#scrambled eggs with cream cheese on rye bread toast is one of those meals I can eat no matter how much tummy hurt and it will fix me bc

[tarantula-hawk-wasp]

If no one’s got me scampbled eggs got me

[greenstudies]

My personal diet tips

Today I decided to share what I like to eat to keep healthy and to lose weight. 

Disclaimer. I want to lose 4kg (almost 9 pounds) to reach 59 kg (130 pounds) because that’s the weight I feel best in and is healthiest for me. Always be at the weight you feel your best in and that’s the healthiest for you. And I don’t mean only physically but also mentally. I do not support any kind of eating disorder AND I DON’T WANT ANY PRO-ANA BLOGS FOLLOWING ME.

Now that I made myself clear, here is my personal diet and tips to go with it:

🍋 Eat regularly and don’t make yourself too hungry

I make sure to eat five times a day

Never skip breakfast. NEVER

Small healthy snacks between meals will keep hunger away

🍋 Breakfast

Make breakfast the most important meal of the day

For those who like sweet food, breakfast is your chance to get away with larger amount of sugar

Make time to enjoy it in the morning

My favourite breakfast foods:

Oatmeal with banana, cinnamon and mable syrup

Rye bread sandwich with lettuce, ham, cream cheese, tomatoes and omelette

Scrambled eggs with a bagel and a little bit of bacon on the side

Toasted white bread sandwich

Pancakes

🍋 Snack

If you eat lunch and dinner early, this is the best way to keep yourself from being hungry, obviously

Having a little something an hour before your another meal will help you to avoid overeating at lunch or dinner

It’s best to have something you can pack into your bag

My favourite snacks:

Fruit of any kind (I’m a big fan of apples and oranges)

Nuts (Kashew is my favourite)

Müsli bar (I try to avoid these because they’re not as healthy as the companies pretend they are)

Yoghurt

Vegetables with hummus

🍋 Lunch

With lunch comes the but unpleasant part of restriction for me because I try to eat a bit less than I usually do

Try to stop eating when you feel like you’re full

Eat at home as much as you can

It’s good to have something warm for lunch instead of for dinner (I heard it’s common to eat big dinners in other countries)

My favourite lunch foods:

Cooked potatoes with a bit of butter, cheese of your choice and spring onion

Salad with grilled chicken

Any kind of soup (beans in soup are great)

Vietnamese summer rolls

Pasta of any kind

A lot more... trust me I love food

🍋 Dinner

Eat dinner around 5 or 6 (unless you go to bed really really late. do not starve yourself)

Make it really light but filling

You can adjust it to your lunch. If you had a small lunch you can have big dinner. Make sure you eat at least one warm meal every day.

My favourite dinner foods:

Salad

Rye bread sandwich

Soup

Vegetable plate with cheese

🍋 Drinks

Drink water

Avoid sweetened drinks. You might eat perfectly but drink sweet drinks and you won’t lose anything plus that kind sugar is so unhealthy

Green and white tea are great

Lemon water is also really really great

🍋 Extra tips

Move your ass. You don’t have to work out but you shoul at least walk more or something.

Get enough sleep

Do not count calories

Be patient. Losing weight the healthy way takes time, okay?

I hope I helped and please love yourself the way you are, take care of yourself and work towards healthy and sensible goals.

[meditationsinausterity]

A Little Goes a Long Way: SO MANY MUSHROOMS

Here we are at mid-week with what seems to be becoming a regular round-up of what I've been cooking to make sure I use literally everything in the fridge. As per my last post I have decided that the best way to structure the way I note my week in the kitchen is to start with a master list of the foods i bought home from the trash cafe, so as to avoid continually repeating myself in the smaller run-downs at the beginning of each dish, and make plain the cyclical nature of my cooking week and how I play around with different combinations of the same produce.

I have to say, the trash cafe has yielded a lot of fresh produce recently, so my hauls have been very heavily canted in favour of that. Great for me because I do prioritise cramming in as many nutrients as I can when I cook, but it does put a stricter deadline on what I make and when. I think writing this master list is actually going to be useful in terms of documenting the varying trash cafe hauls, as well; as I've worked with the project I've been fascinated to see the ebbs and flows of what we get through the doors, depending on what businesses we're working with and what they've had an excess of.

I'm also noticing my week changing as I work more. I'm on about 50 hours a week on average at the moment, so I have less time to be in the kitchen, but also, I have to think about bulk cooking things I can take to work with me when I'm on a double shift. I do have the option of a free sandwich and chips when I work a double (I usually rack up two of these a week), but I don't often take the chefs up on it, which my coworkers think I'm crazy for. I'd rather just have it as a backup for if I've forgotten to bring food, or not been staying at mine, because I don't like being too carbed out at work, and lately, where I've been taking in leaner, more vegetable driven food and fresh fruit, I've been really feeling the difference in my body after my long days and walks to and from work.

To kick things off then, let's start with that big old list:

Things I got from the Trash Cafe:

a packet of six chicken thighs (These had been defrosted to use in the kitchen, but I got through four packs during service and still had leftover stew to send to another cafe, so I bought these home)

2 1/2 punnets of chestnut mushrooms

2 punnets of plum tomatoes

1 bag of lemons

1 bag of limes

1/2 pat of salted butter

A block of mild goats cheese (it behaved similarly to a sharp cheddar in texture and flavour)

A packet of mint

Rye bread with sunflower seeds

A bag of red onions

A bag of broccoli florets

A bunch of asparagus

A white cabbage

Half a bag of mixed salad leaves

2 pots of prepped pineapple chunks (I tend to just eat these as they come, with breakfast or at work, so they don't get photographed)

2 pots prepped mango chunks (likewise with these)

Now onto what I made with my bounty:

Mushrooms on toast a couple of ways

Way One:

Items purchased for this meal:

None

Items already had for this meal:

Eggs, from the previous week's trash cafe haul

Ciabatta bread, likewise, and I keep my bread frozen, as I always eat it toasted, so it keeps indefinitely

Garlic, always in my storecupboard

So I am not going to patronize you, this was literally just mushrooms, panfried in garlic and butter, with scrambled eggs. I do not need to tell you how to do any of that. i do need to emphasize, however, a belief I hold that cooking does not have to be overtly technically skilled to be good. granted, I know some amazingly creative and talented chefs, and what they do is mindblowing, but by the same token I know if they came over for breakfast, they wouldn't turn their nose up at this because it's still good food. one of my pet peeves in this life is the attention seeking cook, who only ever makes masterchef-esque showstoppers for the drama and attention of it. Sometimes life is literally just a low key breakfast while chilling with a magazine before work, and sometimes that low key breakfast may be the best thing you could eat in that possible moment. A true love of the kitchen and feeding yourself involves care and attention applied to even the quotidien dishes.

Way Two

Items purchased for this meal:

None

Items already had for this meal:

Marmite; an absolute store cupboard necessity for me. This yeasty little umami bomb is one of the very few things that will make me misty eyed and patriotic (the other two are Barbara Windsor and Kate Moss, in case you were wondering)

So this was perhaps a slightly more elaborate take. Inspired by a breakfast dish I had at The Garage Lounge in Southsea, which was mushrooms in a white wine cream sauce, on marmite toast, with a poached egg, and was amazing, I decided to work with what I had (SO MANY MUSHROOMS) to channel similar vibes.

I pan-fried the mushrooms with garlic, and parsley, and finished with creme fraiche, piling onto rye and sunflower toast with marmite, and added some bagged salad dressed in oil and lemon to mop up the juices,because I like raw food with my meal, and i do like something acidic to cut through a rich dish. This was incredibly satisfying in the eating, and felt far more indulgent than the small amount of creme fraiche I added would have suggested it would be.

Leftovers from these meals:

None

Baked lemon and oregano chicken with goats cheese and tomato couscous

Items purchased for this meal:

None

Items already had:

Pesto: there's almost always an open jar of pesto in my fridge. Like any ex-student I've done my time eating pasta with pesto at least once a week, but now I use it as quick flavour for grains and dishes when i don't necessarily have fresh herbs.

Couscous: another storecupboard stalwart. Really good for quick, cheap, light dinners and salads. Also, call it the Ottolenghi effect, but I'm never averse to any form of grain salad at lunchtime, so having enough of a grain to bulk batch them is always good.

Oregano: From last week's trash café haul 

This was a doddle to make. I put the chicken thighs in a pan with a handful of whole, unpeeled garlic cloves, squeezed the juice of two quartered lemons over them and chucked in the lemon pieces themselves. I added a handful of oregano stems, some oil, salt, and pepper, tossed it all to coat, and left to marinade for a few hours, before baking in a gas mark 6 oven for about 45 minutes-1 hour, turning occasionally.

The couscous itself was easy, I diced onions, mint, tomatoes, and goats cheese, and tossed it together with a huge bowl of couscous i'd made up with boiling water and a glug of olive oil. lemon juice, salt, and pepper to dress.

The pesto cream was easy, I think I got this idea from one of those little booklets you get with cooking magazines, a little '30 low carb recipes for January' thing. it's just one parts pesto to two parts creme fraiche, and it's a pretty good, lazy way to perk up chicken. it's banging in sandwiches with leftover chicken as well.

A nice light meal, that was, I grant you, a bit late 90's housewife, but nonetheless, I'm always here for dishes that fill you up without bloating, and this was up there. Not to mention the flavours involved aided me in my current project to deny the fact that the weather is getting colder and winter is coming (other allies involved in this are the crisp blue skies Portsmouth is giving me, and largely being inside most of the time).

Leftovers from this meal:

4 x chicken thighs: Taken to work on two days to get me through double shifts.

About 4 portions of couscous: Taken to work alongside the chicken and some fresh fruit, because it does feel good to be smashing out your five a day even when you're working 13 or so hours of it. Also eaten upon returns home, in a bowl, in bed, while reading in my pyjamas. I guess most people have the luxury of being able to not eat late at night, but consider the humble bartender, doing a physical job until the witching hour, coming home shattered and grabbing the first thing they can find before they collapse. At least, in this instance it actually had some nutritional content. Back in my early twenties it would have been fried chicken, or spinach pastries from the 24 hour turkish supermarket at the bottom of seven sisters road (shout out to the lads at Akhdeniz, absolute fucking legends)

Tomato and mint Bruschetta with goats cheese:

Items purchased for this meal:

None

Items already had:

Salt, pepper, oil

I know, I know, another 'things on toast' moment. it probably looks like I eat far more things on toast than your average bear. I don't think I do, but actually,as a nocturnal worker, I tend to have more time in the morning to take care over what I eat and cook something from fresh.

This was a straightforward chopping of tomatoes, red onions, and mint, and tossing it with oil, lemon juice, salt and pepper, allowing to steep for a little while to draw out the juices of the tomato. then just piled onto crisp rounds of toast and topped with thinkly shaved goats cheese.

Another breakfast that allowed me to stave off the winter sads, whilst also getting the nutritional benefit of raw vegetables (I do, really, find any excuse to pack raw fruit and veg into my diet). Also, given how many tomatoes I actually had to power through this week, a raw dish of them was somewhat inevitable.

Leftovers from this meal:

Enough tomato mixture to fridge and repeat the exact same breakfast the next day before work. It was actually better the next day after the tomato mixture had time to mellow and marry.

Sweet Potato and Mushroom Frittata with chilli and soy green salad

Items purchased for this meal:

None

Items already had:

Sweet potato: from a previous trash cafe haul

Romaine lettuce leaves: from a previous trash cafe haul

Eggs: from a previous trash cafe haul

Birds eye chillies: from a previous trash cafe haul

Garlic, paprika, salt, pepper, soy.

The salad for this was simple. I snapped the asparagus tips at their natural bending point (the best way to make sure you're not eating them stringy, which is what puts most people off asparagus) and steamed them with the broccoli florets for a few minutes. I sliced white cabbage and red onion, and tossed the lot in a mixture of oil, soy, diced chilli, and lime juice, leaving to chill out in the dressing.

For the frittata I roasted diced sweet potato in oil and paprika until soft, before frying the mushrooms in garlic and oil, and adding the sweet potato to the pan. I added five beaten eggs to the hot pan and swirled over the heat to cook the base, before using a plate to flip the frittata,as I would with a spanish omelette, and cooking the other side. I left it to sit on a plate for about fifteen minutes to set fully, and then sliced it and served it with the salad, served on romaine lettuce leaves.

An odd jumble of flavours here, but it worked really nicely, and left me feeling really full up without any carbs to speak of. i ate it as a kind of hybrid breakfast/lunch situation, which is a pretty key mealtime on my days off where I don't have a strict deadline on my time.

Leftovers from this meal:

2/3 frittata: Taken to work with me to eat cold. Ideal take-to work food because you actually don't want it fridge-cold, so you can leave it in tupperware in your bag, as I did, and it's at room temperature come your break.

2 portions of salad: again, boxed up and taken to work. I find spicy food on my break means I don't so much get that just-eaten, sleepy bear feeling when I have to return to shift. That plus filling up on food that isn't carb driven means when it's time to go back on shift I've got a spring in my step.

Another week then, another series of purchase-free meals. This was the week before my first set of wages landed as well, so the purchase-free thing was still pretty key. I have, since, been buying spices and seasonings and storecupboard things, which will probably change the face of my cooking even more, but I think I'm really getting into the swing of making diverse meals over the course of a week that fill me up, are tasty, and are nutritionally pretty sound. I'm equally pleased that I'm managing to fit it around work, and that I'm also, despite being much busier these days, NOT THROWING ANYTHING AWAY. I thought for sure that being at work would mean I'd be busy, and neglecting the fridge, and ending up wasting food, but I've actually been so organized and on top of my shit that I've used up every last scrap of what I have, and I'm feeling super proud of that.

[meditationsinausterity]

A Little Goes A Long Way: donated green tomatoes and a cheeky bit of chicken.

So initially I'd envisaged these zero-waste food posts as neat little triptychs of three meals that succinctly used up primarily one product, as that's how it's worked before. But leftovers and cooking with them is never that neat and tidy, especially if you're only really using enough for one person every time, as things get carried over to different days of the week to avoid repetition, and you tend to be working with different combinations of the same ingredients a lot of the time, as most things aren't readily available in the small portions necessary for those of us extending our early twenties living situations indefinitely (and we are legion, just as a heads up).

This juggling the same combinations of ingredients is increasingly the case of what is now becoming a typical cooking week for me, in which I bring home surplus produce from the trash cafe, often in larger amounts than i would need for one meal, and have to think of creative ways to use it. I'm not sure I actually purchased a single ingredient for this particular set of meals, because I didn't need to, most of it coming from my volunteering stints. As I'm employed now, I'm sure purchases will start to pop up here and there in the form of storecupboard ingredients and so on, but actually, I'm rather enjoying the challenge of my ingredients choosing me rather than vice versa, and it feels pretty good to be feeding myself on food that would otherwise have been going to waste (probably landfill as well, which it doesn't bear thinking about).

Meal 1: Cumin-fried Green tomatoes and cream cheese on toast.

Purchased for this meal:

Nothing

Items I already had:

Green tomatoes: Donated to me by my lovely friend Lou, after a fry up and a catch up about work, art, the universe and everything. She'd bought the plants from her son's school and had a glut, so it was really sweet of her to share them with me.

Cream cheese: Surplus from cooking pasta at the trash cafe

Bread: last few bits from a loaf kicking about in the freezer

Gram Flour: the bedfellow is having a major Push Toward Adulthood as well at the moment, and it's manifesting itself in him clearing out the kitchen cupboards at his. He had loads of bag ends of flour that he wanted rid of and I shotgunned them rather than letting them get chucked out.

Cumin, ghost pepper garlic salt.

Pretty straightforward this one. I actually really love fried green tomatoes, I can still remember the first time I ate them, in bed with the American head waiter from the bar across the road from mine, still pretty buzzed from the night before, idly talking about theatre and drinking coffee. I usually dust mine in cornmeal, but I didn't have any, so I went down more of a pakora route with cumin and gram flour, and just shallow fried them in batches until crispy, before turning them out onto kitchen roll and absolutely dusting them with chilli salt. Then you just pile them onto toast spread with cream cheese and dig in.

I can't really recommend this enough; it's basically like a socially acceptable version of jalapeno poppers, which are the deep fried, ruthlessly chavvy, junk food of the gods. I would eat an order of them right now, or any time in fact, stone cold sober, i don't even care. It was a most excellent breakfast, to the point where I was actually tempted by a repeat the next day.

Leftovers from this meal:

None

Meal two: Salami and Mushroom scrambled eggs on toast with green tomato 'salsa'

Purchased for this meal:

Nothing

Items I already had:

Green tomatoes: half a bag left from Lou's donation

Rye bread: from the trash cafe

Salami with black truffle: We had diced this in the kitchen in preparation for a spicy tomato pasta, but then we got delivered a load of defrosted chicken from a famously 'cheeky' peri peri franchise, so a change of plan resulted in me bringing what we'd already diced home.

Eggs: we got delivered loads of eggs mid-service at the trash cafe so had no time to put them out that day because we have to check the dates and for breakages. I made scrambled eggs on toast for another volunteer's little boy, because he was poorly, so I put the rest of the box with the things I was gonna take home.

Mushrooms: had half a pack left after making lemongrass and coconut chicken at the trash cafe, so true to my 'open it, use the whole thing' policy they came home with me

Parsley: half a bag left from use in the kitchen at the trash cafe. Onion (left over from my last food shop which was aeons ago now) Lime juice (bottled, blech, but needed using),

Ghost pepper garlic salt.

I am not going to insult you by telling you how to fry things off and scramble them with eggs. And if I ever have to explain to somebody how to toast bread then I've gone wrong somewhere in life, or had children; neither of which are scenarios I'm holding out for.

I will have a word about my salsa though; obviously my default salsa recipe is diced onion, chopped tomato, lime, salt, and coriander. I had fresh parsley, and honestly, while it may not be 'authentic', and may be a slightly different flavour profile, I'm a 'love the one you're with' girl in the kitchen. I don't need my food to be by the book, I need it to be tasty. And this so-called-salsa managed that just fine. It was spicy as fuck as well, which is how I like pretty much everything. This was a definite breakfast of champions, and made me glad I didn't just lazily repeat the previous day's efforts, tempting though it was.

Leftovers from this meal:

Half a jar of salsa: fridged and kept to use on something else (with the hope of it becoming more spicy as the flavours melded).

Meal three: Chicken noodle soup

Items purchased for this meal:

None

Items already had for this meal:

1/2 precooked chicken, bone in: A leftover from cooking at the trash cafe, I shredded and stir fried 2 half-chickens, and ended up bringing home one half-chicken on the bone and some leftover shredded meat, because it had already been frozen and defrosted, therefore and needed using up. onions, carrots, garlic

Parsley: leftover from use in the kitchen at the trash cafe

Tub of mixed, chopped, stir fry vegetables: From the kitchen of the trash cafe, We had several packs of these that needed to be used on that Wednesday or they would have to be chucked. I think I got through about eight packs and took two home with me,but there were still, sadly, loads left. If I had more freezer space I'd have bought more home, but there's no sense in me taking what I can't use.

Birdseye chillies: leftover from a packet opened in the kitchen at trash cafe.

Noodles: I always have noodles. Still on those Aldi straight to wok badboys.

Soy: requisitioned from my mother's cupboard on my last visit cos she had two bottles.

So my shift at the trash cafe on this week involved the surprise curveball of several alarmingly big-titted (I speak from envy) half-chickens, pre-cooked, and frozen, from a well known peri peri chain. I merrily defrosted and shredded them and served them stir fried in a chilli coconut lemongrass sauce with insane amounts of stir fry veg. Sadly, during service, I didn't get through as much of the chicken as I would have liked, so I ended up bringing home half a bird on the bone, and probably about half a bird's worth of shredded meat. If I'd have been really thinking, I'd have saved the bones from the birds I shredded during service, because I knew I was going to make stock with what I bought home; in true zero waste style. But I wasn't thinking, in true Kirsty Mitchell style. 

So first thing in the morning I diced onion and carrot, smashed a few garlic cloves, and lopped the stalks off the parsley, gently frying it without colouring on a low heat. I stripped the white meat off the half chicken, not too intensely, as I wanted the dark meat to help flavour the stock. I lobbed in the bones and topped the pan up with water, then once bought to the boil I left it to simmer away for the whole morning, skimming off any scum and occasionally topping up with water so that the bones were covered, before straining.

The actual assembly of the soup took literally minutes. I fried off a sliced chilli with as much stir fry veg as I could fit in a pan with a block of noodles, before topping up with the stock, chucking in a handful of shredded chicken meat, and letting boil until the noodles were just done. chucked it in a bowl, topped it with a splish of soy and loosely chopped parsley and that was literally it.

Is it beginning to be obvious how into noodle soup i actually am? I honestly eat enough of it in different guises to really notice how much BETTER it is with homemade stock. I was so impressed with the quality of the stock i managed to get out of these pre-cooked chain restaurant chickens. As I mentioned, they were incredibly top heavy birds, and often you find birds bred for their meat aren't much in the bone department, but actually this was one of the better chicken stocks I've made in a long time. I know that a lot of what I cook isn't very complicated, at least I don't think I'm using any skills that could be considered above and beyond the average home cook, but it's the taking the time to make every last ingredient count, as in the case of making stock, that I find really makes the difference between an alright meal and a deeply satisfying one. This was a perfect example of that.

Leftovers from this meal:

2x portions of stock: I will own up to the fact I liked this so much I had it three times over the course of the week. Good job and all because I had a glut of stir fry vegetables and shredded chicken meat to use, but it definitely undermines my 'I don't like to eat the same thing all the time' protests. I guess there should be a noodle soup get out clause on that, cos I really do eat it all the fucking time, and it doesn't irritate me one little bit. I think it's because I can be quite remiss at eating carbs as I don't like the soporific effect of them, but in a soup they tend to slip into my system unnoticed.

Meal Four: Herbed chicken and Green Tomato open sandwiches

Purchased for this meal:

Nothing

Items I already had:

Rye bread (from the trash cafe)

Shredded pre-cooked chicken (from the trash cafe)

Creme fraiche (From the trash cafe)

Parsley (from the trash cafe)

Green tomato salsa (leftover from previous cook)

Black pepper (storecupboard)

So this was a really simple, not-really-cooking-whatsoever thrown together number that I whipped up after I'd got home from my interview and accepted the job offer. I was absolutely starving, and the pressure I've been under had lifted, so my body seemed to finally let me feel tired, all at once, meaning i was also absolutely aching for a nap.

I had the tomato salsa leftover from my scrambled eggs the other morning, but also a whole world of chicken, so I decided to be lazy and make sandwiches. I try, as previously mentioned, not to overcarb, so I went the open route to minimize that, toasting the rye bread as it was frozen due to being a trash cafe, due-to-expire rescue. all I really did was toss a load of the chicken in creme fraiche, black pepper, and shredded parsley, mainly to combat any dryness that might be going on because the chicken had been pre-shredded and fridged.

I just piled it on the toast, whacked the salsa on top, and ate it curled up in bed with my book before nodding off to sleep. By no means complicated, but it doesn't always have to be, does it? Delicious nonetheless, especially since the salsa had been allowed to sit and get spicier in the fridge.

Leftovers from this meal:

None.

Meal Five: Spaghetti with Salami, chilli, and Tomato

Items purchased for this meal:

Nothing

Items I already had:

Diced Salami with black truffle (i by no means used all I had at breakfast the other day)

Cherry tomatoes (A handful not used in the salads at the trash cafe kitchen)

Parsley (the last handful from my trash cafe kitchen leftovers)

Oregano (trash cafe leftovers)

Spaghetti

Birds eye chilli (from my neverending stash from the trash cafe kitchen leftovers)

Onions, garlic. Black pepper

An exercise, pretty much, in clearing the fridge before another shift at the trash cafe, combined with a need for some quick fuel for a writing burst on a day off.

 Really simple, as most of my pasta dishes tend to be. I put the spaghetti on to boil, and sliced some garlic and onion, which I softened in some oil without colouring. I threw in the salami, sliced chilli and oregano leaves, and turned up the heat to let the meat give up it's oil in the pan and crisp. at the last minute i put the cherry tomatoes, untouched as they were so small, into the pan, and lightly crushed them as they softened to let them give up their juice to the mix.

When the pasta was done, all I did was toss it through the mix with a few spoonfuls of the pan water, until thoroughly coated, before adding black pepper liberally and chucking some shredded parsley over the top.

So spicy, and satisfying, eaten while typing furiously and, therefore; shamefully, not necessarily given the attention food should deserve. Modern life is rubbish, and so on. At least in my hasty multitasking I'm eating something satisfying and homemade, I suppose. My days off these days seem to be either stuck in a whirlwind of inspiration at keyboard, or furiously swearing at tumblr's html formatting - it's odd how quickly i've gone from oceans of time to write, to having to force it into my schedule around shifts, and I need to make sure I don't slip into bad habits of procrastinating around the house. A quick, twenty minute burst of cooking like this, followed by a kitchen clean, is a good way to take a breather before going back to re-edit, without getting myself lost in a meditative kitchen session. Don't get me wrong, those are handy sometimes, but the best way to be a writer is to write, and if I'm constantly at stove, that's not happening, is it?

 Anyway this was another dish that felt more than the sum of its hastily thrown together parts; it's great when things that really need to be used up come together in a way that doesn't feel like deprivation, no?

Leftovers from this meal:

None. I was obviously on another cold-snap carb rampage.

Another week of not feeling in any way hard done by in my quest to use up every last bit of food that comes into the house. Amazingly, purchase-free, as well. I'm pretty sure the only edible I bought this week was a jar of instant coffee, because, well, remember that episode of the simpsons where Barney gives up alcohol and becomes a tweaked out caffeine addict? That's basically what's happening at Mitchell towers. And don't say shit, yeah? until caffeine ruins my emotional health the way alchohol did, I'll be using it as a crutch. Especially since nicotine is rapidly becoming less and less of a viable option. The fact that adulthood seems to mean slowly relinquishing things I love makes me revise my previous pride to have made it through the 27 club.

I think with my next one of these posts, what I might do is begin with a run-down of what I bought back with me from the trash cafe, and take it from there. Just because then I'll avoid repeating myself too much, and it will also, I feel, be more coherent in the reading. When you have a fridge literally teeming with things begging to be used up, you have to get somewhat creative in the order you use them in, so I feel like this week's meals skipped around a little bit, since I was trying to mix it up so I didn't get bored of the same thing day after day, not to mention trying to get various different food groups included in my diet. i feel like starting with a 'master list' of sorts will help everything make more sense.

Still, I'm pleased with how this is shaping up and evolving; it's giving you a far more accurate and coherent picture of how I cook and eat day to day in order to avoid wasting anything; and I'm also looking forward to seeing how patterns emerge as I get more time-poor due to full time work. I'm gonna have to get more savvy on prep and re-use of leftovers in order to feed myself at, and after work, which I feel might make my writing more relatable to more people, who don't have all day to potter. It's all welland good being unemployed and having all the time in the world to let things sit on the stove while you get on with things around the house, but with only two days off a week to fit in all that and the other things that keep an adult life ticking over like laundry, volunteering, and let's face it, in my case, getting laid, I'll be interested to see what directions my cooking develops in.