Tuesday 30 April 2013

My first diabetic recipe

Well last week at the Dr's we got a diagnosis of type 2 diabetes in the family, and so I am going to have to do some serious research into what is good and what is not, diet is now everything. Plenty of people live with this condition, just needs acceptance of what you have and adaptation to control it.

First step was changing ordinary sugar for a low GI sugar substitute, that step is taken. Now I have to start using forms of low GI sugar in my baking, and with this in mind first up was some

Lemon flapjacks.

gently heat 6oz flora cuisine and 6 oz agave syrup in a pan. remove pan from heat,
stir in some chopped dried figs, apricots and cherries
add zested rind and juice of 1 lemon
add 12 oz porridge oats 

flatten into a lined baking tray and bake for approx 12 mins.



Once cool cut into squares.

These made a very pleasant flapjack, dairy free so healthier fats, low GI sugar and slow to burn oats to stabilise the body's glucose levels with the added fibre of dried fruit and lemon juice for a nice tangy flavour.

The highlighted products were supplied by Healthy Supplies, but the recipe idea is all my own.

Naturalizer Slip-On Casual Shoes - a review

I received the most fabulous pair of comfy shoes to wear.

This is my pair of  Naturalizer Shoes Feist Denim Blue Leather Slip-On Casual Shoe from Lotus


This moccasin inspired, classic slip-on shoe from Naturalizer promises to be your new season soul-mate and the perfect everyday footwear option. ‘Fiest’ incorporates a soft leather upper with stitch detailing and firm grip, durable sole. Naturalizer’s ‘N5 Comfort Elements’ system is evident in every pair, meaning that the comfort of your feet always come first! Read more about Naturalizer’s revolutionary N5 design features in the ‘size & fit’ tab.
  • Naturalizer ladies’ shoe
  • Slip-on style
  • Mocassin inspired
  • Leather upper
  • Incorporating Naturalizer’s renowned ‘N5 comfort elements’


The Naturalizer 'N5 Comfort Elements' system features five design elements which give you the freedom to move through life effortlessly:
  • An ergonomic heel and toe shape assists with stability
  • Breathable linings help to keep feet cool
  • Extra cushioning softens underfoot impact
  • Supple insoles provide greater flexibility
  • Featherweight outsoles help to lighten every step
  • UK sizing
  • Fits true to size


I have been using these shoes for a few weeks now and have to say I find them incredibly comfortable. 

I am on my feet the whole time I am at work at walk an average fo 12,000 steps in my shift, pushing trolleys, hoovering and mopping floors, and I have to say at the end of the shift they are every bit as comfortable as the start of the shift. 

They are so lightweight you do not even know you are wearing them, the soles remain non slip even on a wet surface and they are defiantly very breathable, no more sweaty feet at the end of a shift. 


I received this pair of shoes in return for my honest opinion, and this is my opinion of them. 









Sunday 28 April 2013

How I have changed since 1983 - along with Special K

A lot has changed from 30 years ago: Dynasty-era shoulder pads have come and gone, Karma Chameleon is (thankfully) no longer top of the charts and now one of the most popular breakfast cereals is updating. For the first time since 1983, Kellogg’s is changing Special K with a new, more delicious and wholesome recipe.
The new recipe contains three grains -- rice, wheat and barley (previously there were two) -- and is made with wholegrain, for a source of fibre as well as 8 vitamins and minerals. It gives health-conscious, weight-watching women a tastier breakfast.


So what did I think of the new Special K?  I like whole wheat in my cereal for the added fibre and these do not disappoint in the taste test. They remain crispy throughout when served with home made soya yoghurt and fresh fruit. They have a pleasant taste, are not too sweet and fill you up any time of the day.







then 
now
1983, gosh what was I doing back then? Well I would have been minus one as I am only twenty nine now.....ok ok ok the granddaughter does not believe me either....1983, I would have been twenty three. A mum to two daughters who turned four and three in this year. I was a registered child minder and loved my life.  We baked, played and did arts and crafts together. We spent hours in the park, long before CBBC and such existed to entertain children. They entertained themselves.
Allergies were a no no and people like me and my daughter were frowned upon - lactose intolerance, don't be silly, there is no such thing, it is a fad.

1983 was the year I got my first washing machine, a second hand one from a friend. I remember the first night I got it we sat in front of it and watched it wash the clothes, probably a lot more interesting than what was on the three channels of television that closed down just after 10pm with the national anthem.


What else was happening in 1983?

The £1 coin first came into circulation in this year. With inflations £1 today is worth the equivalent £2.98.*

Back then £1 would buy you+ - twenty cigarettes. or three  loaves of white sliced bread, or six pounds of frozen chicken or £2.77 litres of petrol .
This year it will get you a bottle of water, 0,72 litres of petrol.or one loaf of white bread

Seatbelts for both drivers and front seat passengers became law in the U.K.




The final episode of M*A*S*H was aired. Brilliant programme despite the background theme, if you ignored that it was actually very funny. The final episode of M*A*S*H was a two and one half hour special that attracted the largest audience to ever view a single television program episode. ^








Michael Jackson introduced the world to The Moonwalk with a performance of Billie Jean. His album Thriller went on sale and stayed at No1 for thirty seven weeks. Most of you that were not even born then will know the words to pretty much all the songs despite them being older than some of you. Feel free and sing along.  




The Nintendo goes on sale for the first time, this was a very basic platform game machine that brought hours of entertainment to children and adults alike.


Cameras -  back in the day you had to take your photos, send them away for processing and wait on them coming back. Not a quick, easy or cheap thing to do.

Here is a montage of the two girls back then, as I say the pictures were not always the best, but the memories of theses times are still in my head. 




Fast forward to 2013, well it does not seem thirty years ago so it must have fast forwarded.


How have I changed? I am now a mum to five grown and flown children, and a grandmother to two. I have passed my driving test and have been to university and got a B.A.  I work in a hospital and love my job. I fil in my spare time with blogging, comping and having fun with my grandchildren. 

I now have more allergies and they are perfectly acceptable now, I also have asthma and Menieres Disease I did not have back then. I am bit larger than I was, but apart from that I am still me.  

The grandchildren have sky tv in their room here and could feasibly watch tv all night between the hundreds of channels that are available. 

Games consoles have changed beyond all recognition, where you can become part of the game if you wish to. Taking them from the sedentary stare at the screen games to multi-player interactive. 

I have a digital camera now, and with the grandchildren I can snap, snap, snap and take a hundred pictures just to get the right one. Plug the camera into your computer and see instantly on the screen the results of your endeavours, to share with the worls in a few seconds. This blog is littered with pictures, leaving behind a legacy for me, the grandchildren and the great  grandchildren to look back on in another thirty years. 








This is my entry for the Britmums/Special K "How I've changed linky challenge

I was sent a box of Speial K to try out in return for this post. 

* source - this is money
+ source AOL
^ source http://www.tv.com/shows/mash/

Saturday 27 April 2013

Project 365 21st -26th April

Well folks  that is four months down, eight to go, not be long now till Christmas  the summer holidays.

So what have I been photographing this week? Out and about quite a few days as for all it has been cold enough here to produce both hailstones and frost up the car enough I need to send out my automatic car defroster before work this morning, this has balanced nicely with clear sunny, if chilly days.

Sunday

I bought these the other day for the grandchildren and love the colours of them in the sun.  Thought they were a great buy at fifty pence each in Morrisons. Your never too big to get pleasure out of blowing bubbles and these work brilliantly.

blowing

Monday

Sadly I had a phone call to say Bob not coming up today as he not well. Went up to visit our friend at the cottage, and him and another friend were amusing themselves with Bobs Tonka trucks. They had cut a pile of logs to fit into the back of one and were playing loading it with his digger. This is a picture of my friend taking a picture of the trucks. You can see his camera in his hands.


Tonka



Tuesday

The swan is back down the river, laying eggs on a very precarious island. Last years due to the high river her eggs got washed away. Here she is getting back onto her three eggs.


sman

Wednesday

Up visiting a friend and saw the brown pigeon in amongst the normal coloured ones.


brown



Thursday

Went off today to take the carpet cleaner up to daughter No 3's new flat. The view is not stunning, the car park of the now demolished Safeway. But just to the right is a twenty four hour Tesco, a bus stop into Ayr to visit us and other family and just out of sight on the left is her place of work. Home in two  minutes or less.



Friday

It started off her bright and sunny, if a bit chilly this morning, but it got duller and duller and chillier and chillier until we got hails stones. Come on it is less than a week to the start of May for goodness sake.


hailstones




Saturday.

Another bright clear afternoon and despite the cold wind it made for a pleasant walk along the river. You were going to get a picture of the trees and blue sky reflected in the river, until these two helicopters flew by so you are getting them instead.


helicopter





TheBoyandMe's 365 Linky

Thursday 25 April 2013

Using up leftovers - red rice tuna salad

I cooked slightly  way to much red rice the other day when I made the red rice with pork, sweetcorn and tomatoes and decided to use it to make something yummy for the tea instead of wasting it. May also say I cooed that much rice it did the lunch the next day as well.

Put any left over red rice into a large bowl, add any left over sweetcorn, add a tin of drained tuna and half a small onion chopped finely and  some grated cheese. Top with some chopped cherry tomatoes.

Quick, simple and very yummy.



Must admit it was nicer on day two as the taste of the onion had mingled through by then. 

The red rice was supplied by Healthy Supplies. 


Tuesday 23 April 2013

Red rice accompanied by pork, sweetcorn and tomato.

I am liking this months theme from The Recipe for Life Challenge, as it really is the sort of food we make and eat anyway I thought I would put a second recipe in.

First off put a pan of water on the cooker to boil, once boiling add a small amount of salt and a teaspoon of oil and add some red rice, basmati would work if you have no red.  I love the red rice, same nutty flavour as the brown rice but not quite as tough and outer casing. No quantities stated, just what amount suits your family size


Whilst the rice is cooking;

chop pork steaks and onions and add to a heated frying pan with a small amount oil added. add a teaspoon of spice to suit, I used Uncle Roy's Flowers of Scotland. A lovely aromatic flavour with beautiful colours Stir and cook for approx seven mins.

Add cherry tomatoes and some frozen garden peas, cover and leave for five minutes.




Add sweetcorn and a tin of chicken soup, mushroom would also complement nicely.










Heat through thoroughly. Drain and rinse the rice. Serve immediately.






.

This is my entry  into April's Swallows Charity Recipes for life challenge as it includes the 3 ingredients of pork, sweetcorn & tomatoes. You can find out more about the challenge here

*closed* £25 Sainsbury's voucher giveaway.


Sainsbury’s Bank Car Insurance is offering a £25 voucher in my give away as part of the Sainsbury’s Bank Family Blogger Network.



Sainsbury's Bank came up with a fun idea to work out how much time and  money you spend playing taxi driver to your children in a week.
How much would we pay at Taxi rates?
Here are some staggering statistics: British parents provide over £19 billion worth of free taxi services to their children every year, according to Sainsbury’s Bank car insurance research. This is more than a little pocket money. Want to know how much you could pay in taxi fares? Find out with their taxi calculator  



My daughter worked out how much running around and waiting about she does with the grandchildren, she points out this is just leisure activities not essential hospital appointments, and the granddaughter walks to school. 















How do you enter the giveaway?






 Sainsbury's are interested to know - It’s not all about money, your time is also precious. So, how would you spend the hours if you weren’t playing taxi? Finish a good book, getting outdoors or just doing nothing?







· Log in to Rafflecopter and enter the draw by leaving a blog post comment with your ideas for: What would you do with your time saved?

You can also enter by tweeting about the giveaway, 


and by referring a friend to enter the giveaway.
·
The more times you enter, the better your chance of winning the £25 Sainsbury’s voucher!
·      

a Rafflecopter giveaway



This competition is being run across several blogs. Here are links to some of the others.
Clare at emmysmummy.com
 FFion at  bare naked mummy 
Cheryl at Madhouse family Reviews
Sarah at boorooandtiggertoo
Jennifer at My Mummys Pennies
Dawn at Mummyslittlepeeps
                                                
Terms and conditions.



This giveaway is open to all readers in the UK.
Rafflecopter will accept entries for this giveaway at 12pm on Tuesday 23rd April.
Rafflecopter will close the competition at 12pm on Tuesday 30th April.
Sainsbury's Bank will run this competition via Rafflecopter.
The winner will be chosen by Sainsbury's Bank via Rafflecopter (which uses random.org) and announced on this page.
Entrants must have a UK address to enter. No bulk or third party entrants.
The prize is non-transferable, and will be sent out from Sainsbury’s Bank.
The giveaway winner will be contacted by the blog host to retrieve name and address.
The name and address of the winner will not be used for marketing purposes by Sainsbury’s Bank.
All entries may be featured on the Sainsbury’s Bank Money Matters blog post without further payment.
The winner will be contacted by e-mail, if they do not respond within seven days another winner may be chosen.
Entries using any software or automated process to make bulk entries will be disqualified.





I have received a voucher as an incentive for running this post.



ThePrizeFinder - UK Competitions

Saturday 20 April 2013

Project 365 14th- 20th April

This has been a particularly stressful week and I have had other things on my mind so bear with me this week, not the most exciting of pictures but decided that I was not dropping out at this stage.


Sunday

Usually make my own yoghurt, but thought I would treat myself and try these.  Must admit they are very very nice and I would recommend them.



Monday

A stroll along a very very windy beach, and I just loved the way this froth was blowing along the tide line. The sky may be blue but it was COOOOOOOLD.




Tuesday

Had some baking to do, one of the most important bakes of the year.  You can read about how I stuck the cake back together here. 





Wednesday

Was Bob's 7th birthday, all to grown up all to quick. I asked him what he wanted for his birthday. He said he wanted seeds to grow vegetables for his garden, so I bought him seeds, compost and seed trays and a bug house to hang in his garden to encourage bugs so we can look at them with the magnifying glass. Here he is cutting up his cake. 



Thursday

We had an early morning appointment to keep this week and then a friend to pick up from the train station, but while waiting we went for another walk along a cold beach. as we were heading back to the car to pick the friend up we saw the policeman meeting up with a member of the public and then heading off down the beach at a high rate of knots. I went back up to the top of the dunes to see if we could see anything, but no we couldn't. As we headed back to the car we saw another police van with two more police going to join the first one. Not seen anything in the news. 
If you blow the picture up and zoom in on the figure dressed in black it is the policeman.




Friday

Back down at our friends cottage again tonight, and I love the trail this plane left as it flew overhead, often wonder where people are going and why. 





Saturday.

Another breezy but blue sky and sunny day. Here is Mr/Mrs Seagull sitting enjoying the heat from the neighbours heating. These things are a bl**dy nuisance  if you go out in the street when their young are around they dive bomb you and attack. If people stopped feeding them they may not be so keen to hang around, but I suppose one of the drawbacks of living so close to the beach.













TheBoyandMe's 365 Linky

Friday 19 April 2013

Pork,sweetcorn and tomatoes with vermicelli rice noodles.

This months Recipe For Life Challenge is one that appealed to me, this months ingredients are pork, sweetcorn and tomatoes.

Again this leads itself very easily to wheat, egg, dairy and gluten free.



All of these ingredients in this house are basic store cupboard ingredients as Mattesson's smoked pork sausage is Bob friendly and lends itself to a quick and easy meal that requires no fancy measuring and can be adapted up or down easily to suit the amount of people you are feeding. Makes for a nice healthy easy to make ten minute meal.


Method

Bring a pan of water to the boil and add vermicelli rice noodles.







Chop 1 medium to large onion and add to a frying pan with a small amount of oil, and fry until soft


 chop a pile of cherry tomatoes in half and add to frying pan.
slice a smoked pork sausage and add to frying pan.
open a tin of sweetcorn and add to pan,



pour over a jar of bolognaise sauce





  and heat through thoroughly.

Drain noodles and serve immediately.





This is my entry  into April's Swallows Charity Recipes for life challenge as it includes the 3 ingredients of pork, sweetcorn & tomatoes. 
The challenge is running over six months and all the recipes will be collated into SWALLOW's recipes for life cookery book which will go on sale later this year. 








Thursday 18 April 2013

A boasting post - I have made the top 100

I have achieved something this month I honestly never thought I would do, I have reached the top 100 in the tots100.

To say I am very pleased is an understatement, and so I thought it deserved to go down in history as much as any other piece of good news.


I have a massive jump in score, but that will be because they have changed their metrics. It may settle down next month and I may drop out again but to have achieved it once is good enough for me.

Well done to everybody else that has entered the top 100 as well.





Bob's birthday cake

Bob turned seven yesterday, my daughter said he was not allowed to as he is growing up to much, but you cant turn back the hands of time. I myself have frozen it as I refused to get any older than twenty nine.

One of the things I do for Bob every year is make his cake, I personally would not feel offended if any other member of the family wish to relieve me of the stress pleasure but nobody seems to want to.

raw cake ready for the oven

Ingredients

6 oz sunflower oil
6 oz coconut sugar
3 eggs made with egg replacer
1 carrot grated ( to keep it a bit moister)
1 pack jelly sweets ( for a bit of texture)
11 oz gluten free flour
1oz cocoa powder.

1. Soak the egg replacer in water
2. mix together oil, sugar, egg replacer, carrot and sweets.
3. split mix into 2 and add 6 ox flour to one half and 5 oz flour and the cocoa powder to the other half.
4. place into two rectangular cake tins and cook for approx 20 mins.
5. turn out to cool

Once cool the idea had been to cut the cakes into a train shape, but typically of an egg/gluten free cake that has nothing to bind it together it broke.


So I had to try and come up with another idea.

I made some vanilla butter icing and covered the chocolate half with it, and then stuck the broken vanilla half on top of it best I could. I then coated the top best I could with more butter icing and then covered the sides.





 I covered it in white ready to roll icing.





rolled some red and black together to get s marble effect and cut out a No 7.



Cut out Bob's (proper) name and added the letters onto the No7.

As the finishing touch I topped it off with a No7 candle.



Here is Bob cutting up his cake.



For all the cake fell to pieces it tasted very good.

Saturday 13 April 2013

Project 365 7th -13th April

Sunday 7th

I joined in with the sweep at work for the grand national, as I have for the last ten years, and normally my horse is either a non runner or falls at the first fence. But by some miracle it win this time. The winnings bought my internet dongle.




Monday 8th

This was part of our bug hunt that I blogged about here. This is Bob with his magnifying glass.



Tuesday 9th
I was looking for something slightly different for tea and made Leek and potatoes in a cheese sauce topped with bacon. Have used leeks in two different seasonal recipes, you can read about them here.



Wednesday 10th

I visit an elderly friend on a Wednesday, and this along with half a dozen similar adorn her hall. They are made from shells.



Thursday 11th

I have started doing double shifts at work at the weekend, and need something to do in the two hour break, and so I bought myself a notebook and dongle so I can write up posts like this and pass the time quicker.





Friday 12th

Went down to visit my friend in the cottage after tea, and could have quite cheerfully fell asleep in front of this nice coal fire.



Saturday 13th


Did a baking on Friday evening, made some chocolate cakes with a munchie in the middle of each.
recipe can be found here.






TheBoyandMe's 365 Linky