It’s less than three weeks till I get married now, the hen night was a success, the invitations are out, and I am in a quiet period before things start to get really stressful again.
As the leaves are starting to turn and it is starting to get pretty cold and nasty out there it seems the perfect time to get a casserole in the oven. While I love a good old beef casserole, I wanted something a little different, and Venison is one of the mains at our wedding meal.
Budget or healthy, so often these two things don’t go hand in hand. Healthy fresh vegetables are for example are often more expensive than fast food.
This recipe combines the two by reducing the amount of red meat in your bolognese sauce and replacing it with puy lentils. Voila – healthier and more budget conscious!
It’s not every day you get a huge box through the mail for free. When it is shaped like a huge (bright red) treasure chest and filled to the brim with goodies it’s even better.
It contained flapjacks (yum), loose leaf tea and a wonderful little tea pot perfect for such a tea. (Not to mention all the other accoutrements: cup, saucer, sugar bowl, sugar cubes, teaspoon and sugar tongs.)
I was lucky enough to have this package sent to me by Little Chef, the UK’s roadside restaurant chain, to highlight their selection of good quality teas.
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I am a coffee drinker. It is almost a defining characteristic. There is nothing better than the smell of coffee as you start to wake up, unless of course you count the first sip and you know the caffeine will soon hit your bloodstream.
However I have become to realise that my relationship with coffee is a drug dependancy. Not by any means the worst I could have, but lets face it, we could all do with being a little healthier. I could do without the headaches when I forget to have a cup or worse the strange jittery feeling when you have had too much. As part of a new healthier eating plan, of which I am sure you will hear about in time, I decided to ditch the dependancy.
Cold turkey.
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I haven’t made soup in a long time, it never seems right to make soup in the summer. However I keep getting so many carrots in my vegetable box that I am running out of ideas of how to use them all up. I felt it would be a good start to the weekend to crack on with some cooking, before I get too hungry and pop round to one of the amazing cafes round the corner instead.
I decided to make a simple lentil and carrot soup but keep it light and summery.
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I have crippled my back pulling weeds, spent hours in the light summer rain, and hours in the depth of winter with double layers of gloves on but finally my garden is beginning to take shape.
Yes there is still the overgrown clematis that I come home to on light nights and hack at it some more, and the bushes which are really too tall and woody but I am getting there.
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Tomorrow’s another day and I need another lunch recipe for taking to work to me. Looking at the leftovers from last weeks veggie box I realised I had some great ingredients for a slightly different sort of salad.
You have no idea how much I wanted to call this recipe Kohlrabi and Korn… but thankfully I talked myself out of it 
I made this tonight to go along side a Venison burger and bun, but I am also planning to take it in to work tomorrow for Day 1 of Lunches for the Festival.
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Have you ever been to Edinburgh? During the festival? Or for that matter any major city in tourist season?
As the weather gets warmer the hordes descend on Edinburgh. They walk slowly looking at the scenery (or reading a map), they stop to take photos directly in front of you and there are thousands of them between you and where you need to go.
I work in the centre of town, so every morning, lunchtime and evening I have to storm past tourists, weaving constantly to and fro, occasionally sighing loudly.
Don’t get me wrong I love travelling and being one of those people, I love exploring new cities – camera in hand. I understand it’s hypocritical and I have no doubt in your city I would be one of _those_ people to you. However I don’t think my stress levels can cope with that number of tourists every day, so I have made a decision. I won’t go out at lunch time.
I’ll take my lunch to work with me, read a book, go up to the roof garden, talk to colleagues. I won’t brave the tourist strip until the festival is done and dusted. Which means the entirety of August making packed lunches.
It also means being super organised – which is not one of my strongest points. Leftovers will make it easier, but I don’t want to spend the entire month eating tiny portions of day old stirfries.
Thankfully August is a great month for variety in fruit and vegetables, so there will be lots of salads and I have been back trawling the food blogs for picnic recipes and food that will travel well. I am planning to write a whole series of posts on salad recipes and other packed lunch treats throughout the month of August.
You can follow coffeemuffins on twitter or subscribe to my feed to keep track of all the fun 
Have any good recipes for me to try? Please drop me a comment.
I haven’t been baking or cooking very much this month or last. Blogging has gone much the same way. My weekends have been spent almost entirely outside soaking up the first of the good weather, and in reality gutting our new garden.
However I decided it would be wrong to let Easter pass without at least baking something, so I opted for Simnel Cake.
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