Healthy Living

This post is going out for my friend Steff, who loves healthy exercise and body positivity. We are planning to join a yoga class together in the autumn!

Healthy breakfast: let’s face it, my favourite breakfast is croissant. Cereal is dull. So I finally found a breakfast which is tasty and healthy and gives me the energy boost I need as I am not a morning person. Cut up a banana, pit on greek yoghurt, honey and a sprinkle of granola. Keeps you going until lunch.

Healthy exercise: I am still rebuilding my leg strength years after my foot injury. I am trying to go for a short jog twice a week. Every day I do 5-10 mins of pilates from the Blogilates channel on youtube. With the ever cheery Cassey Ho, here she is with some relaxation exercises.
https://youtu.be/NRWz91kQuJk

Celtic bird

A quick fun celtic bird in deliberately freewheeling pen rather than detailed gouache. Actually quite liking this. I deliberately went for a very unhistorical colour scheme. I like the way the tail of the bird breaks the circle. This is traced from my celtic colouring book, endless source of design inspiration. This might also make a really great print, will ponder it... 

Edinburgh Buildings

The Kings Wark, Leith from our trip to Edinburgh. Now a very nice pub, formerly a royal palace and a military store, dating back to the c14th. This fascinating building sits overlooking the Water of Leith. Sadly adjoining buildings to the right, in the same style, did not survive.

Edinburgh Shopping

We just got back from Edinburgh, one of my favourite cities! It also has great shopping. I went to a lot of my usual haunts...

Armstrong's: where I got a peach 80s blouse and a red jersey jacket, a Finnish brand!
The one that got away was a red futuristic jumpsuit, just a bit too squeezy.

Jenners: sadly a massive sale following the House of Fraser collapse, although Jenners survives. I got a grey linen dress from Dutch brand Sandwich. I love finding new unusual brands.

John Lewis: leopard pattern fabric for making a retro dress as I plan to do more sewing and a book on sewing with stretch fabrics, ditto.

Greyfriars Art Shop: sketchbook and paper.

Luba Print

Another African mask print, a Songhay mask of the Luba people. I like the graphic, symbolic quality of the masks. I did this in a cheerier colour so it didn't look so scary...It is hard to get the pressure on linocut so what I do is print into my sketchbook which is squishy and has thin paper and stand on the lino piece so it really presses down with all my weight!

I bought an amazing book in a charity shop today on sculptures by Henry Moore, I am very into his work at the moment. 

Popcorn Party

🍿 popcorn must be the most fun food to make. Don’t buy ready popped popcorn as there is no fun in that. Also if you make it yourself it is cheap and healthy.

Heat up a smidge of oil in a large pan with a lid.
Put shallow layer of popcorn kernels in the pan.They swell up massively.
Turn down heat. Shoogle pan continually.
You will hear them start to pop.
When they stop, remove lid.
They are nice sprinkled with salt or sugar or spices.
If you want to go nuts you can coat them in caramel (not healthy).

Other fun or non stressful cooking includes
The slow cooker
The casserole that goes on the hob
Roasting

I particularly dislike grilling as nothing ever seems to get done, it always burns and it is very messy. I dont use my grill much as it is within the oven rather than separate.
The metal casserole is great as you can fry the ingredients to start with and then cook it on the hob or put it in the oven. Genius.
The slow cooker is soothing as you can leave it on all day and even go out leaving it on, without worry.
I am still obsessed by making pizza too!

What cooking do you enjoy, blog readers?

Random Reading and Eating Week

A reading snapshot:

Cooking for Geeks about food science
Killing Eve 2 the novelisation
Nuns a History of Convent Life
Two books on Mary Queen of Scots
The October Man, fantasy crime set in Trier

What are you reading/ have stacked up somewhere?

I was also given some unusual chinese foods including:

Seaweed
Goji berries
Dried lychees
Black sesame powder

Recipes/uses appreciated.

Solar Photography