Shiny and new

A few shiny new things have been appearing here lately.  My laptop died hence the blog silence for 2 weeks :-(  I'd had it for 5 years and to be honest I've been nursing it along for the last year.  I'd been backing up my files and photos so when it literally fell apart it wasn't a shock.  I shopped around and eventually chose a new one similar to my old one with £100 off as the added bonus!  I'm still getting used to it.  I've discovered I'm not good with new technology, I just don't have the patience.  Definitely a sign of getting old!

Another new thing is The Teenager's black belt in TKD.  I think the smile says it all :-)

Work is hectic, in all honesty I'm not enjoying it at all.  I'm hoping that will change.  I'm working long hours in school and still doing a few more at home every night.  Housework/gardening and decorating have all been abandoned.  Although I did manage to defrost and thoroughly clean out my black fridge freezer.

I picked all the ripe tomatoes from the polytunnel.

And all the green ones!

I've been using up as much as I can from both freezers before stocking them back up again.  I stewed some gooseberries with a couple of sad apples from the fruit bowl and turned them into crumble. Yum!

Life is trundling along nicely.

Oh, there will be one more shiny new thing arriving in the next few weeks. Yesterday I bought a new car!  But that story deserves a post of it's own!! :-)

A new era

 

This morning I took The Teenager to Glasgow to move into halls.  Gulp!! My baby has flown the nest and I'm now officially an empty nester.  We were both prepared and ready for it so no tears or drama.  It's the next stage in both our lives and I know I'm looking forward to mine.  I'm always at the end of the phone and it's only a 40 minute drive down the motorway..  I've had a few texts from him this afternoon but all seems to be well so far.  His biggest problem was figuring out how the cooker works!  His flatmates seem ok with a mixture of subjects being studied so plenty of scope for discussion (and drinking!)

When I got home I kept thinking I needed to go the supermarket as I hadn't been for a week.  But I had a look in the cupboards and freezers and realised they were actually pretty full.  Just not full of quick to grab n eat stuff!! I had no non dairy milk left but remembered I'd seen something on Pinterest about making your own oat milk.  So I gave it a go!

This brand is quite nice and costs £1.40 per litre.  I made about 700ml for 10p!!  It's a little watery so next time I'll use less water but hey, for 10p it tastes great.

Oat Milk

Method:

Soak 100g of rolled oats in a bowl with 500ml of room temperature water for 15 mins.  Drain and squeeze through a sieve.  Put oats back into the bowl with 200ml of water and leave for another 10 mins.  Drain and squeeze (I used the back of a spoon to really get all the creamy juice out!)

Next time I'll use 400ml of water for the first soak.  It keeps for a week in the fridge apparently.  I'll report back on that.

This week I'm going to try to live out of the cupboards and freezers and use up all the sugary and processed stuff so I can make a start on cutting out refined sugars.  OH's Teenogre will eat up stuff The Teenager has left behind so I can re stock with even more healthy foods.  My diet is pretty healthy but I do succumb to the odd packet of crisps or cereal bar.  If they're simply not there then I can't eat 'em!!  Definitely a new era round here :-)

Ruff week

I honestly don't know how I got through this week! But I know I'm exhausted and I've got a hectic weekend ahead. On top of the mountain of paperwork, I have a very difficult class to manage.  Most of my time is taken up dealing with behaviour issues.  When I come home from work and tell OH some of the stuff the kids get up to he just laughs and says it's like an episode of Bad Education The Early Years version!

This week's highlights include 2 of my boys peeing in the playground and 2 different boys running out of the playground onto the road for a dare.  I was on line duty and had several older boys (not even my class!) refuse to come in after break.  That was a management issue, I just ignored them and left them.

Yesterday we had a fire drill in the morning and then in the afternoon just as I was about to start my Textiles stuff with 20 kids we had an actual fire incident and had to evacuate the building for real.  In the rain.  And while we waited for the 2 fire engines to arrive to deal with it (smoke alarm in the kitchen was triggered) the council workers CONTINUED CUTTING THE GRASS AROUND THE 200+ KIDS STANDING IN THE RAIN!!!!!

You couldn't make this stuff up!  Oh, and Emma's back in season so I have a howling whiny dog when I get home exhausted from work!  At least I don't have to think about dinner when I get in :-)

Free lunch

When a member of the management team approaches you in school and opens with the words "Did you know that just outside your classroom we've got some raised beds?" And then follows that with "Some of the children in your class last year planted seeds as part of their Grow, Cook, Eat project." You know that you're going to end up being responsible for the upkeep of the school's raised beds!! :-)
 

So this morning we went outside to harvest the vegetables they'd planted before the summer holiday.  Sadly the beds hadn't been touched for months and were completely overgrown.  A lot of stuff had gone to seed but we managed to pick peas, runner beans, lettuce, carrots and radishes.  The peas were a bit big and hard but most of the kids tried them and some loved them! We had a fab discussion about seed saving, pollination and eating stuff straight from the garden :-)

No one wanted to try eating the nasturtiums but everyone agreed they looked pretty

Even after the kids (and me!) had munched loads of peas there were loads of pods left so I brought them home. Waste not, want not!  I had a generous full bowl so turned them into a simple Pea and Mint soup (peas, potato, onion simmered in veg stock then blitzed with a handful of fresh mint).  I got 3 mugs of soup so that'll do 3 (free) lunches for work :-)

Every night this week before I've gone to bed I took a 'ready' meal and a mug of soup out of the freezer.  No thought required and saves so much time.

I just need to crack the make ahead breakfasts and snacks.  I found a fab gluten and dairy free pancake recipe (original recipe here)  that I love.

My version:

1 cup unsweetened almond milk
2 large eggs
1 large ripe banana
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1 teaspoon baking powder
2 cups oats

Put everything in a blender and mix well.  I used my Nutribullet.  Then make pancakes in the usual way.  They're lovely drizzled with maple syrup.  And they freeze well!  So I'll be making a big batch of these for my work day breakfasts.

Edited to add: let batter mix sit for a wee while to thicken or add less milk