A new royal start

QueenJess

Wow, things have been manic.  Spent my day off (Weds) rushing around trying to tick as many things off my to do list as I could and since then work has been really busy - partly because I am attempting to handover a huge chunk of my work, but also because people are panicking and trying to ask me lots of questions.  I've now queued people up with a number and when they get to the top of the list I will get back to them!

On Wednesday I did break out the IP, got it tested and then made yogurt!  It was surprisingly easy, although I think it tastes too sweet and not tangy enough for my tastes (I like sharp and sour tastes) and so I will try fermenting it for longer than the IP thinks to see what happens.  It was very exciting though.  I will also try to split it in two and make some raspberry coulis to stir into one half and leave the other half plain.  Operation break the kids out of those rubbish (and expensive!) individual kids yogurts continues!  Now trying to plot what I should try in it next

I ended up in a food conversation with DH last week and part of it was talking about the 30 plants a week thing.  It made me count again, but I soon realised it was just silly for me as I clearly have a problem and gave up counting when I got to 50 (I counted everything as one rather than faffing about, but even if I reduced spices to 1/4 or whatever, I would be way over).  Hello everyone, my name is Jess and I have a serious vegetable/herb/seed addiction

Speaking of which - breakfast today was banana with flaxseeds, hm granola, hm yogurt and kefir.  Lunch was freezer leek and potato soup pimped up with black pepper, pumpkin seeds and fresh dill with hm wholemeal seed bread.  Dinner is spicy roasted sprouts with onions, baked eggs, fresh rosemary, fresh thyme and more hm wholemeal seed bread.  Snacks were breadsticks and satsumas.  Not sure if I'll be hungry for dessert, but I am sure I can squeeze in one of DS's gingerbread biscuits.  I also have poured myself a gin and tonic with a slice of lemon.

Budget is looking incredibly sad at the moment, but I accept that I have too much cupboard food stock in, which is one reason I'm going over and I will buy less in the future and am making an effort to get things used up.  I will also go over on kids stuff, but that's because I started the budget with zero and I've bought stuff for DS's birthday and his party, which is way more than I would usually spend.  So this should go away over the next few months.  Otherwise things are generally as expected and I am still running down the overspend carried over from last year.  Once this is gone in a few months time, I will start saving for holiday.

Better go and rescue the dinner from the oven... running a bit late today.  Kids already eaten and in bed (they wanted the leftovers), so adult dinner time tonight!  DD came back from nursery and demanded grapes, apple and pear and still wanted more!  My fruit bill has gone right up recently, but at least they are eating way healthier.

Bluegreen143

On weaning kids off processed kids yoghurt. I’ve done this. They’re allowed a swirl of maple syrup or honey with Greek yoghurt. To tempt them at the start I allowed them to have 5 dark chocolate chips hidden in the bowl but they had to eat the yoghurt if they wanted the choc chips. Worked surprisingly well! They do still want the choc chips in it and I sometimes oblige but they will eat it without (especially my DD who loves dairy, DS is less fussed but he wasn’t mad on the flavoured yoghurts anyway 🤷‍♀️). 

QueenJess

Bluegreen143 said:

On weaning kids off processed kids yoghurt. I’ve done this. They’re allowed a swirl of maple syrup or honey with Greek yoghurt. To tempt them at the start I allowed them to have 5 dark chocolate chips hidden in the bowl but they had to eat the yoghurt if they wanted the choc chips. Worked surprisingly well! They do still want the choc chips in it and I sometimes oblige but they will eat it without (especially my DD who loves dairy, DS is less fussed but he wasn’t mad on the flavoured yoghurts anyway 🤷‍♀️). 

The kids always had greek yogurt and ate it by the bucketful, but I made the mistake of getting them the small fruit ones as a one off treat in the holidays a while ago.  Now they only want those, but if they aren't there they are quite happy with plain greek yogurt (or DS likes apple dipped into it).  So I think I just need to stop buying the small ones and then they will soon forget about them (I hope!).

I don't think it is about the flavour; they just get excited about little pots of yogurt.  I guess I could buy some little reusable pots and see if they find that as exciting!  I could do some different flavours for them (honey as you say, plain and some raspberry coulis). I don't want to do choc chips as DD hates chocolate (I know!) and DS will start thinking he can have it anytime he has a yogurt as he absolutely loves chocolate!  DD loves having sunflower seeds mixed into her yogurt (she will happily eat those seeds straight from the jar!), so that's an option for her as well.

Actually, I think I have a couple of small jam jars, so I might give those a go before thinking about buying anything specific.

Thanks for the thoughts

Bluegreen143

Ah, your kids are already a step ahead of mine!! 

Tesco sell individual little tubs of Greek yog; not very green but could be handy for times when a little tub would serve better than a bowlful from a big tub? Though worth trying the little jars first and fingers crossed the kids enjoy that! 

Weirdly mine don’t like fruit coulis in yoghurt 🙄

QueenJess

Thank goodness it is my day off tomorrow as work is pretty intense at the moment with all the handover work I'm doing.  It'll mostly be over by the end of Monday and then it should be a relaxed countdown (I hope!) to the end of Feb.

Not doing a big shop tomorrow as we still don't really need stuff (and I am already over on food this month).  Thinking of popping into M&S though to get some fresh herbs so I can make some stock (want to do this to see if I like it before I finish up my stock cubes) and possibly a treat dinner as it's been a long week already.  I've got £40 left on my gift card, so it won't cost anything.  Thought my Riverford order would be cheaper this week, but I still seem to have spent quite a bit... will review again later and see if I can take anything else off it.

Also thinking of making my own crumpets (not done that before), bread for the freezer and some banana drop scones.  Then will catch up on the usual washing and list of stuff to do.  Not yet decided what my next IP cooking should be... there's too many choices!

Dinner tonight was based on the fact I have too many potatoes and leeks, so I made jacket potatoes with cheesy leeks (including red onion, red pepper and fresh dill).  No recipe... just me throwing random stuff together and making it up as I went along.  Amazingly DH loved it despite the fact he doesn't like jacket potato.  DS loves jacket potato and cheese, but wasn't impressed with the leeks.  One out of two wasn't bad since I thought I was going to be the only one to like it!

Dinner tomorrow will be hm pizza and I will need to make some more pizza dough, which I will go for a higher brown flour content in.  DS will have cheese and tomato on his (with carrot sticks).  DH and I will have goats cheese (from local farm shop), red onion, sundried tomatoes, with a side salad.  Not decided on lunch for tomorrow yet.

Payday on Friday thank goodness.  Need to bring my budget back in Feb!

Edit: Almost forgot, but mortgage rates have gone very slightly down again so I think I will be cancelling my booked mortgage (again) next week and going for the new one.  Since we've made an overpayment recently, I think it'll drop the monthly payments very slightly.  Every little helps..

QueenJess

Probably set myself too many things to do today and am looking forward to work tomorrow for the rest!

Had a big cooking session and made crumpets (not tried them yet, they are in the freezer), stock (in the freezer), 2 batches of banana drop scones to use up a couple of old bananas, avocado chocolate mousse (also never made before and not sure if DH and DS will go for them, but worth a try), compote (in the fridge) and then a yellow split pea soup for lunch. Wasn’t that impressed with the soup. Serves me right for following a recipe for a change - I’ll be going rogue again next time!

Dinner tonight will be hm pizza (dough made earlier with 33% wholemeal flour) and the mousse will be for dessert.
I also have some kefir fermenting on the side as my grains arrived today from my friendly benefactor 😉😂

Currently waiting for DS to finish his swimming lesson, then back home for DD bedtime, making pizzas and emptying the dishwasher so I can refill it after epic activities today! Still have some stock on the side I need to freeze, but ran out of ice cube trays. I already have a bunch of dinosaur shaped stock cubes feeezing 😂. After all that I will be doing some important sitting and trying to finish this epic 2,000 piece puzzle DH’s parents gave me for Xmas.

themadvix

Ooh, that was quick! I didn’t even have time to tell you that you don’t want to do too big an amount with that many grains - 150/200 ml probably enough to start with. They’ll grow and multiply - quite quickly knowing then! - and you’ll be able to do more. General consensus is not to leave more than 24 hours or so before straining , but I frequently (always) leave mine 2 days - I just don’t get around to it. Hope you like it - it’s different to shop bought, I’m told - I’ve only ever had Yeo valley kefir yoghurt from the shop and I don’t know what that actually is.

QueenJess

Yes - it was a surprise it came so quickly as the mail has been a bit rubbish round here lately. I’ve only had one kefir before from the milkman, but I’ll let you know what I think!

Avocado chocolate mousse was a winner with DS. Win, win there as he thinks he’s eating a treat, but it’s mostly avocado with a small bit of honey and some cocoa. I will try one later… too full after the pizza at the moment.

QueenJess

Weird week this week as I am only working 2.5 days to use up holiday, although I am actually using it to pick up DS from school (no after school club) on Thursday as it's his birthday and get ready for this party at the weekend   Got lots of treasure hunt clues to think up and put around the house and a cake to make.

Finances are looking a bit sad with a few categories slightly over, although partly it's because I started the budget from scratch at the start of the year with nothing in there, but some expenses are skewed to this half of the year with all the birthdays.  Hoping to catch up a bit later.  I also managed to spend £600 on food (compared to a budget of £500). It's a mix of buying slightly too much, a longer month and some medical supplies for most of us getting ill.  Will be keeping an eye on it in February and will be writing a proper big list later for the shop tomorrow so I don't overstock by mistake.

On the plus side, I did just switch the mortgage (again!) as it starts on Thursday and the rates had dropped another 0.1%.  As we had also put some overpayments in, it now saves me £60 a month!  Happy days

I feel like I'm pending a bit at the moment, just waiting for this job to finish and the new one to start.  In the meantime, I'm trying to get on top of all the life admin (urgh) and making sure the house is as good as it can be so I can concentrate on the job.

Lunch today was beans, poached eggs, sourdough toast, avocado, mushrooms and tomatoes.  Dinner will be a slow cooker stew in a mustard sauce and dumplings.  I emptied the fridge, so it was swede, leek, carrots, 1 sad potato and broccoli including the stem.  I'll add in butterbeans later and also make vegan sausages for the "boys" depending on their vote later.  I also made a pear and blackberry crumble to have with hm ice cream for dessert.  Need to make some more ice cream tomorrow though as we're running low.

QueenJess

Oh dear.  Utter failure today.  I have a million excuses (I slept very badly and am tired, we needed dishwasher powder, rinse aid and salt this month etc etc), but basically I hugely overspent on the monthly shop.  It was £225 £25 of it was food for DS's party at the weekend, but I've overspent by £100 despite buying almost no meat and no alcohol.  I'm still not sure how that was possible.  Trying to analyse, I think there are two problems... one is that I went to one single shop because I am short on time and do not wish to spend spare time food shopping and the other is that I am bad at judging amounts we actually eat given a huge buying period (a month).  The latter is tough to crack, but am hoping I will get better at this.  I don't want to shop more often because it takes up time I would rather spend doing other things.  But I can do some shopping at Aldi as it's opposite swimming, so I can grab some from there.  I should also go back to the zero waste shop (didn't bother as it only had the odd thing I wanted this month and I have no spare jars/containers hanging around) as it is also cheaper.

After beating myself up for the last few hours, I am now drawing a line under it and will now play the game of how long I can last on our supplies before I need to shop again.  I'm hoping it'll be nearer April

Having a very late lunch - I threw loads of veg into the oven with loads of spicy harissa to serve with couscous.  Now I only have some onions left in the fridge and a celeriac that I swear is as big as my head!  Ready for Riverford delivery tomorrow and I still have lots of leftovers in my fridge to eat up tomorrow and Friday.

I did also go to Ikea, but I followed the list and picked up a couple of art/craft gifts for DD's birthday in 1.5 months.  Her birthday gifts are nearly complete - just need to check on what books I have aside already and I will be keeping an eye out on Buy Nothing.  I also got a better smaller jar for my lovely kefir grains that are now doing their thing on the side.  I was struggling for glass jars, but it should all be resolved now and was cheap at least.

Right - off to lunch before trying to find where I've hidden all DS's presents around the house for tomorrow, writing on his card and generally tidying the place up before it is swimming.  Dinner tonight is pizza with whatever is left in the fridge to throw on it.. it's looking like goats cheese, sundried tomatoes, a handful of salad, basil leaves and red onion.  Dessert is more yummy pear and blackberry crumble with hm ice cream.