Thursday 22 December 2011

A Small Improvement? + Food Shopping

Tonight's dinner was still yellow, but at least it was slightly more cooked from scratch (well, kind of). Stir fried peppers and sesame smoked tofu with noodles, with a few eggs stir fried through at the end.



We haven't had this in ages - I always think of stir fry as kind of boring, but it was really good! Garlic powder, sesame oil and soy sauce gave extra flavour. This really filled me up!

This afternoon, we went to look round my Mum's new house. Her, her partner and my little sister aren't moving in until mid-January, but they got the keys on Monday, exciting! The house is a new-build so they got to choose the bathrooms, kitchen etc. It's all really lovely, the kitchen especially is amazing - huge, granite work surfaces, leading out onto decking/terrace with amazing views...I told Liam I want a kitchen like that one day! ;)

Afterwards, we borrowed Mum's car to go food shopping. We braved both Lidl and Waitrose, but it was actually ok. Neither shop was too busy and I didn't spot any trolley rage happening!

I bought lots of baking supplies in preparation for tomorrow - sugar, flour, chocolate, eggs, butter etc - and the usual foods - vegetables, fruit, tofu... but I just wanted to show you photos of a few highlights.

It seems that I'm in the mood for marzipan and/or dark chocolate treats:

Dark chocolate covered marzipan log, Lindt dark chocolate with sea salt, block of marzipan
I also picked up some things to help decorate my baking gifts tomorrow - brown/gold ribbon, and some cute mini candy canes!


I spotted this amazing looking salted caramel cake. They also had a chai cake, but this one had a small reduction which was the excuse I needed to buy it! I haven't tried it yet, but the cake has dates as it's first ingredient - I looks like it's some kind of sticky toffee cake with salted caramel buttercream...yes please!


Finally, we also bought some drinks. The ciders are mainly for Liam, but he's not sure if he'll like the new flavours - pear with ginger, and spiced apple with rhubarb - they sound really interesting so I said I'd have them if he doesn't like them! The drink I'm most looking forward to though is the cream soda with raspberry. I used to love cream soda (with ice cream) when I was younger, and I've been eyeing this version up for a while now, but never bought it before!


Have you braved the supermarkets recently? Do you need to do a big "Christmas shop" this year? We're going to Liam's Mum's for Christmas lunch this year, and my Mum is bringing nibbles round to ours in the morning, so we don't really need to buy much in the way of Christmas food. We did buy quite a few treats though, and things like frozen part-bake pain au chocolats for Christmas morning, camemberts to bake with all the sides (baguette, carrots, grapes etc) for Christmas Eve. I'm sure we'll have plenty of food. It's not like the shops are closed for long, but I'd rather not have to visit them right around Christmas if I can help it!

8 comments:

  1. Mmm, that stir-fry looks delicious. I just ate oatmeal for lunch, as I'm feeling a bit under-the-weather this week. I'd rather have had the stir-fry!

    I hope to finish my grocery shopping tomorrow evening, for the holiday weekend. There is NO WAY that I want to be in the stores on Saturday. Ugh. Avoid, avoid.

    ~

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  2. Aww, I hope you feel better soon & manage to have a great Christmas :)

    & I agree - I will be avoiding all shops on Saturday!!

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  3. We went to Sainsbury's this evening as we normally have Ocado deliveries, but even though we pay a monthly thing for free deliveries, ones this week cost £9.99! Plus Sainsbury's sent us £8 off a £40 shop which is not to be sniffed at! Those candy canes are so cute- I bought some today but normal sized ones- I fancy making the chocolate bark I see everywhere on the internet! I need projects to keep me busy! I also love chocolate and marzipan and have almost the exact same thing but from Aldi- a log of marzipan covered in dark chocolate (they also do one with praline in the marzipan). I also went to Waitrose this morning but only because it was free parking and also Andy wanted one of their pizzas. But that should be it until the middle of next week I think, as we have plenty of food! :)

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  4. I'm spending Christmas with my boyfriend's family and we still have to buy everything for our Christmas dinner...but my parents are going out to eat (probably since my mom's missing her sous chef!) so they're all set. It's a small town..so maybe the grocery stores won't be *too* crowded for us!

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  5. We did a big shop earlier in the week and I have an organic veg box being delivered today plus I'm popping to the green grocers in town shortly just to get some Christmassy fruit, hopefully all I'll need to get at the shops in the next week is salad greens and milk for James! That salted caramel cake looks amazing - you should definitely make my raw tart you would love it!

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  6. Maria - yes, I fancy making the chocolate bark...bit worried about how melty it will be after a messy experience with chocolate pretzels...let me know if you make some! Lidl also do pinapple (?!!) chocolate marzipan log, and a rum and raisin one I think. I stick to the plain dark choc one though :)

    Mary - I hope you have a lovely Christmas, fingers crossed for a quiet shopping experience!!

    Laura - I've added your raw tart to my list, it does sound amazing! The salted caramel cake was nice, but the cake part was a bit dry for me - cake with chopped dates dotted through rather than being a sticky toffee cake iyswim. The icing was delicious though!

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