Fruit, Vegetables and how much is enough?

Posted on March 2, 2017 by nicdempsey

Last week the news dropped that we should abandon our target of eating 5 portions of fruit or veg a day and aim for 10 instead. Every country seems to have a different target. In Denmark it’s six, the French already have 10, in Japan they have 13 portions of veg and four of fruit, Australia say seven in total, five of veg and two of fruit. img_4910-1I have to be honest, I don’t really count, eat a fair amount of fruit and veg and haven’t thought much beyond that. However, it’s been on my mind this week, I read this article about the cost of it and then Michelle at Utterly Scrummy blogged her weekly meal plan, trying to ensure that her family of six got 10 portions a day. It cost 30% more than usual. This is someone who can and does cook, doesn’t eat many processed or pre-prepared foods and it cost 30% more a week.img_4838-1The problem is not so much the amount, especially in the summer, when my diet more naturally skews towards veg, it’s the variety. It’s 10 different portions a day. If I eat two carrots that only actually one portion for the sake of the target and it’s March. If you are trying to eat cheaply, variety is where you are going to fail.   img_4808Looking at the NHS guidelines these are the things to remember: a portion is 80g, beans and lentils count for no more than one portion a day, fruit juice and smoothies are 150ml portions and can count for no more than one portion. Jam does not count at all!img_4760So for the rest of this month, I’m going to see if I can hit 10 portions of fruit and veg a day with no more than three of fruit. I want to see if I can do it within the contraints of my budget and if at the end of the month it has had any difference on my health/weight/digestion.

I plan to wrap up at the end of the month in the goals post but if I find it more interesting/harder or just worthly of more discussion, I may write a bit more. We’ll see!

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What I’ve Read – February 2017

Posted on March 1, 2017 by nicdempsey

I struggled with reading in February, I was stuck in a February and reading slump. Frustratingly, I have to send the Hamilton biography back to the library before I’ve finished it because someone has reserved it. The major problem with library books is that they tend to hardbacks and therefore a pain to lug around to read and other people reserve them before you get to finish them. I had that book on reserve for a year so rather than reserve it again and have the same thing happen, I’m going to have to bite the bullet and buy the damn book….

Three Dark Crowns – Kendare Blake (library book)

I was really looking forward to this book but I didn’t care about the three queens at all. I wanted to know more about the world but I didn’t care who did well, who didn’t and what would happen.

The Fate of the Tearling – Erika Johansen (library book)

I didn’t much care for the middle book and while I enjoyed this better and liked the resolution, which was a bit of a surprise. I’m still not sure, so much of it didn’t fit right. The joy of the first book was that it felt like a fully imagined world but that sense was diluted in the other two books. I don’t know there was stuff that didn’t seem to fit right. I can’t quite work it out.

Diablo Lake: Moonstruck- Lauren Dane (borrowed)

Diablo Lake: Protected – Lauren Dane (borrowed)

I read both of these one after the other and I liked them, I also liked that while the immediate problems of the couples in each book are solved, the happy ever afters require work and while the first ends with marriage, the second while heading there doesn’t. Although both stories are similiar, they aren’t identical. I think this series has an overarching issue and I’m looking forward to the next one because I want to work out what is going on.

How to Charm a Naughty Countess – Theresa Romain (Kindle TBR)

I’ve had this sitting in my TBR for ages and I’m glad I got to it. Virgin hero who has panic attacks and struggles to read people socially with an experienced, socially popular heroine, was a role reversal and a welcome one. Although I did get annoyed that they just didn’t use their words while also completely understanding why they didn’t.

The Life of the Beloved – Henri Nouwen  (bought)

This is the Grace Lent book and read it quite quickly. It’s given me some stuff to think about and I’ll re-read during Lent.

Devil in Spring – Lisa Kleypas (bought)

I was really looking forward to this book and read it in a day. Some things I liked, Pandora is the one that doesn’t want to get married, Gabriel is lovely but very flawed and overall the compromises that both of them are ready to make to marry and make that work, Pandora’s family support, Sebastian and Evie from The Devil in Winter, the use of the phrase ‘kiss like a pirate’. What I didn’t quite like was the departure the book took into mystery and preventing terrorism. I don’t need my historical romance to do that and I was far more interested in seeing the two of them work out how to be married and communicate as equals (Gabriel wasn’t good at that!). Also at times the book read like it had been lifted from a tour guide, I didn’t need the over explaining of Sussex, something I notice Klepas does a lot  in all her books but I’m guessing that’s for people not from the UK.Overall though, I’m happy and I did make the good book noise.

A Conjuring of Light – V. E. Schwab (bought)

 

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February Recap/March Goals

Posted on February 28, 2017 by nicdempsey

I survived February! I was expecting February to be better than January and quickly came to the conclusion that it was not, I was expecting lighter days and spring and it didn’t happen quite as quickly as I’d hoped and then there was Storm Doris…yes we have started to name our storms but we are giving them granny names…

However, it is  a bit lighter and I also realised that it was a feeling not an action. Yeah, I felt pretty down during a lot of February but I got a lot done too and I should try to focus more on the positive than the negative. So I will.

In February, I was social; I went to Richard’s birthday celebrations, dinner with Kathy and Adam, Sarah came for lunch, I visited Beefeater with Christelle, I got up to Shefford to see my nephews (and Ben and Lu!). I also got to Grace and felt much better for spending time with God and my community. We woodchiped all the paths on the plot, planted rhubarb and I planted seedlings (probably too early but what the hell!). img_5939

Here were my goals:

  • Use Bright Light Therapy Headset every day. This was the easiest thing on the list and it does make a difference, even when I felt that maybe it wasn’t. People have noticed…
  • Get out of the house by 7:30am on workdays & 10pm lights out on schoolnights. I’ve not been perfect with this but I have caught that 7.56 train every day. On at least been at the station at the right time before it was cancelled!
  • Going for a walk at least every other day. I did this and it didn’t feel like a stretch, I think I need to get a new fitbit…
  • Stretching. I did this more or less every morning and on the mornings I didn’t my body let me know it was unhappy, cue stretching in the toilets at work! 
  • Defrost the freezer and clean the oven.
  • Make marmalade. Done, whether it is enough to keep my mother in marmalade for the year is yet to be seen!img_5904
  • Allotment
    • Weed top of plot and plant new rhubarb crowns. Done.img_6012
    • Sow leeks, cavolo nero and sweet peas. Done, the seedlings are all looking a bit leggy (leeks excepted) but you live and learn, I can alway re-sow the cavolo nero next month.img_5931
    • Weed beds and prep for spring. Weeding has been done, compost has yet to be obtained, we may be spending some time carting it back from Wilkinsons…
    • Work out what to do with the ‘rubbish’ pile now I can’t burn it!.This is going to invoice bagging it up and going to the dump which requires a car, it’s a problem…

I want to generally focus on the flat a bit in February. I feel that I did this and it was really nice to be able to offer it to Kathy as a place she could get some work done during half term. She was grateful for the calm and I was glad that the flat was calming. That’s in large part because it wasn’t messy because I’d made the effort to keep it like that!

MARCH GOALS

My word for this year is focus and to better reflect that in my life, I want all of my monthly goals to build up, so to keep doing what I do and then add. Now some of the goals will drop away as they  become irrelevant through the year but there are going to be a lot of repeats…

  • Use Bright Light Therapy Headset every day. This is working and after the clocks go forward (March 26th!) I probably won’t need to use again until the clocks go back in October. For March though, it stays…
  • Get out of the house by 7:30am on workdays & 10pm lights out on schoolnights. This is going to be a goal every month, again, it works, I know I need it so it’s a place I’m putting my focus
  • Going for a walk at least every other day. This is important, especially while I’m not on the allotment so much.
  • Stretching. It’s such a small thing yet it makes such a big difference and as I get more into allotment work, I’ll need it even more.
  • Clean the oven. Part of my focus on the house.
  • Housework routine. Believe it or not, I do have routine for laundry and cleaning the house. It’s flexible but I really need to bed it in as something I do no matter what because I’m coming up to the allotment part of the year and last year the flat really suffered…
  • Renew passport. Or at least set aside the money to renew my passport.
  • Clothes repair. I have a heap of clothes that need buttons tightening/patching etc, I just need to devote an hour or two to fixing them.
  • Allotment
    • Finish preping the beds, clearing what needs to be cleared
    • Sow things outdoors. This is really weather dependent but by the end of the month I should have been able to sow, carrots, beetroot, chard, spinach, peas and the herbs, chives, parsley, dill and coriander.
    • Sow things indoors, tomatoes, cucumbers, summer squash
    • Work on rubbish pile and creating a compost area
    • Order and set up shed, which is going to take some help

Lent starts tomorrow, I haven’t made any plans to give anything up but I am going to try and join in some of the Grace Lent meals and discusssions, we are reading Henri Nouwen’s Life of the Beloved, which I have read but will need to re-read after some reflection.

 

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February Photos – Part Two

Posted on February 27, 2017 by nicdempsey

Not a good place to park. 16 February. Or, how I almost died on the way to work.img_5962Blue-ish Sky. 17 February. Morning photo img_5964Gold Shoes. 17 February. A different journey to work because of train failure and someone with a shiny pair of shoes because you have to cheer yourself up however you can!img_5972Favourite View. 17 February. I walked from work to Waterloo on Friday, it’s a great walk on a sunny day, even if that day is the last day of half-term. Tourists and small children everywhere but if I’m honest, I walked it for this view.img_5975How to cope. 17 February. Beefeater Tour, I have a thing about advertising and packaging and there are a couple of these.img_5980Londoner. 17 February.img_5991Old Tom. 17 February.img_5982Gin, finally. 17 February. After the tour.img_5985Red Trousers. 17 February. Men who wear trousers like this have the self belief that only a private education can give you. He didn’t know when the Battle of Waterloo was but that didn’t stop him pontificating on it, at length..img_5990Pizza. 17 February. One of twoimg_5996Herb Bed. 18 February. Soon this patch of earth will be covered with plants, for now I’m enjoying the achievement of weeding and digging it over.img_6026Allotment view. 18 February. Part of me thinks I’m just going to take a photo every time at at the plot from this angle and to track the changes.img_6010Ma headless in the raspberries. 18 February. She’s a great mother, a fabulous grandma and the best weeder I know (it’s the pointy fingers!!)img_6011Rhubarb planted. 18 February. You can’t see it yet but there is rhubarb there.img_6012Sunset. 18 February. Leaving the allotments as the sun went downimg_6017Blossom. 18 February. The blossom is out, it’s still early but it’s a month later than last year.img_6019Boiled Chicken. 18 February. So for a little while, I’ve been trying to make boiled chicken in the slow cooker. It’s not chicken stew and Ma used to make it a lot and serve it with rice. This is it and it tastes like I remember. Ma approved as well.img_6025Dutch Baby Pancake. 19 February. Sunday morning breakfast and a new recipe. It was good.img_6032Waiting for the train. 23 February. Much lighter in the morning than it used to be.Not my train. 23 February. ‘Doris’ day is was a bit windyRain, rain. 23 February. On the way to work the heavens openedSunset. 23 February.Blue Sky. 24 February. Friday morning and the promise of sunshineDark Cloud. 24 February. I loved how it was just over the churchBlossom. 24 February. It’s so lovely to turn the corner into my road and see the blossom.Garlic. 24 February. A trip to the allotment to check for damage.Broad Beans. 24 February. I’ve never grown them before, so while there are others doing better, I’m really proud that any are growing…Chard. 24 February. I overwintered these and they didn’t do much, but they are pretty.Friday Night Pizza. 24 FebruaryCookies for the nephews. 24 February. Baking is my love languageGrey Day. 25 FebruaryBrother and nephew 2. 25 February. Nephew number 2 loves in variable order Daddy, Mummy, food and turning around in circles and is the happiest baby I have ever come across. Football superstar. 25 February. Nephew number 1 loves playing football with DadSwinging. 25 February. Happy baby in a swingCoffee burn. 25 February. Coffee is hot, my hand, my left hand and the one I use most, is sore. Also that blister got bigger overnight!Swing with lights. 25 February. At Kings Cross, in the middle of the lights is a swing.

 

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Friday Links

Posted on February 24, 2017 by nicdempsey

Happy Friday! At the time of writing this post, the outcome of the two by-elections in Stoke and Copeland are unknown. If Nuttall got in I will mostly spend tonight drinking gin… Here are this week’s links….

Chris Riddell on Trump and Russia.

The return of the MMR charlatan fits with our times. I don’t often find myself agreeing with Nick Cohen at all but when he’s right, he’s right…

Finland is trialling basic, universal income. I was talking to someone about this the other day and the problem is the unknown unknowns, you just have no idea what it’s going to do over the long term to taxes, work and money, you can guess but you don’t know. I guess some people would opt to go part time, giving others the chance to work, some people would chose not to work at all, it would also change whether people thought they could afford to have kids, or work for themselves or maybe on universal income more people would feel able to go into lower paid jobs they’ve always wanted to do but couldn’t afford to do. In a generation it would radically alter our view of money, work and society, but we don’t know how.

The supermarket food gamble may be up. This year I’ve eaten more seasonally in part because of all the food that we grew in the summer and in part because of the cost. I’m not immune to the joys of blueberries in February but I can’t afford it. I did notice though, last summer when I was drowning in courgettes that the price didn’t go down, probably to offset the expense of importing them in the winter. Although I’m looking forward to the summer produce when we start growing it but in November, it was a relief to stop eating courgettes. I will be making a better effort this year to extend my growing season and to have winter veg on the plot too but it’s interesting to me that growing food changed how I ate.

The value we place on romantic love can feel tyrannical – especially if you’re a single woman. Preach…

Key-lime pie nightmare. I have one of those, although the other way around, base fine, filling a disaster. So bad was it, that ‘friends’ send me recipes when they came across them to see if this one would work. (one of them on the back of a postcard advertising ‘the young poisoner’s handbook – Jo thinks she’s funny, she is not…)

Butter might be better for you than you think.

Another vile Plantagenet attack on my Glory! I love these

While I’m thinking about twitter, this is a tweet I can 100% get behind.

https://twitter.com/kathrynlillian_/status/834565335516901380

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Dutch Baby Pancake

Posted on February 23, 2017 by nicdempsey

Pancake day is almost upon us. I’ve written about the place that it has in my life before and I’m always up for some food based celebration of the beginning of Lent. Generally, I still prefer savoury over sweet pancakes and I still use Delia’s basic recipe and I almost always muck up the first one and that’s what I’ll eat on Tuesday.

One of the joys of cooking though is all the different things that you can do with flour, eggs and milk. There are many kinds of pancakes, and I’ve been thinking about the dutch baby for ages but not getting around to doing anything about it. It looked like something that could go very easily wrong and I wasn’t that interested.  Then, I heard it decribed as a sweet yorkshire pudding, I was sold. Who doesn’t like yorkshire pudding? It is one of God’s finest foodstuffs and I know I can cook them! So it was time to try one.

I used this recipe, but I didn’t measure the butter for the pan. I really loathe the US way of measuring butter, I can mostly get on board with cups, and even though US and UK cups are different sizes, I usually use my UK cups and haven’t had any terrible failures. However, sticks and tablespoons of butter? Weird. Also strange, the way the butter comes in a cardboard box divided into 4 individually wrapped pieces. Here’s a plan, measure ingredients by weight and volume (although then we’d have to account for an American pint being 16 instead of 20 fl oz.)

Anyway, all this to say that I didn’t measure the butter, the recipe stated 3 tablespoons but I’m guessing I added roughly an oz which is about 28g (and I’ve just looked up the conversion and a tablespoon of butter is about 14g so go me for more or less getting it right!) and I added a punnet of blueberries just before I poured the batter in. Although I added some icing sugar to make it look a bit prettier, I thought that it was sweet enough and didn’t add any syrup, although I can see why people would.

I’m so making this again, it’s hands off and simple, I don’t know if it would be better or worse if you made the batter up the night before and kept it in the fridge but I’m pretty sure it would work, if you wanted to keep it really simple and/or can operate machinery before coffee.

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Allotment Adventures: As ready as we can be right now..

Posted on February 22, 2017 by nicdempsey

Last Saturday was a beautiful day and Ma and I were back at the allotment. This warmer (11C) and sunnier weather encourages seeds to flourish and while there may yet be frosts, our last frost dates are the end of April after all, and it’s not warm enough to sow our seeds, weeds never sleep!

So it was time to start weeding. We’ve actually been quite lucky, four of our currently unused beds are covered and not much has been growing on the three that weren’t covered, I didn’t get around to putting them to bed properly last year but they were well weeded last year and so were in pretty good shape. I dug over the top of the plot again and  planted the two rhubarb crowns from Wilkinsons, hopefully, they’ll do ok although we won’t take anything from them this year. One of them is a late rhubarb so if they do settle in well, I’ve extended our rhubarb season, which can only be a good thing!img_6012Ma also did some solid work weeding the rest of that patch and got stabbed by the gooseberry bushes for her effort. This also caused me quite a bit of pain because she did not stop going on about it. She also did a bit in the raspberries, the mulch has kept the weeds down but not erradicated them entirely. I’ve said before that we will may need to pull them up at some point but thats a lot of space and I think we’ll need to manage that over a couple of years. img_6011While Ma was being attacked by the gooseberries, I was weeding the other beds and tiding my herb bed. The sage, thyme, oregano and rosemary have thrived in that spot and the transplanted lavender survived the winter. The sages are little thugs and got a haircut too. Last year when we pulled up the peas and sweetpeas and spent 4 hours taking down the frame, we were left with a very sad looking patch of ground. My plan had been to create little beds like the dill and coriander beds but looking at the size of it, I decided not to do that but have one bed for the annual herbs. So going in this year will be borage, chives, parsley and maybe basil (if it survives), I know that chives are a perennial that die back so I will sow and transplant those to one spot. The borage, I’ll also sow in one hit and hope that it self seeds much like I hope the dill and coriander will. The parsley, I’ll sow successionally, and I’ll probably sow extra coriander and dill too.img_6026Behind the herbs are the two tanks that are being repurposed to grow things in. Last year, lots of the weed rubbish went into them and in one tank composted down to almost half the volume but that rubbish contained lots of couch grass weeds so I need to cover it to prevent them starting to grow again and for this year at least I’ll plant some squash. I have plans to do the same for the other task but it’s more watertight so needs to have some holes drilled as it’s currently full of water. The bucket of mint that I planted up last year is also looking a bit waterlogged too but new shoots are popping up, I’m not drilling holes in the bucket because it’s mint…..img_6010We’ve also decided to make the U shaped bed a rectangle and having reviewed the space versus what we have to grow decided that the carrots and potatoes will be grown in containers.

That’s us as done as we can be for February. We still have to sort this out, it can’t be burned due to the bonfire ban so it needs to go to the dump. img_6014Tasks for next month are composting the beds and covering them to warm them up a bit. Buying a shed and then building it (well assembling the people that are going to build it and assisting them!), painting the shed, getting the bags for the potatoes and carrots and planting/sowing the carrots and potatoes and the rest that can be sown towards the end of the month..

Lots to be going on with but I’m feeling pretty good about it….img_6017

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Other People’s Recipes – February 2017

Posted on February 21, 2017 by nicdempsey

I’ve been in a bit of a cooking slump recently, but these are things that have caught my eye since last time!

Yogurt panna cotta

This looks so good

Yottam Ottolenghi’s winter soup recipes. 

I generally give Ottolenghi’s recipes a pass because they have too many damn ingredients (Ma and I play 2 games with his recipes:1 – more than 10 ingredients; 2 – how many of the ingredients can you buy in Sainsburys!) but the ham hock and red lentil soup has me rethinking my approach!

Quick Cinnamon Swirls aka Chelsea Buns

I made these this month and they are great.img_5908

Baked Chicken Meatballs

I really have to get around to trying these!

 The Chalet School breakfast rolls, I feel I ought to try them..

Chicken Cobbler. This looks good.

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Beefeater Tour

Posted on February 20, 2017 by nicdempsey

Way back in February 2012, when I had money and a more active social life, I went on an London Cocktail Society tour of the Beefeater Distillery. That night turned into a bit of a tour of London bars (trust the Gin monkey to know all the good places) but before that, the tour was led by Desmond Payne, who walked us through how Beefeater made their gin and lots of other things relating to gin and his gin knowledge is vast! There were several questions about why they weren’t open to the public and since then, they’ve done that.20120227-082910.jpgChristelle and I had been talking about using the times we see each other to do things rather than just dinner and drinking and so for her birthday, I thought that a trip around Beefeater might be interesting. We finally found the time this month.

The distillery only has nine staff (including the tour guides) so it’s probably for practical reasons that the first half of the tour is self guided. It walks you through the history of the gin craze, the rise of ‘gentlemen distillers’ after 1820, the rise of the cocktail and prohibition in the US. img_5992There’s some videos about making gin and about Desmond Payne, who is 70 this year and getting on for 50 years in the drinks industry.

I really liked the wall of old adverts, because you know how I feel about that kind of thing.img_5991img_5980After that, we were led up to where the action happens. The tour guide took us through the botanicals that go into the various gins and up to the stills (no photos of that for health and safety reasons!) and then a gin and tonicimg_5985There is a shop where you can buy gin and beefeater related products. All in it took about an hour and a half and is a fun thing to do…

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Friday Links

Posted on February 17, 2017 by nicdempsey

Happy Friday!

My weekly ‘what fresh hell?’ update, starts with the resignation of Michael Flynn, the US president conducting govement business from Mar-a-lago, Paul Nutall has been proved to be a liar (again!) and a coroner found that a woman had died because of a lack of hospital beds (but there isn’t an NHS crisis, it’s all in our heads and if there is, it’s most likely the fault of the junior doctors).

I finalised this on Thursday night and thus missed the joys of the Trump press conference. I have no words….

Mike Flynn might be done – but Trump’s nightmare has just begun

Sex and the bishops. This is actually worth a read, if you have any interest in CofE church issues.

Will Trump’s presidency see the end of the special relationship? Like a lot of things that Churchill made up, I don’t think there ever really was a special relationship. But I think MacMillan was right, we are the Greeks to their Romans….

A future where only the rich can retire. We are getting there…

The Chalet School breakfast rolls. I was always much more interested in Karen’s black cherry jam, but then I’ve read all of the books…

Jenny is in the papers. Last week, someone I work with was raving about a book they’d been given about a woman who ran through her breast cancer. It was Jenny’s book. Even if you don’t run, it’s about doing the things you love to get you through difficult life stuff and Jenny is a great writer!

This answer to how to move forward when everything has gone wrong is long winded but about right. I am very grateful that when I was there, Tina made a point of taking me for a walk every day for a week for a week. So I wasn’t drowning in feeling useless, I was doing something.

No thinking. No reviewing the things I don’t want to do that day. Just put on your clothes, make tea, sit down, write. Every day. Or go outside and walk or run. Every day, first thing, no questions. You decide now what it is you will do, what will help to jump-start your brain and heart and breath, and you commit to it and you do it every goddamn day no matter what, with no thinking or feeling before you begin. You do not lie in bed, trying to locate your will to live. You rise from your bed like a robot and do whatever is required to jump-start your will to live.

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