Wednesday 29 May 2013

Bohemian Rhapsody : Scarf pattern found!

Do you remember me falling in love with the scarf Anne wore on the British sewing bee?
Well via a look at the Simply Crochet magazine site to see if they have a preview of issue 6 up which is released later this week I found they had a link to the site below: IT'S A KIT!
Sorry the photos won't cut and paste so you'll need the link to see what I mean. I'll have to start saving up!

http://www.renaissancedyeing.com/en/products/bohemian-rhapsody/

Very pricey in a way but oh so beautiful! I've been having some ''issues'' this week and with my poor dear car in the car hospital I'm hoping she'll be back soon to carry me about in the South East.
I have finished the sleeves on the red angora tonight but no photos yet so that will come soon.
It's half term and end of May, very nearly June but the incessant rain and the grey dark days and the cold mean we have the heating on AND I could happily wear this angora extra warm cardigan TODAY!
I have worn 3 coats in the last 3 days and all 3 are soaked through as I walked to/from town while my car is being repaired. Here are some views and flowers from our garden taken in sunnier days before 9th May.


 Our baby self seeded chestnut tree is getting BIG!


























a walk with Lucy who was frightened by these inquisitive cows....

Thursday 23 May 2013

Tuna and Salmon Salads review

 Oh my oh my I have REALLY lost it now haven't I? HOW MAD/ SAD IS THAT?
This is a post about eating and losing weight and trying to stay healthy as a busy working mum who is in her 4th or 5th decade..... give or take a few years...
I am still with WW and lost 2.5 lbs last week how BRILLIANT is that? So here is how: I just LOVE these JW salads! I only like 3 of them though and there's 5 days in the working week 4 me.
 They would be ideal for my daughter too but unkind friends told her it looks like ''cat-food'' when she had it at lunch at her secondary school and she hasn't touched one since. I thought it was just kids but I took one to a dance day -school and a good friend- in her 70's though- said the same thing to me! Anyway : want to see the inside?
 Not so good in the can, BUT
 Lovely on a plate!  I have teased out the tuna and pasta tubes to show roughly what the proportions are so I may tweak this and start making my own, one day who knows? I do like the easy convenience though!
This one has lots of tomato sauce, green olives chopped into fine slices and some red pepper and onions.
Hey here's the ingredients to read for yourself...
 Alternate lazy lunches are these veg bags which I steam at work in the microwave using special vegetable steamer bags, I don't use the bags it came in, not as nice.
 And I now snack on a 500g box of grapes almost daily: yummy!
 See? This one is very healthy and colourful and I add a bit of WW garlicky cream cheese...
 The other fruit we eat a LOT of is BANANAS! Just look at this MOUNTAIN!
 More than 36 bananas here and the family laughed and wondered about my sanity BUT in UNDER 3 days they had ALL GONE!
We do love them and they are great to eat when hungry and they are satisfying and NIL propoints.
So that was just over 4 each a day then? I do tend to average at least 2 in an 8 hour work day and then maybe one in the evening and one in the car?
 Just a thought about shopping, you fill the fridge and it costs about £120-150 a week these days and that's just food, no frills no laundry or grooming or dog food! And often it's bought on Sunday and all gone by Friday? Bit of social history in an ordinary Oxfordshire life circa 2013. Family of 4, 2 girl teenagers.

 This was an average super healthy meal recently, it was plated up for JJ as he was working late so I took a photo, don't worry my own was eaten long before a camera came to mind...
Chicken, steamed broccoli, buckwheat,carrot sticks and a dash of cheese and onion dip.
There's a lot of the buckwheat as JJ likes his carbs and is a bloke after all, mine was less than half that!

 Nesxt stop: my all time fave salad: Salmon Morocco style. In fact it used to be better when it was in a ''HARISA'' sauce but never mind, I'm googling recipes for the harisa sauce to do a DIY job on it.
 This was at work, so no time to tease and weigh and analyse..... Salmon with red pepper, carrots and some chickpeas and then a grain, not cous cous, buckwheat or quinoa, but bulgar wheat.
 This one's at 7 pro points and really filling.
 Though I do tend to add the broccoli as it's low on veggies.

And here is salad # 3: Tuna again and I must say it's clever of JW as I don't really even like Tuna!

 This one is 6  WW pro-points and this is what you get:
 Sorry that is quite sad isn't it, but the analyst/ Public Health researcher in me just HAD to tease it all apart a bit to see what is is proportionately. Much more interesting than mortality ratios though!
 So there's a surprisingly lot of corn, dissappointed in the green beans and not sure I understand why there's potato cubes AS WELL AS pasta? Lovely French salad vinaigrette type dressing with French mustard in it and it could do with a lot more red pepper....

The analyst had to weigh it all so:
Green beans: 13 g
Pasta shells: 49 g
Sweet corn: 57 g
Potato cubes: 31g
Tuna: 43g

Then I would add the following : a £1 bag of green beans - 250g and steam them with a teaspoon of WW margarine and some salt. Apologies for the condition of these they are past their sell by date but it was to hand easily, about to be eaten anyway.
There's crochet coming soon: look!