Eating simply

 Whilst we were away in the van, we had essentially a cooked breakfast for dinner one evening - bacon, chipolata sausages, eggs, tinned tomatoes, mushrooms and a hash brown.  I've been eating the odd rasher of bacon and pork sausage very occasionally, although I now usually buy turkey sausages - somehow, I can stomach them better.  Well, this time, for whatever reason, I just couldn't eat the bacon or sausages - one bite of each and that was that, the dog had the rest, I just ate the eggs, toms, mushrooms and hash brown.  I think I can safely say now that I'm not eating any kind of meat anymore - I've not eaten beef, pork, lamb or gammon for about a year, although I have continued to eat a little bit of chicken (and the aforementioned bacon and sausages) about once every 10 days or 2 weeks.  I use minced chicken to make cottage pies, chilli, lasagne etc, I find beef mince far too greasy tasting now.  But I've now totally gone off the idea of eating any sort of meat, it'll just be fish and veggie dishes for me.  I do love fish, more or less any kind, and some shellfish - prawns and crab, I don't eat mussels, cockles or the like.  Oh, I don't like calamari either.

Like Sue of A Smaller and Simpler Life and now her new rations blog, I do like the idea of eating simply, and fresh food cooked from scratch.  I think nowadays there's just far too much choice - not that that's a bad thing per se, but it kind of makes one feel they've got to mix things up and eat masses of different things all the time.  Our parents and grandparents didn't have such a huge choice of foods, they all ate simply but well.  When I was a child Mum cooked more or less the same things on the same days each week - a roast on Sundays, cottage pie using the leftover meat on Mondays, sausage mash and peas another day, liver & bacon casserole, soup and a cheese sandwich, chippy tea from the fish shop on Fridays (Mum and Dad had fish, us kids had sausage or fishcakes or a Saveloy - what even are they? 😂).  Saturdays we usually had something with chips or something on toast that we could eat in front of the TV.  Mum wasn't a very imaginative cook and didn't enjoy cooking, but we were always fed well, no hungry bellies, and she did make cakes and puddings - fairy cakes or rock cakes, puddings were sponge with fruit underneath and custard, or rice pud.  Sundays after the roast we had tinned fruit and evaporated milk, or sometimes Angel Delight, a real treat we thought.

Husband continues to eat meat, he's a real carnivore and I wouldn't dream of making him become vegetarian, although he's happy to eat veggie meals occasionally.  He got himself a doorstep thick pork chop for this Sunday (that's assuming he can chew it after his dentist visit!)....the look of that thick slab of meat with the white fat edging and rind makes me feel queasy.  He'll cook it himself, thankfully.  I love a plate of roast and green vegetables, stuffing and gravy and sometimes a Yorkie, it's the most carbs I eat in a week.  I sometimes have a slice of homemade nut roast, but quite often just the veg.

I've decided to have a go at making my own yogurt, the slow cooker way.  I eat a lot of Greek yogurt, on the rare occasion I have breakfast it's usually a bowl of yogurt with berries and nuts, and one of my favourite lunches is thickly sliced cucumber, crumbled feta cheese and olives topped with Greek yogurt flavoured with mint and a little garlic paste.