Enough for Every Eventuality

I've been following The Happy Heart Course for the past few weeks.  

Well I say following ... it's supposed to be a one month plant based and reading information type course, on which you eat three meals of healthy recipes a day and re-educate yourself and your system and come out the other side feeling all tickety boo and full of life.

Well you know me, first I decided to eat all the foods that were in the cupboards that I shouldn't have,  just so I wouldn't eat them during the plan, but of course it carried on into the plan.  Then due to living at two locations intermittently because Alan had to jet down South for work for a whole week I had coursework, recipe books and all the 'right' supplies at the wrong address.  And then to cap it all off I got floored by this cold virus thingy and seemed to lose days out of my life in a fug of tissues, lemsips and daytime naps.

But then I decided to get serious, I needed good food to get me back to health.

 So I wrapped up, chucked the Pug in the car and ventured out for supplies for the food cupboard at the van.  Enough so I at least had all the right foods for the few recipes that I wanted to batch cook ready for the week ahead.

My first little cookathon was going swimmingly well until the instructions said to tip the contents of one pan into the other.  Now at the van I have one milk pan, one small frying pan and one medium sized saucepan, they were all I ever needed ... up to now.

 I was chatting to my eldest son, Simon on the phone while I cooked and he was in stitches at the sound effects, my thinking out loud over what to do and then at the photo above that I shared on Facebook so he could see my dilemma for himself.  His end of the conversation was just as comical for sound effects as he scoured the freezers in his local Asda for a specific type of chicken nuggets that his boys had asked for for their tea ... the beauty of mobile phones eh!! 

Any way remembering my largish stainless steel bowl lurking in the cupboard I came up with the solution and everything was mixed up nicely.

Then the plan was one portion for my tea, one into the fridge and four into the freezer.  I had forgotten to bring any plastic takeaway containers from home!!

This was going well.

Ziplock bags to the rescue ... and flattened out they actually take up a lot less room in the little freezer I have here.

As virtually all the recipes make up similar quantities I decided it would be wise to invest in a stonking great pan to keep life simple.

I went in and out of every charity shop in Garstang ... of which there are lots ... before almost giving up and visiting Dunelm for one that I had seen on their website, it was £40 .. gulp!

Then I remembered the middle aisles of Aldi.

And there it was THE perfect pan, with lid for just £12.99.

In a choice of black or turquoise it just had to be the latter to match up with my mugs and other little touches in the van.

My next batch cook, Potato and Chickpea Korma was a much easier cookathon.

Sometimes having just enough is not quite enough ... you have to have enough for a different eventuality.  But waiting until you know what that eventuality is very important.


Sue xx