Essential?

As suspected, the Morrison list of 46 “essential" items doesn’t tally with my definition of “essential” items. I could go a long time without ready salted crisps & custard creams. At this stage I’m far more interested in meat, fish & veg. Even for a bit of a morale boosting treat I’d sooner have some chocolate.

Some of the options seem strange to me. There is butter but no margarine & yet so many elderly/extremely vulnerable are told not to eat butter, just use margarine as it’s likely to cause less cholesterol & lower blood pressure.

I’m also surprised to see two ready meals – cottage pie & lasagne – both of which are minced beef. Couldn’t we have had a chicken or fish option.

The frozen section consists of chips, scampi & peas. Peas I can see are by far & away the most popular veg in this country, but scampi? Why not fish fingers? As for chips I would use the potatoes on the list for that & sooner have a different veg option e.g. green beans.

Needless to say the Fox ended up going to the store himself. This list may mean we can make the visits less frequent, & certainly would be invaluable if the Fox was taken ill, but normally we would prefer trying for a fuller range of options & see if we can sort out on-line shopping even if we have to order weeks in advance.

However, I did pass on the names of friends who are also over 70/disabled. Some have found the list invaluable, especially if they live on their own. The relief of some at seeing a van arrive the day after ordering with food again was tangible. I suspect that would have been me if I hadn’t got the Fox to shop for me.

Even going to the shops the Fox didn’t manage to get everything. No cream, no plain flour, no condensed mushroom soup, no soap.

Yesterday’s dinner used up our four langoustines. The recipe required 6 langoustine for two people. They were then cooked with mushrooms in double cream & topped with cheese. I ended up adding extra mushrooms to make up for the shortage of langoustine. I then made up a mushroom sauce, enriched with the dribble of single cream I had in the fridge. I’m glad to say we still thoroughly enjoyed the meal even if it wasn’t as rich as the original French recipe.

Now I’m trying to decide how I’m going to stretch one chicken breast to satisfy the two of us. I suspect it will be a stir fry of some sort, chow mein perhaps.