the huntered housewife

Today was my day off work, so I spent it pottering around the house in between watching the Olympics.

Breakfast was streaky bacon and eggs, fried. Easy.

During the day I made some more of my low carb “sushi”, this time I added red capsicum and kewpie mayo. I made four rolls (I still need practice with the rolling technique) and I ate one for my lunch, along with a bit of cooked chicken from the fridge. Remember how I said a pulled apart cooked chicken is great to have in the fridge? Yep, it’s still a great idea.

Hubby cooked dinner, he had a hankering for sausages. Woolies have a range that is low in carbs and he bought lamb & rosemary sausages and chicken, spinach & fetta sausages. I didn’t like the lamb ones but the rest of the family did. Our daughter didn’t like the chicken ones but the rest of the family did.

Side dish for the low carbing adults was a cook up of zucchini, green beans, mushrooms and bacon in a cream sauce and it was YUMMY! The kids had chips, peas and corn as sides. There was gravy, but I only had one spoonful (tablespoon, not serving spoon or ladle) to dip the sausage in after I had finished the cream sauce on my plate.

Sorry, no photo. I had finished my greens before thinking of it, so you wouldn’t have seen the entire meal.

What was on your plate today, low carb or other?

Tonight’s dinner started with the best of intentions. There were only two of us home for dinner – with 2 adults, 2 adult kids and a teenager all having different schedules, it’s natural that we are rarely all together at dinner time.

When hubby was at the shops today, he remembered that I hadn’t organised anything for dinner, so he bought some bacon wrapped chicken with a pumpkin, spinach & fetta stuffing (I would have spelt that as feta, but the package has fetta). Anyway, it sounds nice, good carb count of 3.6 grams per serve. Team it with some Steamfresh vegetables, which I like to have a stash of in the freezer for convenience. Now, I discovered something when I read the nutrition panel. There are 3 sachets of vegetables in the packet. We usually eat one sachet each, at 3.1g of carbs. Easy, yes? Not quite. The nutrition panel tells me the 3 sachets are actually 6 serves, so if I am eating one sachet, it is two serves therefore I need to double the carbs. So my vegetables tonight were 6.2g of carbs.

Fast forward and when the chicken parcels are due to be ready they are not. Allow another 10 minutes, still not ready, another 5, nope. So I threw them into the air fryer in an effort to finish them off. When we cut them open, I still wasn’t happy that they were thoroughly cooked, so the next place I threw them was in the bin!

That meal was Plan A. Now we had to decide on Plan B.

Fortunately, hubby has realised how awesome it is to have a supermarket hot chicken pulled apart in the fridge for whenever we want something “grab-able”. He bought a hot chicken today!! So as a last minute change of dinner plans, that’s what was served.

So dinner carbs would have been under 10 grams. Breakfast was some sausages with kewpie mayo. As I mentioned the other day, I don’t know how many carbs were in the sausages because they came from the butcher, therefore they are without a nutrition panel. Even if I said 20g of carbs in the sausages, when added to the approximate 10g at dinner, it comes to 30g of carbs for the day. I’m happy with that.

So how was your day?

After work I headed to the butcher because I often find the meat cabinet in the supermarket very uninspiring. We sold out of hot food in the canteen today, the cold weather tends to make teenagers eat more – kind of like warming themselves on the inside. When you deal with food (that you don’t eat) all day, figuring out what to cook my own family for dinner can be tricky.

I had a hankering for onion gravy, so that became my starting point. What goes well with onion gravy? Sausages or rissoles. I bought both because I still couldn’t make my mind up. Now, if you are hard core keto, you will probably avoid onions due to their carb count. They are around 9 grams of carbs per 100g of onions and if you go keto you would stick to foods that are 5g or less of carbs per 100g of the food. But, we eat low carb rather than keto, so I am happy to eat onions. It’s not like I eat 100g of onions. The gravy powder contains carbs in the form of flour, but I am okay with that because I don’t have it every day.

I ended up cooking the rissoles. I didn’t ask what they put in them, but you can assume they contained flour or rice flour or breadcrumbs. Again, keto doesn’t allow these ingredients however low carb can. I figured because I had eaten so few carbs during the day that some carbs at dinner would not hurt me.

I had some low carb sausages in the fridge, some pork and caramelised onion or something like that, the ones I bought from the butcher will be tomorrow’s dinner. So I cooked them up too, because I don’t like the family leaving the table hungry. Become a reader of nutrition panels. I have found that sausages in the supermarket range from 1g of carbs to 8g for one sausage. If you choose the lower carb ones, you have spare carbs to use on things like sauce or gravy!

To go with our sausages, rissoles and onion gravy, I baked some whole brussels sprouts and kent pumpkin, which are on the “green list” of vegetables. Kent pumpkin, not butternut as there are less carbs in kent. A sprinkle of olive oil, pink salt and garlic powder was all I added. For the kids (13 & 18), I cooked some chips and a peas, corn & carrot frozen veg mix because they are not keen on pumpkin and brussels sprouts!

Total carb count? I don’t know precisely because I don’t have carb quantities of individual items. But I reckon it could possibly be 10-15 grams. If you are keto, you are allowed up to 20g in a day, low carb can be as high as 100g, depending on how your body tolerates carbs. We try to stay lower than 20g a day and if you consider that I only had probably 2g at breakfast, another 2g in the chocolate bar that was very average tasting, even overestimating 15g at dinner, adds up to 19g carbs for today.

Yes, I skipped lunch. One of the rules of eating low carb is that you eat when you are hungry, not when the clock tells you it’s mealtime. If you are not hungry, don’t eat. The old rule of breakfast being the most important meal of the day has been thrown out the window. If you are not hungry at breakfast time, wait until you are hungry before you eat. More on this another day. In the meantime, enjoy my pic of tonight’s dinner!

Today I would like to talk about something other than food. I would like to talk about manners and etiquette.

The following is part of the definition of etiquette from dictionary .com

etiquette
[et-i-kit, -ket]
conventional requirements as to social behaviour; proprieties of conduct as established in any class or community or for any occasion.

I was raised to be someone who is polite and considerate of others and know how to behave in social situations. To have etiquette.

Take today for example. We went to watch Disney on Ice, a live show on tour at the moment. You are probably all familiar with it, possibly having seen this tour or a previous tour. “We” in this case means myself, Mr 22, Mr 15, Miss 10 and Miss 10’s friend who we will call Miss 11 because she recently celebrated her birthday. So off we trotted, found our seats in the second last row (great view from any seat in a smaller venue than a big city’s entertainment centre) and I made sure to sit the two girls in front of the children in the back row so none of the adults were blocking the view of the young chaps behind us. The Mum was very thankful when I told her that I wouldn’t sit an adult in front of her kids. When I go to shows or even movies I make sure my hair is either in a low ponytail or not tied up so that I don’t have a high pony tail or my hair piled on top of my head blocking the view of someone sitting behind me. I ask the person behind me if they can see. Isn’t that simply called having manners or being considerate?

So anyway, things started really well. As I mentioned, it really doesn’t make much difference where you sit in a venue of this size with the stage set up of this how – the venue is small enough that you can see the whole stage anyway. Usually.

This is the view I started the show with:

We were halfway along the stage and could see the entire performing area.

Until halfway through the first half and this happened:

A tall dude sat right in front of me.

The seat that had previously been occupied by a small child. I don’t know if this guy was just late or if he had moved from a different seat, but he sat there to help  his wife with the kids. Yay – good husband award. He had a youngster on his lap – they are her piggytails that look like lumps either side of his neck in the photo. And a child sitting on the seat on his right.

I understand that he is tall. I understand that he had to sit somewhere. He paid the same amount for his ticket as I did for mine – he is entitled to see the show. But so am I. If you are tall and going to sit in front of me, at least try to sit still so I can look around you. That is etiquette. That is being considerate of those around you. That is called behaving in a socially acceptable manner.

Leaning in to talk to your wife every single time a character on stage moved does not make it easy for me to see around you. Leaning around to talk to the child on your lap on one side and then on the other does not make it possible for me to see around you. Having children who are getting out of their seats to walk past you to your wife to get more food and you shuffling around does not make it easy for me to see past any of you. Honestly, I have never seen a grown up move around so much during a show. Or a movie. I get that you have kids but if they are not old enough to sit through a movie they are not going to sit through a live show. They don’t have the ability yet.

I was this close to tapping him on the shoulder and saying “I realise you are tall and I don’t mean to sound rude but could you possibly try to keep fairly still during the performance so I can see around you?”.

So for three quarters of the show I got to see the stage in two halves – the left of his head and the right of his head. Not the middle where most of the action was. Fortunately behind me was a pole so I didn’t have anyone trying to see around me. I checked that before moving my head around too much. Because I try to keep still so as not to negatively impact others’ experiences.

Because I am considerate.

Because I was raised to be polite.

Because I have etiquette.

We have been to performances of several plays and concerts locally that are in school halls and have rows of seats along the floor as opposed to elevated seating. Two years in a row at a particular concert I have watched my children perform through the teased fringe of a lady sitting in front of me, with no way of avoiding it. For Pete’s sake people, don’t wear high hair if the seats aren’t elevated!!!!! Don’t  wear anything that is going to make it hard for the people behind you to see. We’ve all been in the situation where we’ve had to watch something through the space between heads. The people behind you have to do the same so if you move around a lot, they have to and then those behind them have to and those behind them and so on. If you make an effort to keep still, there’s a whole lot of people behind you that you will avoid pissing off.

Think about how you would feel if you were the person who couldn’t see. Do what you can to make it easier for them.

That is called being considerate.

And polite.

And having etiquette.

And not pissing me off.

Rant over.

Thank you.

Oh, and I did eat today. Leftover fathead pizza for breakfast, satay chicken sticks for lunch:

and dinner was at the local club – they have meals that are adaptable for the different eating preferences in my family. Chinese food, which meant I could avoid rice and order food that wasn’t battered. Mr 22 had a couple of vegan options to choose from to keep him happy.

And that was our day.

How was yours?

Karen.

Today we met up with some of my absolute favourite people for a picnic. Five hours of road between us these days means we usually get together somewhere along the halfway  point and pick up where we left off last time. Always a happy and relaxing day together. I shared this photo on my facebook page so some of you have already seen it this evening, but this is so typical of our days out it is too good not to share on here.

We were up and out early, so the kids had “breaky on the road”, which means McDonald’s and I had a black coffee to go.

Lunch for me was a salad bowl with some leftover chicken from last night’s dinner added to it. Food is communal at our picnics so between us there was heaps to pick at. Cinnamon scrolls, date & nut balls, fruit, crackers, dip, cheese crackers, pork crackling and I can’t remember what else. If anyone goes hungry it’s their own fault, not from a lack of food on offer!

It was dark by the time we got home, so it was a slack dinner of frozen pizzas bought on the way home to make dinner quick and easy for the kids. I made myself a fathead pizza, which is a dough made from melted cream cheese and grated cheese (usually mozzarella but I didn’t have any so I used cheddar instead), almond meal and egg. Add some salt and some herbs if you wish. Roll it out, bake the base and then top it with whatever you like and then pop it back into the oven until it’s ready and away you go.

Tonight’s toppings were pizza sauce, pizza topper herbs, bacon bits, salami, kale (or spinach if you are not a kale fan) and a slice of tasty cheese torn up (because I had used all my shredded cheese to make the base) and some parmesan cheese because I could. It was yummy and I still have three slices left, which will make an easy breakfast for tomorrow when we are up at the crack of dawn and on the go again.

And that was today. Perfect. How was yours?

Karen.

Today we took a road trip to Tamworth, which is about an hour and a half to two hours north of us, depending on how many sets of road works we come across along the way. I went there for a canteen manager’s training session a couple of months ago and had six sets of roadworks to contend with. That one was a slow trip!

Hardly any today though. Plus Ray was driving and we all know that men drive faster than women lol.

I knew I wouldn’t have time for breakfast unless I was up before the sun and that wasn’t happening unless it had to! So I made myself what’s called a bulletproof coffee (or fat coffee), so that I wouldn’t get hungry before lunch time, because I didn’t have snacks ready. I was unprepared. Anyway……….I survived. We had morning tea at a bakery in the main street and I just had a black coffee while the others had pies and sausage rolls. Honestly, I didn’t want them. It’s surprising how bland some foods that you’ve always liked taste once you stop eating them.

We stopped at a pub on the way home a  couple of hours later and I had a really yummy chicken Caesar salad. The bacon and the chicken were cooked fresh to order and by now I think you all know how much I like warm meat in a salad. It was SO yummy!!! I ordered it without croutons and they didn’t even bat any eyelid. I love service like that. A Caesar salad is a good standby meal for when you are out. Most cafes, pubs and clubs will have one on their lunch menu. Often they can be found in takeaway shops too. Just pick out the croutons or order it without them. Easy. Just be sure to ask if the chicken is crumbed or not – you don’t want to find out once your meal is on a plate in front of you. Don’t be afraid to ask questions and to ask for alterations.

The family’s request at dinner time was for wraps, so we cooked up some beef strips and two flavours of marinated chicken, grated some carrot and cheese, shredded some lettuce, chopped some capsicum, mashed an avocado and opened a bottle of kewpie mayonnaise. The family had theirs in tortillas/wrap breads and I had mine in iceberg lettuce leaves, like a san choy bow. I didn’t get to take a photo but I’m sure you can imagine how it looks. There is so much you can wrap in lettuce leaves. If it’s tacos night, load up a leaf instead of a shell or load up a plate & make it a taco salad – there’s that warm meat in a salad thing again!

We’re going on a picnic tomorrow, so I spent some time after dinner getting snacks prepared. Cheese crackers and pork crackling.

Cheese crackers are literally slices of cheese cut into quarters and baked in the oven and rescued before they burn. Pork crackling is available in the meat department of the supermarket and is cheap. This lot cost me $3. Score the skin, salt it and bake it at 220ish degrees and listen to it pop and crackle as it puffs up. It takes about half an hour. Your kitchen will be quite smoky when you open the oven door – your smoke alarm might even go off. Mine didn’t tonight – I think I got the sliding door to outside opened fast enough so the smoke could escape. But don’t worry if your goes off, it’s applauding you for your good taste in food!

So with these snacks and a cream cheese based dip, I have low carb picnic snacks. I am also taking some strawberries, raspberries and blueberries because they are delicious and at the lower end of the sugar scale when it comes to fruit. For lunch I am taking a salad and some leftover chicken from tonight’s dinner to go with it. The meat won’t be warm, but it will still be tasty!

And that’s how today rolled. What did you get up to today?

Karen 🙂

Okay, so here I am again, over sharing what I ate today.

Not particularly hungry at a time when the clock would have indicated would be good to eat breakfast, so I went for brunch again. School holidays are a great time to start LCHF eating because you have lots of time to organise and adapt.

So brunch went like this:

BBQ Chicken & prepacked salad from Coles:

I ate half a bag (2 serves because I am greedy lol). 7.2 grams of carbs.

The above items led to this:

Which led to this:

It was delicious!

Several hours later it was time to get dinner ready. Living in the country, we don’t have a fresh fish shop and usually need to rely on frozen/thawed supplies from the supermarket. However, there is a truck that comes to town most Wednesdays with fresh seafood, so today I went shopping there! I figured fish would be kind to Ray’s still sensitive gums following last week’s dental treatment.

I am so proud of my efforts – here’s what I made:

Whole snapper baked in foil, topped with a blend (that I made) of fresh garlic, ginger, turmeric, chives, dill, worcestershire sauce, fish sauce, mirin sauce, apple cider vinegar, dried chilli and I can’t remember if there was anything else! I started with a recipe but for some reason had no soy sauce at home so I improvised and added heaps of extra ingredients.

It was SO YUMMY!!!!!! Feedback from the family is please make this a regular dinner. The idea of baking a whole fish and placing it in the middle of the table with everyone picking away at it epitomises the whole sharing a meal thing. Even though Miss 10 and Mr 22 don’t eat fish (Miss 10 had a taste but didn’t like it). They were still able to sit and eat foods that they enjoy and share in some of the other foods on the table.

I also made these, but most of them had been polished off before I could take a photo!

No carbs in oysters, minimal in bacon (read your nutrition panel when it comes to bacon as some have a surprising amount of sugar). Only a bit in worcestershire sauce, so I am counting that as a very low carb dish. Oh, and Miss 10 ate one but didn’t like it. No surprise there as she usually only likes crumbed calamari and salt & pepper squid but I am proud of here for giving it a go.

Other share plates on the table included coleslaw, caesar salad (from a bag, just don’t eat the croutons) and sweet potato chips. Sweet potato is supposed to be a “medium” carb food, meaning you can eat it a couple of times a week, however a google search will indicate that it is almost identical to ordinary potato, so I don’t know what gives there. But we don’t eat it every day and my carb count for the day was pretty low so I was quite confident in eating some. Especially with freshly ground salt! Salt is very important when you are eating low carb style. Something to do with electrolytes, I don’t know the science behind it but I am happy to be able to eat salt for a good reason when we have been told for years that it is bad for us. I am such a rebel!

And that was my day in food. Please feel free to share what you are eating. I don’t care if it’s low carb or not, I can still drool over it. I am such a foodie!

Cheers,

Karen.

Today I decided on brunch as I wasn’t hungry when it would usually have been breakfast time and Miss 10 and I were going to the movies at a time that meant an early lunch was needed. So brunch it was.

I don’t have a photo, but I heated two pre-cooked marinated chicken in the sandwich press, then chopped them up and mixed them into a ready made salad bowl with Mexican dressing that I bought at the supermarket yesterday. I am a massive fan of warm meat in a salad. It’s definitely one way to make salad more appealing on a winter’s day when in the past you would have gone for toasted cheese sandwiches or one of many other comfort foods. I quite like a premixed salad – I have been known to add reheated sausages or steak to them, or hot chicken – any warm meat really.

After a little while we headed off to the movies. I knew I would want a munchie so planned ahead by stopping at the shops on the way. Usually I would choose chips but I was determined not to cave in and I chose a bar from the low carb section instead. I used to buy the Atkins ones but there is an ingredient in there that triggers my cold sores so I tend to stay away from them now. I know, I am weird. But there is an ingredient in chocolate that triggers cold sores in some people and I am one of them, so I can’t eat much chocolate. Which can be handy!

Don’t bother spending your money on this bar, it didn’t excite me much. At least now I know! I won’t buy it again.

I had the slow cooker on today. I caught some awesome markdowns at the supermarket yesterday and was able to buy a soup mix pack of vegetable for the absolute bargain price of 40 cents. Yes, 40 cents! So I bought two and used one to make a vegan soup for Mr 22 and used the other pack in the slow cooker with some beef and a goulash recipe base.

Now these soup packs are mainly root vegetables, which are on the higher carb end of the vegetable scale. So I didn’t actually eat those ones, I ate the vegetables that are on the sometimes list for low carb eating. Onion, carrots, celery (from memory celery is good for everyday eating) and of course the beef. I chose not to eat the potato, swede or parsnip. Yes, some may have “leeched” into the sauce, but I am not that pedantic, it is not going to throw my entire day out!

Here’s what it looked like:

And it was Y.U.M.M.Y. Miss 10 had hers with toast to dip into it. I had some running around to do this evening so didn’t get to eat until after 8:30 (hence the slow cooker so people could serve their own dinner from it at various times). And there are two containers of leftovers that I can freeze for another day.

So that was today.

What was on your plate?

Karen.

The post-dinner clean up is complete, which means it’s time for me to share with you what I ate today.

I was hungry when I got up so I decided breakfast was a definite yes today. Of course it had to be super easy, so I put a generous dob of butter (REAL butter, not margarine) in the fry pan and loosely scrambled three eggs in it. And this was my breakfast along with a cup of green tea.

At lunchtime, I wasn’t hungry enough to eat much but was after something “picky”, so I had a couple of twiggy sticks, a couple of bits of pork crackling that I cooked yesterday and some mixed nuts.

I am currently SO FULL from my dinner. Using butter again, I fried a piece of salmon (crispy skin – yum!) and in the same pan I cooked up some green beans. I felt like some extra crunch so I quickly put some smoked almonds in the mortar & pestle and gave them a quick bash before adding them to the beans in the pan. I took a photo before tucking in. As you can see, it was quite a big piece of salmon and a big helping of beans. I caught some markdowns at the supermarket and scored a whole bag of beans for 45 cents because their best date is today. So I used lots and will use the rest tomorrow. Nobody else in the family likes beans as much as I do. I could eat them like this every day. So now I am feeling like I ate too much. But at least it was good food.

So what’s the importance of being prepared?

When you are no longer eating by the clock – eating because it is breakfast time or lunch time or dinner time – and you are only eating when you are hungry, it means you may well be eating outside of what you have always considered mealtimes. It is not always convenient for you to quickly cook something up or raid the fridge for something to put together. Notice that I said fridge and not pantry. The longer the shelf life of a food the shorter the shelf life of you. You will find most of your low carb foods in your fridge because it is fresh food and therefore doesn’t have a long shelf life.

I work in a school canteen. I know that if I am not organised I can be tempted by the (higher carb) foods that are sold in canteens because they meet the standard dietary guidelines that have to be followed in schools. I don’t want to eat those foods, so it is up to me to be organised. I have breakfast so that I am not hungry at lunch time. I can’t take nuts to eat because we are a nut free canteen. I don’t have eggs in the canteen due to students’ allergies (just like nuts). These allergies are life threatening to some of our students so it’s a case of “not on my watch”. I would be pretty irresponsible if I took a known allergen into the environment.

If I am hungry during the day I have what I call a hot chicken roll without the roll. Which is simply some shredded lettuce, shredded chicken, cheese and mayonnaise heated in the microwave for 90 seconds or until the cheese starts to melt and it is surprisingly yummy. And filling. Some days I don’t eat during the day. You would know yourself that some days you are hungrier than others. And if you care eating low carb foods you will notice that your body adapts and doesn’t want food as often.

I also like to have a stash of salami, cheese and twiggy sticks in the fridge at work so I can snack if I just want a pick instead of a meal. That’s part of my being prepared. You need to have low carb foods available, otherwise you could be tempted by chips and biscuits and whatever else you can put your hands on that you have always gone to as your grab and go snacks.

At home, have some hard boiled eggs in the fridge, cook some pork crackling (it’s cheap and in the meat department at the supermarket), buy a bbq chicken, keep the supplies of cold meat up, go for pickles, olives, sauerkraut, artichoke hearts and cheeses. Make cheese crackers (a slice of cheese cut into quarters and baked in the oven) and eat them with dip. Make salami or pepperoni crisps (bake slices in the oven) or bacon crackers (cracker sized pieces of bacon baked in the oven) to use as crackers for a cream cheese dip. Google seed crackers and make them – they are SO yummy! For the record, liverwurst is delicious on any of these types of cracker.

Plan ahead whenever you can. If you are going on a picnic, take a salad with lettuce, cheese, tomato (not for me thanks, I detest fresh tomato), cheese, almonds, capsicum, and other low carb vegies. I often put cut up strawberries in mine too. And some of that bbq chicken that I bought from the supermarket. Or ham. Fresh foods make you feel SO well and energised.

Hopefully these ideas are helpful for you. Soon I will talk about what to have if you are going out for dinner. It can be done.

Please share with me what you are eating.

Karen 🙂

I have been asked to share what I eat on a “meal to meal” basis. Hopefully I won’t bore you – not everyone likes in depth details of food, but I am a foodie so I am happy to share.

One of the “rules” with LCHF eating is that you only eat if you are hungry. Which can be inconvenient without some planning. Until your body adapts to how you are eating. Believe me, it will. If you go googling you may read a lot about intermittent fasting, which some people swear by. I find that if I only eat when I am truly hungry then I am fasting without intending to. Like today.

I was up (what I call) early for a school holiday Sunday. Before 8am. I made myself a cup of green tea while I decided if I wanted breakfast. I decided not. I would have only been eating because the clock told me to, not because my body told me to. I actually didn’t feel hungry until nearly 2pm. I think this means my body is adapting to this way of eating and needing less food than before.

So what did I eat? Not a lot, funnily enough. A bit of leftover Beef in Black Bean Sauce from last night’s Chinese dinner out. (No rice or battered food for me). Chinese food is not the best when eating LCHF, however it was where we were and it was the “lesser of all evils”. Most of their sauces have sugar in them so it would be a wise idea to google the carb content of Chinese meals before you go so you know what is the best to order. I have been known to order short soup (because I love the broth at our local) and get Mr 15 to eat the dumplings from it!

During the day I snacked on a handful of nuts, a couple of twiggy sticks and I think that’s all. I was reading food catalogues for work purposes but I am immune to a lot of that beige coloured food. For dinner I cooked pork chops and threw a “steam fresh” vegie bag in the microwave oven.

I also cooked some pork crackling to have as a snack over the next few days. If you are a fan of crackers & dip, substitute pork crackling for the crackers. To pick a good dip, go for the ones that have the lowest carb & sugar count on the nutrition panel. Or buy a block of cream cheese and some garlic and chives or whatever your preference is and make your own. I don’t need a dip with my pork crackling, it is yummy enough on its own.

On this cold winter’s day it was nice to be able to make myself a sugar free hot chocolate to enjoy while I was doing research for work. I tell you, school canteens are not as straightforward as everyone seems to think they are! There is a massive amount of behind the scenes stuff that goes on.

A couple of carb free beverages after dinner and that’s about me done for the day.

Hope that helps! Remind me to come back tomorrow to talk about planning to avoid inconvenience.

Karen 🙂