Monday morning - bank holiday

Goodness, I did eat well yesterday!  After some considerable dithering, I had one of the courgette muffins for breakfast.   I'm used to muffin batter being pretty sloppy so I was surprised when it mixed up rather stiff, but the end results were absolutely gorgeous.  By the time I ate it, it was just slightly warm and very fragrant and a real treat.  It was also, to my surprise, quite filling and kept me going (with the inevitable second mug of coffee) until a late lunchtime.  Here's the link again, for anyone interested.

Lunch was that sort-of-deep-topped pizza.  I decided to try the Hairy Dieters way and just brush the bottom of the pan with a titchy bit of oil and virtually dry fry the veg and, by golly, it worked a treat.  I've always been a bit suspicious of the Conley technique of dry frying, but no more.  What didn't work was piling the base (which was a wrap, if you remember - a Weight Watchers wrap, to boot) with so much topping because when it came to serving up, the base couldn't sustain the weight of the topping so it was almost spooned onto the place rather than sliced.  Still, never mind, it was scrummy, as was the apple and blackberry crumble with custard.  There was enough to make two single portions as well, which I will freeze, plus a portion left over for dinner tonight (and custard)  I can live with that!  I tried to cut down the butter in the topping and it ended up rather more crumbly than it should have been but the taste was great anyway!
And when DD and DG left, the took with them half the muffins and several cookies

And then for tea I had boiled eggs, toasty soldiers (no butter on the toast but the loaf was home made) and one of the chewy oaty cookies I had made on Saturday.  Very satisfying all round.

So, on to today.  I have to get going with some school work.  A shame, but all good things come to an end at some point, don't they?  And on the culinary front I want to have a bash at the skinny meat and potato pies.  Well, 'pie' anyway, because this is what I'm doing.  I will pop round to Morrison's when it opens at ten to get the few extra things I need.  The list of ingredients looks long but most of it is store cupboard stuff which I already have.  I shall make up the filling.  Then, and this is me being 'clever', I will just mix up enough of the pizza base mix to make one pie, use one sixth of the filling and what I do with the rest depends on how it goes.  If it is a success, I will freeze the rest of the filling in single pie portions.  If I'm not impressed, I will freeze is slightly larger portions.  I'm really hoping it will work, fingers because I do like pie now and again and already have some ideas of a turkey and apricot, or a turkey and Stilton pie filling. And - big AND - if I follow the recipe exactly, the pie will be about 335 calories (it says on the recipe).  Can't be bad!

Fingers crossed . . .

Bank Holiday Monday morning

I don't think it has stopped raining all night!  The ground is absolutely soaked, the wind is almost howling and it does feel unseasonably cold, but let's be grateful for the large amounts of rain, given the official drought and hosepipe ban that still exists almost everywhere (but not here, surprisingly enough).

Yesterday was grand.  I haven't processed the photos yet but will post a few when I have.  We had a lot of fun and there was a feeling of 'triumph over adversity' which fitted well with the reason for the celebration.  OK, so rain - hardly a danger, but even so . . .  :0)))  I flaked out early (typical) and came in so I am extremely grateful to DD who went out and did my share of the clearing up at the end before she and DG went home.  Looking out now, there's just a few tables, the gazebos and the bunting, flags and balloons to clear away.  Even the ground has been swept and cleared of residual rubbish.  Well done, fellow witches!

(edited an hour and a half later:  in the cold light of day the ground wasn't so spick and span as I thought, but it is now.  I feel I've done my bit towards the clearing up now rather than being a slacker!)

Well, I have a few portions of coronation chicken left over.  I shall have some on lettuce in a salad, as convention states, and the rest could be zizzed into a dip.  I think it would be nice with hot toast and quite warming too.  As the evening barbecue was a bit of a washout, I have rather a lot of sausages and burgers that need either cooking and eating or freezing (they were not frozen previously, thank goodness,  Given that I bought some mince to make lasagne, I think that's me set up for meat for the next week or so.  I quite fancy a sausage meatball casserole!  Must make sure my stocks of chopped tomatoes are high enough!

Apart from sorting out the aftermath of yesterday and a bit of tidying, I intend to do not a lot else today.  Resting, relaxing, sleeping, knitting, watching rubbish TV . . . sounds good right now.

This is actually a photo of a paper plate.  I, always the teacher, looked at it and thought 'useful background picture for a display or display lettering here' and promptly snapped it!  It hasn't been edited so what you see . . . etc.