A week of healthyish eating before Christmas

I want to eat a bit more healthily this week, as we won't be next week!

Sunday we had a normal roast - chicken, stuffing, mixed roasted root veggies all done together in a big tray (potatoes, carrots, parsnips and onions), cabbage, peas and gravy.  It was slightly less calorific than usual in that we didn't have Yorkshires and had less of the root veggies and more green veg.   And no pudding.

Yesterday I did a sort of hash/bubble and squeak thing.  4 rashers of bacon left in the fridge from something I made towards the end of last week, a small chorizo sausage, an onion, an aubergine and half a punnet of mushrooms, all diced and fried together in a little olive oil.  Served it with a dessertspoon of reduced fat sour cream and chive dip and some garlic bread - ok, not particularly low cal!  But delicious. 

For today we're having savoury mince with lots of veggies cooked in, I've just made it.  A 500g pack of 5% fat steak mince from out of the freezer, bought some while back reduced to half price.  Low fat steak mince tends to be a bit dry, obviously because of the low fat content, so to make it moist and juicy I've added a load of grated carrot and an aubergine diced up small, as well as onions and mushrooms, with some beef stock and Italian herbs.  Then I had a brainwave - in the freezer I had a sachet of fresh peppercorn steak sauce.  I defrosted the sachet in a jug of hot water and then stirred that into the mince.  It smells and tastes wonderful.  We'll have it with a little brown basmati rice and some long-stemmed broccoli.  There'll be enough to freeze for another couple of meals.

I've been making a few things for the freezer - several dinners we've had recently I've made extra of deliberately to freeze, but have also made a load of Yorkshire puds this morning - a dozen individual ones and 2 large ones, they freeze beautifully and crisp up lovely straight from frozen in a couple of minutes.  A week or so ago I made lots of mince pies and sausage rolls to freeze for the holiday period, yesterday it was ginger biscotti - the recipe made a lot so half of them have been frozen.

Tomorrow we'll have a carbonara, Thursday will be salmon chowder, Friday a crustless quiche.

Trimmings soup

We're having our main meal at lunchtime today, as husband has a late afternoon hospital appointment and we're not expecting to be home until 6pm or gone.  I don't like to eat our main meal too late in the evening or it might give me indigestion when I go to bed.

So lunch will be a jacket spud with spicy pork and beans....the pork left over from Sunday lunch, the beans our favourite Branston ones from a tin, with a shake of smoked paprika and sage stirred in.  And probably a sprinkle of grated Cheddar on top.  

For supper I'm making soup.  I've kept a bag in the freezer for the past month or so, of the stalks and trimmings of cauliflower and broccoli, adding more to it whenever we've had them.  This morning I chopped up a leek (home grown, we have lots now) and a large potato and softened them in a little oil, the potato gives a bit of body to the soup.  I then added the chopped cauli and broccoli trimmings and stirred it all around for another couple of minutes, before adding some dried Italian herbs and sage.  A litre of hot vegetable stock was poured in, and it's now simmering for 20 mins or so.  Once cooled, I'll whizz it up with my stick blender and reheat this evening with a splash of cream and some crumbled blue Stilton stirred in to melt.

Whilst the oven's on for the jacket potatoes, I'll put a couple of slices of our homemade bread in there to dry out, drizzled with a bit of olive oil and sprinkled with garlic granules and smoked paprika.  They'll make croutons for the soup.

Day 14 - Shopping

So we didn't last out as long as I was hoping for without going shopping, we went and got quite a bit of stuff yesterday, along with the fresh whole salmon that was on offer in Morrisons, which is the reason why I went.  I did plan on getting other stuff as well though, I even wrote a list and more or less stuck to it, just adding 3 or 4 items that were in the reduced cabinet and too good to miss.

I spent £39.46 yesterday....considering we got a whole salmon that will do us for at least 8 meals included in that price, along with lots of fresh veggies and the reduced items that will make another couple of meals, I'm pretty pleased with that.  We got the fishmonger to fillet the salmon for us and I asked for the trimmings, I boiled and flaked them up for Betty as she loves fish.  The stock I've frozen to make a fish chowder, so that's another meal.  The reduced extras were some cooked chicken pieces reduced to 75p, which I'll use in a risotto or pasta bake, mushroom & cheese arancini balls down to 50p from £2.20 (they'll make a nice light meal with a jacket spud and salad), a small block of blue cheese and a little pot of single cream, both less than half price and will be used today to make soup.

As I said before, we could still carry on with no shopping, but were both missing fresh veg (that's something I never thought I'd say, seeing as I didn't really eat much in the way of veg until I was in my mid-30s, except for peas and spuds).  And I did want to get that salmon whilst it was on offer....it's supposed to be on offer until Christmas Eve, or whilst stocks last, so I didn't want to take the chance that they might run out.

I'm now sure I can resist the urge to just pop into a supermarket whilst we're out and about, and confident that I can stick to my shopping list instead of just picking up whatever takes my fancy.  Although if I see any reduced bargains on things that we would normally have anyway, I will get them - it'd be silly not to if they're going to save us money in the long run.

The key thing for me is - don't go shopping unless I really need to.

So my grand total on this no(!) shopping challenge, which lasted 14 days, is £48 exactly.  I consider that to be not bad at all.  Ok, so it's a bit of an abject failure really, in view of the fact that it was supposed to be no shopping!!  But I'm still happy about it, we still spent a damn sight less than we would have done normally.

Day 12 and still going strong

The spicy butternut squash soup was delicious, I'm glad we still have several huge homegrown squashes, each one makes at least 3 or 4 different meals.

For lunch yesterday we had cheese, mushroom and ham soufflé omelettes, scrumptious.  Dinner was homemade chilli out of the freezer, with a jacket potato and a sprinkling of grated cheese.  Must cut down - I do eat too much cheese!

Poached eggs on a slice of wholemeal grain toast for lunch today.  For dinner I'll get a tub of homegrown tomato pasta sauce out of the freezer, to go on top of wholewheat tagliatelle.  I'll fry some chopped chorizo (got a bag of frozen ones) to mix in with it, along with some other veg....I think there's some courgettes in the freezer.

I might be going shopping today, we've run out of a few things and Morrisons are doing a special offer on fresh salmon, £5 a kilo - they do it every holiday.  I do love salmon.

Running total - still £8.54.

Day 10 and back on the diet

The slightly relaxed diet weekend went quite well.....I did have some gut issues Saturday night which I'm fairly sure were down to Saturday's meals being a bit (well, very) carb heavy.  Yesterday was better, we still had a higher than ideal carb day but not so much.  Breakfast was cereal with warm milk, lunch 1 slice of homemade (we only ever have homemade now) grain toast with baked beans.  Dinner was pork belly slices, slow roasted in a grainy mustard and sage gravy, with roasted carrots, parsnips and red onion, peas and a Yorkshire pud.  Delicious.

Today I'm making spicy butternut squash soup for lunch, husband's working outside this morning and it's very cold, so he'll want something warming at lunchtime.  Dinner will be Cumberland sausages on a bed of brown rice and things - I'll stir through some lentils, pumpkin seeds, chopped walnuts and chopped sundried tomatoes.  We'll have it with some veg out of the freezer.

I've reduced our portion sizes by about a third, which is working quite well.

We're going to have to think about getting a bit of shopping soon....husband has run out of the sugar-free squash he drinks quite a lot of and hates drinking water, and I'm getting low on my coffee.  Although we have quite a bit of root veg still and plenty of frozen veg, we have no fresh green veg left.....frozen is alright, but not particularly appetising unless I smother it in a sauce, and the texture of frozen green veg is always too soft.

I think this experiment is teaching me that we can manage quite happily on food stores we already have, with a bit of 'make do' mentality.  We could still manage quite well without buying anything...it's more a case of wanting rather than needing.  I'm also breaking my habit of going shopping every few days and ending up buying stuff just because I see it, rather than because we actually need it.  Gemma's Person, no we went into the shop together, so I'm quite proud of myself for only buying the milk and nothing else! 😁

Didn't go out yesterday so nothing spent again, so the running total on Day 10 is £8.54 still.  Considering we would normally spend probably around £50, sometimes more, during 2 or 3 shopping trips in one week, I'm very pleased with that.

Day 8 - weekend so relaxing a bit

Thank you for comments....you're probably right about the salt content of the cappucino sachets, Snoskred.  But we don't have many manufactured foods and I don't use much salt in cooking, so I'm not going to worry about it.

Yesterday, Day 7, we had a tub of previously-made soup out of the freezer for lunch, it was beef and vegetable, I'd made a huge pan of it a few weeks back and froze it in portions, there are still 2 tubs left.  It's delicious, once it's all used up I'll be making more.  I made it using just 200g of minced beef, a whole 1kg pack of frozen diced mixed veg, a couple of leftover rashers of smoked bacon, a large onion, couple of big handfuls of pearl barley.  For the stock I used 2 beef cubes, a squirt of tomato puree and heaped tsp Marmite.  Husband had a slice of homemade bread with his.  Dinner was cod baked in a foil parcel with lemon, dill and a splash of olive oil, on a bed of a little wholewheat pasta (half the portion size we'd normally have) topped with green beans, peas and sweetcorn.  

As it's Saturday we're not being so strict.  Breakfast was a slice of homemade bread toast with Marmite and sliced Cheddar.  For lunch we had bubble and squeak using up some leftover veg, with a fried egg.  For dinner tonight we're having smoked haddock fishcakes with oven baked sweet potato chips and homemade mushy peas....a bit carby but hey ho.  I've also made an apple crumble, with the last few useable apples from our disappointing crop this year - we had quite a few but they just didn't store well at all, going yellow and soft very quickly unlike previous years, I think it's because of all the rain we had.  I've put cinnamon in with the apples, the crumble mix is made with brown flour, oats and chopped walnuts, with just a little demerara sugar.  The crumble will do us for today and tomorrow, topped with Elmlea.

We were running low on milk so had to buy a couple of cartons at £1.09 each yesterday.  But that's all we bought!

So the running total on Day 8 is £8.54, which I'm pretty pleased about.

Day 6 - Getting on with new diet

A couple of you commented that I'm doing so well with a very small spend....the reason we're doing so well though is that we had very full cupboards, fridge and freezer to start with.  It'll be more challenging as time goes on and more food gets used up though.  I'm doing this as an experiment, to see how long we can go before we really need to go shopping again, and to get me out of the habit of going shopping every few days and ending up buying things we don't strictly need.

The barley and roasted veg salad was really yummy, we're having it again today for lunch, with some added vinaigrette dressing as I think it needs a bit more sharpness.  Husband will have a tin of fish, probably mackerel, with his, I'll add some olives and nuts to mine.

Dinner tonight will be a couple of pre-made things out of the freezer that need using up, as I still want to make a bit of space in there.  Husband's having a chicken curry, I'll have some leftover veggie lasagne, there's a small portion of it.  Both have been in the freezer for several months, so it's about time they got used.  We'll have them with some frozen veg.

I've decided that we'll eat a very healthy low fat diet Mon-Fri, then relax it a bit on Saturdays and Sundays....that way we won't feel deprived and go off the rails if we know we can perhaps have something a bit naughty at the weekends.  It will be strictly Sat/Sun only, no extending it to a long weekend including Fridays and Mondays!

I'm also cutting down on my coffee consumption - I drink those cappucino sachets, they are unsweetened, allegedly, but do contain some glucose and fat, so not strictly unsweetened.  I did start off with 2 a day but it's crept up to 3 for the last few weeks.  I'm not going to cut them out completely as I do really like them, but will go back down to 2 and sometimes just 1, drinking more redbush or herbal teas instead, which obviously I have without milk.  I've found a herbal tea I really like, Sainsburys Echinacea and Rosehip, it's delicious - most of them, whatever flavour, smell delicious and taste disgusting.  Or maybe that's just me lol.

Didn't go out yesterday, hence no spending, so the running total of £6.36 remains the same for Day 6.

Day 5 and a new diet

The salmon crustless quiche was lovely, there's half left for lunch today.  I did a small jacket spud each and homemade coleslaw to go with it.

Have just been told by the GP that my worsening NAFLD is in danger of escalating to fibrosis or even cirrhosis if I don't lose weight, well there's an incentive!  Googled for fatty liver diet advice, which is basically low fat, moderate carbs and protein, plenty of veg and fruit (not so much fruit for me because of the sugar content), no sweet things (I rarely do anyway) and no baked goods.  Lean protein such as chicken, turkey, lean pork and fish, or legumes, nuts and eggs.  

Luckily, we have all the above in, it's now a case of proper planning of healthy meals (so I won't be doing the slow cooker savoury mince and dumplings we were going to have tomorrow!).

For lunch today we'll be having the other half of the salmon quiche with a barley salad, I've just cooked the barley and roasted some veggies to stir through it with a vinaigrette dressing.  Dinner tonight will be roasted chicken thighs (minus the skin!) with the rest of the roasted veggies and Brussels sprouts.

Day 5 - nothing spent.  Running total £6.36  

Day 4, using up leftovers

Husband cooked the dinner again (2 days running!), fried liver & bacon with onions for him, mash, cabbage and peas, and gravy.  It was all lovely.  Loads of veg left over, so that's gone in the freezer for bubble and squeak at a later date.  I chopped up the last of the roast lamb from Sunday and froze that too, it'll be added to the B&S veggies in due course.

Today it'll be porridge for breakfast, with some of the frozen fruit.  Lunch will be leftovers from yesterday's lunch, the remainder of the tuna mayo for me, I'll have it with crispbreads, husband will probably have a sandwich.  

For dinner tonight I'm going to make a crustless salmon quiche, using a tin of salmon, onion and sweetcorn.  I have some feta cheese to use up so that'll go in too.  We'll have it with a jacket potato and homemade coleslaw.

Day 4 - nothing spent.  Running total £6.36

Day 3 and roast lamb cooked for me

Day 3 went alright, no spending as we didn't go in any food shops. 

Breakfast was a sausage bap - husband's homemade quick sourdough seeded roll, with a couple of leftover cooked sausages out of the freezer.  I had brown sauce in mine....lovely.  

Lunch was a bowl of beef and vegetable soup, homemade and frozen, there are several more pots of it in the freezer.

Husband cooked the roast for dinner....a small lamb shoulder joint, he did roast potatoes, cabbage and purple sprouting broccoli and even made Yorkshires, under my direction.  They rose beautifully and it was all blimmin gorgeous, even more so for having it cooked for me.  He doesn't do a lot of cooking, but is good at roasts (perhaps we ought to have more of them!).

Having said that, he's cooking dinner again this evening - he volunteered, and who am I to say no?!

Breakfast was cereal, lunch will be a tuna mayo and tomato sandwich.  Dinner is going to be fried liver and bacon, husband will do fried onions for himself separately (they don't agree with me).  We'll have it with mash, cabbage, carrots and peas.  

We'll have something fishy and lighter tomorrow.

Day 3 - nothing spent.  Running total £6.36

Day 2 - oops

Today we went to buy our Christmas meat from Tesco, they had good value gammons, beef and a boneless pork leg crackling joint on offer (thank you for the heads up, WendyT) at just £2.50, half price.  So 2 pork joints, a gammon and a small beef joint are now in the freezer, following some reorganisation to squash everything in.  I'm not including any of this meat in my No Shopping challenge, as it's for Christmas and new year.

However....whilst in there I also managed to buy a few other things (see, this is why I want to NOT go shopping - it's too easy to buy stuff if you do!).  I got another dozen eggs, a Savoy cabbage, some blue Stilton and 2 bars of chocolate, spending £6.36 on those few things.  Ok, so I've used quite a lot of eggs this past week and would probably have run out of them very soon, and I wanted the Stilton to add flavour to a few veggie and pea & ham soups I'm planning to make.  Another green veg will be useful, plus I want to make coleslaw for tonight's tea.  And the chocolate is not to eat as a bar, both bars have been put in the baking cupboard for when I want to bake something chocolatey.  So nothing frivolous or unnecessary, although I dare say I could have managed without them, well, except for the eggs.  Bad me.  That's it though, I'm not planning on going shopping again for at least a fortnight and hopefully longer.

We had one of my homemade sausage rolls each with cheesy beans for lunch.  For dinner tonight we're having sandwich steaks in husband's homemade quick sourdough mixed grain rolls, with sweet potato fries topped with grated cheese and the homemade coleslaw, I'll mix a spoonful of grainy mustard into the mayo.

Day 2 - Total spent on No Shopping challenge: £6.36.

Day 1 of a no shop challenge

I'm doing a kind of experiment to see how long we can survive on our present food stocks before having to go shopping again....we want to save money for next year and the best way to do that is not to go shopping!  We have full cupboards, fridges and freezers (a tall fridge freezer in the kitchen, tall larder freezer and under counter spare fridge in the utility room), so in theory if using up what we already have, we shouldn't have to go shopping for 2 or 3 weeks, or even longer.  We'll probably run out of fresh green veg fairly quickly, but have plenty of other fresh veg (onions, leeks, potatoes, sweet potatoes, butternut squash) and loads of frozen, plus tins of beans, other pulses, sweetcorn, tomatoes etc, and some dried pulses, peas and beans.  We have several cartons of milk in the freezer and lots of cheese and butter, but once the dairy stuff runs out we will have to go shopping then.  

The idea is to use up what we have without resorting to going out and buying anything....if I run out of something I'll either improvise or go without, there's sure to be an alternative.  It might mean some 'interesting' meals further down the line!

I need to use up some things in the freezers first, as I need to make space for some meat joints for Christmas and New Year.  I'm using Mysupermarket to keep an eye on the cost of meat joints, once they're a good price then we will be going out to buy them, but only the meat.  We'll probably get a large gammon, leg of pork and possibly a beef joint, we rarely have turkey as we're not really fond of it.  I'd like to buy the meat from a local butcher, but can't afford to.

Having said I need to make space, I've made sausage rolls to freeze today.  About 2 dozen small ones, and 4 large ones for us to have for lunches a couple of times.  I also made a large veggie pasty, using some leftover lentil & cheese mixture I made for something else.

The sausage rolls were made using a pack of Cumberland sausages.  I deskinned them then mixed the meat with some chutney, a big squirt of tomato puree and some grated Cheddar.

So today is the first day of no shopping or spending on food.

A Christmas baking day

I spent most of the day baking - well, when I get up feeling good having had a great night's sleep, I have to make the most of it!

Having prepared the fruit for the Christmas cake and added to the mincemeat the other day, it was about time I got round to actually baking.  First thing this morning I made bread dough and a load of pastry - I always do pastry in my food processor now, so much easier.  I do a big quantity too, so there's some to freeze for another day.  

After leaving it to rest in the fridge for an hour, I then made mince pies, with a cinnamon crumble topping instead of pastry.  I made 2 dozen to freeze, plus a pudding-for-2 size as there was enough mincemeat and crumble left.  The remaining pastry, enough for a pastry top and bottom pie or 2 open tarts, went in the freezer (oops, just realised.....although I did write 'pastry' on the bag, I should have put 'sweet pastry', in case I forget and use it for something savoury).

The Christmas cake mixture made one large and 2 individual size cakes, which husband will be pleased about as he'll be able to eat the little ones before Christmas!

The loaf is a quick sourdough using an overnight starter and is 1/3 rye, 1/3 wholemeal and 1/3 white.

I've only part cooked the mince pies before freezing them, they'll be going in the oven again when I take them out at Christmas.  The big cake is a bit cracked, I think the oven was still too hot after cooking the bread, should have waited a bit for it to cool down, and covered it with foil sooner.  Husband won't mind though, it won't affect the taste.  It won't have marzipan and icing on as he doesn't like it.

I've also made a steamed pudding for dinner tonight, it's bacon leek and sweetcorn, I've not followed a recipe, just winged it.  Doing it in the slow cooker, which I've never tried before, but saw a mention of on a blog the other day.  Hope it works out ok!  No photo as it's still cooking.

Christmas cake fruit and mincemeat

This morning I've finally got round to mixing and soaking the fruit for the Christmas cake, and improving the mincemeat.  Normally I make my own mincemeat, and would have made the cake by now....this year we've had so much health stuff going on I just haven't done it.  Better late than never, though.  

I haven't made mincemeat, I just bought a large jar.  It doesn't look terribly appetising though, so I've decanted it into a bowl and added extra dried fruit, the zest of an orange and lemon and some sherry, it'll sit covered until tomorrow, when I make the mince pies.

For the Christmas cake fruit, I've added dried raisins, cranberries, prunes and apricots to a bowl - that's what husband likes and what I've got.  I like mixed peel and cherries in a rich fruit cake, husband doesn't and he eats more cake than I do, so I just put in what he likes as I'll most likely only have 1 or 2 small slices of the cake.  I also like nuts in a cake, again he doesn't, so I haven't used any.  The zest of an orange and lemon went in, along with their juice, a big slug of the raspberry and honey whisky I made last year, and a capful of a hazelnut vodka liqueur given to us by a Polish friend a while back....only a capful as it's so strong it blows your head off!  Mixed spice and cinnamon added as well.  I'll keep stirring it every few hours and let it stand for a couple of days before making the cake.  

The kitchen smells like Christmas already.  I put on a Christmas CD whilst I was doing it, just for the atmosphere!  I'm not a huge fan of Christmas really, neither of us is, but one of the things I do really like is Christmas songs....old fashioned like White Christmas, pop ones like Slade's Merry Christmas Everybody, and carols like O Come all ye Faithful.

Quick & easy cauliflower soup

I made a soup this morning that I've made several times before, it's really easy but is quite delicious.

To make 4 large bowlfuls:-

1/2 bag frozen cauli (1kg bag so 500g)
1/2 bag frozen broccoli
1 litre stock (veg, chicken or bacon)
Sage and parsley
Plenty of pepper, maybe a little salt depending on how salty your stock is
Some grated cheese of your choice

Simply put the cauli and broccoli (no need to defrost) in a large pan with the stock, herbs and pepper, bring to the boil, then reduce the heat and simmer for 10 minutes or so, until the veggies are soft.  Take off the heat and cool for a while.  

Use a stick blender to whizz it up (don't do it whilst it's boiling hot - if you're a bit careless like me, you run the risk of being splashed with boiling hot soup).  When smooth, put back on the heat and stir in a couple of good handfuls of grated cheese.....blue cheese is good, or today I used some leftover Cheddar with caramelised onion, having run out of blue cheese.  You could also use cream cheese or Philadelphia type soft cheese.  Don't boil it, it might split, just reheat gently.  Swirl a little cream on top when you serve it up, if you like.  Add croutons for a bit of crunch.  

If you like a really thick soup, you could add a handful of oats when cooking it, or split red lentils, or even a sprinkle of instant mash flakes.

Bacon stock (I save and freeze the stock from cooking gammons) makes this soup taste wonderful, but you can of course use any stock.  

A successful kitchen day yesterday

Yesterday's kitchen day was successful and I made good use of the oven.  I cooked sausages, 2 giant Yorkshires for dinner last night, along with several smaller ones to freeze, mash made with potato, some leftover swede and half a butternut squash, all mashed together and topped with cheese.  I also made a light fruit cake and whilst the oven was on, cooked 2 jacket potatoes for today's dinner.

The chilli and the beef & veg soup both made 4 double portions each, all of which are frozen except for one of the chilli portions.  Husband's hospital appointment is mid afternoon and will take an hour, meaning we won't get home until almost dinnertime.  So we'll have the chilli with the jacket spuds I baked yesterday, all reheated in the microwave, I'll top it with some crème fraiche to cool it down a little, I seem to have made it spicier than usual.  Which means I'll probably have gut trouble during the night or tomorrow morning, but hey ho.

We had half of the mash in our big Yorkshires with sausages and green veggies yesterday for dinner.  The remaining mash we'll have with soup for lunch today.  When we were kids Mum used to give us Heinz tomato soup poured over mashed potato with a sprinkle of grated cheese on top, it was one of my favourite dinners (and obviously quick and cheap for Mum).

I didn't get round to doing all the apple prep yesterday, I really ought to go and do it now, or else the apples will end up having to be chucked on the compost heap as they're deteriorating rapidly.

A batch cooking and baking day

After several weeks when I've not felt much like cooking at all, due to my ongoing gut issues, I'm now back into it and am having a batch cooking and baking day.

I took a 500g pack of beef steak mince out of the freezer last night, along with 8 Cumberland sausages.  I shall make enough batter for 2 large Yorkshire puds, and several small ones to freeze.  We'll have 2 sausages each with a load of veg and gravy in the large Yorkies for dinner tonight, the other 4 sausages will be cooked and frozen, we'll probably have a sausage sandwich at the weekend.

Using 200g of the mince, I'm going to make a big pot of beef and veg soup, I'll add pearl barley to bulk it out and flavour it with Marmite and herbs.  I estimate it'll make about 8 portions, we'll have some for dinner tomorrow night (I'll make dumplings to go in it) and the rest will be frozen, having dumplings or mash with it each time, to make it filling enough for dinner rather than a lunch soup.

With the other 300g mince, I'll make chilli, using both kidney and baked beans to stretch it, plus plenty of finely chopped carrot and onion.  I chop them up using my food processor, my arthritic knuckles don't like lots of chopping nowadays.  It'll be portioned up and frozen, probably 3, possibly 4 meals for the two of us, to be served with brown rice or a jacket potato and a green veg.

Husband wants some cake, so I'll make a light fruit cake, or maybe an apple cake.....we have apples to use up fairly quickly.  Our homegrown apples this year are not storing well at all, they're going soft and brown very rapidly, I wonder if it's because we've had so much rain this year?

If I have time, I'll have to process more of the remaining apples to freeze, I don't really want to have to chuck them away.

Tasteless GF rolls and roasting veg for soup

Last week when we were away on hols, I decided to try some GF rolls, I had 2 different ones, both seeded.....2 Genius and 2 Morrisons own make.  I didn't like either of them much.....well, it wasn't that I didn't like them, more that they were so unmemorable that they were a waste of time.  Both of them were too soft with no bite, not chewy at all, almost a melt in the mouth consistency.  And no taste - if it wasn't for the seeds in them, there would literally be zero taste.  Of course, they're more expensive than non-GF bread as well, in my opinion definitely a waste of money and I won't be bothering with them again.

I only bought them to give GF bread a try because of all my gut issues, and the irony is I still had gut ache after eating them on one occasion, although that could have been the filling, of course (can't remember what, off hand).

Today for dinner I'm going to do pork loin steaks roasted with sliced apple and a drizzle of honey and grainy mustard.  I'll do a big tray of roasted root veggies to go with it - carrots, parsnips, swede, red onion and one of our homegrown butternut squashes, sprinkled with paprika and sage.  The remainder of the roasted veg (there'll be loads left over) I will add to stock and whizz up to make soup for lunch tomorrow.  Roasting the veg first makes a lovely tasting soup.

Starting cooking again and a great bargain

I'm still having stomach issues, with virtually everything I eat.  Have been having plain simply cooked meat, fish and veg, no spicy stuff, low carbs, higher carbs (a little pasta or brown rice), little or no wheat or gluten, high fibre, low fibre, cutting down on dairy....it's all the same result.  Although sometimes I can eat something one day and it will be absolutely fine, yet if I eat the same thing the next day I'll have terrible gut trouble.  No rhyme or reason to it and it's very frustrating.  Hence why I've still not been posting any meals.....not much one can say about plain poached chicken with green veg and a little brown rice!  I'm now feeling that since it doesn't seem to matter what I eat, I may as well eat whatever I want.  So I might start showing an interest in cooking again.

A few weeks ago my stand mixer gave up the ghost....it had given good service, I'd had it for several years and used it weekly mainly for mixing and kneading bread dough.  I've been on the lookout for a vintage Kenwood Chef and finally found one on our local neighbourhood buying and selling site.  A 901 model (from 1976), in full working order, with all tools including mincing attachment, plus the coffee grinder attachment that was still in the box and had never been used!  All for the princely sum of.....£20.  The lady (it had belonged to her mother who had recently died) said she was open to offers.....I was more than happy to just give her the £20, which she was donating to Children in Need anyway.  So now I can get back to breadmaking....my own semi-sourdough bread doesn't upset my stomach nearly as much as commercial bread, but I find it very difficult doing the kneading by hand as I have weak wrists and arthritic knuckles.  So I'm calling this a 60th birthday present to myself 😁

Apologies for lack of foodie posts

Sorry I haven't made any food posts for a long time.  I'm having terrible gut problems, virtually everything I eat upsets my stomach now, it's not limited to gluten or carbs or dairy.  Consequently, we're just having plain and simple meals, mainly chicken or fish and brown rice and veg, no fancy cooking or sauces or spices.  So there's nothing interesting to write about.

Eating isn't much of a pleasure now, as I know I'll most likely have the runs and be doubled up in pain shortly after.

Roll on next month when I go to hospital for scans!

Buying potatoes and onions in bulk

Gemma's Person, we haven't tried the pickled green toms yet, I'm waiting a few more days before we do.  We'll have them with cheese or ham as a Ploughmans (that's a cold plate of cheese or cold meats with pickles, salad and crusty bread, a popular pub lunch in this country) or in a cheese sandwich.

We went to a farmers market this morning.....we have been before, but a long time ago.  I was hoping to get a half sack (12.5kg) of maincrop potatoes and a sack (10kg or so) of onions.  We've given up trying to grow maincrop spuds, in our soil they get badly eaten by eelworm and slugs so it's just not worth it really.  The onions we started off this year all bolted and went to seed, we lost virtually all of them.  The market had only pickling onions, no big ones in sacks.  They had potatoes, but only in full 25kg sacks, too many for us, we'd never get through them all before they went off.  And the stallholder wanted £9 a bag!  We did get some nice cheeses though, a 350g block of extra mature Cheddar, another the same size of Double Gloucester with chives, and 450g of Jarlsberg, all three for £5 - bargain.

Across the road from the farmers market is a family run plant nursery which has been there for years, we often buy plants there, they're good quality and very cheap.  They also have a small shop selling fruit and veg, so we decided to have a look in there.  Success - exactly the same variety of potatoes as the market, but only £6.50 for a full sack, or £3 for a half sack.  They also had 25kg sacks of onions but were more than happy to split a bag and sell us 10kg of them, which was kind of them.

Harvesting the veg and fruit

We've harvested a lot of our remaining produce now, it's in boxes in the utility room.  We asked in the supermarket if we could have some of their fruit and veg boxes, they were happy to let us have several.  Although it's still been sunny the past few days, and is forecast to be so at least today and tomorrow, the evenings and nights are distinctly cooler and the plants don't like it.  So I now have several boxes full of dessert and cooking apples, tomatoes - mostly green but some rapidly turning red, French beans, courgettes and butternut squashes to deal with.

The squashes will be fine, they last for weeks, months even, we grow them every year and they last pretty much through the winter in the cool utility room.

I've done another large jar of the pickled green tomatoes, in a few days I'll do a 3rd, so we can eat them in date order.  We haven't opened the first jar yet, but will do probably next week.  

The apples which are bruised or damaged I'm either peeling, chopping and freezing as is, or making apple sauce for the freezer.  Yesterday I did a slow cooker full of spiced apple butter.  We had some with thick cream last night, delicious, you don't need much as it tastes so rich.  I shall be using some to fill a sponge cake tomorrow (we're having guests round), the rest will be put in jars - one in the fridge and the others frozen.  

The French beans we'd left to grow big, deliberately - no use for eating whole, but I'm going to pod them all and cook the beans on their own.  There aren't loads but certainly enough to give us 2 or 3 meals.

The courgettes have slowed down considerably the past couple of weeks, so we only have about a dozen left, they'll be eaten over the next week.  We'll be harvesting the last bag of our new potatoes today too.  We still have plenty of carrots in the ground, tomatoes in the polytunnel (we picked all the outside ones), a few baby corn cobs, and lots of leeks which will see us through winter.

After our very wet and cold Spring and all our veg being started off very late, we didn't expect to have such a good harvest, it's been pretty magnificent actually, which we're so pleased about.

Pickled green tomatoes, bacon moussaka

I was googling this morning looking for things to do with green tomatoes, of which we have loads.  I don't particularly want to make chutney as we don't eat much of it nowadays, and I still have several jars in the pantry cupboard from 1, 2 or even 3 years ago.  And sorry to American friends, but I'm not very keen on fried green tomatoes.  Or even fried red ones, come to that.  Well, I came across several recipes for pickled green tomatoes - simply sliced or quartered tomatoes preserved in a briny spiced vinegar, just like pickled onions or gherkins.  What a brilliant idea, they'd be lovely with cheese for a Ploughmans, or in a salad or sandwich.

So that's what I've done this morning.  Washed and thickly sliced a load of tomatoes and packed them into a large sterilised jar (an empty gherkin jar).  Used 2 cups white vinegar and 1 cup of water, heated in a saucepan to dissolve 4 tsp sugar, 3 tsp salt, 2 tsp black peppercorns, 1 each of yellow mustard seeds and black onion seeds.  Poured over the tomatoes right to the top of the jar, stretched over a cellophane cover and screwed on the lid.

Apparently they lose their bright green colour, but remain crisp, which is good.  They're ready after about a week and keep well in the fridge for up to 6 weeks, so I've read.  I guess you could add chillies or herbs to the pickling liquid, and put sliced onions in as well if you wanted.  I'm looking forward to trying them with cheese....I like pickled gherkins but not onions, they disagree with me.

I'm doing a sort of moussaka for dinner tonight, but using diced bacon instead of lamb - as I have no lamb but do have bacon cubes in the freezer.  On which note, must go and slice/grill the aubergine.  

Quiche and spicy wedges

Thank you Joy and TA.  In answer to your question about the beets, TA - no I don't peel them first when I roast them.  I simply scrub then top and tail them, cut into quarters if small, or eighths for bigger ones, drizzle with oil and roast for about 40 mins or so, until done.  I shake them about or give them a stir to turn them over once or twice during cooking.  They're delicious hot or cold.

Lunch today will be mashed avocado and poached egg.  I stir a little Philly-type cream cheese and a sprinkle of smoked paprika into the avocado, along with a splash of lime juice.  Husband will have his on toast, no toast for me, our own fresh tomatoes (thankfully now ripening fairly quickly) sliced on the side.

For dinner I'm doing quiche with roasted spicy wedges and coleslaw.  Pretty traditional quiche Lorraine with cubed bacon, mushrooms and lots of cheese (we like it very cheesy).  The wedges are our own homegrown new potatoes, scrubbed and quartered, tossed with olive oil and that season all spice mix.  The coleslaw will be homemade - white cabbage with our own carrots and yellow courgette grated, dressing of mixed mayo, Greek yogurt and grainy mustard.  Husband wants a pud, so it'll be stewed apples as we have plenty of our own now, with yogurt.

Beetroot & feta salad, chicken risotto, baby corn

Husband cooked Sunday lunch, he did well, roast chicken with roasted carrots and beetroot, new potatoes and broccoli.  The carrots and new potatoes were our own homegrown.  

We had roasted beetroot wedges left over, so we had them for lunch today in a salad.  I mixed them with halved cherry toms, cucumber, crumbled feta and walnuts, on a bed of watercress.  I made a dressing of mayo mixed with Greek yogurt and horseradish, it was lovely.

Plenty of roast chicken left, so for dinner I chopped some up and fried it with a little bit of bacon, shallot, yellow courgettes, sliced baby corn (all the veggies from our garden).  Mixed in one of those fancy rice packets (brown rice, quinoa, pumpkin & sunflower seeds) and some pesto sauce, with a blob of Philly-type cream cheese, and a splash of water to loosen it.  Delicious.

With the remaining chicken I'll make a curry tomorrow.

The baby corn we've grown for the first time this year (I say we, I just chose them at the start of the year, husband does the growing) and it's really nice, we only grew a dozen plants as an experiment.  We've had 3 meals from them so far, with at least another couple to come.  We'll definitely grow them again next year, they're a keeper.

Tomato & bean soup and a spice mix

TA - Eloise's suggestions are good, I've used couscous in peppers, and those packets of flavoured couscous/grains/rice you can get nowadays are very nice.  Or what about mashed cauli or broccoli with cheese and bacon?

Joy - no I didn't defrost the sprouts first before roasting them.  They were fine - not brilliant but perfectly edible, and certainly much nicer than boiling.  

It's definitely turning into soup weather now, so that's what we're having for lunch today, I'm making a tomato and bean soup which I've made loads of times before, it's cheap, quick but very tasty.

Chop and soften an onion in a little oil in a large saucepan.  Add 2 tins of chopped tomatoes and a tin of baked beans.....you could use any canned beans, actually, rinsed of the salty goo.  Add a big squirt of tomato puree and a splash of balsamic vinegar or Worcestershire sauce, to give depth of flavour.  Sprinkle in herbs of choice - I've used basil and coriander, and half a teaspoon of smoked paprika.  Cook for about 10 mins.  Leave to cool a bit, then whizz up with a stick blender.  Reheat gently and serve with a swirl of cream or a dollop of Philly-type cheese or a sprinkle of grated Cheddar.

I often use SeasonAll on mixed roasted veggies or roast potatoes or in mince or pasta dishes....anything really.  For overseas readers, it's a little jar of mixed spice and herbs, a kind of multi-purpose seasoning.  It's a bit pricy for the size of the jar, averaging around £1.  Anyway, a few weeks ago I found a huge plastic jar of a similar thing in Lidl:-

It's a kilo in weight (about 20x the size of the little jars I normally buy), I can't remember how much it cost but I know it was really economical, because I remarked on it to husband and bought it.  Well, after using a couple of teaspoonsful of it a couple of times, I discovered why it was so cheap....everything tasted incredibly salty and a bit sweet.  On looking at the label, I saw the first ingredient is salt....59% of it!  Closely followed by sugar, 15%, and then assorted herbs and spices in unspecified amounts, as well as a few chemicals or e-numbers.  Not so good then - that'll teach me not to read the label before buying.

Well, I didn't really want to chuck it, so had an idea to make it better.  I did throw away about a third of it - goes against the grain but we can't use it in its present state.  I bought 2 supermarket value pots of mixed herbs and smoked paprika, decanted the remaining 2/3 of the spice mix into a large bowl and added the herbs and paprika.  I also added some opened stuff I had in the cupboard - some onion granules, some parsley and half a pot of sumac (I'm not keen on the taste of that by itself).  Mixed the whole lot together and then added it back into the jar.  It tastes a lot better now, and will last us a long time....provided the flavours don't fade, I do keep it in a dark cupboard and not on the worktop in the light.

Stuffed peppers

My stomach is gradually settling down, with the sensible good food we're eating.  

Tuesday I did stuffed peppers.  I fried a chopped shallot and some chopped chorizo until the fat ran, then added a few diced mushrooms and a couple of snipped sundried tomatoes.  Stirred it into cooked brown rice, with a tablespoon of corn kernels and a handful of grated Cheddar, then stuffed two red peppers which I'd cut in half and deseeded and quickly softened for a couple of minutes in the microwave.  We had them with frozen Brussels sprouts, which I roasted in the oven as an experiment, as the oven was on for the peppers.  We really like fresh Brussels roasted, so I wondered what frozen ones would be like done the same way....they were ok, not as nice as fresh obviously, but better than boiling them, frozen boiled sprouts are just mushy and tasteless.  I drizzled them with oil and sprinkled with SeasonAll before roasting.

Yesterday we had chicken stirfry - just sliced chicken breast with lots of veg - carrot, cabbage, red onion, peppers, mushrooms, beansprouts, with soy sauce and some powdered ginger....I completely forgot I've got lots of fresh ginger root in the freezer, never mind, I'll remember next time.

Today we're having fish....I'd bought a pack of 4 frozen salmon fillets - well, they're not very nice, not a patch on fresh.  So the remaining 2 I'm going to cut up and cook in a fresh tartar sauce (bought and frozen last week, reduced to 20p), along with a small piece of fresh haddock I bought yesterday that had been reduced to £1.  We'll have it with our homegrown baby corn cobs, French beans and courgettes.

A healthy picnic

Thanks for your comments, the monster butternut squash will ripen over the next couple of weeks on the sunny windowsill.  We always grow these squashes every year, and towards the end of the season each year we have several which clearly won't ripen on the plants, due to the lack of prolonged sunshine and shortening days.  So we pick them all and put them in the utility room, leaving a couple of inches of stem otherwise they start to rot, they ripen up in due course.  Husband brought a smaller unripe one in 2 or 3 weeks ago, another one he'd accidentally knocked off (he's very clumsy, unfortunately), that's now ripened and we'll be eating it this week.

We need some time out so will be going to our favourite beach for a walk and a picnic lunch today, to make the most of a lovely day before the forecast not so good weather later in the week.  A couple of weeks ago I made some cheese & bacon topped bruschetta, using a ciabatta loaf that I bought reduced to pennies, I froze all the slices.  I'll take some of those (I'll have just 1 or 2) along with a tub of carrot, cucumber and sweet pepper sticks, some cooked chicken and a little pot of mayo for dipping.  We'll have one of our homegrown apples for dessert, and a flask of coffee.  Hopefully, most of the holidaymakers will have gone home, so the beach should be back to the usual calm and peaceful state.

A monster butternut squash

Huh, typed a post complete with photos and it suddenly completely vanished before I'd finished it!  No doubt I did something by mistake.

Anyway, husband brought in a massive butternut squash yesterday, it wasn't ripe but he'd accidentally snapped it off so had to bring it in, it's on a sunny windowsill.  It's the biggest one I've ever seen....the orange (a normal size orange, not a satsuma) is there for comparison purposes, it dwarfs our kettle:-

And here it is being weighed:-

The display on my scales is a bit faint, but it shows a weight of 4.27kg or 9lbs 6oz!  How I'm going to cook the monster yet I haven't decided, but it will certainly do us for several meals.  We like it cubed and simply roasted with smoked paprika, or in a risotto with bacon and sage.  There's soup, of course, we especially like it with blue cheese in, or a curried version.  And oh yes, butternut squash curry is delicious.  Or I just boil and mash it sometimes, with some herbs, as an alternative cottage/fish pie topping.

And we have loads more of these squashes to come yet, a few of which will be just as big.  It's a good job they store well, they'll keep us going all through winter.

Beans?

As I mentioned in my previous post, we're being inundated with some of our veggies.....French beans in particular.  They're growing almost faster than we can pick them, and because some of them get hidden by the masses of leaves (husband planted them quite close together), some are huge and thick by the time we spot them.  Well, they're not very nice to eat by that time, the pods get stringy and tough.  So I'm wondering whether I can pod them and just cook and eat the beans.  I don't see why not, after all, all kinds of beans in tins started off in pods!  I'll give it a go in the next few days.**

We didn't think we'd get much of a good harvest of anything this year, it was such a disastrous start to the growing year as it was so wet, windy and cold in Spring.  Lots of our first sowings of veg seeds failed, even some of the second sowings, and quite a few seedlings we bought to try and catch up died off too.  But pretty much everything has not only caught up, but done extremely well.  Oh, except for the strawberries and blueberries, we didn't get as many of either of those this year, although the blackcurrants and raspberries have done well.  We're going to pick most of our apples (eating apple Fiesta, cooking apple Bountiful) this weekend, even if not quite ready - they're being decimated by wasps and I don't want to lose all of them.

Husband wanted southern fried chicken and chips tonight, I've been trying to avoid too many carbs this week for gut reasons so it will be interesting to see if the chicken coating and the chips have any adverse effects on me.  I'll just have a few chips (I will eat the chicken coating, it's the best bit!) and will make coleslaw to have with it.  We had a very thin base pizza last night, spinach and ricotta with sun dried tomatoes, I had about a third of the medium size pizza and left the crusts, to reduce the carbs, we had it with lots of salad.  No gut trouble, thankfully.

**EDIT  I've googled and found that yes you can eat the podded beans, but they should be boiled rapidly first (rather like dried kidney beans), as when older and bigger they contain a chemical that could give you stomach upset.  A recommendation was that you just pod and freeze the beans raw, then boil them for 10 mins from frozen, then cook a bit longer until soft.

Almost too much garden produce to deal with

We have garden produce coming thick and fast now, needing harvesting every day - loads and loads of French beans, both green and purple (why do they turn green when cooked?), 3 types of courgettes, carrots, salad leaves, cucumbers, baby corn.  There are still 4 bags of new potatoes left to dig up, and masses of tomatoes but they're still green.  Late summer/autumn raspberries, and the eating and cooking apples are ready too, the pears will soon be ripe.  Our butternut squashes have done incredibly well this year.....not quite ripe yet, but there are masses of them, enough to last through the winter, and some of them are absolutely huge, one will easily do us for 4 meals I should think.  It's great having all this produce, and saves us a lot of money, but it's a lot of work at this time of year....every day I'm having to process all this stuff, and there are times when I groan when husband comes in from the garden with yet another trugful.  I shouldn't moan really, I'd be a bit annoyed if we didn't have it all.

I've found that slicing and lightly frying the courgettes in olive oil, then spreading them out on parchment lined baking trays before boxing up is the best way to freeze them.  Carrots I chop up in my processor, I don't bother blanching them before freezing in plastic boxes, they're fine to defrost and use as they are in stews or mince.  The French beans I do blanch first, one year I tried not blanching them before freezing but they didn't taste very good when defrosted and cooked.

This is the first year we've grown baby corn....funnily enough Sue in Suffolk mentioned them this morning, a first time for her too, she said hers are ready and in fact possibly a bit too big.  Thanks Sue, I told husband to have a look at ours and he confirmed they're ready, he brought a load in so we'll be having them in a pork stir fry tomorrow.

We're having salads for lunch most days, I grate raw courgette and carrot to have as well, we had tuna with a sprinkle of grated Cheddar today.  For dinner we've just had Asian pork burgers (a bargain 50p for the two, reduced late in the afternoon when I went shopping the other day), with our own new potatoes and French beans and coleslaw made with our own carrots and chives with a bought cabbage.  Husband followed his with a slice of Somerset apple cake made with our own apples - I'm cutting down on carbs so resisted the temptation.

Rice salad, date & walnut cake, Panzanella

Yesterday I made a nice rice salad to take out with us for a picnic.  I used one of those microwaveable packets that most of the supermarkets do now, I like them because they're measured portions and now come in so many different combinations and flavours.  The one I used yesterday was wholegrain basmati rice with quinoa, pumpkin and sunflower seeds, really nice.  I grilled 2 back bacon rashers until crisp, then snipped them into the rice.  I chopped some tomatoes (sadly shop bought, our own aren't ready yet), homegrown cucumber and radishes and added all those, along with some sweetcorn.  Made a quick balsamic and oil dressing and mixed in.  Packed into 2 lidded bowls in our little lunch coolbag, with 2 slices of homemade date & walnut cake and a flask of coffee, it was a lovely lunch eaten at our favourite beach.

The cake was a simple quick one - I just basically made a Victoria sandwich mix, using half white/half wholemeal flour and an extra tablespoon of flour, to give the mix a bit more strength to hold the dates and nuts so they wouldn't sink to the bottom.  I used Demerara sugar and less of it than is usual for a sponge mix.  I always use about a third less sugar than is called for - you really can't notice the difference in taste, and husband has certainly never mentioned it.  

Today's lunch salad is going to be Panzanella, as I found some ends of sourdough bread in the freezer which need using up.  Again it won't be our own homegrown tomatoes, but I managed to get some nice British vine tomatoes reduced to half price yesterday.  There's a red pepper going soft in the fridge to be used up too, and I'll thickly slice one of our homegrown ridge cucumbers.  I'll make a balsamic and oil dressing and whisk in a spoonful of green pesto.  Think I've got some salami in the freezer, so will get that out to have with it.

Salmon fillets with our own new potatoes and salad for dinner.

Back to salads

We've been having too many carby things for breakfasts and lunches recently, getting into bad habits again, so we need to break that habit.

At the family wedding we went to last week, the food was gorgeous....a hog roast - enormous heated tray full of delicious pulled pork and stuffing, apple sauce on the side, rolls, new potatoes, and 4 kinds of salads, including Greek, a pasta salad, a simple garden salad and one with avocado and orange.  Eating them made me realise how much I've missed having salads for lunches (there's something I never thought I'd ever say!).  And I do love smashed avocado with a poached egg on sourdough for breakfast, and that's better for me than cereal of any kind. 

There's no excuse for not having salads really, we have plenty of veg suitable for salads in the garden now.  I guess it's down to laziness and convenience - so easy to just have cheese or beans on toast, or a sandwich.  

One simple lunch we have had a couple of times in the past couple of weeks, and it's delicious.  Fresh picked courgettes (we're growing 3 different kinds, yellow, plain green and striped green), sliced and gently fried in olive oil with plenty of black pepper, served on toasted sourdough with a sprinkle of grated mature Cheddar.

Need to go shopping tomorrow, the fridge is looking bare, so I'll do a freezer inventory and meal plan today.

Tonight we're having fish pie - a previously made and frozen one, it's topped with sweet potato mash.  We'll have it with homegrown French beans and courgettes.

Lidl bargain cheddar

TA, I'm glad your quiche turned out to be excellent....as for cheese, we can never have too much cheese in/on something ;-)

My fan oven also has hot spots!  Ridiculous, isn't it.  

Eloise, keeping food shop money in a separate purse is such a good idea, isn't it - I shall try to always do it from now on.  

For those who have a Lidl nearby - you may know that every weekend they have a couple of items on very good special offers.  Some offers are brilliant, others aren't things that I would normally buy so of course I don't get them then - it's only a bargain if it's something I would use anyway.  This weekend they have a fabulous offer - extra mature Cheddar in 830g blocks, on offer at £2.39.  That works out at £2.88 a kilo! (it said so on their website, I'm not a maths wizard lol).  We had a few things to get in town this morning, so popped into Lidl and got 4 blocks of cheese....so under a tenner for nearly 3 1/2 kilos of extra mature Cheddar, fantastic saving.  I shall grate it all and put it in plastic tubs in the freezer.

For TA - crustless quiche

For my lovely TA - I make a crustless quiche quite often, although the ones I make are quite a bit bigger than what you're planning to do....we generally have half of it warm (not hot!) on the day I cook it, with the other half at room temperature for lunch the next day.  I usually use about 6 eggs and cook it at 160-170 (mine is also a fan oven) for around 30-40 mins.  The actual time depends on the other filling ingredients and the depth of the dish I'm using...eg, raw meat like chicken or sausage, or raw vegetables, I would cook for longer.  Pre-cooked filling ingredients or a shallow dish would require only about 25-30 mins.

For your quiche, I would suggest 160 deg for 20 mins.....or until the surface is lightly golden brown and looks/feels firm.

To be honest, I rarely go by times for most types of oven baking....I just do things until they're done - checking by eye and feel.  If I can smell the food from another room, that's generally a good indication of doneness too.

Hope this helps, dear lady! xx 

Cheese & tomato salad, smoked cod

It's been over a month since I last posted here, too much going on means all too often healthy eating goes out the window, replaced by comfort eating.  And then I have gut issues and aching joints and realise I must get back to making us proper healthy meals.  With all that's going on in our lives right now, food is pretty much the only thing I have control over.

Finances are tight, as always since last year, so I've decided to have a low spend August, I've taken a sum out of the bank for food shopping and put it in a separate purse, and that will be all I can spend for August.  It's not a vast amount, but will be doable because we have a well-stocked freezer and larder, and plenty of veg and fruit in the garden.  Shame we don't have a cow, pig, couple of sheep and some chickens, along with a river full of salmon, but we can't have everything!  I do have 2 or 3 packs of beef mince, quite a lot of pork and chicken, a bag of salmon fillets and some smoked salmon, about 6 packs of bacon and couple of packs of sausages in the freezer, along with lots of tins of tuna, salmon and mackerel, so meat and fish isn't a problem anyway.

For lunch today we're having mozzarella, feta, tomato and cucumber salad, it's all marinating in a balsamic and olive oil dressing.  The cucumber is homegrown, the tomatoes aren't, ours aren't ready yet.  We'll have homegrown radishes with it, we're growing French Breakfast which are lovely, hot and peppery (wonder why they're called that, I wouldn't particularly want them for breakfast).   Husband will have a slice of his homemade seeded bread, I'm staying off bread for a few days.

Dinner will be smoked cod in a fresh white wine and cream sauce I bought reduced to 15p and froze the other day.  Yesterday I did a big tray of roasted summer vegetables to have with roast pork belly slices, there's half the veg left to go with the cod, along with some freshly podded peas....bought sadly, ours have come to nothing.

A small joint of beef

I'm so glad I did all that pre-cooking and freezing stuff, it's saved me having to have the oven on quite a few times when it's been too warm.

Husband's appetite is very hit and miss right now whilst he's not well - eg. Saturday he came along to neighbour's bbq, ate half a sausage and then went home again.  Sunday morning he did say he fancied roast beef for dinner, so we nipped out to the supermarket and got a small joint.  Having cooked it, with Yorkshires and a tray of Mediterranean roast veggies, he only ate half of what I dished up for him, which was a smaller portion than he'd normally have anyway.  Betty ate the rest of his beef, to her obvious delight.  

Yesterday he'd got his appetite back a bit, we had cold beef with the leftover veggies (roasted Med veggies are equally as nice cold) and mayo with grainy mustard stirred through it.  Again though, it was a smaller portion than he's used to having.

Today I minced up the remaining beef and stir fried it with peppers, onion, asparagus, mushrooms, edamame beans and a small amount of brown rice, with a slosh of Worcestershire sauce and soy sauce.  It was delicious and he ate all of it.

We've been having homemade seeded bread for toast in the mornings, and a few sarnies for lunches - comfort food (it's been a stressful few days) and easy to prepare.  I'm paying for it now though, feeling very bloated and uncomfortable.  So will be laying off the bread and doing very low carb for a week or so.  

I've done a couple of larder stocking up shops and with all the ready prepped meals and veggies in the freezer, along with plenty of milk, cheese and eggs, and fruit from the garden, I shouldn't need to do any more shopping for a couple of weeks.  

Easy meal prep done

Over the past 2 days, with very little effort on my part, I've cooked loads of things for future easy meals.  I was up stupidly early again this morning, so put the oven on and got on with more roasting and cooking.  Husband was up about an hour after me and made a wholegrain loaf.

I've roasted 6 chicken legs, 8 chicken thighs, a huge pizza, 12 high meat content sausages (not all this morning, some were yesterday).  Cooked a large panful of wholewheat pasta and one of brown rice yesterday.  Made a panful of pasta sauce consisting of tinned chopped tomatoes, onions, garlic, mushrooms, courgettes and Italian seasoning this morning.  Put a large pork shoulder joint in the slow cooker, to be shredded when it's done (the rind got cut off and roasted this morning whilst the oven was on, then cut into small crackling cubes).  All to be portioned up and frozen.

Hard boiled 8 eggs (they last for a week in the fridge).  Made a bowlful of bulgur wheat with herbs, spices and lemon zest and put in fridge.  Chopped a load of carrots, cucumber and peppers and put them in lidded plastic boxes in the fridge, to go with Greek yogurt-based dips.  All I have to do now is chop up and roast a large trayful of Mediterranean veg to freeze.

Enough food for a couple of weeks' worth of lunches and dinners, and it was ridiculously easy, mostly just bunging things in the oven or in a pan on the stove.  Why didn't I think of it before?!

A weekend of cooking to provide future easy meals

We've had a lot going on in our lives recently, as well as my chronic tiredness, and one of the things I've been finding hard is cooking a meal from scratch every day.  Sometimes, even trying to think of what to have for lunch or dinner, if I haven't made a meal plan, is just so difficult when my brain is so foggy I can barely remember my own name.  We've very nearly run out of homecooked and frozen ready meals, so I need to get on and do some more.  

I've decided to do things slightly differently, just to make things even easier for myself for a while.  

The first thing I've done is an online shop, so we don't have to physically go and do it this week or next.  I've ordered a pork shoulder joint, for pulled pork in the slow cooker, a large pack of chicken thighs, couple of packs of high meat content sausages - all of these I'm going to cook over the weekend and then freeze them in portions.  I shall also roast a large tray of Mediterranean veg, make a load of tomato based pasta sauce and cook a panful each of wholewheat pasta and brown rice, all to be portioned up and frozen.  So that way I know that if (well, more likely to be when) I get up in the morning feeling like I really can't cook anything that day, or we're going to be out on hospital appointments, which can take several hours, I can just take some ready cooked meat, sauce, veg and carb out of the freezer ready to throw together later in the day.  

I'll hard boil some eggs and put in the fridge, we have plenty of tinned tuna and salmon and I've ordered ham, salad, coleslaw etc, so we'll have lots of options for lunches.  Breakfasts are easy, either toasted German rye bread, eggs cooked whichever way, or Greek yogurt and our own homegrown fruit - we have plenty of strawberries, raspberries and blackcurrants now.  So that should make life a bit easier, but still eating healthily. 

How I learnt to cook

Thank you for your kind words about my cooking.  It's funny, cooking (and certainly the varied type of healthy cooking I do nowadays) is a relatively new thing for me.

I didn't cook at home, nor did Mum ever really show us how to cook - she didn't like us in her kitchen when she was busy (nor do I, obviously get it from her).  When I lived in a bedsit before I met the husband, I rarely cooked there either - there was a McD's and a lovely bakery that did hot sausage rolls and breakfast baps right opposite the office I worked in.  So we had bacon & egg baps for breakfast (we took it in turns to do the breakfast run), a Mcdonalds for lunch, and a takeaway on the way home after coming out of the pub.  Not a vegetable in sight!  Unless you count the chips, or the bit of gherkin in the burger, or the lettuce and tomato in the kebab, which I generally binned anyway 😂

In our 20s and 30s, when husband and I were both working full time and leading very busy lives, we often had takeaways, or ready meals to 'cook' at home, or ate out in the pub at weekends.  Again, I hardly ever ate much veg, or actually cooked anything from scratch.  It wasn't until I started working part time, in my mid 40s, that I began to take an interest in cooking from scratch, and even baking bread.  

So cooking, proper cooking, is something I've only been doing for around 14 or 15 years.  As to where my ideas for creating meals, putting ingredients together, and looking at the contents of my larder and fridge/freezer and making a meal from what I've got come from - well, I can only say I read a lot and have always had an active imagination!  And I like experimenting 😀

Lunch salads

The cottage pie was delicious, putting bbq sauce in it as I'd got it out of the freezer thinking it was homemade tomato sauce made such a difference to the taste.  We had the pie 2 days running.  

We've settled into a routine of having some sort of salad for lunch every day....although the last couple of days it's been more like hot soup weather.  I refuse to make soup at this time of year though - I mean, it'll be midsummer's day soon!

Yesterday we had avocado, egg and ham salad.  Husband's not keen on avocado as is, although he does quite like it mashed with a blob of mayo and some smoked paprika, he especially likes it with an egg poached or boiled.  I love avocado any which way.  So I mashed it with a couple of smashed hardboiled eggs, mayo, a splash of lemon juice and the paprika.  Served on a slice of baked ham with a mixed salad on the side.  Yum.

For dinner I softened some sliced spring onions, courgettes, a small chopped aubergine and mushrooms in olive oil, with a roasted garlic clove (I roast a whole head of garlic in foil, so the cloves turn into a milder-tasting puree) - again, husband doesn't really like the taste of 'raw' garlic, he finds it too harsh.  When softened, I added a can of rinsed butterbeans, a pack of smoked salmon pieces and lots of black pepper.  Finally, I stirred through a large spoonful of Philly type cheese (Lidl's own version) to make a creamy sauce.  Delicious.

Today's lunch salad is homemade coleslaw (Savoy cabbage, which I much prefer to ordinary white, carrot, spring onion and half an orange pepper, all chopped up in the processor) with cubed Halloumi cheese.  A dressing made of half mayo, half Greek yogurt with a spoonful of Dijon mustard.  We'll have it with a couple of oatcakes.

Dinner tonight is spaghetti bolognaise, with a sprinkle of grated mature Cheddar and broccoli on the side.

On the subject of grated cheese....last week we bought a new grater, I'd had my old one for years and thought it was a bit blunt.  Well, it definitely was - the new one is super sharp and I grate my knuckles on it every single time I use it!

And more on salads - we love roasted Mediterranean veggies cold for lunch, with a blob of lemon mayo or a balsamic dressing.  Especially nice with some shredded leftover chicken.  Whenever I do roasted veggies for dinner, I always do enough to have for lunch the next day as well.  We really like roasted butternut squash, sweet potato, aubergine, courgette, mushrooms, red onion and red pepper.