I’ve been posting here on a semi-regular basis for over a year. Prior to that the activity was incredibly sporadic..
I like posting photos with the articles, as it helps add a bit of “colour” to what I’m writing about.
As of today any of the recipes that I post that have photos will also appear on Fooderific, which is kind of cool. In some ways this might even encourage me to post more photos of tasty and healthy meals 🙂
You can find the “gallery” over here.
My current George Foreman grill works well, but it’s too small for grilling vegetables and other things comfortably – there simply isn’t enough space to spread vegetables out and get them cooked without burning some .. unless you’re happy with grilling a tiny amount of vegetables – I know I’m not!
I would have kept going for another few months, but Amazon are currently doing some good discounts and offers on George Foreman grills so it’s a bit hard to pass up
This model, for example, was reduced by over 25 euro:
And since it’s over the £25 threshold it qualifies for the “super saver” delivery 🙂
If you own a fitbit of any kind you automatically have access to the standard reports. However they also offer a “premium” service with much more detailed reports. The Fitbit premium reports are also available to any free user on a trial basis, so you can see what you’re missing.
Last night, after accepting the Fitbit challenge, I thought I’d setup a trial to see if there was anything in the reports that I could use and I was pleasantly surprised.
For example, the sleep reports tell me immediately that I’m not getting enough sleep (I kind of knew that!):
So I need to get about an hour more sleep per night to get myself to the “recommended” level.
There’s also a lot of other metrics that you can dig into such as a much more detailed “activity report” and more extensive comparisons with other users.
The price per year isn’t horrendous at $49.99 – that’s cheaper than a single visit to an Irish GP! (I tend to remind myself of the cost of healthcare). In order to get the most out of my “plan” for 2013 getting a premium account is a bit of a “no brainer”.
I’ve been using the Fitbit for the last couple of months and take it pretty much everywhere, which is what you’re meant to do.
To date I’ve been able to see how damn lazy I am.. seriously..
So a friend has decided to challenge me.
The challenge is pretty simple, at least “on paper”. Do 2 million steps in 2013..
Challenge accepted!
Now let’s see how I do ..
I’ve been growing herbs with varying success for the last year or so.
My mother gave me a nice book about herbs, how to grow them and bunch of recipes for Christmas (review to follow).
I also made a trip to HomeBase this afternoon and picked up some more of their “idiot proof” herb growing kits. Hopefully I’ll be able to expand beyond parsley and basil in 2013
Homebase herb growing kit
If nothing else I’ll have a few slightly more attractive pots to use for herbs!
So what am I growing?
Basil, Coriander, Parsley and a couple of other things
When a supermarket runs a discount on pineapple you’d be silly not to take advantage of it. So I ended up buying 4 or 5 pineapples last week in SuperValu. At 25c a pop they were too cheap to overlook. Lidl were also running a discount on a few other vegetables, but I digress.
So what to do with pineapple when you also have beetroot and orange?
This combination worked out pretty well
Top and tail the beetroot - you probably don't want to juice the stem!
Chop all the ingredients up into manageable sizes for your juicer. Juice all the ingredients.
I’ve been avoiding eating potatoes when cooking at home for the last while. So instead of doing potatoes of some kind with a steak I’ve either prepared some kind of salad or been grilling vegetables.
Grilling vegetables is pretty simple.
You just slice up the vegetables and put them straight onto the grill – in my case a George Foreman – and let them cook for a few minutes.
The vegetables you can use? Pretty much anything that will grill .. so I usually end up using onion, mushrooms, peppers and anything else that looks like it’ll survive the grill.
This evening, for example, I grilled a few vegetables, microwaved some French beans and ate them with a steak. The end result was incredibly tasty and didn’t use any oil or other extras 🙂 (Well apart from a bit of olive oil I used in the marinade for the steak)
