Tales from the cupboard

We Home educate.  We have done for many years of my sons life and all of my daughters.  There has been so much misinformation on the news and tv lately about home education with words like radicalisation, child abuse and unseen banded about.  I can only speak for myself, my close home ed friends and the hundreds of friends i have met through social media when i say that i know of no home educated kids who fit any of those phrases.  My children are the happiest, fun loving and most definitely well socialised kids i know, hell, we are never in, let alone have time to lock em up under the stairs Harry Potter style!  They have the freedom to choose how they spend their days, they have a say in their lives without it being dictated and micro managed to the Nth degree.  They can choose to exercise the most basic of human needs such as toilet, food and drink, whenever they need it, and for the most part, experience a fun, exciting and stimulating childhood.  I've seen various discussions of late on tv, most notably the discussion on BBC look north, where people with absolutely no idea how home education works, were discussing and showing their disgust at the very idea.  That would be akin to me discussing rugby and stating how disgusting it is on live TV when i don't know the first thing about it!  So here are some wonderful images of my children at their local Forest school This Green Moon being unseen, abused and clearly miserable!!!!

According to youngling these were hay Highlights!

The Curry Formula

I have a simple formula to make a great curry that even those that say they can't cook will have success with.  You could say you can't go wrong:

Any kind of onion (leek, red, white etc.)
 +

garam Massala, turmeric and oil

Fry it all till the onions soften and are covered in spice.  Then:

+

Any veg you like ( great store cupboard clear out recipe)

+

Free range Chicken or quorn

Fry a little to mix up with the spices and brown the meat then:

+

1 x tin of tomatoes (healthy and delicious) and/or 1 x tin of coconut milk (decadent and creamy)

Next ensure there is plenty of liquid and let it simmer away till it thickens and the liquid is much reduced.(If there's loads of liquid then add some dry red lentils to soak up and thicken it)

Then Serve!!!!!!

This was my simple curry for tonight's tea with carrots, broccoli and quorn with coconut milk.

This is great formula for a can't lose curry in a hurry but from here, you can add and add to create a million different flavours.  This makes a very mild curry but adding chillis and chilli powder would add a real kick.  Likewise using only coconut milk and adding fragrant ingredients such as fish sauce and lemon grass gives a thai flavour to the dish.  The longer you simmer the thicker the sauce gets.

  I have stated Free range chicken here.  I feel strongly about always using free range.  I personally would rather opt for quorn than buy none free range.  And if money is tight, you'll be amazed how far you can stretch a single chicken breast by cutting small.  Likewise legs are cheaper and are great in a curry.  if you've ever stood in an actual battery chicken shed as i have, its not an experience you ever forget, but thats for another post.  Anyway i defy even the most ardent meat eater not to enjoy quorn chicken chunks in this recipe.  Its delicious.  Paneer also works well.  Enjoy!

Gratitude v's "be grateful"

Just a short post this morning on something i've been thinking about alot.  I am a big advocate for being grateful but at the same time i was always told growing up "be grateful for what you've got"  These two things appear to say the same thing but infact say very different things.

  When you say the phrase "Be grateful for what you've got" what you're really saying is stop wanting more, be happy with your lot and get on with it.  Get your head out of the clouds and quit dreaming.  Now as a child, i was a real dreamer.  I would stare at the clouds and make out exotic city scapes i was sure i would visit one day, i would draw unicorns and magical places, I was confident i would travel the world and have adventures.  Then as my teens came upon me i heard phrases such as "Be grateful for what you've got", "Grow up", "live in the real world", "you're living in a dream world" (Said with scorn). I think all of these things really affected me, they stopped me pursuing my dreams, stopped me wanting more.  I certainly for a while tried my hardest to be grateful for what i've got.  But as i've grown older, i realise that to be grateful is a wonderful thing, but never, ever settle for less, always strive for more, to make your life better.  In the words of Hal Elrod, i want a 'level ten life'.  I will never tell my children to accept their lot.  I will tell them to always be grateful for what they have but also strive for more. They deserve the best their life can give them and they should always work towards that.  Little steps every day.

  As i said before i am a great advocate for gratitude, so i wanted to say a final note on my daily gratitude rituals.  I keep a journal, every day i write in it 10 things i am grateful for today.  This helps me so much to appreciate the good things in my life, especially on the difficult rubbishy days.  Its like a tonic on those days.  I honestly believe what you think you attract and if i start my day thinking "I've got loads to do", "Nothing ever gets done", "I have no money", "I'm crap at everything", those thoughts will be with me all day long dragging me down.  Maybe this week is tight and i have very little spare cash.  Dwelling on it is not going to change that fact and will only make me feel worse.  Instead i choose to think of something else entirely like how nice the weather is, how great my health is, how i'm losing weight and slowly become a happy, healthier me.  So i do my gratitude journal every day at the start of the day.  Then every evening i use my gratitude stone.  Its a little heart shaped rock that i got from a national trust gift shop.  It has the word 'believe' on it.  Just a tourist gift really.  But i hold it each night before bed and think of one great thing i did today.  I need the physical stone there to remind me to do it but its not really important.  the important thing is to find something awesome that happened that day and say thanks for it.

Being grateful is so so important, but always strive for more!

Scared of the Jersey? Crochet instead!

Ok so if i'm gonna make all my clothes this year i really need to get a handle on jersey, that easy to wear t shirt material.  But i'm scared!  I have no overlocker and no idea how to sew it on a regular machine.  I bought an overlocking foot off ebay that i discovered i didn't need, and then had to order special needles.  They came so quickly i was almost disappointed since i was trying to avoid sewing the thing!  What am i sewing? Well i purchased some beautiful gold and grey jersey and the plan is to make a super drapey kimono with it.

 

Its absolutely gorgeous but i came un stuck  from the get go.  Who knew cutting jersey with fabric scissors was so hard?  Anyway i have a semblance of a kimono cut out.  I have the needles, and the correct foot.  So what to do now?  Ignore it all and crochet!

Spring cleaning time

It's that time again.  January rolls around, and i promise myself i will do better in a million different ways.  There is one area in particular though, that causes me stress and angst the whole year through.  That is keeping house.  I am a brilliant mother in many ways, i home educate my kids and give alot of my time to them, i have seemingly endless patience (except when i don't), i can cook pretty good, but keep a tidy house?  Its like i was born with something missing or lacking.  I collect stuff.  I have so much stuff.  My partner is a collector too.  He inherited a ton of 'stuff' when his parents sadly passed away.  On top of that, i cannot seem to fathom how to tidy it all, keep it tidy and keep a clean home.  I find myself making excuses to visitors and warning them before they arrive that we are not tidy.  I find myself wanting to go out all the time because i can't relax at home surrounded by 'stuff'.  I can't do this anymore.  It needs to end.  This year will be the year i learn how to tidy.  

So i bought myself "The Life Changing Magic of Tidying" by Marie Kondo (Konmari).  There's been alot of buzz around this book and people are saying its changed their lives.  Ok let me be honest, i bought the book last summer but promptly lost it under a pile of 'Stuff'. Oh the irony.  So i dug out my copy a few days ago and began to read.  I put it down again several times though, because frankly i'm scared!  I am actually scared that if i read this book i will have to start actually doing this whole tidying thing.  I am scared to chuck stuff out, i am scared of being organised and being in control.  I think this is because of my mother.

My mother is a brilliant house keeper to the point of obsession.  Our house was so clean you could eat off the floor, and that was with several pets around.  Growing up, i would often experience her tidying up around me.  If i left the butter knife and turned my back, it was gone!  I grew to resent the cleaning.  I have very few memories of actually playing with mum because she was always tidying.  Always.  I spent alot of time in my bedroom reading alone.  I loved it but i also resented the tidying.  I'm sure if she reads this, she'll beg to differ.  I'm confident she did do stuff with us but all i remember is the tidying, washing, house cleaning, and decorating.  I think now that part of my aversion to keeping house stems from this.  I don't want anything to do with house keeping.  I hate it.  So what now?

With that in mind i am plowing through the book.  Actually forcing myself to read.  I want control of my house back and i'm ready to do just about anything to get it.  I am determined.  Maybe i wasn't ready to examine my root issues with tidying last summer but now is the time.  I am geared up and ready to go.  Her philosophy is to take every item in your house of a certain catagory and pile it all in one place starting with clothes.  So every item of clothing in your entire house goes on the living room floor.  There are reasons for doing it this way which are explained in the book, but the core idea is you only keep the items that spark joy.  So you take each item individually and ask yourself if it sparks joy in you.  If not its got to go.  You move on to different catagories around your house right down to books, toys and furniture.  Konmari promises that by the end of it, you will only need to tidy twice a year!  Twice a year!!!!!  

As i said before i am a collector.  Myself and my partner both have quite alot of sentimental items, and i mean alot.  These will be the most difficult to apply the method to.  I think i will find books particularly challenging.  We have a small library worth of books and that is no exaggeration.  I have tried to cull the books before and usually manage one or two. But i'm going to be brave.  Using the Konmari method i will not think about what i want to get rid of but rather what really makes me happy, and if they don't make the cut, they don't stay.  

Already i'm also starting to think about applying the Konmari method to others areas in my life as well.  What am i doing and where am i in my life right now that sparks joy?  The house i live in was bought as the most functional place we could afford at the time for our needs.  But does it spark joy?  Does my hobbies and free time activities spark joy? Does my life as i live it right now spark joy in me?  These are big questions that i can't answer fully just yet but i think aiming to spark joy inside yourself in everything you do is possibly the best and most fulfilling way to live.  Why would anyone settle for anything less?

Homemade Pizza time.....

I'm really keen to start using up all my food and not to waste any.  If i think of how much i was throwing away, it probably comes to hundreds of pounds a year.  So from now on i will be looking at clever ways to use food up. Tonight was my first attempt.
 We love pizza.  Well me and the kids do.  Mr A not so much because he cannot bear (bare?) cheese.  This can be problematic as i make almost exclusively vegetarian food (I don't like meat).  I figured  he really needs to get with the joys of pizza and decided to make my own dough.  I do like to decide these things on the spur of the moment!
 I used:  1 L of warm water
              4 tbs of granulated sugar (I never have caster in when i need it)
              25g of dry active yeast
              a really good grinding of salt
              nearly 3 1/2 lb of plain flour
              4 oz butter (melted)

I mixed the yeast and sugar with some of the warm water to dilute it and left it to froth up.
I added the reast of the water to 3lb of the flour, salt and butter and mixed like mad.
Then i added in the yeast mixture.  It was super runny and gloopy so i added more flour till it was a soft dough.  I actually ran out of plain flour and ended up using a little self raising! Doughy pizza crust is fine by me.

Next i kneaded till my arms dropped off.  Roughly about ten minutes or so.  By this time it had grown loads (like a big dough monster) so i popped it back in the bowl to rise and left it alone.  I have a little trick to rising dough.  I have one of those wheat bags and it happens to be a long sausage shape.  I get it super hot in the microwave then wrap it round the outside of the bowl.  Keeps the dough nice and warm.  

Apparently the way to tell if your Dough is ready is to press a finger in.  If the indent remains, it's ready. This dough makes enough for 4 pizzas so i cut off what i needed and portioned and froze the rest.

I needed a tomato paste for the base.  I really wanted to use up a slimy old leek i found.  It was pretty grim looking but i peeled off the outer layers and it happened to be perfect inside.  I chopped it up really small, and did the same with a couple of garlic cloves.  Popped them in the wok with water and a can of chopped tomatoes.  I really like Aldi's chopped toms with herbs.  It was really watery so i boiled it up and reduced it to a yummy paste (keep stirring so it doesn't burn).  When it was cool-ish, i blasted it in the blender in to a paste. 

Time to construct the pizza.  Not only does Mr A hate cheese but he wouldn't be able to eat any food 'contaminated' with or touching cheese.  So i had an idea to create a dough barrier down the middle of the pizza.

I then added each persons favourite toppings.  In my case, some mushrooms that needed using, red peppers and cheese, in his case, peppers, a dried chilli chopped really fine and some corned beef.  What i loved was that i could manage the amount i added.  I made the pizza healthier on my side by adding a few cheese slices rather than a whole pile of grated cheese.  Fewer calories but the same cheesy taste. 

The result was delicious!  Oh my word homemade dough tastes amazing! I normally can't stand the crusts on a shop bought pizza but this crust was so delish i ate it dipped in left over tomato sauce.  Divine!  I now have slightly sore wrists but the hard work is done.  For future pizzas I'll just grab some dough ready made from the freezer.

First sewing project of the year!

 I really wanted to take small steps to reduce my impact on the earth in achievable ways.  So this year i have pledged to make as much of my clothes as i can.  I want to challenge myself and see what i can achieve.  I should say i am a very novice seamstress.  I went on two one day courses years back to make a simple skirt and a simple dress and thats it!  After that i used youtube and books for help.  I have always knitted and mastered crochet too, but never sewing. 
  Why do i want to buy less clothes?  Firstly i want to be less of a consumer.  I'm looking for a more wholesome life full of experience.  I can save the money i waste on clothes and use it in more meaningful ways, like travel, books, art equipment, really enriching stuff that feeds my soul.  I don't want to support cheap clothing producers that pollute the planet and pay their workers next to nothing for what is virtually modern day slavery.  I want no part in people having to leave their babies in the care of others while they live in shoe boxes in the cities and work 18 hours a day for a meagre wage to send home. 
  From and environmental point of view, the figures from www.wrap.org.uk tell us that extending the lives of clothes by just 3 months leads to a 5-10% reduction in the carbon, water and waste footprints, and more than that, 350,000 tons of clothing goes to landfill in the uk every year! 
  So this year i will mend first, make second and thirdly buy from ethical sources if i can.
Here is my first offering of the year (my photo skills leave much to be desired):

A little A line skirt.  I am actually more proud of this than i should be as its pretty crappy sewn but it was supposed to be a smock top from a beautiful japanese sewing book i own.  Thing is, the patterns don't come with seam allowance. I  forgot that bit of information of course.so the size 14 i cut out, when basted together was a small size 12! eek!  No way were my boobs fitting in there.  I either had to chop it to make a skirt or chuck it all together.  So chop it i did.  Of course i then had no pattern to follow.  So the reason i'm so proud of the skirt is that i managed, through the power of google, to work out how to add a waist band and how to add a button band:

This skirt will never win any competitions except maybe the wonky stitching award, but it fits and that, in my book, is a great start!