Day 9: Weekend treats

Today I needed to shop, cook and do a bit of housework.  So after putting some washing on and with the bread maker doing its stuff,  I set off to Lidl (where else?). This was the list:
Onions
Mushrooms
Red lentils
Green beans
Cheese
Milk
Lime
I discovered that I could buy a kilo of frozen green beans for only 10p more than 200 grams of fresh, that there was an offer on mushrooms - they were reduced from £1.47 to 70p for a kilo, and a single lime was 25p.  All told my little bag of shopping came to £6.26 which leaves me with £20.20 for the rest of the challenge.

For much of the rest of the morning and afternoon I amused myself cooking, producing not just the meal for tonight, but also enough portions for several meals over the next three weeks.  But first up was a little weekend treat.  All week I've had a desire for chocolate, but spending money on that this early in the challenge seems foolish.  I'm on 'chicken duty' this weekend, and my 'wages' for feeding and otherwise taking care of them are the eggs they produce while I'm in charge.  So with the promise of eggs, and with cocoa in the cupboard, some cake was in order.

Half of the chocolate zucchini cake recipe makes a good sized tray bake and in an air tight tin will keep very well.  It's also very ideal for using up those courgettes past their best! I didn't have chocolate chips for the top, so flaked almonds left over from last month's WI baking stood in. Delicious with a cup of tea or coffee.

Friday is 'carry-out' night, but even a couple of dishes would leave me cashless by the end of next week so with store cupboard ingredients, fridge stuff left over from other dishes I made this week, some spuds from the garden and some of my shopping ingredients I set about preparing a curry.  The menu: masoor dahl, aloo gobi, carrot, butter bean and kale Sabzi, raita, naan and plain basmati rice.

I had to make lots of substitutions.  No ghee, so coconut oil until it ran out, then vegetable oil. Red chilli instead of green, Skyr instead of yoghurt, etc.  There was more prep than cooking, but I made the full-size recipes and produced enough not only to serve for this evening but also to freeze for the next three Fridays.

I finished the raita as it won't freeze, and the left-over rice will be a nice treat tomorrow for the chickens (in payment for eggs, I hope). The three main dishes I'll portion up and freeze with the remaining two naan.

So time for me to put my feet up and knit.  I felt the need of a glass of something, so let me introduce you to my newly invented 'mocktail'.  The left over cooking syrup from yesterday's pears, over ice and slices of lime, topped up with Lidl's sparkling Sicilian lemonade (bought by Shirley when she was visiting in case we wanted an alcohol-free night 😂😂).  It probably needs a name.

Cheers!

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