Sunday

Good morning everyone.  I've taken a quick peek out of the front door and brrrrrrrrr, it doesn't half feel chilly.  I'm glad and thankful, as always, for my lovely little house with its efficient double glazing and central heating.  It may not be all that cold in real terms, but even so . . . brrrrrrrr.

I had a lovely meal out yesterday at our local Cafe Rouge.  For once, low(er) calorie and inclination combined and I had a tagine de poulet.  I was impressed to see that Cafe Rouge now flags up the dishes that are under 600 calories and this was one of them.  I'd have had it anyway and it was gorgeous.  I fear the healthy eating didn't survive the appearance of the dessert menu where I had a trio of little deliciousnesses.  The food was great and the atmosphere was good but, oh, my, they are slow with the service.  For a cafe that advertises quick meals on their menu, they take for ever and a day!  Not that it mattered for us, we  had all afternoon, but I did have to go and move the car and get another ticket (fortunately there were plenty of slots by then), as did Anna.  We'll know better next time.  And there will be a next time because the final bill (which I didn't pick up) was very reasonable, given what we all had.  Alex, in particular, had a whale of a time with his choices!  Thank you very much, Dave, for a lovely lunch with all my favourite people.

So - back to 'healthy' eating again.  This last week has been a disaster really but one week does not signal the loss of the whole war, thank goodness.  I'm back on track, having planned the menu for the week with plenty of ready meals (home cooked) from the freezer, so there's no excuses.

Today, because Beth and Alex are over and because they are on the last lap of their month on wartime rations, I am making 'lentil sausages', a recipe which I found on a wartime recipe blog, with a tomato sauce or maybe some cranberry sauce I have left over from a few weeks ago (or probably both!) and a selection of veg, probably some red cabbage from the freezer, some broad beans and some carrots.  No potato as there's potato in the sausages.  I might shape them into patties rather than sausages as they might hold their shape better that way, fingers crossed.   And then I'm making some chocolate oat cakes which is supposed to be American wartime rations - I'm not so sure about British, but I can claim that I've saved my fat rations (which is absolutely true, I've been eating very little butter recently) and the chocolate is cocoa.  Hopefully Alex will appreciate them - I think he has suffered greatly over the past three weeks, poor, hollow legged, sweet-toothed teenager that he is!

I'm wondering if I ought to follow Beth's example and have a go at wartime frugality.  It would have to be in holiday time because it takes a good deal of thought and preparation, but maybe for a week over the spring (so called) half term and then over Easter.  I will discuss it with her.

Well, I was up stupidly early this morning and am now flaking out, so I'm going up to see if I can snatch some more sleep.  Have a good Sunday!

Meet a friend - handsome chap, isn't he?  No, not mine - I'm not a pet-person!