Today's lunch from the crockpot: shrimp in a sauce

In an effort to eat (and feel) a little better, here's what I came with today for the crockpot's inaugural meal: crockpot barbecued shrimp. It was more Southern bbq than what I know from the North as bbq, but quite good anyway. Nothing pre-packaged or processed here, and no dairy. :-)

Here are the ingredients assembled. The 'olive oil spread' that I use in place of dairy butter was feeling camera shy.

I pared the recipe down a bit, I like things saucy, but 1 stick of butter sounds exhaustive, so I went with 2 spoonfuls. I also turned up the tabasco factor (although using a close hot sauce substitute) and only decided on 1 lemon once I saw how juicy it was. I didn't have fresh basil, so dried had to do.

As the shrimp were already peeled, they went into the crockpot for an hour only, on high. I toasted two small sandwich rolls and had it with that:

Total costs:

-the shrimp were a markdown that I had tucked in the freezer a while back. 1.55 for the package, and this was half of it, so around .78 p.

-1 lemon. A package of 6 m&s lemons were 2 GBP, so this was around .33 p.

-2 rolls - another markdown from the freezer, at .50 p for 6, from m&s, so around .17 p here.

-worcester sauce - this was not previously in my cupboard, it cost around 1.29 at Tesco, but there is plenty left in the bottle for future recipes, but we can estimate .10 p here.

-butter (olive oil spread instead from m&s or sainsburys), pepper, olive oil, hot sauce, and basil are all staples already existing in my pantry, so I didn't count them in. I guess we could estimate .12 p for all together.

Total cost: around 1.50 GBP for lunch.

I will definitely do this one again, although I'll try it next time with fresh basil. It's an interesting mix, lemony, but with a bit of a kick. Perfect for a chilly and dreary Sunday.

detox week - let the games begin

During February, I've found myself getting into a bit of a rut, work has been toxic and the weather here has been grey for days upon end. Normally, I shake things up a bit with my 'alcohol-free January', but this year, most of December and January were inadvertently alcohol free due to the flu and then my law papers which were handed in on Jan 31, so I didn't have time for leisure, anyway.

I woke up this morning thinking, 'as I missed my proper January, maybe it's time for a bit of a detox.' When I don't feel well, I tend to 1. go vegan and 2. give up the alcohol. I should probably add a '3. go for more, longer walks' to that as well. Something I struggle with here in the UK is the amount of cheese in veg foods. Although, I've been attempting to introduce a bit of fish into my diet as the UK does have locally sourced fish. However, in some ways that has been a bit of my downfall...in the Philly area, we don't specialise in fish, so I'm unfamiliar to any fish variety beyond Mrs. Paul's fish sticks (on a Friday night, naturally). So in an attempt to familiarise myself with what certain varieties of fish are supposed to taste like, I've been eating a lot more 'processed' or 'prepared' foods under the heading of 'research'.

However, I fully believe, that when you set a goal and have the vision to stick to it, the universe will help you to meet it.

I stopped by my local Lakeland today, on my 'fresh air' walk. If you don't live in the UK, Lakeland is a crazy expensive kitchen boutique store, which sells top of the line merchandise. Their customer service is second to none. For my US friends, this would equate to 'the Nordstrom's of kitchen supply stores'. As expected, their pricing reflects this service level.

However, I always pop in to see their 'dent and scratch' section. They have a 'no questions asked' return policy and anything that is not perfect, even if it is only the outside carboard packaging is heavily discounted.

Lo and behold, the universe thinks that I need a juicer. It has stated that opinion by offering me one at half price:

I liked my juicer in Germany a lot. However, space was limited when I came over here, and I always wanted to expand my juicing option, to do more than just citrus fruits. This 'absolutely new in box' discontinued bargain will enable me to make juice from apples (my favourite) and carrots (plentiful and cheap here in my corner of Essex).

Something else on the shelf was a slow cooker. I've never owned one, but I've eyed them up in charity shops, but they were always too gigantic. This little gem is 1.5 litres, and half off due to a 'slight blemish on the internal ceramic pot'. When I looked at it, the manufacturing dent of sorts was there, on the outside of the ceramic pot, the bit that you do not see as it is encased inside the metal heating element. Perfect for me to try this one out, to see if I like slow cooking...

I do like lentils and soups, and there are plenty of slow cooker fish recipes, actually, using non-breaded, non-processed fish, so I'm hoping this one will be a winner.


And for dinner tonight:


Kicking things off on the right foot, a salad (the photo is deceiving, it was actually bigger than it looks). Inside we have:

• a lettuce mix from Tesco, I'm a big fan of this particular one, it has young leaves, spinach, and some fresh herbs in there. 1.50/bag, this was about 1/3 of the bag
• tomatos from M&S, marked down to 2 gbp, this was around 1/8 of the box (from Spain)
• 2/3 of a marked down avocado from M&S - .50p for the entire avocado
• 2 spring onions, from a marked down bunch in Tesco
• a sprinkling of black pepper and dried oregano
• a swig of olive oil

I'll try to post further thoughts this week, on this detox adventure...

Frugal eating: Zucchini

Here in the UK I'd love to be able to grow Zucchini (or courgettes for the British trained amongst us)...however, my balkon here is way to warm. While in Germany I had no problem to spit them out in containers, in the UK I fizzled once they got to flowers and about two inches. It was just too warm, and they'd rot. (grumble, grumble)

However, I made the 'Markdown Madness' rounds last night. Often, I'll step out for some fresh air and will make a habit to allow Tesco and M&S prices to dictate my menus, making my rounds around when the good markdowns should have just taken place.

Normal price at Tesco for 2 courgettes is 1.20 GBP (1.42 EUR/1.61 USD). Yikes, yikes, yikes!! That's for zucchini about 4-5 inches, and NOT organic!

I realize that is sorta expensive for the US and EU costs, and I've yet to bring myself to pay this. However, let's see ('Schau mal' for my German friends), what I found:

Going to my local tesco around 18.30 results in finding things 75% off. So I picked up 4 packages of them. :-) At .3o p for 2, that's .15 p (.18 EUR/.24 USD) each, or 75% off. I could have purchased 3 more, but the expiry was on Thursday. After giving them a short tap, I estimated they'd be fine until Sunday, so thus I purchased 4 total.

The first offerings...nothing fancy...a little olive oil and onion, and then I added two sliced zucchini, and at the end sprinkled them with black pepper. Here is 1/2 of that. So I had one half on the first night, and then leftovers on the second night.

-->Don't you wish that you lived near my corner of Essex? We have 3 more packages to go through! ;-)

Tomorrow, they'll be making an appearance in fajitas, when New friend Ian will be here.

The balkon garden: oregano

It was mild in my corner of Essex today, around 11 degrees, and not raining during the day. Most of the garden is looking like it is supposed to in wintertime.

One of the few bits of green that I have is the oregano that I started from seed outside last summer:

Once we get some warmer temps in a few months, I expect this to go crazy. I was curious to see if it would survive the snows and our numerous days of below freezing temps, especially being in a container rather than the ground, and it has done much better than I anticipated.

Tonight's frugal dinner: Polish cauliflower with a twist

A long while back, I mentioned that I had made Polish cauliflower.
I like to eat as frugally yet healthily as possible, meaning, I want to eat well, but cheaply. ;-)

Here was tonight's modification to that original version:

It's one quarter of a cauliflower (from France) 4 mid-size carrots (from in the UK, East Anglia), 1 spring onion, olive oil-based butter, and bread crumbs.

Throw the carrots in a pot of almost boiling water for a few min, add in the cauliflower for another brief few min, and then separately melt the butter with the breadcrumbs and chopped up spring onion, which should be ready in under a minute. Put the cauli and carrots into a bowl and then pour the contents of the other pot on top.

The reason for the dish?
Tonight, I went to Essex Boot Camp, where I had a groupon offer from December. It's a might fun way to spend an hour on a Tuesday evening, traversing through the park and then doing push ups around a tree and other silly but generally varied tasks. After all that fitness, I thought it best to skip the pizza deals mentioned yesterday. ;-)

As well, I've been finding a lot of good deals on produce. The cauli, carrots and spring onion were all on the 'sell-by' mark down date. It's kinda silly, as the carrots look superb and have at least another week and half in them, but who am I to complain about cheap produce?

Costs?
the cauli: .75 p for the entire head, so maybe 20 p for this portion
carrots: the bag of 12 was .38 p and I used 4, so let's say 12 p
the spring opion was in a bunch of 10 that was down to .58 p, so 6 p for this one
I'll skip the butter and breadcrumbs cost as they's been costed out previously.
Desert was a marked down kiwi: .25 p

Overall cost then for the meal was around .53 p (.63 EUR/1.56 USD) and there were no leftovers. :-) Even if I would have purchased the produce at its original cost, it would have only doubled or tripled the meal cost, so still ok for the UK.

I did have a carb heavy lunch though in anticipation of working out, so this was only meant to be something lighter.

Wondering if new year's resolutions are in place?

Papa John's pizza here in the UK sent me an SMS today that in January I can get any pizza buy one/get one free. Domino's is offering any pizza for 9.99 this week only.

I'm wondering if the pizza business is taking a hit, if people are sticking to their New Year's resolutions to eat less, lose weight, exercise, etc?

I however, can be tempted, probably later this week. ;-)

Since I survived the flu (which started on this side of the Atlantic, and then raged while I was in the US, only to be carried back here), I've been carefully watching my food intake. The flu managed to hang on until last week Sunday, so it basically brought me down in the work weeks before I left and then proceeded to decimate my hols.

However, I am now back.

British humor and frugal eggs

Or should that be 'humour'? Can you imagine this cartoon egg making the same statement in an American supermarket?

I rarely buy full price eggs anymore. I had purchased these on Feb 2nd in the morning and they were down to half price. If one waits longer, they'll go to 75 or 90% off. My only requirement is that I only do free range eggs anymore. These have the added bonus of being produced in Suffolk, a neighboring area near to Essex.

When I get a great egg deal I usually fry and then freeze them on the day of purchase, although others put them raw in an ice cube tray and freeze. Then I carry on with my egg stock when the deals aren't coming.

Frugal dinner for the cat (or people!) in the UK

When I moved back to the UK, one of the things I liked here was that food in the supermarkets is marked down as it gets closer to its 'best buy' date. Where I lived in Germany, food was never marked down, although it would perhaps be on a weekly sale. I find that to be a difference between the UK and Germany: Germany won't have any food to mark down, because they'll under order potentially and the customer might not get what they want (at full price) because its all been sold, while in the UK they will over order and have to mark things down because they have too much but the customer will never be left without their items.

Slocombe the cat has a healthy appetite and during her month at the 'House of Treats' she came to appreciate eating a meal a day of actual meat rather than the '4-8% meat content' cat food which she enjoys from the mid-range cat food section. In addition, she absolutely love variety in her meals. Serving the same rotation of cat food breeds discontent. What to do?

Enter Tesco's markdown section, stage left. Each day the Tesco which is a 10 minute walk from me will mark down meat, bread, veg, cakes, etc. which is reaching the sell by in the next day or so. The starting markdown is 25% off. As it nears closing time on the expiration day, the markdowns increase to 50% off, then 75% and finally 90% off in the last hour or two. This Tesco is on my way to/from places, so easy to pop round.

Slocombe isn't so particular, she adores poultry and isn't so fond of lamb, anything else in between is acceptable. Tesco uses these opaque bags for fish and items from the meat counter so you can't really see what you're buying...it's like a surprise in a Cracker Jack box. So what do we have here? Salmon with lemon cracked black pepper, originally priced at 8.00 GBP, down to .50 p on a mid-afternoon Sunday when they close at 5 PM. I give all purchases a sniff test in the store, but beyond that, it's anybody's guess:


Upon getting it home...not looking too bad, four servings of salmon. It's really a nice meal for a person actually rather than a cat. Too bad I'm a vegetarian, so on with the example:

As Slocombe gets easily bored with repeating meals, I separate and bag the pieces, so that she can have a meal or two out of each section before moving on to a different item and coming back to another piece from the freezer at a later date.

All wrapped and bagged and into the freezer they go, 12.5 p per bag, which I estimate 2 meals from each bag, so 6 p per meal:

My tips on the above:

• Give everything the sniff test and eyeball or feel for weight as much as possible. It's being marked down as it nears the sell by date, but often it's perfectly useable.
• Freeze right away if you're not eating that night.
• It's not much of a bargain if you don't like it. There was a super deal on lamb but SC could care less so I skipped it.
• SC isn't brand specific or coming to the food bowl with any pre-set notions, she gets whatever is on sale and fresh enough and she seems happy enough by this concept.

I am lucky in that Slocombe's chefs (from the House of Treats and New Friend Ian) take care of all meat cooking for me, so I only need to de-thaw and serve. That being said, I will avoid whole fish and having to take out the bones due to the extra work (SC doesn't have much patience to wait!)

Frugal travels - taking food to the airport

So I got my cheap ticket back to the US, what else...

My flight leaves at 0600 (weather willing)--yeah, there was a reason it was so cheap. ;-) However, 0600 actually makes it easier for me, because I'm out of Heathrow in this go round, so I have a quiet overnight of travel, starting at 23.40 from my corner of Essex, with two overnight buses which will deposit me at the door of Heathrow. In some ways it's a lot easier than traveling during the day when everyone is out and about...

One of my biggest frugal irritations is the cost of food in the airport, and that you're a bored and captive audience. How do I combat this issue?
I bring my own food. I pack along food on the assumption that I won't be fed on the plane, or that I'll be stuck at the airport for 12+ hours.

To start, I eat before leaving the house. Tonight I'm out the door at 23.40, so I had dinner and then an additional little meal, along with a beer to boot. So the below rations are what will get me through the next 12+ hours.

Starting at the top right:
-a leftover salad from lunch at Nosh today. They make a nice vegetarian spinach and cous cous with feta cheese and advocado salad. I wasn't overly hungry today, so half of it comes along.

-bottom right - two fried egg whites. Sometimes I boil eggs, other times I fry them. I like a little protein to carry along.

-bottom center - two granola bars. If all goes well, I won't touch these. I carry these along as insurance, in case there is suddenly a freak snowstorm grounding all planes or if the airline somehow doesn't have my veg meal.

-bottom left and center top - marked down goodies from Marks & Spencer. I find M&S's veg options to be top of the line but too expensive for daily use. However, they do great markdowns when items are nearing their best buy as these were. Left is a salad with lots of vitamin goodness for 1.50 GBP, top is a melon mix for 1 GBP. Both were more than half off their regular prices and fit my needs as I will consume them within 24 hours.

-top left - a bottle for water - i've yet to have a problem with taking an empty bottle through security and refilling it from the water fountain on the other side. plus, i don't usually travel beyond the industrialized countries of Europe and the US, so I've not so exposed to water which may cause issues with different bacteria, etc.

What else? Yeah, I carry along a spork and napkins always.

What will I buy at the airport?
Coffee. A black coffee is usually one of the cheapest items anywhere, and I loathe instant.

Back when I lived in Germany, I would tote along a beer or two as that was socially acceptable if you were on the train or stuck waiting at the airport, etc. One could carry along a beer for a fraction of the airport cost and only lose the .08 cents deposit. Now that I'm in the UK I've modified my behavior back to the US style. I may have a beer or two on the way out but I won't carry further and will probably wait until I'm on the (Euro carrier) airplane to (freely) indulge.

Breaded mushrooms

I recently bought this book at Oxfam for 8.99 GBP. It was rather heavy to carry home, but it's absolutely superb. Every single page has a recipe and 4 photos: the final product and 3 steps leading up to it. I love photos in my cooking, mainly because I have no idea what I'm doing most of the time. ;-)

If you'd like to try some vegetarian recipes which are slightly above basic skills, I'd highly recommend it. I also like that it includes the nutritional info with each recipe, so that you can see what you're getting into.

Below, I tried out 'Mushroom Bites with Aioli' (page 161 in my edition):



On the left are the mushrooms which were dipped in two egg whites and then dipped in a breadcrumb and parmesan cheese before going into the oven for around 15 minutes. On the right is the Aioli. I took some heavy liberties with this one. The recipe suggested 2 egg yolks, garlic cloves, olive oil, and salt/pepper. However, it also suggested a variation to try instead fresh herbs and sour cream instead of the egg yolks. I combined a bit from both ideas and it all came out right in the end.

I know you can get packaged frozen version of breaded mushrooms, but these were so much better than the ones I had like that in Germany or here in the pubs. There is no oil involved in the mushrooms of this recipe so they come out much lighter and it was simple to make. (Excluding the self-inflicted injury Ian suffered while trying to grate the frozen bread into breadcrumbs.)

The Angry Royale

Do you remember a while back...the Angry Whopper was an ad campaign in Germany.

On the way to Wales we stopped off halfway, prior to getting to the Welsh border. What should we see but The Angry Royale:

'Angry Onions' doesn't seem to make any more sense in English than it did in German.

There's also a Double Angry Whopper. It's not enough to be angry, but it's double angry. ;)

Check out the nutritional info link on that page...there are 5 grams of fat in 'angry onions'. On a regular whopper, the onions are not angry and only contain traces of fat. Go figure.

I'm still waiting for the 'Angry Veggie burger'. :)

From the Saturday market and the rooftop garden

I went at 16.20 so the prices were starting to drop for the 17.00 shutdown. :-)

-In the photo, starting at 12 o'clock, 3 packages of strawberries from Kent, all 3 packages together were 2 GBP

-1 o'clock - 5 ears of corn for 2 GBP

-4 o'clock - 6 peaches for 2 GBP

-center - 3 bananas for 60 pence

-6 o'clock - 3 packages of berries for 2.50 GBP

-8 o'clock - young purple broccoli shoots and leaves, the giant bag for 1 GBP

So everything in the photo came to 10.10 GBP (16.51 USD/11.52 EUR). Food tends to be more expensive here in the UK, so I was pretty pleased at the above. To preserve the berries I am drying them as I would only be able to go through one package of the raspberries and one package of the strawberries before they would start to go off.

What aren't I buying there?

- Lettuce - I'm still a big convert of lettuce in a bag with the roots in dirt from asda as that extends its shelf life for me. Next week my roof terrace lettuce should be ready.

- Tomatos - those are coming from the roof terrace as well.

-Peppers - I'm not a big fan of eating them although I do enjoy growing them. Unfortunately, the roof terrace favors pepper growing. This proficient one has produced 3 so far with 18 more still growing, nevermind what her 3 sister are doing in their own right (the scotch bonnet, bell pepper and sweet pepper plants).

Other people get overwhelmed by zucchinni, I'm stuck with peppers. I never imagined this would be the case in the UK...

I've now taken to inviting people over so that I can make pepper based dishes. ;-) Tonight's guest is being treated to Mexican with a variety of chopped up pepper based salsas and fresh pepper toppings for the tacos.

Vegan day 9 - Fresh Saturday

Were you wondering what happened with the food from the Saturday market?

Everything looked so great and fresh, so I went extremely basic on the cooking--minimal spices and low, short cooking.

Here is a third of the carrot bunch. The were sliced in half and given a short fry in olive oil.

Here are potatoes, fresh from the roof terrace garden:

The broad beans were in the '1 pound' markdown area, so I knew they needed to be used Saturday or Sunday. They had gone for about three minutes into boiling water and then were rinsed in cold water. Right after that they were shelled. Here new friend Ian is demonstrating the appropriate shelling technique.

The cooked potatoes and beans were then combined together. I had some ideas from http://www.bbcgoodfood.com/content/recipes/, I like their photos, as well as that their recipes are not too complex. They were suggesting mint as the appropriate spice, but I wanted to leave out anything heavy as I wanted to truly taste the potatos.

Vegan dinner - day 7

Yeah, back to Mexican. :-)

Tonight: two bean burritos I assembled at home, easy peasy. A can of beans plus two flour tortillas. I was feeling a little edgy so I applied liberally jalapeno peppers to the interior. ;-)

To the right, I whipped up a little tomato mix to liven them up. I had roma tomatos from the weekly market. I added chopped garlic (from the roof garden) and as well as a pepper from up here. I finally have my first rooftop tomato which is about ready to be picked, looking forward to that one tomorrow...

Vegan dinner - day 6

It was warm and humid here today through this evening, now it's cool and rainy.

Today's dinner was pasta, two zuchinnis (we're in full zuchinni season here, they're dirt cheap!) in Dolmio's pasta sauce and a bit of bread. These pasta sauces have been on sale at asda, two 500 gram jars for 3 GBP. I'm a big fan, because there is nothing in these sauces which wouldn't be there if I made them from scratch.

You may notice this is a little carb heavy for me. I've noticed when I go vegan, to drop the cheese out of meals really knocks out a lot of the fat/calories. The rest of my work days usually look like this:

Breakfast: 08.00 - coffee in the office

09.30ish - cereal in the office. (I keep Bran Flakes in my desk drawer)

Lunch: 11.30ish - lunch in the office. Lunch is usually a leftover dinner. So when I made the above tonight, I made enough to have a second, smaller portion which will be tomorrow's lunch, usually with a side of salad, but sans bread.

Dinner: 17.00ish - tonight's dinner was the above.

19.00 - tonight a small bowl of cereal (again, focusing on the carbs a bit more than usual to keep the energy up--not normal when i'm my normal vegetarian self).

vegan eating - day 2 Mexican Sunday

It's difficult to find good Mexican food in Europe. Thankfully, finding the ingredients in the UK is a little easier and less expensive than it was in Germany.


Breakfast was coffee.

Here is the late lunch. Starting around the table, here we go...

11 o'clock is Old El Paso refried beans.

12 o'clock is a veg chili mix from Asda. The suggestion is to add mince to it, but it perks up nicely with dried soya chunks.

1 o'clock is some of those mushrooms from the freezer with Old El Paso Mild Fajita Sauce. I orginally bought this sauce because it was a markdown due to a torn label and I was pleasantly surprised with this one. It has a mild smokey flavor.

3 o'clock is partially hidden behind a glass, it's the lettuce, tomato and pepper salad from yesterday.

4 o'clock is fresh tomatoes, a smattering of garlic, and more garden fresh pepper - a light little flavor

6 o'clock is mild English cheddar for New Friend Ian.

7 o'clock is Heather's sauce. Chopped tomatoes, garlic, and Dave's Gourmet Insanity Sauce which I bought at Asda in the UK.

9 o'clock is some fajita wraps.

The setting is outdoors on my patio table, slightly in the shade because it was hot as heck.

Later in the day was leftover Chinese from yesterday.

Aug 1 - vegan eating day 1

Saturday started off with a long 'to do' list of things to do in town and tasks at home. As I've been living in this flat for almost two months, I'm starting to get more ideas about how I want to use the space in some areas.

Breakfast - coffee at home.

Lunch - since we were out and about in town, we went to Nosh+Coffee. The one in the center of my corner of Essex is relatively new...

On the plus side:

-they are less expensive than their coffee counterparts Costa or Starbucks

-their food selection is more expansive--salads, sandwiches, containers of fresh fruit for 1.50 GBP

-they have a vegan option - salad with beans, hummus, and falafel for 3.50 GBP (which I had), as well as plenty of decent veg options like a feta cheese salad or egg and mayo sandwich.

On the negative side:

-I suspect the people management is lacking at this particular one, or maybe they're all this this, it's the only one I've been to. When you go to the main Costa in my corner of Essex, it's staffed by friendly Eastern Europeans or Spaniards, the Costa above the bookstore is staffed by friendly students, the Coffee+Nosh people are always sour faced, or complaining to one another about their work hours. But anyway...the salad is quite nice...

Dinner: We start with fresh peppers from the garden...

I'm not a fan of eating peppers, but I enjoy growing them for my guests...

I did a stir-fry--it's broccoli from the Saturday market, zuchinni from my garden and tofu, which later had Sharwood's Kung Po sauce added:

The final results....

At 12 o'clock on the table is a fresh salad with lettuce, tomatos, and olive oil.

1 PM is a homemade dipping sauce: tamari sauce, olive oil, water, dried chilli pepers.

3 PM is homemade vegan spring rolls that oversprung

The bottom are our two plates in action

center of the table is the fresh peppers chopped up.

The fancy table setting is a giant cardboard moving box which gets a new round of paper to cover it weekly. I still haven't decided upon a dining room table or coffee table yet, so I'm making due with this one until I figure out how I want the layout of the flat to be.

In front of Tesco

Can't you imagine a bunch of UK marketing folks...
What is American?
-Cheeseburgers?
-No brownies!
-No chips!
-What about soda??

Heck, let's just do it all...

English breakfast for lunch

I don't yet have a routine of shopping as I have only really been here a week in the new place. In addition, the new place has a tiny kitchen, so I don't have so much storage space so I'm still trying to figure out how to use it best. In coming back from Germany the other week, I was a bit stuck...I had nothing fresh due to being gone, I don't have frozen meals, as it's summer I don't even have soup, just a mishmash of things which came along with me on the move...gravy, mushrooms, and lots of dried pasta. The only ingredients that could make a proper meal...fixings for an English breakfast: veg sausages, baked beans, an egg, and mushrooms. No bread, was out. And there was enough to make two lunches.

I really need to figure out how I can get shopping into my schedule now that it's not on the way between the home and office and in addition since I'm on foot is becomes more difficult or more frequest--or to get clever and start the online veg delivery as was previously suggested.

In the meantime, breakfast it is!

the food importer

Other people transport drugs or other nefarious products across international waters, I transport basic foodstuffs across the pond.

From the UK to Germany-->Proper looseleaf English breakfast tea. My work colleague is primarily a tea drinker and claims there is a huge difference in what you can buy in DE vs. in the UK. Thus a few boxes came over.

From Germany to the UK-->Miracoli kaese pasta and German chocolate. The Miracoli is for me, I came back with 9 of the 4-5 portion boxes. Add some spinach or broccoli to it and you have a super meal.

What else should have come along? Two more German pillows to complete the ensemble are still to be purchased. I'm thinking about maybe driving the next go round in September so that I can bring back some bulky items such as that. And a case of regular miracoli in addition... :-)