Thursday 2 July - Random Witterings from Home #25

Flours/Flowers
During lockdown I was delighted on two occasions to be given flours: first a bag of plain by a neighbour, then a bag of strong by Conrad. This week, I was chuffed again, this time to receive a more standard sort of flower gift:

 
I can’t remember the last time we had flowers in the house! Until 2007 Mick made sure that I always had a vase full on the dresser, but when we both gave up permanent employment and had to cut our outgoings accordingly, they were one of the first things I conceded to be unnecessary.

This bunch was also unnecessary, in that I didn’t consider that the few groceries I bought for the neighbour (particularly given that I was going to the supermarket anyway) warranted anything in return – but that doesn’t mean I wasn’t delighted to receive them. 

^{(I was equally pleased with the chocolates received from another neighbour, but as she added them to her shopping list, they were less of a surprise!)}

Budget
As well as cutting flowers out of our weekly spends, in 2008 I started recording every penny that came in and went out of our household coffers (we were never big spenders, but what an eye-opening exercise that was!). Initially I used pencil and paper, then I cribbed an excellent spreadsheet put together by a friend. Twelve years later, that spreadsheet has gone through various iterations, but is still a monster (it’s huge and very detailed!) and is still in use.

Being the end of June, this week I sat down and input the numbers and reviewed our half-year position. Well, what do you know: lockdown has been an exceptionally good period for the household budget! The ‘trips’ section is looking particularly healthy (no surprise there) and even ‘groceries’, where it has felt like we’ve been spending big*, is underspent. (*Another obvious revelation: shopping four times less frequently = much bigger bills for each shop.)

Batch cooking
Tangentially related to shopping, I went into the fridge on Saturday afternoon and saw that the mince, only bought on Thursday and still well within date, was looking rather sorry for itself. No way was I letting that go off, so a couple of hours later, I'd created a mountain of washing up and four servings each of lasagne and of chilli ready for the freezer.

I should have taken a snap of the lasagne before I tubbed it up. Incidentally, I bought those blue-topped plastic tubs in a shop called Wheelhouse in Hounslow in 1998 for 29p each. They’ve lasted well!

Lemon Curd
The reason I’d gone into the fridge in the first place was for some butter, so after the mince had been dealt with I got on with my intended activity: my first attempt at making lemon curd.

I should have scaled down the recipe. We didn’t need that much. 

Neither it, nor the lemon curd cakes I made immediately afterwards, came out quite as intended in terms of texture, but both were perfectly acceptable in taste.

The cakes were successful enough that another batch was baked on Tuesday.

Potatoes
The first couple of potato plants we dug up (after they’d bloomed and died back) didn’t produce quite the crop we were hoping for...

Pink Soup
Anyone seen the film ‘Bridget Jones’s Diary’, when she makes blue soup? I managed a disconcertingly pink broth this week. It looked the colour of blended strawberries which didn’t match the flavour of the ham stock I’d used. It was the result of throwing some needs-using-up beetroot into my usual recipe. I would include a photo, except it looks so incredibly unappetising that I think I’ll keep that one to myself.

Vest
Finally, just a snap for Conrad, following on from our phone-carrying conversation, to illustrate my running vest. As well as the two chest pockets that can carry a water bottle each (on this occasion I had water in one and my phone in the other) there’s a waist pocket on each side and one stretch pocket on the back. I can’t reach the back one to get stuff out whilst on the move, but I can reach it well enough to stow my arm warmers when I’ve set out early enough on a cool morning to need them.