Different foods from different cultures

It was really foggy last night before I went to bed hanging eerily over everything even the moon was partly clouded.  It muffles everything when it is thick and looks decidedly creepy too.

We like trying different foods here and quite often when I go shopping to Aldi or Lidl I usually take advantage of the not so common items like the different chocolate and toffee spreads different types of meats, cheeses, pates, salami, etc. etc. 

We have had a new off licence opened round the corner from us which we were a little worried about  - but so far there have not been any problems. and the Proprietors are very pleasant indeed. 

We were a little worried as In the area where I live have had quite an influx of migrants quite a lot of Latvians who tend to get drunk and then cause a  nuisance of themselves. but the opening seems to have gone calmly and as far as I know they have not had any problems.  As well as the Offie they are stocking quite a lot of Polish foods.  They have a small deli as well, and it has been fun trying to work out what the product is on some of the items - they would help if I asked but so far have managed to work out what is what.  They are also stocking milk kefir and buttermilk which I am pleased about.  The kefir is meant to be good for your overall health and I quite like it.  the buttermilk I have got for making pancakes and scones - and its cheap.  The kefir for a litre pack £1 the buttermilk £1.10.  I also bought some jelly crystals  - different flavours and also some Jaffa cake biscuits but with raspberry and cherry as well as orange fillings and they are really nice.  They have some other slim packages and I think they are fruit teas  - I think I am going to have to ask about those but generally thus far have been able to work out what things are and what to do with them.

OH has tried some of their holy cheese (sorry I do not know the name) which is very like a raclette and I like that too. I have yet to try the ham. I have also bought some pepperoni style sausage and some soft cheeses so it looks as though we may be having an antipasti supper at some point.

Sunday night I bought a large jar of blackcurrants in syrup  - ideal for cheesecakes, (from the size of the jar I think I will get at least two cheesecake toppings out of this one jar, some cherries in syrup and some plums) now they are always handy but they also had gooseberries, yellow cherries and strawberries.  So I may get some of those later on in the week - I think I will be doing my own next year where I can.  However these have come in nicely for my Christmas Food shopping list.

I have also bought some pickled mushrooms and pickled gherkins, tomatoes pickled chilli peppers and sun dried tomatoes for £1 a jar for the other half.    The other bonus is that I can reuse the jars either for pickling but I have also found a couple of ideas for turning them into lanterns.  They also had some small jars of different mushrooms but they were £2 plus per jar.They also do dried mushrooms which are ideal for popping into stews or casseroles adds a bit more flavour.

I hate paying through the nose for things but the prices for these for the size of jars are quite keen.  So I am chuffed with my finds thus far and the prices.

But I will still pop to Aldi and Lidl at the end of the month just to check out what they have especially in the run up to Christmas.

And then I popped over to the Paper shop which is run by an Asian friend of mine - I have known him since he was a teenager when he used to work in the Coop.  I topped up on some spices, black and brown mustard seeds, vermicelli, Naan breads, poppadums, linseeds for my bread.  I need to pop back to get sugar tomorrow it is 50p per 1kg bag.  They also sell big bags of sweetcorn kernels for popping into popcorn and I am running low on that too.  I bulk buy items where I can as it works out much cheaper in the long run and so I tend to take advantage when I find  a source that is good quality and not too expensive..  So that's some more goodies for the store.

Catch you later

Pattypan

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