Tuesday 4 February 2020

The Joy of Less

Not a sequel to that famous 1970s classic, the Joy of Sex. Or maybe there is one - the Joy of Less Sex.
Anyway, the Joy of Less as in buying and using less, making do, etc in this time where increasingly I feel we won't have much choice in the relatively near future - might as well get used to it now. And it's nice; gives a great feeling of satisfaction and not being taken in by supermarkets and the like.
So. Less.
I've always been quite good at Less with regard to cooking - instilled probably during wilderness student days coupled with a slight laziness about buying ingredients. My mother was also queen of making-do, mainly as she absolutely had to. These things do get absorbed . . . my son rang me yesterday while he was preparing an evening salad! Yes!
Today: Slight glance at dust-covered recipe books . . . yawn. What 's in the cupboard/veg basket.' Oo, look, garlic, a leek, a potato, half an aubergine a few mushrooms and . . .' quick look in fridge . . . 'yep we have cheese and yogurt. That'll do.' This comes under the heading of one-pan cooking in our household. I've probably blogged about it before as it's so useful.
How to do it - serves two, or more, or less depending what else you can find/ want to leave for tomorrow's 'what's in the cupboard' gastronomic experience.
Fry garlic and leek in big frying pan, chop up mushrooms, aubergine, or whatever other veg is available, add to pan, sauté for a bit, add a layer of very thin sliced potato, bit of white wine/sherry, seasoning, put lid on and let it simmer for about ten minutes, then add dollops of yogurt and or cream, and crumbled cheese. Put lid on and go and do something else for ten minutes. Just check the pan hasn't dried out from time to time, add water/lemon juice/soy sauce if so. Ready.
Serve at the table or if you're on your own you can eat it direct from the pan. Yes, I do this sometimes, while watching a youtube about collapsology, permaculture or something appalling in French about millionaires spending habits - just for language instruction, of course.
One pan. One fork. Almost no washing up. New project! Useful, if rather thin, cookery book?

                  

My other no-waste achievement today was to make a protecting bag for my novel when I hike around London bookshops with it. I had thought about buying one of those laptop bags but there isn't a shop locally that sells such things.
I'd wandered around the house for a while looking for a solution. Knitting one? No wool, and I can't remember how to cast on anyway.
Make one out of . . . hm. Old shirt/duvet cover? No, something thicker, more protective. At the bottom of the jumper cupboard I found a small embroidered rectangular blanket, an item that has travelled around with me forever though various moves but has never had a use. It had been, apparently, my cot blanket - crafted from a big, much-darned blanket by my grandmother. How perfect. A recycled thing I could recycle and use for my book which is largely concerned with recycling. And I found a 'I've Been to London' cloth badge in Mark's mother's old sewing box. Bit of ribbon from the wrapping box . . . done.
I might have to go and buy a cake to celebrate, however. Ah. Not needed, Mark's made one out of things he found in the cupboard.

                             






















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