Random Donner Post :)

[Ed P]

Duke, although vegans hate the fact, humans NEED meat to get enough B12.

Try adding a small piece of liver to your diet every week or two. The other thing to try are the soya meat substitutes and the Linda McCartney range of non-meat meats. They are generally very good, for a quick meal we often use her ‘mock’ Hoisin Duck.

[Bob Williams]

Ed is right Steve: what vegans forget in their anti-meat fascism, is that humans evolved as omnivores. The meat actually caused the human brain to evolve intelligence and that is the reason for we humans being the dominant species on our planet. Having said that, being omnivorous means we evolved needing a mixed, balanced diet.

If you find chicken boring, try roasting a chicken in a roasting bag, inside a slow cooker. Use whatever spices and flavourings you like: my missus uses a little dried stock, dried onions, a little paprika, black pepper and something else she will not tell me because her mum gave her the recipe. Her two sisters are just as secretive about it and when they get together we BIL’s have tried to interrogate them, to no avail. The chicken has an amazing flavour but the problem comes when trying to carve it – you can’t, because all of it falls off the bone. I sometimes boil up the leftovers and bones, repeatedly skim off the grease until it’s all gone, then blend some veg in to make chicken broth, with a little stock and some chicken Oxo.

Pork I just cannot eat now, I find it tasteless, but I love the thick, lean back bacon my local butcher sells. He also has the best steak and S&K pies I have ever eaten, but tonight it’s the rare treat of fillet steak. We eat red meat only rarely, but fillet, although expensive, has no waste and makes two good meals.  We gave up on lamb chops because of the waste: strip the fat and bone, only small pieces of meat are left. Fish is on the menu at least twice a week: fresh Salmon, Cod, Halibut, Plaice, Sea Bream, whatever I can get. I love sea food. A good tomato sauce is great with Salmon if you don’t use too much. I use this BBC Good Food recipe:

http://tinyurl.com/r7tyrh2

As it says, make a big batch and use it on anything.

When the Thought Police arrive at your door, think -
I'm out.

[PlaneMan]

Steve, I’m not meat free, I love a steak, ribeye, and like chicken. Also love pork but can’t eat it at all, gives me really bad stomach issues for a few days at least.

I eat a fair amount of meat free stuff, mostly quorn or Linda McCartney. ASDA have a nice range of their own brand stuff in the chilled section, what I’ve had so far has been really nice. Not the stuff I usually buy but when my hands are  knackered it’s handy to have the option.

Really liked that one, £2.50 IIRC.

As for the B12 deficiency, low salt Marmite works for me, blue lid. Also has a fair bit of folic acid, which I need.

[Ed P]

Harrisa is the spice for chickens.

[RSB]

Well I was trying to bring some order to my freezer’s yesterday and found a couple of packs of lamb mince so there thawing or have thawed so it’s my second attempt today 🙂 I have looked round at diffrent recipes and there is not one that I think will be what I want so I am going to try my own way taking pointers from here & there. Once I get one thats just right I’ll name it “The Forumite Donner” 🙂

Americans: Over Sexed, Over Payed and Over here, Wat Wat!

[RSB]

I got it so close last night but it was to dry. I’m open to suggestions. I was thinking of adding some oil of some kind such as rape seed or olive.

 

Americans: Over Sexed, Over Payed and Over here, Wat Wat!

[Ed P]

Add some semolina to your mix – Turkish style.

[Les.]

Returning to an earlier part of this thread, porridge. Not every day yet, still need to put away the cereal in the cupboard, but I am sure we are seeing benefits. My stool presentation seems improved, with less variation from rather soft to rather hard. More in between.

Ed, you suggested adding oat bran; what sort of proportions? We found some in Holland and Barrets, but no “instructions”. The packaging suggests to me 100%, but I don’t think I will go there. Currently about 20%.

Les.

[Ed P]

My cereal brekkie consists of two dessert spoons of oats, two of oat bran and 3/4 dessert spoon of  wheat bran. Add water/milk/soy milk to just about cover and nuke (watching carefully) at 800 watts for 30-60secs until the milk just starts to foam up. Leave to cool for a bit (its bleeding hot!) then top with more cold milk etc, and a sprinkle of salt or other goodies such as seeds/currents to your taste. If I’m in a hurry I eat without cooking Muesli style. Btw do NOT get conned into buying expensive ‘microwave’ oats: ordinary oats microwave in exactly the same way and cost a quarter of the price!

If you prefer a cold breakfast then mix up the oats, bran and milk and leave to steep overnight, top up with milk in the morning and eat.

Bran reduces bowel transit time (supposedly a good thing) and bulks up the stools. I mix different brans as oat bran is a ‘soluble’ fibre that feeds the bugs in the lower intestine, while wheat bran is insoluble and supposedly scours nasties from the colon.

As you note, this changes hard little bullets into larger more comfortable soft logs! I found that it also eliminated my IBS over time.

[Bob Williams]

Soon to be testing “Oatabix Flakes”, probably adding currants and whatever fruity bits are in the cupboard. Started adding raisins, but prefer currants. Our resident blackbird pair love raisins, so no waste involved. They also like the fatty bits I remove from cooked meats, and the crusts from my seeded Hovis. They eat very well here, but they breed every year and nest in a holly tree. Our reward is to be serenaded in season and I often have a “duelling whistles” contest with Mr. Blackbird, I have been able to speak fluent Blackbird and Thrush since childhood. Just wish I knew what I was saying to them…

Eccentric? Moi? Mais non, Je suis Anglais!

When the Thought Police arrive at your door, think -
I'm out.

[StevieP]

Funny thing that Bob, my “southern blackbirds also love raisins, if there are none left in the feeder they sit there tapping their beaks until the better half puts some out for them. (No I’m not lazy but on going blood problems prevent me doing a lot of things I would like to do). Together with the blackbirds I also have thrushes which I used to feed snails from the undersides of the many pots in the garden and of course the robins which appear from nowhere when the pots are moved around the garden leaving the small red worms exposed. No fieldfares or redwings at all this year so far, obviously not cold enough up north to push them down.
As to porridge when I was still working I used to do similaar to Ed, put in overnight and add fresh berries before eating, bloody lovely.

[Bob Williams]

I know what you mean Stevie: on my bad days I have to enlist my missus to feed them. They will sit on the fence looking at us through the kitchen window. I never knew birds could give you an accusing look! When we lived in Louth we had sliding glass doors in the kitchen/diner extension. At breakfast on warm days we would leave them open and a previous blackbird family would hop in for their share. We even had a peacock there, no one knew where it came from but we all fed it until one day it just never turned up.

Here we are surrounded by farmland and with a huge old wood up the road, a chalk stream coming down off the Wolds not far away. We have so many different birds visit the rear garden: 3 species of tits, woodpeckers, robins, wagtails, goldfinches, siskins and until recently literally dozens of sparrows, living in next door’s privet hedge that I call Sparrow Towers. One morning there was a kestrel sitting on the fence, the sparrows all disappeared and have not returned in numbers yet, just a couple. And I am forgetting the crows, magpies and the boring song of the pigeons. There is a massive rookery in the smaller wood half a mile away and they try to get onto the bird table, it’s funny to watch. Then there are the hundreds of seagulls which come over at around 4 pm in the winter and 5 in the summer, and they have still not worked out where the big field over the road went: a new housing development there. The gulls would drop down to that field and feed from whatever was there. Now they fly in circles above it, confused. I also pick up snails, tap the shells on the slabs to expose them and the thrushes come down to them.

Every summer we have ants and when the temp’s go up, the flyers emerge from the latest nest around our front, large south-facing picture window. I kill them but I don’t poison the area until the sparrows and others have eaten their fill. The birds seem to pass on the message, because as soon as the flyers emerge, the sky fills with them, performing aerobatics in front of our window, catching the flyers in flight and dropping to the ground to scoop up the non-flyers. I love this village and surrounding area, but we will soon have to move into town as we cannot manage the garden any more and our landlord is not keeping up with maintenance. We have found a good, modern apartment on the ground floor of a secure, gated complex, which is actually directly below our grandson. It will be a wrench to leave, but it is a beautiful, comfortable last home for us. Not looking forward to the move, and the task of informing every service provider, though. We are at an age when hassle is not what we need!

When the Thought Police arrive at your door, think -
I'm out.

[Richard]

I broadly agree on the subject of morning food with crushed oats, oat bran, wheat bran and usually sultanas or raisins. I do not fancy currents too much, they tend to be hard and not soften up unless soaked for a very long time. Dried fruit appears to have shrunk over the years.

We no longer stomach lamb, the Middle East cured any idea of eating lamb, it was just too fatty tasting and now it is better to leave it to others.

Bob, I was sorry to read about your enforced move, to an easier location. You did appear to be well fitted and sorted, it will be something of a wrench to go, I feel for you. Life does become more challenging as time passes, we have someone come in to assist with the garden now. It still feels too much from time to time, but I sit down and wait till the feeling wears off or darkness falls.

Last weekend I had to change a kitchen tap, the old one had been dripping unless cranked off increasingly hard and my wife’s hands were not up to the task any more. Off I set, but the 28-year-old one did not want to give up without a fight, that took a good forty minutes with ever more tools and some brute force being involved. I just snapped off the copper pipes until a pipe wrench could gain access and loosen the knurled hold down part. No proper nuts inviting a spanner to turn them. At least the new fitting went in as it should. My being stuck into a sink cupboard trying to connect things up was just not fun. The new one takes only a quarter turn for either hot or cold water, bliss for all  and it shuts off without a battle.

[Bob Williams]

By now we are actually looking forward to the move Richard, it’s just the hassle but the family will help. We have spoken to our daughter and on Monday will see our son, he and his son are our reliable ‘Heavy Lifters’ and son has a large trailer. SIl will also help if he is on the right shift, that lad is a demon for work, although I have always struggled with his Brummy accent and he struggles with my Nottinghamshire speech. No doubt he will inform me that Birmingham City beat Nottingham Forest yesterday! Moving to a secure, modern, comfortable ground floor apartment, larger actually than the bungalow, will be good for us as a last home. Shops and market of Louth, surgery and dentist will all be close.

We have been ‘off’ lamb for some years, as you say it is fatty and I am advised to leave out animal fats as much as possible. Plus lamb has gone up in price so much lately. I prefer fish (almost any sea fish) or chicken, with the occasional small joint of Topside, Silverside or Brisket, cooked in the slow cooker.

Taps we sorted out very early here: all are lever arch taps, as my missus has very poor function in her right hand and reduced in her left. I recommend them, but they do tend to leak every 5 or 6 years, so I have a stock of washers for that eventuality. Once upon a time the so-called ‘Social Landlord’ would have done that, now we DIY. I have no idea what they will make of some of the alterations we have made over the years when we leave. Adapting double power sockets to triple ones may baffle them, for example. If there are charges I shall ask for a detailed breakdown of costs and work. That should baffle them even more.

When the Thought Police arrive at your door, think -
I'm out.

[StevieP]

My boy did a fake donnor which if I remember correctly mainly consisted of lamb mince plus spices etc which was the compressed into a tin can.  He said that he got it from here https://pinchofnom.com/ I cant find it, maybe you might have betterluck.

[RSB]

I got it very close at the weekend but still just short of flavour, nice but just not there yet. I’ll post my recipe and see if anyone can sugest owt.

Americans: Over Sexed, Over Payed and Over here, Wat Wat!

[RSB]

This is what I come up with. It tasted like donner meat exaclty but just the flavour was not strong enough. If I compensate by adding more ingreident it will no doubt make it to dry. I was going to add a bit of mint sauce to the mix but I forgot.

1kg Mince meat. I had to use this much to fill the bread tin 🙂

3 garlic cloves

1 level TSP fennel seeds

1 heaped TSP onion powder

1 heaped TSP black pepper

1 level TSP of cumin powder

1 level Tbs mixed herbs

1 level Tbs Oegano

1 tsp heaped smoked paprika

2 tbs of sesamee oil

1 level tsp cayenne pepper

1 tbs selomina powder

I cooked it through and and let it settle in the fridge over night.

Americans: Over Sexed, Over Payed and Over here, Wat Wat!

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