Moving on

Cherryfudge

WelshmansDaughter said:

Perhaps liquidising the kale for juice might be an option?
This might be a silly question but is there a reason why you have different meals all the time? Would it not be easier to have mostly the same then you could shop less?

That would certainly reduce the volume! I'll bear it in mind thanks, though I have a day mostly at home so you never know, I may find the recipe.

Different meals... I do like variety! However, to me it seems we often repeat meals as I make a big panful of something then we finish it up later in the week. Work schedules often mean we eat separately, so DH will tend to buy a ready meal (he can cook but doesn't do it for fun) whereas I will make something out of what I find in the fridge or cupboards. If I'm organised I'll put something in the slow cooker so we can have the same at separate times.

So I think variety is driven by me enjoying it, but it's also a health thing - they say to 'eat the rainbow', so I tend to chuck in as many veg as possible.

I prefer vegetarian food but will eat meat, and DH has food intolerances of things I like a lot, like dairy, oats and bananas, so we've drifted towards spiced vegan food or fish as things we can both enjoy.

Today I will be finishing off some tuna with some avocado (as per my last two lunches) and my second meal might well be finishing off the pesto with some spaghetti - so two light meals, one of which will also be more salad, and that will clear a bit more fridge space. DH will have some more chicken and potatoes, probably with peas and gravy, and there's a lot of fruit to help ourselves to. The rest of yesterday's chicken is now in the freezer in small bits to go in pasta or pie or maybe even curry.

Cherryfudge

redofromstart said:

If anyone is tempted by the home comforts book then I've found it on awesome books for £3.57 delivered - they have a few copies. 

That's brilliant - thanks! And so much cheaper than I've seen elsewhere. I still have my student housewifery book open beside me here and keep dipping in. I'm currently reading about the types of table cloth found in the average house - it was another world. I gather the Home Comforts book is more skills-based and applicable nowadays.

Cherryfudge

I'm not making huge strides with anything today so I'm back here to regroup. The washing is on the line, so far so good. The odd drop of rain earlier has turned into sunshine but I'm still layered up, which is probably a bit excessive.

Yesterday I accidentally put a small spend on my credit card and logged on to pay it off before they charge me, only to find it's still in 'pending and they won't let me pay. However, I found I'd done similar last week, so that's now paid off, and the CC is moved to another part of my purse so I'm less likely to do it again.

Just had one of those 'Hi Mum, please can you message me, it's urgent' messages so I've deleted it. Scammers may be getting more original but this one wasn't.

I've potted on three tomato plants and put the remains of that rooted lettuce trio from L1dl in soil too - just giving it a chance! Also spent five minutes on the ground elder and  general weeding.

The kitchen is a mess so I'm slowly getting through that, and am about to see if I can turn that goats' milk into ricotta. It's past its date, but smells absolutely fine so there's nothing to lose and I've not made ricotta before. I'm using Jamie's recipe.

milann

Mmmmmm…..home made ricotta sounds interesting. I might give that a go at some time. Dh used to make paneer when he made curry. He’s not done it for a good while though.

WelshmansDaughter

If it is successful ricotta pancakes are lovely 

Cherryfudge

I think the ricotta is moderately successful - and funnily the internet just came up with a photo of ricotta pancakes, @WelshmansDaughter! Are you sure you aren't AI? I do love pancakes.

The recipe was very straightforward. I used some lemon from the freezer in place of the vinegar in the recipe and it worked okay. I just had a tiny taste and put the rest in the fridge so I can't be sure I like it!

Work was fine: I got a three hour shift again, after months of two-hour ones! In fact, everyone has to be out of the building by the time the three hours are up, so it's a bit short, but we get paid the full time. DH collected me as it was starting to rain.

I don't think I've spent anything today and my credit card still hasn't cleared yesterday's payment, which is annoying. The one I made this morning is showing as pending on one page and processed on another, so I wonder whether it will tick over at midnight or something?

Laura_Elsewhere

Cherryfudge said:

So 'Home Comforts' is around 900 pages, eh? I'm in awe!

One of my books, 'A Student's book of Housewifery' (1940 edition) is the closest I think I have to a comprehensive guide to housekeeping, and I'd not looked at it for years till this came up. As has been said in some articles about 'Home Comforts', it's actually soothing to read. For instance the routine, exclusive of cleaning, for ordering the bedroom: air the bed, put away nightwear, empty the hot water bottle, tidy the dressing table, open the window, and in the evening, pull down the blinds, close the curtains, take off and carefully fold up the bedspread, turn down the bed clothes, put nightwear ready on the bed and add the hot water bottle...

So orderly, so neat.  

And arguably helps with sleeping better, because having a repeated pattern at bedtime helps to 'train' your brain to shut up and go to sleep... 

Laura_Elsewhere

Kale freezes brilliantly, btw- chop it up, put it in a saucepan and add enough boiling water to be about half an inch deep in the pan (measure beforehand?), put the lid on and let it sit for 2 minutes, giving it a swirl from time to time. Drain, add a dab of butter if you like, then spread out on a clean tea-towel to cool asap in a thin layer. Then put it into a clean, dry bag (we use the ones from inside cereal packets), and freeze it as a flat spread-out layer. Once frozen, you can compact it all up so it takes less room  
We do most of our veg like this, cauliflower, kale, savoy cabbage, carrots, runner beans... then we just grab handfuls as and when we want them, and ping them in the microwave  

Cherryfudge

Finally got that £2.19 payment made on the CC! So annoying seeing it pending but not being allowed to put the money in to cover it.

It's been a busy day today: I was earlier than usual for my voluntary cleaning but that worked out well because a new colleague was waiting for me and no one else from the team was there. I don't know how that happened but I showed her some essentials and asked her to do the hoovering. That's usually my job but it was easier to explain than the other jobs that I'm not so used to. She was very nice to work with and has what I'd call an 'intelligent approach' so I hope she liked it and wants to stay! I'm hoping the person I usually work with is okay, but I don't want to ask questions as I suspect a message wasn't sent.

I managed to resist going to Sains despite being in the vicinity but did call in to As-da for a tins shop. The tinned apples have gone up to £1.10 which is a 10% increase, but I still bought a few tins as DH loves them embellished with brown sugar and almonds (his invention).

I had a mid-afternoon meal as it was about 2.30 by the time I got in. I've finished some hummus and had cheese and oatcakes which I knew would be sustaining. Then it was off to (paid) work, where I had three hours and managed to miscalculate the time (everything is half an hour earlier on a Friday) and got a phone call from management to see if I was all right. Thankfully by that time I had realised I was half an hour out, and was struggling to lock the cleaning cupboard so I was only a couple of minutes late. I have to find some way of getting past this blip - maybe set a timer, as I'd done the timing calculation at least three times and hadn't spotted I was running on the weekday timings. As I understand it, this life-long struggle with time is likely to be due to ADHD, so no wonder it goes on being a problem.

DH offered me a lift home but it looks as though I'd told him 8pm instead of 7.30, so I started to walk back. It was nice actually, after rushing about at work, the cool air (whose idea was 14 degrees in June?) and a light drizzle felt very nice. When I got in, he'd made a very nice pie for dinner so I'm replete.

Expenditure:
Housekeeping £7.01

Laura_Elsewhere

I don't have ADHD, but I do have quite severe autism and there are overlaps between many of these neurodivergent conditions- I have been training myself at bedtime to set my alarms for next day, the ones for getting up, what time to wake Mr E and do his lymphatic drainage massage, what time I have to leave if I'm going out eg to swim or to shops, but also reminders for eg making a phone call, or finding something I need for later in the week, etc. 
Because I do it each evening, at about 9pm, it means I don't have standard fallback timings to, er, fall back on, and so it helps improve my accuracy at timing- and it also helps me go to sleep better because I've sort of put everything down, stopped carrying it. 
About 9pm, we turn off tv, and sort out the next day's alarms, and then I potter about tidying, or fine-combing my hair and plaiting it, or whatever, and then one final check of the internet and half an hour quietly reading a book in bed, with a valerian tablet, and lights out and sleep-mask on at 10pm and if I do that each night then I do end up going straight to sleep and sleeping right through. At present I wake a lot because I have two damaged shoulders which are painful when I turn over, but I am sleeping more now than I was. 

Might that be worth trying?