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Cooking for one

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  • Winchelsea
    Winchelsea Posts: 693 Forumite
    Spreading things on bread or toast - I always plaster the edges first and work in to the middle. If it gets a bit thin there you can't tell so easily - can't bear "naked" crusts!

    Yesterday I cooked a veggie hotpot thing - one portion. But as I added different ingredients I could see it getting bigger and bigger. The result was a pretty massive portion, so I took myself in hand and divided it into two, and froze one lot. The old me would have scoffed the lot! (Especially as it was really tasty,)
    Keeping three cats, the car and myself on a small budget, and enjoying life while we're at it!
  • PasturesNew
    PasturesNew Posts: 70,698 Forumite
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    Winchelsea wrote: »
    ....veggie hotpot thing - one portion. But as I added different ingredients I could see it getting bigger and bigger. The result was a pretty massive portion...

    When I first looked into slow cookers I thought I wanted a 1 litre one - then I realised that many recipes start with opening a couple of cans, or one can and a pack of meat ... and 1 litre would make that difficult to add enough differing ingredients.

    I ended up getting a 3.5 litre one so as to not be limited by the number of ingredients that'd fit.
  • PasturesNew
    PasturesNew Posts: 70,698 Forumite
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    Well, lunch was sorted! I'd entertained ideas of making a "sausage roast dinner" using cocktail sausages, roast potatoes, vegetables, gravy .... then I opened the cupboard and spotted the 14p tin of spaghetti hoops in there. So that was it!

    2 bits of toast, half a tin of spaghetti hoops, splash of balsamic (just to see how that went), topped with a spot of cheese.

    Job done. Lunch in 4 minutes, total cost 20p.

    :)
  • Nelski
    Nelski Posts: 15,197 Forumite
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    Afternoon all :wave:

    Stuck my head in the freezer and found some HM chicken and chickpea curry so will have that tonight with some flat breads, spicy onions and mango chutney. Roll on 7pm :)
  • mcculloch29
    mcculloch29 Posts: 4,972 Forumite
    Rampant Recycler
    PasturesNew wrote: »
    I shuffled into the kitchen wondering "what can I eat later?" and opened the freezer to see if there were any instantly nukable goodies... none. But I did spot the four foil-wrapped packs of sausagemeat in there.

    They were a random buy, Mr T's sausagemeat packs, usually £1.50/pack, reduced to 80p, so (bizarrely) I grabbed two and when I got home I divided them into halves, creating four smaller portions of sausagemeat.

    I had in mind to make a nice sausagemeat pie (sausagemeat/onions, probably topped with mash and served with beans) when I bought them. I also thought of the ready rolled pastry I'd got in the freezer (two boxes of that now) .... so I think that, soon, I need to make a sausagemeat pie out of at least one of those portions .... but not today.

    This reminded me of an old budget favourite involving sausagemeat, stuffing and apples with a pastry lid. I cooked it in a metal pie dish but similar recipes on Google have it as a cased pie, pasty or plait. Hmm. I wonder if it's as nice as I remember?
    Erma Bombeck, American writer: "If I had my life to live over again... I would have burned the pink candle, sculptured like a rose, that melted in storage." Don't keep things 'for best' - that day never comes. Use them and enjoy them now.
  • PasturesNew
    PasturesNew Posts: 70,698 Forumite
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    mcculloch29 wrote: »
    Hmm. I wonder if it's as nice as I remember?

    Yes, meat/apples/stuffing .... that was where I started thinking with the sausagemeat, then realised the apples would need pre-planning, so adjusted that idea to just a regular meat pie with it.

    ALL pies involving sausagemeat are winners. I used to love the school dinner pies, with a full set of pastry. Pie, boiled spuds, carrots, gravy. Sometimes boiled cabbage. :)

    Loved school dinners.
  • Farway
    Farway Posts: 13,182 Forumite
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    edited 16 February 2017 at 4:01PM
    Winchelsea wrote: »
    Spreading things on bread or toast - I always plaster the edges first and work in to the middle. If it gets a bit thin there you can't tell so easily - can't bear "naked" crusts!

    Yesterday I cooked a veggie hotpot thing - one portion. But as I added different ingredients I could see it getting bigger and bigger. The result was a pretty massive portion, so I took myself in hand and divided it into two, and froze one lot. The old me would have scoffed the lot! (Especially as it was really tasty,)

    My name is Farway and I am a naked crustaholic, CBA to get butter all over the bread so stop when it gets near enough to crust

    The Veggie hotpot sounds like could have been a candidate for my stick blitzer, bingo, veg soup forever

    Talking of soup, yesterday's celery / spud was a winner, and the rest will be tonight's meal, wiht half buttered bap, well full buttered bap in my terms, but the edges may be a bit of butter desert for some tastes :p

    PN School dinners, mine were hit and miss, post war rationing, I can still smell the pong of mince wafting from the kitchen, and whatever boy it was who kicked a football through the window showering the kitchen in glass probably saved hundreds of young lives :rotfl:

    PS for the Goblin pud lovers, saw some mini ones in Asda mooch today, so i bought one, 65p, worth a try as never had one of them
    Eight out of ten owners who expressed a preference said their cats preferred other peoples gardens
  • PasturesNew
    PasturesNew Posts: 70,698 Forumite
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    Farway wrote: »

    PN School dinners, mine were hit and miss, post war rationing, I can still smell the pong of mince wafting from the kitchen, and whatever boy it was who kicked a football through the window showering the kitchen in glass probably saved hundreds of young lives :rotfl:
    Mine were post-rationing by a decade :)

    Better food than at home, to be honest. More variety, better cooked.
    Farway wrote: »
    PS for the Goblin pud lovers, saw some mini ones in Asda mooch today, so i bought one, 65p, worth a try as never had one of them

    I tried one recently. Nothing's as good as you remember is it.

    While an interesting experiment, I felt that modern cheap meats and alternative pies have come on leaps and bounds, whereas the goblin pies still seemed to be the original recipe.

    I just used to pierce the top of the lid on opposite sides (with a bottle opener triangular shaped little hole), into the smallest saucepan we had, poured water to about 1/2 way up the tin, bring water to the boil, then turn it down so it's just bubbling and the can's not really moving about at all.... 20 minutes I think, from memory. Open the can top, tip out, scoff with a spoon.
  • Farway
    Farway Posts: 13,182 Forumite
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    PasturesNew wrote: »
    Mine were post-rationing by a decade :)

    Better food than at home, to be honest. More variety, better cooked.


    I just used to pierce the top of the lid on opposite sides (with a bottle opener triangular shaped little hole), into the smallest saucepan we had, poured water to about 1/2 way up the tin, bring water to the boil, then turn it down so it's just bubbling and the can's not really moving about at all.... 20 minutes I think, from memory. Open the can top, tip out, scoff with a spoon.

    PN not in my Mum's kitchen it wasn't, she herself admitted she was awful cook, the original bung the sprouts on, then put meat in oven cook. My Nan was good one though,it was her job "in service" so by the time we came along she ahd tried & tersted all her recipes

    The Goblin puds are now nukeable it says, but I think I will bung it in the steamer with the veg when I get to cook it
    Eight out of ten owners who expressed a preference said their cats preferred other peoples gardens
  • Nelski
    Nelski Posts: 15,197 Forumite
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    I was a big lover of school dinners too particularly the puds...had to say no to pink custard though that was just wrong. I remember when our school went to snacks instead of full dinners so you could get chips all of sudden. you can imagine how often chips were chosen over a healthy dinner.

    Faraway Im with you ...butter on the bread bit not on the crust :)
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