Recipe - Pot Roast Chicken with Vegetables - Time (2 hours) Skill (Easy) Eating (Easy)

I know, 2 hours to make, are you mad Lois?  I've thought long & hard about including this one, but, I think I've worked out a way for it to be doable so long as you can get to the oven to switch it off/ get the food out after the carer has gone.... Or the other way around, to make it up for yourself in time so the carer gets it out (less chance of burning yourself).  It's essentially a 'pot roast' something you could do in a slow cooker, but I don't have one, so I do it in the oven... And best of all, because the lid is always on the pan, the oven stays clean! Hurrah!

So, I LOVE roast chicken, with the crispy skin, but often it's a bit chewy and anyway, a whole chicken? Not only do I live by myself but it's too damn heavy to handle! And roasted vegetables, well they take a lot of chewing. This recipe gives you the taste (or near as damn it) without the excessive energy required to eat it.

So, I've noticed that supermarkets sell parts of chicken with skin on, including chicken breasts, and I've adapted what I used to do with an whole chicken, to use ready portioned chicken.  Suitable portions would be legs, thighs, drumsticks or chicken breast.  Skin on or skin off, your choice!

Apologies, I forgot to take a picture yesterday when it was all nice & warm, so this is after I've already had half of it and it's been in the fridge overnight!

Recipe - Cauliflower in Satay (tomato & peanut) sauce - Time (30mins) Skill (easy) Eating (easy)

So, it's harvest time, and the local Baptist Church of which I would be a member if I could get there, kindly donated some vegetables to me.  The carrots and potatos and onions will keep well, but there was a rather nice cauliflower.

I didn't feel like cauliflower cheese, and anyway didn't have any creme fraiche and couldn't be bothered to explain how to white sauce to whichever carer was going to be here (my regular carer's left so it's difficult to know what to plan if you have no idea who's coming or their skill levels!).  I was thinking maybe cauliflower in a tomato sauce, even using a bottled ready made pasta sauce like Lloyd Grossman's or Ragu.

But I decided to look in the cookery books. I have an enormous tome from 1985 by Rose Elliott called Complete Vegetarian Cookbook (over 1000 recipes). Which has line drawings but no pictures.  Which I've barely used because it does feel all a bit 1970s/ 1980s nut loaf or generally brown food....

But then I found this recipe - basically Cauliflower in tomato & peanut sauce.  Yeah I know, you're looking doubtful, so was I and so was the carer when she saw the recipe. However, it's genuinely really really tasty. And very cheap (particularly if your cauliflower was free like mine was!)  Also, I reckon that the sauce would work with all sorts of vegetables, or meat, and is very easy to do. It would also be great for using up leftovers of plain boiled cauliflower or other veg.  So it won 5 stars for easy cooking, tastiness and versatility: but it's not really a dish you eat with your eyes.... it's very, well, beige is a polite word for it....

Yoga I - Not moving, but breathing (Fiona Agombar - For the Severely Affected)

There's a poem by Stevie Smith called 'Not waving but drowning' (it's a bit macabre so I've put it at the bottom of this post, don't read it if you're not feeling super happy and able to cope), the last couplet strikes a chord - "I was much too far out all my life, And not waving but drowning'. Speaking as someone who doesn't really have the energy spare to wave, it's more 'not moving but breathing' on most days, hence the title.

Dear Reader (yes you, my sole reader. Thank you.) - you're thinking - So, Yoga. You're kidding right? You can barely move, struggle to get around your 4 metre by 7 metre ground floor most days - seriously?