Author: Zeenat Ahmed-Peto

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Vegetarian Experiment Days 12 & 13

Yesterday I had a very unhealthy but also quite delicious plate of chips for my dinner – with a side order of mushy peas. I didn’t take a photograph, as I was too busy eating them!

Tonight, I cooked the following random selection of vegetarian delights: potatoes (par-bolied, then bashed around and fried in splash of oil and thyme), egg noodles in sweet chilli sauce and mixed vegetable stir-fry.

I would recommend the potatoes cooked in this fashion – really delicious, but then I am a huge potato fan, so I like them cooked any way. The stir-fried veggies consisted of onions, peppers, brocolli, mushrooms, cauliflower and quorn. Pretty good. The noodles were the fresh variety  and took about 3 minutes to cook. Bonus!

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Vegetarian Experiment Days 10 & 11

Yesterday evening I ate a three bean chilli with brown rice and garlic bread which was very tasty – cooked for me by friends who are pretty hard-core veggies. They know their stuff when it comes to cooking vegetarian food! Sadly I forgot to take a photo of the dish (which is a sort of weird thing to do anyway), so you will just have to imagine it. It was very filling, spicy and I should imagine very nutritious.

Tonight I was in for another treat as my brother-in-law cooked us a creamy pea risotto topped with goat’s cheese. I thought it was very sweet of him to adapt his cooking plans to accomodate my eating plans, but he said he quite enjoyed looking through his vegetarian recipe book and thinking about what to cook. The dish arrived at the table garnished with (non-edible) sweet peas 🙂

Creamy pea and slow roasted tomato risotto, topped with goat’s cheese

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Customer Service and Personal Touches

I received my gorgeous Moon Tyger Tea in the post this morning and I was genuinely impressed to find a hand-written note inside my package. It made it so much more personal, and makes me want to go back to this company again. Sometimes we forget the little touches which can make such a difference to our products and services, which keep the customers happy and coming back.

Which companies have impressed you with their personal service? If you run a business, how have you tried to make your service personal? Please comment and share! 🙂

I bought Lemon Verbena tea, Tyger Moon (Chrysanthemum, green and white tea leaves) and Jasmine pearls

The tiny pearls of Jasmine flower slowly unfurl in your cup, releasing the delicate flavour

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Vegetarian Experiment Days 8 & 9

Apologies for not posting yesterday. I was very tired so I decided to snuggle up on the sofa and get my weekly fix of Desperate Housewives! As I was so hungry my husband kindly cooked for us and this is what he made:

A quorn escalope with potato and tomato mash. Most of the time I do the cooking so it was lovely to have my food cooked for me. It was delicious!

 For lunch I had an oven baked jacket potato with cottage cheese. I say ‘oven baked’ because I used to cheat and put them in the microwave, as it is so much quicker, but having mastered the oven technique, I will never go back! Just pre-heat your oven to 200 degees Celcius and prick your washed and dried potatoes with a fork. Drizzle with a little oil and sprinkle over some salt (preferably coarse or rock salt). Pop the potatoes on a baking tray for about an hour (or longer if you are baking more). The salt helps to create a crisp outer layer while the inside is perfectly soft and fluffy, just waiting for some butter. It was so good that I forgot to take a photo of it!

This evening’s meal was a vegetarian lasgna – something I haven’t tried before and … it was delicious! I did not miss the mince (I usually use lamb) at all. I can feel in my body that it was a much healthier option – I am not bloated and heavy inside.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

To top it all off I am drinking my new Tyger Moon tea – have a look at the flower completely opened up in my glass 🙂

 My new Tyger Moon tea – Chrysanthemum, green and white tea leaves and Jasmine

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Self Coaching Tip – Use the Carrot or the Stick?

One of my incentives: Buying myself a treat There is nothing like an incentive to get me working hard to achieve something.

I often find that I work well under the ‘right’ amount of pressure (and by this I don’t mean staying up all night like I did in my college days), but having a time frame in which to work spurs me into action. Too long a time frame and I put things off; too short and I go into panic-mode. So I plan my time to ensure I have just the ‘right’ amount of pressure (for me) – to be at my most productive. 

As I said before, my motivation tends to be to go towards something, which means I like rewards and treats to spur me on and encourage me. I generally don’t like losing out on things or having something taken away. In NLP terms, this is described as having a towards or away-from metaprogram. It’s just the same as saying you are more motivated by the carrot or you are more motivated by the stick. It is a useful and simple way to think about how to motivate yourself and is particularly useful with others.

When you are motivating a team, remember what works for some doesn’t necessarily work for others, so try a combination of rewards and penalties.

I’d love to hear what motivates you so why not share your thoughts? Leave me a comment below!

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Self Coaching Tip – Make Time for Yourself

Lush Bath Bomb and Tokyo Milk soap: Me Time

Sometimes making time for ourselves seems like the last thing on our to do lists.

If you, like me are often rushing around juggling lots of different jobs, roles and chores, by the time you sit down in the evening you are too tired to do anything else. When I first became self-employed I worked very hard to fill up my newly clear timetable and at first it was hard to find things to do. But back then I did not consider that I still needed to make a little ‘me-time’ to relax – I just worked and worked and I think I went a little bit crazy! Eventually when things started to pick up and the seeds I had sown during those first months were turning into little seedlings, I realised that I was getting tired again and needed to put time aside just for myself to unwind. Living with a chronic condition means that I am constantly reminded (by my body) when to slow down, but I also slot my ‘me time’ into my working day, so I don’t just relax at crisis points anymore.

One of my favourite things to do is have a soak in the bath, which is brilliant for my arthritis, as long as the bath is not too hot and I don’t stay in for too long. Fifteen minutes usually works for me. My favourite products are Lush Bubble Bars (I usually break them in half as it seems too wasteful to use a whole one for a short bath) and Kniepp herbal treatments. It is the perfect treat for me and gives me time to zone out, with my favourite music and a candle to enhance the atmosphere.

How do you make time for yourself? Or may be you will put aside some me-time after reading this? Please share and leave a comment below 🙂

My favourite bathing products : Lush and Kniepp

 

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Vegetarian Experiment Day 7

Hello everyone. Thank you first of all to all of the people who have commented on my going veggie experiment, on this blog and on Facebook and Twitter. I am amazed at how many people are interested in trying out a vegetarian diet. I was just thinking about how easy it has been for me so far – I have hardly missed meat at all. I think I would miss fish and seafood before meat, although apart from my prawn sandwich faux pas last week, I haven’t indulged in either of those either. I imagine my mum’s fish curry and her lamb biriyani might be things I would miss the most, were I never to eat meat or fish again! As I am doing this experiment for health reasons rather than animal welfare ones, I do envisage a time when I will eat those delicious dishes again. However, I do think I have been thinking more about what has been going into my tummy and the rest of me, so that must be a good thing 🙂

I have also noticed a difference in my shopping habits as I have been buying a small basketful of items every few days. The benefit of this is that I am buying just what I need, I am buying fresher ingredients and I am cooking from scratch most days (- but to be fair I did that before anyway). So to illustrate this, I thought I would show you the ingredients I am using to cook dinner tonight, so you can see what is going into my vegetarian meal.

Farfalle pasta, asparagus tips, ripe avocados, fresh broccoli and light single cream

And here is the finished product:

This is not quite enough for my dinner so on the side I ate some of this Innocent Moroccan Veg Pot.

I bought these drinks the other day to try out too. I have had some of the beetroot juice, which was interesting. Not sure it’s my favourite thing, but I’m looking forward to trying out the strawbwerry bellini juice drink.

 Have you got any tips or questions for me? Drop me a line below or through my contact page 🙂

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Vegetarian Experiment Day 6

For my lunch today I had a Caesar Salad with roasted vegetable cous cous, tzatziki and an onion bhaji. I did get some help from Mr Sainsbury, as I don’t often spend this much time making my lunch every day. I am trying to get into the habit of cooking extra and putting some of my dinner aside for the next day’s lunch. This can be great, as long as I remember to take it with me!

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Vegetarian Experiment Days 4 and 5

This weekend I discovered several different things. Firstly I realised it is just as possible to have a bad diet if you are a vegetarian as if you are a meat-eater. I was away all weekend at a hen do and although we had a tasty meal cooked for us on Saturday night, Friday night’s dinner consisted of snacking on pizza and lots of other naughty foods. I suppose I have been feeling virtuous by choosing not to eat meat, and forgot that there are plenty of unhealthy and fattening veggie options out there too. It is all about what you choose to indulge in!

We had a lovely meal cooked for us on Saturday night – Asparagus and brie crepes served with a lemon butter sauce and minted crushed potatoesFollowed by a delicious lemon cheesecake with raspberry coulisUnfortunately I forgot to take a photo of the starter I chose which was a griddled aubergine and halloumi stack, with coriander pesto and freshly squeezed lime. Mmmmm 🙂

Secondly I realised just how much I love Jasmine Tea! These Good Earth tea bags really give off a delicious perfumey flavour; more than other brands I have tried. My absolute favourite brand of Jasmine tea has to be Moon Tyger Tea – delicate individual flowers which open up and infuse the water, but they are an expensive luxury. (If you fancy trying them and are put off by the price, don’t be because they are delicious, last a long time and have currently got a sale on!) 

Finally I remembered just how wonderful it is to spend time with some very dear friends 🙂

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Vegetarian Experiment Day 3

Just a quick post today to show what vegetarian delights I have been munching on, as I am going away for the weekend. I am very excited as it’s my friend’s hen weekend and I don’t need to worry as all of of meals will be catered for us, and she is a strict vegetarian! Photos will be shared when I am back!

This meal was heavenly: pea and mint salad with mixed leaves, topped with stuffed courgette flowers and a side of mash!

I grew some courgettes last year in the hope that I would end up with some flowers too. It was a partial success, but I would say if you are going to try it for yourself, the bigger the space, the larger the crop will be. (Pretty obvious really, but some plants can yield lots of fruit in a smaller space.) Also when you pick the flowers, you need to check which ones are male and which ones are female, and ensure that you leave at least one of each so that the bees can continue to do their great pollination work. This is something I did not realise and so I only had two small crops!