The Simple Bare Necessities feat. Gratitude & Recipes

Greying_Pilgrim

Good Morning :hello:

BG slept throught the night :j:j:j:j

I slept through the night :j:j:j:j We've turned that corner :j:j:j:j

We were lain in bed and I was trying to drop off whilst DH was nattering away - I had to tell him to be quiet in the end and explain that I was waiting for 'valerie' to kick in and then a supermercado home delivery went on out side in the road - I know they are a godsend for folk, but my, they are noisy operations...... And then BG started coughing. I don't mind admitting my heart sank - as we awaited the inevitable crying accompaniment. But DH (bless him) got up to check, and BG seems to have been coughing in their sleep. DH adjusted them and their bedclothes and we heard no more.

I've woken up tired, but not exhausted. Honestly, I feel like a completely different person - mad isn't it? And I must say THANKS once again to gien - :wave: if you're lurking - for mentioning 'valerie' tea. It seems to work for me

I've library books to return today (well in date), but I think we may have a bit of rain, so we'll see on what the weather is planning.

I was thinking last night, how a week out with illness has set me back so much. The 'office of doom' is still such And I've not touched my craft project, even though I'm within touching distance of the finish line of it being finished off. But them's the 'things' aren't they? You can plan, plan, and plan some more, and then 'things' happen and you are delayed, or derailed or disillusioned.

I've already been looking for recipes (new and what I have) to utilise stores in February. The rugger season (Six Nations) helps focus the mind on pre-preparing Saturday night tucker, because I'd rather watch rugby than be stood over the stove! But then curries lend themselves nicely to this approach, as they invariably taste better made in advance, eh?

I'm trying to limp to the end of the month without going mad with my grocery shopping. DH isn't helping and has finished off all the bread this morning for his snap. Whilst I am delighted that he took it upon himself to make his own snap - he's been brilliantly supportive over the past few days, doing stuff like that to help me out/let me have a little extra time asleep etc - he didn't need to finish off all the bread - I've nowt for breakfast

Tonight's tea will be a curry plate. I have vascillated between making curry from chickpeas from the freezer (will need to buy a tin of tomatoes) or using up bitsa curry left in the freezer - but what we had last week (you know how good I'm not on repetition ). I think the weather may be the decider, as to whether I can get some tommies or not.

Right, I've nowt else :money:to witter on about, so best vamoose and greet the day

Ta for popping by and reading. Appreciated.

Greying X

rtandon27

Greying_Pilgrim wrote: »

.... Filled a plate, filled our tummies without overloading and we didn't miss the carb overload of pizza and wedges (sorry rt )...

I get the lower carb thing! We are on a similar path ourselves which is hard with a potato/bread loving man in the house!

The things not the same bit...:o...well that's a bit harder...
I see a little lie down in my future...:rotfl::rotfl::rotfl:
You'd never believe that for the past 7 years I've worked in change management eh?

Greying_Pilgrim wrote: »

...Whilst I am delighted that he took it upon himself to make his own snap - he's been brilliantly supportive over the past few days, doing stuff like that to help me out/let me have a little extra time asleep etc - he didn't need to finish off all the bread - I've nowt for breakfast ...

OH - champ that he is has taken it upon himself to find lower carb recipes for us to replace his beloved bread...
Get this... HIS suggestion :rotfl::rotfl::rotfl: (I can't stop laughing...)
...his suggesstion is cloud bread! it was weirdly nice! - I picture a burger/falafel patty between two pieces - not sure how it would do toasted though!

maddiemay

rtandon27 wrote: »

I get the lower carb thing! We are on a similar path ourselves which is hard with a potato/bread loving man in the house!

The things not the same bit...:o...well that's a bit harder...
I see a little lie down in my future...:rotfl::rotfl::rotfl:
You'd never believe that for the past 7 years I've worked in change management eh?



OH - champ that he is has taken it upon himself to find lower carb recipes for us to replace his beloved bread...
Get this... HIS suggestion :rotfl::rotfl::rotfl: (I can't stop laughing...)
...his suggesstion is cloud bread! it was weirdly nice! - I picture a burger/falafel patty between two pieces - not sure how it would do toasted though!

I found the recipe for these on a GF thread today, copied it down and may try to make some soon, did your OH put sugar in his?:)

rtandon27

maddiemay wrote: »

...did your OH put sugar in his?:)

No sugar maddie - just eggs, baking powder & good ol' philly substitute aka cheap c0-0p cream cheese!

pinkypig

Hiya Greying :wave:, so glad your little one is on the mend and you've caught up at least a bit of sleep.
Could I ask about the tea? What is it and where do you get it? My sleep patterns are shocking at times ( I'm of a certain age :rotfl:) and I'm sometimes going to work feeling like a zombie

Enjoy your curry

PP xx

Greying_Pilgrim

Evenin' All :hello:

rtandon - that looks an interesting recipe. Shame I am such a domestic slattern and we don't have any eggs in the house......................... and of course, I make that sound like we have cream cheese.............. we don't One to try though

pinkypig - now, this info comes with the proviso that it works for me, but I can only speak from personal experience and can't vouch for them working for others. I have nowt to do with the company, and I ain't on commission (dang!). But I have Dr Stu art's Valer1an plus herbal tea (no gap bet. u and a in brand name in real life) . I got them from H0lland&barrett (other places must stock them, surely?) and I paid (a rather eye-watering £2.35 for a box of 15 tea bags). But I'm taking the view that they work for me, and a fiver a month for reasonable sleep is not to be sniffed at. To be fair, they were the first 'valerie' tea bags I stumbled across, following gien's post, but I did see on a review thread (so can't vouch for the accuracy of the statement) that these teabags have the highest proportion of valerian in them. Don't know if that is true?

So, the day has been survived We did get out and about and had a toddle around Library books were returned And I only bought 1 tin of chopped tomatoes - which was all that was on my list and for which I only had 25p in my purse to buy

BG's appetite is returning, but they resolutely refused to eat any rice, or any of the blended up curry for tea They did eat the lentil dhal though :T I was listening to Z03 Ballz prog on R2 and someone had texted in saying their child had eaten fish pie - not a huge deal in the grand scheme of things, but it made a change from pasta. Oh, how I hear that one!............

So, we had a curry plate. I made Leanne Brown's Channa Masala with some pre-cooked chickpeas, and lentil dhal and basmati rice. I made sure I had a smaller portion of rice and a modest plate. I feel full and it utilised all stuff we had in. Didn't take that long to prepare either. Which is just as well, as BG made it quite clear they were ready for their tea at 5 O'clock :rotfl:

Today I am grateful for these 3 things;

Someone saying hello to me, even though I didn't recognise them (they were in a car) - we'll gloss over the fact we're related......... :eek::rotfl:

that BG is getting better and returning to their normal self.......... I think........:rotfl:

that I made it through the day despite my hormones trying to play silly b's................................................... :T

Ta for dropping by and discussing food and drink. Always welcome

Greying X

beanielou

So glad that BG is on the mend.

Greying_Pilgrim

Good Morning :hello:

Thanks beanie - you know what a worrry it is when they are so little and they can't tell you what hurts - and actually, there is very little you can do/give them, to make them better

Another night slept through :j

BG is up and at'em, and running rings around their dearest Papa I'm still trying to play catch up re; feeling refreshed, but I feel mucho better than I did. I'm definitely getting there, as I enjoyed another full night's sleep

I've already done my meal-plan for the rest of the month - I tagged it onto the last (full) week of January, as I was doing that. And it is full of use-ups and make do's. Which is perfectly fine.

Whilst I am finding weekly meal planning much easier to stick to and much easier to cope with substitutions, or gifts of produce, or falling on bargains et, I am going to look at February firstly as a 'whole' month, and then put ideas into the month framework, but then actually finalise it as each 'new' week approaches. I don't know if that makes sense? But for example, Shrove Tuesday is the 13th Feb. We like to have some pancakes (the traditional sort), but lemons become scarcer than a scarce thing in HB, as we approach the day, so if I plan to get lemons earlier - and hope they don't go down with citrus mould - then we'll be able to enjoy our lemon-soused pancakes Simarly, I want to introduce a bit more tofu, and need to a) purchase if at the best price, and b) be prepared for some of the recipes requiring it to be marinated for 24hrs.

It might work, it might not - I'm probably only going to do this for Feb, as it's a 'short' month, and we're a bit tight on the old cash front.

Tea this evening is going to be pizza and 'bitsa'. I decided not to bust my budget even further by purchasing cardboard box fish and oven chips - but I do actually have a tin o' mushy peas still in stock :rotfl: I shall gt the pizza out now, so that it can defrost slowly in the fridge - rather than being stone-cold and red hot in patches by defrosting in the microwave.

I think DH is going down with the lurgy.....................................

We're doing well on the 'Dry January' and haven't felt the need for a glass of anything 'red, white, fizzy or hoppy'. I've no idea if this is totally not down to us being all that fussed over booze, or for shaking up the menu and cutting connections. Anyway, I need to get round to booking the plumbing firm and spending that £40+ on summat useful

Right, think that is all :money:

Ta for popping by and reading. Appreciated.

Greying X

Busy_Mee1

Morning Greying, this is possibly teaching Granny to suck eggs, but I keep all my citrus fruit in the fridge these days to help it from going off.

In fact when I think about it, I keep all fruit apart from bananas in the fridge and just put them in the bowl when we are ready for them. Just helps to prolong their life- we have just finished a net of lemons that I bought before Christmas and they were fine.

Greying_Pilgrim

Good Evening :hello:

BusyMee1 - nope, i had not thought of doing that. But I could give it a go with a lemon or two (v small fridge) for February - thanks for the suggestion.

Baby Greying and I had a lovely time out this morning, whilst DH stayed at home and did chores - mould removal We went round and about and up hillock and down dale for mumma's elf&fitness regime, I was a red as a beetroot and all bodily fluids were pumping around like billy-oh. Then we had a cooling down session at toddler pace We spotted wildlife and stomped up sheer cliff faces (from a toddler perspective......) and just about agreed to get back in the pushchair,without a melt-down, despite flagging on the auld 'toddling' bit........

We had fun, fresh air and fitness, and dinnae spend a penny Perfick.

Lunch was 'made-up' minestrone. Using some little pasta shells that BG decided that they didn't like eating........ *sigh*, 2 carrots, 1 potato, and onion, some celery and garlic and a tin of baked beans that I 'washed' the tommy sauce off, so that I could go all poncy and call them 'haricot'........ I had a modest portion, DH had a big bowl full and there is a portion left for my lunch tomorrow.

Tea was l/o pizza, which I was convinced was going to be mozarella, but turned out to be black olive instead. I baked a couple of sweet potatoes - they were actually the original YS'd ones I got in m&$ a couple of weeks ago, and as a result, I did have to trim out a coulple of mouldy bits - but nothing major, and they were still a reasonable size. I made a couple of salads to accompany, one was from the Happy Pear original cookbook (the yellow one) and was Beetroot, Spinach, apple and toasted seed salad. I left out the spinach as a) I had none, and b) I'm not overly keen on raw spinach leaves - I will eat them, but I'm not overly fussed. Definitely a keeper of a recipe for me - I grated the apple (left the skin on) and the beetroot, and I left out the agave syrup (I would have used honey anyway, but was using honey in my other dressing), but did sprinkle in some caraway seeds. Caraway is good with beetroot or carrot and lends a natural sweetness, so the agave/honey would possibly be overkill anyway. I can't find a link on the internet to the actual recipe, THIS is the best I can do, scroll RIGHT down to the bottom of the article. Things you need to know are the original recipe has sunflower and pumpkin seeds in it. And the dressing has balsamic vinegar/olive oil/salt and agave syrup in it. The other salad I made was Greek Broccoli Salad. Again, another keeper of a recipe - the dressing was delish. I didn't bother with feta/olives, and I pickled my red onion for a while before plating up, to take the edge off the rawness. I'm not a huge fan of raw onion. I used frozen broccoli, rather than fresh. As far as I'm concerned, it worked and I would make it again.

Once again, stuff was used up, I bought nowt special for this tea and found a couple of good new recipes into the bargain :j

Frugal January is going well Apart from I'm over budget :rotfl:

Today i am grateful for these 3 things;

fresh air and exercise

DH tackling a much needed, but horrible task

finding 2 new, delicious recipes which use things we often have in stock in the cupboard/fridge/freezer :j

Ta for popping in, reading and joining in the convo. I'm away to boil the kettle and make a date with 'Valerie'. TTFN.

Greying X