Bread and burgers

I didn't make it out for a walk yesterday and although it got very late today, I did manage to finally leave my apartment and get moving for a while. One thing I did accomplish yesterday, however, was to make the 30-minute bread rolls I read about last year on mortgagefreeinthree. Wasn't planned for yesterday really but since I hadn't managed to go out and really fancied having some bread...

Actually, when I was binge-reading the MFin3 archives last summer I ended up ordering some strong flour and some yeast online so I had everything on hand and it was time to see if the 30 minutes was realistic or not. Excuse the not-great photos - it was nearly dark outside when I was doing this. Also, need to replace one bulb in the kitchen, really should remember to do that some time.

This much took just over five minute. Boiled the kettle to get hot water then mixed half boiled water with half cold water to get the tepid temp which is needed for the yeast (excellent tip from an old Mary Berry book I have). So, flour measured and salt added to it. Yeast, sugar and water mixed in jug. Oil and egg mixed. That jug is way too small though - as soon as I'd taken the photo, I had to tip it into a bigger bowl.

After waiting the ten minutes for the yeast to activate I mixed it all up. It felt like it was going to be a far too dry mixture and I had started wondering if I'd measured the flour wrong or somehow landed on a particularly small egg before the dough actually came together. Still only took a couple of minutes though. And then I kneaded for nearly five minutes ('cos, you know, that part's fun).

And then I cut the dough into six pieces and formed rolls. And realised I should have been cutting it into twelve so had to divide each giant roll again.

 There they are. I only dusted a few of them with flour as I'm not much of a fan of that. They did turn out slightly better than the non-dusted ones, though, so perhaps next time I'll make sure to have sesame seeds on hand, which might be nice. I left them to rise for five minutes while I did the washing up, as suggested and then started on the prep for making bean burgers. They did bake in ten minutes in my oven although I need to remember that it only take my oven ten minutes to heat to the right temperature so don't really need to turn it on until I've made the dough next time.

As fast and easy as promised. And they're tasty enough, too. I'll probably adjust to make these mostly wholemeal next time round. But that won't be for a while.

I ate these for my late lunch and also for dinner yesterday and kept a couple for today (had them toasted) and tomorrow but the rest have been sliced in half and put in the freezer.

Which I thought was very restrained of me. It's probably not a bad thing that I was in the middle of cooking the burgers as it meant they had cooled down by the time I got to eating my first two rolls. So the butter only melted a little bit. Hmmm, melty butter on hot bread.

Freezer is nearly full again now. 12 burgers gone in, as well as the 5 remaining bread rolls. I'm thinking the two combined would work very well. Next time I try these rolls I might make more from the quanity of dough, as they're quite substantial, perhaps 15 instead of 12 or something like that.


And that was that. Not my most productive day ever but baking bread made it feel like I really accomplished something. :)

Food Waste Friday - 29 April 2011 and days 3 and 4 of holiday

I do have some waste this week but mostly as a result of finally admitting that a couple of things that were in the fridge were never going to be used and just biting the bullet and getting rid of them.  Pure waste.

A small amount of wild garlic cream cheese.  Why did I not just eat this with some of the soda bread I made last week?  No idea.  I had to get rid of some of that bread as well as it went inexplicably rock hard within a couple of days - gone to the ducks in the park so at least not a complete waste.

The olives and gherkins have been there since, I think, the end of January.  I brought the jar to a friend's house for a potluck dinner and she insisted I take the remainder home with me.  I sort of assumed I'd drag them out the next time I had someone over for dinner but haven't had anyone here since then.  Although I like olives a lot I really can't stand anything from the gherkin/cucumber family and the olives in that jar have a gherkin taste so that means I have no interest in eating them.  If I was starving I would.  But I'm not.  So I won't.

And finally a small carton of sour cream.  Which I bought for a specific recipe that never got made.  The expiry date was from the end of February so although it's sealed and it's sour cream (which the internet tells me can stay usable for baking well past the expiry date if it's unopened) I've gotten rid of it.  I'm not likely to do anything with it in the next few weeks so will err on the better safe than sorry side.

Food Waste Friday is hosted by The Frugal Girl

Other than clearing stuff out of the fridge I've done a few bits and pieces around the house.  Yesterday I scrubbed the bathroom from top to bottom, kept up on the washing and the washing up and otherwise read a lot and went for my groupon neck massage and pedicure then watched a very silly film in the evening.  Today I woke up ravenous so the idea of spending an hour doing housework before breakfast did not appeal at all.   I ate breakfast and read for an hour then tidied up the fridge, did the washing up and swept and washed the floors.  Along with more washing, folding away the dried stuff and hanging up more to dry. 

The friend who lived with me last year for a few months left some stuff here, among other things clothes and bedclothes.  All of which, although clean, still had the damp musty smell from his old flat in them.  So I washed a few just after he left and then forgot about them.  But I wanted to start using that wardrobe properly so it needs a good cleanout and I finally got the last of the stuff washed today.  I think I've done two washes every day this week to get through it all but as the weather has been warm, it's drying quickly so that's good.  I'm packing it away into a suitcase as it drys - have no patience with him taking up my usable space anymore but since I can't afford to hire a car and drive the six hours or so to where he lives, I'm just going to pack it away and let it sit out of sight until someone else is visiting him. 

After a nice lunch of bread and cheese with some chutney, I read for another while, waiting for three o'clock to roll around so that I could put the washing machine on again (not supposed to run it or do anything else noisy during half-twelve and three).  I also phoned a few recruitment agencies to start getting a move on in that respect.  Have to email them my CV and references and we'll see where it goes from there.

And then I started sorting a few things out in the sitting room as I wanted to put away the rest of my bedclothes and they live in the blanket box which also serves as my coffee table.  Rather than just moving the stuff off the top of that onto the couch, which I have to admit I sort of planned to do, I just started sorting through it.  There were receipts and things from the last couple of times I emptied out my purse and instead of just putting them to one side I took out the folders with my bank and credit card statements and actually sorted them properly, attaching them to the relevant statements and even clearing a similar pile from my desk while I was at it. 

That ended up taking far longer than I thought (as it always does) - over two hours.  I also sorted and cleared away all of the choir stuff that has been lying around for a few weeks (I was looking for a particular piece of music and ended up starting to sort years worth of stuff out and then getting sidetracked and just leaving it all in a messy pile on the couch - and the concert I needed it for was in mid-March so it was past time to get rid of all that stuff again). 

So, all of the bedclothes have been put away - I've taken out a lighter sheet to swich over from using the heavier flannel that it's getting too warm for and will change that tomorrow.  Since that meant the big couch was nearly free of mess, I cleared everything else off it too, took off the cream cover (which was only supposed to be temporary while I got the other one cleaned - the one that sat down in the cellar for about a year and a half and only got washed this week) and put back on the newly cleaned red one.  Feels good to have things starting to fall into place again.  I still have two very large piles of papers and stuff to go through but it has been a good start.  I was going to head out to the launderette to get the cream sofa cover cleaned and we had a massive thunder storm with torrential rain.  I think the rain has just about eased off now so I think I'll have dinner and do it after that.  They're open until after ten I think.  Will post photos of my newly cleaned space tomorrow - although it's not raining the clouds are still very dark so I'll wait until sunlight to take pictures.  Oooh, there's some more lightning and the thunder is following it almost immediately.  Might wait until tomorrow to venture out.

Food Waste Friday - the too ashamed to post edition

I had to throw out the inedible cake experiment, bread I just didn't bother eating (this week I ended up working 15, 11, 11 and 12 hour days - all after just being sick, it was too much) as well as most of the lentil stew I made last Monday.  I ate some of it then, some for lunch on Tuesday but forgot to put it into the fridge, didn't even go into the kitchen on Wednesday and by Thursday evening it was already mouldy - yes, the hot and humid weather is here to stay it seems.  I do like winter when the kitchen is nearly as cold as the fridge and you don't need to be worried if you forget to put something away but it can lead to bad habits.  I'm also getting rid of the hazelnuts and walnuts I never did get around to using.  Or probably anyway - they've been there since September/October and I suspect they may be somewhat rancid by now, at least the walnuts.  Oh, and there's about two glasses worth of milk still in the fridge that also need to go but I'm considering using to make something that usually uses buttermilk - need to read up on that a bit more.  After last week's disaster I'm not really feeling up to experimenting but I'm fairly sure I read somewhere along the way that slightly sour milk can be a replacement for buttermilk and I know you can add vinegar to milk to get a good substitute for buttermilk for baking purposes and it would be nice to rescue it.

Food Waste Friday is hosted by the Frugal Girl

Food Waste Friday - 25 March 2011

Will have to add a photo later.  I very nearly managed to have no waste this week but was disgusted yesterday evening to discover that the bread I bought at the weekend and which I was planning on using to make more delicious toast for my supper, was already mouldy.  We've obviously managed to reach temperatures that will make it necessary for me to keep bread in the fridge again if I want to keep it for more than a day.  Particularly annoying as I still had quite a lot left and was plannig on slicing the rest up to go into the freezer for making croutons with sometime.  Sigh.

Will have to wait until tomorrow to post the photo as I'm waiting for batteries to charge for the camera.

Food Waste Friday is hosted by The Frugal Girl

Edited to add photo:

Food Waste Friday - 4 March 2011

It's been a while since I've done a Food Waste Friday post but a couple of months ago I reached a serious level of self-annoyance at still not getting back into the habit of cooking properly on a regular basis and, having gotten rid of a shocking amount of yoghurt and anything else lurking mouldily in the fridge, I gave it a good clean out and declared I wasn't buying anything else until I was sure I was going to be cooking it.

And so I have mostly been eating bread or toast with butter and jam or cereal when I have actually eaten at home.  And I think I'll continue to do the same for a while but slowly introducing the cooking again rather than trying to go at it full tilt when I just don't have the energy or mental capacity at the moment.

Having said all that, I did buy a pumpkin a couple of weeks ago, intending to make soup so that I would have lunches for the entire week.  It didn't happen and then I was away for a week but I am happy to report that I actually did take it out of the fridge (I wouldn't normally keep pumpkin in the fridge but because I was going away I figured there might as well be something in there) yesterday before going to work.  And a good thing to because I noticed that a tiny bit of mould was starting to develop on the bottom.  Luckily it hadn't even penetrated the skin but the thought of it was enough to make sure that even though I didn't really feel like it (again!), I did get into the kitchen yesterday and peeled and chopped it and threw it all into a pot which had a chopped up sauteed onion and some garlic, plenty of freshly ground pepper and water.  Left that to cook until tender and then gently mashed most of it, just very roughly leaving plenty of intact bits too.  I threw a few handfuls of lentils in next, let them cook and finally added the four mettwurst (sausages) that I had bought on my way home from work.  And this morning I got up early enough to heat up a portion for my widemouth flask and had it in work for lunch.  It was delicious.

This evening I boiled some potatoes and ate them along with the ball of mozzarella that was only a few days away from its best before date, the end of a jar of chutney and the last slice of ham.  Actually, I had put the potatoes on to boil because I couldn't remember what it was I was going to make instead and it was only when I saw the ham I remembered I've been having a longing for ham and cheese pancakes for weeks and that was why I had bought it.  Just as well I had already put the potatoes on since I don't have an egg in the house so making pancakes might have been challenging. 

So this week, I am very pleased that I have prevented lots of food waste happening next week.  And the only real waste I had was the small tupperware container full of popcorn that I had to throw out.  I made some the other night, only had olive oil on hand so just used that and tried to convince myself that was why it tasted a bit funny but I know it was just gone off.  I definitely brought that with me when I moved here (which makes it nearly three years old) and I actually think it may have experienced my previous house move as well (which would make it at least five years it had been in that tupperware).  For a really long time I didn't have a pot with a tight-fitting lid so I had gotten out of the habit of ever making popcorn.  Having had some in my brother's when I was there a couple of weeks ago, I may be hooked again so there will be a new packet of popcorn making its way into my cupboard soon, which I will be more conscientious about using, I promise!

As always, Food Waste Friday is hosted by The Frugal Girl

Food Waste Friday - 19 November 2010

The oops I nearly forgot about it edition.  I did go through the fridge this morning and even took a photo but now I can't find my camera so that will just have to wait.  I've been sort of distracted by reading bits and pieces of the news from home and although there is some humour to be found (see previous post), overall the whole situation is very worrying.  I heard that the army have had all holiday time suspended for the 7th and 8th of December, which is when the budget is due out - possibly an urban legend but if it's an indication of the mood over there, that in itself is troublesome.

Foodwise this week I had not a lot of waste really but annoying nonetheless.  Last weekend I decided to make beetroot and chocolate brownies - although as usual I ended up making this in my flower shaped silicon tray so slicing into brownie squares wasn't possible.  But it's not as if I'm a purist or anything so that's okay.  When it had cooled slightly after coming out of the oven I had a quick taste, even though it was kind of late and I certainly wasn't hungry.  It was delicious.  The kind of delicious that requires all sorts of willpower to put the knife down and step away from the cake.  Had a big slice on Monday in work and it was yum.  Had another on Tuesday and the taste of beet was starting to really come through, which I hadn't noticed before.  By Wednesday, the smell of beet was quite strong when I opened the container it was in and the taste was stronger again.  By Thursday morning, I couldn't even face the thought of it.  So while this is a great recipe and really, really good to eat when still a bit warm from the oven, I don't think I'll be making it again unless I know I have enough people around to finish it off straight away.  With 250g of butter and 250g of chocolate in it, this is a definitely a speical occasion only recipe I think.

The two beets that I had cooked and not needed to use for the brownies/cake also went out today - I couldn't face using them.  Should have grated them and put them straight into the freezer to use when making this some other time but.....hindsight, it's a wonderful thing!

Apart from beets and beet-related stuff though, I have nothing to report.

Food Waste Friday is hosted by The Frugal Girl

Food Waste Friday - 12 November 2010

Food Waste Friday is hosted by The Frugal Girl

I'm not long in from work, bought myself a kebab for dinner on the way home and have no interest in going anywhere near the fridge or tidying up or clearing out in any way.  That's the way it goes sometimes.  I know I do have a very small amount of cream cheese left - I brought the rest of the tub to work today and bought a breadroll and had it with that for lunch but didn't quite finish it.  It was fine though so I think it might do on a slice of bread for breakfast tomorrow morning.  Apart from that I don't think there was anything to get rid off.  I'm not doing much in the way of shopping this weekend either as I have a few things to get use up and it's just easiser to do that sometimes if you have no choice about what to eat and just have to use what's there.

I do have tomatoes that I bought last week - I still haven't gotten around to making the kasundi relish that some Australian friend asked me to try making.  I have great plans to do things in the evenings but by the time it hits four or five o'clock I'm getting so tired in work that I can't even contemplate doing anything apart from going home to bed.  It hasn't helped that it's been raining for a couple of days now.  At least we're not getting the ferocious storms that are hitting Ireland and Scotland - leaving people without electricity even.  Actually I need to get working on figuring out how to light a camping stove type thing.  I bought a couple of small ones on ebay last year, even bought a bottle of spirits and since then haven't been brave enough to try it out (with a  large dose of I'm not really sure what to do).  Wish I knew someone who was into camping who could just come over and teach me this kind of thing.  I have plenty of candles stashed in two or three easy to get to places (with boxes of matches also stored with them and in a few other places too) so light wouldn't be a problem if the electricity ever did go out here.  But having something to heat up water or cook with is something I don't have until I figure out how to light those camping yokes.  Come to think of it, I should buy some replacement gel burning things for my fondue set too, there's nothing says that cheese is the only thing you can cook in that pot.  I think living on a main road with lots of restaurants and pizza places and the like nearby means I assume I'd be fine even if something did happen.  But it'd be nice to feel like I was prepared myself too. 

Hmmm, that was a bit of a tangent there, where was I?  Oh yes, kasundi.  Well, maybe I'll get to that tomorrow.

So, not much food waste this week and a few tasks tomorrow to keep things under control.

Edited about half an hour later:  as soon as I'd written the above I was overcome with an unbearable need to get up and check that I really did know what was in my fridge (I also remembered I still had some milk and decided to drink a cup of that to help finish it off).  I couldn't have been more wrong about very little food waste this week.  What is the matter with me?  I made lovely vegetable soup nearly two weeks ago, have looked in the fridge numerous times since then for various things (including FWF last week!) and somehow managed to do it without even seeing that jug of soup.  Ridiculous behaviour!

I also found these:

Some apple/nectarine jam which is starting to mould, some quince juice which looks fine but based on the state of the apple juice behind it, I'm not taking any chances on it.  The quince juice was supposed to go toward making some jelly and the apple juice was the leftover bit from my steam juicing efforts and was supposed to be a nice treat for my breakfast the next morning.  It got shoved to the back and has been there for over two weeks as well (since I gave the juicer back two weeks ago, it has to have been at least that long).  I think I just didn't look at an entire shelf of the fridge at all or something.  I'd like to say I just need a holiday but I'm not sure that would be enough.  I definitely need something!  Honestly, how many other people would have this growing in their fridge and not notice?

Shudder, shudder, shudder.  I will be scrubbing out the fridge tomorrow, that's for sure.  Eeeewwww.  And what a waste of some really delicious food!

Food Waste Friday - 29 October 2010

A couple of days late but I didn't think I had anything to dump this week (apart from about five apples - but they were the only ones out of three very big bags of windfalls). And then I opened up my cake tin to have the last of the apple tart I made and it had started to go mouldy. Booo.

I have a very full fridge after the garden yesterday added to calling to the market without having really had a proper list in my head so I will definitely need to dedicate some time to cooking this week!

Food Waste Friday is hosted by The Frugal Girl

Food Waste Friday - 22 October 2010

Few things gone out today, partially due to a couple of unexpected late nights working, which meant grabbing chips on the way home rather than eating what I had here and not having time for the processing I also had planned.

The main culprits though have been as a result of not quite coordinating the food for film club properly last weekend.  Because it was being held in someone else's house, they assumed I was just bringing dinner and went ahead and bought bread and olives and dips to nibble at beforehand.  I intended to cut up the loaf of bread I had bought but when I went to do that on Monday evening it was already rock solid.

So, gone in the bin this week:

Most of a loaf of bread
Some leftover salad leaves (but I did rescue the cherry tomatoes out of the salad and they were delicious!)
Half a zwiebelkuchen (because I was so busy eating all the other leftovers from film club I forgot it was there)
2 apples and a few strawberries that went rotten before I got to them (there was supposed to be apple and strawberry jam happening you see)
1 large tomato and the remains of a bunch of coriander - same thing
The remains of the white sauce I made for the lasagne last weekend which ended up not being used for a second dish after all (due to aforementioned excess of leftovers combined with late nights at work)


I have a lot of apples still to process - need to get into a routine with the dryer again but also want to start making jars of stewed apple for next spring when the fresh apples aren't so good anymore.  I had a half-day today and have Monday off as well.  Hopefully will get lots done!

Food Waste Friday is hosted by The Frugal Girl

Food Waste Friday - 8 October 2010

No photo today but I have three small pots of homemade yoghurt and half a pot of bought waiting to go out.  I know I bought the pot the week after making yoghurt as I ate the first few pots of it so quickly I didn't think it would last long and as the farmer didn't have any milk left I just decided to buy yoghurt instead of making more myself.  That bought yoghurt has a best before date of 17 September - I tried some during the week (since yoghurt doesn't go off as such, just gets more sour) but it was definitely past being palatable.  So out it goes.

I love yoghurt and yet sometimes I just forget about eating it for weeks at a time or just don't fancy it or, or, or...
When I eat it, I could eat it twice a day.  I'd like to be a bit more consistent about it.  Something to work on.

Other than that, though I have nothing to get rid off, which I am happy about.  There's cheese that definitely needs to be used up soon but hey, an excuse to eat more cheese is good.  No point in trying to eke it out to the stage where it starts to get too mouldy to be usable.  There's making things last and there's being silly!

Food Waste Friday is hosted by The Frugal Girl

Food Waste Friday - 1 October 2010

Well, another month has started, may as well try to get back into the swing of things a bit. Last weekend was the first weekend for a long while where I felt able to do much of anything (apart from things which were absolutely necessary, which, thankfully, I mostly manage to get by with doing more or less sufficiently). I went to the garden on Saturday morning and spent the morning peeling and chopping windfall apples for the juicer. Fantastic yoke - I had seen photos online before but couldn't get my head around how it worked so it was great to see one in action. When I think of juicer normally I think of an electric machine that takes up way too much space and is a pain in the neck to wash. Over here though, it's more like a steamer that you just use on top of your cooker with a small amount of water in the bottom and that steams the juice out of the fruit and you decant it as you're going out of a small tube in the side.

I brought home two large jars of that juice to make apple jelly with. I also badly needed to finally use up the two kilos of tomatoes and one kilo of plums that I had bought two weeks earlier. Yes, the first week after I got paid and finally had some money again I went to the market to hopefully get enough tomatoes to make some salsa for over the winter and to dry some. And then sank back into depression and apart from one dehydrator load a week later managed no more than to remember to put them into the fridge so that they at least wouldn't dissolve into a smelly mush on the kitchen floor.

So this week I have had some food waste as, even being in the fridge, I still needed to get rid of a few tomaotes and bits of tomatoes that were starting to mould. The small bunch of coriander I had gotten was also long gone past usable. So I decided to make chutney using could be rescued of the plums (nearly three quarters going by weight, which also includes the stones so not too bad - wouldn't have eaten them fresh though!), topped up to a kilo with tomatoes and the hokkaido pumpkin I had also bought at the same time. I even took my time to make sure and chop the pumpkin up into really small pieces, something I generally don't have the patience for. And then the bloody chutney burnt. After only about two hours cooking. Aaagh. So in a couple of months I may potentially have a lot of food waste. Yes, I did. Trying not to stir any of the burnt stuff back into the bulk of the mixture, I got it all into jars (20 x 230ml). But it's hard to tell how badly affected most of it is. Very frustrating as until it started to burn badly the smell had been absolutely divine.

Otherwise I also had to dump a couple of peaches. Bought a couple from the greengrocer's on the corner as well as a pineapple (pineapple was on special offer at 99c each so I decided to get one to dry and then I misread the sign on the peaches and nectarines and thought I was getting a great offer at 1.49 per kilo but it was 1.49 per pound so really just a very average price) but despite processing them the day after I bought them, a few had already started to rot (at bruised places) and one or two were quite simply rotten through. I'm less and less impressed with the fruit I get at that place and think I will stick to lemons and limes when I need them from now on.

From what I did get from the peaches and nectarines I used some to fill up the dehydrator and the rest to make jam. Added the juice of a lemon and used 1:1 jam sugar but not at a 1:1 ratio as that makes it far too sweet (but it was the only sugar I had on hand and it needs to be used up anyway). I thought it had set fairly well but unlike strawberry jam, rather than getting firmer as it cooled, it seems to have gotten a bit runnier. Oh well. At least it tastes nice.

I used the same sugar, again at a slightly less than 1:1 ratio to make the apple jelly as well. That really stayed runny but I got fed up waiting for it to set so just gave up and potted it up anyway. I had one half-jar of peach jam which I topped up with apple jelly and put some into a very small jar as well for myself. Then I added a shot of brandy and put the rest into very big jars. They're for the garden and they are very fond of their jam 'mit Schuss'.

And my biggest achievement this week has been to actually use up the pak choi and chinese cabbage that I brought home from the garden on Saturday as well. I chopped up the pak choi and sauteed it briefly before putting it into three large freezer bag portions and into the freezer. I'm really not convinced about freezing it since I've generally used very small pak choi leaves in salads or stirfries before. But this thing was massive and everyone else in the garden seemed to think freezing it would be okay. And there was a recipe in my Good Housekeeping book for sauteed pak choi too so it's worth a try and will be something handy to grab and dump into a soup or sauce. I also used up the last of the tomatoes, which had been chopped and put back into the fridge by making a quick tomato sauce and added the chopped chinese cabbage to it. I probably wouldn't have thought of doing that myself but it was one of the recipes in Jane Grigson's Vegetable Book and I have to say it was really delicious. Had a big helping of it today in work for lunch. I heated it up this morning and cooked some wheat to go with it and put the whole lot into the wide-necked flask I bought at the beginning of sumer. That thing is definitely going to earn its keep now that the weather is getting cooler!

Apart from what I've mentioned about I also threw out a really, really rotten apple which managed to be hiding underneath an envelope underneath a piece of paper (of the important type - left out so that I would remember to deal with it at the end of the month, but I forgot/didn't realise there was an apple under it and was somewhat surprised when I tried to pick that piece of paper up and it basically dissolved in my hand - yuck). And a small carton of creme fraiche which was a couple of weeks past it's use by date. At the beginning of the month I obviously thought I was going to do a lot of cooking but my mood wasn't able to match up to my expectations.

I do also need to get rid of some yoghurt too but am waiting until I feel a bit more up to it. It's three or four small jars of yoghurt from the last batch I made myself but as I know I haven't made yoghurt for over a month, the thought of the smell is putting me off dealing with it. Maybe tomorrow. Yoghurt can be surprising sometimes, it doesn't really go off, just gets more and more tart I suppose.

It's a new month but it going to be a very expensive one. I ran out of money well before the end of the week and instead of just holding out for the last few days, some busy evenings and lack of organisation until yesterday mean that I've already spent most of next weeks money. I have ten euro in my purse and I'm going to try and head to the market tomorrow and see if there are a few last tomatoes up for grabs and get that salsa made for the winter. I do still have ten other euro for this week still in the bank but I want to try and hold out until Wednedsay before taking that out as I am due to go for lunch with people from work then. We'll see. The lure of chocolate might be too much for me before then! But it's better for me to have one more week of little or nothing to spend and then have enough for the rest of the month than end up borrowing from next week every week, which just ends up being stressful. Here's to a slightly closer to keeping on budget month of October!

Food Waste Friday 27 August 2010

Not too bad a week this week but a couple of silly mistakes led to some food waste. 

First, I cooked some chickpeas so that I could have chickpea salad for lunch a couple of days.  But I forgot I was only cooking half the amount I normally would and didn't check on them until I started to smell that something wasn't right.  I have nothing against eating some things that are a little bit burnt and they didn't look too bad but it turns out that burnt chickpeas really aren't all that edible.  First world problems I know but since I have the privilege of choice, out they went.

I also didn't finish my bread on time.  I thought it would have been still okay to at least toast but it was rock solid and nothing could be done. 

That was actually earlier in the week and then this morning, just when I thought I'd have nothing else to report for FWF this week, I picked up the last four small tomatoes I had to put them in my lunchbox and discovered two of them had started going bad on the bottom.  Aaaaghh, I hate it when that happens.  Looks perfect until you pick it up and turn it over.  So the tops (or bottoms, depending on what way you were looking at it) got chopped off and dumped.

Food Waste Friday is, as always, hosted by The Frugal Girl

Food Waste Friday 20 August 2010

Having to throw so much out food last week coupled with being too broke to buy much new food means that I have a practically no waste week to report this week.

Exceptions (forgot to take photos, sorry) were earlier in the week when I realised that there was still a small amount of sour cream sitting in a tupperware container at the back of the fridge hiding behind the jam.  With so little in the fridge you'd think I wouldn't have miss the rest of this leftover from salsa night.

I also finally threw out the homemade mincemeat that I made at the start of the year.  After going to all the trouble of specially ordering suet from the farmer (it's hard to get your hands on it here) in order to try my hand at making old-fashioned mincemeat (the kind that actually has meat in it) I did get around to making it, put it into jars and then promptly got all caught up in the crappy situation that was having my alcoholic friend staying with me, dealing with that depressing episode which got worse after he left in March and which I have only started to come out of in the last month or two.  All of which is to say that I made mincemeat at the end of February and then didn't go near it again.  As I don't have a pressure canner I had planned to use it up within the four or six weeks it's supposed to be good for as is.  But you do need to leave it for a few days for the flavours to develop as well and it was one of those things that if you don't do it straightaway...  So I finally decided to get rid of the jars which have been standing there accusingly for the last six months or so.  I have to say I was pleasantly surprised at the state of them.  I'm sure a hundred years ago they would have been considered fine for eating but I was just nervous enough of the meat not to want to risk it.  But it actually smelled pretty good.  Quite strongly of brandy but also of the spicy mix and definintely not like rotting meat.  But out it all went and it is a weight off my mind to be honest.

So not much current waste and long may it continue so (in addition to me continuing to improve on actually using up stuff I make and preserve!)

As always Food Waste Fridays are hosted by The Frugal Girl

Food waste Friday - 30 July 2010

I haven't gone near the fridge yet but as I was sick for two days this week (and still a bit today with a massive craving for junk which I have indulged to the fullest!) I know there's stuff in there that needs to go out.  So, off the top of my head and I will update tomorrow with a picture:

Lettuce (bought on Wednesday a week ago, washed and partially eaten on, I think, Saturday and sitting in tupperware since then - it might still be good but I can't face the thought of eating salad so it's probably going)

Tiramisu - one way or another this made me sick and I'm very glad I didn't bring it to book club as planned.  Either the eggs were bad (they were not great but were new, well in date and smelled okay, just seemed a bit 'weak' somehow and broke up far too easily or maybe I'm just getting too used to really fresh eggs direct from the farmer) and the two spoonfuls I ate to taste test gave me food poisoning that felt like a migraine or the strong coffee I made to dip the biscuits in was far too strong and I'm even more sensitive to liquid caffeine than before and I got a migraine.  Or a combination of both.

1 egg - the remaining egg from the packet.  Given the tiramisu fiasco I am feeling neither inspired nor obliged to cook this egg.

There is also some leftover tomato/courgette sauce to be used up but I'll see how it smells and might have it for lunch tomorrow.  I'll have to look back through the blog and see when I cooked it - if nothing else, this is a really good reason to blog!  And I know there is some butter which is past it's date but if it's not actually rancid I'll probably use it to bake something.

And there is chard which I got from the garden last Saturday and haven't yet done anything with.  If it has survived the vegetable crisper I will perhaps steam it and put it in the freezer.

And some whitecurrants which I also got in the garden last Saturday, left sat on the table until at least Monday and were moved into the fridge then.  I wanted to dehydrate them - will have to wait and see how they are.

Food Waste Fridays are hosted by The Frugal Girl

Here's the photo:

As well as the lettuce (lot more of that left than I thought), egg and tiramisu I also had just over a small glass of milk (eeeeww, sour milk stinks!), a piece of baguette so hard it might have broken my magic bullet if I'd tried to make breadcrumbs with it, a few bits of basil and parsley and half an apple.  I picked up my last apple to eat, turned it around and saw this lovely bruise.  It went nearly halfway through but the rest of the apple was very tasty albeit that it made for a slightly smaller breakfast than anticipated.

I was just about to head out to the market when I then found a nasty surprise lurking at the bottom of one of my bags.  I bought extra cider vinegar last week as I know it's around about the time when I'll need to have plenty on hand for pickling and chutneys and completely forgot that I also bought lemons and limes as I intended to get more tomatoes on Wednesday and make salsa.  But of course on Wednesday I was sick.  Two lemons survived okay but I couldn't bring myself to keep this one or the two limes (they weren't terribly green to start with and are now very soft and squooshy - the lemon is the one covered in green mould).  Lovely.

Food Waste Friday (on Saturday)

A day late with my food waste photo but I'm blaming the weather. We've been having a heatwave (because it wasn't hot enough already, you know) so I stayed in work until after eight last night (there's air conditioning in work or home to an apartment that has the sun shining in all evening when it has been over 30 degrees all day) and then went and sat in the beer garden out the back of one of the Irish pubs and had a pint before heading home at ten o'clock. That was an impromptu decision but walking out of the office felt like walking into a sauna and I just couldn't fact going home. I tried to go to bed and sleep more or less as soon as I got home but it was just too hot to do anything but lie there sweating. Probably managed to sleep by about half-two but managed to completely forget to set the alarm so when I was half-awake again this morning and not wanting to move because as soon as I did I knew I would start sweating again, I was trying not to look at the clock. Eventually I thought it seemed like the alarm should definitely have rung by now and looked at the clock to discover that it was already half-eight! So I decided that rather than putting myself under pressure I would skip going to the market today, which also takes the pressure off for tomorrow a bit as I won't need to make and jam or otherwise process anything from the market. I'm heading home for a week at the end of next week so it's better for me anyway to use up what I already have rather than adding more to the pile.

Not much to throw out this week, I'm quite proud of myself for having eaten all the leftovers of what I cooked last weekend as lunches. Which means that the only thing I needed to throw out this week was the rest of the salad. This is the head of lettuce I bought two weeks ago and which was sitting in my tupperware spinner with a little bit of water in the bottom until last Sunday, when I washed it and put it back in the spinner basket. Ate half of it on Monday evening for dinner, was out for book club on Tuesday, had cold leftovers for a snack before choir on Wednesday and a bowl of cornflakes on Thursday evening. Yesterday I didn't eat a whole lot of anything much, it was just too hot.



I do still have one courgette, a couple of leeks and those three beets left from a couple of weeks ago as well but they're not quite dead yet and since I didn't go to the market today, I will just have to come up with something to do with them tomorrow.

Food Waste Friday

The Frugal Girl runs a weekly show+tell of the food she has which has gone bad over the last seven days. I first came across her blog a couple of months ago, just as I was doing remarkably well again at using everything I bought and not throwing anything out. But I've had a bad week or two of it so I decided it was time to join in.

I haven't even looked properly in the fridge but as I've only been back from holidays for two and a half weeks I don't think anything has gotten lost in the back just yet. No photo because I might just use some of this stuff up yet but if I don't write this post now, I never will.

I cleared some of it out by finishing the strawberry and apple crumble (that I made last Sunday) for dinner. :-) Okay, okay. Sometimes clearing stuff out can be fun. I still haven't really adjusted to the heat of summer, which is now well underway and this week I have really been having trouble with having the energy to cook or prepare anything in the evenings. I've barely had the energy to eat some evenings.

Which is why there is still a full head of lettuce still in the fridge. It is in my Tupperware salad spinner with a small amount of water in the bottom so it might just be okay (or some of it anyway) but I won't actually check it until tomorrow. There are also six strawberries left, which were supposed to be for a smoothie but as I haven't been sleeping too well this week, I also haven't been doing too well on getting up early enough to do things like make a smoothie in the morning.

Which is also the reason I have five bananas just about to fall apart as well. I printed a recipe for banana bread off the internet today and as soon as I have finished this post I am heading into the kitchen and if they are at all edible still, I will make that.

I also have three beets in the fridge, a few scallions and a couple of radishes. I don't think they need to be actually thrown out quite yet but I definitely need to do something with them this weekend. I also ended up using almost no milk this week so I have half a litre that will need to be dumped. I hate, hate, hate not finishing the milk but part of the reason for that is that a friend stayed the night last Friday and I ended up buying a litre of milk in the supermarket on Friday evening so she could have some for her tea and her breakfast cereal the next morning so that I had more than I usually would have and making an effort to finish it off on Saturday and Sunday meant I had no desire left for more milk. So the fresh litre I got at the market on Saturday didn't get finished.

And the one thing I am really ashamed off is a portion of pasta and courgettes with tomato sauce. I was so excited to see courgettes at the market last Saturday I actually squealed (but very quietly and I don't think anyone was close enough to hear). I bought four small ones and used two on Monday evening to cook a really delicious sauce for some pasta. And then I planned to use the leftovers for lunch on Tuesday but forgot to bring them with me to work. On Tuesday evening I ate the leftover salad from the weekend and although it wasn't much I had no room left for anything else. I did bring the pasta to work on Wednesday but forgot that I was meeting people for lunch so didn't actually get to eat it then. Could have had it for dinner that evening but a colleague had a celebration in work and after drinking three glasses of sekt (not to mention handfuls of peanuts and salty sticks) and walking part of the way home in the hottest day this year, I wasn't able for any eating at all. And I should have eaten it for lunch yesterday but knowing it had been sitting in my bag for 24 hours (which would normally bother me far less than it would bother most people) just put me off. So it's gone into the bin. I wish I could at least compost but sometimes I think I used to use my compost pile as a bit of a cop-out. Must try to do better next week.

So, off to make a cake to bring to the garden tomorrow, possibly some banana bread and then another batch of pastry for the same cake, as I'm going to a gathering tomorrow evening and have to bring something for the meal afterwards. I was going to bring a chickpea salad but that feels like too much work now. Maybe I'll put some chickpeas on to soak anyway and if I'm feeling up to it tomorrow afternoon I can always make that as well.

Edited to add: and there's a half a tub of cream cheese that will need to go out as well - I want to use a very rude word now, in fact I just did but I'll try and not let my blog descend into the level of bad language I frequently employ at home. I had deliberately not used this lovely wild garlic cream cheese up because I wanted to use it to make a sauce for the courgette and potato gratin I was going to make with the other two courgettes I bought last week. They are still fine. The potatoes are presumably still fine. But the cream cheese will have to go. Aaaahhh.

Edited to add photo:

The radishes had to go but the strawberries were still edible so I had them while baking. I also had to get rid of a glass of wine left in the bottle I had opened when my friend was here last Friday. I really tried to finish it but just wasn't in the mood for drinking more than I glass any evening and drinking two or three evenings in a row (even just that much) is all I can do. There are times when I could easily finish an entire bottle by myself in one evening but really, I'm not a big drinker, which is why I would rarely bother opening a bottle unless there is someone else around to share it.

The bananas were even worse than I thought but three were still usable so I made banana bread using a recipe from Smitten Kitchen - except I left out the bourbon because putting alcohol in food isn't something I really like to do, it rarely seems to improve the taste (exceptions are amaretto in tiramisu and a drizzle of martini on lemon sorbet). And for whatever strange reason I don't have either nutmeg or cinnamon at the moment so I used ginger, allspice and then at the last minute found some mixed spice, which does have cinnamon in it and threw it a bit of that as well. And I also realised I don't actually have a loaf tin anymore so I cooked it in my tupperware (the one which I was convinced was called Princess but which the internet tells me is just called Flower).

But apart from all that it turned out perfectly. Really delicious, just the right amount of spice, just exactly right moistness. Will definitely be making this again.