Lose Weight and Gain Health

I was very bad last night.  I had a lovely glass of wine while chatting to a friend which led to a second.  Which for some reason led to a toast and Marmite binge.  The only positive thing I can say is that I didn’t go for anything more calorific than Marmite.  Another good thing is that I ate all the bread so there is none left so I couldn’t be tempted again today.  I was very disappointed with myself.

So I woke up today determined to do better.  I wanted to eat protein, lots of vegetables and low carbs.  Despite a big battle with myself mid-afternoon, which I won (i.e. I had nothing more than a cup of tea) I think I did ok today.

I worked from home today which always helps.  I made myself bacon and lightly wilted spinach for breakfast.   I was very careful to cut the visible fat off the bacon.  Bacon and spinach goes really well together so I will be having that again. I did have 2 coffees today with some single cream.  Not a great idea on a diet but David Gillespie (author of Sweet Poison) said I can so I did! I have been very busy totally stressed out at work recently.  Today was no exception as I struggled to write a paper I am finding very challenging.  I found a box of aromatherapy goodies when I was looking for something else at the weekend so today I lit a joss stick for the first time in ages.  I am not sure if it helped relax me but I liked the scent of Patchouli and Ylang Ylang.  The inner hippy inside me is alive and well. Lunch was very easy to prepare and made good eating. 4 spinach falafels which were spicy and a lovely dense and firm consistency.  I just warmed them up in the oven while I prepared the salad. A jacket potato with butter and cheese.  Quite a modest amount of cheese I hope you will agree. A huge pile of salad; lamb’s lettuce, cucumber, spring onion, carrot and half a yellow pepper.  No dressing as I had enough fat in the cheese and butter. Sometimes people ask me if I give Harvey the same food as I eat.  I do when I can or make a simple variation.  Tonight was a simple variation occasion.  Harvey wanted pasta but I am trying to cut down carbs so I did not.  I put his pasta on to cook and thought about a sauce to add with it.  I cooked up some onion, mushrooms and tender stem broccoli in a little coconut oil. When the vegetables were softened I poured in a jar of sauce and half a packet of pine nuts. Harvey and James had pasta with vegetable sauce.  This was only slightly more time consuming to make than just heating a jar of sauce to go with the pasta but it gave them the added nutrition of 3 vegetables and pine nuts for protein. I had the same sauce with 4 more spinach falafels, some Parmesan cheese and a heap of green leaves.  It was really good and we all enjoyed our meals.

As long as I do not hit the wine or anything else this evening, this will have been a day of good eating as I had lots of veggies and not too many carbs and no added sugar.

SOME OF YOU SEE ADVERTS AT THE END OF THIS BLOG.  I DO NOT KNOW THEY ARE THERE AND CAN NOT STOP THEM.  I DO NOT ENDORSE THE PRODUCTS (WELL, I DONT THINK I DO BUT I CAN’T BE SURE).  I HAVE NOT BEEN PAID FOR THE ADVERTS THAT CLUTTER UP THE END OF MY BLOG SO PLEASE IGNORE THEM.

I wanted to try very hard to increase my plant foods today, with a particular focus on vegetables.  I also wanted to eat more raw food.  Eating more raw makes me feel better and less hungry.

I was super organised and prepared breakfast and lunch at home on Sunday evening so when I woke up, all I had to do was take it out of the fridge and put it in my bag. I ate breakfast at my desk; raspberries, blueberries, natural yogurt, almonds, hazelnuts and protein powder.  The nuts were slightly softer after a night soaking in yogurt so presumably easier to digest. Lunch was also eaten at my desk.  Partly because I had a busy day with constant meetings and partly because it seemed dark all day as it was so overcast and wet so it seemed like a good idea to stay put rather than go outside. Salad with roast chicken.  I made a dressing with 1 tbsp olive oil, 1 tsp flax seed oil, 1 tbsp white wine vinegar and a pinch of salt. In my salad box were mixed leaves, rocket, red pepper and cucumber. A simple, satisfying and tasty lunch.  Perfectly adequate. For supper we had mince beef flavoured with a home made Fajita/Taco spice mix.  I looked up the ingredients on the back of a well known Fajita spice mix and assembled what I had.

I guessed quantities and it turned out pretty well.  I used 1/2 a tsp each of salt, cumin, oregano and chili, a small pinch of cinnamon, a few grates on the grater of nutmeg and 2 garlic cloves.  I used this quantity to flavour 400g minced beef.

I cooked the mince with an onion and 3 carrots, then stirred in the spice mix and left it overnight (in the fridge).What an easy supper this was to prepare when I got home after another long day in the office!  I put the mince in a covered dish in a medium oven for half an hour to heat through while I chopped up tomatoes and red onion.  I served it with mixed green leaves.

I ended up mixing it all together and it was very tasty.  Harvey loved it and asked where the Taco shells were.   I was rather chuffed with that as it meant I got the flavours quite close as I hadn’t told him it was based on a Fajita/Taco mix.

So I am pleased I managed to up the quantity of veggies I ate today and really pleased I had lots of raw veggies.  I did have a little snack when I first got home though of a piece of Cheddar and some nuts.  I must stop the snacking as I am not losing weight.  I remain off sugar which is great and I am not going up but I must lose weight!

I really enjoyed relaxing at home today.  I have been out too much lately and really want to spend some time at home so I made the most of it.

My day began in one of my favourite places, the veggie patch.  I have never grown leeks before and thanks to my neighbours up the road who gave me the little seedlings, this year I have!  I pulled some of these up for lunch. And cut some of these beautiful Swiss Chard leaves for breakfast.  Yes, you read that correctly, for breakfast. They are very aptly called ‘Rainbow Chard’. I eat the leaves and stalks.  I chop the stalks separately as they take longer to cook than the leaves. That early morning sun was bright today!  I cooked the omelette in coconut oil which I like the taste of.   This omelette had onion, Swiss Chard and ham in it.  It was good. I popped down to my favourite local farm shop, Hartley Dyke to buy some provisions for the week and for lunch.  The little fella wanted a roast chicken.  One of my favourites so I wasn’t arguing.Chicken goes perfectly with tarragon and lemons.  I stuff the inside with tarragon and chopped up lemon and then just rub salt and oil on the outside.
We had it with leeks and potatoes from the garden. Plus tenderstem broccoli and carrots.  My young man was happy with his lunch so I was a happy Mama.  I enjoyed it too.

I had a very lazy afternoon in front of the TV, watching a film and drinking wine.  Something I have wanted to do for a while, i.e. be lazy and rather self-indulgent, and it was wonderful.  I must do it again!

I seem to have replaced my sugar habit with a toast habit.  I have not eaten much bread for years until recently and now I can’t seem to stop.  Tricky to ban bread though as the boys like it.  They were tolerant of the sugar being thrown out but the bread is another matter so I need to find a way round that one.  All suggestions welcomed 🙂

Supper was 2 slices of toast with mustard, tomatoes and cheese.

Looking at the week ahead, I am aiming to quit the toast habit, remain sugar free and eat loads of vegetables.

I spent a very enjoyable and interesting day today at Blogfest.  I have not been before and was not sure what to expect.  Having arrived at the venue near King’s Cross in London, avoided the pastries and enjoyed a coffee, we went inside one of the auditoriums for the first talk.  I was girly swot and sat in the front row.

The very gorgeous Richard Bacon chaired a debate on ‘The new Wild West: what kind of internet do we want?’  He did a really good job as there were some strong discussions at times and he kept the debate moving along.  It was a fascinating talk.  Stella Creasy, MP for Walthamstow was really impressive.  I am always impressed by very eloquent and erudite speakers and the more she was challenged, the more eloquent she became.  I always deteriorate in to mumbling and repetition when under pressure but she was marvellous.

The other clever people on stage were Mark Stephens (Julian Assange’s lawyer!), Marta Cooper and Toby Young, aka Toadmeister.  It was a very interesting debate about what is and is not permissible on Social Media and what can we do about it when we get unwanted comments, stalkers, trolls and even threats against us, as some of the panellists have. Next up was ‘In it for the Lolz’ i.e. how to write funnier posts.  From left to right were Tim Dowling, Sonya Cisco, Andrea Mann and Viv Groskop. These two were marvellous.  Andrea is the comedy editor of the Huffington Post.  She was funny and interesting and had some great anecdotes.  Viv was very funny.

We then had Think Bombs which was three presentations on aspects of how technology will shape how we think.  This was excellent.  Tanya Byron gave a very impressive talk without even appearing to look at notes, recommending we let children embrace new technology.  She suggested we should not take it away from them when they walk in to school but let them use it to research and learn.  Sue Black gave a lovely personal talk about her life and how she is now teaching women, via Techmums to become empowered through technology.  Last but definitely not least was Jon Ronson (The Men Who Stare at Goats) who gave a fascinating talk about identity theft using his real life experience on his Twitter account. There was a blog clinic where you could go and ask experts questions about how to improve your blog.  I spoke to Annie Spratt about getting more readers, Emily Leary about making money from your blog and Carrie Barclay and Darren Baldwin who were very helpful, and pleasingly complimentary, about my photography. This was interesting!  Speakers from left to right were; Rachael Lucas, Tom Allin, Maisie McCabe, Emily Leary and Gina Schauffer.I then made a bad decision.  I chose how to beautify your blog rather than how to write better content.  This talk was a bit disappointing and I didn’t feel I learnt anything.  Not because I know it all.  I actually had high hopes of learning some good tips as I fancied a bit of a blog makeover.  But it was aimed more at beginners so I was annoyed with myself.  The writing talk had some excellent speakers and I wished I had attended that talk instead. After tea, where I resisted cake, there was, quite frankly, a ridiculous debate.  The topic irritated me before we had even begun; Can you be a mummy blogger and still be a feminist?  I am a Mother and a blogger and a feminist.  The three are descriptions I can apply to myself.  Not one of those descriptions makes either of the other two impossible.

The opening question was too stupid – can you be a feminist and make jam?  Really!!!!  I think these were intelligent women and can’t believe they even tried to debate such a stupid question.

From left to right the speakers were: Alison Perry, Katie Glass and Charlotte Raven

Eleanor Mills, Sarah Ditum and Victoria Smith.  As the session went on the audience became increasingly frustrated and fractious.  We were all encouraged to tweet and live tweets were displayed on the large screen above the speakers.  As the tweets became more scathing of the debate, the audience and then the speakers were distracted until the organisers removed the live feed which was a shame as some of the tweets were hilarious. To end the day we had the marvellous Jo Brand who gave a typically ascerbic talk and then answered loads of questions. A splendid end to an, on the whole, very enjoyable, interesting and useful day. How was my eating?  All a bit mushy actually!  But no added sugar.

I started with ground porridge, exactly the same as the day befores.  I was really disappointed with the food at Blogfest.  Bearing in mind it was the Mumsnet Blogfest, which meant virtually all the delegates were female, there was very little fresh food available all day apart from about 10 fruit kebabs at lunch time for 300 people.  On arrival there were pastries, mid morning there were biscuits, in the afternoon it was cake.  Lots of women don’t want to eat cake and considering I paid £95 for the day, I think I could have expected some fresh fruit to be on offer!  It is apple season so even some platters of apples, which are cheap and plentiful, would have been easy and affordable to provide.  I managed to resist all the sweet food but I did get hungry. Lunch was actually very tasty.  I chose the fish in a white sauce with vegetables, served with cabbage and 1/4 of a bagel.  I would have preferred some fruit to the bagel but was hungry so I ate it. This was the only table I saw of desserts.  I had a late lunch as I went to the blog clinic first and when I came out, these were all gone.  I wish I had taken a fruit kebab when I took this photo.The boys wanted a curry for supper.  I was at the station by 8pm so I collected a curry on my way home.  I had a Tarka Dahl with rice and an onion bhaji.  It was from Jumeirah in Staplehurst.  It was perfectly adequate but not amazing.

So,  my first visit to Blogfest.  I enjoyed it and will probably go back next time.

I have been having trouble sleeping lately so last night I went to bed with a mug of camomile tea.

It didn’t help me sleep but I enjoyed the camomile.
This morning I fancied porridge.  I bought this lovely bag of oats in Australia but they do take some cooking. I decided to grind the oats to speed up cooking time and presumably improve digestion.  I ground up some pumpkin seeds to a fine powder and some hazlenuts and walnuts to a coarser texture.  I also added some Goji berries and protein powder.  When I threw away everything with sugar, included dried fruits, I spared the Goji berries.  They were expensive but also they don’t taste sweet like raisins do so I thought I would eat them sparingly and when they are gone, not replace them. I put all my ingredients in a non stick pan.  I used 1/2 a cup of oats and 1 tbsp of everything else.Plus 1 and 1/2 cups of milk.
It was cooked in about 3 minutes and I poured the porridge in a bowl and topped it with coconut butter and a few blueberries.  This was such a delicious breakfast, I could eat it again for dinner!  The porridge seemed creamy and was mainly smooth thanks to the grinding of the oats and seeds.  Texture was provided by the nuts and Goji berries.  A really good breakfast. Oh no!  Some sugar sneaked in to my house!  I was looking for some tissues without nasty chemicals and these came up so I bought them.  Made from sugar cane!  I tell you, that sugar stuff is in EVERYthing! I started work early today because I treated myself to 2 hours off for lunch.  I rarely have any lunch at all, apart from dashing to the local shops and then eating at my desk.  Today I decided it was time to catch up with the lovely ladies I live near, many of whom I used to see every day at the school gates. I do miss these dear and lovely people and have been looking forward to catching up all week.  We were seated in a large alcove off the main dining room at our local village pub, The Milk House.It was lovely to forget about work and all my other worries for a couple of splendid hours.  Thank you Sarah for organising it for us.
My starter was excellent.  Antipasto which had cheese, olives,  tomatoes, pesto, cured meats and roasted vegetables.  I enjoyed it very much. We were given a choice from the classic menu.  As we were a party of 12 we had to pre-order.  I chose the beef burger and fries.  I asked for it to be served without the relish as that would most likely have had sugar in it and was impressed that they had remembered.  I left the bun and the lettuce as it was covered in mayonnaise.  The actual burger was quite adequate and the chips tasty enough.  I managed to leave nearly half of the chips, I think.

I love the way The Milk House has been decorated and furnished.  It is very comfortable and pleasant to sit in but I do think the food needs to be livened up a bit.  My starter was great and the crab cakes looked really good too.  But the mains are a bit too ordinary.  We are spoilt in this area with many wonderful restaurants and gastro pubs.  If they want to compete with food, they need to be more imaginative.

But as for the people?  No competition.  It was wonderful to see the local lovelies and I just wish I could have stayed longer. An early evening glass of wine – cheers!  First drink of the week.I feel exhausted after a very challenging week.  A mug of the leftover chicken soup will do for supper followed by a very early night.

Have a restful evening and a wonderful weekend.

I ate 2, what I call, proper meals today, and they were both eaten out of cardboard boxes. I have not become homeless, living in a cardboard shelter on the streets of London, grateful for any donations I may receive.  In fact both meals were quite pricey.  No, in the up and coming area of London known as Bankside where I work, it is obviously the done thing to present takeaway food in a cardboard box.

Breakfast was from Albion.  Apart from Starbucks, which I rarely go to, this is the nearest eatery to the office.

There is a grocery section when you first go in.  They sell ready made sandwiches and also takeaway items.  They are incredibly obliging and very helpful which I alway appreciate. They have a heated outside area with blankets to keep you warm which is charming.  I really wanted to treat myself to eating a hot breakfast inside the restaurant but I was too busy.  So I bought a hot breakfast and took it out. It came in a cardboard box with wooden cutlery. Kedgeree!  It was superb.  Rice, lots of smoked haddock and spinach with a perfectly cook egg that had a runny middle.  The dish was wonderfully spiced and I think the curry sauce had some cream in it as it was quite rich.  It was fantastic. For lunch I walked a bit further to Tortilla which lots of my colleagues rave about for the Burritos. I ordered a naked Burrito which comes without the wrap.  I swapped the rice for lettuce to reduce the carbs.  Oh look, another cardboard box! It was really delicious.  I chose the pork which was very tender.  With the pork was some black beans, salsa, green salad, guacamole and salsa.  I also had cheese (not much) and sour cream and some hot pepper sauce.  It was absolutely delicious and I will be having that again. I wasn’t very hungry at suppertime but wanted to eat something.  I have been snacking on cheese lately and I wanted to avoid that.  I particularly wanted to avoid it because I read on a friend’s blog today that eating too much salt can disrupt your sleep.  She is a nutritional therapist and knows what she is talking about.  (check out Hannah Kaye’s site here).  I have had difficulty sleeping recently so am keen to try anything to help.

So tonight was smoothie night.  I ground up some hemp, sunflower and pumpkin seeds and blended them with; raspberries, blackberries, blackcurrants, tofu, soya milk, green algae, Lucuma, Maca powder and protein powder.  It was delicious.

I drank my smoothie in a glass 🙂

I was trapped in a room with homemade cakes this morning and in another room with boxes of filled and iced doughnuts this afternoon!  But I did not have any – woo hoo.  Go me!

There was a home baking sale today in the office to raise money for charity. The cakes were set up in the kitchen so I avoided the kitchen and went out and bought coffee instead.  Simples, I thought.  Unfortunately, I was in a 2 hour workshop from 11-1pm and 3 colleagues arrived with cakes purchased from upstairs.  A challenge to resist as they were home made (my favourite) but in reality, I wasn’t offered any so I escaped.

This afternoon our boss hosted an informal get together in his office and he had bought boxes of Krispy Kreme filled and iced doughnuts to have with coffee.  I am not a huge doughnut fan but I love the custard filled and chocolate covered one.  Anyway, I am proud to report I resisted and just had a cuppa.  It was hard though.

I did OK today.  Mainly because I managed to prepare food at home this morning before going to work.

For breakfast I mixed a scoop of protein powder with 1 tbsp sesame seeds, 2 tbsp hazelnuts, half a punnett of raspberries and about 3 heaped tbsp Natural yogurt.

I really enjoyed it but it was not substantial enough and I was very hungry by lunch time. For lunch I had prepared a generous portion of chicken breast with celery, carrot and yellow pepper, seasoned with salt and pepper. When it came time to eat I poured the remaining half pot of olives and Feta over the top which made a very tasty and satisfying lunch. I visited an office near the Monument this afternoon.  Look at how beautiful that sculpture is. It was designed by Christopher Wren (who also designed St Paul’s Cathedral) to commemorate all those who died during the Great Fire of London in 1666.  I am using my iPhone as the moment for photos as my little portable camera is broken and it does not do this building justice.  It has a very tall section but my colleagues were in a rush so I couldn’t hang about and take photos.

I had a bit of a snack attack this evening.  I was making soup with the chicken carcass, onions, carrots, leeks and butternut squash.  But while it was cooking I was hungry so I had some Cheddar and then 2 slices of toast with Smoked Salmon pate.  Now the soup is ready I am not hungry!  It will keep for tomorrow.

I ate sugar today without realising 😦 😦 :-O .  Yes, very sad faces and shocked.  I was very tired this morning and made the mistake of not taking any food in to work.  I was in back to back meetings nearly all day which is exhausting but makes it hard to pop out to get something to eat.  When I did go out, I was in a rush and I bought some nuts and seeds which were the first food I had all day.  I didn’t check the label and they had been roasted in soy sauce which had sugar in it.  I use Kikkoman Soy Sauce which doesn’t have sugar.  I was so disappointed because I ate them.  In fact I was so hungry I ate the entire packet which was 200 g !!!!!  That was 1,200 calories.  So I am not doing that again.

Having looked at the photo of the nuts and seeds, I am rather annoyed with M&S where I bought them.  It doesn’t say on the front that they are roasted in anything at all so it is easy to see why a busy shopper (i.e. me) picked them up thinking it was a healthy snack.  The moral of the tale …. prepare food in advance or at least read labels before buying!

I like this modern building next to M&S. I liked the blue sky too and was disappointed to not manage more then 5 minutes outside enjoying it. Lunch was healthier than breakfast; a green salad with half a pot of olives and Feta.  I didn’t use the sachet of dressing and instead made do with the oil from the olives. These olives were lovely. The salad was simple but seemed fresh. This made a small but adequate lunch. Supper was easy.  I reheated some of the chicken I roasted yesterday and steamed some butternut squash and broccoli.  The butternut had a fantastic flavour.  This was a very satisfying supper.

I am definitely preparing ahead for breakfast tomorrow.

Another lovely weekend draws to a close.  I really need a 3 day weekend so I can have 2 days of fun and one to recover or do chores in!

It was nearly sunny first thing so we took the dogs over the road in case it rained later.  I haven’t been over since the gale on Monday and was interested to see if there were any trees down.  Oh yes there were!
Not surprising really when you see how shallow the roots are on the Sweet Chesnuts! There were lots down. The recent heavy rain has filled up all the little streams and puddles. There was a Beech across the path we usually take which is rather inconvenient as I assume it will stay that way now. Most of the ferns have turned a stunning dark orange colour.  The occasional fern remains green. They are really beautiful. I enjoyed a relaxing read in a bath with a little bit of a pamper as we had a very special evening to look forward to.

Breakfast time.   I was hungry and really fancied an orange.  I put it in a smoothie with a ground tbsp each of pumpkin seeds, hemp seeds and sesame seeds, Soya milk and Natural yogurt. Lunch was a quick and easy meal.  2 locally produced cold meats; Salt Beef and Ham. With this delicious but incredibly rich Smoked Salmon pate.  You only need a little bit and we had this on wholemeal bread with tomatoes.After dropping Harvey at a friends for the night we headed off to South Kensington, going via Epsom to pick up Sally and Troy.  We were out celebrating Jane’s birthday.  We began the evening with a drink in a bar called Galante.  It was not your average bar, that’s for sure.  Look at how glamorous it was by clicking here.  Sally and I wanted a cocktail.  Unfortunately a glamorous bar seems to involve very low lighting so even with our glasses on we couldn’t read the menu!  D’oh! So I had a white wine Spritzer 🙂

It was a fun place to have a drink and we then walked round the corner to Tom’s Kitchen.  What a wonderful evening!  On arrival we had champagne and delicious canapés; mini pizzas, sausages and mini burgers.  We then took our seats.  Jane had hired the whole room and 30 of us enjoyed a wonderful meal.  Some of the people there I have’t seen for about 25 years !
I didn’t take any photos of the food which I regret.  I had a fillet steak with green salad and chips.  I managed to resist the desserts and enjoyed some cheese after the meal.   Thank you very much Gary and Jane for such a wonderful evening.  Happy Birthday!

Thank you Sally and Troy for our sleepover – so good to catch up with such special friends.

Today we were treated to lunch by my Dad.  We went to a restaurant in Nork that he likes – Galu .  It is a Mediterranean restaurant and we all really enjoyed our meals.  I ordered the crab salad which on the menu said it came with an oil and lemon dressing.  It actually came in mayonnaise which undoubtedly had sugar in it but I thought it would have been rude to send it back so I ate it and enjoyed it.
As a main I had a fillet steak with Peppercorn sauce, spinach and mashed potatoes. The steak was so tender it cut as easily as butter.  Lovely. I rarely eat steak and have had it twice this weekend.  The steak in Tom’s Kitchen was so good I had to have another.

I am finding it so much easier to not have dessert.  I am also beginning to find I am eating less without even thinking about it.  I didn’t finish all the mashed potato because I was full.  I could have had cheese and biscuits instead of dessert but decided I was comfortably full and wanted to stay that way so I just had a latte.  Thank you Daddy for a lovely lunch.

Having had a substantial lunch I didn’t feel like cooking in the evening but I had bought a chicken to roast so that is cooking and we can use it during the week.  I am definitely not cooking any accompaniments so I suspect supper will be a roast chicken sandwich in front of the TV.  I have an episode of the Tunnel to watch and then Downton which is the perfect way to end such a good weekend.  I hope you all enjoyed your weekends as much as I enjoyed mine.  Thank you again to my kind and generous friends and family for spoiling me so much this weekend.

Sorry I haven’t chatted to you all for a while.  I have had one of those weeks.  I have been phenomenally busy at work as I have had to submit a paper I have been working on for 2 months which is always a little stressful!  I worked from home for most of the week because I was too busy to manage to faff about on our (currently) unreliable trains for 3 – 4 hours a day.  The little fella has been on half term so I have seen more of him than usual which is a blessing.  But as I was so busy, he was out and about having little adventures of his own – thanks to Judy and Becky for taking him out for whole days so I could work.

So how is the fructose free life going?  Very well thank you.  This is a classic time for me to dive in to the chocolates and cakes but I have managed to have none.  Yup, absolutely none at all.  I have had more wine than usual ( I aint no Saint!) but other than that, have eaten really well.  I am very irritated the scales at the Leisure Centre are now broken for the second week so I can not see how I am doing.  I think quite well.

Here are some of my favourite meals from the past few days.

I was craving a smoothie on Wednesday morning.  I put 2 tbsp of hazlenuts, 1 tbsp of walnuts and 1 tbsp hemp seeds in to a cup. I covered the nuts and seeds in water and left them to soak for a couple of hours. I then blended them with some Greek style natural yogurt and raspberries, blueberries and pomegranate. Plus some treasures from my goodness bags. Yum! Tacos for tea.  The only ingredients in a Taco shell are corn, salt and sunflower oil!  I made up my own version of the filling.  I never use the meal kits as the Taco mix tends to contain garbage like MSG which we do not need!  My mince mix includes beef, onions, tomatoes and tomato puree. Served with lettuce, tomato, grated Cheddar and sour cream.  They were very moreish. For lunch on Thursday I wanted to make a more substantial salad dressing than a French Dressing. This one was a red pepper and Tahini blitzed in the Vita Mix with spring onion, lemon juice, garlic and spring onion.  It was tasty but a little thin so I am not ready to share the recipe yet.  I wanted something thick and creamy in consistency. I poured the red pepper Tahini dressing over a large salad which I served with a baked potato and Cheddar. Happy Halloween!  I thought of you in particular Kath, and missed you, as I always do on Halloween ( and other times). I began today with an omelette.  This is a 4 egg omelette which I made for Harvey and myself.  I cook the “filling” first.  Today I gently stir fried an onion, mushrooms, spinach and ham.  Then I place that in a bowl while I nearly cook the egg.  Place the filling back in the pan, fold over the egg when it is nearly cooked through but not quite and let cook gently for a couple more minutes. Serve and mangez. I was busy again today so made a quick and easy lunch of bacon and salad in wholemeal finger rolls. They were good. I shut my computer down shortly after 5pm tonight.  I was in the mood for cooking and turned to one of my favourites, Hugh F-W’s Veg Everyday!  This was a bit of a store cupboard supper as we are low on fresh food.  Amazing what you can find though when you look.

I made the Mexican Tomato and Bean Soup but used less stock so it was more of a casserole consistency.
Served over brown Basmati rice with sour cream and coriander.  Delicious.

Mexican Bean and Tomato Chilli

Ingredients (serves 3-4)

• 2 tbsp olive oil
• 2 onions
• 3 garlic cloves
• 1 fresh green chilli (optional)
• 1 tsp cumin
• 400ml vegetable stock
• 1 tin of tomatoes
• 3 large ripe tomatoes
• 400g tin black eyed peas
• 1 tsp oregano
• Salt and Pepper
• coriander, sour cream and Cholula to serve

Method

1. Heat the oil in a large pan
2. Add the chopped onions and saute gently for about 5 minutes
3. Add the garlic, chilli and cumin and stir for a minute
4. Add the stock, tinned tomatoes, chopped fresh tomatoes, beans, oregano, salt and pepper
5. Bring to the boil and simmer gently for 40 minutes
6. Turn off and let sit for 10 minutes so flavours meld
7. Serve over brown Basmati rice with sour cream, fresh coriander and Cholula

I am now on the red wine.  I have had a lovely sociable week which has included drinks in the local pub with my neighbours, chilling and listening to music in the Grey Lady with Mirella and more drinks in the local with Lucy.  It was all very lovely.  Tonight I am kicking off the weekend with a glass of red, an open fire and snuggling up with the little fella in front of the telly.

Cheers to you all.  Have a wonderful weekend.