Saturday - long post alert!

Good morning, lovely peoples all.  Welcome to Saturday's blog post.

Let's start off on a happy note.  This is this morning's pickings.

The runners are definitely coming thick and fast now.  Time to offer some to Chris and Steve and there will be more ready this evening.  

So many tomatoes!  Red ones, yellow ones and orange ones although most of the fancy pants ones are pretty much over now with the good old favourites going steadily on - alicante, gardener's delight, sungold . . .
Time to put some more in the freezer.  Today, I think I will just take off the skins and freeze them whole or roughly chopped - they're always nice to have on cold winter mornings, cooked with bacon.

(I'm going to use that photo as my new banner)

The chillies are drying nicely just left out on the window ledge.  No need to dehydrate them although I'm going to try a few of the semi-dried ones, just to see how it goes.

Back to yesterday.  I went off to Slimming World, offering for the taster table in my bag.  I took some grapes, raspberries and strawberries, some vanilla yogurt (made with Fage, sweetener and vanilla and really nice) and some mixed seeds.  I find these morning tasters much harder to provide for than the evening ones - after all, who wants meatballs in a rich tomato sauce first thing in the morning?

It was also the Woman of the Year vote.  I had been nominated with five others so no chance - isn't it nice to be in a group with so many 'inspirational' people?  I did my talk, showed my photos, listened to the others, we all votes  and . . .

. . . this!

Truly a total surprise and how very lovely.  The flowers are beautiful and I feel so . . . so honoured.

I lost some weight too which I was really happy about.  I haven't gained much but am a few pounds over my target range right now and I want that to go again.  All those lovely tomatoes and runner beans are definitely helping.

Then I went shopping, to Aldi this time.  Adi is really great value but I tend to only go now and again because their fruit and veg can go off quickly and I buy a lot of fruit and veg.  However, in the interests of frugality, fuelled by a few very spendy months to come, I got some really nice fruit which I will keep a close eye on.  The thing with fruit is that if it starts going a bit squishy, it usually tastes great and it's so good in a yogurt and oar smoothie or an overnight oats sort of thing or even as a puree to go in yogurt.  I went a bit more interesting with a pineapple, nectarines and peaches.  We will see!
And it was all surprisingly cheap too, for once.

They didn't have everything on my list though - I need to go to Morrisons today to get some red lentils, some bulgur wheat and some Marigold stock powder.  There's always something, isn't there?

I picked Alex up and we came home.  Yesterday's cooking lesson was a curry sauce with added vegetables to which can be added pulses or meat - Beth is vegetarian and Alex is not.  It is a Thermomix recipe - chick pea curry - and it is on Cookidoo so it was good to show Al how to use Guided Cooking and adapt it.  When my new Thermomix comes, they're getting my current one so it's well worth using it for these sessions.
He went home with a pot of chicken and veg curry and a pot of chick pea and veg curry.  They have rice at home.

Next week, we're going to make some onion chutney, again in Thermione.  I'm looking forward to that.

I got a message from Leonie (my Thermomix consultant) to say that the waiting time for the new TM7 is now eight weeks, not ten, so to look out for an email from Vorwerk.  So exciting!!

I think it is safe to say that yesterday was one of those happy days!

Today - all weekend, in fact - is a nothing in the diary day.  I have some crochet to finish before Tuesday so I will be getting on with that, I've decided what to do with the dress I'm making.  For a mock up, it's come out great and it's nice to have something wearable from what was supposed to be a try out made with an old sheet!

I want to get those few items I couldn't get yesterday from Morrisons.

I will be processing tomatoes and runner beans.

I kind of feel like a back to back watch of Harry Potter (yet again).

I know some of you are avid watchers of Strictly.  I know they're not all 'revealed' yet but I'm liking the look of the celebrities this year - I have heard of more than just one or two for a change!  What do you think?

Oh, dear, this has turned out very, very wordy.  So sorry.  If you've made it through, many thanks, and have a really lovely weekend.  All the best and stay safe, everyone.  xx