Number 18

Morning all :) 

As promised I am back and am very pleased to announce that I have weighed and lost a further 3.5lb this week - so that gives me a total of 22lbs lost altogether - yey!! I am very close to having lost 10% of my total weight and I hope to have got there before I go back to the doctors in the next couple of weeks.

In blog post Number 6 I ranted on about how disgusting people are for throwing their litter onto our beautiful countryside - well yesterday we all took the first step to cleaning up where we live and embarked with litter grabber, poo bags and a black bag to see what we would find. Unfortunately we didn't manage to complete one of the circuits I mapped out as once we got a third of the way our black bag was full so we returned home to try again tomorrow. How awful is that! about half a mile walked and a black bad filled to the top with bottles, beer cans, crisp packets, cigarette ends and all sorts of other rubbish that people couldn't be bothered to throw in a bin. It made us all very cross but there was a wonderful silver lining to our outing...

Stanley the slow worm. Yes, I know we already have two dogs, two fish, and a guinea pig but my children completely fell hook, line and sinker for him. He is a male slow worm (which we were very pleased about as the boys had already named him Stanley before we checked), he is about 12" long, silver/brown in colour with blue specks on his tummy, he has eaten a worm and a slug since yesterday and is very happy in the vivarium I created for him. 

Don't worry folks, we came home and googled for around an hour to make sure it was ok to keep him, how to look after him and make sure he was happy and comfortable - we are responsible owners for all our pets! The boys are besotted and spent around 4 hours cuddling him yesterday afternoon - even Mathew my squeamish son!

So yesterday I blogged about food and recipe's and it had a really good response so I thought I would give you a couple more of the menu item's recipes to change up your BBQ menu's.

The first is the marinated Chicken kebab recipe...
To make 4 Mango Chicken Kebab's:


1/4 cup (60ml) of olive oil
2 tsp grated fresh ginger
1 tsp of fresh lemon juice
1 tsp of fresh orange juice
1 teaspoon of brown sugar
1 pinch of white sugar
1 skinless chicken breasts, fat removed and cut into bite-sized pieces
Pinch of salt
2 mango's, peeled de-seeded and diced
4 kebab skewers

In a plastic container or a food bag mix the olive oil, orange and lemon juice, brown and white sugar. 

Add the diced chicken breast pieces and ensure they are thoroughly coated, then chill in the refrigerator for at least 30 minutes or overnight if you have the time to spare.

Heat your BBQ or grill to a high heat.

Season the chicken with the salt and then thread onto the skewers, alternating between chicken and mango.

Discard the marinade!

Lightly oil the BBQ grate/grill rack to avoid sticking and cook the kebabs for around 15 minutes or until cooked through on all sides (you'll have to turn the kebabs often).

MMM I am super hungry just thinking about those kebabs! Only a few days to go... So the next recipe I shall share is my stuffed mushrooms. These are so yummy, and as I use small ones they are perfectly bite-sized and very more-ish!

For 8-12 cheese and bacon stuffed mushrooms:


3 slices of streaky bacon cut into lardons
8 - 12 mushrooms with the stalks removed and kept to one side
1 tbls of butter
1 finely chopped red onion
90g of grated mature cheese

Preheat the oven to 200 degrees or 180 if fan assisted.

In a frying pan add the streaky bacon and cook through.

Remove the hard end of the stalks and discard, then finely chop the stems

In a saucepan over a medium heat add the butter mushrooms and onion and cook until the onion is soft and not too coloured.

Remove it from the heat and add in the cooked bacon and 2/3 of the grated cheese.

Mix well then spoon evenly into the mushroom caps.

Place the mushroom caps onto a tray and bake for around 15 minutes, or until the cheese is bubbling.

Remove from the oven and sprinkle the remaining cheese onto them.

Don't they sound good? So pudding wise I'm not doing too much as I don't want to be over tempted but I do use a lovely recipe for hot cross buns that I will be making so thought I should share with you too. I can't take credit for it however as it is not my own but in fact Delia Smith's :) hehe - so here is a link to her site with the hot cross buns recipe:

Delia Online - Hot cross buns with a sweet glaze


Right off I go again :)
Hope you have enjoyed once more.
xxx

Number 6

Fed up of me yet? :D

Today I went for a walk with the gorgeous Donut and Fudge around our local area. I live in one of the most beautiful countries in all the world (in my opinion) and as I walked it was so nice to see the blooming daffodils, primroses and snowdrops that grow wildly all over. As I was looking however my doggies were busily sniffing other dog's poop (I know, I know, disgusting but I have a point) and happily chewing all the rubbish they found along the way (stay with me guys).

This made me feel so cross and frustrated -

Firstly with the mindless owners of the dogs that have fowled and they couldn't be bothered to clear it up.

Secondly with the awful people that think nature is their dumping ground for beer cans, packets, boxes, tins and bottles.

Thirdly to the council for not putting more dog bins and general refuse bins along our gorgeous B roads - where most of us walk our beloved pets.

As I walked I decided that it was up to me to do something about it - If you don't like it - change it, so I came home and purchased this - Silverline Litter Picker. Next time I go on my walk I will be collecting all the rubbish that stupid people throw away, and once I'm done a week later, I will take a photo of all the rubbish and send it to the local paper to see if anyone else thinks that this is acceptable behaviour! I also think a well mannered letter (yes I can be polite) should go with the images to the council, in the hope that they might do something about it. I live almost in the sticks and there is not ONE dog poop bin within a 4 mile radius of where I live - also on the 3 paths I take there isn't a single rubbish bin on the B roads (there is one on our main road and that's it). I may be naive in thinking they will do anything but I will keep trying until we get at least one doggy bin in Llandissilio!

Here are the routes I take:

Together they total 7.5 miles - can you imagine being in a city or large town with only one bin in a 7 mile stretch and No dog bins at all?

I also found this awesome website in America with funny dog fouling signs - here is one that had a free PDF. I'm thinking about printing it out and posting it everywhere!

There are many others on this site which are available to purchase or download free - I urge you to download and print if you can! Make your voice heard! Join in with me and clear up your area - either that or sit back and relax while I do it and you read about it - heehee.

I just hope in some small way I can actually make some sort of a difference.

To end I want to tell you how I was a little proud of myself this evening. We decided to go out to dinner - now this is usually fine as we go to the wonderful Toby Carvery restaurant in Carmarthen. Here I know the menu, I know the food is healthy an the vegetables are steamed. I wanted to try somewhere different though to see if I could manage it on my healthy eating diet. I decided we would go to the Harvester restaurant as I knew most of their menu was flame grilled so healthier than other cooking methods. I was so happy when we got there and read the menu - every item had it's calorific value next to it, which meant I could make an informed choice (I'm not counting kcal's but you can see what's better for you with the lower amounts). They also serve all sauces on the side never on the food which is a bonus, and they have an unlimited salad bar so you can get plenty of fruit and veg. All in all I was very pleased - the food was wonderful and perfectly cooked. I had a baked jacket potato (the only bad point being that they put butter in the middle of it without asking, and it wasn't mentioned on the menu), a grilled chicken breast and garden peas, I also had a portion of bbq sauce on the side. I was so apprehensive before going in, and even reading the menu made me nervous as I wanted so many things that I knew weren't good for me, but I persevered and took the healthy options and crikey I am so glad I did. YEY ME!!

Right, I'll sign off for now and be back soon, oh and hopefully I will of lost some weight again this week! Hope you all are ok.

xx