Nearing the end of August 2017

Last week Hubby and I went to Old Wardour Castle, in Wiltshire. First time we'd been there. It was lovely, and I would definitely go again :-) Photo's have been posted :-)

So we are coming to the end of August. This summer has flown by. Hubby's birthday at the beginning of September and they have the tradition of the birthday person taking in birthday cake.I cannot understand that. Surely it's the person who's birthday it is that should have a cake given to them, but it seems to be the thing in most work places now, it's the birthday person provides the cake. Now. Where most the people hubby works with would bring in a couple of bags of dougnuts, and share them with those who work in their particular section, hubby likes me to make cake, enough to feed the whole factory near enough. So, I make him two white Victoria Sponges, two chocolate ones, a fruit cake and a banana teabread. He did ask for more, but I told him that was plenty. If it didn't go round, cut smaller slices :-) So, today I started on the sponges. Going to make one each day and freeze them. The first of the white sponges has been made and frozen :-)

Actually, I have been quite motivated today, which in all honesty isn't always the case!!! I got up at 6am, squeezed oranges for those in the house. Put dinner on in the slow cooker, made the sponge. Did mine and hubby's laundry, washed the towels, ironed some shirts for hubby. Made him a cuppa. Hubby, mum and I went into Chippenham and did some shopping. Made some cheese scones. vacuumed upstairs, did some knitting, and lots of other little odds and ends, even managed a 20min power nap :-D

Talking of dinner. As I've just said. I did dinner in the slow cooker, getting up early to put it on. I love the slow cooker. Once the food is in it, then you can just get on with the day, and not worry :-) So. In my slow cooker today went a couple of chicken breasts.. Yes. I know a couple of posts back I said I was veggie. I had to stop being completely veggie as I started to feel really weird (my lot here said they hadn't noticed any difference as I'm always weird!!)  so I've started to have a little meat in my diet, so I'm more flexitarian, than vegetarian now. I do still cook veggie, and try and do my menus to include more vegetarian recipes than it did before I had my veggie months. I like to have more vegetarian dinners than meat ones in the week. For my lunch time food I try to keep mainly vegetarian as well. Anyway. Today I did chicken breasts. I chopped up some onion and mushrooms, put them in the slow cooker. Placed the chicken breasts on top then poured a tin of chopped tomatoes over them and dried mixed herbs. I had some gravy left over from the roast on Thursday, so added that as well, popped the lid on and then spent a lovely day not worrying about what to cook tonight :-) The result was lovely. I served the breasts with roasted new potatoes, and also re-heated a couple of boiled new potatoes from last nights meal, which was a salad. And we had some mixed veg as well. It was delicious. especially as there were cheese scones to go with it too :-) Yum!!!

Last week was busy as always, though I'm trying to organise myself better. That's an ongoing task, as I never seem to be able to fully accomplish that :-)
My little grandson keeps me on my toes. I really enjoy having him.
I've found I've had to start writing a weekly menu. I always did that when my kiddies were young, and I was homeschooling, but that has slipped over the last few years, and I've been finding myself waking up and wondering what to make for dinner that night, and then having to buy, because it's too late to take anything out of the freezer. I was also noticing I was throwing away more food again, as I wasn't keeping a proper eye on the fridge's inners. It always amazes me how easy it is to fall back into bad ways and habits. For me, it's an ongoing mission to stay focused, and economical.
I tidied out our freezers on Thursday. That has helped a lot actually. It's good to know what there is. I wrote down stuff so I can keep an eye on it and use it up. I stopped counting the frozen bananas. There were tons. So lots of banana teabreads to be made !!!! Also, frozen cooked veg for soup. I've a lot of that, so Friday I made some soup and still have some in the fridge. We will have some tomorrow for lunch. I also have a few cartons of frozen casseroles that were left overs from a meal. So tomorrow for dinner I'm making a pie also using some frozen pastry scraps from precious pies, so a nice easy meal tomorrow that will be wholesome, but not hard work :-) We will have that with wedges and peas :-) Also, there was some lovely onion, mushroom, tomatoey gravy left from today's meal, so that will be lovely to have with the pie :-)

I am busy knitting socks. I'm on my last pair now for a while. I want to start some sweaters for Freddie ready for the Autumn/winter. I'm determined to cut down the time I spend on my tablet playing games!!!! I get so cross with myself for getting so involved and wasting time. I need to get a knitting move on lol. So. I'm going to limit my tablet time, and only play a couple of the games  like. It will be interesting to see how I do when I get back on here. Hopefully I'll be able to report a success :-)

Our dog.

Maya

Old Wardour Castle

Birthday treat

Last September, my lovely hubby was 60. Our beautiful children gave him a hot air balloon ride for two as a present. After having five cancellations, we got to go on it today :-) What a lovely experience it was :-)

Fed up

There is nothing so annoying than being a well behaved dieter, sticking like glue to the plan, only to weigh yourself and see that nothing has changed for two weeks (sigh!). So today I rebelled and ate things I know I shouldn't do. I know I will regret it, but it felt sooooooo good :-)

Yesterday we had a BBQ. One of my son-in-laws will be 50 in the week. I think we will all be living off of BBQ food for the next few days lol.
I made some yummy veggie burgers for me and grilled some peppers and big mushroom. Also, I roasted some cherry tomatoes in the oven, and they were gorgeous :-) Veggie burgers are very cheap to make. I used chickpeas, lentils, grated carrot and onion in one, adding a little egg and breadcrumbs made from nimble bread. I also made some omitting the chickpeas and lentils, and using kidney beans instead. Both types had herbs and seasoning in :-)

I've got very slack at doing my weekly menus. I have to get back into it again. I'm waking up in the mornings clueless as to what is going to be for dinner that evening. Not good for economising. Mondays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays I need to do something quick, or in the slow cooker, because those are the days I look after the grandson, and at the moment, I am being very unorganised :-( My cupboards, and freezer needs sorting as I've loads of food accumulating in them which would make a meal. I've also got some meat casseroles, and some veggie casseroles frozen down ready to be devoured. Organising a menu is difficult as well, because I'm never sure when my girls, who still live with us are in. I keep forgetting to ask when they leave for work and sometimes I cook enough for everyone, and they are't here to at it !!! My hubby, thankfully, is happy to take left overs to work for his lunch :-)

I have noticed shop prices getting higher, and packaging getting smaller. It must be very difficult for lower wage earners to make ends meet at times. I'm sure one of the main four supermarkets is trying to break away from the other three and styling itself more on the more up market supermarket. I've noticed a lot of their cheaper range products are not on the shelves, and their 'top of the range' products being more promoted. I get the feeling this supermarket is attempting to be a second choice to the up market supermarket, so that those who are a little more fussy over brands, and foods, and wouldn't buy the cheaper choices, but can't afford the up market shop  prices, will choose to shop their instead.
It annoys me that most of us seem so dependant on supermarkets, and that they manipulate us so much. I find it hard that healthy food is so expensive, making it difficult for poorer paid families to buy healthy food.
It annoys me as well that children in schools are not taught basic cookery, so that they will be able to feed a family economically, and healthily when they need to.

Anyway. That's my latest rant off loaded :-) lol.

Dog Alone at Home

Thursday, mum and I met up with a friend of hers. We left our dog at home. She is an 18mth old Sha Pi/Staffie cross. The height of a Sha Pi, the muscle and energy of a Staffie !!! I left my knitting on a small chair by the chair I usually sit on. I do this quite a lot. This is what I found when I came home!!

I did manage to re-wind the yarn, and resurrect my knitting that I found nearly outside the backdoor.

Heron

A couple of days ago, Mum, myself and my grandson were walking to our little town. We have to go by a pond, which is near a brook. There was a heron on the pond. I have never seen one there before, and it happened to be there when I didn't have my camera !!!! So. I went back in the afternoon with my camera, when the grandson needed a nap, hoping it would still be there, and it was :-)

Socks and yarn

Jackets for my grandson over the last few months

Big needle Knitting

Been busy

So. I've taken about eighteen months off away from the blog. I have been busy with my grandson, looking after him three days a week, while his mummy and daddy work. He's now coming up for two years old and is absolutely adorable. Into everything, very cheeky, and now being able to put a few words together. He's been walking since he was ten months. my days are very full when I have him.
I also have my mum living with us now which is lovely. the grandson loves her to bits.

I'm still knitting. Knitted loads for my grandson over the last couple of years. Busy knitting socks at the moment, then back to knitting for the little boy :-)

Also, I'm still doing my best to live as economically as I can. Doesn't always work out, and I have had to waste food, but I haven't done too bad really over the last year and a half. I have manged to re-create meals from left overs, and in more cases than not, used up foods before they would have seen the bin. This time of year is brilliant for using up fridge hanger oners. I tend to do a salad when foods look like they are piling up. I bung it all on the table along with some fresh salad stuff, and usually some hot boiled new potatoes, and it's amazing how suddenly it's enthusiastically munched up :-) Of course, with left over casserole, that usually becomes a pie, or I will freeze leftovers down in containers ready for a meal that I don't have to cook one evening :-)

I'm vegetarian now. Have been since May. I have felt hypocritical for a long time eating meat, because I know that I could never kill an animal myself. When Theresa May said she was going to bring back fox hunting, I was horrified. I re-examined my motives for meat eating, so decided to try it for  month and take it from there. So far, I'm still happy not meat eating :-) I did consider vegan, and maybe in the future I will give it a try, but at the moment I'm ok with just being a veggie :-)

Here is a bug bear though. Eating out as a vegetarian is a nightmare, as the veggie food on offer in most places is horrendous. Eating out as a dieting veggie is even worse!!!!!!!! :-/ because the veggie foods often on offer are usually highly calorific. I could have a salad, but boy, don't restaurants charge a mint for salads that usually appear very limp and un-appetising and swimming in salad oil if you've forgotten to ask for a naked salad :-) I did however have a reasonably good veggie meal at Ikea in Bristol the other day. I had their veggie balls with wheat pilau (not sure on the spelling there) and i enjoyed it :-) Also a couple of months back I had a veggie burger in an eating place in Reading Service Station, I hadn't started a diet then, but I was watching what I was eating, I think it might have been a bit high in calories, but it was very nice.

When I first went veggie, I lost half a stone, but it plateaued at that for several weeks, so I decided I would diet. I'd been putting it off for a while, trying to be god, but dismally failing, so I went back onto a Weight Watchers diet plan. I do the no count one, as that suits my lifestyle. I only started it a week ago, so haven't much progress to report. I am however enjoying it :-)

Tonight's  meal was chilli bean pasta. One of the easiest meals ever, and 'free' on the WW no-count plan. I saute some onion, garlic and mushrooms in a pan, add some chopped tomatoes, baked beans. a tin of  mixed beans in chilli sauce, a small amount of hot chilli powder as I'm a wimp with anything too hot and spicy, herbs and seasoning. bring it to boil, and let it simmer while the past cooks. I cook my pasta in the microwave.I also use wholemeal pasta, as this is 'free' on the no-count plan. When the pasta is cooked, mix it all together and enjoy :-) My lot has grated cheese on theirs, and I mixed a little yeast flakes on mine :-) As today has been a very rainy dull day and a bit cold, despite it being August, to have a warming chilli meal was somewhat comforting :-)