Been Busy

I've been busy - Cully has been away for another week on a botanising trip (this time west coast of Scotland for a Lichen Field Course - two weeks ago he was at the Southern tip of England at a place called The Lizard for a week with the "Serious Plant Squad") Georgia and I have had fun - but its hard doing all the chores and being super organised in the mornings for getting ready for school and work. But I have to say, Georgia is amazingly easy to be with. No tears or tantrums - a delight. We "discovered" that her favourite soup, Mediteranian Vegetable, can be easily home made instead of poured and heated from a tin. This has been a good lesson for her - Watching me chop the vegetables and the cooking process. Lots of good questions like: "Can things cook in cold water?" She has absolutely GOBBLED the two batches of this soup and says that it is much better than tinned soup. The trick, I think, was to chop the vegetable VERY small.

Here is the recipe:

Cook a small amount of rice.

Dice four or five new potatoes (or one medium normal spud) and cook until just tender.

Set these aside.

Chop into small dice : 2 sticks of celery, 2 medium carrots, 1 red pepper, 1 zucchini (courgette) 1 onion (we used a large leak instead)- Saute in olive oil with some dried oregano and basil until just tender.

.Boil some water and pour over the vegetables. Add enough so that you have one third veg to two thirds water.

Add a stock cube.

Pour in some finely chopped tomatoes (fresh or from a tin) or some tomato juice or passata. Just judge by eye until it is tomato-y enough for you.

Taste and add salt and pepper if necessary then add the rice and spuds.

YUMM

Eating this a few times this week has fitted in with my new eating plan. I've been to a nutritionist to get some help with balancing my blood sugars so that I feel better and sort my facial skin and eyes out. This all stems from the recent rosacea diagnosis from my docter which lotions and antibiotics haven't helped. Anyway the plan involves NO processed foods, NO sugar in any form (cakes, cookies, candy, in coffee etc), very limited fruit (after all fruit contains massive amounts of sugar). So I have been having lots of protein and vegetables and not much starch. I had a cracker of a headache the first week, but by week two I noticed that I was less hungry all day and felt better. I have lost 10 pounds in 4 weeks too - nice bonus. My face and eyes are a lot less inflamed.

The photos from my week were taken at Gisborough Hall in Guisborough, North Yorkshire. I was there to suss it out as a venue for a a drive day that I am helping to sort out for work. The cat is called Scrimble and belongs to Lord Gisborough. He (the cat) was drinking cream from a saucer in the drawing room when I arrived. The little Georgian girl grew up to be the Victorian woman. If I remember correctly, her name was Charlotte Jane. Cool place in a VERY English country house kind of way - except that there were lamas in the grounds instead of sheep, but it was too foggy to photograph them.