31 January 2020

January Book Update


This year, I'm just going to keep track of books I read as I go through the year - not worrying about how many books I have waiting to be read or anything like that. So each month's roundup will just be a picture collage showing the books I've read, with a running tally for each month. I think I'll break down new (to me) books and re-reading as well. And maybe pick a favourite each month. This could change as the year goes on... Once again, I'll set my goal as 100 books - it's about what I have time for, more or less.

So, in January:  new (to me) books read: 6; books re-read: 3

Favourite book in January:  Once Upon a River, Diane Setterfield

  • I re-read a fantasy series (Graceling, Fire, Bitterblue by Kristin Cashore) to start the year off
  • I read one book in a crime series which I really like - some I've read before, but I hadn't read the series in order, so I'm working my way back through it book by book. Which means that some are re-reads, but this one (Doctored Evidence, Donna Leon) was one which was new to me. 
  • I read a book I picked up in the Phoenix airport at the end of my summer trip to the US as I only had one book with me and was worried I'd run out of reading on the plane. As it happened, I was able to sleep quite a lot, so I didn't need the book, and it's taken until now to get around to it (Clock Dance, Anne Tyler)
  • I read a book whcih I picked up originally solely based on its cover (I am totally a judge-a-book-by-its-cover kind of girl - at least in terms of what attracts me to a book in the first place, if it's not an author I'm familiar with, or hasn't been recommended, etc) which I thought was fantastic. Sets the bar really high for my best books of the year list in December... (Once Upon a River, Diane Setterfield)
  • I read between half and two thirds of a book which has been on my pile for a while, picked up in a charity shop  in (apparently) July 2016. (The Incarnations, Susan Barker) It took a while to make my mind up about this one. I didn't like the first chapter at all, but then I quite liked some of the subsequent bits, but in the end (or rather, in the middle), I just decided that I didn't care that much.  Despite some of the interesting history, the relationship between the central characters in all their incarnations just didn't interest me that much. In its comparison to David Mitchell, I think it came up lacking, as the voices were, for me at least, nowhere near as appealing.
  • I read a book by an author I like a lot (Kate Atkinson, Transcription).  This one was good, though not my absolute favourite of hers. But I do always enjoy her characters and she crafts a good story.
  • I read a teen crime book passed on to me by Sarah (Two Can Keep a Secret, Karen McManus) by an author I've read another book by.  This was a good young adult crime novel - I wasn't entirely sure how it would resolve, though the possibilities were fairly limited, so it wasn't a complete surprise. But it was well written and gripped my attention. (Though I did read it in one sitting over a long evening.)
  • I read another crime fiction book from a series set in Venice (not the Donna Leon) - Venetian Masquerade by Philip Gwynne Jones.  I don't like these as much as the Donna Leon ones, but I enjoy the slightly different perspective here.

28 January 2020

Dinner, 28/1/20: Mushroom & Aubergine Curry


Not popular with my kids, who have this thing about aubergine, but Alex ate mostly mushrooms (which he likes) and the girls aren't here... Personally, I don't get that, because I like both veg, but whatever.

27 January 2020

Dinner, 27/1/20: Sweet Potato, Black Bean & Caramelised Onion Quesadilla


This was a great combination. I put a little cheese in them as well, because to me it's not a quesadilla without cheese, but the original recipe didn't have any (and with the sweet potato, they would have held together without), so if you wanted a vegan version, no problem!  From Mob Veggie

26 January 2020

Dinner, 26/1/20: Jerusalem Artichoke & Horseradish Soup



I don't usually make soup on a weekend, but as I took Sarah back down to Brighton today, I was out most of the day, and wanted something quick and not too taxing for dinner. Also, I knew that she & I would have gone out to lunch in Brighton, so in case I ate a lot, something I could have a small portion of...  So it was Jerusalem artichoke soup with horseradish, and cheesy biscuits. 

Be More Eco 4: Making & Packing your own


One of the other things I did when I was trying to look at how to reduce our environmental impact as a household, was examine what made up the bulk of our plastic recycling - in an attempt to remove it completely.  Milk bottles were high on the list, as I said before. And some other bottles, which were not too hard to remove from the recycling. Another big thing I noticed, though, was yogurt pots and pots from hummous (we eat a LOT of hummous as a house). So, I decided to try to eliminate or reduce those things.  Making your own hummous is really easy - I've done it in the past, but not consistently.  But now, I've committed to always making my own.  If I am really organised, I do the chickpeas from dried, which is really cheap as well. If not, I just use a tin.


Yogurt was more difficult. I tried making yogurt in jars (I remember my mother doing this using the oven light as a small heat for batching, when I was a kid and yogurt was a new, exciting, European thing), but found it hard to get the temperatures right for batching, even after a lot of googling and experimentation (a couple of successes, but more times when it didn't set properly). So for my birthday, the kids got me an electric yogurt maker - it controls the batching temperature really well. 


This doesn't elimiate bought yogurt, in plastic, but it reduces the amount we buy. And it tastes nice. 


Another thing I've been doing for a while is this sort of thing - instead of buying prepared snack size packages of things, I package up my own.  I used to do this with little cubes of cheese for the kids when they took lunches to school (not always, but sometimes). I only have one child packing a lunch these days, but I also take a packed lunch, so once every couple of weeks I pull out a large selection of very small pots and make up a bunch of dried fruit and nut snack pots (you could leave the nuts out of course, if that's an issue).  You still have to buy the dried fruit in plastic bags, of course (though you can get a selection now at zero-waste shops, if you are lucky enough to have one near you), but it's still a huge reduction on packaging...

Book 8: Two Can Keep a Secret by Karen McManus


This is a young adult mystery/thriller passed on to me by Sarah, which I enjoyed - it was reasonably constructed and fun to read, though I did read it in one sitting of an evening, while waiting to collect Sarah at the tube station after a night out.  


(passed on by Sarah, September 2019)

25 January 2020

Book 7: Transcription, Kate Atkinson


I generally like Kate Atkinson, both the Jackson Brodie books and the others, and some of them I like very much (eg Life After Life, which I thought excellent).  This one I enjoyed, though not quite as much as my absolute favourites, and I have to say, it didn't entirely go where I thought it would (which is often a good thing, mind you). She writes well, and crafts a good story.

(bought at Waterstones, Wimbledon. May 2019)

Dinner, 25/1/20: Lime & Double Ginger Noodles


The original recipe here used soba noodles, but the shop was out of them, so I used thin udon noodles instead.  Didn't matter, it was still very nice - we liked the double ginger (fresh grated and pickled) and the radishes were a great addition. Definitely a keeper.

24 January 2020

Dinner, 24/1/20 - Gnocchi with Fresh Tomato Sauce, Salad, Garlic Bread


This gnocchi is from the farmers' market and is the lightest, least stodgy gnocchi I've ever eaten - really lovely. I'll be buying that again.  The sauce was a very light tomato and herb sauce made with fresh tomatoes - I have some in the freezer, so next time it will probably be a little richer, as I will cook it a bit longer (nothing wrong with it, it will just be a different taste next time...).

22 January 2020

Dinner, 22/1/20: Pasta with sweet potato, potato and sundried tomato


This is a dish that we make a lot, especially if we have small bits of sweet potato or squash which want using. Usually, I throw in some cubes of pancetta or bacon, but as I am cooking and eating meeat-free this January, I threw in a bunch of chopped sun-dried tomato instead.  It was very nice, even without the bacon. 

21 January 2020

Dinner, 21/1/20: Stuffed Peppers


We had this before and it's very tasty - stuffed with a mixture of couscous, olives, herbs, dried aprictos, etc and some feta on top. So we decided to have it again. The bell peppers hold the stuffing better, but the romano peppers have a lovely flavour, so it's nice to mix them. Vegans could simply leave the feta off (or use vegan "cheese"), so I'm tagging this vegan as well, as the rest of the dish is vegan.

20 January 2020

Dinner, 20/1/20: Tacos de Papas Neuvas


Or new potato tacos, if you prefer. The filling for these was new potatoes, boiled then fried in slices with onion and parsley, then chopped avocado, roasted tomatoes and some chopped cheddar. We had them more like burritos than tacos because I had larger wraps, but they were very tasty. 

19 January 2020

Dinner, 19/1/20: Green Bean, Halloumi and Potato Bake, Salad


This is a tray bake with green beans, potatoes and halloumi - really simple but very tasty. We had it with a big salad.

Be More Eco 3: Switching to Glass


So, another thing that I've been trying to do recently is to stop buying products that come in plastic bottles - this is not always possible of course, but where there is an option that comes in glass, I'm trying to use that option instead.  Our biggest saver of plastic in the past few months has been switching back to milk delivery.  This is even better than simply buying in glass, because the bottles are reused many times rather than simply recycled. My milk delivery service (in this area, we are served by Milk and More) also offers juices in glass bottles, and excitingly for when Olivia is home, both soy and oat milk in glass bottles (larger bottles, but still).  This means, that I have also virtually stopped buying tetra packs, which again, are recyclable in principle, but not buying them and instead using refillable glass is a much better option.


Some things are quite easy to find in glass bottles - there are loads of types of olive oil in glass, so that's simple.  Regular vegetable oil is virtually impossible to find in glass, so I've bought  Clearspring Sunflower oil (bottle at back left) a couple of times - but also, the zero waste shop offers rapeseed oil as a refill, so that's what I've been doing when I can. 


We still drink some squash, though not as much as when the kids were little, but there is lots of squash available in glass (though they call it "cordial", which makes it sound more posh).  The other plus is the flavour is much nicer than other squash anyway.  My kids mostly drink water (or tea or coffee), but when they want something else, these are good alternatives.


Another thing I've done is to buy a smaller size ketchup bottle (we don't use a lot of ketchup - I appreciate in some households this would not be a practical solution).

There are other instances of avoiding buying plastic things, and opting for tins or glass instead - for instance, I've mostly stopped buying olives from the deli section (not the counter, but the pre-packed section) and instead, buy tinned or jarred olives. 

It takes thought, planning and work to avoid plastic packaging, but even small steps make a difference.


Book 6: Once Upon a River, Diane Setterfield


This was great. From the very first few pages I knew it was going to be good as the writing is so beautiful and evocative. She's a great storyteller. All of the characters's stories as they interweave and head towards one another are compelling, and I really could barely put it down. Its the kind of book one stays up until one in the morning to finish, and I did!

(Waterstones Brighton, Sept 2019)

18 January 2020

Dinner, 18/1/20: Potato Pockets, Roast Squash, Spicy Brussels & Flowers


Sarah and I went to the Farmers Market this morning and picked up some stuff for dinner - the potato pockets are from the bread stall - it's a bread outside rather than a pastry, with a potato and cheese filling. The little squashes (red kuri) came from one of the stalls, and the brussels sprouts flowering tops from another. The actual sprouts were left in the fridge from last week's veggie box.  Yum!

17 January 2020

Dinner, 17/10/20: Blue Cheese & Brussels Sprout Mac & Cheese


A few weeks back, we had a pizza with brussels sprouts and blue cheese - which is amazing to eat, despite the impression from the ingredients.  With more brussels in our box this week, we were trying to think how we wanted to eat them (one common way we use, shredded with pasta and little cubes of bacon or pancetta is out this month, as I'm not eating (or cooking) meat in January). Sarah suggested the pizza again, but as we just had it (by our standards) I wanted something different.  We decided to turn it into mac & cheese. I used both blue cheese and cheddar in the sauce, as well as some mascarpone we had left in the fridge, and shredded the sprouts.  It was fabulous - we'll definitely do that again.

15 January 2020

Book 5: Clock Dance, Anne Tyler


I've been reading Anne Tyler for many, many years - even before Accidental Tourist came out.  Partly because I usually really enjoy her stories, and partly because of the Baltimore area link perhaps.  Some of them are better than others, but none of them are bad.  This one I particularly enjoyed - can't put my fingers on why, but I just really liked the characters this time around, I guess. I had picked this up in the Phoenix airport on my way back from the US at the end of the summer, as I realised I only had one book with me, and was worried I might run out of things to read on the plane, but luckily, I was able to sleep quite a bit and ended up not needing it before now...

Dinner, 15/1/20: Frittata with mushrooms, smoked tomato, chard


A frittata is always a nice, quick supper (if you aren't vegan), and with eggs from the organic box or famers' market, it's particularly nice. I like mushrooms with eggs a lot, but often what goes in the frittata is whatever is around that might be nice or wants using. Here, I used a bit of chopped Swiss chard, some smoked tomatoes (from the tomato stall at the famers' market - unusual and awesome), a bit of grated horseradish root, some parsley. And hey, presto.  Served with toast.


14 January 2020

Dinner, 14/1/20: Cauliflower & Sweet Potato Biryani


This is one we have quite often - cauliflower, sweet potatoes and green beans, with added cashews at the end. Shown here with a couple of poppadoms and some chutney on the side. Yum. 

13 January 2020

Dinner, 13/1/20: Courgette & Black Bean Quesadillas


The filling in these is roasted courgette slices, refried black beans (or you can use a tin), goats cheese.  And a pico de gallo to top it off. Very tasty!

12 January 2020

Dinner, 12/1/20: Spanakopita (Spinach Pie), Salad


A family favourite. Spinach, eggs, feta, spring onions in the filling, filo pastry on the top and bottom. Yum!


Be More Eco 2: Bags


Plastic bags are one of my bugbears - the abundance of them, and the unncessary-ness of many of the instances of them, really bother me.  But I think what's needed to address the issue of plastic bags is a seachange, rather than a small fix.  It's nice that shops are now charging for single use bags, but really, if you want to make a serious difference, you have to charge 50p per bag, not 5p.  Personally, I'd like to see no plastic carrier bags available in shops, full stop.  If you are going to the shop, take a bag with you; it's not rocket science.

I read recently that plastic carrier bags were originally developed to help with deforestation issues - to replace paper bags.  And I can see why that would have been a good thing originally. The problem for me is the fact that so many plastic bags are single use - even ones which are not designed to be.


We need bags all the time.  I personally use bags a lot. The issue comes with which ones, and how they are used. And reused. Or not.

I've been taking my own bags to the supermarket for so many years I can't even count any more - certainly the entire time I've lived in the UK (over 25 years).  I used to have "bags for life" - the thicker plastic ones - and I've gradually moved to even more sturdy ones.    It's so incredibly easy to take your own bags to the supermarket, that it really bothers me when people object to doing it. I just keep some in the boot of my cars.  Then they are always there, and always ready to be used. Or if I'm walking to the shop, I take some from the house before I go. 

Ok, I do buy bags to line my kitchen bin with, and I know that some people who take "single-use" bags from the supermarket may use them for rubbish instead of buying bin liners, which is fair enough.  But the vast majority of people who take supermarket bags are just lazy or don't care. And that annoys me. 


These are a couple of small cloth bags which I keep in my rucksack/handbag so I always have a bag with me when I go out, just in case. This is easy to do.  Harder if you don't carry a bag of some sort, but even so, if you are going out to somewhere where you might buy something, it's easy to throw a small plastic or cloth bag in your pocket.


In our house, we do keep all the single use bags we end up with - we don't end up with many these days, but if we do (e.g. if you buy something from duty free on an airplane they won't let you not have a bag or if someone gives me something already in a plastic bag) - and we reuse these. Many of them multiple times.


It's not just carrier bags that we keep and reuse, either.  Sometimes smaller things come in bags, and you can't avoid it - here we have some instances of bread.  Luckily, these are the soft plastic bags, not the crinkly kind (which unfortunately, usually just have to be thrown away), so they are easy to shake out, or rinse lightly, and reuse. 


We keep a jar of this sort of bag - any bag that can be reused, is reused.  We use these for bread that didn't come in a bag in the first place (e.g. farmers market bread), sandwiches for Alex's lunch (he can then throw the bag away in good conscience - and he also sometimes uses wax wraps, too), putting things in for the freezer:  really, anything which you'd use a bought plastic bag for. 


And yes, I still do have a selection of bought plastic bags, but these are all reused as much as possible as well (except the green ones, which are for the food waste bin) - I haven't bought a new box of small bags in well over a year (I actually know this for a fact, because I was curious how many we used, so I started dating the boxes of bags to see how often I bought them and the newest date on them is November 2018; most of them pre-date my dating system!). The ones with the zip tops, we rinse and use again. Some of the freezer bags (the blue ones) maybe only get used once (particularly if they've had meat in them), but we use so few of them, that once they are eventually gone, I won't buy new ones, I'll just use the reused bread bags for what I use these for now. 


And of course, fresh produce from the supermarket sometimes needs to be bagged - I have small, reusable bags of several sorts for this. I don't really bother with larger items (cabbage, broccoli, courgettes) but if I am buying a kilo of tomatoes, they do need a bag to allow them to be easily weighed and not squished in the shopping bag. 




11 January 2020

Dinner, 11/1/20: Stir Fried Veg with Peanuts


Took Olivia back to uni today, so I wanted a meal that would be quick and easy because of not knowing what time I'd be back, or how tired I'd be. We had some broccoli and a pepper which needed using; I also picked up a package of sugar snap peas.  The sauce was made from garlic, ginger, soy sauce and some gochujang paste (a Korean sweet chili paste) which we bought for a specific recipe and now of course have loads of!

10 January 2020

Dinner, 10/1/20: Spaghetti with courgettes and lemon, salad


An easy, quick supper using grated courgettes and lemon - we were out to the theatre tonight, so needed to catch an early train, so a quick supper first was the order of the day.

08 January 2020

Book 4: Doctored Evidence, Donna Leon


In the Guido Brunetti series, this is the one I'm up to in my long-term read/re-read (before I didn't read them strictly in order, so I've read some and not read others).  This one, I'd not read before. As always, a nice strong story with good characters. In this read through, I'm enjoying the development of the secondary characters a lot (e.g. Vianello and Elettra). 

Dinner, 8/1/20: Spicy Shepherd's Pie with butternut squash


This is a recipe I've cooked before from DK's There's a Vegan in the House. The recipe uses sweet potato in the topping, which is what I've done before, but as there was a butternut squash in my veggie box this week, which wanted using in some manner, we decided to try boiling and mashing it as the topping in lieu of sweet potatoes. It worked really well - didn't get crispy on top (except for the breadcrumbs), but the contrast of the squash with the curry spices in the lentils worked nicely. 


07 January 2020

Dinner, 7/1/20: Chickpea, spinach & potato curry


This is a standby in our house, almost always eaten with some flatbreads from our local shop, which makes its own naan-style bread. The original recipe uses new potatoes, but I use others if I don't have new. Waxy ones work better, as they hold their shape well. 

06 January 2020

Dinner, 6/1/20: Peanut Butter & Broccoli Pad Thai


A recipe from a new(ish) cookbook, East by Meera Sodha.  I've tried a number of her recipes in the past year or two - she writes a vegan column for the Guardian - usually with quite a lot of success. This one is the first I've tried from her cookbook, but it definitely won't be the last.  This was really nice, and I liked in particular the way the broccoli came out. A keeper.  

05 January 2020

Dinner, 5/1/20: Butterbean Stew


We love this one  - Alex in particular is a huge fan of butterbeans. It's easy, though it cooks for a while, so it's not quick. This time, I chopped up a few of the lovely smoked tomatoes from the stand at the farmers' market and sprinkled them on top at the end, which added a little something extra. Yum. 

Book 3: Bitterblue, Kristin Cashore



...and this is the third in the trilogy I started re-reading at the beginning of the year. A combination of being riveting reads and having time off meant I was able to get through one a day, which is always nice.  I really do like this series - the first one is definitely a bit lighter, but there are lots of important and interesting issues dealt with in the series, especially in this last one. 

Be More Eco. 1: Soap


In the past few years, and particularly in the past year, so many of us have begun to really put some effort into our impact on the environment, especially in regard to plastics consumption. Yes, some plastic gets recycled, but so much of it doesn't, even if we put it in our recycling bins, that I feel better trying to remove as much single-use and low-use plastic from my life as I can.  There's still quite a bit which it's tricky to get rid of, so I'm making the changes wherever I can. I'm also looking at other ways to make my lifestyle a bit less hard on the planet.  So this year, for a while anyway (until I run out of things to say) I'm going to blog about some of my changes. Who knows, I may even inspire others to make some changes themselves - but as with all my blogging, ultimately, is less proselytising and more simply recording my own thoughts for posterity. 

I've long been a fan of soap - actual soap rather than liquid soap. I like the smell, the feel, the lathery-ness.  In light of this, and my decision to be more eco-aware,  I decided to make a move back to soap for all our hand and bodywashing needs, and ditch the shower gels and liquid hand soaps.  With the advent of zero waste shops, it is of course now possible to refill your handsoap and shower gels, so if you are a person who prefers the liquids, it's possible to use them without the environmental concerns of all those plastic bottles. Which is nice.


We do still have some shower gels around the house, as I tend to get given them as gifts from students, etc., but I'm not buying any new ones. Which is great, as I can now have four different soaps on the go at once.  Some of mine - many of them, perhaps - come from small, independent producers - craft fairs and markets are great for soaps.  Some come from larger producers (Lush - fab soaps) and some of them are gifts as well. 



And when they get down to the little stubby bits which are hard to use, I have one of these:


the little bits go inside and you have an instant scrubby.