Sunday 29 September 2024
2024 Weeknote 39
Friday 27 September 2024
Mexican dense bean salad
I've been experimenting with new lunches this term, ever since I came across the dense bean salad trend on Tiktok. It seems to be very much a thing, though, realistically, I have been eating lunch this way for many years now; I was fondly remembering when I used to make up huge salad jars for the whole week. But it's nice to see other people sharing recipes because it gives me fresh ideas, particularly for dressings, which I'm not good at.
I've figured out that the best long-lasting salads have robust veggies in them and to date, it's usual for me to add a couple of packets of mange tout, but recently I have been going with a coleslawy base, which adds plenty of bulk but not much flavour. This is good but requires some robust other flavours and also something nice, because shredded cabbage is just so...worthy.
Thus I broke my own rule this week and added avocado - which qualifies as something nice - to this one, but it held up well in the back of the fridge (we've got a Smeg fridge and it is actually magic, tbf) for the week. Nobody gasp in horror at this revelation, but I take my lunch out of my fridge at home and it sits on my desk at work until around 1pm, sans refrigeration (yes, even with meat/fish in it, don't come for me, I apparently have an iron constitution) - by Thursday, this salad was not coping with that and had a somewhat fizzy flavour, so I put it in the work fridge (double bagged) today and it was still good by the time lunchtime came around.
- 1 can Mexican beans
- 1 can butter beans
- 1 large can sweetcorn
- 1 bunch coriander (150g, really whack it in there, it's not for you if you don't like coriander)
- 2 peppers, any colour, I like yellow
- 2 avocados
- 300g cabbage
- 2 large carrots
- 3 limes
- 2 tbsp oil, I have cold-pressed avocado oil at the moment because I'm apparently incapable of walking past Holland and Barrett without going in to buy something
- Salt and pepper
Shred the cabbage and carrot. Chop the coriander, except the stalks, and combine with the cabbage and carrot in a bowl. Drain and rinse the canned stuff, add to the bowl. Chop the peppers and avocados and add those too. Salt and pepper to taste. Juice the limes and shake hard in a jar with the oil - mine turned the most wonderful garish chartreuse colour; dress the salad. Shovel into containers. It makes five portions of about 350 cal each and all five of your fruit/veg servings in one meal. I topped mine with Mr Z's Mexican chicken breast.
Sunday 22 September 2024
2024 Weeknote 38
It has been another wildly busy week, between the mark reviews and the work commitments and writing out the reading list ahead of the first module at Oxford. I made that list this morning; Lenin came and sat in the middle of it, to ensure I carry his muddy paws into the course with me ever day, and then curled up and went to sleep, purring loudly, without requiring a fuss - I found this immensely comforting as the essential pre-module reading runs to two side of A4. I'm not overly worried about getting it done for November, but less convinced of how I will manage for February, when I will also have an assignment to do. Time will tell.
On Tuesday, I had to travel once again to Birmingham, for a day conference of people from across the Trust who do the same job as me. This was all a bit depressing because, firstly, we got a telling off about Trust results (our school results were very good and an improvement on last year, so...) and secondly, I realised that everything this committee worked on last year, gave up additional twilight time for and spent most of the conferences discussing, has now been shuffled off and a new set of expectations has come in instead. 'We know you'll have done this so just copy and paste into our forms,' was the message. Well, I can't do that, because I asked you in June for the planning proforma, and even though I can see this went into my folder in July, you didn't share access to it, so now they don't match and you want me to re-do the large piece of planning work I have already done rather than actually enacting the plan.
Hrmph.
I will be saying all this directly to the visitor we are having this week. They keep saying feedback is a gift. I am feeling in a very altruistic mood. Let's hope I don't come back next Sunday to say I've been fired. Although this might be helpful.
I went to the glow swim after the meeting, it is 2 degrees cooler in the quarry than this time last year but still a very lovely place to spend a twilight. I sacked it off this morning though because it was pouring rain. A lot of quarry people sneer at the idea that you wouldn't want to swim in the rain and I do get that you're already wet so why does it matter, but when you're a head-out-of-the-water swimmer like me, the splashing in the face is problematic.
On Friday, we had a school trip with the sixth formers to Parliament. This involved a 5am get-up for the 6.40am bus, where thankfully I had earphones and went to sleep because the students were louuuuuuud. And it's not like being on a private coach where I can just yell at them to be quiet. We went first to the Churchill War Rooms, which was a great museum, though I only managed about 90 minutes before a combination of claustrophobia and Churchill fatigue got me. From there, we trotted past the statue of Clive to the Foreign Office for a tour - my colleague knows people there. This was really quite spectacular. To begin with it was just a grand old government building but then we went through the Locarno room and, wow. Murals, gold leaf, carpet deep enough to lose a shoe in, the lot. We finished with a peek at Number 10 through the gate (the staff said they'd watched Truss resign here and claimed multiple sightings of Larry the Cat, who apparently has some territorial beef with Palmerston the Foreign Office cat). It was very cool, even more so because the security guard was very moody about a bunch of teen girls twittering past him but just had to allow it.
Me in the Locarno room, what a ceiling.
From there we went on to Parliament for a tour from someone who worked in the whip's office for 20 years and had some amazing stories to tell. I have been to Parliament before, but I don't think I've made it into the chambers - neither house was sitting, as it was a Friday, and that gave us ample time for mooching around and pretending to be important. I managed to snag a cardamom Bun From Home on the way back to the coach station and then the students chatted loudly all the way back to Bristol while I tried to ignore them and read Salt to the Sea, a YA historical fiction I forgot I bought at the beginning of the summer. It's very good.
I've also been getting through the rest of Stormbird (I started this in May) during my lunch duties in the student toilets, somewhere I can't eat lunch but where nobody can tell me off for reading. Students regularly ask about my book so I consider this good modelling.
We've continued to watch Clarkson's Farm. I'm excited about the return of Bake Off on Tuesday.
I managed to mostly keep up with the health kick. No gym on Friday but we did do 15,000 steps and I didn't eat very much because it was such a busy day. I disappointed myself by not doing any form of exercise on Wednesday but I was just exhausted after the early start on Tuesday and the exertions of the day. I was too tired on Tuesday to pack up my gym kit, telling myself I would come home, change, then go out - naturally I came home, changed, but then found myself mysteriously in my new favourite dressing gown (I am now in my dressing gown era) and so just went to bed at 9.15 instead, which did help with the tiredness, it must be said.
I am not feeling so inspired by the linen top now that summer is over, so I have wound some yarn to knit a brioche hat. It's a skein of Isager aran tweed that I bought at the Oxford Yarn Store in 2022 - I was reminded of this when I googled to see how far this place was from my college (a terrifying 220 yards, this is going to get expensive); plus a beautiful, soft DK that I got from the knitting group secret Santa. I'm going to attempt to knit a Beezee but got as far as casting on at knitting group yesterday and had to give up, because who can do a twisted German cast on off the top of their head?