Using up

Today is using up day, all the bits and bobs left in the fridge before replenishing stocks at the supermarket tomorrow. I gathered all the leftovers from the fridge drawers and had enough to make some roasted vegetables, the hardest part is the peeling and chopping, even a child could do it...under supervision of course. After all the chopping and adding a few cherry tomatoes and some going soft Jersey Royals I had enough for a large oven tray.

I added salt and black pepper half a cup of water, I find this creates steam and cooks the veggies better, it also evaporates towards the end of the cooking, spray with Frylight or drizzle with oil if you don't have to watch the calories and bake in a hot oven, mine was 195*c fan oven for about an hour or so until soft and slightly browned.

It smells divine, I could just tuck into this with a hunk of crusty bread! 

Portioned up for the freezer, small portions for one as hubby doesn't care for it and one in a dish for my tea with some salmon and chopped salad, again using up the salad stuff.

Delicious! 

Edited to add a photo of my tea, hubby had chilli and rice from the freezer :-)

We used the last baking potatoes for tea last night with some half fat grated cheese and home cooked ham from the weekend for hubby.

Smaller plate for me and a drizzle of extra light mayo.  I'm watching portion sizes just now after a 6 lb gain from my holidays!! Shocking gain but worth every ounce :-)

This afternoons job is menu planning and writing the shopping list ready for tomorrow.

It's bitterly cold here today, so its been a batten down the hatches and put the heating on kind of day not what we want on the 1st of June!!

Have a good day, whatever you choose to do take care.

Back soon

Karen xxx

2 months later....

How time flies when you're busy! I just don't know what happens here, one day its Monday and the next its the weekend again!

Being a carer for my Mum and Dad takes up more time than I ever imagined but I wouldn't have it any other  way, we've settled into some sort of routine starting on a Sunday with me cooking a massive lunch in order to plate up takeaways for Mum and Dad during the week, it saves them cooking the more complicated dinners and just leaves the simple meals for them to make together.

At the end of April I had got myself over-tired and during a hospital appointment for Mum I passed out! Well if you're going to pass out its the best place to do it! When I came round they were checking for Heart attack and stroke!! I felt so stupid! anyway everything was ok, it was just my blood pressure, it had dropped really low.  Poor Mum had to sit on a chair in her knickers while I rested on the bed lol. I promised to take things easy for a few days and kept an eye on my blood pressure with our monitor and it returned back to normal.  The last thing I wanted was to be ill, we had booked a last minute holiday to Corfu for the 2nd May.

Monday. 2nd May saw us jetting off to the sun for two whole weeks of relaxation, it was raining quite hard when we took off from our local airport and when we arrived in Corfu 3 hours later it was pouring down! Thunder and lightening like I've never seen before.....great start!! That continued overnight and by morning it had settled down to being overcast but warm, by Wednesday the sun was out and it was hot hot hot!!! Fabulous, just what we both needed, 2 weeks of all inclusive and nobody to please but ourselves.  We returned home on the 16th both refreshed and ready to tackle the garden!

The last 2 weeks have been spent catching up on chores, sorting out the greenhouse, veg plots and the garden.  Hopefully this weekend we will have time to sort out the caravan ready for a few trips away over the coming summer months. 

Todays blood pressure reading is 100/68 normal for me :-)

Thank you for popping by, have a lovely Bank holiday weekend.

Karen xxx

Charity shopping.

Last week I ventured into a local town with my two favourite girls, my daughter in law and grandaughter with the sole purpose of charity shop shopping. We chose Retford as the shops are very clean and everything is washed, sorted and hung nicely. I'm always on the lookout for pretty china, it seems very popular at the moment as Afternoon tea served in vintage cups and saucers is 'in' just now. I struck lucky and managed to pick up a few pretty plates.

                        £1:99

                   £1.00

                                            £2.99

       £2 for the plates and £1 for the sugar bowl.

I'm looking out for some of the bread and butter/ cake plates so I can have a go at making some tiered cake stands for a couple of gifts.

I also picked up some fabrics, 3 yards of blue denim and 3 yards of blue checked fabric for making shopping bags, the checked will be perfect for making folding bags with little pouches.

The Save the Children shop were selling some cleaning products and I spotted some dishwasher tablets at a bargain price of 50p for 10 :-) added to what I have these will last me all year! 

I treated us all to a nice coffee and cake, its not often we have a treat but a girly day wouldn't be complete without cake!!! 

I bought a couple of tops but need to photograph those before I share with you.

Hope you all had a lovely Easter 

Take care

Karen xxx

Easter

Happy Easter Sunday everyone. 

Love Karen xxx

Back to the 1940s

Thought I would share this with you all.  We have booked our caravan slot already for this fantastic weekend. Last year we had an amazing time!!

Back soon

Karen xxx

Simple pleasures

Thank you for all the lovely comments on my last post, you're all so kind xx

What a lovely couple of days we've had, the windows have been flung open wide to give the house a good blow through, the washing has been dried outside, good job really as I have washed 8 loads! ours and Mums.

Its all been ironed and hung ready to go!

Just the edges of the bath mats to air off on my trusty clothes horse that my lovely hubby made for me.

You can't beat the old fashioned ones! 

I remember as a child the one Mum had, it was a triple one and it made a great tent fastened to the wire fence in the garden and covered with old blankets. That tent was everything from a playhouse to a school or hospital and even an air raid shelter! I must have had a fascination for the 1940s then! Many a jam or red sauce butty has been eaten sat under that tent. Simple pleasures.  Lovely memories:-)

While I was busy with laundry and household cleaning lovely hubby emptied the conservatory and cleaned it from top to bottom, the windows and floor are sparkling clean and its all ready for sitting in there now its starting to warm up a bit.

Wednesday was a nice day for walk round the park, we still needed to wrap up well but by the time we got back to the car we were warm as toast and ready for a nice coffee. Here are a few pictures..

Back home and time to put a piece of pork and some veggies into the slow cooker for later.

I used half the bag of stew mix I'd frozen last week.

We had it with lots of extra veg then fruit with quark for dessert.

Tonight gorgeous grandaughter is coming to stay over, she had braces fitted on her teeth last Saturday so I will find out how the first week has gone, she was a bit frightened of eating anything hard or chewy so I think I will make Pasta n sauce for tea....better make a move and get the sauce made! ...

Back soon

Have a lovely weekend

Karen xx

Plymouth weekend.

Just back from a lovely 4 days down in Plymouth visiting my youngest son. I always like to take him some home cooked food and a bit of baking.

It turned out to be a bit of a meat pie fest!! That little lot should last him a few months and its filled a corner of his freezer. I also made him 4 tubs of bolognese and 2 shepherds pies the large shepherds pie we had for tea on Thursday night. The one think I make everytime for him is his favourite....

Lemon Meringue Pie

I made this one in an 8 inch deep cake tin.  The tea towel in the box is just to stop it moving around-in transit, we had a 320 mile journey and everything was packed into coolbags with ice packs. It certainly put a huge smile on his face :-)

We had a lovely walk on the Hoe on Friday, we did have to dodge a couple of wintery showers but eventually the sun came out and it was very pleasant.  A few photos for you...

Smeatons Tower

Sir Francis Drake

The War Memorial

Well you can't go all the way down to Devon and not have at least one Cream Tea :-)

Me with my lovely son... Love him to bits x

Back home and back to normal.

Thank you for popping by

Karen xxx

Mothers day.

Wishing all you lovely ladies a very Happy Mothers Day x I hope you all get the chance to see or speak to your offspring today and make lovely memories xx

I'm down in Plymouth at the moment spending some quality time with my youngest, we have been here 4 days and had a great time and a much needed rest.  Heading back up the motorway later today with a 6 hour drive! 

Back soon

Take care

Karen xxx

Awards time and favourite meals.

First award is my Slimming World Target, this was last week, my weight loss had slowed right down and I was really happy with how I looked and how I felt about myself, having lost 2 stone 7 and half pounds my lovely consultant advised me to take my target and then stop stressing about losing  weight, then blow me down I lost another pound this week! My free life membership means I dont have to pay anymore as long as I stay 3 lbs either side of my target weight. I will continue going to group every week to get weighed and keep an eye on things, I don't want to put any of it back on, holidays being the exception, I can easily gain 5 lbs on 2 weeks all inclusive holidays!!  I would like to stay at 3 lbs under just to allow for a few treats now and again, but I need to keep in control and not be greedy! 

Second award is a Bronze Body Magic award for exercise, I'm 60 years old and just getting my first certificate for exercise:-) In January I joined my SW girlies and bought a Fitbit so I could track my steps, join in with their challenges and get myself fitter.  We are all at Platinum level but I wanted to start at the bottom with the awards just so it gives me that extra incentive to keep going. I always aim to do 10,000 steps each day but in reality it averages out to about 7500 per day, maybe it will increase during the better weather when I will be out and about more.

Since joining Slimming World and eating healthily I have enjoyed everything I have eaten and I have never been hungry, at our group we swap ideas and recipes and have regular taster nights where everyone takes something they have made from scratch for us all to share. I thought I would share a little collage of a few of my recent favorite meals.

Top Row.

 Portobello Mushroom with a low fat Burger topped with bacon and balsamic glaze with sweet potato and celeriac chips and salad.

Salmon fillet topped with poached egg baked sweet potato peeled and sliced with spinach salad.

Lamb steak with mushrooms new potatoes and vegetables, I did have a little minty gravy :-)

Bottom Row

Swede and carrot topped mince beef  with spinach, courgetti and low fat cauli cheese.

Sirloin steak with mushrooms butternut squash chips and salad with mange tout.

Roast chicken breast with new potatoes and vegetables plus gravy.

As you can see I try to have at least half my plate of salad or veggies with the rest of carbs and protein, it looks like a big plateful but I never have to snack between meals, desserts are usually fruit or yogurt.

Tomorrow is Sunday so it will be a huge Sunday lunch of Roast Pork etc with plenty to plate up for Mum and Dad to take home. 

Back soon

Take Care

Karen xxx

Sunday

Woke up this morning to a dreary rainy start to the day, after a quick cuppa in bed and a read we got up and had breakfast, we don't always have a cooked breakfast but this morning we both fancied something warm. I even managed to sneek some spinach under the egg, I don't eat bread so it was 2 eggs for me and as it was cooked in frylight it was SW friendly :-)

Next on the list was to prepare lunch, my usual Sunday morning  task. 

I didn't have to make Yorkshire puddings this week as we had 4 from the freezer :-)

Enough for 12 good portions, 4 for dinner 2 for tomorrow and 6 for Mum to take home! 

I also made up a stew pack from some of the veggies and a few perfectly good stalks, I will pop this into the freezer for during the week when I'm busy.

Pudding was a simple microwave sponge.

100gm soft butter

100gm sugar

100gm SR flour

2 eggs

Using the all in one method mix thoroughly and spoon mixture into a pudding sized bowl

I microwaved mine for 5 minutes on full power 850 watts.  Leave to stand.

We had this with instant custard and Strawberry jam...yummy! 

Got so busy after that I forgot to take a photo of the end results! So, here's one from the fridge for tomorrow.

  Just need to make some fresh gravy.

Thats all from my kitchen today, time for a cuppa!!

Thank you for popping by

Enjoy your Sunday evening

Karen xxx