Stressed Mum

Author Archive

My son went to France last week on an exchange trip with school and has returned a complete Francophile.

He now requires French bread for his school lunch so I thought I’d have a go at making my own. I used the French bread dough programme on my bread machine to make the dough.

500g White bread flour
1 teaspoon quick yeast
2 teaspoons salt
320ml warm water

The dough took over 3 hours to make. It would have been quicker to use the Kenwood but I wanted to just leave it as I was busy.

The dough was split into 4 portions. Each was flattened then rolled out to about 4cm x 30cm with plenty of flour.
Each piece was then rolled into a cylinder shape and the join pinched together. The loaves were left to rise covered with a damp teatowel for half an hour.

They were put into a hot oven, 200C for 15 minutes. A bowl of hot water was placed on a lower shelf to provide steam.

The result? Four delicious, crusty loaves to be proud of! They didn’t last long though!

I’m still trying to eat healthily most of the time.

Needing a quick healthy lunch I decided to make a quick butter bean dip to have with pitta bread and carrot sticks. I used a 400g tin of butter beans but if you have more time you can soak and cook your own. I added the juice of half a lemon, 2 generous tablespoons of low fat creme fraiche, a crushed clove of garlic and a heaped teaspoon of curry powder. I whizzed mine in the food processor attachment of my Kenwood Chef but it can easily be mixed by hand. Make it smooth or chunky depending on your preference. A generous handful of chopped coriander finished it off and it made a delicious lunch with toasted pitta bread, carrot sticks and baby plum tomatoes. Low fat, healthy and delicious, perfect.

It’s time to think about getting some vegetables going for this year. My vegetable plot is very wet and weedy and will need some serious work this year.

I’ve made a start by putting some Maris Piper seed potatoes into an egg box to chit. I’m going to grow them in potato bags as I’ve found this very successful in previous years. It’s especially good for my very wet and hard to dig plot.

I have one chilli plant doing very well at the moment and plan to start a few more off very soon. They are easy to grow on a windowsill and you can pick the chillies green or leave them on the plant until they ripen to a lovely red. Delicious!

I have lots of seeds ready to sow and am looking forward to having loads of fresh veggies this summer. My favourite is courgettes, they are so easy to grow in a grow bag and even 3 or 4 plants give a continual supply over several months. I’ll be growing tomatoes too and lots of salad to keep us going over summer. Carrots are another popular one here as they can be picked when they are small and sweet and delicious raw or left to get bigger for cooking. I will be looking out for one or two more unusual crops to try too so watch this space for updates!

I have made a start on my healthy eating plan. I know I
have to improve the diet of my family so I decided to incorporate
lots more vegetables into some of their favourite meals. This is
not a new idea but I have let it slip recently.

Today I have made a large pan of bolognese sauce. Not terribly exciting, you may think,
but at least everyone (except veggie me!) will eat it. As well as
the usual minced beef, tomatoes and herbs this one contains onion,
carrot, celery, yellow pepper and mushrooms. Of course my son is
not keen on any of those so I gave them a good whizz in my Kenwood
food processor attachment first until they were all a similar size
to the mince. Cunning, yes? In the finished sauce most of the
vegetables really cannot be seen and what cannot be identified is
much more likely to be eaten. I used up a glug of red wine hanging
around since Christmas too.

As part of my plan to eat more
economically I have made more than I need and will get a few single
portions stashed in the freezer for those days where I need a quick
meal for someone, hopefully this will save on requests for fast
food as there will be something ready in just the ten minutes it
takes to boil the pasta.

This year I have decided to break with tradition and actually make some New Year’s resolutions. This is not something I have done in the past as I never felt the need, I don’t smoke, gamble or drink too much so I didn’t have anything major to ‘give up’. This year, though, I have begun to feel there are positive changes I could make to improve my life and those of my family. Obviously I don’t really need to make those resolutions public but putting them here on my blog will, I hope, make me more likely to stick to them!

Here goes then. The resolutions are in the form of instructions to myself, reminders to keep me on track, I want them all to be positive so there is nothing to give up. (I couldn’t give up my two main obsessions – Manchester City and Twitter – anyway!)

Don’t do anything for the family they could easily do for themselves. I know it sounds negative but it isn’t really. Having three adult children living in the house as well as a teenager and a husband creates a lot of work. They all need to be independent so I am going to encourage them to take greater responsibility for clearing up after themselves, getting themselves to where they need to be and doing a share of the household chores. It will be good for them as well as me!

Eat more healthily. As a vegetarian I consider myself to have a fairly healthy diet, although it could be improved, but I cook for the family and don’t think they eat as healthily as they should. So I am going to make an effort to plan and cook cheap, healthy meals which suit everyone. This is something which I have let slip recently so family beware, I am going to be working on this one. More veg, less meat, proper home-made meals. If they don’t like it they can always buy and cook their own, so long as they clear up after themselves!

Get more exercise. Since having some problems with my foot I have walked much less and I can tell! So the plan is to take a walk every day for thirty minutes. This is no problem on match days as there is a long walk to the stadium from the car park, no problem in the summer when it is lovely to get out in the fresh air but will be more of an effort in rain, snow and wind. I have a new camera so I will take that with me and hopefully persuade someone to come along for company but I will still go whatever the weather.

That’s all. Nothing too difficult but it will take some effort on my part. All of these things will have benefits for myself and those I love and I hope to be seeing those benefits sooner rather than later. It will not be a great failure if I slip sometimes, I will be able to get back on track and hope the benefits I see will spur me on.

Happy New Year to you all and do share your resolutions.

What a great day at the City of Manchester Stadium. City fought hard and came out deserving winners with a lovely goal from Carlos Tevez.

Cech had much more work to do than Joe Hart and City kept up the pressure. Vincent Kompany was superb, as were the rest of the team. The stress of watching, losing my voice through singing and shouting and jumping to my feet every few minutes with the rest of the crowd left me exhausted, buzzing and very happy.

I’ll leave you with a couple of pictures from outside the ground before the match. Even the sky was in City blue!

I wasn’t sure I needed an iPhone but since it arrived I have become addicted.

I use it to check emails, Facebook and Twitter. I do my online grocery shopping with Ocado, check in with Foursquare and sometimes even use it for phone calls and texts!

I recently downloaded the WordPress app and here I am writing my first blog post from my iPhone.

I’m not sure how I’ll get on typing posts up on the tiny keyboard but turning the phone sideways to make the keyboard wider certainly helps.

It will probably be easier to post photos too, but that’s for another day. Today I’m just going to write this short post and see how it looks.

I hope you’ll give me some feedback and maybe some advice too and then a longer, more interesting post will hopefully follow.

Neat and tidy - how long will it last?

I have been having a sort out. You need to understand that there are currently seven people living in our house. Two of them have moved back home complete with all their student house possessions and one is just here for the summer. One has a collection of shoes to rival Imelda Marcos and one is into music. He has keyboard and digital drums in his room. The main problem is the piano which is being delivered tomorrow. It has to go in the lounge.

I began by moving a pine bureau from the lounge into the hall. I opened the drawers and found many photos from when the children were young. I couldn’t just put them back without looking could I? So I spent an hour looking through them, remembering good times when they slept at night and played out during the day, unlike now. Then I moved the shoe rack in the hall into … nowhere because I need to clear out the cloakroom to make room for it. In order to clear out the cloakroom I need the owners of the coats it contains to identify and remove them so that only those which are actually worn remain. Ditto shoes. Everyone was asleep or out so I gave up and made meringue instead!

When I managed to pin them down they didn’t want 90% of what was in the cloakroom so I now have a lovely streamlined look. I also have a big bag of good coats for the charity shop and a few items to freecycle. There are still a few stray items but a job well(ish) done I think.

Now does anyone have any idea where to stash the contents of two student houses?

I recently began selling Jamie at Home products as a self-employed consultant. The concept is not unlike the old favourite Tupperware party. Get a few friends round for a drink and a chat and to hopefully buy some of the products on sale and the host gets commission to buy goods on the night, or bank the points to save up for something special.

The difference is you get to watch an exclusive DVD of Jamie Oliver cooking up a lovely recipe using all those must have products. So far I love it. Some friends have had parties for me and the home, kitchen and garden products are such good quality they practically sell themselves. The hosts are happy with their free stuff; I have an enjoyable evening, am kitting my kitchen out and earn commission too. I still have a couple of parties booked in but need to find a few new circles of people to hold parties for me. I think that will be the hardest part but worth the effort as I love all my new kitchen equipment and look forward to earning some money for a night out.  If you have any great ideas for getting new hosts then let me know.

I especially love the new outdoor products and I am getting some of these items together in anticipation of a lovely summer!

Today is Ash Wednesday, the beginning of Lent. For Christians this is a time of self-denial and preparation for Easter. It lasts 40 days and represents the 40 days Jesus spent in the wilderness preparing for his public ministry.
As a child I gave up various things during Lent; sweets, biscuits or sugar in my tea. In my teens we all wanted to sit at lunch with the girl who gave up puddings for Lent so we could eat hers!
In past years I have given up wine (difficult!), cakes, chocolates etc. This year I want to do something which might make a difference to other people as well as to me so I looked at Christian Aid’s Count Your Blessings ideas for Lent http://www.christianaid.org.uk/images/count-your-blessings-2010.pdf
This involves thinking about how we live and how others live and contributing money for all the blessings we enjoy. For me it won’t just be about putting the money on one side to help others but I hope it will encourage me to appreciate what I have. I have printed off the calendar and made a start, maybe you will too.