Tag: food
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A bespoke pharmacy to control blood pressure
Did you know that the key to controlling your blood pressure lies not with prescription drugs but with a tiny microorganism that lives in your gut? I did know about this but wanted to understand the mechanism and it turns out to be fascinating. There are trillions of microorganisms living in our gut including bacteria,…
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Dinner last night and earlier in the week
I’ve been meaning to share photos of dinner each night because that’s what people do these days isn’t it? Plus I’m sure everyone is dying to see what I eat. Last night was a lentil almond curry, make with beluga lentils but red lentils would work just as well. We had it with brown rice.…
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Dinner tonight
Mum made tabbouleh several times when she was visiting and it was a huge hit with everyone, especially the kids. So I decided I’d start making it regularly too. Dinner tonight was tabbouleh with roast vegetables and peas. I love roasted vegetables and they go well with tabbouleh. There are 13 different species of plants…
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Lebkuchen
I make lebkuchen in December every year. This year I modified the recipe slightly to make it healthier by reducing the amount of sugar and replacing vegan butter with olive oil. I try to avoid all seed oils these days but olive oil in small amounts is probably ok. This is the good thing about…
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Newton Dee pasta and parsnip soup
Last Saturday we went for lunch at Newton Dee. It has been a long time since I’ve been there and it was delightful. They had a good selection of cakes and I always enjoy looking at their crafts. I stocked up on goodies in their grocery store including this fantastic find of Newton Dee pasta…
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Sourdough mother, glasses and beets
When I first started making my own sourdough consistently a couple of years ago I used a starter bought from Hodmedod’s. I’ve been feeding and nurturing that same starter ever since. Recently I wondered how old it was, or as they say in baking parlance, “how old the mother is”. I emailed Hodmedod’s to find…
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Getting out of bed for berry compote
One of the nice things about going away even if it’s only for a day or two is it takes you away from routine and habit while providing new experiences that you may just want to take home with you. One of these was the berry compote I had on my porridge each morning at…
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Baking bread in the instant pot
When our oven was broken for seemingly forever, I bought an Instant Pot to pick up the slack. We lost our pressure cooker in the fire in the utility room a couple of years ago and still hadn’t replaced it. The Instant Pot not only has a pressure cooker but can also bake, boil, air…
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First blackberry crumble of the season
It’s blackberry season – yay! This means lots of blackberry crumble. Ben went foraging and collected a huge container full yesterday, half of which got eaten last night. There are so many wild blackberries all over the place in Aberdeen and the fruit ripens at different times – I guess depending on how sunny a…
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The Aboyne Games and foraging for dinner
Yesterday we went to the Aboyne Highland Games and Elizabeth competed in the highland dance. It’s the first time we’ve been to the Aboyne games and the first time it has run since before the pandemic. Elizabeth came last or second last in her dances. The other girls were quite a lot better and I’m…
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Eat healthily or fit in?
My average blood pressure for the past few days is 115/73. A few weeks ago I thought I’d never see a reading under 120 but then one day I got one and gradually over the next few weeks it happened more and more often to where this is now the norm and I’m disappointed if…
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The evolution of salt
The Yellow Emperor’s Classic of Internal Medicine is an ancient Chinese text dating from 300 BC. A translation from the text reads, If too much salt is used in food, the pulse hardens… The Yellow Emperor’s Classic of Internal Medicine The Chinese knew more than 2000 years ago that salt causes high blood pressure. In…
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A vegan menu
We had a superb meal at the restaurant in Dunblane last night. We ate at The Kailyard and their vegetarian menu is one of the best I’ve seen and tasted. I had the mushroom and cashew wellington which was delicious. For dessert, I had the chocolate and orange tart which was also superb. We went…
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Summer bounty
I’ve got a lovely thistle in the garden that’s blooming right now and bees love it. Isn’t this much nicer than featureless paving stones and grass? It’s supporting the bee population too. I’ve discovered another use for the bumper crop of plums we’ve got: plum crumble. This was delicious! We’re also swimming in tomatoes so…
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Insect-based food for cats
As a vegan I have found it difficult owning a cat and buying cat food. Cats are obligate carnivores which means, unlike humans, they must eat animals to survive. If you can thrive without harming others then why wouldn’t you? This is why I’m vegan. But it’s not so simple for cats and my plan…
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Half my life
I’m 45 today. If I’m lucky enough to live to 90 then I have lived half my life. I hope I’m still riding my bike at 90. You’re only as old as you feel or, as Groucho Marx once said, “You’re only as old as the woman you feel”. I heard another quote recently that…
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Piling on the pounds
I’ve put on a kilogram of weight over the past couple of months. I would like to say it’s extra muscle from doing Joe Wicks’s PE class every day – after all, muscle weighs more than fat – but I think that’s wishful thinking. Perhaps I just need to accept that I’m nearly 45 and…
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Eating weeds
When everyone was panic-buying in March I saw some stinging nettle springing up in our backyard and decided to leave it there rather than weed it out. Stinging nettle is a highly nutritious food. It has anticarcinogenic, anti-inflammatory, and antioxidant properties as well as being high in calcium and iron. How do you eat it…
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Eating during a pandemic
On Sunday, for Mother’s Day, I felt like a fry-up and since all the restaurants and cafés were closed we made something at home. We had mushrooms, baked beans, toast, vegan sausages, spinach, my home-made sauerkraut, and vegan black pudding. The black pudding is made by The Bury Black Pudding Company and contains black beans.…
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19th March 2020 update #COVID2019
Schools will be closing on Friday this week for the foreseeable future. It’s unlikely they will open again before the summer holidays which means they’ll be shut until August and potentially longer than that. Much depends on what happens in China when they lift their restrictions. Children of key workers and vulnerable children will still…
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