Soup & Decluttering
Recently I posted a list of things I wanted to write about, soup was one of them.
In the last few weeks I have made a big pan of soup on Sunday night, which has been enough to last us for 3 or 4 nights. This is partly to help us try to be a bit healthier and to eat more vegetables, also because it is easy to prepare when you get in from work and it is very cheap.
So far we have had:
Leek, potato, stilton & cider
Mushroom & gorgonzola
Kale, potato and goats cheese
Basically deciding what to make depends on what is available in large quantities in the Greengrocer. The addition of cheese is to give us some protein and to use up what we have in the fridge. I saw the end of the new Delia Smith program on Monday night, she used pre-prepared, frozen mashed potato in her soup recipe. I know she’s doing a ‘How to cheat at cooking’ program, but I really don’t think using frozen mash in soup is that much of a shortcut. After all how long does it take to peel a couple of spuds and chop them and add them to the stock? Ok it’ll take a bit longer to cook, but if you don’t want your other ingredients to be overdone, you just add the potato first & wait till it’s done before adding the kale or other more delicate vegetables. In total the Kale soup took 25 minutes to prepare using fresh potato which is still pretty fast.
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Weekends recently have been spent de-cluttering. Actually that’s not quite true, bits of them have been spent de-cluttering, there has been an awful lot of sitting around done too. Bacchus has got rid of lots of old wine magazines and notes he’ll never need again and between the two of us, we’ve shredded enough paperwork to fill a sack. Since the sack was a compostable one, it and the contents went on the compost. I sorted out another sack full of clothes to go to charity, mainly business suits I don’t have to wear for work anymore and would never wear again even if I do have to wear suits again in the future. I tidied out our herbs & spices and was able to recycle 22 glass jars and several packets of things that had gone out of date. The contents went on the compost, making it smell like a curry house :-)
Today it was recycling day, and we put out 3 recycling bags and the box along with 3 big bags, normally we have half a bin bag per week. We have sorted out some more books & videos, some of which I’ll put up for grabs here and I’m starting to think that I’m going to get rid of a lot of the ornaments and pictures I’ve not unpacked since we moved. With the cats, a lot of the things risk getting broken anyway and I’ve lived without them for 2 ½ years, so I’m hardly going to miss them now even if I did love them once. Some of the stuff I’ve never really liked, but felt obliged to keep because it was given as presents. One ceramic floral clock is particularly hideous, but was an 18th birthday present, so I felt guilty giving it away, not anymore though! :-)
There’s still a long way to go, though Bacchus has been valiant in his efforts and I think most of what is left is down to me to do now. I like the feeling of shedding possessions, it’s hard to describe it exactly but it’s sort of lighter and liberated kind of feeling. I think I've come to realise what I actually need in life and the answer is not very much :-) Of course that's very different from what I might actually want ;-)
In the last few weeks I have made a big pan of soup on Sunday night, which has been enough to last us for 3 or 4 nights. This is partly to help us try to be a bit healthier and to eat more vegetables, also because it is easy to prepare when you get in from work and it is very cheap.
So far we have had:
Leek, potato, stilton & cider
Mushroom & gorgonzola
Kale, potato and goats cheese
Basically deciding what to make depends on what is available in large quantities in the Greengrocer. The addition of cheese is to give us some protein and to use up what we have in the fridge. I saw the end of the new Delia Smith program on Monday night, she used pre-prepared, frozen mashed potato in her soup recipe. I know she’s doing a ‘How to cheat at cooking’ program, but I really don’t think using frozen mash in soup is that much of a shortcut. After all how long does it take to peel a couple of spuds and chop them and add them to the stock? Ok it’ll take a bit longer to cook, but if you don’t want your other ingredients to be overdone, you just add the potato first & wait till it’s done before adding the kale or other more delicate vegetables. In total the Kale soup took 25 minutes to prepare using fresh potato which is still pretty fast.
.
Weekends recently have been spent de-cluttering. Actually that’s not quite true, bits of them have been spent de-cluttering, there has been an awful lot of sitting around done too. Bacchus has got rid of lots of old wine magazines and notes he’ll never need again and between the two of us, we’ve shredded enough paperwork to fill a sack. Since the sack was a compostable one, it and the contents went on the compost. I sorted out another sack full of clothes to go to charity, mainly business suits I don’t have to wear for work anymore and would never wear again even if I do have to wear suits again in the future. I tidied out our herbs & spices and was able to recycle 22 glass jars and several packets of things that had gone out of date. The contents went on the compost, making it smell like a curry house :-)
Today it was recycling day, and we put out 3 recycling bags and the box along with 3 big bags, normally we have half a bin bag per week. We have sorted out some more books & videos, some of which I’ll put up for grabs here and I’m starting to think that I’m going to get rid of a lot of the ornaments and pictures I’ve not unpacked since we moved. With the cats, a lot of the things risk getting broken anyway and I’ve lived without them for 2 ½ years, so I’m hardly going to miss them now even if I did love them once. Some of the stuff I’ve never really liked, but felt obliged to keep because it was given as presents. One ceramic floral clock is particularly hideous, but was an 18th birthday present, so I felt guilty giving it away, not anymore though! :-)
There’s still a long way to go, though Bacchus has been valiant in his efforts and I think most of what is left is down to me to do now. I like the feeling of shedding possessions, it’s hard to describe it exactly but it’s sort of lighter and liberated kind of feeling. I think I've come to realise what I actually need in life and the answer is not very much :-) Of course that's very different from what I might actually want ;-)