Homemade Oat Milk, Menu Planning and Ingredients

 

I'm getting to the stage of the Food Cupboard Challenge where I am mostly running out of ready made things.  I say 'mostly' as there are still some pasta pot type things and I'm sure there must be some things in the bottom cupboard that I could just tip into a pan and call a meal.  But I have been concentrating on the top cupboard this past couple of weeks.  I went in there yesterday to get a carton of almond milk and found I had already used up the last one.

So with no time to soak almonds (they need at lest six hours or preferably overnight), I decided to make some oat milk to go on my morning weetabix. It's a simple milk to make:

 I just soak 60g of oats for half an hour or so in my Nutribullet cup, drain them, rinse them a couple of times and then put them in back into the cup with 450ml of fresh cold water, and blend for about 30 seconds.  Strain through a fine sieve ... I usually do it twice ... and then decant into a clean bottle and put into the fridge, it's much nicer chilled.

These measurements give you a pint of fresh oat milk.  You will have to shake it up every time you use it as without emulsifiers it does separate.  It's not my favourite sort of homemade milk but when you're waiting for your breakfast it's a nice quick one to make.

I added the leftover oat 'mush' to some scones later that day.

The original recipe is in this book, on page 20.

I haven't been shopping for a few weeks now and I am starting to miss the supermarkets, I've actually found myself watching more YouTubers than usual doing food hauls to get my fix!!  But I quite like that things are visibly finally starting to go down both in my cupboard and in the fridge.  In fact the fridge is so bare I have been wiping down the shelves as they empty ... it's like a long drawn out spring cleaning.  😄

I thought I would make a menu plan for this week to make good use of what's left in there, incorporating some things from the cupboard and the freezer too. Before anyone jumps in and says that I'm not eating enough veggies etc etc, I will be adding things to these planned out meals, but I'm not restricting myself to writing down what ... I'll wait until the actual mealtime and see what I fancy, sometimes I am in the mood for lots of vegetables and sometimes I have to make myself eat peas.

The main point of this particular menu was to space out the last four bread rolls and three slices of bread that I have in the freezer.  I want to try a week without bread next week and I know if there's some lurking anywhere in the lodge I will cave in and eat it, so what I have in has to be used up this week.

Now it's time to grab my hummus, chop some celery and carrots and have my lunch.

Sue xx

Alan and Eric, A Recipe ... and Spot the Difference - the Food Cupboard Challenge

 I was looking through June photos and found that there were lots that I hadn't shared with you.  I thought this one in particular needed sharing, as I love it so much.

Just us on a nice early morning out with the dogs in Morecambe.  Because it was so early there wasn't the usual queue of people waiting to have their photo taken with Eric Morecambe on the promenade.  So we thought that for once we would be tourists in our own neck of the woods.

Sadly the dogs won't face forward if it's not me taking the picture!!

3rd June

For my own benefit ... and for you if you like to play Spot the Difference.

6th July.

There's not a huge amount of difference, but doing this is stopping me from shopping for cupboard items as I know exactly what I have in.  This challenge has also highlighted to me that at the moment I tend to eat mainly from the fridge and buy replacements for the fridge over and over.  It's proving to be a good long term experiment.

Of course there is a lot more food in the bottom cupboard as well, and in the past week or so I am starting to dip into it for things that I no longer have in the top cupboard.

The two missing cans of chopped tomatoes were used in this pan of Roasted Vegetable and Tomato soup that I made as this weeks bulk cook.

I just roasted all the vegetables that were in the bottom of the fridge drawer when we got back after our weekend away.  Just for half an hour in the oven, while they were roasting I sautéed an onion for a few minutes with some garlic from the freezer, added two tins of chopped tomatoes and then tipped the vegetables into the pan and gave it all a good whizz up.  I like my soups relatively smooth, so this is my preferred way to do it.

I had one bowlful straight away for my lunch, we had one portion between us as a starter with some garlic bread last night and the remaining jars of soup are now in the freezer.

Sue xx

Spot the Difference ... and Three Year Old Marmalade

This was the food cupboard on the 1st of May ...

... and this was it on the 3rd June.

I decided to put these photos on a post more for my benefit really so I can see how I'm doing.  I've been really trying not to move things around when spaces appear, but the urge is great and a few things seem to have switched places.

Nothing has been added to the cupboard except my latest prescription of Vitamin D tablets and the baking potato in the little white bag, it needed to be out of the basket and the light and in a darker place as it was starting to sprout.  

Oh, and I have just spotted a single pack of Aldi Wheat Biscuits, Weetabix by any other name.  My little tin only holds two and a half of the inner packs and I topped it up the other day from the box on the little drawer unit.

There is also one jar of Lemon Marmalade missing from the cupboard since the photo was taken as I opened it for a slice of toast yesterday, before we set off for Morecambe and the annual Vegan Food Fair.  Once opened it lives in the fridge ... due to it being three years old now. 

Happy Birthday Little Miss Marmalade, you're still as delicious as the day that I made you. 🎂

Sue xx

Out of Date Leaves, Sad Veg and Green Soup

 

I've been sorting through the salad drawers of the fridge this morning as we are about to go away.  Rather mysteriously I found a bag of salad leaves in the fruit drawer ... no wonder they've not been used ... oops!!

So, my first thought was time to make a 'pan of soup'.  I rounded together everything that won't last the week we are away without turning to mush and set to chopping.  I also used two stems of a very fresh looking bunch of celery, the rest will last the week easily, but I wanted the lovely flavour of some of it for this soup.

Just having those two sad little carrots in it immediately brings a splash of colour to the pan and a smile to my face.  I brought it to the boil and then simmered on a lower temperature for ten minutes.  

Then the bag of out-of-date salad leaves was tipped on top of the rest and left to steam as they gradually sank into the liquid.

Are you as happy as me that so many of the supermarket are actually going to be taking Best Before dates off most fruits and vegetables and at last leaving safety to our own common-sense?  Although bagged salad leaves might not come under this new idea as these had a Use By date.

This gloriously green coloured soup just has to be good for you doesn't it.

It's very tasty now that I have adjusted the seasonings and is currently cooling ready to go into the freezer.  I reckon I should get three good bowlfuls of soup out of those sad looking vegetables.  I'm definintely getting my head into gear for at least a month on rationing.

Sue xx

My Latest Addiction ... and Weekend Watching

 

I finished the jar of homemade Lemon Marmalade that was in the fridge the other day and went into the cupboard to get another one out ... there are quite a few orange marmalade and lemon marmalades left from my pre-house move making session ... in amongst them I found a jar of Rhubarb Berry Jelly which had been made way back in 2019 from our own rhubarb and various berries from the smallholding.  'I'd better use that up first then' I thought to myself as it was the oldest jar in the cupboard.

Gosh, I had forgotten just how tasty this was, possibly it's matured nicely in the dark recesses of the cupboard and through all it's moving from one home to storage facility and then to another.  I had another rummage through the back of the cupboard for more but it seems that this is the last jar of this particular batch that I have ... I wonder if Alan has any in his cupboards?  

Here's a few of the YouTube videos that I've watched this week ...

https://youtu.be/fhwE3hmRANk

First Jane with some brilliant advice, although I suspect a lot of us know most of this already, but it's always worth having a little pep talk to keep us on the straight and narrow.

https://youtu.be/F751XNICZus

I've had a bit of a watch-a-thon following Joanna and Victors progress with their narrowboat café tales over the last couple of weeks.  It's nice to pick up a bit of the canal lingo ready for our little adventure next month.

And finally ...

https://youtu.be/diQKp-Jckpc

I've been watching a few of The Happy Pear's recipes in anticipation of my new book arriving.  It looks like it could be a good book.

Hope you are having a lovely Bank Holiday weekend here in the UK.  Sadly our town procession got more than a little bit wet yesterday as the heavens opened during the night and rain fell all morning.  Happily they then went on to do an action replay at teatime in glorious sunshine.  A little bit of British weather never stopped a lot of fun.  We're off to the Morecambe Vegan Fair tomorrow so that is something to look forward too.

Hope you have a great weekend.

Sue xx