Using up the Salmon

After my creamy pasta meal a few days ago, and my day and night of feeling pretty yucky.  I thought I really had to try the salmon bits that had been saved as 'purposeful leftovers', mainly to find out if it had been the cream or the fish.  

I was pretty sure that it was the cream, as I can't and don't drink any milk because of this yuckiness happening previously after anything milky.  I guess when I had the cream I was hoping that by not having any milk for months I might have gotten over my intolerance.  But it appears not.

There was just a little bit of salmon ....

... so I added a bag of veg hash from the freezer and one potato.

I thawed the veg hash out by simply tipping it in it's frozen state into a pan and let the heat as I stirred it around thaw it out gradually.  The potato was popped into the microwave and cooked for eight minutes, once soft I scooped out the flesh gave it a quick mash and added it and some frozen peas to the hash in the pan, then I added the salmon.  I cooked the lot for a couple of minutes and then tipped into a bowl to cool down.  I ate the potato skins with a little butter and a sprinkle of cheese ... waste not want not ;-)

Once it was cool enough to handle I tipped a beaten egg into the bowl and divided the mixture into two.  It was a pretty sloppy mix I shouldn't really have tipped all the egg into it in one go, but after rolling the potato/fish cakes round in some flour they held together enough to be able to get them onto the baking dish.

Half an hour later I had a couple of lovely fish cakes, which were served on a bed of mixed leaves with a dollop of mayo.  It was very filling and very satisfying to make a full meal out of some little bits and pieces.

And I had NO side effects .... PHEW!!

Sue xx

Keeping the Home Fires Burning

Keeping the home fire burning, or the log burner in our case, is one of the most important things we do.  It's the heart of the home every evening throughout Winter, and even occasionally on a chilly Summer's night.

Chopping, stacking and fetching wood is an ongoing thing, and seeing the wood store full of logs ready to use is one of the most satisfying things of all.  It nestles between the man shed and the chicken shed, sheltered from the worst of the weather but open to the elements at the front and slightly at the back.  Good airflow is vital to let your wood continue seasoning.

Of course we cheated a bit this Winter, our own chopped wood ran out fairly quickly and although we could have gone and chopped some more, it was damp and not seasoned enough to give us a good heat when burnt ..... so we bought three large builders bags full of chopped, seasoned hard wood to see us through this Winter and to give us chance to get ahead with chopping our own ready for burning next year.

Whether it will last as long as the cold weather I don't know ... but we are hopeful.

One of my first 'house' jobs of the day, after seeing to dogs, chickens and that all important first coffee of the day, is to lay the fire ready for the evening to come.  Sometimes I have to wait until mid morning as if I'm not careful the ashes and embers from the previous evenings fire will still have enough warmth in them to catch light to the bottom layer of paper and fire up my newly laid fire much too soon.

We have perfected the art of this log burner now, each one varies slightly and our last one was much smaller.  It's vitally important that you leave enough ash in the ash tray underneath so that the airflow around the burner is just right.  Emptying it out every day may seem nice and tidy ... and the right thing to do, but right depth to that layer of ash makes the fire burner hotter quicker.  We've found that emptying it approximately every three days is about right for this one.  

We are careful on the day we do take out the tray outside not to disturb the previous nights ash lying above.   We tip the contents either into the compost bin or onto the chickens dust bath under the henhouse, and when we bring the empty tray back in and slide it into position only then do we sweep the previous nights ash down into it, giving us a least a bit of a head start to the level of ash we need for optimum burning.

We seem to be getting it right ...... Rosy definitely approves :-)

Sue xx

My New Book - Deliciously Ella

I know this year is all about 'Needs not Wants', but I decided I did need a couple of new books, which felt strange for me because usually I buy books because I see or hear about them and decide I want them.  These I sought out.

The other couple of books I am reading at the moment  are on the Amazon linky thing on the sidebar, so you can nip over and find out more about them, and read other people reviews about them if you want to.    It's unusual for me to have four on the go at once, but I am dipping into each as and when I have time.

This book, Deliciously Ella, is by a fellow Blogger whose blog of the same name is HERE.

I'm not going to go into depth about the book but if you want to read why she started her blog, healthy lifestyle and then eventually wrote the book you can read a little bit more about her here in her own words.

Needless to say after the effects a lot of foods I have been eating very regularly have been having on me recently, I thought reading a book like this could only be beneficial.  I wish I was so single-minded that I could transform my diet and lifestyle the way she did, but I suppose when you were as ill as she was it's easier, or maybe I should say more important, to just snap to and just get on with it.

Tutu's Ethiopian Table

At the weekend I went down to stay in Lovely Hubby's southern digs for a few days away from the old farmstead.  He had booked a treat that was right up my street.  I've found vegetarian options hard to find and the ones I have found have been pretty bog standard in cafes and restaurants since moving to North Wales, so he had sought out and tried out with his mates a brilliant Ethiopian cafe/restaurant in central Reading.  Most of the dishes were vegan, with a small selection of meat sides if required (how refreshing to have meat on the side for once).

The food was delicious,  we chose to try the Veggy Lover Sharing Platter, which came with 4 Injeras  which are pancake-like thin breads to scoop up the curried and spiced vegetables with, and a bowl of rice to share.  Although I asked Lovely Hubby if he wanted some meat he stuck with the vegetarian option and thoroughly enjoyed it.

Not being used to the amount of lentils, chickpeas and vegetables both our tummies were making strange noises late into the evening and for most of the next day, but the food was absolutely delicious and it has inspired me to play around with lentils and other pulses much more.

It ties in nicely with my new book then, and my hopeful switch away from dairy.

Talking of which I had a vegetable curry last night, I completely cheated and decided to use some frozen vegetables and a jar of Tikka Masala curry sauce, one of my old favourites ....BIG MISTAKE.  I had milder symptoms of the other night when I woke this morning, so I read the label of another identical jar that is in the cupboard .... guess what .... 6% Double Cream ... DUH.  I should have read the label first!!

You live and learn.  Less of the jars and more cooking from scratch for me from now on.

*** *** *** *** ***

Finally .... can I just say a big THANK YOU for all the fabulous comments yesterday.  They are very appreciated.  It seems there are a lot of us and our families too that have changed or are changing their diets to more healthy ones, either through necessity or just a desire to do so.

It makes reading my new book even more important to me 

*** *** *** *** ***

Sue xx

My Last (on purpose) Meal With Cream

This is photographic proof of my last meal made knowingly with cream.  

Whether this will be forever or just for a few months I have no idea, but I'll not be buying any cream again in the foreseeable future.  No doubt eating out, or some other such eating away from home  occasion may see cream slip into my diet ..... but it won't be on purpose.

It was supposed to be just a run through of  photos of one of my favourite recipes for a blog post, one that I've not eaten for a long time, but as it turns out it's photographic evidence of the last tub of cream that will be gracing the shelf in my fridge.

I looked at the ingredients after taking the first photo and decided that a whole salmon fillet, even though it was a relatively small one, was just too much to use for one simple pasta dish.  I seem to have my 'Frugal February' head on at the moment, so I decided to cut it into pieces for that nights pasta dish and a couple of strips to be used the next day.  Suzy flashed through my head and her brilliant blog Sudden Lunch, so I decided some purposeful leftovers were the order of the day.

While the brown spaghetti bubbled away in one pan, I 'fried' the onions in some water and then added the chilli flakes and after five minutes the salmon pieces in the other.

I added the cream, not knowing then that it was to be for the last time, a dash of lemon juice and gave it all a good stir just before I added the now cooked spaghetti and a good splash of the cooking water to thin the sauce down a bit.  Then Parmesan style cheese was stirred in.

The finished meal was lovely and extremely tasty.  

It would have looked so much better with some colour, a handful of frozen peas or some broccoli would have enlivened it no end, but I completely forgot until I came to take the photograph and realised how dreary it looked!!

Within an hour of eating it I was sorry.  I was hot, so much so that I thought the chilly conditions outside the house had lifted and the milder weather was back.  I stepped outside on the patio and saw the frost on the grass, saw my breath as I spoke to the dogs .... who thought this impromptu breath of fresh air was brilliant, and I realised that it was just me that had warmed up not this little portion of North Wales.

I sat in a glow of warmth, that meant not many logs were burnt over the course of the evening, all the internal doors were flung open to allow the heat from the log burner to diffuse over the whole house, and I sat drinking ice cold water ... lots of it.

By bedtime I was still feeling uncomfortably full, slightly heartburny (nope, I know that's not a word but it makes sense to me) and generally just YUK!!

I lay in bed hand on tummy, which by now was gurgling dramatically, as if telling me off for putting it through this upheaval, and read through some of my current healthy lifestyle books.  I've listed them in the sidebar, with links to their Amazon pages so you can read some more about my current reading, but I'll talk about my current favourite tomorrow when I'm a bit further into it.

I still felt yuk when I turned off the bedside light at midnight.

This is what I go off when I've eaten the wrong foods.

Suddenly my wedding and engagement rings are really difficult to remove.  To get them off I would have to put my hand under warm soapy water and tug.  Usually if I'm feeling good, have been eating well or am just frozen to the marrow, they slip off comfortably when I want them to.  Not too loose to lose but they just slide off with a gentle pull.

I react quickly when I eat the wrong foods and it takes me a day or two to get over them, today I can still taste the creamy pasta sauce, most likely that's all in my head, as I have cleaned my teeth three times since I ate it and drank copious amounts of water and black coffee.  Maybe it's my brain implanting in my head the knowledge that me and cream just do not get on.  

So no more cream, I have already cut right back on wheat, I have found with previous experimentation that I can eat just one wheaty thing a day and feel okay, anymore and I have similar symptoms to above but without the blocked up nose.  Oh ... I forgot to mention that didn't I !!

Around fifteen minutes after finishing my tea I was blowing my nose for England (or should that be for Wales).  This morning I sound like I've discovered a penchant for nose pegs .... and there are lots more tissues available in the bin for starting the fire tonight.

So off my menu now -

Cream

Milk 

(not used since last August)

Meat

(not eaten since January 2011)

Wheat en masse

(I can get away with once a day)

Sorry if this has been a rambling and possibly boring post for some of you, but as this is my diary I needed to get it down to remind myself in the future.  (That's how I know I gave up milk last August and meat way back in January 2011 .... by hopping back in the archives,)

Now ... back to my new book, I hope it helps.

Sue xx

Cosy Puss

After Jason's visit last week I had left the bed in the spare bedroom unmade to air while the bedding was put through the wash.  I had thought the door was closed but when I went to put the freshly washed covers back on the bed look what I found.

Although I don't usually allow the animals on the beds unless they are covered with an additional quilt .... I really couldn't tell off such a sweet looking face now could I, I left him there and he slept the day away in blissful cosyness  :-)

In other news .... look what arrived in the post yesterday.  

A whole £53 worth of M&S vouchers, if I had still been on target with my mini Challenge, (which ended without any fanfare last week when we went shopping at the weekend, totally forgetting about any challenges in our upset over Charley), these would have kept me going for weeks.

How did I mange to get so many .... well our builder let us pay for all the building supplies ourselves as we are VAT registered and he is not, so we paid on our M&S card, which bumped up our total spend for the month on it by rather a lot.  Of course the money was sat in the bank waiting to be used for the conservatory job, so we used some of that to pay off the card when the bill landed in my inbox and the builder was paid for his labour separately.

With those vouchers came these, but I doubt they will be used.

But I will use these.  

By timing when I use the other vouchers to stock up on things we love from M&S, I can get additional points ready for the next lot of vouchers.

It all helps.

Sue xx

Unveiling the 'Almost Finished' Conservatory

I thought I would show you the 'almost finished' conservatory, yes we still call it that ..... the name has just stuck and I think calling it 'The Garden Room' as it was titled on the planning permission plans, just looks and sounds a little bit more pretentious than we are.  

I'm a Manchester girl don't forget  ;-)

The almost finishing touches went in last week when the oak worktops were added to the windowsills, they make a bench area around the dining table (which is also oak under it's spotty tablecloth) and a matching sill on the other side of the room.

It has really finished the room off ......

... well almost!!

The off-cuts from the worktops, because obviously we didn't need the full depth that a kitchen work top (counter-top) has, have been sanded and finished to make us some shelves to go on this bare bit of wall.  We actually got three shelves that will sit here perfectly and two additional longer ones, that we will find a home for in the future, if we need them.

The shelves in the conservatory will not be filled with clutter, but will simply hold some of the more decorative jugs and bowls that currently live in my cupboards.  I don't like ornaments as such,  but some of our things that we don't actually use everyday, but that do get called into use on a regular basis are just too pretty and too full of lovely memories of days out to simply languish behind closed doors.

The only new things we have bought for our almost finished room were the four new cushions, just in case anyone finds the oak benches a little too hard to sit on, of course they had to be in our favourite shades of green!!

Hopefully if the weather is okay later in the week, the tarmac that will be the finishing touch to the outside of the conservatory will be laid.  One day of groundworks and new edging stones laid where currently there are wooden ones, and then a day of tarmacking should see us looking a lot neater outdoors, and then at last there will be less mud and chippings walked in on our wellies and the dogs and Gingers little mucky paws.

Talking of clutter and loving the simple look of the conservatory as much as we do, I've decided to join in with Elaine's, over at Mortgage Free in Three  'February Fling Challenge'.

The idea being that you declutter one thing on the first of the month, two things on the second, three on the third etc, etc.  That will be a total of 406 by the end of February.  To help you keep tabs on what you have got rid of she has produced this brilliant little chart that I have just printed out and will be keeping handy to keep me on track.

Why don't you nip over to her blog using the link above and get yourself a copy and see how well you can do.  As I only need to find another 84 items for my 'Decluttering 365' this would take me nicely over and mean that we have lots of lovely items to sell at the one and only car boot sale of the year that we hope to do when the weather improves.  

Obviously some of the things are going to be little bitty bits but everything that we don't really need is clutter in my eyes, so it all adds up and in this year of 'Needs not Wants' it's good to be inspired to have a purge.

Sue xx

A Frosty Morning in Chicken World

It was a frosty morning in Chicken World this morning.

I always open the house just as the dark night sky starts to lighten, a few of the girls pop out straight away even though there is little light to see by, but I hear the majority of them shuffling on the perches determined to stay indoors until daylight truly arrives.

After Ginger and the dogs have been fed and I have enjoyed the first coffee of the day, it's time to brave the great frosty outdoors.  First the dogs get a lap or two of the paddock, Mavis on a long lead with the others running free here, there and everywhere, although they are staying closer to me now that there is no Charley to play the mad 'chase and lunge' game that she so enjoyed with them.

Then I drop the dogs back indoors, unless Rosy is on a mouse hunting mission, which she has been recently, if that is the case she stays outdoors with me.  Then it's over to Chicken World, to scatter corn and visually check the girls (and Caldwell) while they eat it. 

 It's nice to watch them for a minute, however cold it seems.  It gives me the opportunity to look for problems,  limps or someone just appearing off colour.  Sometimes one will come over and look up as if to say 'give me a cuddle' so I do.  It makes me stand and watch a bit longer when I have a warm feathery hot-water bottle in my arms.  There's not many of them now that do this so when it happens I make the most of it.

You've not lived until you've cuddled a chicken!!

Two of the girls, Daisy and  Titch like to eat of corn apart from the others, so I always make sure a handful lands over the fence near the house, and they dash out from under it and have a peaceful two or three minutes to eat on their own before the others realise and come round the fence to join them.

I open the window to let the house air while I top up the feeders and check for frozen water.

A good glug of water added from the watering can has been enough up to now to dissolve ice.  But when it gets truly frozen I try remember to bring the kettle over and properly thaw things out.

The long feeding trough is left to fill with rainwater through the Winter, it's used for veggie trimmings in Summer, but the girls love to drink rain rather than tap water so I leave it out.  It freezes quickly but also thaws well after a couple of hours.

The other metal drinker tends to freeze less as there are two layers of metal between the outdoors and the water it contains.

 

I  always check that the small feeder is topped up,  the chickens seem to prefer this one, although the larger girls have to duck right down under the rain cover to get at the layers pellets it contains.

The larger food hopper holds a whole bag of layers pellets so we know that food is always available, if the spouts are a bit clogged a good rock from side to side soon gets the pellets flowing freely again.

With the house nicely cleaned out .....

...  the nesting boxes ready for egg laying action, and interior drinker refilled ...

... my last job is to close off the window.

 This means the girls aren't sitting in draughts while they lay their eggs and it keeps the house as cosy as possible until dusk falls and the final job of the day is to close the main door.

You may have noticed that we have gone back to our first style of henhouse.  The larger one we had for a while, and that is just visible in the top picture just proved all wrong for our style of hen keeping and, as soon as we have time, it will be dismantled and removed from Chicken World.  In the meantime it is providing a good rainy day cover for the girls to sit under.

Our new henhouse is once again the 'Maggies 24 Henhouse' from Flyte So Fancy, this is NOT a sponsored post we just love shouting out about products and their providers that we love.

Although Ann did send me a lovely little 'added extra' of sample products with our henhouse order.  THANK YOU.

Sue xx