Difficult Days

Despite the odds, I have managed to get a few supplies together to give us meals for the week. This  is despite the fact that I had a limited supply of cash.  However, I have been sensible and have tried to make sure that we have a hot meal for each day. It has taken some doing but I am relatively content with what I have managed to locate, despite the shop shelves being continuously empty.  Mind you as a consequence of that, I have been out shopping a lot longer than I normally am in an effort to locate meat for the main meal of the day. I certainly have not seen chicken in any of the shops for about three days or so. I have been shopping for a week only, and hope I have not been greedy (I don't think I have), but I have tried to get a few bits of everything, especially in relation to the veg as so much can be done with this.

I went to the veg shop first thing for a tray of eggs.  Unfortunately they are unable to get replacement supplies at the present, and so had limited what they had to 6 eggs per person. Therefore please if you have any eggs in-house that are getting near their best date, please for your own benefit freeze them three or four at a time in a small pot (or freeze in the quantity you will require them say to make a cake) rather than waste them.  You will then have a supply of eggs for at the very least to do a bit of baking in any event.  This is preferable rather than having nothing at all and it does save needless waste because they have not been used up.  That doesn't happen in our household.

Apparently, the owners of the veg shop they were ringing round their normal suppliers until 11:00pm last night in an effort to find stock.  They tend to deal with a lot of little suppliers as well as some of the larger ones.  They do not know how much longer they are going to be open for, especially if they cannot find the replacement stock.  They also have a shop at their home.  They bought in 1 tonne of potatoes yesterday and people were calling at the home shop and have snaffled them up  I will need some potatoes soon. 

I did manage to pick up some Bramley apples though which had been reduced.  Even if we cannot have the quantity and choice of foods as we normally have, there is something to be had somewhere.  I therefore intend to make an apple pie with these, it will pad a meal out and as I already have the lard for making shortcrust pasty in-house.  I also have a couple of tins of custard so will not be using copious amounts of milk for making custard.  That I consider fortunate as milk has been scarce too.

I also bought a bunch of bananas.  They are predominantly for OH to eat, however I am going to snaffle a couple of them to make banana bread when they have gone over a bit.  This is the recipe I intend to follow. Banana Bread Recipe. Yes it is using a couple of eggs, but it gives you something extra to pad out a meal or a lunch/pack up.  If I can find any reduced though I will let OH have the fresh ones and use any reduced ones to make the Banana bread.  Unfortunately Bananas in their raw state give me colic for 24 hours.  I have a food sensitivity with them.

I then bought some courgettes, carrots, cabbage, broccoli, parsnips, swede, and a cabbage.  I also bought some pears, some oranges and some eating apples as there are recipes I can use these for as well, despite eating them fresh.

I then went to the Co-Op and bought some stewing steak primarily for a stew with the addition of some of the veg from the Veg shop this should make a very good and filling meal.  I also managed to find a boiling bacon joint which after soaking to get rid of some of the salt should make another hot meal in itself i.e. sliced meat with hot veg, served in a sandwich and will also produce some useful stock with which to make some homemade soup with.  Any scraps can be used up with some pasta (I have plenty of this in the pantry) and I have a few bottles of tomato pasta sauce, and a couple of tins of tomatoes.  I also have some cheese.  I also bought a sweetheart cabbage,  celery, some button mushrooms, a small bag of frozen peas and a bag of kale.  No chicken though.  I had primarily gone there to get some bread flour, they were still out and there was no bread.  There was hardly any tinned stuff but I did manage to buy two small tins of sardines in tomato sauce.  OH does not like them, but I do and that will make a quick meal x 2.

From the Co-Op I went on to walk into town to Waitrose.  Their shelves were worse than last night, full of sweet things, and pre-prepared food, stuff that was not practical for a main meal.   I only bought three things in there, a bunch of thyme, (thyme together with honey is a good antibiotic for use when you have a cold.  I was looking for some fresh sage as that is also very good but they did not have any).  I also bought some Heck sausages in order to prepare a toad in the hole, and some Stork margarine.  They had no bread, no eggs, hardly any bread in their own bake section (just a few buns). I was also looking for some mince as I can get about three meals out of 1lb of mince, Ragu to use with pasta, a lasagna and a spaghetti Bolognese.  Could not locate any. I then decided to go into town to M & S.

M & S had a better supply of items than Waitrose.  I bought a steak pie, some onions, a bread loaf from their bakery which was still warm when I got it and then came home.  At least I have meals for the week until OH gets his wages and I am very grateful for that.

However, the prices have been hiked up and I have been hearing stories about some of the smaller outlets charging through the nose or certain items.  A friend went to her local corner shop last night to get some toilet rolls.  The shopkeeper wanted to charge her £10 for a pack of nine toilet rolls.  His view that they were in short supply and because of that people would pay anything.  She turned him down point blank and refused to buy them.  He also wanted £4 for a 2 pint bottle of milk.  Many of the shops are taking advantage of this including my own veg shop on some of the items.  They wanted £1.40 for a very small cauliflower.  I was not prepared to pay that.  M & S wanted £2 for the same sized cauliflower.  I am used to paying £1 for a cauliflower and that being twice the size of the one that was on offer today.  So we went without.  I will not be held to ransom.

Equally my local Co-Op are keeping a small supply of stock for the older members of the community, the ones that cannot get easily to the shop, which I think is very sensible and also very considerate.

It must also be causing problems for people on a lower income all the way round.  I know that the food banks are being affected quite badly, and in the Co-Op there is a message on the internal tannoy system, saying don't forget them and giving a list of suitable items to buy to donate.  However, they did not have those items in the store when I was in there.

I am sure that this siege mentality is going to have repercussions further down the line for all of us.  However for us, like so many others in the same boat you can only do what you can do. At least for the next week we will achieve one hot meal a day, which is more than enough for us in the greater scheme of things. We consider ourselves fortunate in all the circumstances.

I just need to get hold of some bread flour and a net of onions if I can and we should be reasonably set up.

One thing I do know for sure is that if and when things settle down again when running down my pantry in future, I will not do it all in one go, it will be done segment by segment and freezer by freezer.

OH did not appreciate that quite so many foodstuffs were just not available and that I can only buy if it is there; that also being dependent on how much money I have to hand.  Think he does now though.

He is also going to be working from home for the foreseeable future, so the timing of my blogs may be a little all over the shop and when I can get on.  I know a certain little dog that will be pleased about OH being at home.

I hope that wherever you are, you are able to source what you need to get by and help those elder members of our community where you can.  We are going for smaller quantities on our plate and not as much veg which will probably do us both good so that I can inch the best out of the stock I have.  If it looks as though I am not going to get the veg all used up (very unlikely) it will get put in the freezer.  No waste being allowed here.  No way Jose.  I hate waste of any kind.

Hopefully seed sowing this weekend, if not early part of next week.  Think we need to do this long-term now to help provide for ourselves.

Chin up let's all let the British Bulldog out.  As the Queen has said in her speech, the people of this country are never stronger than when they all pull together and help each other out.

Catch you soon.

Pattypan

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