I’m Still Standing.

I was up until 1 am listening to the increasing wind and the rain pouring down, knowing I wouldn’t get to sleep unless I was absolutely exhausted. My strategy worked and I slept straight through until 7.30 whereas I generally wake 2 or 3 times a night with the dreaded hot flushes or in need of the loo.

We were really lucky and apart from our bin blowing over we hardly knew there’d been a storm at all. By 10am all that was left was a strong breeze so we went into town for a couple of hours to get out of the house. I even did two loads of laundry and hung it outside, making the most of the wind and lack of rain and it was practically dry when I brought it in at 4pm. There have been some instances of trees felled in the surrounding areas and some disruptions to rail and ferry services but otherwise I think in this corner of Kent we got away pretty lightly, especially as in some parts of the country there were power cuts and extremely sad fatalities.

Nothing to do with the storm but yesterday morning there was a serious house fire here in Dover, just a couple of roads over from us. It was a terraced house and was gutted and spread to one of the adjacent houses so that both roofs caved in. Families in other nearby houses also had to be evacuated. It must have been terrifying. Two people were injured, one man badly enough to have to be flown by air ambulance to a special hospital in Essex. And latest reports are that said man has been arrested on suspicion of arson.

Makes me really appreciate how fortunate we are.

Sorry, I forgot to take pics of dinner tonight. It was a sort of cowboy beans made with Quorn mince and baked beans and adapted from an old Weight Watchers recipe.

Ingredients

Onion, chopped

Garlic clove, chopped or squished

400g tin Baked Beans

300g pack fresh or frozen Quorn Mince

½ x 400g tin chopped tomatoes

Black pepper, Paprika, Chilli flakes

Frylight or oil

Fry the chopped onion in a pan sprayed with Frylight or 1Tablespoon of oil until softened a little, add garlic and fry another couple of minutes. Add the Quorn mince, fry for a few minutes longer then mix in the tinned beans, tomatoes, seasonings to taste and a little water. Simmer for approx 15 minutes until the onion is cooked. Add a little more water if getting too thick or dry. Serve with mashed or baked potatoes.

I adapted it and used up some squishy tomatoes I had in the fridge, a tablespoon of tomato puree and ¼ pint chicken stock (also leftover in the fridge) instead of the tinned tomatoes. Of course, the addition of the stock made this not quite vegetarian but I wanted to use it up and wouldn’t normally add anything meat based to a vegetarian meal. Not sure of the cost because I’d had the Quorn mince in the freezer for a while and can’t remember how much I paid for it. It wouldn’t have been more than £1.50 because I won’t pay more than that for it and always buy a small stock when it’s on offer. The baked beans were 25p from Aldi and the tomatoes were from the last lot I bought at the market (£1 for 500g) so probably around 25 pence worth. With the onion, garlic, seasonings and potatoes I suppose the whole meal might have cost around £2.60 for 4 portions. You could always add an extra can of beans to serve more people.

It’s my Slimming World weigh-in tomorrow morning. I’ve had a mixed week, still overeating for the first few days but getting back on track somewhat over the past 3 days. My own (not very accurate scales) showed a couple of lbs off already this morning (I can lose a few lbs quickly when I cut out bread and sugary stuff after a binge). I’m hoping for a small loss and then hopefully I’ll be fine for the rest of this week and lose more next week. 

Almost forgot to say 'hi' to Sarina. I love that folks are enjoying my little articles enough to comment and follow the blog. Makes it all worthwhile.

True Blood’s on tonight (Fox at 10pm). I love me some vampire action and Eric is so yummy. Hanky at the ready for all the drooling I’ll be doing.