General Chat

We rarely had lamb in any form when I was young, but Mum used to call it Shepherd's Pie when the beef mince was topped with mashed potato

Cottage pie was beef mince topped by potato slices.

When I went into digs in Liverpool, I came across Scouse, which was made in a deeper, narrower lidded casserole. My landlady made it with scrag end of mutton, some herbs and spices, and topped it with potato slices.

We still call beef mince with mashed potato Shepherd's pie, as OH had also heard it that way when younger .................. I'm from Lancashire, he from Cheshire.

I get so annoyed with myself when I forget the supermarket I’m in is now a no go for mince.

Mush mince is no longer a quick meal :-|

Well, the cottage pie tasted OK once I had added my own flavourings and some onion to it but, gosh, it was hard work. I broke it up as much as I could before putting it in the pan and then I just kept stirring and prodding and poking at it till it eventually separated enough to look like mince, but it took ages. I had the pack with 5% fat so there wasn't really enough fat to melt down and help break it up a bit.

Think I'll be buying my mince elsewhere from now on.

Shepherd's pie is lamb/mutton, the clue being in the name.
Cottage pie is beef.

I must admit I haven't bought mince (or anything) from a butcher for years.
I don't often eat red meat, but like to have a pack of frozen mince in the freezer for occasional use without having to plan ahead.
Not as good as fresh mince from a butcher - but at least it's free-flow, not mush, and I can use as much as I need, and put the rest back into the freezer.

In fact, I might just have mince and tatties tonight, now that you've given me the idea!
At least the potatoes are freshly dug from the garden.

I took one of my packs of mush out of the freezer this morning and I am going to make a shepherd's pie with it (should that be cottage pie?) At least I hope I am. I've just looked at it defrosting and it looks like something weird set in jelly. I'll let you know tomorrow how I get on with it.

I haven't used my "block of mush" yet, Names. That's a good name for it. It was a large block so I split it in half and froze it. I'll let you know what I think of it when I get around to cooking some.

I would use an independent butcher if we had a good local one and I could afford his prices. We had an excellent butcher in a village close to where we used to live and I always got my meat from him. I know he is still in business and it isn't too far away so I might be going back to see him. Anything has got to be better than the red, jelly-like mess that's masquerading in my freezer under the name of mince ;-)

Out of the supermarkets I use it is only Sainsbury and the Coop, so far, that are using the squashed packs for beef mince.
Butcher mince is great, but expensive. I bought some supermarket pork mince in the old style packs, hardly had to touch it to break it up.
I wonder how Suffolk Vera is getting on with her block of mush.

I didn’t like using my old table top mincer on fresh meat but it was great for mincing up the left overs from a joint. Just wish I still had it.

Sylvia, my mum and nanna had a mincer that clamped to the kitchen table. She would mince left over chicken to make a "shepherdess pie" as opposed to a "shepherd's pie" made with beef mince. Cottage pie is made with minced lamb. To clean the mincer after use and get all the bits out, they would put bread through the mincer before washing it.

I never ate any of it as was a veggie since i could taste meat and hated it(about 3 years old),

Here, mince and tatties is still a staple food in many homes but as i dont buy any meat, I cant comment on the new vacuum packs but shall ask daughter next time she is in the supermarket, If she buys mince, she tends to go to the local butcher as says its tastier. Its sold in a plastic bag!

Florence in the hebrides

Shirley ......... I wonder if your mum was like mine?

She never bought mince that had already been minced by the butcher.

Instead she bought, and later I had to buy, a piece of steak and then get the butcher to mince it for her. She said she knew she got good meat then, while mince meat was made from "poor" meat.

That may have been fine when she was buying it because the butcher minced the steak in the front of the shop.

By the time I had to buy it after she died, we had moved and were using a different butcher. I don't know what he did when she was buying, but when I had to do it, he took it into the back to mince the steak, so I had to take it on trust, which I did.

Plus, Mum would sometimes mince the remains of the weekend roast , using a grinder.

Soon after we arrived here we bought a meat grinder, that clamped to the edge of a counter or table, because OH remember his mother mincing meat. Unfortunately, we discovered that the grain fed beef here made a very poor mince, tasted like cardboard!

Maggie Winchester I can partly answer your question, having been involved with it for the last quarter of a century!

When I first started at a Tesco recycling site, the plastic was baled and sent off to India, where it was made into coat linings. This changed about 10 years ago, it is still baled, but much bigger bales, and each lorry load is sent to Poland. I don't know what they do with it, and I have no idea of the finances behind it. But I do know that Tesco profit from it.

I have also seen on television a documentary saying plastic bales are exported from the UK to China, and they had footage of a massive warehouse full of them. I don't know what they do with them.

To be honest, knowing that plastic can be recycled, I am a little sceptical about the campaign to ban single use plastics, as they can be recycled together with any other plastic. I hate seeing whales and turtles etc dying because they have eaten plastic they find in the sea, but education and stricter enforcement could put a stop to that, or at least drastically reduce it.

Why does it go abroad instead of being dealt with in the UK? Because for all their marketing saying how much they are doing for the environment, all any of the big corporations are interested in is money, the government think in exactly the same way, and it's cheaper to send it abroad than to process it here in the UK, the carbon footprint is of no interest to any of them.

What i dont understand is why we send the rest abroad? Why cant we melt it down and turn it into new things? Surely we have the resources to do that in this country and if not why not?

I have to admit to working out the cost of cleaning - hot water, difficulty fully cleaning etc before I recycle.
I mean, if milk goes off in the plastic bottle, it's no easy job getting milk lumps out of the handle!
You could spend more than the milk cost trying to clean that!

Sometimes, you assume the plastic container is recyclable, but, on looking up what the symbols mean, you find it isn't.

.....and what, exactly, happens to our recycled plastic?

It seems 12% is recycled into pellets, the rest is sent abroad (how much does that cost?), no doubt to end up in the sea, or polluting another country.

Saturday lunch when I was a kid was mince cooked with carrots and onion and bisto gravy with mash

Never been to recreate it to taste the same

Bur we bought our mince fresh from the locak butcher

Good luck!

We can’t recycle the plastic trays here, new or old.

I know this thread is a month old but I have just had a delivery from Sainsbury which included mince and for the first time I got one of the compressed packs. The look of it is enough to put anyone off. I hope it cooks up to be better than it looks or I certainly won't be buying it again.

I also wonder how much plastic is really being saved. Prominently at the front of the pack is stated that there is 55% less plastic used but I looked all over the package to find recycling information and eventually found small print at the back of a label which said Don't Recycle Film. But the plastic trays they used to pack mince in could be recycled so where is the saving if all the plastic they are using is going into landfill?

The amount of additives in vegetarian/vegan food is incredible!

I was about to say never, never - then read a bit more :-D :-D

Maybe there is a group wanting us not to eat anything ;-)

"I have wondered if it was designed by a certain group to turn us off meat altogether"

LOL Have you tried the co-op vegan range? Branded as meat, tastes like meat and their 'chick'n kievs' are as tough as old birds! 'Fishless Fingers' taste like something dredged from an inlet of rotting fish. YUK!!!
More likely designed to put people off going animal free.
I think you're wondering in the wrong direction there names ;-) :-D

They do full fat mince as well it's just I am fat enough without it ;-) :-D :-D :-D

:-( :-( :-(