As you read this I will be on my holidays, living it up in New York. With an impending trip this week's ONO were all about using it up.
Monday: Chocolate soy milk, plain yogurt and raspberries (this was FULL OF WIN).
Tuesday: I know it was guava juice and plain yogurt but I can't remember what fruit....I was late for work and ended up wolfing it down whilst doing my morning email deleting...er, reponding. -- it came to me in the end: good, ripe, British strawberries.
Wednesday: Coconut yogurt, chocolate soy milk and blueberries
Thursday: Guava juice, plain yogurt and blueberries
Friday: Chocolate soy milk, plain yogurt, banana and some walnuts. I put the banana in just before eating because I am funny about banana and don't like to too soft or ripe.
On Thursday, I actually chose ONO over the selection of croissants and pain au chocolat school laid on for a training breakfast - it really is that good. (I might have snaffled a pain au chocolat for breaktime, mind you).
I will take a moment here to blow a trumpet for Total 2% Greek yogurt. I can only get it in my local Asda and they don't even sell it online which is very irritating as it means I have to actually go out and be among the public to get it. It is worth it though. It has a lot more velvety creaminess than the 0% version with none of the guilt associated with the full-fat version.
Incidentally, I reckon the full-fat version, like milk, can still only be 4 or 5%. There's no need for guilt over that, is there? I've evidently been conditioned.
Anyway - if you are a fan of Total and ever see this one for sale, don't hesitate. You'll never look back. And it's perfect for ONO.
Sunday, 29 May 2011
Saturday, 28 May 2011
Weekword
Too late, I had a revelation - there are not enough hours in the day to go out for a long night of celebratory end-of-term drinks, pack for a week's holiday in New York and complete a decent Weekword entry.
Although, last night I also had the revelation that I am never the drunkest person anymore. I was comforted by this, as I gave a fireman's lift to a young male teacher who had this dubious honour and was passed out. However, it might mean I'm a grown up.
Sorry I didn't play properly this week.
Although, last night I also had the revelation that I am never the drunkest person anymore. I was comforted by this, as I gave a fireman's lift to a young male teacher who had this dubious honour and was passed out. However, it might mean I'm a grown up.
Sorry I didn't play properly this week.
Tuesday, 24 May 2011
Tuesday Ten
Ten things I've been reading this week
1. This article about a couple who are choosing to raise their children gender-neutral.
2. This news story about an escaped white tiger. The police spokeswoman is a genius.
3. This book about American girls trafficked in the sex industry. It's written by a woman I sort of know which makes it even more interesting.
4. The Book Thief. Set in Nazi Germany; I'm going to make my students read it next year for background on their study of Hitler.
5. My exam board contract, very carefully. They've gone and changed it. Gits. Expect more exam board whinging next month (I'll save it for then).
6. Scott Adams' blog. This man does a good job of offending people, though I treat his blog like the casual stream of consciousness mine sometimes is....sometimes you ruminate things that might be better kept in your head. This is my favourite of his posts.
7. This diabolical article in the Daily Mail - really, when I first read it, I thought it had been written as a spoof. Made me quite annoyed. I have to wonder if any of these primary-age children (ie, not old enough to be on Facebook) would ever have seen the pictures if some busybody hadn't printed them out and posted them through letterboxes.
I hate the Daily Mail.
8. The supplement with this month's Elle on summer beauty and how to get holiday-ready. Notwithstanding the ash cloud, I'll be in New York for brunch this Sunday and after we get back from that adventure it will be a mere 8 weeks before the big Australian adventure! Which leads me to....
9. Australia guides. Anything I can get my hands on about making the most of it. Getting quite excited now.
10. Assessments. Lots of 'em. I should have marked a dozen in the time it's taken me to blog, too. Le sigh.
1. This article about a couple who are choosing to raise their children gender-neutral.
2. This news story about an escaped white tiger. The police spokeswoman is a genius.
3. This book about American girls trafficked in the sex industry. It's written by a woman I sort of know which makes it even more interesting.
4. The Book Thief. Set in Nazi Germany; I'm going to make my students read it next year for background on their study of Hitler.
5. My exam board contract, very carefully. They've gone and changed it. Gits. Expect more exam board whinging next month (I'll save it for then).
6. Scott Adams' blog. This man does a good job of offending people, though I treat his blog like the casual stream of consciousness mine sometimes is....sometimes you ruminate things that might be better kept in your head. This is my favourite of his posts.
7. This diabolical article in the Daily Mail - really, when I first read it, I thought it had been written as a spoof. Made me quite annoyed. I have to wonder if any of these primary-age children (ie, not old enough to be on Facebook) would ever have seen the pictures if some busybody hadn't printed them out and posted them through letterboxes.
I hate the Daily Mail.
8. The supplement with this month's Elle on summer beauty and how to get holiday-ready. Notwithstanding the ash cloud, I'll be in New York for brunch this Sunday and after we get back from that adventure it will be a mere 8 weeks before the big Australian adventure! Which leads me to....
9. Australia guides. Anything I can get my hands on about making the most of it. Getting quite excited now.
10. Assessments. Lots of 'em. I should have marked a dozen in the time it's taken me to blog, too. Le sigh.
Sunday, 22 May 2011
Sunday Baking: Coffee Walnut Cupcakes
One of my good school friends has a particular liking for coffee-walnut cake and so I decided to oblige him this week, as I had an idea and wanted to see if it would work.
For the base I used this recipe for chocolate cake, but with extra flour instead of cocoa and with only 1 tsp bicarb - I think I have used too much in the past because the flavour hasn't been as good. I made superstrong coffee to add to the batter. I also added a tsp of coffee grounds and a cup of walnut pieces.
For the icing, I wanted to use Camp coffee but they didn't have any in the supermarket so I decided to have a stab at making my own coffee-vanilla syrup. I boiled some strong filter coffee with some sugar, a big spoonful of coffee grounds and half a vanilla pod, split open and scraped, and when it had reduced by about two-thirds I strained it through a piece of muslin and added some more sugar.
Then I mixed 350g Mascarpone with enough icing sugar to make it sweet, and 4-5 dessert spoons of syrup. The icing turned out great, but the cakes could have been a bit more coffee-esque. We'll see how they go down tomorrow.
This recipe made and iced 18 cupcakes.
I also tried another strawberry cake today, because last week's went down so well at school that I was receiving compliments all week, and in fact the two-thirds that I left unattended in the staffroom after lunch had all gone by the end of the day - teachers are gannets! This time I used British strawberries which are finally in the green grocers. The difference is incredible: much stronger flavour and much pinker cake to begin with, so I needed just a drop of food colouring to make it really pink.
I changed the way I did the syrup this week too, since last week it only soaked into the bottom. I mixed the leftover strawb puree with some water and sugar and then when I took the cake out of the oven I sliced off the overflow, skewered the now-flat surface of the cake a few times and then poured the syrup over the hot cake while it was still in the tin, and left it to cool. I followed the principle taught me by my friend's Bosnian mother who taught me to make baklava and made me promise I would only use cold syrup on hot cake, or vice versa.
Then I realised - I never brought my cake boxes home from work last week. This is going to be interesting.
For the base I used this recipe for chocolate cake, but with extra flour instead of cocoa and with only 1 tsp bicarb - I think I have used too much in the past because the flavour hasn't been as good. I made superstrong coffee to add to the batter. I also added a tsp of coffee grounds and a cup of walnut pieces.
For the icing, I wanted to use Camp coffee but they didn't have any in the supermarket so I decided to have a stab at making my own coffee-vanilla syrup. I boiled some strong filter coffee with some sugar, a big spoonful of coffee grounds and half a vanilla pod, split open and scraped, and when it had reduced by about two-thirds I strained it through a piece of muslin and added some more sugar.
Then I mixed 350g Mascarpone with enough icing sugar to make it sweet, and 4-5 dessert spoons of syrup. The icing turned out great, but the cakes could have been a bit more coffee-esque. We'll see how they go down tomorrow.
This recipe made and iced 18 cupcakes.
I also tried another strawberry cake today, because last week's went down so well at school that I was receiving compliments all week, and in fact the two-thirds that I left unattended in the staffroom after lunch had all gone by the end of the day - teachers are gannets! This time I used British strawberries which are finally in the green grocers. The difference is incredible: much stronger flavour and much pinker cake to begin with, so I needed just a drop of food colouring to make it really pink.
I changed the way I did the syrup this week too, since last week it only soaked into the bottom. I mixed the leftover strawb puree with some water and sugar and then when I took the cake out of the oven I sliced off the overflow, skewered the now-flat surface of the cake a few times and then poured the syrup over the hot cake while it was still in the tin, and left it to cool. I followed the principle taught me by my friend's Bosnian mother who taught me to make baklava and made me promise I would only use cold syrup on hot cake, or vice versa.
Then I realised - I never brought my cake boxes home from work last week. This is going to be interesting.
Overnight Oats
There is lately a craze on a forum I frequent for something called Overnight Oats (ONO from now on because it took me three attempts to type the full name correctly). This basically involves preparing porridge but not cooking it, instead leaving it overnight and eating the next day.
Having eaten Weetabix and banana for breakfast for a very long time now, I decided to give it a go this week and (since I am blogging about you'll probably have guessed this part) I am extremely impressed. I've found I'm fuller for longer in the mornings and have enjoyed, thus far, experimenting with different combinations.
The basic recipe requires equal parts of oats and liquid. The liquid can be any combination of milk, juice, water and yogurt. I use half a cup of oats which is plenty; and since I prefer not to drink normal milk I have used the following combinations this week -
Monday: Strawberry puree (leftovers from Sunday's baking foray) with plain yogurt and fresh strawberries
Tuesday: Strawberry puree, plain yogurt and mango
Wednesday: Guava juice, plain yogurt and mango
Thursday: Guava juice, coconut yogurt and pineapple
Friday: Chocolate soy milk, coconut yogurt and blueberries
Friday's was so good I elected to repeat it for Saturday morning, traditionally a breakfast of bacon, which should be an indicator of how much a fan I have become already. I've discovered I like to add a little more liquid than oats to give it a softer texture and that it is possible to make a tub of coconut yogurt last more than two days.
I had fun yesterday picking out some fruit for this week's, since it's berry season now, so tomorrow I'll be having chocolate soy milk, plain yogurt and raspberries.
Mr Z drew a face on a mango this week and pretended it was biting his finger while I was preparing my oats for the next day. In the morning, when I opened the door to the fruit cupboard to get a banana, I found this -
Then the next day, I found these -
I wonder what it will be next....
Having eaten Weetabix and banana for breakfast for a very long time now, I decided to give it a go this week and (since I am blogging about you'll probably have guessed this part) I am extremely impressed. I've found I'm fuller for longer in the mornings and have enjoyed, thus far, experimenting with different combinations.
The basic recipe requires equal parts of oats and liquid. The liquid can be any combination of milk, juice, water and yogurt. I use half a cup of oats which is plenty; and since I prefer not to drink normal milk I have used the following combinations this week -
Monday: Strawberry puree (leftovers from Sunday's baking foray) with plain yogurt and fresh strawberries
Tuesday: Strawberry puree, plain yogurt and mango
Wednesday: Guava juice, plain yogurt and mango
Thursday: Guava juice, coconut yogurt and pineapple
Friday: Chocolate soy milk, coconut yogurt and blueberries
Friday's was so good I elected to repeat it for Saturday morning, traditionally a breakfast of bacon, which should be an indicator of how much a fan I have become already. I've discovered I like to add a little more liquid than oats to give it a softer texture and that it is possible to make a tub of coconut yogurt last more than two days.
I had fun yesterday picking out some fruit for this week's, since it's berry season now, so tomorrow I'll be having chocolate soy milk, plain yogurt and raspberries.
Mr Z drew a face on a mango this week and pretended it was biting his finger while I was preparing my oats for the next day. In the morning, when I opened the door to the fruit cupboard to get a banana, I found this -
Then the next day, I found these -
I wonder what it will be next....
Friday, 20 May 2011
Weekword
Emma picked this week's word: Catharsis
I believe that a lot of people who blog associate their writing with catharsis. I certainly do.
When I started writing this blog, which was back in 1999 on (I think!) a Tripod site, only a few of my friends were reading it, to my knowledge, and I used to write some very personal things here. I definitely used it as a passive-agressive tool a few times and there's a level of detail in those posts that I wouldn't dream of including these days. The internet is too big and too public now to risk baring my soul; although my old blogs are still online, my reasoning is that the sheer size of the WWW keeps them basically hidden in plain sight.
In a way, then, blogging is not longer as cathartic as it once was: or maybe it is just in a different way. If I try to keep blogging through times of personal angst, I find myself concentrating hard on what I CAN say which often reminds me about what's good in my life.
If I feel like a good old emotional cleanse here are the other things I do -
1. Cry. A lot. In private - I generally find crying all the way home from work (45 mins) to be about right. It has to be in private because then it doesn't have to be justified to anybody else.
2. Talk angrily about the thing that has upset me using a lot of creative swearing.
3. Smoke. I know it's not very cleansing but it makes me calmer, and is all the more effective for the fact I'm not a regular smoker anymore.
4. Bake. It's very methodical and I have control over it. And there is a sugary treat to look forward to at the end.
Sorry I was late to the party this week (although I'm sneakily backdating my post so it looks like I was on time!). Don't forget to go and look at all the other entries this week, and if you want to take part next week go to Heather's blog on Monday and leave her a comment.
I believe that a lot of people who blog associate their writing with catharsis. I certainly do.
When I started writing this blog, which was back in 1999 on (I think!) a Tripod site, only a few of my friends were reading it, to my knowledge, and I used to write some very personal things here. I definitely used it as a passive-agressive tool a few times and there's a level of detail in those posts that I wouldn't dream of including these days. The internet is too big and too public now to risk baring my soul; although my old blogs are still online, my reasoning is that the sheer size of the WWW keeps them basically hidden in plain sight.
In a way, then, blogging is not longer as cathartic as it once was: or maybe it is just in a different way. If I try to keep blogging through times of personal angst, I find myself concentrating hard on what I CAN say which often reminds me about what's good in my life.
If I feel like a good old emotional cleanse here are the other things I do -
1. Cry. A lot. In private - I generally find crying all the way home from work (45 mins) to be about right. It has to be in private because then it doesn't have to be justified to anybody else.
2. Talk angrily about the thing that has upset me using a lot of creative swearing.
3. Smoke. I know it's not very cleansing but it makes me calmer, and is all the more effective for the fact I'm not a regular smoker anymore.
4. Bake. It's very methodical and I have control over it. And there is a sugary treat to look forward to at the end.
Sorry I was late to the party this week (although I'm sneakily backdating my post so it looks like I was on time!). Don't forget to go and look at all the other entries this week, and if you want to take part next week go to Heather's blog on Monday and leave her a comment.
Tuesday, 17 May 2011
Tuesday Ten
I've now been seeing a personal trainer for about eight months and it's having a very positive impact on my life. Hence...
Ten Reasons I love being back on the exercise bandwagon
1. I sleep a lot better.
2. When I lift the 10kg weights in circuits to do bench presses, I can practically HEAR people thinking I'm trying to show off and will only manage one or two, and then I pop off a set of 15 and prove them wrong. And today the circuits instructor complimented me on my plank.
3. It's now FUN instead of a chore!
4. I may not have lost any weight, but I have gone down a jeans size.
5. My arms and shoulders look really toned. I can't wait to break out the strapless tops this year.
6. When I get out of breath now, I get my breath back in a very small amount of time.
7. I can do 20 minutes of exercise on a Sunday afternoon and know it's enough.
8. I make myself work out a lot harder than I used to and therefore I reap the benefits of succeeding even when it's difficult.
9. I feel so much stronger and more energetic these days.
10. I got to buy a new sports bra. And it's pink. And it's a back size smaller than I usually buy.
There are so many I didn't even get to mention how good I look from behind these days ;) all those squats are paying dividends.
I've started keeping an exercise log, because I've decided I'd like to be able to run the Bristol 10k next year (it was this weekend just gone). I went to the gym and tried to run, and managed 5 minutes without stopping, and then another 3 with only a 1 minute break in between which I thought was quite good considering I haven't run since 2006. It definitely feels like that 10k is within reach.
Watch this space!
Ten Reasons I love being back on the exercise bandwagon
1. I sleep a lot better.
2. When I lift the 10kg weights in circuits to do bench presses, I can practically HEAR people thinking I'm trying to show off and will only manage one or two, and then I pop off a set of 15 and prove them wrong. And today the circuits instructor complimented me on my plank.
3. It's now FUN instead of a chore!
4. I may not have lost any weight, but I have gone down a jeans size.
5. My arms and shoulders look really toned. I can't wait to break out the strapless tops this year.
6. When I get out of breath now, I get my breath back in a very small amount of time.
7. I can do 20 minutes of exercise on a Sunday afternoon and know it's enough.
8. I make myself work out a lot harder than I used to and therefore I reap the benefits of succeeding even when it's difficult.
9. I feel so much stronger and more energetic these days.
10. I got to buy a new sports bra. And it's pink. And it's a back size smaller than I usually buy.
There are so many I didn't even get to mention how good I look from behind these days ;) all those squats are paying dividends.
I've started keeping an exercise log, because I've decided I'd like to be able to run the Bristol 10k next year (it was this weekend just gone). I went to the gym and tried to run, and managed 5 minutes without stopping, and then another 3 with only a 1 minute break in between which I thought was quite good considering I haven't run since 2006. It definitely feels like that 10k is within reach.
Watch this space!
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