Simple chicken soup

Every now and then, you crave something simple for lunch. Usually, that would be a cheese sandwich, or maybe a tin of soup. When you exclude both dairy and gluten, suddenly the options seem desperately limited.

Don't despair though!

This week a bought a roasted a whole chicken, and I will eat it for most of the coming week. Cooked chicken a great standby, and roasting your own rather than buying a cooked one means you know exactly what is (and isn't) in it. It's also much cheaper.



Chicken and sweetcorn soup

A handful of cooked chicken pieces
A tin of naturally sweet, sweetcorn
A generous handful of easy cook rice
1 stock cube

Cream sweetcorn with a blender until mushy (I know it looks weird!)
Add hot water to stock cube and stir until dissolved.
Add all other ingredients.
Bring to boil and then simmer until rice is cooked.

This recipe is based on stock cupboard ingredients, but obviously you could use home made stock and fresh corn is you wanted too. I must say I wasn't thrilled with the stock cube I used today, a Kallo veg one, and would use a Knorr one next time. I am a proponant of real chicken stock, but when you're only cooking for one, you don't get through enough chickens to make it regularly.

chocolatey stars

I am a big fan of chocolate breakfast cereal. I know too much sugar is bad for you....blah de blah de blah....but every now and then I really crave kiddy cereal. When I gave up dairy I thought I'd said good bye to it, and pouring wheetos for brekka for the looked after children was strangely hard. But....

(drum roll please)



Hurray!

Dairy free, Egg free, Gluten free, Vegan, Wheat free, Organic CHOCOLATE STARS!!!

And they stay crunchy in the bowl way longer than wheeto's.

a new adventure

I had a lovely visit to my dietitian the other day. She's incredibly lovely, very upbeat and positive. I'm so grateful to the Lord for her; she listens carefully, takes detailed notes, and really involves you in the whole process. She's also down to earth, and very realistic. Her summery at my latest appointment was that I'm doing well with the dairy-free thing, but if I'm still feeling unwell, then I should try cutting out gluten.

What, I hear you say, as well as dairy? Are you sure that's really necessary?


yup, I thought that too.

She then listed all the stuff that contained it, said she'd send me some literature in the post about it, and that I'm to give it a go for three weeks; if it doesn't work, then that's just fine, but I should try. She also told me I'd lost quite a lot of weight, that I mustn't lose anymore, and that I should therefore snack more. The few minutes I spent with her contained a lot of information, and it has taken a while to process it.



I'm trying to think of it as a new adventure, but I confess I've felt a bit overwhelmed for the last few days. I've only just got to grips with avoiding dairy, which is awkward, but avoiding both is going to be very hard. I think I'm secretly hoping it makes no difference. Or lots of difference. If I could regain the energy I had once upon a time, it would be worthwhile. And I'll need it, because eating gluten free means either bankrupting yourself or cooking mainly from scratch. But I do love cooking. The next three weeks will be a challenge, but God is biggest to help me handle it, and he's set the challenge that I might look to him for his help.


I wonder if manna was gluten and dairy free?

Stoppit and Tidyup come to visit

My job is hard work. Work as hard work, I would argue, as I did in the NHS. Which sounds a bit lame for some one who apparently just makes coffee all day. If only all I did was make coffee.

Some thing I have always found hard was keeping my room tidy, and now when I come home from work extremely tired, the last thing I want to do is clear my room. I'm a 'bag dumper', which is exactly what it sounds like: I come in from work/shopping/holiday, and I dump my stuff on the floor. And forget about it.



I just can't face the mess. The immediate feeling I get from mess is overwhelming.

One cannot forget the golden rule, however.

What 'Golden Rule', I hear you say?

The one that states that my room MUST be clear before Tristan my music teacher comes to give me a lesson. The golden rule has been uniquely effective in keeping the chaos in my room under control, as it can't go on for any longer than the two to three weeks between lessons.



There's hope! Even people like me, when threatened with visitors, can turn this:



into this!



Alright, so it isn't a DRAMATIC turn around, but it was considerable better. I made it easier by splitting the job into two parts, doing the floor and ironing table on Tuesdays, and doing the washing and hoovering the floor today.