Sunday Music

Posted on November 4, 2012 by nicdempsey

Alex Clare – Words Are Clever

If you don’t want to dance to this, we can probably never be friends…

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Countdown to Christmas or Goals for November

Posted on November 3, 2012 by nicdempsey

For November and December I’m going to do something a bit different. Inspired by from Cassie at Back to Her Roots, I’m going to adapt her All About the Numbers Challenge.  Cassie took the 50 days from October to Thanksgiving to set a challenge that would remind her to stay healthy in the lead up to the holiday season.  I didn’t join in because I’d already set goals for October and some of Cassie’s goals didn’t feel right for me although the idea was a really good one.

When I came to think about my November goals, I was lacking inspiration and then I realised that from today, there are 52 days until Christmas.  So I decided to steal use Cassie’s All About the Numbers Challenge as a model for my own (only without the beautiful graphics!) and call it (very originally) Countdown to Christmas.

The Challenges

Between now and Christmas Day, I will:

1) Do a plank a day of a minute or over (52)

2) Log 1820 fitness minutes (35 minutes a day)

3) Walk or run 260km (5km a day)

4) Do 1040 sit ups (20 a day)

5) Do my knee exercises and stretches 104 times (twice a day)

6) Have 26 alcohol free days

7) Eat 364 servings of fruit and vegetables (that’s 7 a day)

8) Be thankful every day for 52 days.

9) Be in bed at 10pm for 35 days.

Couple of things come into my head right about now. First, this is never going to work and second it needs a spreadsheet!

Anyone else settling goals this month? What are they?

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October Goals – Recap Four

Posted on November 3, 2012 by nicdempsey

So this is the goal update for this week and October! The goal setting will happen in a post later on this afternoon.

As ever, if you’re not interested in my monthly goals, avoid the blog on Saturday and come back tomorrow for Sunday Music!

How this week has been

It’s not been a fabulous week, it’s seems like if it could go wrong it did go wrong. Nothing major, I just haven’t been 100 per cent and little things have been dreadful. However, the perspective police (my mother, Michael and godchild 2 – who was also having a bad week!) reminded me that no-one died and I wasn’t in a superstorm, so it wasn’t all that terrible. I am however glad that I’m done with it!

Let’s get to it…

1) Cook a new recipe each week (I’m not making it specifically vegetarian but I will try for three out of four)

I made the cod and tomato thingie and it was great.

I’m done for the month, with a perfect record! Pass!

2) Exercise twice a week.

I ‘ran’ on Sunday (6k), was at the gym on Wednesday and Thursday. Done under trying circumstances but done!

Again that’s a pass for the month. Yay for exercise!

3) Clean floors and hoover once a week

Done, done, done. Another pass I’m giving myself!

4) 10pm school night bed time.

Done. Pass for the month!

5) Walk 10k four times in October.

Fail for the week, 25% for the month. Not good.

6) Tidy the cupboard. I have a store/junk cupboard off the bathroom that really needs some organising.

100% fail. Didn’t get to it, just didn’t have the time.

7) Cheerfulness. I’m going to find something that makes me happy every day and will list them as part of the Saturday goal progress report.

Saturday – Time with Lis and Lincoln.

Sunday – Sunday afternoon, movie, dinner, whisky, time with my Ma and James Bond!

Monday – I didn’t feel well, I went to bed early and got some sleep – it was lovely

Tuesday – The sun was shining, it made me happier.

Wednesday – Cake in the office, the company won an award.

Thursday – I was in the gym on Thursday, doing my walk uphill, run on the flat bits and it was feeling tough. I was surrounded by people on the treadmills going fast and feeling that I would never get there. Then a women who had been running really fast got off the treadmill and her shirt said ‘Run Your Own Race’. Words I really needed to hear/see at that moment.

Friday – Friday Sushi. I normally take my lunch into work but today wasn’t feeling it and got sushi instead. Glad to have that option sometimes.

8) Forward planning. It’s Christmas in three months and before that Ben, Oli, Christelle and Ma have birthdays. By the end of this month I would like to have their birthday presents sorted out!

All done! I am prepared for the birthday season (with the small exception of working out what I’m doing for Oli’s cake, he wants a rocket, he wants Mickey Mouse – I’d like a nice simply number 3). Just have to sort myself out for Christmas now!

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Friday Night Cocktail

Posted on November 2, 2012 by nicdempsey

I’m going to start today by talking about washing up. Washing up is the downside of cooking and cocktail making. If you make cocktails at home there is a certain amount of washing up that will eventually be required beyond the glass that your drink ends up in. A shaker (yes even if you use a jam jar!), a stirring spoon, a strainer.  After you have made and drunk your cocktail, you will need to wash up.

If you’re lucky you’ll have a dishwasher, either a machine or a person that will do this for you.  My life and my flat are dishwasher deficient (unless Christelle or my mother are visiting!) and whoever designed my kitchen clearly never had to use a kitchen, it has one of those very silly small round sinks, that aren’t deep enough and doesn’t have a draining board.   On a wooden surface. It’s not a good look and something I hope to one day persuade my landlord to do something about.

Meanwhile, I struggle on and make sure the washing up is done every night before I go to bed. Except on Friday. On Friday’s I leave the washing up for the morning. Which is why sometimes on a Friday night, I want a cocktail I can make in one glass.

Which is where this comes in.

A Manhattan on the rocks.  Job done.

While my normal preference is for a Perfect Manhattan (half dry/half sweet vermouth), straight up.  Michael picked up the habit of an ‘on-the-rocks’ Manhattan while he was living in the US and introduced me to it. I’ve found that it works better sweet and I use the everyday whiskey in the cupboard instead of the rye. Generally something Irish and blended, often Jamesons, at the moment Waitrose’s own.

Could we call it a Manhattan-ish? Whatever you call it, it doesn’t involve washing up more than one glass. Sometimes on a Friday night, that’s just perfect.

What

Ice

2 dashes Angostura bitters

2oz whiskey

1 oz sweet vermouth

Maraschino cherry

How

1) Put the ice in the glass

2) Add bitters, whiskey and vermouth

3) Stir and add cherry if using.

4) Drink!

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Baked Cod with tomatoes and parsley

Posted on November 1, 2012 by nicdempsey

As anyone who came across this blog would realise, I like to eat and I like to cook. However, I don’t really like faff. I’m not really a details girl outside of work. At work I have learnt to sit and plan, then execute things. At home, I’m getting better at being tidy and planning things but it’s not my default operating mode. A lot of my life has been a struggle to overcome nature (my dad’s free and easy ways) with nurture (how my mum would do it!).

This is very clear in how I cook.  I’m not one for long and complex recipes or ingredient lists. Short, simple and not to much mucking about. Any food that I cook again and again and takes longer than about an hour to get to the table is either really, really good or has a large element of doing a bit and then leaving it for a while.

This is a roundabout way of explaining why I like Bill Granger so much and why when I saw this recipe in Feed Me Now, I knew I was going to try it. It ticked all of my quick, easy, no faff rules and I had all the ingredients in the house.

There were some changes, I played about with the quantities at bit, it was still good though and the scope for changing it up is immense, I’m thinking that adding some chopped up anchovies and black olives would be great. The recipe specified chopped tomatoes and I didn’t have them, I overcame this by chopping them in the tin with scissors!

I ate it with mash and peas and it was great comfort food for a cold, wet day.

What

1 tablespoon oil

1 onion, chopped

Small handful of flat leaf parsley, roughly chopped

2 cloves of garlic, crushed

1 tin (400g) tomatoes

2 cod steaks

1 tin (400g) tomatoes, chopped

How

1) Pre heat the oven to 180°C/Gas 4/350F

2) In a pan that can also go in the oven and has a lid, heat the oil and cook the onion and parsley over a medium heat, until the onion softens (about 5 minutes). 

3) Add the garlic and cook for another minute.

4) Add the tomatoes, stir and bring to the boil and then let simmer for about 10 minutes.

5) Add the fish, make sure the tomato sauce covers them and cover with the lid and place in the oven for 15 minutes.

6) Remove the lid and cook for a further 10 minutes.

7) You’re all done. Serve and eat.

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Click-Clack the Rattlebag

Posted on October 31, 2012 by nicdempsey

You have the rest of the day* to go and download this Neil Gaiman story.

It’s available free on Audible and for every download they will donate some cash to the two charities of Neil Gaiman’s choice. On his blog, he said, “We chose our charities with pride and with care: we picked Donors Choose — http://www.donorschoose.org/ –for the US; we picked Booktrust – http://www.booktrust.org.uk/ — as our charity for the UK”

I’m all about people reading more and having more access to books. Reading opens you up to hundreds of ideas and worlds and people. It’s not hyperbole to say that reading changes lives. So please go and download this story, you’ll be helping others and getting a free slightly scary story.

I know about all this because Matt is going to use this story for the godchildren’s Halloween party, where the children are going to get party bags with a book in it for All Hallows Read.

Link is here for the UK and at Audible.com for US people.

*This is about as much Halloween as I do.

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Christmas Cake

Posted on October 30, 2012 by nicdempsey

I’m old fashioned about Christmas, I’ve mentioned it before, I don’t like Christmas to start until December and don’t really like to think about the things I need to do until after Ma’s birthday, 21 days seems to be a perfectly reasonable amount of time to me!

However, if you want to make Christmas cake, you have to start thinking about it early, you can’t make a good Christmas cake 21 days before Christmas.  I have two Christmas cake recipes that I’ve used for the last 10 or so years. Delia Smith’s and one that came from a Sunday magazine (probably The Observer), I ripped the recipe out of the magazine and it’s now crumpled, stained and charred from me setting it alight!

For a good example of how to make Delia’s more traditional cake, go and have a look at Jenny‘s blog (the post is part one, so I expect that nearer Christmas, she’ll going to show how she iced it.)  I decided not to make that version as I didn’t want an iced cake and I did want to eat it with Stilon. I know, Christmas cake and cheese, it shouldn’t work but it absolutely does, it’s an amazingly good combination that I learnt from Sarah’s friend Jude, who tells me it’s a Yorkshire tradition.  This cake with figs and prunes in it, works well for eating with cheese and doesn’t need icing or feeding, but it does need some time to rest and mature in order to be good for Christmas. If you do it in the next couple of days, you’ll be just in time!

What

200g cherries in kirsch (I couldn’t find any this year and used some of the cherries I jarred in the summer)

100ml of the kirsch syrup

200g seedless raisins

400g pitted prunes, chopped

200g soft dried figs, chopped

zest of an orange

zest of a lemon

1 tablespoon brandy

175g plain flour

½ teaspoon cinnamon

½ teaspoon grated nutmeg

1 heaped teaspoon baking powder

½ teaspoon salt

225g, unsalted butter at room temperature

1 tablespoon dark muscovado sugar

225g soft brown sugar

4 eggs lightly beaten

50g ground almonds

1 tablespoon of treacle

How

1) Place the cherries, kirsch, raisins, prunes, figs, zest and brandy into a bowl.

2) Leave for 2 hours, stirring every 20 minutes or so until the alcohol has been soaked up.

3) Pre heat oven to 140oC/gas 1. Grease a cake tin with a removable base (24cm across, at least 8cm deep) and then sprinkle with flour. Shake off any excess flour.

4) Sift the flour into a bowl with the spices, baking powder and salt and set aside.

5) In another bowl, cream the butter and sugars together until the mixture is fluffy and pale. Whisk in the eggs, one at a time. (If it curdles, just add a little of the flour mixture and beat in until it’s all combined again.)

6) Fold in the flour and the ground almonds.

7) Mix in the treacle and the fruit.

8) Pour the mixture into the cake tin and loosely wrap with greaseproof paper.

9) Put in the oven and bake for 3 hours or so. Check at 3 hours by stabbing with a skewer, if the mix sticks to the skewer, put it back for another 15 minutes and check again.

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The Weekend

Posted on October 29, 2012 by nicdempsey

This weekend started as normally does with a Friday Night Cocktail (one sloe G&T), pizza and a glass of wine.

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I love Friday nights at home!

Saturday dawned bright and cold. The weather suddenly decided to remember that it was autumn and the temperature has dropped, but I’ll take cold and bright over warm-ish and grey.

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I when all the way to Hoxton to spend some time hanging out with Lis and baby Lincoln.

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Lincoln is a sweetie and Lis who’s been on her own with him for the week is the calmest, most organised mother of a newborn I’ve ever seen. I’m pretty sure in her shoes, I’d be all over the place!

Home to shopping (and being rained on while shopping!), housework, the radio and eventually dinner!

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Archive on 4 was all about the clocks going back and was fascinating. It’ll be on iPlayer for the next 7 days and you should really go listen. Dinner was really good and I’ll write about it later this week. I also watched Casino Royale, in preparation for Sunday!

All of this Saturday night excitement ended with a late night conversation with the parent (who had been in Leeds for the day) to organise timings for Sunday. Then to bed after putting all the clocks back! I know that everyone hates the darker evenings but I love the ‘dead cat bounce’ I get from it being lighter in the mornings for another month or so. It was dark at 7am last week and I know by Christmas it will be like that again, but on Sunday morning at 7am it was light.

So light in fact that I decided to use my extra hour in bed by going for a run. Admittedly some of my running was very slow motion but I did it and rewarded myself with poached eggs on toast and coffee for breakfast.

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A little self improvement, facepack, deep condition of hair, making my feet look like they belong to a human not a hobbit (there are no photos, for this you should be grateful) and it was off to meet Ma and watch Skyfall. James Bond is back, lots of my favourite actors being fabulous and blowing things up!

That done and then roast dinner at Moomba and a whisky. Then home to Sunday night, getting ready for the week ahead and a telephone conversation with Ryan.

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What did you get up too?

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Sunday Music

Posted on October 28, 2012 by nicdempsey

The Lumineers – Ho Hey

It seems to be everywhere at the moment, but it’s really pretty.

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Goal Update 3

Posted on October 27, 2012 by nicdempsey

1) Cook a new recipe each week (I’m not making it specifically vegetarian but I will try for three out of four)

I made Borlotti, pancetta and spring green soup.

2) Exercise twice a week.

Done and done. Walk on Sunday, gym on Monday and Wednesday, Body Balance class on Thursday.

3) Clean floors and hoover once a week

Done, done, done. I still hate it but I notice when it needs doing now and this week even swept the porch and path at the front.

4) 10pm school night bed time.

Done. This seems to be ‘bedding’ in. I’m naturally organising my evenings so that I’m ready for bed at 9.30pm and can read for half an hour before lights out at 10pm.

5) Walk 10k four times in October.

I went for a walk on Sunday, after Christelle went home. One out of four isn’t exactly stellar performance but nice to have made a little bit of progress here!

6) Tidy the cupboard. I have a store/junk cupboard off the bathroom that really needs some organising.

Was going to do it Sunday, didn’t. May get around to it this weekend though.

7) Cheerfulness. I’m going to find something that makes me happy every day and will list them as part of the Saturday goal progress report.

Saturday – Friends who come for dinner and wash up!

Sunday – Being indoors, cosy and warm, knowing that I’d done the things I needed to do.

Monday – Cheap gym membership that we get through work

Tuesday – The Internet, not only do we share the same birthday but today a couple of blogs I read gave me some really good ideas..

Wednesday – Another gym session, I ran and my knees were ok. I also ran a bit more than I thought I could! Yay for making the effort!

Thursday – I was really struggling for anything that was good today and then my payslip arrived on my desk. My job isn’t the most glamorous or the most enjoyable but I’m reminded (not for the first time this month!) that having a job is a thing in this climate.

Friday – Friday Night Pizza and Cocktails, a reward for a good week.

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8) Forward planning. It’s Christmas in three months and before that Ben, Oli, Christelle and Ma have birthdays. By the end of this month I would like to have their birthday presents sorted out!

No progress here. I have a present each for Ma and Christelle. I need to put Oli’s together and work out how to make a rocket cake for Oli’s birthday cake. But that’s still pretty good.

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