Tuesday, October 18, 2022

Day Seventeen - A Star Baked Potato is Born

 


Another day, another weetabix breakfast.  

My large box of weetabix is serving me well and I do enjoy it as a quick grab it and go breakfast.  My posh cup and saucer were going to be used, but then I changed my mind and had my coffee out of my usual yellow Jasmine Woods Ware.  I'm not that pretentious that I need sweet roses for my breakfast cuppa ... Hyacinth Bucket/Bouquet sprang to mind 😄


My dinner was absolutely gorgeous.

I've been buying my potatoes from Aldi for the last year or so but last week I splurged when I got the last bit of shopping.  I didn't need that much but I had picked up the spring onions, bread and radishes from Aldi and then gone on another errand, when I remembered that I needed potatoes my car was in the Booth's car park so I went and picked up the four baking potatoes from there.  True they were probably twice the price of the Aldi ones, but they were bigger, and my gosh they had twice the taste.

Have I been saving myself money but in the process losing out on flavour and quality?


It wasn't even the extra cheese that this week's rations meant I could afford to put on the potato that made it taste so good, it was the actual potato itself.

I need to have a serious thought about my just using Aldi as my go to supermarket.  Yes, they might be cheaper, and yes they might be a smidge closer to me, but in all honestly ... and this modern wartime rationing challenge is making me think a lot more carefully about everything I have available and that I am eating ... I would rather pay a little bit more and really enjoy the fewer things that I am buying.


For my evening meal I used another portion of my pasta.

It looks as though I can comfortably have one pasta meal a week and stay within the ration that my monthly points purchase bought me.  I cooked the pasta in the oven in the sauce that I made out of the last of the red tomatoes from the garden.  There is one whizzed up portion left in the freezer for future use.  I added some the broccoli that I purchased in week one to the dish and a few little pieces of the white Vitalite block of dairy free cheese, but to be honest this one isn't as nice as the Violife Feta style cheese that I usually use.

A tasty day foodwise, but the star of the day has to be the humble baked potato.  I might just have to alter my menu plan and have another one tomorrow.


Sue xx



18 comments:

  1. I think you are onto something with the potato - and it is not like you're having it every day.

    When I had to change my diet (health stuff) I rationalised if I could only eat a very small amount of something I'd previously enjoyed lots of then I was going to make damn sure that what I ~could~ have was really lovely. So I splurge out for Tilda Wholegrain rice instead of the supermarket one, and the same with a few other things too.

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    1. I totally agree Jayne. Our bodies are made of what we put into them, so the best that we can afford is a good investment in our health, as well as usually tasting better. 50+ yrs ago our biology teacher told us to have as wide a range of colours on our plates as we could manage - modern science agrees with her!

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    2. I agree on the rice as well Jayne, I definintely prefer Basmati rice these days. No more basic-lines white rice for me ... apart from anything else it's the only rice that always turns out stodgy for me, where as Basmati, either white or brown always turns out beautifully fluffy.

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    3. Your biology teacher was right veg artist, and so was Gillian McKeith ... you are what you eat. :-)

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    4. Definite 👍 for Tilda Basmati and you are right that Aldi veg are not as good, and do not last as well, as they used to. Back to Sainsbug's for me.

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  2. I know what you mean and agree. Aldi is great but their fruit and veg don't really shine. I prefer to get them from M&S just over the car park and M&S isn't always as expensive as one might think either. xx

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    1. When I first tried Aldi many years ago I didn't get on well with the fruit and veg, it always seemed to go off much more quickly than say Tesco's fruit and veg, then they appeared to improve in leaps and bounds and I shopped there regularly again. I've obviously fell into the trap of expecting that it's stayed the same all the time. It's time for me to pay a bit more for better quality I think.

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  3. The best potato by far for mashing and baking are a variety called Vivaldi. They are mostly grown as a salad potato but occasionally you can get them in Sainsbury's as bakers.
    We grow them ourse!ves. I'm only in Blackburn so if you would like, I could meet you and give you some seed potatoes to grow your own next year!

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    1. Yes, Vivaldi are beautiful potatoes aren't they, I used to grow a lot of them at all our small holdings. I'm not growing potatoes next year as I've decided to concentrate on the salad crops instead in my tiny raised beds, but thank you so much for the offer, that's really lovely of you. xx

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  4. I do so agree. Some potatoes taste of nothing much on their own but we like Vivaldi (when we can get them) and Osprey from Sainsbury's at 49p for 4.

    Your Rose cup and saucer is beautiful!

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    1. Yes, the Aldi potatoes taste of nothing, they have all the look and texture of a potato but without the flavour. The naughty little imposters!! ;-)

      Yes, I love my little rose trio, I should make some biscuits and use them for Afternoon Tea.

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  5. The only dairy free cheese I like is Violife ,some I have tried have been quite disgusting ! I love a good baked potato, especially with baked beans and cheese or creamed mushrooms.

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    1. Yes, I do prefer Violife at the moment, especially the extra mature version. There is a new Cathedral City plant-based cheese out now that is supposed to be the closest thing to an actual Cheddar ever, but up to now it's only available in Tesco ... and we don't live anywhere near a Tesco :-(

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  6. Aldi is a Germany company and I have known it since the early 1970es. Then the shops were rather shabby, with a very limited range of food and no parking lots. The prices were very low, but so was the quality. It seemed to change in the nineties, big nice shops, better quality, still low prices. But I never liked Aldi, and tried to avoid the shops. By the way, the Albrecht brothers who founded Aldi were the richest persons in Germany for some decades.

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    1. Yes, I've watched a few documentaries about the Albrecht brothers, they were on a par with Jack Cohen who founded Tesco ... and both companies got their names from the founders. Being in retail for so many years I find all this sort of thing fascinating and always read about them and watch programmes when they come up.

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  7. I buy my potatoes in sacks of Maris Pipers from our local farm along with many veg grown by them. They are my favourite all rounders for most things.

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    1. I'll have to stick with buying in smaller quantities unfortunately as there's just me, and very limited storage space in my tiny home. But I'm lucky to have the shops so close by.

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  8. I think your comment about the baked potatoes tasting twice as nice sums up why I am not a fan of Aldi. Nothing I’ve tried tastes as nice

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