Nisalou (and the boy too!)

Dairy free for me

I’ve recently been reading about veganism, raw food and the rather unpleasant health problems that may be associated with consuming dairy products. So to spur me on a little I’m going to try and blog a bit about trying to eat less dairy and more raw fruit & veg.  As an omnivorous and enthusiastic cook I don’t expect this to be easy, but I’m determined to give it a go.  So today - day 1 - I consumed the following:

Breakfast - two marmite rice cakes with tahini & green tea

Lunch - Hummus & grated carrot sandwiches & black coffee

Mid afternoon snack - (not dairy free) Chocolate brownie & tea with milk

Dinner - Bean casserole with brown rice sprinkled with vegan parmesan (!)

Soya yoghurt with blueberries

I’m lucky enough to have a corner shop that I now find stocks several kinds of soya milk, yoghurts, vegan cheese & other meat/dairy free alternatives.  I can report that the Provamel blueberry soya yoghurt was delicious - very creamy and tasted much naughtier than a conventional yoghurt- yum!

Not too shabby for a first attempt although I may have to try a lot harder when it comes to finding something to replace my beloved Green & Blacks milk chocolate.

Winter Manifesto or how we deal with cold days

One of my favorite blogs www.Soulemama.com has a winter manifesto posted at the moment - I thought I’d follow in a similar vein and jot down a few things that have been getting us through these cold and snowy days:

1. Hot chocolate with squirty cream after a good ole romp in the snow.
2. Baking and lots of it. Namely the divine jam shortbread from Tessa Kiros’s  ’Apples for Jam’ and currently the very kitsch but cute “Love Buns” from Nigella’s ‘Feast’.
3. Snuggling up inside Josh’s igloo tent in the living room with piles and piles of books and blankets.
4. Watching endless episodes of Postman Pat and Something Special.
5. Colouring,drawing, sticking and glueing - we made a ‘Frosty’ the snowman picture yesterday.  It’s Awesome and I am so proud that Josh made something so accomplished!
6. Trips down to the park to check out the icy snowy patches of ground (good for pretend ice skating) and looking with amazement at the frozen canal as the birds skate precariously over its surface.
7. Lots and lots of playing trains and cars.
8. Using the Mariocart Wii steering wheels to ‘drive’ round the flat at “great neck speed Mummy”.
9. Playing with the sand in the kitchen. Trying to keep it on the tarp but failing miserably and then finding a sheer film of sand over pretty much everything even after hoovering.
10. The Museum. Oh where would we be without it! A trip out of the house pretty much guaranteed to make Josh a very happy boy.  He can whoosh around happily and gets to press lots of buttons and play with trains. What more could a small speedy boy want?? Oh and it’s free and warm and indoors. Bonus!

So that’s what we’ve been up to - keeping warm and hibernating mostly. So what have other people been up to I wonder? How do you beat the Winter blues?

30 books in 2009 - perhaps?

misspee:

Anisa almost managed this in 2006. Three years later, I am inspired to do the same. I always forget how much I enjoy reading - this Christmas, my interest was reignited by a second reading of John Irving’s A Prayer for Owen Meany. I would like to try and make reading for pleasure a regular part of my life again, not least beause I really need to keep my brain active.

1. John Irving, A Widow for One Year

Reckon I’m going to try again too but with a lower target of 12.  More manageable for me I hope.  Last year was dismal for reading - this year I’m determined not to let the old grey matter disintegrate any further!!

So for starters:

1. Alexander McCall Smith - The Careful Use of Compliments

Jingle Bells!

“Jingle bells, jingle bells, jingle all the way” has been the theme tune for our Christmas chez Barrett this year.  Josh has learned the first verse and regales us (loudly) at every opportunity festive or otherwise. Cute certainly, appropriate - hmmm not always!

We have had a jolly good Christmas.. I had a bloody good birthday (thank you family!) and a bit of a gloomy New Year.  My own grumpy and navel gazing fault this time.

So Christmas. Josh wore his little Santa suit for two days straight, we had four generations of mince pie makers busy in the kitchen on Christmas Eve.  We consumed far, far, far too much chocolate.  Josh now thinks breakfast should include chocolate behind small cardboard doors everyday (thank you Advent calendars).  I cooked a ham, a turkey, and a huge haggis.  I baked several batches of Christmassy sugar cookies with small hands biting off far more raw dough than is healthy or helpful.  We drank hot chocolate with squirty cream.  We saw Santa and his reindeer and rode on Santas express train round Princes Street Gardens.  We ended up with a silly number of things to wrap in haste on Xmas Eve.  Thank you Baileys for your help :-) We watched the BFG and It’s a Wonderful Life. Naturally.  Oh and keeping it festive - Die Hard.  Blame JB.  

Josh had a lovely nap while we ate our Christmas dinner in peace (ahhhh) and managed to keep the present opening frenzy fairly restrained too.  Toys were played with and none broken and it was all very Jolly :-)