Plastic-free eating - day 2

We eat a LOT of yoghurt in this house, so I'm going to have to get this yoghurt-making lark right soon.  Today's experiment was not exactly a success in terms of yoghurt, but I got a jam jar full of quite nice cream cheese instead.  I was glad that I had some muslin on hand for straining the whey off.  Basically, my milk, with the yoghurt starter added, got too hot even on the lowest setting on my electric hob (I was using a double boiler to try and keep it warm - about 45 degrees C - for the recommended 8 hours, but after only an hour, the curds and whey separated, so I abandoned the yoghurt making and made the cheese instead).  Another suggestion I found in my internet browsing was to leave the milk in the oven with only the oven light on, so I'll try that next time.  I do need to get a thermometer though, before trying it again.

My second plastic-free shopping expedition took me to Lidl, where I knew I could get rice in a card box.  I also found couscous in a box, and picked up the few vegetables which weren't wrapped: a cucumber (none available naked in Tesco's), a white cabbage for making coleslaw, some large baking potatoes and a couple of sweet potatoes, and some delicious looking fresh figs - a real treat.  For the meat-eaters in the family, I found a box of frozen hake fillets 'in a light, crisp batter'(!), although when I got home and started to make the meal, I was disappointed to find that the fillets were in a plastic bag inside the box!  Chalk it up to experience, but I know I have bought frozen fish before (Young's, I think) which was just loose in the card box.

After their day at  school, the kids were really hungry for a snack, but we'd had to go into town straight away without stopping at home.  They begged me to get them something to munch on in Lidl, and I agreed, hoping I'd be able to find something plastic-free.  Apples, they will eat willingly, but there was not a loose one in sight.  Other than bananas, which neither of them will eat at the moment unless it's split in half and accompanied by ice cream and grated chocolate, the only (and I'm not kidding) thing I could find that was plastic-free was a bar of German fruit and nut chocolate.  It turned out to be delicious, and even with my stingy rationing ('not too much before tea') seemed to keep the wolf from the door for long enough.

So, tonight's meal consisted of creamy potato and sweet potato mash topped with a fried egg/hake fillet, and a huge bowlful of homemade coleslaw, which was devoured by adults and kids alike.  An obvious hit, which is by no means always the case where the kids are concerned.

Talking of banana splits, an ice-cream maker might be on the cards.  However, I guess I'll need cream to make ice-cream, and that only comes in plastic.  Sigh.  Or does it?  More research needed, I think.  I had also been hoping to find pasta in boxes in Lidl, which I did, but to my dismay, realised that the boxes had little plastic windows!  I did buy some pasta flour recently, and it looks as though I'm going to be making some at the weekend.  I'm so glad the farmer down our lane has plenty of happy, healthy laying hens.  The bright yellow yolks from his eggs bear no resemblence to the insipidly coloured ones from the supermarket.