New in July

(Yes, I do know it's nearly the end of September!)
 
The monthly challenge:

• Read a new author, or just a book I’ve been meaning to for years
• Try a new ingredient/food/recipe
• Explore a new place
• Something knittingly new

In July my new author was Mildred Benson. She also wrote as Mildred A Wirts, but I hadn't heard of either name before. The books I read were from the Penny Parker series - I found a 'megapack' of 15 stories at a very reasonable price in the kindle store. Penny is similar to Nancy Drew, a motherless girl, brought up by her father and devoted housekeeper, who enjoys going around solving mysteries - all in the name of providing stories for her father's newspaper. I found Penny a little irritating at times, but overall the books were an amusing, undemanding read.

My new food in July was samphire, which was part of a salad I had at a pub lunch. Definitely something I'd eat again.

My new place was Alton Towers. I did not visit the theme park, but did stay at the hotel for a night. As I was sitting knitting in the lobby while waiting to leave the following morning, a lady coming to book in came over very excited to see me knitting in public and showed me her crochet. I wished afterwards I'd asked her if she was on Ravelry!

There was no knittingly newness in July. Mostly I knitted mitred blanket squares to try to use up some of the odds and ends of yarn.

New in May

Yes, I know we’re nearly halfway through June (and the year for that matter), but anyway …

A quick reminder of the monthly challenge:

• Read a new author, or just a book I’ve been meaning to for years
• Try a new ingredient/food/recipe
• Explore a new place
• Something knittingly new

So in May

·       My new author was James Anderson. I was browsing in the Oxfam bookshop and couldn’t resist the two titles The Affair of the Bloodstained Egg Cosy and The Affair of the Mutilated Mink. I started in on the first and was soon hooked. A lovely friend kindly lent me The Affair of the Thirty-Nine Cufflinks, which finishes off the series.

·       I can’t remember trying a new food in May. There have been some dietary changes in our house over the last couple of months, mostly involving a lot more salads – I like salads, so consider this a good thing.

·       I also failed to explore a new place, although before the end of the month I had June and July’s destinations lined up.

·       Something knittingly new – well I tried knitting monogamy but that didn’t work. Other than that, I expanded this to something craftily new as I attempted to sew myself a top. I might tell you more about that another day.

New in March ... no ... April ... Where is the year going to?

A quick reminder of the monthly challenge:

• Read a new author, or just a book I’ve been meaning to for years
• Try a new ingredient/food/recipe
• Explore a new place
• Something knittingly new

April’s achievements

• A new author – A lovely friend gave me Heartburn by Nora Ephron for my birthday and I read it in April. Chicklit with a few recipes thrown in – perfect for relaxation.
• My new food was buckwheat. I’ve used buckwheat flour and cooked buckwheat noodles before. This time I cooked the seeds and ate some hot with fish and then cold with salads for a couple of days. I think some even found their way to my husband’s stomach!
• My new place was The Oxford Yarn Store. As soon as Bert and I found out about it, we knew we were destined to visit. We were accompanied by a non-knitting friend who seemed quite happy to stroke yarn even if she doesn't knit it! It is always exciting to find new yarn shops – and this one has a lovely café that served gluten-free stuffed pancakes for a delicious lunch!
• I didn’t really do anything knittingly new, unless a top knitted all as one piece (only sides and under arms to sew up) counts. I did make a start on my plan to sew myself some clothing though and cut out a pattern. I was then thwarted by the fabric not being big enough but I am not letting that put me off my sewing plans. I am thinking of it as babysteps and may get as far as the sewing machine soon. I may tweak that part of the challenge to be something craftily new *strokes beard thoughtfully*

 

 

 

Food, glorious food

I have got through Day 2 of October Unprocessed unscathed! Banana for late breakfast, bread with cheese & roasted red pepper chutney for lunch and roasted stuffed peppers for dinner. But today is still the weekend. The test will be if I can manage it when I'm working all week. Lunch for tomorrow is already sorted, as husband decided against the stuffed peppers for dinner, so I shall take his rejects - is it wrong to be looking forward to my lunch tomorrow already?

I had a go at making dried apple rings today. Not entirely a success, but the results are edible and I shall give it another go while there is a surplus of apples and see if I can improve on today's effort. I shall take some to work with me a snack. I'm also going to fill a tub with nuts & raisins etc. to take with me. On Friday, I warned the colleague who sits opposite me that there will no longer be a bag of minstrels on my desk for those emergency chocolate moments! Then I just need to make sure I have an unprocessed meal when I get home in the evening, which will probably be the most challenging time of the day.

Other than thinking about food, today has mostly been about knitting hexagons. Still no camera software on my computer (I was told why, but didn't really pay attention to the explanation), so no hexagon photos yet. The current hexagon is being knitted from pink sparkly yarn. I like sparkly things.

October Unprocessed

Well I have found my challenge for October - or possibly it found me. Jennifer from Always in Wonder tweeted about eating Unprocessed for October and I have decided to sign up.

Limiting processed foods as much as possible is ideally how I'd eat anyway, but it has slipped rather a lot over the last few months as I've dealt with redundancy, freelancing and then adjusting to a new job. So this seems a good time to kickstart me into eating more healthily again.

I know that it is so much better for my ME if I avoid processed foods. My theory is that my liver etc. is not having to work so hard to breakdown and deal with things if I'm eating more fresh stuff/food made from scratch without added hydrolysed this or sulphidated that. The problem is I get into a cycle where I don't have the energy to cook from scratch and grab something quick and easy, which of course isn't so good for me, so I have less energy so I grab something ...

So I am taking part in October Unprocessed. I made a start this morning by walking down to the greengrocers and coming back laden with fruit and veg. I also baked some bread this morning and have put a load of rolls in the freezer for later in the week - after I'd had some for lunch.

Exceptions are allowed and should be decided upon at the beginning of the month, so here are mine (that I've thought of - others may occur to me as I go along, but I'm not going to make exceptions as an excuse to eat processed foods):

• Meals provided by others - for example when I am away with friends next weekend, when we go to the in-laws for dinner and when work provides meals.
• Chocolate - but I'm limiting it to fairtrade with a high cocoa content
• Food that will spoil if not used up over the next few weeks as I can't afford to waste food
• Food that needs to be used up to make space for the unprocessed alternative (as I have limited kitchen space) 
• Homemade jam and chutney 

My menu for dinner tonight is ratatouille (I'm going to make enough to put some in the freezer for those days when I'm tired and need something easy) and then I'm going to make some strawberry fake ice cream (fake in terms of made with banana rather than cream, not fake as in fake cream stuff made from chemicals of course).

I'm turning into one of those people who blogs their dinner

Well, the lemon curd didn't set. It did make delicious ice cream, though.

We went out for lunch today for a belated anniversary meal, so I didn't want much to eat this evening. After much deliberation, I settled on a bread roll (freshly baked today), cheese, tomatoes and grapes.

Sometimes, the simplest meals are the nicest!