Wednesday 4 July 2012

A selfish vent and a quick share of some recent foodiness :-)

So today I need to use this outlet to vent a little....(and it's kinda food/health related....ish!)

My Grandma has been living with my mum and I since about Easter, except for a couple of visits back to check on Grandad, and she is winding me up like you wouldn't believe. She is here to help my mum while she's going through chemo, and I think that my mum tolerates because she knows how she would feel the need to be involved if her child was unwell. And she's constantly flapping about the kitchen and our food, and I can't step in and cook for everyone/myself because it is what keeps her going...well not as often as I'd like to (i.e. every evening!) I know she is well-meaning, I don't need to be told this, but it doesn't settle well with me as someone who has been used to seeing to her own nutritional requirements for the last 3 years. I know I'm being unreasonable and that I should be grateful, but here are the niggley things that will be better off my chest:

  • Boiling vegetables into oblivion, so that they are a floppy mulch and you can see all the goodness being drained off in the water. I'm used to crunchy veg, heated but barely past raw!
  • Mountains of white rice/bread/pasta every evening, and this is something I really can have no say in as my mum's change in tastes since chemo means that brown varieties are gross to her at the moment.
  • Not enough protein. She really makes an effort to cook meat-free, for which I really appreciate, but sometimes using mushrooms as a like-for-like meat doesn't quite cut it...and alongside a mound of refined carbs, my macro balance is way out of whack.
  • Putting parmesan on stuff (not strictly veggie)
  • Doing my washing up. OK, a weird thing to complain about, but I like to do my bit, and will often re-use a clean enough cup/dish. But seriously, used dishes now have a life-expectancy of about 10 minutes in this house.
  • Only using half a vegetable, like a carrot, then wrapping it up in a sandwich bag, putting it back in the fridge and never using it again. Seriously, just use the whole thing!

OK, I think that's all. I know it's irrational, and I can imagine you are thinking that there are more important things in life and I should be grateful that someone is here to take care of my mum and I, and that I have a loving grandmother at all. And I AM grateful for that. I am just not grateful of the above ^.

If your still with me at this point, thanks for reading guys, I really appreciate this opportunity to vent and share my experiences. I KNOW it looks pathetic, at that's another reason why I find it frustrating as I just can't reason with my natural impulse to find it oh-so annoying. Perhaps that's why I find bigger sh*t is easier to accept as I can reason with it and it's not so inexplicable.

Eurgh. I'll get over myself soon. Being unemployed and bored gives you a lot of thinking space.

In food news, when I have been able to prepare my own food here is some of the stuff I've made but of which I haven't had the opportunity to show on here:


I made a kidney bean chilli but added interest with some of my ouzo and tomato sauce and boosted the protein with a scoop of pea protein powder

 Here is a salad I made with some leftovers from Sunday's BBQ and my Hot Chickpeas from Greece. The marinade from the chickpeas was a pefect dressing. Shame they're all gone now :-(
 I made an 'almost a dahl' with red lentils, but instead of curry spices, hit it with the tomato and ouzo sauce, again boosted with pea protein. In savoury dishes, I'm really rather liking the protein powder addition. I can understand that some wouldn't like the texture nor the fact that it can sometimes 'blanden' a flavourful dish, but I found it actually helped to turn down the almost sickliness of the sauce, that I was experiencing after the first few mouthfuls
I made popcorn! I used half the pack Emma sent me for Foodie Penpals, popped in coconut oil and flavoured with maple syrup. Look how much just 45g yielded!!! I can't wait to experiment with the other half of the pack, with a spicey seasoning perhaps. And I still need to bake those jam tarts - tomorrow perhaps!
And I made houmous/hummus, based on the cannellini bean houmous/hummus in Hugh Fernley-Whittingstall's Veg book, but with the original CHICKPEA!!! I used my tahini from Greece. It's definitely chunkier than supermarket houmous/hummus, thanks to the rattling of my blender an the smell of burning, but I'm happy with the flavouring (a pinch of dried chili and herbs de provence) and it will last me for about 4 lunches.


In fitness news, I had a yoga cass for the first time in a couple of months and it was amazing. A full hour (didn't feel like it though) of fitness-tailored yoga, with some familiar moves and some new and challenging ones, and I loved it! It was so refreshing and relaxing but I still felt worked out by the end. I'm looking forward to my pump class tomorrow, though I am hoping to get some decent, heavy lifting in before the end of the week.

Thanks again for putting up with this rant-y post. I will be back on 'healthy' tomorrow, promise!

Hannah xxx

1 comment:

  1. Oh my gosh, my grandma is the same! She loves her microwave and microwaves veg until they are colourless (and tasteless) lol. She also makes a lot of white rice in the microwave. Double nutritional bad! But oh well, they are set in their ways right ;)

    Your eats look great though! Thanks for following by blog, I'll be stopping by your often too!

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