Shoshiplatypus

Shaz

What a wealth of beautiful tributes flowed out last week from my computer screen, about our lovely Shaz who so sadly lost her long battle with cancer recently. I have decided to go through everyone’s blog and copy and paste them all, complete with all the photos, and make them into a special folder on my hard drive where they will all be together and I can come back to them again and again. Each one that I read brought fresh tears to my eyes – everyone wrote so eloquently about this tremendous lady, and each one had their own special memories of her and what they most loved about her. Thank you all for sharing your tributes which have enriched my own knowledge of a special member of our WOYWW family who is no longer with us. She will never be forgotten.

Our thoughts and prayers continue to go out for her beloved hublet Doug, and the rest of their family.

What’s On Your Workdesk this Wednesday?

Squaring up

I’ve completed my 80 crochet squares for the cat throw! When I was sorting through them, I discovered that quite a lot of the earlier ones were smaller than the later ones, so I added another round of crochet to each one to make them all the same size. This job took me two or three days in between other things.

Of course, after I’d tipped them out to photograph them, Ruby had to come and do a bit of photobombing.

Time to move onto the next step, which is to finish the embroidery on the cat stitch ones. After that, blocking, then deciding on the layout of the squares.

Food

Yucky yoghurt redeemed

Last week I had a gripe with Tesco who had removed my favourite sugar-free non-dairy yoghurt from their online list. I emailed Tesco to ask why this had happened, and to say that I didn’t think it was right that there was now no sugar-free non-dairy alternative, but only an Alpro one which was said to be “plain” but which contained sugar and was very sickly and sweet. I told them that I like to cook with plain (and I mean really plain, no sugar!) yoghurt as well as eating it as-is, and with sugar, it was now quite unsuitable for savoury dishes. I also pointed out that it was unfair on lactose-intolerant customers, and also diabetics, as well as all vegans, who now no longer had a sugar-free alternative.

I had a very nice friendly reply from a lady at Tesco HQ who informed me that they tended to keep the online list as streamlined as possible to make for smooth and easy shopping for their customers, and also for their pickers in the store. They tended to retain things on the online list that sold well in the local store from which the deliveries were sent out. She informed me that in one particular store (possibly her local one? – the name meant nothing to me) there were still plenty of my favourite “free from” soya yoghurts (Tesco’s own) on the shelves, so it certainly hadn’t been withdrawn.

She told me that she would contact the store manager at our local Tesco and pass on my concerns. I am hoping that they will agree with all the points that I made; it is not just my own personal preference, but the availability of a non-dairy, sugar-free yoghurt for the benefit of many others, too.

I buy between 4 and 6 pots of this every week. I hope Tesco will get back to me to inform me that they have brought it back on the list, but failing that, I shall keep my eyes open in the coming weeks to see if there is any change on the website. When I did my online order for yesterday, there was still no sign of them on the site, and Sainsbury’s didn’t have any of the sugar-free Alpro ones either. Not a great week for yoghurt. However, my hubby bought me a whole lot of soya milk (which wasn’t on the list!! – he’s always misreading things!) instead of yoghurt, so I’m going to try and make yoghurt with it rather than with my home-made soya milk, and see how that turns out.

Meantime, I was planning to throw away the four pots that I had of the gloopy sweet sickly yucky yoghurt, but my instincts went against that sort of waste, even though I didn’t like it! (My hubby calls me “mean” and blames my Scottish blood lol, but I say I’m “frugal”!). I decided to blend each pot with some fruit and to have it as a dessert. The first one I did was with some stewed rhubarb, and it was delicious. (I forgot to photograph this.) Subsequently, I have done a cherry one and a strawberry one, both with frozen fruit, each using a whole tub of yoghurt and making 4 servings, and finally a banana, date and walnut one, using 2 bananas and half a dozen pitted dates for half a tub of yoghurt (serves 2). All these desserts were fine, if I could get over the thought of all that sugar lurking in them! Anyway, no waste. (Or, to quote my hubby, “Sae there’s nae waste”!!)

Here are the ingredients for the cherry one, with my Vitamix jug behind. I reserved two cherries for the garnish.

These desserts came out of the Vitamix quite runny. I added a dessert spoonful of ground chia seeds to the fruit ones, and blitzed the mixture again, and this certainly helped to set them a little. For the banana one, I added 2 tablespoons of whole chia seeds and the dessert came out a decent thickness, but in future I shall certainly use the ground seeds, because I had a terrible job cleaning out the seeds which had stuck to the blender jug and inside the lid before they could get blitzed! Chia seeds exude a sticky viscous liquid when soaked, which is great for thickening, but once wet, the seeds can be quite hard to clean off. The worst way to do it is with a sponge, as I discovered to my cost several months ago – they end up stuck in the holes of the sponge and it takes forever to pick them all out!! You live and learn.

The dessert variations. The garnish on the fruit ones is a sprinkling of hulled hemp seeds, followed by some flaked almonds, and finally, a single frozen fruit. For the banana one, I chopped some walnuts, and reserved some banana slices for the garnish.

I am definitely going to make these desserts again, with UNsweetened plain yoghurt! I said to my hubby that a coffee and walnut one might be nice, and I could certainly do a chocolate one. Lots of choices. The result is really creamy, but extremely low fat and full of protein from the soya beans, and all sorts of goodness from the fruit. Really yummy.

This week I’ve also discovered chia puddings online, which can also be made in a huge variety of flavour combinations, and I’m keen to try these. Very nutritious, and again, very low fat and you can make them sugar-free. They apparently freeze very well, which is an advantage because you can do some advance prep.

Other food

This week I also made another batch of Chopped Kale Power Salad with Lemon Tahini Dressing, which was a Recipe of the Week back in August last year.

This is a fabulous recipe, especially if you use the dark Cavolo Nero kale which is much sweeter than the regular green variety. You strip out the fibrous stem and chop the leaves finely, and then spend a couple of minutes massaging them with your hands, with a little salt and lemon juice to break down the fibres. With the addition of sweet potato and some dried cranberries, this is a really sweet salad. In the first photo you can see it “undressed” with the bowl of lemon tahini dressing beside it.

With the dressing added. This makes enough for two of us for two days.

I serve this, as I do with my other hearty vegan salads, on a bed of leafy green salad with lots of additions.

Lots of chopped Romaine lettuce with the following additions: chopped spinach, rocket, tomatoes, cucumber, fresh herbs (this time basil and parsley), chopped walnuts, shelled hemp seeds and pumpkin seeds, raisins, dried cranberries, grapes and a dash of dried sea vegetables for iodine content. I don’t think I’ve left anything out! This salad does vary according to what I’ve got in, but these are the usual ingredients. For a dressing, I just drizzle on a little balsamic vinegar, nothing else. No need for any oil. I occasionally make an oil-free vinaigrette but I’m usually too busy to bother.

Sometimes I add some chopped dried apricots which give a lovely bit of colour and sweetness, and maybe a clementine, segmented and chopped, or perhaps some diced apple. When the herb garden is active, I go out with my scissors and snip away at lots of different herbs to add a good flavour. Sometimes I add some chopped olives and perhaps part of a pepper that’s been left over from something else. If I’ve got a bit of mild red onion left over, I chop that very finely and in it goes. The one thing I always omit is celery, because I hate it!

The first signs of spring

I love this time of the year when it suddenly gets lighter in the evenings, and the first of the spring flowers start to emerge. Here are our daffodil buds (now open since the photo) and the miniature daffs, and the very first primroses.

Each year, the primroses multiply and spread on the bank and we are getting more and more. It will be interesting to see how much they have spread this year.

Clothes

Shoshi’s gone sheepish

I haven’t posted any new “clothes” sections recently because frankly most of my really warm winter stuff is a bit boring, and I’ve had most of it for many years. When it’s cold, my focus tends to be more on warmth and comfort than on glamour! However, I thought you might like to see my Sheep jumper. I bought this years ago when on holiday in the Yorkshire Dales, at the Black Sheep Brewery. That was a fun day out, seeing how the famous Black Sheep beer is made in the traditional manner. They had a really good shop there and I fell in love with this sheepy jumper.

The picture has been photobombed by Ruby – note her ears. As you can see, in this selfie I am working on one of my crochet squares.

Sleepy-head kitties

Talking of Ruby, the evening when I took the sheepy jumper picture, I had her on my lap and she was deeply asleep.

Her little face and whiskers were twitching away as she was dreaming about… who knows what? When she’s asleep she looks so young and innocent, and my hubby says, “She’s got her kitten face on again.” Usually I can’t see her because she tends to be further down my legs under the table. Sometimes my hubby holds a mirror for me so I can see her!

Not to be outdone, here’s Lily being all sleepy and adorable. She looks for all the world as if she’s sucking her thumb.

My hubby’s new secretary

No pictures, I’m afraid, but my hubby got really cross with Lily the other day because she created havoc on his desk and knocked a whole lot of papers on the floor. She is fascinated by pens and paperclips, and will pat at them until they fall on the floor and she can play with them. She often chases them into inaccessible places (which is presumably one reason why my hubby never seems to have a pen handy.) She loves stationery. I told him all this was because she was determined to be his secretary and help him with his office work. She’ll be wanting to go to secretarial college soon and learn Shortpaw. She also quite likes doing a bit of typing on the computer, but she’s not nearly as creative or computer-literate as her forebear, Beatrice the Computer Queen.

Later, he said she jumped up on his desk again, walked over his computer and pressed the “off” button, and the computer switched off. He said she just wanted a cuddle, and didn’t want him being distracted by work! I said that it was generally frowned upon when bosses cuddled their secretaries – unless they were the secretaries’ daddy, of course. Later, she went up to bed with him…

Ruby isn’t interested in office work. She prefers to investigate the waste-paper bins and fish things out to play with. She never puts them back when she’s finished. She goes through phases of sleeping in my hubby’s waste bin in his office.

However, I came downstairs to find this, after Lily and my hubby had gone to bed. It must have been Ruby.

I was trying to work on the draft for this week’s blog post. Perhaps Ruby just wanted to add her own tribute to Shaz.

When Lily’s paws aren’t busy creating havoc on my hubby’s desk, this is what they look like.

I love how three of the little pads are pink with black spots on them, and the fourth one is all pink! The one on her “palm” is all black. Quite pop-art, really. All incredibly soft.

There is a new Lily in my life!

No, this one has not been ousted!

A little while ago, my hubby began sponsoring a guide dog puppy called Ginger, who is a Golden Retriever, and this week I decided to follow suit. This is such a good charity for anyone who wants to help others and also loves animals. Guide dogs for the blind are in very short supply and some people have to wait years to get one. Once they have their companion, their lives open up immeasurably, and they are given real independence. The dogs have a great start in life, and then share a loving home with their blind companion.

The puppy I am sponsoring is a German Shepherd called Lily! (How could I resist…). They send you what they call “regular pupdates” with photos and news of their progress as they undergo their two-year training to become guide dogs. My hubby’s Ginger is now looking quite grown up and has left the breeding centre and gone to live with a couple who will continue with her training.

Here is my Lily.

Isn’t she adorable? I just love her whiskery little chin and those floppy ears! They tell me that the things she enjoys most are playing with her siblings, running through the grass, and playing with her favourite toy which is a squeaky bone. What a little sweetie. Her mum is called Jolly, and her dad is called Gene, and both are German Shepherds.

Here’s a video about her.

They will send me a welcome pack in due course with more details about her, and some more photos and a fridge magnet. Every few months they will send further pupdates so that I can follow her progress. Each puppy in training has his or her own page on their website, with photos and videos, and they also have their own Facebook groups, so you can really get involved.

I’ll continue to update you with photos and news of how she’s getting on, if you are interested.

(In tribute to Shaz) – And Finally…

(Us ostomates do tend to get a bit toilet-fixated!!)