To Make Your Kitchen Complete

Sorry for the hiatus, I have not  really been cooking a lot lately due to a massive lack of time (thank goodness for my freezer stock! It should see me through to the end of term) but I did do some baking last week for a charity coffee morning, and I really miss having proper mixing bowls for the purpose.

All I have with me, in fact all I own, is a large plastic storage bowl. It does do the job, but it isn't really big enough and the seam at the base collects flour and is hard to clean. It's also very scratched and rough from being used so much.

I miss my mum's Mason Cash bowl! I had a look in Lakeland at the ones they're selling but they're the new ones, flimsy and not the same gorgeous cream colour on the inside.

This bowl is for sale on eBay and I'm resisting buying it because I can't really justify the expense, but I want it so much! There are often bowls on eBay and I look at them closely to see which ones are the nasty new ones (still nice really, but not the same feel to them) and which are the Real McCoy. Then I put them on my eBay watch list and forcibly resist bidding. Sigh. One day, when I am a real grown up person with a real kitchen, I will own a real mixing bowl.

The First Graze Box Arrives

Doesn't it look inviting? I love the packaging!

 I chose Thursday as my delivery day purely because it was the next available day when I ordered, but it is actually a sensible day. It's the day my money comes into my account (from my other account - a sort of self-restricting budgeting system that works surprisingly well) and it's the day before I go shopping, so I'm likely to be running low on food. So I was quite excited this morning when I got back from lectures and looked to see if the post had arrived.

Freezer Meals

My schedule is becoming an increasingly large problem. Sunday - Thursday I am not home before 6.30 and usually more like 7.30, and I am not keen on starting to cook that late. I've found myself eating dinner at 9pm before now, although only once have I fallen into the trap of just grazing on whatever is in the cupboards instead of having a proper meal.

Graze Boxes

I had heard about Graze a while ago, I think from my brother, and thought that they were a good idea, but as I was living with my parents at the time and not responsible for the food shopping or really for my own diet, it would have been unnecessary to try it.

However, I was reminded by a facebook friend who had a useful referral code which gives the referrer £1 off each box, and the referee two boxes free - the first and the fifth. I decided to look into it.

Food Waste and Planning

Image by Colleen Lane, used under Creative Commons licence

Over lunch today, I've been listening to a BBC Women's Hour podcast from October 11th and there is a very interesting discussion about waste, and in particular food waste. I found two things very interesting. The first was a woman who said that she didn't use a shopping list and just shopped "with her eyes", which is a great way of putting it! Later on, she went on to say that she kept buying melons because they looked nice, and then putting them on the counter and watching them rot. So now she doesn't buy melons.

Microwave Meals: The Healthy Way

This year my schedule is at least as mad as I thought it would be, if not more so. And students are famous for their junk food addiction - and it isn't all due to going mad with a credit card for the first time. It's about convenience.

Balanced, simple and delicious

What is more convenient than that? I made the cheesy lentil dip on a free day last week, and froze two portions. The peas took five minutes in the microwave, the lentils about the same. Fast food at its finest.

An Update on the Freezer

I've been living here for a little over a week now and I'm still so pleased to have a freezer. I've yet to use any of the freezer meals, but that just means that I'll have more meals (and more variety) when it really does come to crunch time.

Thursday might have been a day when I should have eaten a freezer meal. I was busy from 4pm til 8.30pm without any time at all to eat - I just sprinted into my room to change my shoes or drop off my lectures notes and grab a glass of water. It looks like every Thursday will be this way, so I'm going to shift things round and eat a cooked meal at lunchtime and pre-prepare a packed tea for whenever I find a free minute in the evening. It's all about flexibility :-)