Day Six - Beans, Crimpit, Imagination and 99p Shopping

 

Totally different to yesterday but this morning I woke up hungry, and after a couple of cups of coffee and a shower it was time for a proper cooked breakfast.  Beans and egg from the fridge and the hash browns from the freezer.  The Aldi frozen 'McDonalds dupe' hash browns are delicious and a nice little treat every now and then.

It made a lovely change for my breakfast.

I have this pack of Tortilla wraps in the freezer too, so I decided on a cheese and tuna Crimpit for lunch.  

We both went a bit mad for these a while ago when we got the little Crimpit presses and they make for a nice quick lunch either cold or heated up in the air fryer.

It was just enough for my lunch after a filling breakfast.

I forgot to take a photo of my finished tea, but imagine this with the pasta nicely swelled up, the cheese squares all melted and the spinach pellets softened and stirred through ... and that's what I had. 😁

Alan was busy with work and needed some bread and milk, so I volunteered to go to Aldi for him.  A cucumber fell into my trolley.

That's 99p of my remaining £3.70 gone!!

During the afternoon I had spent a while having a good sort through of the freezer drawers to see exactly what was in there.  The fridge is looking pretty sparse now so I wanted to double check what I had available.  

Freezers always hold so much more than you think they do don't they.  I have lots of stuff, there's absolutely no need for me to panic.  I tried to put it back in a slightly more sensible way, with the bottom drawer now being full of all the bread products and all the veggies together in one drawer etc etc.

Sue xx

Day Five - Swapsies and Homemade Fishcakes

It was a 'non-hungry' morning, I have them occasionally and just go with the flow.  So today for my breakfast I just had a slice of toast with a smear of spread and the dregs of the marmalade brought home from Dobbie's the other week. 

It was enough.

But by lunchtime I was definitely ready for something more substantial and decided on a sausage bun.

I simply cooked some homegrown red onions with a sprinkle of chilli flakes and some mixed herbs and the sausages in the small frying pan.  The sausages looked really good.

I split the sausages and layered them up on the bun with a generous spreading of the posh tomato ketchup.  Now, while the flavour of this was great the texture of the sausages was just not for me.  I'm finding I'm really going off a lot of the replacement meat products ...which can only be a good thing really!!

I was debating throwing the rest of the pack away, but I decided to offer them to Alan first and he said an immediate yes, he's not as fussy about food texture as I am so I think they will suit him just fine.  He offered me a swap for them and as I was already thinking about what to have for my tea, I chose one spring onion, about a quarter of a cucumber and half a punnet of cherry tomatoes as my little plum tomatoes are nearly all used up.

Tea was to be homemade fishcakes with these ingredients, none of them from the fridge.  The mash was thawed from the freezer, Alan's spring onion, a whizzed up bread crust and a tin of salmon from the cupboard.

Once everything was chopped, mashed and mixed together I made four good sized fishcakes ... and aren't they nice and round and well-formed, I usually struggle with this but it just worked out so perfectly for once much to my surprise and delight.

They even stayed nice and round, and held together well in the pan while I cooked them.  I had two for my tea with Alan's cherry tomatoes and cucumber and some of my lettuce.  It was a really nice fresh tasting meal and surprisingly filling.

But it's got me craving more cucumber ... I'm going to have to go shopping. 😄

Sue xx

Day Four - Fresh Fruit, Eggs and Pizza

 

I just wasn't hungry at breakfast time, so I decided to have the little pot of fruit that Alan gave me the other day.  It was out of date but tasted perfectly fine, Mavis came in when I was nearly finished and cadged a little bit of apple, she's getting very healthy in her old age.  😀

After such a small breakfast it had to be something a bit more substantial for lunch, so I made myself some egg butties.  Two eggs, a finely chopped small onion from the garden and lots of lovely mayo.  Now that the Ancient Grains bread is sliced thicker it seems to be only good for sandwiches for the first couple of days of having it, so the rest of the loaf was added to the freezer after I made my sandwiches.  I finished off the orange juice too, it's a good idea to have a glass of orange juice when you eat eggs as it enables your body to absorb more iron from the eggs.

I've been using the smallest of the homegrown onions up first and now the slightly larger ones are drying in the sun ... while it lasts.  I'm learning not to take a sunny morning for granted so I have my eye on the weather.  These are 'Snowball' onions and have been really handy as you can use them as spring onions while they are growing, and then leave them to bulb out to use as normal onions.

I decided to use two of my free naan breads to make a couple of small pizzas for my tea.

Simply a dollop of this fancy ketchup from the fridge, some of the roasted vegetables from the other day and a sprinkle of cheese.

I added a sliced up beetroot for a bit of extra nutrition and freshness.

Not a bad days eating and very satisfying food too.

Sue xx

Day Three - I'm Trying to Eat My Vegetables ... Honest!!

 

Breakfast on day three of this little 'use it all up challenge' was another round of 'bacon and egg on toast'.  I find this really filling and very satisfying even though it doesn't look very much.  I had a glass of fresh orange juice with it to make things a bit more healthy.  That was the last two slices of the Quorn Smoky Ham.

I think I have about one glass of orange left for another day.  I have phases when I really fancy fresh orange juice and then I stop drinking it for months at a time.  I think I'm about to stop.

Lunch was quite late as breakfast kept me satisfied for ages.  

I decided on the last three of the chunky fish fingers I bought from Morrisons the other week, they had been thrown in the freezer for safekeeping.  As I wasn't that hungry I just had a bit of a 'token salad' with my bun (which came from the freezer).  It's surprising how adding just that amount of freshness to a meal really lifts it.

To bring up the vegetable content of the day I decided to have one of my homemade pasta sauce pots from the freezer, along with half a pack of Deliciously Ella's Tagliolini.  It's made with added turmeric so it gives everything this lovely golden colour.  It was delicious and very filling, and cooking it in the oven so that the pasta absorbed lots of the sauce and the added vegetables were really soft, made it a dreamy meal to eat while watching a particularly blood-thirsty edition of Dexter.

Anyone else eat faster when they are watching something exciting?

Not a bad third day at all, and although the fridge food is going down there's still some tasty things to pick from.  😀

Sue xx

Day Two - Forgetting to Take Photos ... and the Perks of a Long Snout

 

Here's the lovely Mavis showing what was left of my breakfast.  😄

I get five portions of yogurt out of one of these large Alpro tubs, so on the final day I simply chop my banana and spoon some peanut butter straight into the tub, anything to save washing up is good in my opinion.  Alan came in and asked me something while I was chopping and spooning so I completely forgot to grab the camera and get a quick photo of my breakfast in it's receptacle.

I also forgot to photograph my lunch but it was beans on toast.  I got this photo when I was decanting beans into my little Gu pots before the challenge started.  I had already eaten the contents of one, one was on the worktop when I took the photo of the food in the fridge and one is shown in the fridge photo.  So if you are following this ... I have one more left.

I find a third of a tin of beans is the perfect sized portion for me and happily that is exactly what fits into these handy little pots.

After lunch I checked through all the contents of the vegetable drawer more closely and decided to prep some things.  So the celery was chopped and washed and the offcuts put into a bag for the freezer to be turned into soup in the distant future.  The celery sticks are now in a Stayfresh bag back in the drawer.   The peppers really needed to be used so I chopped them up along with the squishiest of the large tomatoes and the garlic, added some dried herbs, spices and olive oil and put them in the oven to roast.

Later a portion of the roasted veg went onto some brown rice and I served it with the remaining salmon fillet for my tea.  

I have enough roasted veg for possibly two more meals in the fridge.  I'm thinking maybe a pizza and a quiche.  So that's day two of using what I have and making good use of what's in the fridge.  

Oh, and I did slightly better from the store-cupboard today, after all the beans and the rice both originally came from there, although these particular beans had been in the fridge and the rice lives in a large jar on the shelves once opened.

There are perks to being a Jack Russell with a long thin snout ... she can reach the bottom with a bit of effort.  Nothing wasted.

Sue xx