The Poor Relative!

The Star of the Show

What a week - again! Haven't settled in since Ofsted (outstanding, by the way!) and now there's movement afoot with my job and it's unnerving. Carry on with the job I'm doing now or move on and see what may happen. Scary. So this has led to a meltdown of organisation, which isn't brilliant, to be honest. Food hasn't been what was planned and chocolate has taken on integral roll in my nutritional week (alongside the addition of a glass or two on a mid-week evening!).

So the week started well with leftover Galette au chou for lunch on Monday and fish finger subs for tea. I love fish of all types and never under-estimate the beauty of a finger in a sub-roll with mayo, ketchup, roquette, tomatoes (still home grown!), red onion and gerkins. Never.

The week then melted down into a mix of shop bought cous-cous (a staple and easy to put into my workbag) followed by a large takeaway and three glasses of rouge on a Tuesday. And chocolate. The next night was Wednesday and this is the only night during the week that my beauties, Biggie and Booboo eat with us. I try to be adventurous but also aim to make it a meal ALL will enjoy - Booboo can be a little contrary at times. So this week I went for the absolute favourite of pesto pasta with crunchy (to Biggie) or seared (to normal humans) fish. It was a triumph, marred only marginally by the speed-consumption of an over-sized bag of Revels before Husband#1 and the girls walked in through the door. It's hard to say hi after a long hard day whilst trying to swallow two maltesers, an orange cream, three raisons, four toffees and a coffee, all-the-while hoping no one would smell it on your breath. It mattered not later on when I also downed an oversized Dairy Milk.

Sensing a theme for the week? If not, let me tell you, it's oversized.

So Thursday improved in that there was no takeaway or chocolate. I had fruit for lunch as we had a delicious tea of tomatoes on toast (with crushed roasted garlic that I'd made at the weekend) and a drizzle of olive oil. I'd also pan-fried a little chorizo and then, unbelievably, this was joined by French bread and Chevre all bought that morning in France! How exciting! Followed by wasabi nuts. Not oversize in portion alone , but certainly when added to everything else, and in taste!

Pizza Friday didn't let us down and there was the invention of the Tapas Pizza. Not wanting to waste the mass of tomatoes ripening outside and the rest of the chorizo, I changed the base sauce (which is usually just tomato puree and lots of crushed garlic) by adding a teaspoon of smoked paprika and then put chorizo, tomatoes and a yellow pepper on top. It may have just done enough to join the list of regulars! It was really good, even if I say so myself! Then there was the white Toblerone...

Tapas Pizza
 

 

And Saturday. It started with banana pancakes: take 270g of flour, a teaspoon of baking powder, two eggs, two tablespoons of butter (melted before adding) and milk to make it into a fairly thick batter before adding crushed bananas - I used four smallish ones, but do it to taste. Cook on a non-stick frying pan, no need for extra oil. Serve with maple syrup, of course. Then, for tea, who'd have thought that the delicious monkfish wrapped in Serano ham would be considered a poor relative to the humble patatas bravas? Well, read on - it was! I followed my usual patatas bravas recipe, which is basically onion, sautéed with garlic and chili (except I use a chipotle chili) and then I add a teaspoon of smoked paprika and a tablespoon of sherry vinegar before adding a tin of tomatoes and letting cook. This time I added about 500g of my own home grown (come on, they needed using!) tomatoes, instead of the tin, chopped and cooked for about 20 minutes covered and another ten with the lid off. I deep fried cubed potato and then made an aioli with a clove of garlic, a tablespoon of  sherry vinegar and olive oil. Well, the monkfish was lovely, as you'd expect monkfish to be, but my goodness, the patatas bravas and aioli were something else. Thanks my lovely tomatoes! We also had some langoustines and roasted courgettes (home grown) to start and finished with a shop-bought chocolate fondant which we had with plum puree (home grown again) and ice cream. A lovely meal with three different home grown items - we were impressed!

 

If You See a Hedgehog Durung the Day it Needs Help.

So it's true. Never leave a hedgehog to it's own devices if it is out and about during the day. Chances are it is very ill. We had an exciting rescue on our hands last year, knowing what to do after an incident at the same time last year. Just arriving at Sainsbury's on Friday, I got a call from my mum to tell me my dad had just caught a hedgehog in the road. Madhouse Hedgehog Rescue Services went into action and before you know it the little lady was chez nous in a large sided box, in the warm conservatory with water and dog food - always meat in jelly, NO FISH OR GRAVY OR BREAD OR MILK. Poor girl had diarrhoea and anyway, we wanted to check her over so we called https://www.facebook.com/pages/Oggles-Hedgehog-Rescue-Rehabilitation-Centre/202287366468952?fref=ts who came out within the hour and took her away for tests. It seems that Percy, as she is now known, has lungworm, which is very serious, but can be treated, so we're crossing our fingers. If she survives, we'll over-winter her here at home as she is way too small to go out alone for hibernation. So what to do with a daytime hedgehog (or a small night time one at this stage of the year):

1. catch it with a blanket or towel and snuggle it up in a high sided box with a towel, blanket, newspaper crunched up and even a gently warm water bottle.
2. Give it a bowl of water and some dog or cat meat - but it must be meat in jelly.
3. Call the British Hedgehog Preservation Society who will direct you to a local carer who can administer antibiotics, saline drips and the like.

If they weigh less than 600g they are also unlikely to survive the hibernation either, so please look out for them!

Unusual blog, but food will come later. This is important. Fingers crossed for Percy x

Waw Not Wow

What a week (waw) this has been. Ofsted visited on Wednesday, having rung on Tuesday afternoon to inform all involved. Somehow, normal life stops but I'm proud. I still managed to eat normal teas on Tuesday and Wednesday night and the only take away came with the exhaustion on Thursday. Not bad, I think?! And we had lunch all days but Friday. Again, not bad going. On Monday, I managed to swim thirty six laps AND relearnt how to swim underwater. I felt more than a little brave with my last two fully head-dipping laps!

Friday night was pizza night. It nearly ended up chicken, green pepper and caramelised onion, but I realised how many tomatoes were ripening outside so I cut the pepper and added tomatoes, anchovies and olives. It was lovely and really nice for a change. Would it be as nice with supermarket-bought tomatoes? Who knows.

Saturday night was unoriginal, I'm afraid, but that doesn't mean it wasn't delicious! I defrosted more seafood and then made a romesco sauce to go with it. I roasted 250 (home grown) tomatoes for 20 minutes and then added 20g of hazelnuts at the end. I skinned the tomatoes and places them and the nuts in a food processor. I added some slow roasted garlic (should have been raw, but I'd roasted some earlier in the day and decided why not?), some fried bread, about 25g and then about three teaspoons of Chipotle chilli paste. I blended it all up with a jarred pepper and about 100ml of olive oil. Possibly not a classic romesco sauce, but delicious nonetheless with what I could buy in these parts...

I baked the seafood again and I served it all with a home grown globe courgette (pictured below with our tomatoes!) which I chopped and baked with olive oil and parmesan.

I'm going to have to get some more clams, though, as Biggie came down for her late night recce to see if there was anything worth eating, and she was rather annoyed that these weren't for her.

We had the first full-day family Sunday for a long time today and it was lovely. No rushing the kids off to see TG, which meant a leisurely lie-in and breakfast, in fact Husband#1 even let me have a longer sleep in as his snoring and Booboo's mid-sleep toilet shenanigans kept me awake for quite a large portion of the night. What a treat. We had Galette au chou for lunch, which Biggie loved but Booboo took 75 minutes to eat. It was lovely. Yorkshire pudding batter, bacon, garlic, cabbage: How bad can that be, as Ina would say!

So it's hard not to have a feeling of holiday after such a week and I'm struggling to get back to work. It doesn't help that I've lost my pouch of flash drives somewhere and basically everything I want to do is on there. Yes I back it up, but who backs up every time they do a new document? There's always something missing. Husband#1 has another late night on Tuesday, but otherwise this should be a nice straight forward week for everyone involved. Famous last words...

The Week Ahead

Bon Voyage, Presque

Aujourd'hui c'était la fête de ma niece qui va habiter en France d'Octobre jusqu'au Juillet, l'année dernière. On a mangé le poulpe, car elle ne l'ai jamais essayé. Je pense qu'elle l'a trouvé délicieux. Bien sûr.

English now, French is too hard at times. So today we've had a nice morning, with a celebratory lunch including octopus, mackerel with new potatoes crushed with olive oil and then broccoli, baked with parmesan, garlic and lemon. For pudding I bought in a lemon meringue pie. Lovely.

It's been a hard week at work, but the diet has continued (apart from the lemon meringue) with only treats on Friday and Saturday night. Problem is I'm not losing any weight this week, so I may have to look at cutting my weekend treats. Devastating. Friday night's pizza was a delight. As I'd had my eye done, I didn't think I'd be able to cook properly, but all was fine and so we had the seafood version with calamari, prawns, red onion and a basil and lemon dressing. I think it's my favourite.

Last night's tea was quite special as well, but only fairly cheap. We got some large green lipped mussel and some giant prawns and laid on a big baking tray. I sautéed some garlic in olive oil and then added a couple of glasses of white wine, 150ml cream, a little liquid chicken stock, some saffron and a few chilli flakes. I poured this over the seafood, added a few frozen clams and put in a 200' oven for about 15 minutes. I served it with ciabatta and parmesan baked (homegrown) globe courgette, which was beautifully sweet.

Lizzie's Seafood Bake
 

We've done really well with our own vegetables this year and had another bean salad this week for lunch. I blanched then cooled the French (yellow) beans, added tomatoes, olives and a hard boiled egg. I made a balsamic dressing and this was it. A real treat at work the next day.

This week I also had an operation on my eye to remove the lump which has been hanging around for about a year - I'm desperate to have two eyes which look even slightly symmetrical - I'm almost there! But the day was long...

• up at 6 as usual, take girls to various places of education
• dropped off at hospital by husband at 7.50am
• at 7.51am discover hospital doesn't open till 8.00am
• at 7.52am discover even checking in system doesn't work till 8.00am
• at 8.03am (I suspect someone slept in) WH Smiths raised shutter and I bought reading for next 57 minutes, including the Sun and the Mirror (problems with that...?)
• at 8.06am I bought an espresso, a latte and two bottles of water to ensure above £5.00 spend in the rip off hospital canteen
• at 8.17 was accosted by 'man' who took my copy (read) of the Mirror
• at 8.57 I proceeded to outpatients, as directed by a television
• at 9.07 was operated on by very nice ophthalmic nurse for 20 minutes, my eye being 'one of the worst examples'
• at 9.30 I was shown out 'the back door' so I wouldn't feel self -conscious'
• at 9.30 I walked out the back door knowing I looked a mess
• at 9.32 I took five attempts to get a prescription from the chemist as my eye patch ruined my depth perception.
• between 9.45 and 10.05 I waited to be collected, dropping bottles of water and unable to pick them up all the while bumping into people who clearly didn't recognise a be-patched lady in front of them

18.05 arrived home having worked the afternoon and shopped for the week only to have my family refuse to speak to me as I wasn't wearing a pirate patch. Hmph.

 

Life Really Does Still Go On

Well, five days back into work and it really isn't the worst thing in the world. My brain isn't functioning at it's usual ten per cent, however it has been declining at a steady rate over the last few years or so anyway, leaving me literally too stupid to worry. It just amazes me how, after six weeks of no work (oh, yes, I've even lost enough brain to forget the six hundred emails I received and had to deal with during my 'break') I've just fallen back in. It wasn't bad, in fact, it was good.

I did miss the Mad House, though, and of course, the family. Husband#1 has been kind enough to compile me a new Rock Liz CD (it's number 7) and it is probably the best, apart from the Pink song he's included. I love Pink - in fact I'm a great fan, (when not generally a liker of lady crooners), but the song he's put on is 'Who Knew,' which, having watched Pink Unplugged, we know is about someone having died. Nothing wrong with a song with meaning except when you're travelling to work, missing your family and you ball all the way there. Hmmm. Not a pretty sight when I arrive. I've had to ask for a remix which won't render me a blubbering wreck.

So food-wise we've been good, I've substituted 3% fat cream cheese instead of butter or mayo on wraps, made a lovely tomato salad to go with pitta - all our home grown tomatoes, just with extra virgin olive oil, basil and salt. For tea we had the lovely mackerel roasted with crushed new potatoes and then Husband#1 made fish in tomatoes with olives - all lovely. Last night we had a blue cheese (St. Agur) pizza with balsamic caramelised red onion and a few tomatoes. St. Agur cheese has to be the best blue ever. Today we're both cooking, which is quite exciting, and I'm just blogging whilst Husband#1 is making Ina's Scallop Gratin (who else's?). I made the starter, which used home grown green and yellow French beans, which I blanched a couple of days ago, mixed with home grown tomatoes, black olives and Feta cheese. Actually, it wasn't Feta, it was a Low Fat Greek Salad Cheese - but still good! I added a little basil and a balsamic dressing, it was really nice.

For pudding, it will be plum crumble for the next few months. We took about ten pounds of plums from the tree today and I started to cook them into fruit for crumbles,  but I'd only done a couple of pounds and already there was enough for ten portions of crumble. The girls didn't like, and this isn't a surprise. I did add some sugar, but when I got to the fifth tablespoon it was sweet but still tart and I gave up. I also added two teaspoons of (good!) vanilla essence. Not sure now what to do with them as I just haven't got time to cook them and then pull out the stones and they just aren't compliant before cooking.

Help!

As If I'd Never Left

So day two is done and it is like I'd never not been at work. It's really disappointing. Am working on the work- life balance,  though and went swimming yesterday (did 20 lengths) and really enjoyed it. Plus I'm now able to do four ten second planks...

Food is good - made the Hairy Dieters granola on Sunday and am eating it with frozen blueberries and fat free yogurt. It's delicious. For lunch the sandwich has been resurrected but with 3% fat Philly instead of butter or mayo - so far it's been good with chicken and mackerel. Finally for tea, we had mushrooms on ciabatta last night and fish with tomatoes and olives tonight. Good thing is usually we'd have a ciabatta each but we shared. My 'perma-toddler' will be getting lighter!!

About to start work again, but delighted to say we had a fantastic water tonight. Most unexpected (for September) but fantastic fun. I thoroughly recommend it!

Constantly Carrying Booboo

Well it's back to work tomorrow and the sad fact is that my weight excess is basically the equivalent of carrying Booboo constantly. I wouldn't be lying if I said I could even be carrying Biggie, drop her and still not be underweight. Gosh. But I've started my new regime and have begun doing some planks - I only managed one for ten seconds on the first day, but hey, I started. I'm now on four ten second planks. Biggie thinks it's not exercise but then she tried one too. Ha ha. Booboo just jumped on my back. That was the end of that plank.

So last night's tea was a squid stew by (Sir) Rick Stein with rouille, preceded by lots of meats and olives and followed by chocolate. Lovely, but awfully bad. Today wasn't different. We started with banana pancakes, recipe another time, perhaps. Then, as it was so late, we snacked until BBQ o'clock when we had burgers and sausages galore. Marshmallows were the official pudding but there was more chocolate before bed.

On a rather proud note, I've made a healthy granola for breakfast for the next few weeks, courtesy of the Hairy Bikers, which I'll eat with zero fat vanilla yogurt. I've also made sandwiches and replaced mayo and butter with 3% fat cream cheese - ingenious.

My blogging will be more sporadic now, but at least weekly with a healthier, better-rested me writing. Cross your fingers x