Food tastes better outdoors, don’t you think? I love cooking and eating outside, it’s something we have done a lot as a family but since the stroke, our food choices have obviously changed. It is something we’re trying to do more often as we prioritise our health and happiness.
However, prioritising ourselves and slowing down is one of the aspects of our new life I’m still struggling with, and struggling with a lot it seems, especially this week.
We’ve had a lot to deal with lately, and on Thursday, finally received a health update about my mother-in-law which is causing tension and frustration. We thought it would help, but the diagnosis hasn’t helped at all. We have more questions than answers at the moment and I find myself swinging between bright, happy, and feeling good about the future, to overwhelmed and teary, and feeling like it’s all piling up. Just when it seems you have one thing in a more or less manageable space, something else comes along to throw you off balance.
For me personally, I feel things are running away with me and I’m chasing my tail, which is why this post is a bit late. I know I need to stop and take some time to reflect, step back and look at how to reign it all in and come up with a plan and yet I’m struggling to even find time for that!
I did have a chat with Mac and we’re going to try something different starting tomorrow, I’ll keep you posted on how it goes.
So after the news about my mother-in-law, we both decided that we needed to get away and we spent 3 glorious mornings doing the things that have been helping the most – walking, collecting wood, and just being in the woods.
It also meant that in total, we’ve eaten outside 5 times since Wednesday. Reading that makes me smile and want to do it some more.
Slightly out of sync as I’m posting late, but here’s what we’ve been eating.
Saturday
- Breakfast – Overnight oats and banana and honey and chia seeds
- Lunch – Salad of lettuce, tomatoes, cucumber, chickpeas and mixed seeds
- Dinner –Sliced pork loin with a mixed salad
Sunday
- Breakfast – Overnight oats with banana and peach and nuts (eaten in the woods)
- Lunch – Bread and tomatoes
- Dinner – Lentil curry with rice
Monday
- Breakfast – Overnight oats with fruit and Granola That Was Flapjack
- Lunch –Pasta with mackerel in tomato salsa (yes, I know very weird but this was dentist day, I hadn’t made anything in advance and we wanted something quick and easy – it was okay)
- Dinner – Leftover curry with rice
Tuesday
- Breakfast – Overnight oats with fruit and Granola That Was Flapjack
- Lunch – Gazpacho made by Nico
- Dinner – Mixed salad with all sorts of goodness followed by fruit
Wednesday
- Breakfast – Overnight oats with fruit and nuts (again, eaten in the woods)
- Lunch – Not sure about the boys, but I had out-of-date instant noodles which were really nice actually but then I had to eat a couple of kiwis to make up for the badness!
- Dinner – I forgot to write it down and really can’t remember!
Thursday
- Breakfast – Overnight oats with fruit and honey and nuts
- Lunch – Bread and tomatoes with cheese and cucumber
- Dinner – Posh beans on toast
Friday
- Breakfast – Posh beans on toast
- Lunch – Bread and tomatoes
- Dinner – Lentil chilli with rice
Things to note
On Saturday I made Granola That Was Flapjack. It wasn’t intentional, just how the recipe ended up. I followed my usual granola recipe but it turned out more sticky than usual. It was lovely so of course, we ate that most of the week as a dessert, snacks, with fruit and yoghurt, and with our breakfast oats. I want to make it again today, but I know it won’t turn out the same.
We have two wonderful Frontrunner camping/overlanding chairs that I bought last year, they fold away really small and are super comfortable, and are perfect for when it’s time to sit down and enjoy a cup of tea and breakfast. You can read about them in this post by my husband! But on Sunday a big bug with creepy antennae landed on me, then one of the chairs, then on Nico and settled in for the duration so we spent our oat eating, tea drinking time hunched over sitting uncomfortably on crates filled with wood while the big scary bug had two overlanding chairs all to itself!
This week has passed in a blur and I forgot to write down some of our dishes, so hopefully I have remembered correctly, except for Wednesday, I have no clue what we ate that night!
The nut lady was at the market again and I spent 15 Euros which is not bad. I still had quite a bit left over from last week even with making Granola That Was Flapjack. I think my market spend was around 22 Euros so quite a reasonable week in terms of the food budget.
We only ate meat once this week and we didn’t miss it at all, I finally feel like I’m getting the hang of producing tasty, filling dishes that we all like. At least I think I am and I do finally feel like I’m not stressing out about our food as much as I was.
What about you? How are you feeling about the way you’re eating right now?
Loving the mornings out in the woodland, nothing quite like being surrounded by nature when you’re enjoying breakfast!