that sample

The cheapo own brands would be good place to start I guess as IME they are not strongly flavoured, some may even say bland

PS, as you will see from link, prices go from cheap to silly

PasturesNew

Re marmalade, you can get a jar for under 30p at 4ldi/L1dl. They're "good enough to try", but, if you ignore the word "marmalade" and ask yourself would you eat orange, lemon, or lime jam - on toast or a crumpet or scone... or as part of a hot/steamed pudding gooey stuff bit.

That's all it is really.

I'd not want an expensive/strong one "with big bits in it".

AndyCF

Thanks both.

Just glancing at BM's site as that's the nearest there's two showing a "Seville Orange" and a "Lemon/Lime"

However I do know there's more in the shop than online and vice-versa as those Smed's are still not showing online along with other random things, and the shop has at least 100 tins of them on display!

I guess what I'm saying is its likely I'll find at least one more variety of Marmalade in said shop if not elsewhere. Not due shop till Friday though but its £1 so can't grumble for that. The lemon/lime does not immediately appeal though I'd prefer an orange type flavour over the others.

caronc

Good evening everyone,

Glad the move went ok PN (mixed up boxes aside) and you've had a "decent" meal, I'm not surprised you couldn't go back for seconds:).
Back to CFO for me, I waved my son off this morning and have spent the day tackling the laundry mountain and doing some housework as a friend is coming over for a catch up tomorrow morning. I've had a very relaxing few days, for once my son wasn't up to much (his last few visits have mainly been to go to weddings and other social events) and we mainly just chilled out together. On Sunday my sis invited us round for a roast chicken dinner and apart from making meringues for pud I just had to turn up! There was chicken LO as she was heading away with work for a few days and her freezer (which is tiny) was completely stuffed so being :money:I brought it home rather than seeing it wasted. There's plenty of meat left to cover dinner tomight and I'll pop the carcass in the freezer to make stock at some point. Last night I made Cullen Skink which though I say it myself was blooming lovely, my son had two huge bowls! LOs from that have been frozen and will cover a main meal & a lighter meal for me in the future. I do love smoked fish but my the whiff lingers, a thorough airing of the house was needed to banish it today. Another batch of passatta was made over the weekend and I picked loads more ripe toms this afternoon - long may they continue.:) However it's to drop to 3C tonight and although they're in the greenhouse or under the covered deck I suspect that might be a chill too far and I might need to start bringing green toms indoors to ripen.

Easy dinner tonight of LO chicken, mash & gravy (both from the freezer) and various nuke steamed veg.

Brambling

Glad all went ok PN . 11.30am was a good time as well

Trip to the local theatre tonight to see The Nutcracker performed by the Russian National Ballet, a bit early for a Christmas ballet very good and my walk to and from just missed the rain which was good. I've a lot of things I'm going to see from the 14th, typically everything I wanted to see came at once at least my friend of the venue card saves a little.

Today as it was a wet lunchtime I crossed some items from my todo list . I've arranged for a gardener to come round on Friday to quote to tidy the back jungle and fight the brambles for me and I've also booked a couple of companies to come out next Friday and quote me on replacing my dining room window with French doors before I get it decorated early next year.

Lunch was Minestrone soup and crackers and dinner falafels in a wrap with salad and tahini dressing. Couple more portions of soup so lunch sorted until Friday

Farway

'Morning folks

Last night's dinner was the steak pie, and it was tasty, I hade it with nuked frozen mash & frozen peas.

Copycatted Andy & mixed the peas in the mash [post nuking] and now I wonder why I never did that before, blob of butter mixed in, very tasty mixture
Brown sauce completed the meal

Sunny day ahead, until ex hurricane thingy turns up anyway
Porridge plus chopped fresh pear, with HM yoghurt, the yoghurt seems to be less runny now, maybe it needed more time to set than previous batches

Lunch, back to cheese & chutney YS rolls
Dinner will be the Morrie's YS beef + mini dumpling casserole that failed to defrost in time yesterday


Starting trawling the comparison sites, my 12 month gas fix expires end of this month, I may go for a 2 year fix this time, bit more expensive but only £6 extra over the period so seems silly not to in what may be post B***** world

Wednesday2000

Glad the move went well PN.

I had a delicious vegan burger in a pub yesterday with triple cooked chips and homemade coleslaw. It was lush!:)

I just had a plant based bacon sandwich with white farmhouse bread.
I also squeezed some fresh orange juice.

I have some rooster potatoes to have later. Not sure what I will do with them. I have some fresh asparagus and cherry tomatoes to use up too.

AndyCF

Farway wrote: »

'Morning folks

Last night's dinner was the steak pie, and it was tasty, I hade it with nuked frozen mash & frozen peas.

Yum

Farway wrote: »

Copycatted Andy & mixed the peas in the mash [post nuking] and now I wonder why I never did that before, blob of butter mixed in, very tasty mixture
Brown sauce completed the meal

You see I'm not completely daft I tried/tested with various veg over the years. The only thing I do need to test out (you've not tried the mince/gravy mix with peas yes?) is to replace the "peas with the mince" with some kind of beans, haricot or something perhaps that will 'absorb' , have tried other veg in the past without luck. Note does not work well with tinned peas! Frozen peti or 'well known' brand best for this, honest!

Farway wrote: »

Starting trawling the comparison sites, my 12 month gas fix expires end of this month, I may go for a 2 year fix this time, bit more expensive but only £6 extra over the period so seems silly not to in what may be post B***** world

Logic somehow says let it expire unless you get a 'switch now and save' deal offer, and then even if its an extra 6 for one month see how the 'market price' is. I had to ditch BG due to their treatment of me, well kind of. Difficult to judge I guess. Probably best I suppose if you do need a 'pack deal' from them to see what is around a few days before it does expire.