Ding! Ding! All change, please... (now replaced with new diary on MFW)

starnac

I do love seeing your photos when you adventure along the tube lines. 

I would also quibble over the tracking as it sounds like you paid money for nothing. 

EssexHebridean

Hello Starnac - lovely to see you!

Well at the moment the company I bought from are insisting that I need to raise a claim with FedEx - I've been back and forth with them by email this morning, culminating in a final one where I reiterated that my quibble is with them, not with FedEx, giving them all the details they need to raise a claim with FedEx themselves if they choose to, and asking them to now let me know how they would like to process my refund. I've also said that I'm not prepared to waste any further time on it, so if they aren't willing to accept ownership of the problem then I will simply move on, leave an appropriate Trustpilot review, and make future purchases elsewhere...we'll see what they say! (And my Trustpilot tab is open open my browser ready!) 

jwil

EssexHebridean said:

jwil said:

cauli/pasta cheese bake with bacon and chunks of cooked black pudding - this sounds lush!  Have you got a recipe please?

Well, it's sort of evolved...but it goes roughly like this...

Cook the amount of pasta you need for the number of portions you're cooking - then 5 minutes before it finishes cooking shove the cauli in - cut into small but not tiny florets - think bite sized. Once it's all cooked to al dente drain off and leave to steam dry.
Meanwhile make a basic white sauce - (lump of butter, melted, shove some flour in and stir briskly until it's nice and stiff, then gradually add milk a little at a time (a good tip is to let the milk warm before trying to beat it in, goes less lumpy that way). Beat frantically, and swear copiously about the blobs of sauce flying round the kitchen because the wooden spoon isn't quite the right size or shape... )  - again in terms of amounts you need to think of the quantity you want for the amount of portions you're producing. I usually shove lots of ground pepper and nutmeg into mine Don't season with any salt - you may well find it will be salty enough once the bacon and cheese are in.
One the sauce has cooked out, thin with more milk to slightly thinner than you really want - it needs to end up runny enough to run through the gaps in the pasta & cauli, but stiff enough to coat things nicely, and it will continue to thicken as it cooks.
Chop your bacon into small pieces (you could use those nice chunky lardons you can buy - they'd work great, I usually use smoked streaky though) and shove it into the sauce to cook, while you grate the cheese - a nice big pile of it. 
Shove a handful of your grated cheese into the sauce, and then a bit more because you know there's no such thing as "too much cheese". Taste and (probably, let's be honest) add some more cheese...
then I just chuck the pasta/cauli into the dishes I'm going to bake it in, dribble the sauce over the top a little at a time to let it sink through a bit, remember I was going to use the black pudding I cooked previously specifically for this dish, shove the cut up chunks into the now steaming hot pasta/cauli/sauce combo, and swear again because JEEZTHATSAUCE ISEFFINGHOT. Then throw the remaining cheese over the top, you can also sprinkle with breadcrumbs if you have any about (I keep a tub of blitzed bread in the freezer for this very purpose!) and pop into the oven (about gas 5-ish seems to be ideal, from memory) and bake until it's bubbling, and the top is golden and crispy. 

I've been cooking variations of this one for SO many years I do things pretty instinctively now - and I don't think it even started out from a recipe as such. The inspo for adding the chunks of black pudding definitely came from Jack Monroe though - but the recipe on her website is very different to my method. Apologies though - I'm rubbish with recipes - I can follow them if baking (because I know it wont work if I don't) but with regular cooking I do tend to get distracted and end up veering off course! 

Thank you, love it  

savingholmes

Best of luck with your reclaims. 

Can't believe you had frost today. Beautiful here... 

Suffolk_lass

I was in the kitchen this morning, just as the weatherman assured me there was no frost this morning. Well there was here in Suffolk. We always have it later than others

RelievedSheff

We had frost yesterday morning but it has been so much milder this morning. It was zero degrees yesterday when we set off for work, it was seven this morning.

Wish the weather would make its mind up. Currently raining again here after two days of beautiful sunshine!

rtandon27

We had a thick frost yesterday morning first thing - as west as you can be and still be in the south east! By afternoon it was a pleasant 15'C and we had both taken off the thermal layer while outside at the plant nursery. By the time we went to bed it was below zero again and this morning so cold in the house that the heater turned itself on!

EssexHebridean

The flipping weather just needs to get over itself and realise that Spring is here - that's my view! But yes, thankfully feeling far warmer when we came out this morning here too - and the met office reassures me that is set to continue as well, albeit with some more wet stuff alongside overnight tonight and tomorrow. 

Today's adventure was an annoying shed chain on the bike which then promptly jammed itself round the gear sprocket meaning I couldn't just shift it back onto the teeth...today's gratitude is to "past me" who decided to take the pack of wet wipes from MrEH's car and stick them in my work bag - as that at least meant I was able to clean myself up a bit after attempting to get the chain back on and failing, and before pushing the bike the rest of the way to the office. Once back in the office a bit of brute force (plus I suspect the vibration from wheeling it half a mile) sorted the issue, and then the gratitude shifted to "soap and water!" The foldy bike is going to have to go back at some point as it is STILL being grumpy about gear changing - it's functional, just not ideal. I'm not entirely convinced that they're going to do anything about it though I confess - in which case I'll have to have a think about what happens next. 

Banks checked and all good - the payments to the regular savers have all now gone for the month and I think we will get away without having to use any of the feeder account funds which is handy as we were planning to leave those intact for holiday spending as I think I mentioned before. I've done a bit of tinkering at C0ventry - closed an account that we will no longer use, shifted money from an older issue limited access saver to a newer one for better interest, and felt quietly smug about the monthly interest figure that newer one is attracting now - hurrah! 

The company I bought the camera from have again come back overnight with "Oh the extra was just for the faster delivery, so you got that" and insisting yet again that I need to raise a claim with the courier "before we can do anything" which is of course blatantly not true. I've just responded saying that nothing has changed - how they choose to deal with THEIR courier is their call, of course, but if they are really completely unconcerned that the item was delivered to the wrong address and they weren't made aware,  then that is just another reason why I'll not use them again, and will make sure others are similarly aware. I've also pointed out that if they are going to charge money for what is seemingly a premium courier service, but which doesn't include the features one might expect from such a service (tracking etc) then they should certainly be making that clear, at the least.  I can't do the Trustpilot review here as it looks like our IP address doesn't allow access, but I'll do it from home. 

Last night's pasta bake was delicious - I remembered to add the breadcrumbs to the top this time and that combination of chewy cheese with crunchy breadcrumbs and slightly overdone pasta bits is just fantastic. Tonight is going to be a variant on the old favourite of sardine and butterbean pasta I think - but with lots of added fresh herbs. I'm still planning on doing a sweet potato and haddock curry for tomorrow night too - I've got fresh lemongrass and basil to use (T's "3 packs of cut herbs for £1" is a bonus and I will be stocking up on lemongrass using it I think as finely chopped lemongrass freezes wonderfully!) and also a tin of YS'd coconut milk picked up at the weekend so that gives the vibe for that one. (It'll use another spoonful of the red curry paste, too!). Need to remember to get the haddock out of the freezer as well. 

I'm back on to trying to get in 4 forms of movement daily this week thanks to having the bike back - Monday was 2 cycles and 2 walks. Yesterday 2 cycles, 1 walk, 1 yoga session. Today might be two cycles, a walk and a run - we'll see how the idea of running sits with me later though. 

Just seen a picture of the rather beautiful coronation invitation from the Palace now - wonderful, but it does appear to have a demonic version of Eeyore from Winnie The Pooh in the bottom left hand corner...  

Makingabobor2

What a pain for you with the bike. You certainly got some exercise in today, fixing it and walking half a mile with it....lol.  The camera company sound like a right dodgy company. Definitely put a bad review on Trust pilot

themadvix

The camera company seem to be completely oblivious of the fact that they have the contract with the courier, not you and therefore you'd get nowhere if you complained to them. Very poor service - totally agree that  a bad trustpilot review is in order. It says a lot about the company that this isn't bothering them. Any chance you can name and shame them here too?

Rubbish about the bike chain - but you've made me realise that I know literally nothing about dealing  with problems should I have a similar situation, so I should probably do some YT learning at some point (no idea what to do with a puncture either, and I don't carry a puncture repair kit for that reason!). Hurrah for wet wipes and soap and water though!