My Little Organic Vegetable Patch

Eleven weeks ago, April 10th. Mum and I went to a garden center, bought 4 strawberry plants and a big raspberry plant which we split up and spread along the edge of the vegetable patch. We also bought a small rhubarb plant to go next to the strawberries. Mum had a few old strawberry plants which in previous years the birds had got to before us, unfortunately. So we moved them into our vegetable patch and so far the birds haven't got them. Some of the strawberries have little green strawberries coming from the center of the flowers and others have white flowers and are creating new shoots that will spread out and grow into more strawberry plants.

We also have two types of peas and a sweet pea flower that grows up bamboo sticks. The sweet pea's have very nice white flowers with the exception of a tiny little red flower. The flowers with the green stripes on are the peas and you can see pods starting to grow if you look closely. There are four bamboo sticks  that are secured with gardeners string to form a strong structure that the peas and sweet peas will grow up, they also add some interesting height to the garden as well as saving us some space in our small 6 by 10 foot vegetable patch.

These lovely, "Oriental Spicy Leaves" were gifted to Mum after they were won in a raffle but were not wanted. Same goes with the Cabbage that you can see in the boxes in the picture below this. One of Mum's birthday presents this year was a personalised grow your own salad box. The gift contained all that you needed to grow a variety of different salads; one of them being the oriental spicy leaves. Mum planted them on the 30th May but despite the packets of seeds saying they would .take 3 weeks to grow, well ours haven't. Although they shouldn't be far off as she planted them just about 1 month ago.

Aubergine, Leek, Garlic, Spinach and Sage are the newer additions to the vegetable patch and theylook as if they are doing quite well. The garlic was added because we had found a clove of garlic in the cupboard that had started to grow a shoot. Mum also said it is quite an easy plant to grow. We separated the leeks into a line next to the peas. Aubergine was added a few weeks ago after we had been unsuccessful with 3 courgettes plants that died. Not exactly sure why but if anyone knows feel free to comment. One of the second things we bought was Lemon Balm and Sage. I chose Sage so we could use it in our cooking and Lemon Balm well not for any reason in particular just because it smelt nice at the garden center.

Have you ever grown your own fruit or vegetables?

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Healthy Food Ideas

Brown Pasta, Passata, Tomato Puree, Basil and Avocado = A very nice

Cook the pasta, 10 minutes in boiling water, add the other ingredients. If it cools down to quickly microwave the pasta for 2 minutes (I recommend you do this because then the avocado tastes so good, but you dont have to).

1 and a 1/2 cups of Almond Milk, 3/4 cups of Organic Porridge Oats, 4 teaspoons of Cashew Butter, 4 teaspoons of Honey, a handful of Almonds, a handful of Raspberries and a swirl of honey = Yummy Almond Porridge.

A tip if you want sweet food, add fruit, honey or maple syrup. You can add agave syrup or frozen fruit but these are slightly harder to find in supermarkets. Agave syrup is a bit like honey and is often substituted for honey. You can find Agave syrup in Tesco for £2.50.

Frozen fruit is good too, its usually about £2.00 for a box of fruit. Some supermarkets have boxes of frozen fruit for £3 but watch out because they tend to be the same size as the £2 box. Most supermarkets will do frozen fruit boxes with raspberries in and the other type they do is mixed fruit. Although yesterday in Tesco I found a large variety of frozen fruit, so its best to look around your local supermarkets and see which ones you like best. If you want organic fruit its probably best to buy it fresh and freeze it because I'm yet to find organic frozen fruit, maybe I'm just not looking in the right places though.

Fresh and tinned fruit is good as well. Fresh fruit is best in season and tinned fruit is good all year round. The best tinned fruit in my opinion is peaches, they come chopped and in fruit juice. Strawberries and raspberries are really nice in season, at the moment the strawberries are huge and very sweet. I can't wait for later on in the summer when my fruits have finished growing. Ill keep you posted on my vegetable garden.

Sweet potato chips are a very nice snack to have if your craving chips. Just chop up 2 sweet potatoes into chip shapes, you don't need to peel them. Add a teaspoon of olive olive oil and some fresh herbs (you can use dried herbs if you don't have fresh herbs) then place the chips into a 200 degrees oven for 20 mins or until they have browned a bit and gone crispy.

What's your favourite fruit?

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Exploring Hebden Bridge

Saturday 23rd May

I have to say our meal out was lovely on Friday and such a good way to start the holidays after a long week of exams and coursework.

Anyway now they have all finished for a while, we can have fun in the sun this week.

So yesterday, I went to Hebden Bridge with my family for the day. We started the day at around 11:00 am with a scenic car journey through lots of little country roads and cute villages.

As you can see it wasn't the best weather when we set off, but I didn't mind.

When we arrived at Hebden Bridge, it was quite difficult to find a parking spot but Dad ended up finding a free parking space at the top of town. This meant Mum and I got to look in all the nice shops on the way down and Dad didn't have to pay for parking. What a great way to start our adventure in Hebden Bridge.

Walking down into the town we couldn't help but notice the bubbles that were floating around above the shops. As we got closer you could see that the bubbles were coming out of the window, of the Yorkshire Soap Company's shop. It smelt very nice from the outside but we were very hungry so continued down the hill to get some food knowing that we must come back here.

Dad and my sister had fish and chips for lunch but Mum and I found a nice little bakery near by so we had a pasty from there. We both had  a mediterranean vegetable pasty. It was nice but not as good as Friday's pizza. I also got a loaf of sunflower seed bread on the way back to the car to take home.

After dinner we walked back up to the car to go to Hardcastle Crag. We went past a small fruit and veg shop where I saw some strawberries outside that looked good. I had them for my pudding as well as sharing them out. They were only £1.50 for fresh home grown strawberries, such a bargain and the staff were lovely too.

Near to the fruit and veg shop was a flower shop which had some lovely flowers outside on display. We didn't go in but I had a good look and the nice flowers outside the shop. The Marguerite's were my favorite because they look a like big daisies. 

As we got closer to the car we spotted the Yorkshire Soap Company again and went in this time. Two friendly shop assistants welcomed us in and got talking to Mum, whilst the rest of us looked round this cute little shop filled with freshly made soaps, candles, bath bombs and shower butters. I was looking round and could hear one of the girls telling Mum that they have other shops in York and Leeds. They also had music playing from musicals, this made the shop so much better.

The shop in Hebden Bridge is lovely and I can't wait to visit the other shops. Their bags are so nice and I like how you can smell the soaps without opening the neatly wrapped packaging, by smelling the cotton wool that is in the glass bottles next to each soap on the front table.

Once we had finished in the Yorkshire soap Company's shop we got in the car and drove through more country roads with lovely views as we could see down into the valley. After driving for about 15 minutes (as I think we got a bit lost) we arrived in the car park of Hardcastle Crags. We got out of the car, ate some of the bread and chose a route to walk. We chose the green and white, Crags Constitutional walk. The description on the map says you would have views of The Crags, and there is, but we couldn't see them very well because they blended in with all the other plants and greenery that surrounded them.

Though what we could find on the walk was: lots of wild garlic - the pretty white flowers; dandelions, but these ones were not like the ones that you find in your gardens that are all scattered around and look messy, these dandelions were pretty they added different a colour, a burst of yellow into the shades of green and brown you could see around you, in the trees and on the floor. Bluebells were painting our paths with delicate shades of purple and blue, their flowers made you smile - the little hats were flying in the wind. If you looked closely you could see lots of tiny bugs and insects living peacefully in the forrest.

Dad also found a little den further along the route, on a pebble beach of the river that followed our walk. It was just big enough for him and my sister to fit in. Once we spotted the den and had checked it out, we sat on the huge rocks that were next to the river for a while just chatting and soaking in the views of what was around us.

It was such a nice sunny day surrounded by amazing scenery, spent eating lovely food and enjoying the company of some very great people.

Have you had a good bank holiday weekend?

Joyfully Light

Healthy Eating at Restaurants

Pizza Express

Looking for healthy food at restaurants can be tough, but its not impossible. So here I am showing you some of the ways you can choose healthy food whilst eating out. 

Last night my family and I went out to Pizza Express for a meal to celebrate my Auntie's birthday.

After being shown to our table, which had a great view of the kitchen; where we could see the chefs hard at work, spinning pizza dough and topping them with lots of fresh ingredients. We sat down and ordered our drinks. I ordered a glass of water and so did my Grandma so the waitress kindly gave us a large jug of water for the table.

 Once our drinks had arrived at the table we started to look at what we all wanted to eat. I couldn't  quite decide between the Pianta pizza or the Leggera Superfood Salad with Salmon. I had seen the  Pianta pizza on the menu a few times before and had thought it looked good, but I have never  actually tried it. I thought of having the Leggera Superfood Salad because of the pictures of it that  were on the tables and the nice things that were in it like avocado and salmon.

 In the end, I chose the Pianta Pizza which had spinach, mushrooms, pine nuts, artichoke and rocket. The base was spicy was nice too but I did get through quite a few glasses of water. 

My pizza was lovely but when the waitress handed out the desert menus I couldn't say no.

I got two scoops of raspberry sorbet. it was very good, they left the raspberry seeds in so that was a nice surprise.

Tips on how to eat healthier at restaurants

Order vegetarian food or extra vegetables.

Get a jug of water for the table to make sure you drink enough water with your meal. if you don't like the taste of water on its own then ask your waitress to put some slices of lemon or lime in.

Eat out with your friends and take your time whilst eating.

Avoid dishes that are deep fried or cooked with lots of butter.

If you want a pizza, that's ok. Order a pizza with a thin crust.

Hope you like this blog post and have a lovely bank holiday weekend.
What is your favorite restaurant?

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