Dinner, 3/2/19: Hot & Sour Soup

A favourite, especially for the boys. We don't have this when the girls are home - Sarah's not a fan of soup, and Olivia is a vegetarian...

Dinner, 1/12/19: Roast Squash; Mushrooms with Taleggio and Thyme

I think it was an acorn squash - was in Sainsburys in a selection of "assorted squash" - but it looked acorny. The mushrooms were good - a different way of stuffing them than I've done before. (Spinach under there...)

Year Long Declutter, week 48 (680 items total)

Some more tote bags which are surplus to requirement - a few of them were freebies from uni open days, but we have lots, and they just make the drawer crammed. A few bits and pieces of jewellery which need to go. And some fruit and veg boxes for the recycling. I keep a few, but the stack was getting huge.

November Roundup

WHAT WAS FOR DINNER, NOVEMBER 2019

• 28th: Fend for yourself Thursday
• 27th: Creamy White Bean and Kale Pesto Pasta
• 26th: Parsnip, Carrot and Lentil Soup
• 25th: Vegetable & Tofu Stir Fry
• 24th: Leek & Potato Curry
• 23rd: Paneer Stuffed Pancakes
• 22nd: Salmon, Pak Choi, Mushrooms (G & A - K out)
• 21st: Fend for yourself Thursday
• 20th: Sweet Potato & Kale Hash with Baked Eggs
• 19th: Roast Squash; Spicy Roast Cauliflower & Chickpeas
• 18th: Potato & Leek Soup
• 17th: German sausages, sauerkraut, chips
• 16th: Vegan (mostly) birthday feast
• 15th: Out to dinner (Thai) for K birthday
• 14th: Fend for yourself Thursday
• 13th: Orichiette with sprouts and pancetta (Alex cooking, K out)
• 12th: Onion & mushroom frittata
• 11th: Moroccan spiced cauliflower soup
• 10th: Roasted vegetables, Yorkshire puddings
• 9th: pork chops, braised leeks and carrots
• 8th: K at school fireworks
• 7th: Fend for yourself Thursday
• 6th: Puy lentils, squash and kale
• 5th: K in Birmingham
• 4th: K in Birmingham
• 3rd: Stuffed squash
• 2nd: Jacket potatoes with toppings
• 1st: K out

November Book Update

I liked the way I kept track of my book reading last year, so I'm going to do something similar this year - just monitor books in and out, without any pressure to declutter or read things in order, etc. I'm once again setting a goal to read 100 books in the year - I read 102 in 2018. Otherwise, my only goal is to keep reading and keep enjoying books!

In January: books read: 9; books out: 2; books in: 5; books on windowsill: 59
In February: books read: 10; books out: 0; books in: 0; books on windowsill: 54
In March: books read: 4; books out: 0; books in: 0; books on windowsill: 52
In April: books read: 6; books out: 4; books in: 2; books on windowsill: 48
In May: books read: 10; books out: 0; books in: 3; books on windowsill: 48

In June: books read: 9; books out: 0; books in: 0; books on windowsill: 46
In July: books read: 2; books out: 0; books in: 0; books on windowsill: 46
In August: books read: 16; books out: 0; books in: 2; books on windowsill: 47
In September: books read: 5; books out: 0; books in: 6; books on windowsill: 51
In October: books read 11; books out: 0; books in: 0; books on windowsill: 49

In November: books read 8; books out: 0; books in: 0; books on windowsill: 44

And here's the breakdown for November:

• I re-read several books in a series I enjoy (Thrones, Dominations; A Presumption of Death; The Attenbury Emeralds; The Late Scholar by Jill Paton Walsh)
• I read the third (final) book in a series I've been reading (The Toll, Neal Shusterman) which I read before it could even be added to my list - been waiting for that to come out
• I read three books from my list (Even the Dogs, Jon McGregor; Last Night in Montreal, Emily St John Mandel; Little Fires Everywhere, Celeste Ng)
• I read a fantasy novel I picked up in the bookstore recently, which I think I've looked at before and not bought, but which I succumbed to this time (Rotherweird, Andrew Caldecott)

Here's the updated list of Books to Read in 2019. These are the books hanging out on my windowsill upstairs, waiting to be read. Or discarded. But hopefully, read. I started the year with 60 books on this list - you can see how long the books have been knocking around by the dates in brackets.

1. Ford Maddox Ford, Parade's End (Nov 2012 - birthday present - bought after the BBC adaptation - but I knew I wouldn't read it straight away as I wanted to let time pass from the adaptation.  Enough time has probably passed now...)
2. Elizabeth Gaskell, North and South
3. Gabriel Garcia Marquez, One Hundred Years of Solitude (would be a re-read, bought shortly after his death - spring 2014 - as I was reminded how much I enjoyed it and I didn't seem to own a copy - think my old one fell apart, probably...) 
4. Daphne du Maurier, Frenchman's Creek (Waterstones Piccadilly - 2016? bought in principle for the girls, but thought I might read it again as it's been ages)
5. Daphne du Maurier, Jamaica Inn (Waterstones Piccadilly - 2016? bought in principle for the girls, but thought I might read it again as it's been ages)
6. Susan Barker, The Incarnations (charity shop, July 2016)
7. Orhan Pamuk. A Strangeness in Mind (Christmas present 2016)
8. Andrew Taylor, The Ashes of London (passed to me by Geoff after he read it, April 2017)
9. John Irving, Avenue of Mysteries  (Waterstones Piccadilly, April 2017)
10. Mikhail Bulgokov, The Master and Margarita (charity shop, April 2017)
11. Jane Smiley, Early Warning (Abe Books, May 2017, after finishing the first in the series)
12. Siri Hustvedt, A Woman Looking at Men Looking at Women (Waterstones Wimbledon, July 2017)
13. Lucy Worsley, A Very British Murder (Waterstones Oxford, August 2017)
14. Sebastian Barry, Days without End (Abe Books, January 2018)
15. Arundhati Roy, The Ministry of Utmost Happiness (passed to me by Geoff, Feb 2018)
16. Sebastian Faulkes, A Week in December (Charity Shops, March 2018)
17. Margaret Atwood, Oryx and Crake (passed on by Geoff, April 2018)
18. Spark, Alice Broadway (Waterstones Wimbledon, April 2018)
19. The Mime Order, Samantha Shannon (Abe Books, May 2018)
20. Salt to the Sea, Ruta Sepetys  (Waterstones Picadilly, July 2018)
21. Selected Stories, Alice Munro (charity shop, July 2018)
22. The Murderer's Ape, Jakob Wegelius (Waterstones Wimbledon, August 2018)
23. Islands in the Stream, Ernest Hemingway (Abebooks, Sept 2018)
24. Throne of Glass, Sarah J Maas (Waterstones Wimbledon, October 2018)
25. The Mistletoe Bride, Kate Mosse (charity shop, November 2018)
26. Hillbilly Elegy, J D Vance (Waterstones Piccadilly, December 2018)
27. Homegoing, Yaa Gyasi (Christmas present, 2018)
28. Theft, Peter Carey (charity shop, January 2019)
29. The Crossing, Cormac McCarthy (charity shop, January 2019)
30. Elinor Oliphant is Completely Fine, Gail Honeyman (Waterstones Wimbledon, January 2019)
31. And the Mountains Echo, Khaled Hosseini (charity shop, Harborne, April 2019)
32. Kate Atkinson, Transcription (Waterstones Wimbledon, May 2019)
33. Laini Taylor, Muse of Nightmares  (Waterstones Wimbledon, May 2019)
34. The Case for Jamie by Brittany Cavallaro (AbeBooks, June 2019)
35. The Red Queen by Christina Henry (Waterstones online, June 2019)
36. The Venetian Masquerade by Philip Gwynne Jones (Waterstones online, June 2019)
37. The Last Picture Show, Larry McMurtry (used book store, Laurel MD, August 2019)
38. The Reef, Edith Wharton (used book store, Laurel MD, August 2019)
39. Clock Dance, Anne Tyler (Phoenix Airport, Sept 2019)
40. Unsheltered, Barbara Kingsolver (Waterstones Brighton, Sept 2019)
41. The Wedding, Dorothy West  (Waterstones Brighton, Sept 2019)
42. Once Upon a River, Diane Setterfield  (Waterstones Brighton, Sept 2019)
43. Tamar, Mal Peet  (Waterstones Brighton, Sept 2019)
44. Fresh Water, Akwaeke Emezi (Waterstones Brighton, Sept 2019)

Pecan Pie (what passes for Thanksgiving in my life...)

Dinner, 30/11/19: Massaman Curry

Cooked tonight with my friend who was visiting for the weekend - while Alex made a pecan pie on the side. Yum and double yum!

Dinner, 29/11/19: Red Wine Risotto with Bacon and Mushrooms

Dinner, 27/11/19: Creamy White Bean and Kale Pesto Pasta

Lovely - nice use of kale in a different way, and the beans made the pasta sauce really creamy. 

Dinner, 26/11/19: Carrot, Parsnip and Lentil Soup

Dinner, 25/11/19: Tofu & Vegetable Stir Fry

Dinner, 24/11/19: Leek and Potato Curry

Not as good as it promised - a bit bland. 

Year Long Declutter, week 47 (666 items total)

Various bits and pieces here - some reusable carrier bags - the pandas one has a big rip in it (it's ancient), so it will become a bag in which to take things to the charity shop for donation. The others, in the middle picture, just aren't used, so again, they'll become donation bags. an old backpack which is worn out, some books for Alex's school's Christmas fair bookstall, etc.

Book 92: Little Fires Everywhere, Celeste Ng

Sometimes when a book is really well reviewed and hyped, it can fail to live up to expectations - I hate that. Luckily, this book was just as good as all the comments promised. She really hit the characters well, and even though I had a feeling where some of the elements were going, I wasn't sure about the overall arc. Glad I had this over a weekend, so I could read it a lot without putting it down.

Dinner, 23/11/19: Paneer Stuffed Pancakes.

Book 91: Rotherweird, Andrew Caldecott

Really enjoyed this - an interesting idea. Hard to talk about without giving things away, but it will be fun to see where it goes with the next in the series.

Dinner, 20/11/19: Sweet potato and kale hash with baked eggs

This was really nice - the sweet potato is grated, so it cooks quickly and is really soft. There's bacon in it, which adds a nice savoury flavour, and there are also sundried tomatoes - if you were a vegetarian, you could increase the amount of tomatoes and leave out the bacon and it would still be tasty.

Dinner, 19/11/19: Roast Squash, Spicy Roast Cauliflower and Chickpeas

Used a bit of my Vampire Slayer hot sauce (with lots of garlic) on the cauliflower, which worked really well. 

Dinner, 18/11/19: Potato & Leek Soup

With a bit of blue cheese in it. It's hard photographing soup in a way that looks attractive.

Year Long Declutter, Week 46: 654 items total

Cleaned out the hall cupboard recently, so these are some things from there, at least mostly. A couple of torches which no longer work, a lot of paper bags too small to be super useful, a picture frame which doesn't fasten properly, an old modem, a few candles, etc which are no longer used, a door decoration which has seen better days, and a few other bits and pieces. Some bound for the charity shop, some for the bin (or recycling). The cupboard is still full, but at least it's tidier!