Eats plants
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… Continue reading First blackberry crumble of the season
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… Continue reading The Aboyne Games and foraging for dinner
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… Continue reading Eat healthily or fit in?
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 chapter… Continue reading The evolution of salt
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… Continue reading A vegan menu
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… Continue reading Summer bounty
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… Continue reading Insect-based food for cats
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… Continue reading Half my life
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… Continue reading Piling on the pounds
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… Continue reading Eating weeds
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.… Continue reading Eating during a pandemic
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… Continue reading 19th March 2020 update #COVID2019
For several years now I have been quite interested in entomophagy which means eating insects. I've started buying insect dog food for the dogs we borrow and this week I bought a packet of ground buffalo (buffalo is a type of beetle, also known as mealworm) from a Welsh company called Bug Farm Foods. It… Continue reading Eating insects
Sustainability in dog food is becoming a thing. The dogs we look after always come with their own food which their owners provide but I feel a bit depressed giving regular dog food to dogs. We know how unsustainable livestock farming is and we're already consuming beyond our resources just to satisfy our meat-heavy diet… Continue reading Insect dog food
I have been on the 16/8 diet for a few weeks now. This diet lets you eat whatever you want for 8 hours in the day. For the rest of the 16 hours you can't eat anything. You can choose when the 8 hours fall and mine are typically from 11am - 7pm. Essentially I'm… Continue reading The 16:8 diet and inhaling marmite
I always like to write about what we did for Christmas each year because it creates a record of it for the future. Can you remember where you were for Christmas in 2016? Who were you with? What did you eat? It's amazing how quickly we forget. For Christmas 2019 we were at our home… Continue reading Christmas 2019
Someone came to the house this week to ask whether we're interested in getting milk delivered to our home. "I'm vegan", I said. He replied, "We also deliver eggs and orange juice. Would you be interested in either of those?" Vegans do not eat eggs and as a family, we don't buy orange juice because… Continue reading Pies from The Vegan Skinhead
Every year the kids nag to go trick or treating and every year we say no. I just can't understand how it's appropriate to encourage children to go to the homes of strangers asking for sweets. Perhaps we're just boring and unfair parents. To be fair, the kids don't seem to mind too much and… Continue reading Trick or high-fructose corn syrup
I made a delicious and disgustingly healthy meal tonight which was a hit with everyone, including the kids. It was also very simple, indeed half of it required no cooking at all. The cooked half was a recipe from Rukmini Iyer's The Green Roasting Tin which involved bunging orzo and tomatoes in the oven for… Continue reading A nutritious, cheap, and easy vegan meal that kids like and vegan bodybuilders
Elizabeth made the fudgy no-bake brownies from Dr Gregor's How Not to Die cookbook yesterday. They're so easy to make even a kid can do it. I just helped her a bit with the food processor. They're delicious and healthy. There's no sugar in the recipe and they're gluten-free and vegan. Ingredients 1 cup walnuts… Continue reading Fudgy no-bake brownies
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