Summer eating plan

In just a few days it will be May and although we had a few cold days again a week or so ago, the sun is finally starting to look like it may be here to stay for a while. I'm not quite in sandals yet, but it feels like it won't be long. Outdoors aquajogging starts up again next week and I can't wait. I was hoping to attend a zen meditation session two weeks ago but couldn't make it and then forgot to even try last week. I've just sent an email to see if I can attend this evening and if not, I'll head to the general open session next Monday. The calendar is definitely starting to fill up again.

A blurry photo of the current view from my office window. The light is too bright to show the amazing colour of the wisteria and since we've no smell-o-vision either, you'll have to use your imagination.

 

Along with the change in weather comes a change in eating habits. The soups and stews I've eaten so much of over the past few months will be out, salads and sandwiches in. My cooking and keeping an eye on eating properly has been all over the place since I had COVID. My energy, too. And so I decided to take it easy on myself in April and spend what energy I had coming up with a decent meal plan/concept for warm weather eating. I'm just about there but need to still figure out calories and protein for a few of the dishes I've selected. And I've bought most of what I need, except for stocking up on fresh salad leaves or other vegetables every week. 

Keeping it as simple as possible, and because I still do have some Optifast pouches to use up, for May I'll be having quark and fruit for most breakfasts, with an occaisional Optifast chocolate or vanilla drink. Lunches for about three weeks of May will be soup as I do have some in the freezer to use up as well as some Optifast. I'll scatter some spur of the moment canteen/bakery/meeting friends lunches in there to get me through the month.

And dinners will essentially be salads of various kinds. What I plan to do is prepare a lot of Korean-style side-dishes and then each week or two prepare some kind of protein. The salads will then be made up every day depending on what I feel like from each of the following categories:

Salad: mostly salad leaves (oakleaf, lambs lettuce, chard, spinach etc.), sometimes lentils or chickpeas, very rarely maybe potatoes or pasta

Side-dishes: a small amount from two or three different ones

Protein: chicken, tofu, meatballs, eggs

Sprinkly toppings: seeds and/or nuts

Dressing: vinaigrette or yoghurt

To start me off, I've planned on the following:

Side-dishes

1. Kimchi (still need to buy this)
2. Spicy braised green beans with feta
   
3. Pickled red onions 
4. Spicy Korean coleslaw
5. Creme fraiche coleslaw (Found on instagram. I've always claimed to not like coleslaw but really, it's mayonnaise I don't like. Anyway, I figured if I'm going to chop cabbage up small, I might as well try more than one recipe. Will probably use cream cheese and/or yoghurt and/or quark rather than creme fraiche.)
   
6. Pineapple salsa (although I'll be using a tin)
   
7. Tomatoes (unplanned but they had local tomatoes in the supermarket yesterday and I couldn't resist - they must be from a heated greenhouse but I'll bet they're still very good for a salad - might mix with some onion or scallions)

Proteins

1. Korean pancake with scallions
2. Panfried tofu in garlic soy sesame sauce
3. Super crispy tofu (recipe from Little Lou Cooks on instagram - I can't manage to log in at the moment from this pc but I highly recommend checking her out. Also on tiktok and FB, I think)
   
4. Broccoli fritters (also from Little Lou Cooks)
   
5. Chopped omelette
   
6. Spicy chilli and honey pork (Pinch of Nom recipe but made with the veal I bought months ago)
7. Chicken and apple (another Little Lou Cooks recipe that I'm going to try in the slow cooker)
   
8. Lentil and chickpea salad with feta and tahini
   

Sprinkly toppings (I plan to just mix everything into a small jar to use for the week)

1. Pumpkin seeds
2. Sunflower seeds
3. Hazelnuts
4. Walnuts
5. Sesame seeds
   

Dressings

1. Standard olive oil and balsamic vinegar
2. Olive oil and lemon and garlic
3. Going to try a few different yoghurt dressing recipes - to start off easy, I've bought a packet of pre-mixed herbs that you just mix with yoghurt and vinegar
4. I also bought pomegrante molasses to make the dressing from a Plenty recipe I love
   

I think that's more than enough to keep me going. The aim is to prep everything on a weekend and then just be able to help myself during the week.

Films I really should get around to watching sometime

Someone mentioned Donnie Darko on twitter the other day (it's fifteen years old), which reminded me that I haven't actually seen it yet. And this weekend I've been thinking about some other films that I've somehow never gotten around to watching. Many are classics, some are not. My brother and I made a list years ago when we were watching a program about the Top 100 Films and for a while we  worked our way through some of the classics we hadn't seen but when the list was lost, the idea fizzled out somehow. For those times when I'm pondering what to watch, however, I thought I'd start another list. And to jog my memory, I went looking for some top 100 lists on the internet. Wow, so many films I've yet to see.

1. Donnie Darko
2. Citizen Kane
3. Goodfellas
4. Lawrence of Arabia
5. Tangled
6. Tarzan (the Walt Disney cartoon)
7. On the Waterfront
8. One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
9. Apocalypse Now
10. Blade Runner
11. The Manchurian Candidate
12. The French Connection
13. Scarface
14. The Shawshank Redemption
15. Green Mile
16. The Deer Hunter
17. Rocky (I did go to see Rocky IV in the cinema for a friend's birthday but haven't seen the others)
18. Easy Rider
19. Kes
20. The Crying Game
21. My Beautiful Laundrette
22. Rabbit-proof Fence
23. Brief Encounter
24. A Star is Born
25. The Stepford Wives
26. Anything Goes
27. Mad Max
28. The Martian
29. Brooklyn
30. Room
31. The Danish Girl
32. Enigma
33. The Theory of Everything
34. 12 Years a Slave
35. The Shining

2016 year in books - the stats

A summary of what I read last year - see the same thing for 2015 here, 2014 here, 2013 here, 2012 here and 2011 here.

• Books by male authors:21
• Books by female authors:40 (15 of those were the "research" romances)
• Fiction: 54
• Non-fiction: 7
• English books:71
• German books: 0
• Books re-read:22
• Book club books:2

Fiona asked me in a comment on the previous post whether or not I used an app to keep track and I thought I'd just add in a bit about what I do here. Although it seems like the answer to anything you might possibly want to do is "there's an app for that", I really do just work better with pen and paper. The first year I did one of these lists, I cobbled it together from what I remembered, receipts from the library or from Amazon, emails arranging book club and so on. Nikki from bookpunks/clickclackgorilla mentioned that she kept a note in the back of her diary and since I thought that sounded like a good way to do it, I started doing that and have kept it up ever since. Like so:

It's nice to have it in the diary for each year, even if the only other things in the diary are appointments. I do still hang on to them and it's nice to look back. I'm just about to run out of space in the one box that I have designated for this purpose though, so will need to make a decision about whether or not to get rid of the earliest ones.

I did join goodreads when that came out but I'm not great at updating it and, after a few months of spending hours trying to add all the books I have ever read (an impossible task), I now mostly use it for making a note of books other people mention and that I might like to read sometime. Although I use an amazon wishlist for that, too, so I'm a bit all over the place really. Which proves yet again that if I want to actually do something, pen and paper will usually work better for me!

Meal planning

Marisa over at foodinjars put up a post yesterday about how she approaches weekly meal planning. I thought I had written about how I do it before but can't find anything now and since I tend to go through phases of using slightly different methods it seemed like a not entirely terrible idea to make a note of what's working now. It might not work forever but it has been pretty successful so far.

Edited to add: Ha! I knew I'd written something about this before and today I randomly found it. Not a full post but just as part of a longer post on a productive evening last August.

Because I get my organic veg box delivered on a Thursday, it meant having to change up how I approached the week completely. Since you get your delivery on the day everyone else in the same area gets theirs so I can't change it. When I was still working, I used to check the order every Monday morning, make any changes (it's an excellent system and I can make substitutions online up to a couple of days beforehand) and then print out the order. These days, and not having a working printer at home at the moment, I've decided to wait and just use the delivery docket. I'm more flexible on time anyway so I can pick up anything else I need on the same day so it's not such a big deal to not have my plan ready in advance.

So here's this week's:

Might not be the prettiest but I find doing it by hand works better for me.

As well as the list of what I'm getting, I add the main things I already have in the fridge.
Then, I list the days, with two lines going from each: one for lunch, one for dinner. Even though my meal plan week really starts on Friday, I still always start this list with Monday.






This week I got lamb's lettuce, a pouch of red cabbage with apple, onions, leeks, potatoes and apples. I also run through my calendar to try and make appropriate choices for days where I might have a lot on. Being at home almost all days at the moment certainly makes this task a lot easier, though. I do prefer to eat a hot meal in the middle of the day and I can do that without having to think about flasks and heating stuff up in the morning.

Sidenote: Pru, if you're reading, my food flask is a brand called Emsa - I tried to leave a reply on Elaine's post but it wouldn't go through. Tried commenting on your blog last week, too and that didn't work either (that was a link to Dr. Doom's post on investment policy statements, which I thought you might find interesting - also links on that website to the jlcollinsnh stock series, which I've heard lots of praise for).

Where was I? Ah yes, the joys of not going to work every day. Anyway, once I have my meal plan set out, I make a list on the other side of the page with any items I might need to buy in. My store cupboard is looking fairly well-stocked at the moment so it's not much. And I picked most of this up while I was out and about this morning. I had an unexpectedly productive day, actually. I only went out for half-an-hour and ended up spending more like three hours going all over the place and getting seven or eight niggly little things done and dusted. All I'm missing now is ground cumin - I might try and make it to one of the Turkish or Indian supermarkets tomorrow. I crossed thyme off the list in the end because I remembered that I have a big jar of herbes de provence and that'll do instead. I keep a memo on the first screen of my phone with a note of anything I've noticed that I need to stock up on, too, so between that and my meal plan list, I'm all sorted.

My final step for meal planning these days is to enter what I've handwritten into another memo in my phone. No excuses if I'm not home to say, "Well, I have nothing to cook at home, I'll eat out/get chips on the way home". Not having to make a decision and not even needing to remember what I had on the list makes life just so much easier.

The main thing is to always remain flexible. So long as you're not running the risk of something going off, switching meals around or bumping them to next week is fine. Today, for example, I ended up out of the house for much longer than planned and was really hungry by the time I got home. I'd already put two slices of bread into the toaster before I'd even taken my coat off. There was no way I was going to wait for as long as it would take curry and rice to cook, no matter how much of a very quick recipe it was. I knew I still had a few slices of bread left though and tea and toast hit the spot very nicely.

I made the curry (bhuna recipe from mortgagefreeinthree except that I used beef) this evening and have just polished off a huge plate of it. And a smaller plate of lamb's lettuce, 'cos I really need some green stuff in me at the moment. It was fantastic, even if I do say so myself. I made a double portion (so it should have been four servings) but ended up eating nearly half. I'm giving myself until the end of January to get back to cooking properly all the time and then I'll concentrate on portion control a bit. I've used up the last of my curry-in-a-hurry paste though, so need to make more soon. I cooked the white beans I'll need for the Turkish bean salad this morning so they're in the fridge and ready to go. While the curry was cooking I washed the lamb's lettuce so it's easy to just grab a couple of handfuls of that for the next couple of days to go with whatever else I'm eating. And I think tomorrow morning I'll get the leek and potato soup going in the slow cooker before heading out for a walk. That way, it's done and will be also just be sitting in the fridge waiting to be used. And with that, my cooking for the week will be more or less done.

Forgot to mention that Marisa also posted a link to a page she has of recipes she likes and uses - definitely something I want to do so I'm going to add a page to my (not-used for a long, long time) food tracking blog and start making a list there.

Where I was and where I am

I'm finding it partially very therapeutic and partially almost painful to read through old posts. Have only read the first few months of this blog for now. In many ways, I have come a long way since I started all this. But, in many other ways, I'm dismayed to have not come further and, in some cases, to have stayed exactly where i was or even gone backwards. I'm taking some small comfort from the fact that I am about to make a huge change (job - all very uncharted territory until I get a new one but getting closer to quitting day now). Today is my sister's second anniversary and it doesn't seem possible that it has been two years already. I still miss her just as much and go through periods where it doesn't seem possible to feel that much pain and keep going. But of course you do keep going and it passes on again until the next time I find myself thinking "must give A. a ring and tell her about that" or something similar.

At any rate, I do want to continue on with going through some of the old lists I printed to see where I was then and where I am now so here's an update (in red) on one very old list:

Chemical cleaning products at home - I decided when I wanted to switch to eco products that it would not be a good idea to simply flush away the products I already had and am still trying to use them up (a year later! I was always a sucker for special offers, didn't realise how much I of a stock I had built up). At this stage I think I'll try and give them away.   -  If I remember correctly I ended up trying to use up what I had and eventually, months, if not years later ended up bringing them to the recycling centre, which had a hazardous waste disposal section. These days I mostly use vinegar and bread soda, with a handful of eco products (toilet cleaner and washing-up liquid from Frosch, mostly, although I also mostly use vinegar and bicarb to clean the toilet with. I’ve lived here for seven years and think I’ve bought toilet cleaner twice or three times). 

Shower gel/body lotions etc. - as above, I've been using up what I had. Nearly finished.  -  Well, a few months after this I gave up shampoo altogether. Nowadays the only one you’ll find in my place is the leftover bottle from when my brother came to visit. Handy to have something when visitors are looking because they’ve forgotten their own and/or only had hand luggage so didn’t bring many liquids. As for shower gel, well, I mostly use proper soap nowadays (will get to making my own soon, really I will). I do also have a Weleda lemon shower gel to use – just ‘cos sometimes it’s nice to have something different. And, again, if I have visitors, some don’t like to use soap. I had the body lotion thing sorted by starting to use the hemp oil and body butter from Innocent Oils but then Helen closed the company in order to focus more on her family. Still miss it and haven’t really found something good to replace it with. Mostly just grabbing stuff when I’m desperate. I currently have the following lying around. This is definitely one I need to work on.

The Elizabeth Arden stuff was a birthday present last year. So far have only used it once because, quite frankly, it has a horrible smell. The aloe vera lotion and bio-oil I bought last year when I was in Ireland in June and it was unexpectedly sunny - I needed something to soothe my nearly sun-burned skin and got the bio-oil because there was one of those buy two things get second half-price offers on and I'd heard about it being very good. And the marigold tub is a German traditional type of moisturiser - vaseline based and I use it on my feet.

Deodorant - tough one this. May use some holiday time to experiment with eco products - it took me years to find a "conventional" one that works for me. – I went all around the houses on this one. Used rock crystal for a long while, found it mostly great and then at some stage it just sort of seemed to stop working almost all the time and I was frequently quite stinky. Then I got a skin infection under one arm so I dumped the rock crystal (it wasn’t the cause of it but had to get rid of it in case there were any nasties lurking, better safe than sorry and all that). I switched to Weleda lemon deodorant and it was pretty good but not consistently so and for the most part, I’m back to just using a conventional one. I do still use the Weleda sometimes but mostly when I’m off work and it’s not such a big deal if I end up a bit smelly. The whole thing is a bit of a mystery to me really – no matter what I use, I will still have occasional days where within a couple of hours I stink. And other days are completely fine. It’s all a bit strange but I’m not inclined to spend the time monitoring my life/diet so closely that I’d be able to find any patterns. For the most part, I know that cleaning myself properly once a day is the best way to not smell unpleasant.

Toothpaste - need to replace soon and will try Kingfisher or similar brand.  – I now use the Weleda ratanhia toothpaste. Tried a couple of the others but didn’t like them. Sometimes miss the minty-fresh feeling of your standard toothpaste but then when I use a standard one it seems so strong and you end up with so much foam in your mouth that I’m happy to go back to my Weleda.

Make-up - I don't wear much so will stick with what I already have and think more about it if/when I need new stuff.  – I dumped almost all of my make-up before moving to Germany. Kept lip-liners and eyeliners but pared them well. Also kept a few lipsticks that I’d never actually used (bought multiples trying to get a good match for when I was a bridesmaid for my sister’s wedding). About four years ago, when I first started seriously thinking about getting a new job, I got a few basic bits again (and got a few as a christmas present that year, too). But given the price of make-up these days and the fact that I still almost never wear any, I’m not really putting any thought into this one. I wear a very small amount for choir performances but just eye make-up and lipstick. The less I have used over the years on my skin, the more sensitive it seems to have gotten and I’d rather not aggravate it by slapping on foundation and multiple layers of whatever it is you slap on these days. In fact, I think the last time I wore full make-up was for my sister’s wedding (in 2006). 

Face wipes - so convenient. Have been reducing use but can't quite give them up yet.  – Have totally given these up. Well, I say totally but I do have a small travel pack that comes into service on those rare occasions (i.e. choir performances) when I need to remove make-up. Or just to freshen up between performing and heading out to celebrate all night long. But, I’ve acquired a couple more small Tupperware containers and started knitting my own cotton facecloths so just need to be a bit more organised in bringing a pre-soaked face cloth with me when needed. MFin3 also had a good idea that I might try out. Although if I buy the stuff to make those I'll have to make mega amounts to give to people as presents, I think - otherwise I could end up with more bottles hanging around for years.

Sanitary towels - have used organic ones before and they're okay, need to try and get them more often but they are more expensive.  – Well, long-time readers will know that I first switched to washable pads (love!) and then finally, a few years ago, to the Mooncup (love!!!). Won’t ever go back to disposables and will try and encourage anyone who cares to listen to consider switching to non-disposable options. Actually, just looking at that old post again, Liz from Pocket Farm suggested the Diva Cup to me - that was the first time I had ever heard about it (and I actually thought she was sending me to a joke website at first). 

Petrol - until I can afford a hybrid/runs on vegetable oil type car the only thing I can do about this is minimise my use of the car. Already use bus for to and from work. Must get fit enough to use bike.  – Got rid of the car a few months before I left Ireland and don’t have one here at all. Have a monthly ticket for public transport, got a second-hand bike and am a member of several car-sharing programs (and even so haven’t driven a car here for more than two years). May someday need to get a car again, especially if I manage to end up living in the country or a small town but for now it’s just not necessary.

Philadelphia light - a Weight Watcher's necessity. I have a serious weight problem but eating more fresh food and less processed food will help a lot. There are certain products that are very useful in making low-fat meals and this is one of them. – And how very far I’ve come since writing this. Still very overweight but have learned so many new dishes and, more to the point, have changed my eating habits quite a bit so that what I do cook involves far more vegetables. And if I do use something like cream cheese it’s more often a full-fat version from a local farmer but using less of it. My use of processed foods has gone way down.

Colour catchers - can't afford to keep buying new white underwear. – Still use these. Feels like I really should find out what exactly they’re made of, do they decompose harmlessly and so on. But, as long as I’m only washing for one I think I’m going to continue needing these because I don’t feel like starting to only wear one colour clothes for the rest of my life.  Actually, a quick google leads me to conflicting information. The company claims they're environmentally friendly (because of less washing mostly, I think) and that they're fully biodegradable. Comments from various other people online claim to want to stay away from them. However, without any actual information to back up their actions, I think I'll stick with them for now. I generally use one a week for the two or three small loads I might wash.

Clothes - don't buy many and because of my size don't have much choice anyway. When I lose weight I would also like to start looking at buying more organically. – Same here as well. I try to avoid buying clothes at all and when I really have to, can’t really afford to do anything but buy cheap (which in my size means C&A or M&S Mode, and occasionally on a trip back to Ireland Marks & Spencer (although they don’t do long in my size anymore so that’s less and less until I lose enough weight to get back into sizes that do have long versions) or Evans). Actually am reaching a stage of badly needing to get some new work clothes but hopefully the weightloss will continue this time and in a few months I’ll start fitting into other stuff I already have again.

Re-visiting old lists - January Cure Assignment 2

Back at the beginning of January I started the Apartment Therapy January Cure. I didn't get much further than this assignment I think but since I was reminded of it while searching for something else I decided it would be a good place to start doing something I've been thinking of doing for a while anyway - revisiting some of the lists I have posted over the years and seeing what, if anything, has changed. So here we go, my original list and updates/comments, if I have any, in red.

• Clear workroom half of bedroom (so that it can actually become, you know, my workroom)
• Paint
• Clear sleeping half of bedroom
• Clear pile beside blanket box - done (and no new pile has accumulated)
• Clear pile in front of cupboard unit - done (and no new pile)
• Clear telephone table - took me a minute to even figure out what this is. Not completely done but I have moved this table to the other end of the bedroom so at least it's gone from the sleeping half.
• Clear out locker 
• Glue locker drawers properly
• Sand down locker and paint?
• Clear shelves of cupboard unit
• Paint
• Patch duvet cover
• Check blanket box for potential bedclothes for dying - not really but I did pull out one or two things that I'm just going to get rid of
• Finish emptying box (which the Table of Doom contents got transferred into last week when I had guests coming)
• Find good way to store magazines
• Go through loose recipes, get rid of what I'm never going to use and file others properly
• Hang Van Gogh postcards - have hung three of these, need to figure out where I want to put the rest.
• Wash rug - not yet but I did fold it up and put it to one side, don't really need it until weather gets cold anyway.
• Clean couch
• Clear out crafting cupboard so that two bags on top of it can go in it
• Sand and paint crafting cupboard
• Sand and paint tallboy
• Sand and paint bookshelves
• Re-paper end wall
• Move bookshelves
• Strip old paper
• Hang new paper
• Clean all doorknobs and window handles - did windows in sitting room but that's all so far
• Set up wifi
• Hang keep calm poster I got for my birthday - got frame and put it into frame so just need to get nails up and actually hang it
• Paint hallway
• Clear built-in cupboards in hallway
• Put black backing paper in picture frames of Strasbourg pictures
• Finish stripping paper in bathroom
• Re-paper and paint bathroom
• Hang pictures in bathroom - despite not having done the rest I have hung one picture
• Get and hang new bathroom cabinet
• Clear top of fridge
• Put up shelves in kitchen
• Strip paper in kitchen
• Re-paper kitchen
• Clear filter on washing machine
• Deep clean cooker
• Pot up aloe vera plants

So, not a huge amount done but I'm really glad I "found" this list again as a number of these things are small and easy fixes so I'll try and fit them in soon.

BBC Big Read - only ten years behind the times

Browsing through some of the comments on SFT's sealed pot challenge I came across In My Playroom and one of the pages on this blog is for the BBC Big Read Top 200 books. I googled that and it seems to come from a survey they did in 2003 to find the UK's best-loved books (see here). We all know I can't resist a good book list, so I decided I'd copy that one too and maybe try and incorporate some of these books into my reading this year, too. I might choose a couple of books from the Rory Gilmore list, too. 

Red = read, not likely to re-read

Blue = previously read, would re-read

Black = never read

Green = never read but already on unread shelf to read soon

1. The Lord of the Rings, JRR Tolkien
2. Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen
3. His Dark Materials, Philip Pullman
4. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams
5. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, JK Rowling
6. To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee
7. Winnie the Pooh, AA Milne
8. Nineteen Eighty-Four, George Orwell
9. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, CS Lewis
10. Jane Eyre, Charlotte Brontë
11. Catch-22, Joseph Heller
12. Wuthering Heights, Emily Brontë
13. Birdsong, Sebastian Faulks
14. Rebecca, Daphne du Maurier
15. The Catcher in the Rye, JD Salinger
16. The Wind in the Willows, Kenneth Grahame
17. Great Expectations, Charles Dickens
18. Little Women, Louisa May Alcott
19. Captain Corelli's Mandolin, Louis de Bernieres
20. War and Peace, Leo Tolstoy
21. Gone with the Wind, Margaret Mitchell
22. Harry Potter And The Philosopher's Stone, JK Rowling
23. Harry Potter And The Chamber Of Secrets, JK Rowling
24. Harry Potter And The Prisoner Of Azkaban, JK Rowling
25. The Hobbit, JRR Tolkien
26. Tess Of The D'Urbervilles, Thomas Hardy
27. Middlemarch, George Eliot
28. A Prayer For Owen Meany, John Irving
29. The Grapes Of Wrath, John Steinbeck
30. Alice's Adventures In Wonderland, Lewis Carroll
31. The Story Of Tracy Beaker, Jacqueline Wilson
32. One Hundred Years Of Solitude, Gabriel García Márquez
33. The Pillars Of The Earth, Ken Follett
34. David Copperfield, Charles Dickens
35. Charlie And The Chocolate Factory, Roald Dahl
36. Treasure Island, Robert Louis Stevenson
37. A Town Like Alice, Nevil Shute
38. Persuasion, Jane Austen
39. Dune, Frank Herbert
40. Emma, Jane Austen
41. Anne Of Green Gables, LM Montgomery
42. Watership Down, Richard Adams
43. The Great Gatsby, F Scott Fitzgerald
44. The Count Of Monte Cristo, Alexandre Dumas
45. Brideshead Revisited, Evelyn Waugh
46. Animal Farm, George Orwell
47. A Christmas Carol, Charles Dickens
48. Far From The Madding Crowd, Thomas Hardy
49. Goodnight Mister Tom, Michelle Magorian
50. The Shell Seekers, Rosamunde Pilcher
51. The Secret Garden, Frances Hodgson Burnett
52. Of Mice And Men, John Steinbeck
53. The Stand, Stephen King
54. Anna Karenina, Leo Tolstoy
55. A Suitable Boy, Vikram Seth
56. The BFG, Roald Dahl
57. Swallows And Amazons, Arthur Ransome
58. Black Beauty, Anna Sewell
59. Artemis Fowl, Eoin Colfer
60. Crime And Punishment, Fyodor Dostoyevsky
61. Noughts And Crosses, Malorie Blackman
62. Memoirs Of A Geisha, Arthur Golden
63. A Tale Of Two Cities, Charles Dickens
64. The Thorn Birds, Colleen McCollough
65. Mort, Terry Pratchett
66. The Magic Faraway Tree, Enid Blyton
67. The Magus, John Fowles
68. Good Omens, Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman
69. Guards! Guards!, Terry Pratchett
70. Lord Of The Flies, William Golding
71. Perfume, Patrick Süskind
72. The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists, Robert Tressell
73. Night Watch, Terry Pratchett
74. Matilda, Roald Dahl
75. Bridget Jones's Diary, Helen Fielding
76. The Secret History, Donna Tartt
77. The Woman In White, Wilkie Collins
78. Ulysses, James Joyce
79. Bleak House, Charles Dickens
80. Double Act, Jacqueline Wilson
81. The Twits, Roald Dahl
82. I Capture The Castle, Dodie Smith
83. Holes, Louis Sachar
84. Gormenghast, Mervyn Peake
85. The God Of Small Things, Arundhati Roy
86. Vicky Angel, Jacqueline Wilson
87. Brave New World, Aldous Huxley
88. Cold Comfort Farm, Stella Gibbons
89. Magician, Raymond E Feist
90. On The Road, Jack Kerouac
91. The Godfather, Mario Puzo
92. The Clan Of The Cave Bear, Jean M Auel
93. The Colour Of Magic, Terry Pratchett
94. The Alchemist, Paulo Coelho
95. Katherine, Anya Seton
96. Kane And Abel, Jeffrey Archer
97. Love In The Time Of Cholera, Gabriel García Márquez
98. Girls In Love, Jacqueline Wilson
99. The Princess Diaries, Meg Cabot
100. Midnight's Children, Salman Rushdie 
101. Three Men In A Boat, Jerome K. Jerome
102. Small Gods, Terry Pratchett
103. The Beach, Alex Garland
104. Dracula, Bram Stoker
105. Point Blanc, Anthony Horowitz
106. The Pickwick Papers, Charles Dickens
107. Stormbreaker, Anthony Horowitz
108. The Wasp Factory, Iain Banks
109. The Day Of The Jackal, Frederick Forsyth
110. The Illustrated Mum, Jacqueline Wilson
111. Jude The Obscure, Thomas Hardy
112. The Secret Diary Of Adrian Mole Aged 13¾, Sue Townsend
113. The Cruel Sea, Nicholas Monsarrat
114. Les Misérables, Victor Hugo
115. The Mayor Of Casterbridge, Thomas Hardy
116. The Dare Game, Jacqueline Wilson
117. Bad Girls, Jacqueline Wilson
118. The Picture Of Dorian Gray, Oscar Wilde
119. Shogun, James Clavell
120. The Day Of The Triffids, John Wyndham
121. Lola Rose, Jacqueline Wilson
122. Vanity Fair, William Makepeace Thackeray
123. The Forsyte Saga, John Galsworthy (although only the first part)
124. House Of Leaves, Mark Z. Danielewski
125. The Poisonwood Bible, Barbara Kingsolver
126. Reaper Man, Terry Pratchett
127. Angus, Thongs And Full-Frontal Snogging, Louise Rennison
128. The Hound Of The Baskervilles, Arthur Conan Doyle
129. Possession, A. S. Byatt
130. The Master And Margarita, Mikhail Bulgakov
131. The Handmaid's Tale, Margaret Atwood
132. Danny The Champion Of The World, Roald Dahl
133. East Of Eden, John Steinbeck
134. George's Marvellous Medicine, Roald Dahl
135. Wyrd Sisters, Terry Pratchett
136. The Color Purple, Alice Walker
137. Hogfather, Terry Pratchett
138. The Thirty-Nine Steps, John Buchan
139. Girls In Tears, Jacqueline Wilson
140. Sleepovers, Jacqueline Wilson
141. All Quiet On The Western Front, Erich Maria Remarque
142. Behind The Scenes At The Museum, Kate Atkinson
143. High Fidelity, Nick Hornby
144. It, Stephen King
145. James And The Giant Peach, Roald Dahl
146. The Green Mile, Stephen King
147. Papillon, Henri Charriere
148. Men At Arms, Terry Pratchett
149. Master And Commander, Patrick O'Brian
150. Skeleton Key, Anthony Horowitz
151. Soul Music, Terry Pratchett
152. Thief Of Time, Terry Pratchett
153. The Fifth Elephant, Terry Pratchett
154. Atonement, Ian McEwan
155. Secrets, Jacqueline Wilson
156. The Silver Sword, Ian Serraillier
157. One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest, Ken Kesey
158. Heart Of Darkness, Joseph Conrad
159. Kim, Rudyard Kipling
160. Cross Stitch, Diana Gabaldon
161. Moby Dick, Herman Melville
162. River God, Wilbur Smith
163. Sunset Song, Lewis Grassic Gibbon
164. The Shipping News, Annie Proulx
165. The World According To Garp, John Irving
166. Lorna Doone, R. D. Blackmore
167. Girls Out Late, Jacqueline Wilson
168. The Far Pavilions, M. M. Kaye
169. The Witches, Roald Dahl
170. Charlotte's Web, E. B. White
171. Frankenstein, Mary Shelley
172. They Used To Play On Grass, Terry Venables and Gordon Williams
173. The Old Man And The Sea, Ernest Hemingway
174. The Name Of The Rose, Umberto Eco
175. Sophie's World, Jostein Gaarder
176. Dustbin Baby, Jacqueline Wilson
177. Fantastic Mr Fox, Roald Dahl
178. Lolita, Vladimir Nabokov
179. Jonathan Livingstone Seagull, Richard Bach
180. The Little Prince, Antoine De Saint-Exupery
181. The Suitcase Kid, Jacqueline Wilson
182. Oliver Twist, Charles Dickens
183. The Power Of One, Bryce Courtenay
184. Silas Marner, George Eliot
185. American Psycho, Bret Easton Ellis
186. The Diary Of A Nobody, George and Weedon Grossmith
187. Trainspotting, Irvine Welsh
188. Goosebumps, R. L. Stine
189. Heidi, Johanna Spyri
190. Sons And Lovers, D. H. Lawrence
191. The Unbearable Lightness of Being, Milan Kundera
192. Man And Boy, Tony Parsons
193. The Truth, Terry Pratchett
194. The War Of The Worlds, H. G. Wells
195. The Horse Whisperer, Nicholas Evans
196. A Fine Balance, Rohinton Mistry
197. Witches Abroad, Terry Pratchett
198. The Once And Future King, T. H. White
199. The Very Hungry Caterpillar, Eric Carle
200. Flowers In The Attic, Virginia Andrew

Cake tins

Just a quick note for myself on what cake tins I have. Just as I decided to post this so I would be able to find the information again, I remembered that years ago I started to tick off the things on the Good Housekeeping Cookery Book list of basics that I already had. So now I'm off to add this information to there, too.

1 x 25cm round springform
1 x 20cm square
1 x Tupperware flower form 21.5cm x 6.5cm (height)

Edited to add: Ha! I knew I had a citrus zester. Haven't seen it since I moved here so if I haven't found it by next weekend, I'm just going to buy another one. This is something I would get a lot of use out of and I'm sick of using the ordinary grater that I have.

Book lists

When I first starting reading blogs I often came across book suggestions and reviews and started to keep them all in an email draft.  I can't quite remember why I decided an email draft was the handiest way to do this but looking through some old emails today, I found that draft and decided to post the list here.  That way, I know where it is if I'm looking for it.  It's also interesting to see that even though I hadn't thought about this list for years, I have read some more of the books on it since then.  Links may or may not work, they're not ones I have added (because if I was going to do that I'd try and figure out how to get that amazon associates thing working again :) ) but rather ones that may have been in place on the original postings that I copied from.  It's interesting to look back and wonder what I was doing or thinking about over the couple of years that I kept this list.  And I don't feel like I'd particularly cross any off today, either - they still all sound interesting.

1. The Envelope Mill by Haila Harvey- I do search for this occasionally on abebooks but have never seen it at anything less than an exorbitant price
2. Coming Home to Eat: The Pleasures & Politics of Local Foods by Gary Paul Nabhan  OWN (the kindle version)
3. Moosewood Book of Desserts
4. John Seymour's The New Complete Book of Self-Sufficiency OWN
5. Deborah Madison’s Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone
6. The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals by Michael Pollan OWN
7. Gaia's garden ?? (Why the questionmarks?  No idea.)
8. Putting Food By (Plume) (Paperback) by Janet Greene
9. Putting It Up With Honey: A Natural Foods Canning and Preserving Cookbook by Susan Geiskopf
10. Clearly delicious, an illustrated guide to the art of preserving, pickling and bottling, Elisabeth Lambert Ortiz And Judy Ridgway Publication Dorling Kindersley, 1994
11. Preserving by Oded Schwartz, read, not great (vaguely remember this now - I think I managed to find it in the library and obviously I wasn't too impressed)
12. This Organic Life by Joan Dye Gussow - OWN
13. Harold McGee's "On food and cooking".
14. Mike and Nancy Bubel, Root Cellaring: The Simple No-Processing Way to Store Fruits and Vegetables, Rodale Press, 1979 ISBN 0-87857-277-5 - read, need to buy OWN
15. Preserving Nature's Bounty" (ISBN 0-87596-979-8)
16. The $50 & Up Underground House Book - Mike Oehler OWN
17. The Hippy Survival Guide to Y2K - Mike Oehler
18. Clean House, Clean Planet by Karen Logan
19. 'build your own earth oven' by Kiko Denzer
20. Slug Bread & Beheaded Thistles by Ellen Sandbeck
21. Carrots Love Tomatoes: Secrets of Companion Planting for Successful Gardening by Louise Riotte
22. 'The Woodland House' by Ben Law
23. Living the Good Life: How One Family Changed Their World from Their Own Backyard (Paperback) by Linda Cockburn OWN
24. Scenes from a Smallholding by Chas Griffiths
25. How to Make Sewing Patterns (Paperback) by Donald H. McCunn
26. The Fragrant Pharmacy by Valerie Ann Worwood its ISBN is 0-553-40397-4
27. Creating Learning Communities is published by the Foundation for Educational Renewal (www.pathsoflearning.net) ISBN: 1-885580-04-5
28. The Simple Living Guide – Janet Luhrs
29. How to Live Off-grid Nick Rosen
30. Keep Chickens! by Barbara Kilarski was the book that got me started with chickens. It's by Storey Press, who publish books about gardening, soap-making, brewing, livestock etc. (this is someone else's comment, no idea now where it's from)
31. Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver OWN
32. Eating Fossil Fuels: Oil, Food and the Coming Crisis in Agriculture (Paperback) by Dale Allen Pfeiffer (Author)
33. The one pan Gourmet by Don Jacobson
34. The Backpacker's Handbook by Chris Townsend
35. How to be Free by Tom Hodgkinson and How to be Idle OWN (both of them)
36. You Can Save the Planet (Hardcover) by Jacquie Wines (Author), Sarah Horne (Illustrator)
    
37. Seed to Seed Seed Saving and Growing Techniques for Vegetable Gardeners Suzanne Ashworth OWN
38. Carol Harris’ book A Guide to Traditional Pig Keeping
39. Making Stuff: An Alternative Craft Book by Ziggy Hanaor and Victoria Woodcock,
40. Four-Season Harvest, by Eliot Coleman
41. Home Comforts, by Cheryl Mendelson OWN
42. Madhjar Jaffries 'World Vegetarian' cookbook (not yet but I did get a second-hand copy of her Ultimate Curry Bible)
43. Mary Norwak’s The Farmhouse Kitchen (1994 edition, ISBN1-85891-238-5) OWN
44. Celebrating the Great Mother
45. The After Dinner Gardening Book by Richard W Langer
46. The Preserving Book", by Mackinlay and Ricketts, Pan book ISBN 0 330 25563 0
47. The encyclopedia of country living" - ISBN 1-57061-377-X
48. "The Complete Herbal handbook for farm and stable" - ISBN 0-571-16116-2