A Little Catch up

Not as productive a week as I would have hoped for, yet things are slowly moving along.  I am taking breaks here and there in-between as well so that I am not overloading myself.  Yesterday evening I started a deep clean on the cooker.  It is a bit of a piecemeal job which I started last night with the Hob.  It has been partially cleaned but I was hoping to get some heavy duty cleaner on it. That will have to wait though.  I had to cook G's breakfast and so am just pressing forward on a mini clean for now, which was my outline plan anyway.  Will go back with the deeper cleaning element another day when I have more time and am not going to be interrupted.  As I say  "one step forward two steps back"!

The plan for today was to strip the fridge out and give that a good deep clean which is the deep clean prior to the mini clean which I usually do just before Christmas.  This is needed in any event as I am starting to take inventory of the items that I need in for cooking and baking over the Christmas period.  I managed to get the fridge totally bottomed out it is a bit of a job in itself and takes at least half a day to accomplish, in giving it a good scrub out.  It is well worth the effort though.

G went to the Butcher earlier on and came back with a couple of Barnsley chops, a 1lb of two different types of sausages (Toad in the Hole here we come - as well as for his breakfast).  Some Mince for either a Lasagna or our regular Cottage Pie and some lovely Beefburgers which we had for our tea this evening.  Very nice they were too.  He also came back with a chunk of Stilton cheese.  Simple good ingredients that will go a long way.

I am for this year trying to make a lot of the items that we fancy to eat rather than buying in a lot of pre-prepared items (although of course there will be some).  There are just the two of us this year and as I have plans for next year, I am trying to keep a lid on some of the costs involved.  Next year will be a different kettle of fish as I will be preparing things throughout the year on many different levels with the goal of having these available to use next Christmas which prior to Covid used to be my regular practice.  Since Covid, I and many other people have had to amend their usual practices as a result of non-availability and higher prices.  At least we have food though.

In the foreseeable future, I also want to create a float for the housekeeping in order that I can take advantage of any offers throughout the course of next year in any event especially on meat and veggies.  There is nothing worse than finding a true offer and not being able to take advantage of the same when there is nothing in reserve.  Really I need to replace the Deep chest freezers I had.  Just no room at the Inn for them at present.  That would fundamentally change the game a lot and is more in keeping with my usual practices.

In the next few days or so we are going to be going to a new to us Farm shop on the outskirts of Peterborough.  Primarily for the veg which looks very like the quality I had when we had the veg shop.  Will see what we think of that later in the week.  Although the supermarket stuff is okay, it is just not the quality of veg that I am used to and I find some of the offerings expensive, not very much for your money and lacklustre and very little variation.  This Farm shop has a bit of a reputation for being good value for money with quite a variation in product as well.  So we shall see what we shall see.  They also do the trays of eggs and sacks of potatoes which are currently on the to buy list.  I get nets of onions from around the corner very cheaply.  As I say we shall see what we shall see.

I had hoped to make some Charcuterie items for eating over Christmas.  I may still get a chance, but in any event, if I do not get to them, I will certainly make these going forward from New Year onwards.  I want to get back to a particular way of running the household again, which has worked excellently in the past and which has helped sustain us in difficult times.  A lot of this is based on strategic buying of base ingredients and working with what you have available to you, as well as keeping the Pantry and ancillary storage such as freezers, fridges etc. stocked moving forward.  More on that though in weeks to come.  

I have so much going on at the moment, most of it self-inflicted but ironically getting back to making different things is making me plan forward more rationally in order that I do not stress myself out unnecessarily.

Tomorrow I shall have some me time when I go out to do a little shopping. I also have plans to go to Waitrose as there are some items that I need from there. I have quite a few things planned for this week in any event.

Hope life is treating you all well and hugs to those not in the best of places at the moment.

Right am off to potter.

Catch you soon.

Pattypan

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