Friday morning

Last day of the last week of the summer holidays today and the last day of the month as well.  On Monday it'll all be back on the road again (apart from the children - they come back on Tuesday).  I'm getting there with the classroom.  Displays are up, books are out, various rotas are done, order is returning.
My cupboards are dreadfully untidy, too bad to tackle all at once so I have another resolution - to sort one thing out each week.  It could be more than one thing, of course, but not less.  A big thing or a little thing, no matter, as long as it gets sorted.
So today it is things like (checking list) labels on books, sorting out the hymn rota for this half term, tidying and sorting the constructional and other equipment, sorting out a stack of videos someone gave me and tackling my shelves.  Better take some dusters with me!
So I'm nearly there.  With any luck I won't need to go in tomorrow and will be able to come home fairly early on Monday!

I am very pleased to report that the cassoulet I made yesterday was fantabulous.  Absolutely delicious and I could have happily eaten a lot more but was full up.  It's very substantial, containing as it does sausage, chicken, gammon, butter beans and cannelloni beans.  I also added a bit of chorizo (because I had some and love the flavour) and some courgette to the other vegetables and next time I will also add some red pepper to the mix.  It wouldn't all fit into my slow cooker which, admittedly, is small-ish so I took off some of the liquid and added it in the final stage.  There's three stages, the last of which is a simmer up back on the hob after adding the pulses, so it worked fine.
It was definitely rather heavy on the pots and pans, but I would do it all in the same pan if I was going to be at home, which would make a big difference to the resulting detritus.  And really, to be fair, I only noticed the impact because I don't put my non stick pans in the dishwasher!

Now I have to decide about today.  I've dug out an old recipe (from Slimming World, I think) which I remember as extremely delicious and dead easy, called 'Best Ever Chicken Balti' and am thinking about it.  Or I could ring the changes with some salmon baked in a foil parcel - I have broccoli to use up and could roast up some onion, pepper and mushroom or could have a salad with it.  Or I could have another portion of cassoulet - there are five more portions waiting to be frozen this morning.  Oh, I dunno!  Decisions, decisions!!

And I see that a few more recipes from the book have been posted up on the internet.  It'll help pass the time until the book arrives.

Better go and make brekkie and lunch or the day will have gone before I realise it!  Have a good 'un!

A nice, peaceful view from the gardens at Hyde Hall, taken last September.

Thursday morning

An old photo because my camera is out of commission at the moment - very frustrating!

I am very pleased to announce that I actually did make it into school yesterday.  Not early, I admit, but I got there before the person I was meeting up with.  As I think I have said, the other Y1 teacher last year, J, will be retiring at Christmas so she doesn't have a class this year.  My new colleague, Andrea, has covered my class for SEN day over the past two years so I know her well and we get on well.  I first met her when we both played in the church band.  She is a brilliant musician and a very lovely lady.  We agreed that I would rough out planning for the first week (OK, the first four days) and when we have our PPA on Wednesday we go over all sorts of stuff together, including ongoing planning.
I got the boards backed, some display starters up, the lettering printed off and laminated, the afternoon playground rota written (and fingers crossed no-one throws a spanner in the works) and, of course, the List Of Things To Do written.
Today will be just as busy, but I will get there . . .

Food wise, I did the sweet and sour and oh, my goodness, it was good.  It was more filling because I decided to cut the rice completely and added broccoli and mushroom to the mix (because I like them).  It was totally scrummy but I will change just one thing - I will add the cornflour mixture right at the end rather than when the sauce is added.  Apart from that - well, it was better than any sweet and sour I have had from our local take aways, that's for sure.
So what with korma and sweet and sour maybe this once a month takeaway won't happen so often.  Why pay loadsa money when you can make better yourself?

Today I have to make a choice.  I could make another skinny pie, I could go off-Biker and do baked salmon or I could have cassoulet (yes, another bikers adapted recipe.  I have to make the cassoulet today because of the meat being used (oh, the hardship!!!) and it seems silly to cook something else when there will be a hot dish waiting and ready when I come home, so I guess cassoulet it is!

Here's the recipe.  The only thing I haven't got is the red wine because if I bought it earlier I might have drunk it all!!  And before you gasp in shock, 'all' means one of those little single glass bottles, so there!!  I don't need it until later in the recipe, so I can start off, whizz down to Morrisons when it opens, then get the rest done.  And I am hoping that it will fit into my slow cooker so I can just leave it to simmer away gently all day, filling the house with scrummy smells!   Mmmmmm.

After the korma success I decided that I would like to make some more spicy recipes on a more regular basis so I dug out an old Slimming World book, Curry Feast.  It has some jolly good recipes in it but I have one niggle.  A lot of the recipes call for 1/4 teaspoonful of 'artificial sweetener'.  Why?  Not why the sweetness, why the 'artificial'.  That is taking shaving off the calories to a ridiculous degree.  1/4 of a tsp of sugar is negligable when divided among 4 people.  Even if you need to add more (and I must check to see if it tells you what kind of sweetener, the equivalent volume or the much sweeter kind) the effects will be negligable.  I don't get on with artificial sweetners - they leave a nasty taste in my mouth.  Fortunately, it is something easily remedied.

Right - better stop waffling about food and get on with the Golden Time frogs!  And the tray labels and the peg labels and the name badges and . . .

Wednesday morning

Well, after a day when I failed to actually end up at school at all (yes, you read that correctly) I have to today as I'm meeting my colleague to plan for next week.  I'm guessing she's as reluctant as I am because she's set the time for 11:00, after going to a friend's for coffee!!  What happened yesterday - well . . . er . . . I went food shopping and then . . . er . . . well, you know.   Yes, you do!

On a more optimistic note, that chicken korma recipe was the tops.  It was totally delicious.  I was somewhat dubious at first but I was wrong.  OK, I did change it slightly.  I didn't have rice with it and I added yogurt instead of that bit of cream at the end, because I preferred it that way.  I found I didn't have any saffron (thought I did) so I had to add that later.  Also, very, very un-ethnically, I added some peas and broad beans to the mix at the end: oh,. and two chopped apricots.  And you know what - it was absolutely delicious.  I made the sauce in the morning and added the rest just before eating and, as I'd cut the recipe down to half, I have another portion waiting for another day.  I wish I'd made the full amount now, but there you go; if I'd hated it, there would have been more waste.

For dessert I tried the breakfast fruit trick also on the H D programme - that of gently heating soft fruit in a non stick pan with a little mixed spice before serving with yogurt.  I also added just a tiny drizzle of maple syrup and it was really wonderful.  So this morning I am doing the same but with added plums and on a couple of toasted crumpets.  Now, crumpets to me speak of cold winter evenings sitting round the fire with butter oozing down your chin from where it has leaked through the holes of the toasted crumpet, so it will be interesting to see how they taste with spicy fruit, yogurt and honey.  Hopefully, delicious.
(Edited later to say yes it was, yum yum yum, won't be long before I do that again!)

And as for today.  Yes, into school although I really, really don't want to.  Into school to plan and prepare the bay for next Tuesday.  Sigh!

On a happier note, I'm trying the sweet and sour chicken tonight.  After the success of the korma, I have high hopes.  And I will perhaps have just a little rice, we will see.  It depends how veg packed the sweet and sour looks.  I bought some chicken thighs yesterday, for the sweet and sour and also for the cassoulet, which I want to make on Friday.  The s&s asks for chicken breast, but I reckon thigh has a better flavour and it's just as quick and easy to cook.  I'd better go into the kitchen and de-skin and de-bone it and mix up the sauce so it's all ready when I get home, whenever that will be.

Both this and the korma recipe have a dauntingly long list of ingredients at first glance.  I'm a girl who favours the 'five ingredients' type of cooking!  However, when you look more carefully, most of what they ask for is cupboard stuff - herbs, spices, condiments . . . and I have most of that already, so these recipes are not worryingly expensive either.

You can find the sweet and sour recipe here

Resolutions

I have no idea if it's going to help, posting these in here, but I guess it can't hurt.  And any 'real life' friends who find their way here and read can jolly well keep me on track.  Please . . .

1.    Eat well.  'Proper' meals, mostly home cooked from fresh, low fat, calorie aware but not neurotic.  Vary tastes and textures to prevent boredom.  Don't get faddy!!!

2.  Weigh once a month and put the scales away between times.  First of the month seems a memorable time.

3.  Take away and wine once a month only.  They're nice but a waste of time and money really.

4.  Use the Wii step while watching telly.  Five minutes at a time for now.

Well, I've got to do something.  Fingers crossed (and mouth closed!)  :0)

Tuesday - and the holiday is over . . .

. . . in practicality, that is.  On the school web site it shows as going on until Friday and it also shows that the children come back on Tuesday.  But, practically speaking, this is it.  It's into school this morning, to try to make sense of the considerable mess I left at the end of last term.  No, that's really not fair, I didn't leave a mess, of course, I didn't, but there were things there was little point in doing because it would be better to wait until after the cleaners had, as usual, been wonderful!  By then I was well into the holiday and then it was Streele Farm and now - now - it's all caught up.

As always, I will walk into my bay, sigh, open the windows to get in some fresh air, raining or not, and then start a list.  For half an hour I will walk round, noting everything that's going to need doing, organising and prioritising. 
And then I start!

A considerable part of today will be getting the stickiness off their trays.  Last year's labels - no, the labels from the year before - didn't come off all that well and, because I was short on time, I made and laminated new labels and just blu-tacked them over.  Today it's the pay-back and I've bought a bottle of Sticky Stuff Remover (yes, that's what it is called) from Lakeland.  Wonderful stuff!

To report on the skinny pie:  yes, it was pretty good.  It wasn't *real* pastry, of course, it couldn't be, but it held its shape, came out of the foil dish easily (I was worried about that without any oil around the dish), it looked right and the filling was really scrummy.  Deeply savoury and spicy but with a hint of sweetness from the ketchup and brown sauce and very satisfying.  Definitely one to do again - well, I have to as I have five little pots of pie filling to freeze!  With it I had a carrot pulled from the garden (is there ever anything that tastes quite as good as a garden carrot?) and some broccoli.  I have this lovely steamer pot, acquired molto cheapo from Matalan.  It's not huge as many steamer pans are but it's not tiny either and I often use it to gook all my vegetables using just the one ring.  Today it was carrots in the water and broccoli on one of  the steamer sections.  After some serious efforts I have become accustomed to eating my veg without any salt, either in the cooking or the eating, and I think I prefer them that way now, so steaming is ideal.
Anyway, it was a delicious meal.  And I need to start taking photos!

Today it has to be something that won't take long when I get home so I'm having a go at the Korma-lite (that's what the Hairy Bikers called it!) because I can make the sauce this morning, set the chicken to marinade and then basically just heat it up this evening and simmer to cook the chicken bits, which won't take long at all.  I'm intrigued - korma without almonds or coconut milk or cream?  Well, actually, I lie - you do put a tiny bit of cream in right at the end.  I like korma, but I like the deeply savoury ones, not the ones you buy in the supermarket or even from takeaways which are becoming increasingly sweet and sickly.  So - there's half a teaspoon of caster sugar per portion in this recipe and we will see . . .
Here is the recipe.

I wanted a photo to lighten things up a bit so here's an old one from Streele Farm, as this year's efforts are still on the laptop.

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 . . .

Sunday morning

I often think there's little that sets the day up better than an early morning bake followed (or accompanied) by a hot mug of coffee.  Yesterday I made the chewy oat cookies and, I am pleased to say, they are delicious!  Today it was the courgette muffins that I intended to make yesterday but didn't get around to actually doing.  Now the house smells wonderfully sweet and delicious and I feel virtuous!   And hungry!  Mind you, the use of the word 'courgette' in the title is a bit misleading given how little courgette is used.  50g in the whole recipe - and that's hardly one of your five a day.  'Very tasty muffins with a little bit of grated courgette' would be a better title.  I think I am going to pop over the the Frugal Girl's blog because I'm sure she posted a recipe for courgette bread that used more courgette.

Next on the list is the fruit mixture for the blackberry and apple crumble and following that I will be preparing the veg for the lunchtime pizzas.  I'm going to use a wrap (or two) for the base of the pizzas - one will be vegetarian, one not.  I picked up the idea of using a wrap as a base a while ago and it works well for those of us who like a very thin base with a goodly pile of topping.  Those who like a deep pan base would be sadly disappointed, I fear!  I cheated yesterday and bought a pot of cool salsa.  Part of it went into the courgette bake I had last night and most of the rest will do for the pizzas today.  Then the vegetarian one will have a heap of vegetables (yes, DD, probably a few cubes of courgette too) while the other will have some veg and some strips of ham.  OK, so maybe I ought not to call them pizzas really but whatever they are, served with coleslaw and a mixed salad, they will be scrummy.

I spend yesterday morning watching the four Hairy Biker programmes back to back.  I don't know if you've been watching them, but I missed them, one way or another.  How to love food and lose weight is the title and I watched all four back to back through the morning and early afternoon (which is why I didn't get the muffins made).  It was inspirational in parts.  Not the losing weight, although for two big men who dearly love their food, they did amazingly well, but the way they took delicious and substantial food and made it less calorific/more healthy without, it seems, sacrificing any of the taste.  One canny idea was using a pizza base mix instead of pastry for a pie - I'm trying that one because, with accompanying veg, you have a very substantial meal for a very reasonable number of calories, not to mention a snack in hand for a lunch on the move.  And I can't wait to try the korma and the sweet and sour chicken.  And the idea of using opened up leek leaves instead of sheet lasagne is very well worth a try.  My kind of cooking, without a doubt.

I've ordered the book!