Yesterday I cooked dinner. In the fridge, along with all the fresh produce bought earlier that day, were two spring onions with the outer skins going crispy, a quarter of a Savoy cabbage, the last one of last week’s carrots, a pak choi, the end of a bag of spinach and few peppers. One thai curry paste pod, some coconut milk and jasmine rice later and we had a great thai curry. I take a quite unreasonable pleasure in the using up of the yellow-ticketed, the half-used, and the remnants of last weeks shopping, in fashioning a tasty meal.
Unreasonable Pleasures
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Another – also a sense of frugality – would be the ‘using up’ of the odd half-hour of a film here, the last episode of a series there, a TOTP episode on the tivo. Again, an unreasonable pleasure and quite illogical.
So your unreasonable pleasures taken in unglamorous domestic tasks you bend to your own drives.
I take vicarious pleasure from the dismantling and folding of all the myriad cardboard boxes that arrive at our door, so as to fit in the blue recycling bag. I am pretty damn good at it, too, if you ask me!
I share your reverse-origami skill.
The house next door is currently between tenants and there’s nothing to beat the illicit thrill of watching the bin men emptying their bin after you’ve put your excess hedge cuttings in it. Mind you, I am very dull.
Living on the ‘edge there, fs.
I take it where it comes.
Like the thrill-seeker I am, yesterday I drove Offspring The Elder’s new (old) car for an extended period with the “fuel empty” dashboard light illuminated. I wanted to get to the big BP garage on the bypass roundabout, because it has nicer toilets.
Fuel Gauge Bingo – did that an in the interests of research a couple of times.
A 1993 1.8 Mondeo will run for somewhere between 30 and 50 miles when the fuel light is on solid (not flashing a warning) and the gauge shows empty.
A 2005 Jaguar X-Type (which is basically a Mondeo) will manage about 25 miles before I had to walk to the petrol station, buy a plastic jerry can, fill it, walk back, and then continue my journey
A few years ago I picked up my daughter from downtown and even though my fuel empty light was flashing I thought there would be enough for the mere 25 or so km to get home. I was wrong, ended up running out about halfway on a very busy highway in a rather dangerous place, it was about -20 outside. I called CAA (Canadian AA equivalent) and they sent someone out to put enough petrol (gas) in my car to get home. A police car also showed up and rather nicely parked behind us with all his lights flashing to make sure nobody drove into us. A mistake I hope I don’t make again.
We call that Diesel Roulette!
Some years ago I was driving to work in the London rush hour. At the time I lived in Wimbledon and worked at Heathrow. My fuel warning light had been on when I left the office the night before so I’d driven all the way home in heavy traffic with it on (possibly with a detour for a game of 5-a-side football with @Leedsboy and some of his colleagues) and I was driving south-north over Wandsworth bridge. The engine coughed and gave up as I approached the crest of the bridge but the car’s momentum carried it over the crest. I kept it in neutral and started coasting down the far side of the bridge. At the north end of the bridge, on the other side of the road, was a filling station. When I started coasting the opposite carriageway was full but just as I approached the end of the bridge the lights changed and there was a short gap across which I coasted and pulled up next to a vacant fuel pump.
That must have been more than 30 years ago and I can still feel a trace of the euphoria that overwhelmed me as I filled the car up and set off again as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened.
I am convinced that yellow stickers enhance the flavour of the food therein.
I am sure you join me in audible tutting when those articles appear regularly stating how much food gets thrown out each month. Not from my fridge, it doesn’t.
Wasting edible food is a crime, under my personal criminal code. As is allowing good food to become inedible, once bought, harvested or otherwise acquired.
I cleaned out the contents of my fridge last week and made a stew. Used up carrots, sprouts, sweet peppers, tomatoes, spuds and a bag of mushroom stir-fry with some minced beef from the freezer.
Fried off the beef with a chopped-up onion and a couple of finely-sliced cloves of garlic and a sprinkle of dried smoked chipotle chillies. Transferred the beef, onion, garlic & chilli to a largish pan, added the cut-up sprouts, carrots, peppers, spuds, tomatoes and stir-fry plus a can of chopped tomatoes, a can of chickpeas and a can of red beans. Brought to a boil and reduced heat to a gentle simmer and added a little salt, a splash of dark soy sauce, and a splash of Henderson’s Relish.
Simmered for about 2 hours, stirring occasionally and served some of it with some microwaved Singapore-style noodles.
It was very tasty but just a little too carrot-y. Should not have put all 6 carrots in.
Portioned-up the rest and put it in the freezer.
That’s me that is. We had flatbreads with tonight’s dinner. The dish didn’t really require flatbreads, but it was the easiest way I could think of to use up some Greek yoghurt that would have been thrown out if it wasn’t used.
I did the same the other day – we had garlic and coriander naans with mon ragoût d’haricots rouges et contenu froissé du tiroir à légumes.
Risottos and stir-frys are the perfect vehicle for using up almost any savoury leftovers.
A.K.A. yellow sticker stew.
Minced beef from the freezer. And then put back in the freezer.
Mrs Steady has just fainted.
I aten’t dead yet.
As long as you refreeze the now cooked but previously uncooked (ie raw) frozen beef pretty quickly, that’s perfectly safe.
Still, I can assure you Mrs Steady is not happy
I am staggered how much perfectly good food is chucked out by Mrs Wells …..,” ooh i don’t know about that” ….
Mrs. T is convinced food which was good on the 20th can kill at 20 paces on the 21st if that’s what the label says.
We make soup here, or rather I do. Mrs BP will make chicken and veg soup from a roast chicken carcass whereas I’ll throw almost any leftovers in.
My inability to accurately check what’s in the freezer meant we had to improvise recently: crushed new potatoes, chorizo and poached eggs, all needed using and very good it was too.
A regular unreasonable pleasure is the stomach ache I get on Saturday morning from eating for my Friday lunch the content of any and every Tupperware box in the fridge filled with left overs from the previous week. This includes slices of ham (unused for sandwiches) fried up with onions as a base for the ‘sauce’ that accompanies the delightful pile of pasta, rice and potatoes warmed up in the oven.
That’s a carb fest and no mistake…
I do like me carbs. Goes well with a slice of bread.
Shredding paper. I’m off to do some now. It’s like pruning roses. All of a sudden you see everything a bit more clearly.
Mrs Moles is on an epic shredding journey at the moment. Credit card bills from 7 years ago, instructions for washing machines we no longer have…everything must go. I think it’s a combination of the pleasing noise of the shredder and seeing the paper disappear as the pile of shredded strips grow.
Another driving one – cycling really. On my commute to New St. today all eight traffic lights on my route were on green as I went through. As Phil Daniels would say ‘ it gives me an enormous sense of wellbeing’ though making me happy for the rest of the day is stretching it.
I had a similar pair of car journeys to the Sainsbury’s superstore and back yesterday, for shopping and petrol.
Green light for the single-track bridge over the defuct railway line near my house (first time ever in the 15 years since I’ve lived here!), green lights all the rest of the way to the other side of town. (except for one – crossroads just after aforesaid bridge) Green lights again all the way home (again except for one – coming onto the ring road around the town centre). Getting through all 3 sets of lights without stopping, on the big busy roundabout coming home, was extremely unusual.
When I first went to New York we arrived at about 2am and we took a taxi to our accommodation in Manhattan. As we drove through the relatively quiet streets, I noticed that the overhead traffic lights were turning green, time and time again as we approached them. I thought we were extremely fortunate until I remembered that the US is a consumer-centric place the lights are probably changing because they sense that we were coming. What a great idea!