Dairy free recommendations?

 I've done lots of research the past couple of days and have decided that I definitely want a Ninja Combi 12 in 1 multicooker.  My tabletop oven is certainly losing heat, it's just taken over an hour to cook a small 1lb loaf cake that should have taken just 30-35 minutes, I don't want it breaking down when sister is here.  Husband has very kindly said he'll buy it, which is very nice of him.  One of the things on our Needs/Wants list for this year is a new TV - his choice, it's a want not a need, there's nothing wrong with our current TV.  Being a man, he wants a bigger screen and more features - although whether he'll be able to work out what they're all for, and actually use them, remains to be seen! 😉 He says he's happy to put off getting the TV until later in the year though, and agrees the multicooker takes priority over that.  We'll be getting it in a couple of weeks, which will give me time to get used to using it before sister comes.

Speaking of sister, she's told me she now cannot eat any dairy produce.  Like me, she's been lactose intolerant for years, she takes Lactase tablets for it but says they no longer work, and she cannot put up with the stomach pains and diarrhoea she gets.  My intolerance is mainly with cows milk, I've had lactose-free milk for years and am fine with that.  I can cope with cheese, yogurt and butter, so long as I don't eat loads of them - to be honest though, I couldn't imagine a life without cheese, it's pretty much my favourite food, so I'd most likely be prepared to put up with a certain amount of pain and toilet visits.  Imagine never eating cheese again!! 😮😂  Sis doesn't want to go back to the GP, as she says she's terrified of having to have a camera either down her throat or up her bum - or both.  Bless her.  I do understand how she feels about that though.  So I will have to revise my cooking and baking plans to take account of her dairy-free wishes, which is no big deal really.  I'll start buying some dairy-free things like spread and cheese and doing a bit of experimenting.  I already buy soya milk for her - I have it sometimes too.  If any of you have any recommendations for dairy-free alternatives (Kath and Sue, for example, I know you're both dairy-free), please let me know.

I didn't spend the whole day in the kitchen yesterday, just the morning.  I made a chicken & bacon pasta bake and a pineapple and coconut cake, both frozen now, and a feta, cranberry & red pepper rice salad for lunch.  In the afternoon I had a chat with my sister, then read for a while.

Kitchen day

 Just to make things absolutely clear - even though I'm diabetic and overweight, I've not been offered (and nor would I request) the Ozempic-type injections.  Just my personal view, I wouldn't have them even if the GP suggested them, they're not for me, the side effects I've read about and the skinny-to-the-point-of-wizened look of some of the celebs who've taken them put me off.  Who wants to lose so much weight that they look like they've aged 20 years and are at death's door?  I do know someone who took one of the weight loss drugs and spent all their time either throwing up or crapping a lot (to put it bluntly), so it's no wonder they lost weight!  And then put it back on after they stopped taking them.....

I'm going to spend the next couple of days batch cooking and baking, for when sister comes to stay, so I don't have to spend ages in the kitchen when she's here, and we'll have some nice treats (cake!) to go with coffee in the afternoons.  We'll probably go out for lunch a couple of times, and have sandwiches or quiche for other lunches, either here at home or as a packed lunch out.  Sis works hard at home, looking after her husband, doing all the housework and cooking, and cooking dinners for family when they come over at weekends, so I like to make sure she has a nice restful time when she's here.  I don't let her wash up even - she's a bit clumsy especially when she's having an MS attack, and I do like my china! 😂

There's loads of chicken left from husband's Sunday lunch, so I'll do a chicken & bacon pasta bake, husband can have some for his dinner tonight and I'll freeze the rest for him and sister.  I'll also make a fish pie, a portion will be for my dinner tonight, with the rest being frozen.  I'll bake a cake of some sort, and possibly some cookies or flapjacks if I have time.  That'll be a good start.

Husband thinks he's pulled a muscle in his back doing some weights at the gym yesterday, so he'll need to take things easy for a couple of days.

Sunshine, sis coming, and a mini rant

 Yesterday was awful weatherwise, I don't think it stopped raining all day, and the howling galeforce wind was hurling the rain at the windows.  Fortunately, today is sunny, bright and dry, with just a bit of a breeze, good washing drying weather, I've got Betty's fleece blankets that we have on the sofa and my bed in the washing machine.

The big happy news from yesterday though is that my sister wants to come down for a week on the 24 March - that's just 4 weeks today!  I was thinking she'd probably come in April or May, but I think she's desperate for a holiday - which is absolutely fine by us.  She's full time carer for her very disabled husband, so rarely gets much time for herself or days out.  Their son and daughter, who both live fairly close, will look after their father whilst sis is down here, and they have lots of supportive friends who will also look in on him.

I think my little tabletop oven is on the way out, it's not getting as hot as it used to.  Well, we bought it second hand anyway, it's done well.  I use my air fryer, microwave and slow cooker a lot, but am thinking about buying a Ninja multicooker, the Combi 12 in 1 12.5 litre - has anyone got one of these?  It seems to do the job of both the mini oven and the slow cooker, as well as being an air fryer.  If I do get one, I'll still keep my Lakeland air fryer though, but probably get rid of the slow cooker.  I'll have to take one of the things off the Needs/Wants list for this year and put it back to next year, which is no big problem, this is more of a Need than a Want.  

I read an article in the paper a couple of days ago about a middle-aged investigative journalist, who went on a radical fasting diet (under medical supervision) and lost 3 stones in 3 weeks.  Apparently, he literally ate nothing at all for those 3 weeks, just drinking water and black coffee and having multivitamins and minerals via an IV drip every few days.  Well, duh - anyone would lose several stones doing that, it's hardly remarkable.  But how dangerous and ridiculous is that?  And how many of us have access to a personal diet doctor who will administer vitamins via a drip and do tests and monitor us constantly?  And surely once you'd started eating again, you'd put the weight back on - you can hardly go indefinitely without eating.  How ridiculous.  I'll stick to traditional methods of eating less carby stuff and moving about more, now the warmer weather is coming and we can be more active in the garden and going for walks.  As for all the 'celebs' who are taking the Ozempic-type drugs (and thus making it difficult for diabetic patients, who they're actually meant for, to get prescribed them by their GPs as they're in such short supply now) - well, they end up looking like walking skeletons with a covering of very lined wrinkly skin who look like they're about to keel over and die.  Just seems like if you have oodles of money and can afford it, then you pay for it and take the easy way out, rather than actually having to work at it yourself.  End of soap box rant 😂😂

It's coming.....

 Spring, that is.  Although you wouldn't think so today, we've got another gale coming anytime now, loads of rain and winds of 48 mph.  But only for today - back to sunny spells and light showers, with just a normal amount of wind from tomorrow.  It's meteorological Spring on Saturday!  Proper Spring though not until the 20th March, when hopefully it'll be much more Spring-like and warmer.

But there are signs of Spring in my garden:-

Daffodils around the apple tree in the front lawn

Little narcissi and primroses on the rockery 

Bed full of bluebells, they'll flower in April 

The sun gradually getting higher in the sky, will soon be covering nearly all the garden (excuse my washing!  And the brown lawn patches where Betty's wee'd on it).

It was such a nice sunny day yesterday, we went for a drive in the afternoon to check out a tearoom on the way to Lynton/Lynmouth, which has good reviews on FB.  Looking for places to go with my sister when she comes down.  Well, there are wonderful views from the car park - towards the sea at Lynmouth one way, gorgeous Exmoor countryside the other way - the tearoom is located at a very high point so the views are far-reaching, it claims to be Britain's highest coastal tearoom.  The tearoom itself is converted from an old barn or maybe a cottage? and is pretty, with a log burner, nice old china, friendly staff and very dog friendly (there were about 6 dogs in there yesterday, I'm glad we hadn't taken Betty, she wouldn't have been impressed with all those dogs, she's a bit unsociable with other dogs).  However, it is a bit on the small side and the tables/chairs quite crammed in, so in the summer it would be uncomfortably busy and crowded, I suspect.  They don't do lattes, my favourite coffee, so I had a filter coffee with heated frothy milk on top, which was ok....except that it was in a small cup and saucer - I prefer a big mug of coffee.  I also had a cheese scone, which was one of the cheesiest tearoom scones I've ever had, so full marks for that.  In conclusion, the views are to die for and it was certainly nice inside, but because of the size - and it being a fair distance away up a very steep hill - I doubt we'd make a special effort to go again.  If we were going past on the way to or from somewhere though (Lynmouth e.g.), then we'd probably stop there.  

Next time there's a sunny day, we'll go back to Exmoor through Dunster and Timberscombe, driving across the moors - but this time I'll ask husband to drive slowly!  He tends to drive too fast, taking no account of the views and countryside, in fact he's oblivious to them.  Car journeys for him are all about the destination and he's got tunnel vision, his eyes being firmly focused on the road ahead.  I did note that there were several tearooms as we drove along a few weeks ago - well, I caught brief glimpses of them as we flashed past at the speed of light!  

A week late! And fingers crossed....

 The weather yesterday morning was blinking awful again, back to heavy showers and very strong gale force winds.  Fortunately, it was better in the afternoon, although apparently Sunday is going to be bad as well, more of the same.  Today though is going to be fine apparently, sunny and dry.  What to do?  No clue yet, other than washing to go on the line.

I was looking back at photos of our garden for around this time last year, it was interesting to note that the daffodils and narcissi (the ones that were already here when we moved in) flowered last year exactly a week earlier than this year.  So it looks like the cold wet weather has delayed things this year, but only by a week.

Between us, husband and I are going to cut my hair today, using his beard trimmer with the largest comb attachment again, and trimming the edges with scissors.  I'll probably end up feeling scalped again like last time, but fortunately my hair grows quickly and it'll be better than having all these longish wispy bits blowing around my face.  Also, the top is so long and fine it's just lying flat and limp, instead of being short and spiky how I like it.  Wish me luck! 🤞😂

We're having homemade pizza for dinner today... well, a bought base which I'll top with tomatoes, ham, mushroom and, yes, pineapple.  Plus cheese of course.  We'll have it with a few chips and some salad.  I fancy making a cake too, currently wavering between date & walnut or ginger.  I might make some peanut butter and banana dog biscuits as well.

Things going well

 Yesterday's weather was very hit and miss - short sunny spells interspersed with showers, some heavy, and the odd blast of strong wind.  It wasn't particularly cold though, which was a bonus.  

In the morning we nipped to Tesco for a small top up shop of fresh veg, milk and bread, then I did the freezer inventory as it was raining.  Once the rain stopped, we went outside and finished off filling up the new raised bed, it's all done now and ready for planting.  We know what veg we're growing this year, just have to plan where everything is going.  We'll have beetroot, carrots, shallots, probably 2 kinds of tomatoes, mini cucumbers, radishes, courgettes, maybe a butternut squash or 2, new potatoes grown in bags like we did last year, and strawberries.  Hopefully the tree in the middle of the front lawn will provide us with cooking apples this year, now it seems to have recovered from husband's butchery of it last year, when it then didn't produce a single apple.  The beetroot, carrots and radishes will be grown from seed, the rest we'll buy as mini plants.  The potatoes we've already got, they're chitting away nicely and are almost ready to plant in bags.  We've also already got shallot sets, plus strawberry plants which were new last year, although didn't fruit very well at all.....I'm hoping it was just because they were new and will fruit better this year.

Progressing on our Needs/Wants list - 3 things have now been achieved, and I've booked an appointment for the 4th, someone coming next month to measure up for the vertical blinds for kitchen and lounge windows.  I've had one quote already, although I wasn't overly impressed with the salesman - he wasn't pushy, just disinterested after I told him we only wanted 2 windows doing.  The 3 things we've already done are the bedroom carpet for husband's room, new glasses for us both, and the new raised bed for veg.  There are 7 things left on the list after the blinds have been done (the 7th was a late addition and may not be achievable this year, might have to wait until next year) and I've scheduled them all in my calendar spread out throughout the year.  All going to plan so far.

Had a long WhatsApp chat with my sister yesterday, she's going to try and come down to stay twice this year, which will be fab for both of us.

More done

 It started off raining yesterday, stopped by 9 ish and the sun came out nice and bright.  I got more washing on the line, then prepped the slow cooker and veggies for dinner - husband was out at the gym.  I did a bit of housework until after lunch, then we went in the garden.  Although the sun had largely gone, the wind had dropped and it wasn't too cold, so we could work in relative comfort.  I weeded the flower bed and pruned back the perennial shrubs, putting the prunings in the bottom of the new raised bed, as Marlene suggested.  Then we started to fill the raised bed - the donated top soil (which was actually more a mixture of stones and lumps of mud) in the bottom, on top of the prunings.  We followed that with a thick layer of our own homemade compost from last year, comprising of veg peelings, prunings, eggshells, banana skins, etc - it had rotted down well into quite a nice compost, with the odd few bits of eggshell still visible.  The top layer is bags of bought multi purpose compost, it will take 6 bags altogether but we only did 2 before we had to stop.  It's surprisingly heavy and tiring work, shovelling the topsoil and compost into a trug (husband did that), then lifting the trug onto husband's homemade garden trolley - a wooden platform on wheels.  Unfortunately, it broke beneath the weight of the 3rd trug, I think husband filled it up too much 😒.  I raked all the soil level in the bed after helping husband lift the trugs and empty them into the bed each time - just the raking wore me out.  Husband would have carried on but I suggested it was time we stopped, or else we'd be unable to move come the evening!  He needs to do things slowly and take regular breaks anyway, because of his heart failure - which he doesn't unless I tell him to.  Besides which, the strong cold wind was back.

This morning we both ache like mad, so having a restful morning - besides which it's drizzling.  I'm going to do a freezer inventory, having done a fair bit of batch cooking lately there are quite a few homemade ready meals in the freezer.  I'll add to the menu plan too.  Sunny spells forecast for this afternoon, so we'll try and get the other 4 bags of compost into the raised bed.  The other raised veg beds need topping up and lightly forking over too, then they'll all be ready for planting up in due course.

Lots more Spring bulbs are beginning to flower now, Spring is definitely on the way! 🌷🪻