Determined

 I think husband enjoyed all his birthday food, he even said thank you, which is a rarity these days.  This is the card he got from his daughter:-

Made us both laugh, so apt, every time she and son in law (who's an IT technician) come to visit, they have to sort out problems husband has been having with the TV, his phone or computer, I'm not much help 😂

I've been thinking more about UPFs, especially in the light of wanting to take better care of myself this year, and being more proactive - my word for the year.  I do really want to cut down drastically on the amount of UPFs we buy, for the sake of our health for both of us, with what's known now about the effects of nasty chemicals etc in our food there's really no justification for buying them.

Things like cheese sauce, soups and pasta sauce which I'd got into the bad habit of buying the past few months - they are really so simple to make, I know what's in them and they probably cost much less to make.  The only benefit to buying readymade ones really is that they are exactly that - readymade - so no effort and time saving.  But these things can easily be made in bulk, portioned out and frozen, so after the initial job of making them, pulling a frozen one out is no effort at all.  Some of you might remember a while back that I bought a load of frozen and chilled ready meals for husband, so I didn't have to cook separate meals for us both, in view of me being veggie/pescatarian and him being a carnivore.  Well, most of them he wasn't really that keen on, based on the weird taste (his words), insufficient meat or small size, not enough to satisfy his big appetite.  So that experiment wasn't a success.  I intend to get back in the habit of batch cooking curries, minced beef dishes, pasta bakes containing beef, gammon or chicken, etc, for him, so he's always got a few homemade ready meals in the freezer.

We'll use up whatever UPFs we've got, then I'll try not to buy them again.  Each time we have one of our remaining processed foods, I'll have a think about whether I can make it from scratch myself in future - I'm pretty sure I can with most things.

So that's a proactive project for my new year and goes towards my goal of looking after myself more, I'm determined to do it.

Well, the storm wasn't that bad here, quite strong gusty winds and rain for an hour or two in the middle of the night, but no damage or anything blown over, no sleet or snow either.  Other areas not so fortunate looking at the news, I hope all my lovely readers are safe.