What I’ve Cooked – Other People’s Recipes

I love to cook and I think I’m pretty good at it but one of the joys for me is that I’m standing on the shoulders of giants, there’s something beautiful about the way we take a recipe and change it to suit our tastes or cooking styles. Or we’ve cooked a recipe for so long that it’s become ours and we forget was the original recipe was because we’re so comfortable with it, we don’t need to read how to it, we just know.

That said, I’m aware of how many of ‘my recipes’ start as another person’s great idea. The internet makes that worse because there is so much out there. I’ve done quite a bit of cooking and planning over the last couple of weeks and I thought it would be interesting to link to the recipes that I’ve used that aren’t mine, credit where credits due and all that.

Cheese Stars

photoFrom Back to Her Roots. I’ve mentioned these before and made some changes to the recipe but they are good, you should make them.

Chocolate Fridge Cake

Chocolate Fridge Cake (with Ginger)

This is actually one of mine but I changed up the raisins for crystalized ginger and used all plain chocolate instead of half plain, half milk. Much more interesting.

Banana Breakfast Muffins

Banana Breakfast Muffins

From Utterly Scrummy Food For Families. No major changes to this recipe, I used greek yogurt* because that what I had. These are brilliant, easy, feel like a treat but full of mostly good stuff. Next time I’m going to add some walnuts for some added protein.

Chicken and Chorizo

Chicken and Chorizo BakeFrom Nigella Lawson. I made (halved the recipe) this for Mike and Christelle when they came to lunch last week, simple, tasty and quick. I would also serve with some bread next time to mop up the juices (and let’s be honest the fat!) from the chicken and chorizo but we ate a Mont d’or after that so we didn’t need extra bread!

Carrot hummus

Roasted Carrot and Chickpea Hummus with Veg

From Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall. I love carrots so of course I was going to try this, but I added chickpeas ’cause I love them!

Five Seed granola with optional cocoa nibs

Blueberry Granola Yogurt Pot

From London Bakes. Only I was about 50g short of oats, so added extra seeds to make up the weight because I’m lazy and couldn’t be doing with re-calculating the recipe (yes, I’m a very lazy cook – if you didn’t know this already, this must be the first time you’ve been here!). It’s great and is currently doing great things to my breakfast!

What have you been cooking recently? Which are the blogs or cookery writers that you use most often?

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Blueberry Granola Yogurt Pots

I have an issue with breakfast, I’m not keen on eating it, unless it’s pain au raisin! If you’re been reading this blog for a while you’ll be aware of how many times I’ve rebooted breakfast to keep me interested in eating it. I’ve make oatbakes, protein pots, eggcups and I’ve done granola and yogurt before but this is more grab and go solution that’s working for me at the moment. It also gets me some calcium which is an area of my diet I know I’m deficient in!

Blueberry Granola Yogurt Pots

I take 400g frozen blueberries and simmer them with 1/4 cup of brown sugar and the juice of a lemon. Once it’s cooled down, I strain off some of the liquid (more on what I do with that later this week) and divide the blueberries into five jars, which I top with greek yogurt*. The jars go in the fridge and in the morning when I’m packing up my lunch, I take a jar, add some granola and pack to eat at my desk. For the moment that’s breakfast solved!

Blueberry Granola Yogurt Pot

* I now buy 2 pots of low fat basics yogurt from Sainsburys and strain them, I then get about 500g of ‘greek’ yogurt and it costs 90p as opposed to £2.50 and I like the taste better!

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Weekend Tasks – What Got Done

This week was a great week for organising myself and the flat, I got to see my friends and sort myself out for next week. I didn’t do the ironing, so I’ll have to do that tonight but I got everything else done. Which is my definition of a good weekend!

Kitchen

  • General clean (sort out the recycling and rubbish, mopping the floor and general cleaning)
  • Clean oven

Cooking

  • Food prep for next week.

Bathroom

  • General clean (mop floor, change towels, empty bin, clean bath, sink and toilet)

Bedroom

  • General clean (sweep floor, change bed, dust, general tidy)
  • Clean window and mould growing around window.

Living Room

  • General clean (sweep floor, dust, tidy sofa, put things away etc)

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Hall

  • Hoover, lots and lots of hoovering of pine needles

General things

  • Shopping
  • Washing (clothes wash, white wash, towel wash)
  • Ironing
  • Wash make up brushes
  • Wash hairbrushes
  • Water plants
  • Back up laptop
  • Charge kindle, ipad and camera batteries
  • Pick up dry cleaning
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Questions, Questions…

Ok, so Janice at My Fit Foot does this and I always like reading her answers, so as allergic as I am to ‘joining’ things, I thought I’d give this a go. Although I can’t guarantee I always will!

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If you’ve taken part in FMM then you know the rules. If you’re new, please take a moment to answer this week’s question on your own blog then add your link in the comments section here at: www.alltheweigh.com so we can all see your FMM questions and answers. Please invite your blog readers to add their links here too so everyone has to opportunity to be seen. The idea is to connect with other awesome bloggers so take a moment to post your own FMM post and comment on a couple of other posts. Now it’s time for this week’s topic!

Taboo Topics

1. Are you a registered voter?  Yes. Did you know that most of the men that died in WW1 weren’t able to vote? It’s not just women that struggled to get the vote and I think it’s part of my civic duty.

2. Do you believe in GOD?  Yes, I’m a practising Christian (practising because I have’t got it right yet!) and my faith has grounded and supported me through some tough stuff. That said, I’m not a conservative and my faith reflects that.

3. How has your readership changed since you first began blogging? I think so, unless people comment how do you know? My readership (and I feel so self concious about saying that) isn’t very big but it has grown and I have learned a lot since I started.

4.  If you could choose between a serious relationship or $100,000, which would you choose?  I’m not in a relationship at the moment so I’d take the cash but I wouldn’t swap any of the people I care about for the money (sorry friends, you’re stuck with me!)

5. Have you ever changed political parties?  Not really although I’ve become frustrated with mine as I’m a lot more radical nowadays than they are. Maybe I should form my own!

6.  If you were put in a position in which you had to be in a room with someone that you can’t stand, how would you handle the situation? Funny, I’ve been there recently. I spend a lot of time trying to hang onto my temper and remembering that sometimes I’m going to be that person that others can’t stand and thinking about being kind. Although I will bitch about it afterwards, which is why I’m still a practising Christian.

7.  Do you ever eat in secret because you don’t want anyone to see what you consume?  No. I live alone so I generally eat alone. I don’t think I eat more or less food when other people are around but I eat and drink quite quickly and I think I pace myself to other people so I’m more able to recognise when I’ve had enough when others are around.

8.  Do you use curse words in your daily conversations?  I swear far too much, it’s a bad habit but I notice that I’m much better when I’m with the nephew so I just need to pay attention to my language.

9.  How much do you tip when you’ve had decent service at a restaurant?  If the service charge is included I just pay the suggested amount unless the service has been awful, otherwise about 12 to 15%. I’m sort of dreading going to the  US next month because I know that tipping is much different and considered mandatory, I’ll have to get my US friends to give me lessons before I go!

10.  How do you respond when someone confronts you? Depends, I try to be fairly clear about what is and isn’t acceptable behaviour, so someone giving me feedback about something I have or haven’t done is ok, but someone shouting at me isn’t and I’ll either walk away or shout back. Having said that, my family are great at arguments, we don’t like to let the sunset on our anger, we’d rather stay up and fight. We’re also pretty great at forgiving each other so fights don’t last long!

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Monday morning

So here we are again at Monday, I hope everyone is feeling ready for the week ahead. I think I am, I feel like I’m back into a routine and the house is as ready as it’s ever going to be!

This weekend, I ate pizza

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drank wine

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did housework and restored order to my living space

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hung out with friends

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went to church

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didn’t go to the cinema but ate cheese with Ma instead

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At Grace on Saturday, Jonny left us with the thought that “X marks the spot and you’re standing on it”. I love the thinking behind that, that life is happening right now, not some time when you think you’re ready or you’ve properly prepared, it’s happening now, when you’re doing all the things you usually do. There is no ‘someday’, there is only now. I’m going to spend the week remembering that.

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Sunday Music

The Heavy – What Makes a Good Man

’cause it’s been an earworm all week

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Weekend Tasks

More of the same this weekend. I’m also going to Kathy and Adam’s on Saturday afternoon to take some photos and I’ll be at Grace on Saturday evening. On Sunday afternoon, Ma and I are going to the cinema to see Frozen. We looked at all the grown up films that are out at the moment and decided that the kid’s film was where we needed to be!

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Kitchen

  • General clean (sort out the recycling and rubbish, mopping the floor and general cleaning)
  • Clean oven

Cooking

  • Food prep for next week.

Bathroom

  • General clean (mop floor, change towels, empty bin, clean bath, sink and toilet)

photo

Bedroom

  • General clean (sweep floor, change bed, dust, general tidy)

Living Room

  • General clean (sweep floor, dust, tidy sofa, put things away etc)

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Hall

  • Hoover, lots and lots of hoovering of pine needles

General things

  • Shopping
  • Washing (clothes wash, white wash, towel wash)
  • Ironing
  • Wash make up brushes
  • Wash hairbrushes
  • Water plants
  • Back up laptop
  • Charge kindle, ipad and camera batteries
  • Pick up dry cleaning
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Friday Links

Happy Friday! This week’s links!

1) If you want to curb immigration, enforce the minimum wage. It won’t please the Daily Mail but it does make a lot of sense.

2) PJ Harvey’s guest editing of the Today Programme has caused a kerfuffle. Honestly, I wasn’t keen, I’m not really one for music and verse while I’m getting ready in the morning! However, the whole point of the guest editors is to shake things up and give a different view and she did that. Also the Tory screaming about left wing bias at the BBC is ridiculous, like evangelical Christians in the UK claiming to be discriminated against. It’s not happening, you’re making it up!

3) They’ve unlocked the 1984 Cabinet archives. I think someone owes Arthur Scargill an apology!

4) Simon Hoggart died. This makes me sad.

5) Language is dynamic, should be dynamic. But maybe not in France. Académie Française condemns use of abbreviation of as soon as possible, and adoption of score as a verb

6) Was South Sudan a mistake?

7) Why we shouldn’t be closing down Fire Stations. If we can afford the dangleway, we can afford to fund the Fire Brigade.

8) A map of how many ‘bisou’ should be given in various regions of France. I do two as taught by Christelle, Tina and Tess. Who are all French or lived in France. This catches quite a few of my friends out, who like to do the English one!

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Brilliant things to do…

Anyone else in January gloom?

I am, some of it caused by a 24 hour-ish migraine on Monday/Tuesday, other causes are a quiet week at work and the normal January SAD stuff.

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How do you solve a problem like being miserable? If you’re me, you plan stuff.

So I’ve invited a friend over for dinner next week, I’ve sorted some things out that were on the ‘to-do’ list, I’ve been thinking about what I’m going to do on my holiday in seven weeks time (Washington here I come!) and in the process of having things to do that don’t involve sorting out the mould in the bathroom and finding the time to actually sort out the mould in the bathroom and accidentally bleach one of my favourite articles of clothing, I’ve cheered up a bit. Also I painted my nails, which always makes me a bit more cheerful.

I also found this. Anybody else fancy learning to swing dance? Or what about a hoola hooping masterclass?

If learning isn’t your thing, what about culture? English Heritage have exhibitions on through the year at the Wellington Arch. In fact join English Heritage and do some of the members events like the Duke of Wellington specialist tour of Walmer Castle or the Belsay tour both of which I would do in a heartbeat. I wrote about Belsay when we saw it last year   and I loved it although I didn’t expect to.

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I also want to do the now sold out photography tour although Lincolnshire is a way to go for it!

City Academy courses look interesting too. I really want to the sausage making course at the Ginger Pig this year too!

There’s lots of good theatre coming up this year too. This is just the upcoming stuff at the National.

So that’s how I’m cheering myself up. What are you doing?

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A grey Monday morning

It’s not been a great start to the week. It’s rainy and horrible, everybody has had a difficult journey into work because of signal failure and people under trains (so it could actually be worse) and we all a bit jaded after the break and half of us are sick. It’s completely fair to say that no-one is feeling epic, I’m not.

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However, it is Monday and I find some comfort in the predictability of the rubbish weather and bad moods. It’s January, this is what January is like. We have Christmas in December to power our trudge through the winter and into spring. I’m not alone in feeling less that stellar and I’m doing the things that need to be done and getting through the rest.

I don’t have much more of a plan for this week than get through it, go to work, read books, watch Sherlock, sleep and generally live as well as I can. I do want to work to avoid being miserable. It is a miserable time of year but all of the things I had to be grateful for in December, I still have to be grateful for in January. Home, family, friends, job. I also have other things just for January, I’m not flooded out of my home, it’s not -30C in London, the sun occasionally shines.

So this week, I’m going to work on being cheerful and optimistic, even though I’d rather be gloomy and grumpy!

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