Frozen Bread And Salty Yolks - The Cheapskates Guide To Groceries

Like most people, I go food shopping once a week.  That's when the big list gets made and when I know it's time to get more self-raising flour, eggs, bread or tomatoes.  Sometimes though, stuff just dies mid-week.  Got a bunch of spring onions?  Most of 'em floppy by Wednesday.  Ate half a baguette?  The other half goes stale, languishing in the bread bin.  NOOOooooo!

It took most of my adult life, but I finally became a Grocery Scrooge.  No more shall my onions wilt!  Yes, I shall freeze my perishable seafood!  Yeah, I'm making it sound like a bigger deal than it really is, but the truth is I hate wasting food because it's money down the drain... or in the bin.
Money that could be spent on shoes, illicit street drugs nail polish, or a can of Ortiz anchovies.

So here's what I do to get more food in my mouth, while saving some sweet sweet dirty cash.

1. Italian Week = YES.  Italo-Mexi-Thai-Grecian-Chinese Week = Aww hell NO.
   I get that in the 21st century we home cooks are supposed to be as schmancy and cosmopolitan as James Bond's flight itinerary.  We've Got Skills and can wield both a wok and paella pan with equal dexterity.  Damn, has Marvel made a comicbook about us yet, because they should.  The ability to cook food stemming from different cultures and regions is a fabulous undertaking.
   However, I assure you there is no pressure to cook food from wildly different etymologies every night of the week.
   

Greed, Inadequacy... And A Recipe For One Mad, Bad Chocolate Pavlova

A lone blueberry flops to the left of the pavlova, a criminal fleeing the scene.  The raspberries are studded unevenly across the surface.  Some are huddled together like hostages, while others lie solitary and stranded, lost and away from the herd. The strawberries are leaking their dark balsamic syrup, sullying the white skirts of cream with rusty drips.

As I poke another errant blueberry into the Sorry Heap it dawns on me that I possess the plating skills of a toddler drunk on laudanum.

Plating is like sex.  If you think about it too hard, too much, or generally obsess about it, it's probably going to be awful.  Or perhaps I've just conjured up this platitude to comfort myself;  the correct placement of fruit eludes me so thoroughly and I am very, very bad at it.  Either way the facts are unassailable - I cannot make food look pretty.

Warning: Contains Dairy, Eggs, Booze and Christmas

Christmas.  Pass the booze, please.  Oh, and make it sublime, delicious and reminiscent of various holiday-endorsed sentiment such as 'good cheer', 'fun with friends and family' and 'goodwill to all'.

Yes, it's a lot to demand from a drink.  However, there is one contender that covers all bases.  It's appearance is pale and angelic. It's cold-creamy-sweet and packs enough punch so you'll be comfortably sozzled when making awkward conversation with relations you only see once a year whilst carving a large bird and wearing a daft hat.  If a drink could be deemed 'beatific', this would be it.  

Eggnog.  It is tasty and it is your friend.

"But madam", you cry, "isn't it fiddly and hard to make?  Doesn't it contain raw eggs which makes it mad, bad and dangerous to know for the pregnant, elderly and children?"

No, it's not fiddly and difficult, you lazy oaf.  It's actually frighteningly easy.  And yes, it does contain raw eggs.  But bugger it, you know what... I'm going to stand up for the noble egg right here and now.  Eggs are great.  Eggs are grand, in fact.  And I like them raw.  Not raw in bloody everything, of course.  Raw like this, this and this.  And not just any egg.  Get good eggs, from happy hens.  If you truly give a damn about eggs, you'll make sure of this.  You'll buy the more expensive free-range eggs from the supermarket.  You'll talk to the eggs-and-honey folks at your local market.  And if you don't care about eggs... well, you don't deserve Eggnog.  Eggnog DENIED.    

If you fall under the pregnant/elderly/child category - this drink is pretty darn boozy, so it's unlikely you'd be allowed to drink it anyway.  It's illegal if you're under aged.  Booze is a no-no when up the duff.  And if you're old/unwell enough that you take medications which alcohol may interfere with, it's no-touchy-touchy for you either.

So now that we've got the fun police part out of the way...

Mr Boston-ish Rum & Brandy Eggnogg

A Christmas morning drink which will see you through the entire day.  How else does one cope with the various vagabonds and miscreant visitors, heaping piles of foodstuffs and peculiarly ribald activity?

• 6 Eggs
• 1 cup sugar (I used castor sugar)
• 1/2 cup spiced rum (Captain Morgan is a friend of mine)
• 1/2 cup brandy
• 1 pint cream (the original recipe calls for 'half-and-half', i just used regular cream)
• 1 pint milk

You'll need a large jug (such as a big ol' beer jug) and a stick mixer.  Seperate eggs.  The whites go into the jug and get whipped to buggery first by the stick mixer.  Plunge the stick mixer in back and forth like you're indicating something rude - that gets more air in.  Obscene gestures equal added fluffiness in the final result, just accept it and SHUSH!  Now add the rest of the ingredients.  Refrigerate for at least 3 hours.  Garnish with nutmeg.  Serve.

Repeat the entire process if necessary.  If the company is exceptionally tiresome OR if Christmas = one massive pissup, make alot.  It's not a drink - it's an entire holiday strategy.