Things I can’t do without

The last couple of weeks have been difficult, I’ve been trying to make some changes at work, in the long term they will give me the chance to do new stuff and help the department, but I’m not good at transition and neither is the company I work in, so it’s been a bit of an uphill battle. However, it’s finally coming together. All of this has been going on over the wettest summer here since records began, it’s been grey and miserable and very wet. The weatherman claims it’s going to get better over this weekend and next week, I hope so because if it doesn’t I think I going to start growing mould!

This is a long winded way of explaining why I haven’t been posting. However, when even your mother notices the lack of posting, it’s time to get back on the horse!

We’ll start with the things that have made the last couple of weeks happier…

Coffee

I have spoken at length about my love of coffee and how I try and keep the coffee addiction under control. I finally made the switch to decaff. Illy decaff  to be exact. I save the fully caffeinated stuff for the weekends.

Roasted Tomatoes

No one is surprised about this than me. As a child I would eat tomatoes in ketchup or in pasta sauce. If the tomato was pulverised fine, but I would, never, ever eat a tomato in it’s raw form.  I once had a memorable tantrum* because there was a tomato on my plate.

However, after I over-roasted some tomatoes for the accidental soup and have been eating them like my life depended on it. My lentil salad, in scrambled eggs, just by themselves before dinner.

New Hair Conditioner

I got a sample of this stuff a while ago and then bought some on special offer.  I had been using  a Phil Smith conditioner for long hair, which a friend recommended and I think it might be great for people with a different hair type it wasn’t good for mine. Switching to this stuff has made the mornings I wash my hair much less of a struggle and my hair feels better and frizzes less (important with the amount of damp going on around here!)

Greek yogurt in general and these in particular

I love these things and all greek yogurt in general. Ma thinks it’s because I lack calcium and my body is telling me what I need. I think it’s because I’ve eaten it so often, my taste buds are catching up!

Blue Nail Varnish

 

My favourite colour and having nice nails makes me feel put together.

Gin and Tonic

A reward after a hard week..nuff said

 

*this holiday memory pales in comparision with other disasters of that holiday which included Dad leaving us in a car parked on the beach as the tide came in and me getting epically sunburnt..

 

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Oliver James

I do like spending time with this boy..

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As he gets older, I’m completely gobsmacked by the depth of emotion I feel for him. I’m pretty much resigned to not having a child of my own but I’m going to be the best Aunt I can and I’m very lucky that my brother and sister in law are happy to let me be!

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Ol’s language is really coming on, we get a lot of ‘I needs’ now, as in “I need to walk and “I need to hold that”. I not and no are still in heavy rotation though…

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He likes to feed the ducks, in his own unique style of chucking all the bread in at once (I would have taken a photo but was trying really hard to stop him joining the ducks in the pond!)

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He loves his Grandma though..

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June/July Goals

It’s the beginning of July already..

Let’s look at how I did in June..

Exercise

Training to walk a marathon and pyramids every day.

The walking is fine but the pyramids died in the last two weeks of the month.

Money

£200 for the month – this was a pass but I’m worried about money as I never seem to have enough.  I’ll need to think harder about this but that’s not for this space.

Food

1 new recipe a month and 2 vegetarian days a week -Pass

I really enjoyed thinking about what I was eating a bit more and I liked the vegetarian days although I need to think more carefully about what I eat and cut back on the dairy on those days!

July is going to be really busy, I’ve got a weekend with my nephew, a wedding at which I’m taking the pictures and various other social commitments during a very stressy couple of weeks at work, two out of town meetings (Scotland and Loughborough) and I don’t want to overload myself with goals I’m too tired to meet. So I’m going to scale back, keeping the vegetarian days and the walking training.

How’s July looking for everyone else?

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Sunday Music

Punch Brothers – Rye Whiskey

How good it is and the evils of drink…

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Sunday Music: Open Arms – Elbow

Open Arms, elbow

I’ve done elbow before. Twice in fact. Not this song though.

This song makes me cry….

It makes me think of family and how at the times you least expect it they take you in and help you heal. Really this is about the repairs on my heart that a year or so living at Ian’s did for me. I’ve hardly seen them since, but my uncle and cousins helped because they helped fix me.

I’m not sure that they know what they did for me, but I’m grateful for it, I went in scared and came out strong. For that I thank them…..

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Friday Night Cocktails

No new drink this week, let me direct you to some old ones…

If where you are it’s sunny, try Pimms

More summer, try this

Not so summery where you are..this walks that line

As does the classic G&T

If you’re reading this on Saturday, this should wake you up

Happy Friday people

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Walking, Summer and Graveyards

On Tuesday morning, I had to go and have an x-ray on my wrist. After that was done, I needed to get to a train station and it was a beautiful, sunny day for a change, it’s been miserable about here recently. So I decided to walk through Brompton Cemetery to get to Earls Court.

I love Brompton. It’s right around the corner from where I grew up (in fact I was born in a building that overlooks the cemetary) and I used to walk through it a lot when I was a teenager, Stef and Keir lived on the other side! It’s managed by the Royal Parks and is old and a bit run down. It’s also where we scattered Stef and Kier’s ashes, so it’s nice to go and ‘visit’ them too.

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Accidental Soup

Accidental soup is not the best name for a something, I’m going to tell you is tasty and delicious. How for a start can making soup be an accident? What happened was this, I was going to make Spicy Chicken Meatballs from Everyday by Bill Granger (yes another recipe from that cookbook) with pasta, you make the meatballs and bake them in the oven while also roasting lots of cherry tomatoes, add those to a small amount of stock and chuck over pasta. Job done, dinner served.

Except, I made the meatballs (having to change the spice mix quite a bit due to dis-oraganised shopping) and roasted the tomatoes and then decided I didn’t want to eat that and I’d forgotten that my oven runs quite hot and over roasted both the meatballs and the tomatoes. Tired and not hungry, I chucked the meatballs and the roasted tomatoes in the fridge and went to bed.

Not to be defeated, the next evening, I tried again and used too much stock. At which point I tasted what the tomatoes and meatballs had done to the veg stock and liked it, so added some lentils and called it soup. Accidental soup. I know it doesn’t look like soup you would what to eat but accidental and homely as it is, it’s also great.

What

Olive oil

1 small onion, finely chopped

2 cloves of garlic, crushed

1 teaspoon ground cummin

2 teaspoons paprika

1/2 a teaspoon mild chilli powder

500g turkey mince

3 tablespoons breadcrumbs

50g chopped pancetta

2 tablespoons chopped flat leaf parsley

sea salt

500g cherry tomatoes, halved

freshly ground black pepper

Half a pint to a pint of vegetable stock (I used Marigold)

Half a cup of cooked green lentils

How

Preheat the oven to 200°C.

Add some oil a pan and over a gentle heat, soften the onion and garlic.

Add the spices and cook for a minute.

Put the turkey, breadcrumbs, pancetta, parsley, salt into a bowl. Add the onion to it and mix it all together.

Stick in the fridge for 30 minutes.

Once the mixture is firmer, roll it into small meatballs and put on a baking tray.

Put the cherry tomatoes on another baking tray, drizzle with oil and season with salt and pepper.

Roast both the meatballs and tomatoes for 20-30 minutes.

(At this point you can abandon the meatballs and tomatoes in the fridge overnight if you wish!)

Put the stock in a saucepan and add the meatball, tomatoes and lentils.

Give it all a stir and allow it all to heat through.

There done, add seasoning to taste and serve with parmesan.

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A day in food..

Godchildren 2 and 3 are doing a project for school. As is often the way (I am a committed and loving godparent), I have been roped in.  All I have to do is take a photo of what I’ve eaten and drunk during a day for 3 separate days and they’re going to go to school and with the help of their teacher, tell me if it’s good or bad, where I could improve and I believe suggest some other things I might like to eat.

11 year old nutritionists – just what I need!!

So as I’ve taken the photos, I thought I’d bore everyone else with it. On Wednesday 13 June, (a vegetarian day) this is what I ate.

Breakfast

Coffee, black

Fruit, granola and greek yogurt. You can’t see it in this photo but there’s a chopped up apple in there. The yogurt is full fat because I’m not keen on hidden sugar and I made the granola and dialled back on the sugar by using less and using agave instead of honey. It is quite sugar happy, however, I’ve noticed that if I eat the sweet stuff at the beginning of the day I’m less likely to have the afternoon ‘I need something bad for me and I need it now’ munchies.  Anyway it works for me.

Berroca and CoQ10 – nearly forgot to take a photo of that. I did forget to take a photo of the pint of water I drank.

Morning Snack

Banana and a dark chocolate covered rice cake.

Lunch

Lentil Salad – Lentils, sautéd onion, celery and mushrooms, with a chopped up carrot and half a pepper. Oil and balsamic dressing (3 teaspoons vinegar, 3 teaspoons olive oil, salt and pepper)

A peach, an orange sugar free jelly and lemon and ginger tea. I love jelly have taken to making up pint for when I want something sweet.  I pint makes six of the little pint thingies are are perfect for lunch dessert!

Afternoon Snack

A carrot, half a pepper, another chocolate rice cake and more lemon and ginger tea. I’ve been eating more fruit recently (we get free fruit at work on Monday and Wednesday) I’m trying to cut back a bit and make my afternoon snack a vegetable based one.

Dinner

Stir fried mushrooms and peppers with lentils and spinach, grilled haloumi cheese. I love lentils and cook some at the beginning of each week to keep in the fridge, that way, I’m never that far away from dinner or an easy packed lunch. This was lovely and I will be eating it again.

Lychees. My favourite fruit, despite the no fruit after lunch rule I’m trying to impose, they were just too good to resist!

What I didn’t take a photo of was the water bottle – I have a 700ml bottle on my desk and drink three of those a day.

The best thing I ate was the lychees (although the rice cakes are fast becoming a favourite thing!), I think it looks pretty good, maybe a bit heavy on the lentils but it’s easy to eat well on weekdays, weekends are where it all falls down! There’ll be another one of these coming along in a couple of days (a meat eating day) and a Saturday (where you’ll see how bad it gets!)

What do you eat in a typical day?

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Happy Monday

I’m struggling a bit at the moment, nothing too dreadful, just migrainy and tired. It’s difficult to cope when I always have a sore head, feel like I going to throw up and just want to sleep.

So happy making photos…

Favourite boy

Favourite place

A castle

Have a good day…

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