Painfree Slimming

Well, kind of. Cutting down on drinks is quite a test of will-power. 

We eat a lot of vegetarian meals. The one below is a favourite and fairly low in calories. A variation is to use paella for the stuffing with smoked mozzarella for Nicky and chorizo for me.

Roasted long sweet peppers stuffed with couscous and feta

Non-vegetarian meals usually include free-range chicken. The one below is really easy and not too calorific if you can possibly avoid the skin...

Thai roast chicken with red-curry coconut milk sauce

I love fish (Nicky doesn't) so my low calorie nights often include fish or shellfish. Sea-bass fillets are cheap and surprisingly low in calories.

Thai-spiced sea bass with asparagus and bok choi stir-fry

Here's a recipe with rainbow trout. A bit of naughty mayonnaise added.

Roast rainbow trout with lemon,  garden herbs and sun-dried tomatoes

I once found the following ready-mix at Morrisons (never seen it since) and teamed it with 'zero' calorie noodles.

Seafood mix with Bare-Naked noodles

Here's my own variation using bargain scallops and chorizo mix (down to 99p from £5.50 at end-of-day Morrisons) and added touches.

Scallops and chorizo with red peppers and chilli sauce

Every now and then I treat myself to a juicy rib-eye steak. Quite high in calories but not too bad if you go easy on the extras.

Griddled steak and mushrooms with papaya and cucumber salad

Steak kebab with Indian spices

Black pepper steak kebab

And here's another recipe with Bare Naked noodles, using duck this time.

Chinese duck-breast stir-fry with Bare Naked noodles

Healthy Diet Creations

I've been trying to lose a few pounds. I'm using the MyFitnessPal app to help me set targets, count calories and chart progress. Here is one recent meal at Rose Cottage! More to follow later.

Mushroom and blue cheese pies with garden herbs salad

Nicky's Crocheted Creatures

Nicky's first attempts at crochet are based on patterns from Edward's Menagerie.

Here they all are (apart from a cat that was given as a present). Baabara the sheep, Baby elephant with mother Bridget, Aurora the lion (name stolen from baby Dorrie), and rabbit Lazarus, so called because he was Nicky's first creation and kept rising from the 'dead'!

Branching Out: More Carvings by Nicky

Having made some of Tomashek's creatures (see below), Nicky decided to have a go at some carving projects of her own.
Here's a Wood Spirit made from a branch taken from the garden at our old house on Weoley Park Road in Birmingham. I think he looks a bit like Kris Kristofferson...

This candle-holder is created from a root Nicky dug out of the garden at Rose Cottage.

Three little mice. The one with the curliest tail is made from a piece of walnut bought from a timber-store. The middle one is made from a piece of a chopped-down cherry tree that used to stand in  our Birmingham garden. The one of the left's made from pine - a piece of our old shed door at the cottage.

Here's Finn after chopping down the cherry tree. It had been attacked by fungus and had to go. Still it's nice to have a memento of it in mouse-form.

The cherry tree in happier days!

We still have a wooden cherry from it - also carved by Nicky! The stalk's made from a twiglet from the tree.

Here's the shed-door before its removal - we had the shed taken down and now have a lovely brick-built outdoor workshop for gardening bits and bobs and larger art projects.

And the lump of shed door on Nicky's work-bench. Just waiting for the bits that aren't mouse to be carved away from it!

Nicky's Whimsical Whittlings

Nicky was inspired by Steve Tomashek's book 'Tiny Whittling' to have a go at some of the diminutive creatures inside. The little red bird is Pimpernel.

She began with a rabbit carved from a carrot.

Lovely at first but doomed to decay! Going...

Going...

Gone...

More than gone!

Here are some more permanent creatures at Rose Cottage. 

Woody Woodpecker - to celebrate the woodpeckers that are regular visitors to our garden.

Woodruff the dog.

With Wilfie keeping a close eye on him.

Chivers the cat. Watch out birds!

Friesia the cow.

Dumpy Dobbin - who turned out slightly more rotund than expected.

Shrawley Fox - so named because he was made from a lump of lime-wood found in Shrawley Woods near our cottage.

Bluey Rabbit - an Easter gift for mum - and named by her...

The wooden clan on our dresser.

Tins in Progress!

We've been away in London visiting Finn, Katie and Dorrie and catching Running Wild in Regents Park (Finn and his work partner Toby were puppet directors). No action on tins for a little while. See below a picture of our workshop with a few tins in progress. These include a tin based on the streets where I was born (on Pontefract Road near Leeds); a David Bowie 'Ashes to Ashes' tin and a tin based on a poem about mending a bicycle puncture. Spot a lovely art deco tin in the collection just waiting for ideas! Click on the photograph to see everything in a bit more detail.

Latest Tin

Here is another 'local' tin linked to a school in a village near Rose Cottage. We've included the school rules from a local history book and an old image of children from the village. We quite like the spooky effect of a blurred child just behind the miniature schoolchild. Such blurring occurred if anyone moved during the very long exposure time needed for cameras back then.

Nicky made the wooden insert and I pasted a local map on it and the image behind. Here is a picture of the insert before it was put into the tin. We're toying with ideas for using this 'lighting' effect in other projects.

This is the outside - the same type of tin we used for the e e Cummings poem.