Tag Archives: food

What not to spend money on…

What not to spend money on…

I'm a bit of a compulsive spender. There, I said it.

Unlike others, I don't buy shoes or clothes. I buy boxes. And organising stuff. Sites like The daily planner and The container store make my heart beat faster.
And Thinkgeek.

Oh, and pens.

And I buy a lot of food.

Only on occasion do I not use the things I purchase, this happens maybe a couple of times per year. I don't buy 50 pairs of shoes, new skirts because they're on sale etc.

But I am a compulsive spender and this has to stop. I have more pens than I could possible ever get empty (granted, drawing just goes a lot better with the right pen, but I have multiple so that shouldn't become a problem any time soon). I have a gazillion (lovely) boxes.
No more buying food when I have plenty in my pantry. Make shopping lists and stick to them. Time to grow up ;)

Preparing to re-enter the world of the working.

Preparing to re-enter the world of the working.
Preparing to re-enter the world of the working.

Yesterday wore me out, I fell asleep after dinner (again) and slept till morning (again) on the sofa (again, much warmer than the bedroom).

I spent most of the day continuing to not move much on the sofa. I did take a lot of time finding the perfect backpack for me. My other backpacks still work fine, so technically I probably shouldn't buy yet another one (but I still have less backpacks than most women purses or shoes! so ha). My daypack can hold up to 20 liters, which suffices for either groceries or going anywhere and bringing my own food and drinks (some of it at least), but not both at the same time, which means I can't decide to pop buy the store after work (I'll start work again soon, so I will want to buy food on my way home to save time and travel)

My other, slightly larger backpack, could probably do both, but borderline, with its (I think) 23 litres. It would get tight but would fit with not too many groceries. It feels a bit uncomfortable though, when it gets heavy. It's more or less very handy for clothes and laptop, but not so much for groceries. The hip-band doesn't do much for distributing the weight.

So I found the Vaude Gallery Air. It holds about 30 litres (a bit much, yes) but has straps to tighten it, so it becomes more flat. It has a raincoat (yay) and can expand with an extra 5 litres (yay). It has a great back (I have the same thing on my really large backpack) so you can have ventilation between your back and the pack, or wear it tightly to your back.
I needed a thermos (yes, needed, I don't drink as fast as normal people and with a thermos I can take my time and still enjoy a hot beverage), I looked around at Siggs and found the Metro Mug. It holds 380ml or 13oz which means I can take a pretty large amount of hot beverage or soup (maybe even stew) to work with me. Or, I bring soup, have that, and fill it up with hot tea and milk at work. Win-win! Mmmm tea with milk.

I also ordered a normal water bottle, even though I won't drink water from it. It comes with its own cup. I could use it for beverages that don't need to stay that hot or cold. It has an optional neoprene jacket to keep it cooler / warmer for a longer time, so I may purchase that if needed. Or, I could just fill it up with booze ;)

I have plenty of containers to bring food in, and after searching found a handy small ovendish that I'll bring along to work as well, in case I need to heat something up (I don't like heating stuff up in plastic, eek). I have several and should it break I won't cry over it.

So, my backpack survival kit will contain:
- nifty backpack
- Metro Mug, with soup or tea with milk (mmm)
- waterbottle+cup with some other beverage
- about 3 portions of food / snacks, either in mr Bento or in my separate containers
- cuttelery (possibly getting a new set for this)
- cloth/towel, for drying used stuff and wipe hands with (might just cut up an old t-shirt for this)
- ziploc bag with medication (1 dose MTX, 1 dose folic acid, several naproxen / paracetamol, 2 dose of plaquenil, spare set of contacts, small bottle of disinfectant for hands, 2 sachets of ORS salts, 1 (lip)balm and I probably forgot something)
- with the weather probably safe to add extra set of gloves, hat, scarf, jumper of some sort, extra pair of socks

Just the basics. At least I can say, I've come prepared...

At first I thought I wanted to bring too much, but the more I think about it, the more I know I've only listed the bare minimum.....

A drawing of food.

A drawing of food.
Vegetables .

I had to make food, and after throwing it in the pan to warm up I started drawing and got distracted. I feel pretty good about how this turned out, I haven’t done any drawing in ages (two or three months) because of my increased arthritis, and I found it didn’t start hurting more when drawing this. Possibly caused by having a painkiller less than an hour before though :)

Pizza muffins ftw!

Pizza muffins ftw!
Pizza muffins!

On the lookout for tasty easy snacks to make my life without a stomach a breeze, I happily stumbled over Kay’s foodblog. This Dutch Girl Cooking has plenty of tasty and easy to make recipes accompanied by beautiful photography that makes my mouth water.

Now, my photos don’t even come close to hers, but check the photo for the results of my attempt to make Pizza muffins!
The recipe didn’t ask for any weird stuff, I basically had everything. I did replace the pizza sauce with some home made pasta sauce which made them a bit sweeter (next time I’ll use pizza sauce, I promise). I made a small batch, liked it, and then realised I had a lot of dough left. I froze it in batches, so now I only have to take one out, put it in a small ovendish and heat up that muffin. The ones on the photo turned out a bit too large for me, I adjusted the frozen batch accordingly.
Also, because I don’t eat ham I added an extra load of Gouda cheese :)

I don’t like sweet stuff very much, and these savoury muffins just make my day.

Macaroni and cheese, Tannie-style.

Macaroni and cheese, Tannie-style.
Mac ‘n’ Cheese, Tannie-style.

I wanted Mac ‘n’ Cheese, because I had never had it before. I looked at recipes online and they all said something else (though they agree it needed ‘macaroni’ and any type of cheese).

So I decided to make my own recipe with what I had in my cupboards. I used less cheese than most recipes recommended, which worked out very well for me.

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