Recipe for a jaded commuter

(Throwback to the hot summer of July 2015)

Take one frazzled washed up old hack who’s under various work and home pressures. Add heavy rucksack containing emergency rations, packed lunch including yoghurt that might burst, water bottle and precious laptop.Place in tin can on rails marketed as underground train and mix with other frazzled assorted sweaty humans under other different, unspoken pressures. 

Shake or lurch from side to side from time to time and broil for 20 mins at medium speed or for the length of time it takes to get from X to Y on the line coloured murky brown on maps.

Adorn with free Metro publication teasingly laden with images of kids splashing about in fountains. Once lulled into comfort-dom, screech to a halt for ultimate rude awakening.

Tip out onto platform and pummel into single amorphous mass heading in different directions desperate to get to next train on time. Squeeze onto another vessel that resembles more of a greased muffin tin, marketed as overground train, and allow to ferment while edging towards available seats. Apply air conditioning. 

Stop at second station for seemingly no reason. Don’t make any tannoy announcements. Permit main ingredient to curse loudly and blood pressure to rise gradually. Rumble onwards and spill out innards at final destination 10 minutes over usual cooking time. Serve with Cappuccino and sprinkling of cocoa. An acquired taste!

If The Donald Can Become President Then......

Maybe anyone can...

Here's my manifesto:

1) Each school day would begin with 30 minutes of activity for pupils and staff, whether it's a (shorter) parkrun style cross country run with the aim of maintaining or beating their PB or a bit of basketball, yoga, or just plain PLAYING for goodness sake. We're never too old for that!
Reasons: improves concentration for the rest of the day and builds healthy habits. Staff get involved to role model those healthy habits.

2) Tax breaks for purveyors of healthier products and I don't mean sugar loaded dried fruits, yoghurts and cereal bars. I mean high protein cheeses, fish, whole grains and anything paleo.

3) A ban on programmes where sweet manufacturers go in to schools for a day - to teach them what?

4) We work three days a week and have four days off 😀😀😀

IS THIS A THING, OR HAVE I JUST INVENTED IT?

One of the things we got talking about at today's UK Health Bloggers event at the fabulous Primal Roost in Bagshot (which sells the best coffee for miles around BTW) was the lack of luscious-looking recipes for savoury foods.

We're all trying to eat less or no sugar, fewer or no grains and maybe little or no dairy, but the foods that are most drool-worth are the glossy-looking cupcakes and bakes that abound all over Instagram.

So I thought I'd share something that I've been living off for a while in case it's useful to someone else. It stemmed from this: you know how there's a fad for overnight oats in pretty pots or mason jars? Well this is the lunchtime version. I just need to find a name for it...  Do chip in with your ideas. How about Protein Lunch Pot for now?

Here's how you make one: 

Cottage cheese, tuna, pine nuts, tomatoes

Layer a couple of tablespoons of cottage cheese in the bottom of your lunch box. I use a brand called Arla because it's higher in protein. 
Then add a layer of tuna - the no drain version with basil is good, but you could also add cooked, shredded chicken or turkey, tofu or salmon. 

Quinoa, cucumber and other veggies

You might want to add some cooked wholegrain rice or quinoa for texture next, to include some roughage and vitamin B in your meal. There are plenty of varieties of the pre-packed stuff around now or you might have some leftovers. You could also add chunks of feta or goat's cheese. You could also add cooked roasted peppers, aubergine, chick peas, black beans - whatever floats your boat!

Then decorate with halved cherry tomatoes, grated carrot, lettuce and maybe some flaked almonds or pine nuts. I've just gone for carrot and cucumber with tuna here, because my fridge was bare! Drizzle some vinaigrette over the top - home-made of course! And there you go. Just keep it chilled until 10 minutes before you need to eat it and voila!  

The finished product!

POST HASTE

Hello old friends! It’s been three years since my last blog post. (And even longer since my last confession… in case your brain leapt to that same turn of phrase that mine just did!)

I had a hiatus due to the sort of job I had (which didn't permit me to blog), illness (idiopathic thyroid eye disease - just hideous), and the feeling that I'd outgrown the mum blogging community because my children are now older.

Now I have a new job, new outlook and now there’s this - a blog group for bloggers in their 40s! Now you know my age, which is what the oversharing world of blogging is all about!!

I also didn’t have the time - such a common theme! Now, I’ve got a few more hours back in my life each week 😄 

I’m managing to fill them no problem at all but I'm also keen to have the time to think, breathe and write again. Why am I saying again? I can’t actually remember the last time I had proper thinking time! Bizarrely, it was probably during my commute when I time to read a bit - Ruby Wax ‘Taming the Mind’ being the latest book to have intrigued me.

She manages to get across the message that you can control your thought processes not the other way round, while being candid about her own mental illness and describing how intricate parts of the brain work in a very digestible way.

Better than I can because I’ve just implied that the brain digests things, which is not what even my rudimentary understanding of human biology meant to suggest at all!

So head over to her book to get these things right!!