From Frugal Foundations to Fortified Family Future

edinburgher

Is a buffet wrap tea chop up anything you fancy from the fridge, put it on the table with wraps and let folk help themselves? 

Greying_Pilgrim

LOL - I'm not that organised ed - but sort of, yes.  I try to 'curate' it a bit, so I'm more likely to offer a wrap buffet if I have salad/lettuce of some description, and veg like peppers or carrots.  The protein can be anything portioned up, so smoked tofu, veggie sausages cooked and sliced up - ditto qu0rn filets or a boiled egg 'mandolined'.  and then a sauce or mayo or dressing of some description.  Sometimes I do some sort of dirty rice too.  I have to say, I've not been brave enough yet to have a 'fridge clear' wrap buffet.  But then is that because I kind of cook some things in 'portions' - so being veggie aside, I'm not going to have 3 cooked sausages left over, or a quantity of barbecue pulled pork.  If we're having veggie sausages, we have two each I cook 6, I don't cook 12 and then refridgerate the l/o cooked 6 sausages.  

But yes, all put on the side, and the buffet participant puts a wrap on their plate and loads up from the various bowls, plates and dishes.  Everyone has to take veg 😁 For some reason, and I have no idea why - because I can't think of where we have ever attended any event that had a buffet - LG is totally enraptured with the concept.  

I was going to ask you what went into your breakfast burritos, and I "think" I remember you mentioned freezing them - do you put egg in them if you freeze them?

Greying X

EssexHebridean

Post has been pretty deplorable around our way for a while. When we were in the flat we had constant issues with a postie who didn't want to have to slog up the stairs so would drop post for the upstairs flats through our door, then during Covid times we simply stopped getting any sort of regular delivery at all - indeed, at one stage we were getting post once every three weeks if that!  Once we moved to the house things improved a bit and we do usually see letters every few days now, which goes to show that the "fortnightly or thereabouts" patter than the mail settled on at the flat was NOT, as RM suggested "because that's all the mail you get"! 

Greying_Pilgrim

Aw thankfully EH of the 'not the best' posties we've had, they've not lasted long.  Either they've been moved to indoor duties, or some other employment opp. has come along.  We too tend to have 'packs' of post, usually when there is some leaflet or other to be dropped at each address 🙄

Well. I wrote a big, long post this morning - probably my best yet - pressed 'post' and it was never seen again 🙄

Anyhoo, I'll confirm what I've done, instead of listing my good intentions.  I've put a load of washing out.  I'll need to move it around the garden a bit to get max sun/drying time.  We've not got an accompanying breeze, so it's probably not going to get bone dry anyway, but we've got to try.

Tea last night was veggie sausages, mash, baked beans and broccoli.  Crowd pleaser.  Clean plates.  DH and LG finished off the apple crumble with some yoghurt for pudding.

DH has paid the huge (to us) CC bill, and I've just got back from a wander into Greying Town to do the last money shuffle to top up savings pots.  I haven't added to the windows fund this month, as currently there is sufficient to cover the priority work that we need to have done on the basis of quotes received.  To be fair, as a result of having people come around who "know their stuff", it has helped cement our choices of what to have, and what to leave - I mean dropping the diamond encrusted handles was an easy decision, but we have had to give some thought about what glass needs to be 'obscuring', what can be clear etc etc.  

I have (now) remembered to add yesterday's £1.70 stamp spend to the non-food budget line.  

Blackcats - I wrote it out in full in my previous "munched" post - but I just wanted you to know that in trying to get LG to do their homework this week, I have finally got them started on one of the books that I'd set aside for the "summer reading" challenge.  They love the book, absolutely love it.  Biggest problem now will be to get them to read it over the week - not read it in one sitting - so that we can complete each day's homework.  I wrote earlier, "it's a case of you can't drag horses to the watering hole, and neither can you influence when they start to drink........" 🙄🤣

Greying X

Blackcats

Aw thank you for the update about the book.  How lovely that LG is enjoying it so much.  I get such joy when children enjoy reading.
we had a brief babysitting gig last week with our 11 year old grandchild and they were utterly, utterly engrossed in their book for the whole 2 hours which was a joy to see and also made babysitting seem like an absolute breeze!  No idea what this parenting fuss is all about ☺️🤣

Greying_Pilgrim

Good Evening MFW'rs

Brought the washing in at about 2.30pm - I smelt the whiff of a bonfire, and looked out the window and saw a  neighbour pulling their washing in, and decided to do the same.  I was actually really pleased, it was all far drier than I thought it would get, particularly the towels.

I chopped up the iceberg lettuce today.  Interestingly, there was one really limp leaf on the outside, otherwise it was OK, apart from it had started to rot in the middle - but a tiny bit of trimming saw that removed.  I used a bit of the lettuce at lunchtime to make a cheese salad sanger - YUM! and then it occured to me how to use most of the lettuce, before it went brown.  I decided to make 'taco bowls' for us all for tea.

I mixed some cooked lentils with some HM tommie sauce.  I put gochugung paste in, some cumin, pepper and added the tomato lentil mixture to some fried off onion, celery, garlic and peppers.  I also defrosted some cooked basmati rice and realised I hadn't got any rice vinegar, so added a bit of white wine vinegar and a speck of sugar and stirred it through with some nigella seeds. I had cooked two, slim sweet potatoes in the microwave until they were softened, then I sliced them and fried them in a frying pan, until they were crispy.   I then looked up a recipe for guacamole made with peas, as I hadn't got any avocado, and used Peacamole recipe from the NT.  The bowls were loaded up with the rice, some lettuce, some lentil mix, sweet potatoes, peacamole.  Then I grated some cheese to sprinkle on the hot lentils and sprinkled a mix of sunflower seeds and some left out the bagel seasoning.  Goodness, this got the thumbs up from the crew.  And bearing in mind that LG is not a fan of peas normally, I took it as a wonderful compliment to the bowl idea, that it was LG imploring us all to take a slice of sweet potato, dip it in the peacamole (ideally with several sunflower seeds stuck on too), and munch.  It was a great combo.  

I know there was none of the traditional avocado, nor red onion/tomato salsa, but heavens, it worked and clean plates resulted.  There was a tiny bit of the lentil mix left, but I will have that for lunch tomorrow.  I finished off the grapes today - LG took most of them chopped up in their lunch box, and I munched the leftovers.  I also ate the last nectarine.  It wasn't quite ripe, but it (like the other one), was starting to rot from the inside, so at least it got eaten.  I think there are only 2 sweet potatoes left from the box now.  

I finished the month £2.18 over on my grocery budget - which was already tight to start with, but I'm pleased with how we managed.  We are low on milk (again), but otherwise we've not gone hungry.  

All to play for in October, especially with the hols to look forward to.  

I can't think of anything else MSE to add, but thank you for popping in.

Greying X

themadvix

Who cares if it wasn’t conventional taco bowls? It sounded delicious!! And clearly LG thought so too 😁

Greying_Pilgrim

Ha ha - Thanks tmv.  I do worry what to call things when I go orf piste-y, but tea was actually based on the taco bowls idea (which in themselves are based on tacos, so...).  And a tomato/red onion salsa would be delicious, but I had neither ingredient ☹️

So wet start with us ☹️ I'm not likely to do any washing today, although I'm not too badly caught up and the stuff from yesterday needs folding and putting away.  

Are we supposed to submit/note meter readings today, hasn't the unit price changed today?  I will do it, as I missed the 'correct' day to submit my meter readings last month, and whilst the energy co estimates were close - especially the gas - they underestimated the leccy (goodness knows why, they have sufficient previous similar useage to go on), and I want to make sure our useage patterns are logged regularly.  We're pretty boring and use as much or as little power in the same patterns over the course of a year.  We're in credit going into winter anyway.

I'm thinking - if it stays dreich - we'll have some sort of stew for tea.  We've certainly got plenty of choice, and I still have things to 'use up' from last months shopping - fresh and frozen, so we'll for sure not starve.  The only thing we are low on is milk - and we managed to make that last the final day, last week, so I'll double check we could do that again.  The carton is low tho.

Can't think of anything else MSE to add at the mo, so I shall go and put a bun in a pot for DH to take to work and rustle up some snap for LG.  They will be getting the last of the iceberg lettuce in their sangers.  

Ta for popping by.  Greying X

KajiKita

“I shall go and put a bun in a pot for DH to take to work … “
For some unknown reason this makes me think of Eeyore and his burst balloon and an empty honey pot that he got for his birthday, and makes me picture Mr GP sitting in a break room somewhere, taking his bun in and out of his pot … 😉😂
(I’m aware that this says more about me than about Mr GP’s lunch! 😊)

I’m always in awe at your creativity in envisioning meals from what you have to hand 😊👏 You are making me be bolder - thank you 😊

KK

Greying_Pilgrim

Ha ha - KajiKita - I am just a sad sack who loves cooking/recipes/making summat out of nowt/watching cooking/frugal blogs etc etc.  I have to say, peacamole is no (direct) substitute for guacamole, but with seasonings (I put a speck of chipotle in my version, and some M&$ Greek seasoning, as i had no lime to hand), it actually became something nice in its 'own right'.  I love it when that happens.  Plus LG willingly ate something green, made from peas 🤯

DH lurves cake - it usually gets taken out of the pot and scarfed - none of that 'in-out-in-out malarkey - "chomp" and its gone 🤣 Anything sweet/cake doesn't last long with him 🤣 I'm envisaging more 'Tasmanian Devil-like' action, rather than sweet, gentle Eeyore 🤣  

Snap is made.  All the grated cheese from tea and l/o lettuce has been shoved into butties.  So that's 2 containers left the fridge, and good use made of an iceberg lettuce, which, to my shame, I thought was destined for the bin 😔 I loathe doing that, but when I got the box, I hadn't factored in I had some Romaine lettuce left, and without other salady bits, a more traditional type salad wasn't on the cards to use up a surfeit of lettuce.  But I pulled it off, and have now used up nearly all the contents of the box.  I have the 2 sweet potatoes left (they are big), but also have a couple thin/small sweet potatoes still left over from the MrL PoTW a couple of weeks ago.  However, use them I will.  Then that will mean I have only thrown out are the ribs of the cavolo nero, and the grapes that had gone rotten/mouldy (although we ate the majority of the punnet).  

I have double-checked the milk situation, and I am pretty sure we have slightly more than we did at this point last week, so I'm going to not buy any today - and hope it lasts for flask filling/brekkie tomorrow. It should.  

Right, meters next.  

Greying X