The Brave Babes Battle Bus - Carry On Into 2011!

[Mouseface]

Hello and a Happy New Year!

I'm Mouse, one of the passengers on this wonderful journey to sobriety!

We are a real mixed bunch of people, all trying to control or give up the booze - ONE DAY AT A TIME.

Come meet the others.........

And here are the previous threads, the journeys so far

Hey thurso

Have Nemo on my knee but will give you some ideas later if that's ok?

Thanks Mouse

hey, just remembered your DD is off to the panto, I hope she has a lovely time.

We are quite adventurous cooks, but I seem to keep on doing same old, same old. I have just been on an american website, and that has given me a few ideas.
What I would really like to do at home is have a lot more veggie meals, but I always do veg chili, veg curry, all stewy sort of things.

Mouse have pm'd you.

She's going tomorrow night. Will go look now thurso

I have two hands to type so will get you some ideas for meals in a mo. x

Right Mrs, meal ideas.

Pasta is easy peasy.

I buy pasata or choppd tomotoes so I've always got the base for a sauce. Pepper (choped), ham, garlic, splash of worcester sauce, shrooms, and an onion, flung in a pan, cook until the pepper and shrooms go soft, pour over pasta, grate a bit of cheese on top. Job done.

Spag bol. Make up a huge pan, Tesco are doing 2 packs of lean mince for £5, serve what you need and freeze the rest.

Casserole. Beef or lamb (whatever is on offer), spuds, carrots, leaks, peas, brocoli, colli, whatever veg you need to use up. In a casserole dish, cover ingredients with water, add 2 stock cubes - beef or veg if you use lamb and put in the oven for 3 hours, gas mark 3. Crusty loaf to go with, cornflour to thicken the stock into a gravy - yum!

Sausage, onion and mash?

Lasagne, home made, with garlic bread?

Mini pizzas - english muffins, toast one side like with cheese on toast and on the other side, smear tom puree, dab of garlic puree or some chopped garlic, grate some cheese on top and add whatever you fancy. Shroom, sweetcorn, ham, chicken, tuna?

Dead easy to do and cooked as soon as the cheese is melted. Medium grill.

Toastie and oven chips? If you're at the end of a loaf, toasties are ideal.

HTH x

Hello all,
Dh gone off for squash, so, empty house here again tonight.

Thanks for the idea's Mouse, have got the homemade lasagne planned , also found an italian recipe for sausages .

DH (in the time that's he's been in) has been worrying about money. How we are going to get £50,000 for DC2's uni course. All the loans don't quite cut it.

DC's seem to think that we are made of money (don't know who gave them that impression ), think Dh and I will be working until we're 90!!!

FINALLY i have got some time to chat -bloody hell it's been full on for the past few weeks - so campers - now I have stopped/cut back massively on the booze I appear to have developed an uncontrolable spending habit - went to TK Maxx in my lunch hour to try and get a pair of combats (very useful for my job) - and came away with a skirt (original price £160 - I paid £25) some summer combats but in a size 14 and I am a 12 but I thought fek it I'll just wear a belt (durrr) and a pair of skinny jeans, which to be fair, I have needed for a while to be able to wear my fab boots from France.

in the past I would NEVER EVER go into a clothes shop out of choice - I don't DO shopping - I hate it - or used to.

I think maybe because I am sober (ish) I want to look as good as I can - and maybe I am finally believeing that I am worth it.

Also saw Doc today and have arranged some counselling for DD - she has so much anger inside her that she just doesn't know what to do with or how to deal with. I tend to blame all that on my drinking but she has been thru so much in 10 short years - dad dying, me attempting suicide and being hospitalised in the middle of the night (she was 5) , me going into re-hab, moving schools, moving to new town, I could go on but I am boring myself now.

Anyone out there??

Sorry about being ME ME ME - but ladies, sometimes you have to.

xxxxx

Thurso

Risotto - filling, cheap and tasty.

I usually cook a roast chicken dinner on a Sunday, then make stock out of the carcass (water, carcass, onion,carrot, leek, whatever you've got in, boil it all up for about an hour).

Make risotto on the Monday with any left over bits of chicken meat, sun dried tomatoes, black olives, juice of a lemon, salt and pepper and the chicken stock.

Two meals for the price of a chicken pretty much. DD loves it. And once you've bought the olives and SD toms and risotto rice they are in your store cupboard.

A cheap winner in our house x

Silver helloo!
We all do me, me, me, it helps

So, so glad you have posted. You were such a help to me.

Bet you look fab. V that you are a size 12, in my dreams......

Thurso - thank god that you are on line. I have the need to chat and my brother is so bored of me wittering on he's just ignoring me. DP with his kids. DD glued to TV.

So I've not had time to read back properly but what is going on with you at the moment - money worries I am aware of - what else? x

Alright Silver?

Nice to have you back! xxxx

Hi, Siver, or should that be hey, hoe silver!
I have had such a bad day, work just too much, and DC's away, Dh out and just don't want to do any more work!!!
How are you?.

Hey Mouse

Thurso - do you work from home? or office?

xx

Silver
was so pleased to hear from you, didn't read the msg.
I don't do shopping either, (can't stand the changing rooms).
DD is 10, so if you carry on with what you hope for, things will be fine, you are doing the best that you can do. You are brilliant!!

Mouse,
Home, school, office and college.
And I get paid for about a an eighth of what I do. But there you go....

Sorry, to Silver

well i love a bit of shopping! - im having a very quiet evening too - dh playing football, dd out, so i have chesse on toast, a lovley long soak with a glass of badiot and now im waiting for the moisturiser to sink in a bit before i get into bed!

silver - i think your dd will be fine - without downgrading what she has been through, kids are very resilient and i think if you carry on as you are now, as she gets older she will see that you have done your best, tbh, thats all anyone can expect from a parent, we realise as we get older that perfection is an unatainable goal and just appreciate the efforts our parents made for us! btw, me me me is fine!, sometimes we need to focus totally on ourselves or i think we start to lose the plot!

Hi Silver you do sound as though you are doing well, and YES you do deserve to be good to yourself. If you are anything like me, you will be spending so much less on booze and investing some of that in looking and feeling good is just great.

thurso my favourite meal is lemon spaghetti. Zest and juice of a lemon, lots of grated parmesan, chopped basil and pine nuts. Mix in a bowl. Cook spaghetti and toss in the sauce - mmmmmm.

Or easy cheesy vegy bake - cook some chopped onion, chopped tinned tomatoes (add peppers, celery, courgettes, garlic if you have any of them). Put in a casserole dish and top with cheesy mix (tub of cottage cheese mixed with ready grated mozerella, and ready grated parmesan) bake in oven. Sometimes I add chopped ham with the veg.

Hi JWN your evening sounds great. I am procrastinating because I have not yet finished doing my accounts for my tax return, and time is running out. I've done the easy bits and I am finding any excuse I can for not doing the rest. I've also double booked myself for Monday so I've got to try and persuade a colleague to go to one of the meetings for me (he won't like that).

silver I think it is good to get some support for your dd now - in my experience it becomes more difficult as they move into their teens - they just don't seem to want the 'talking therapies' (unless it is on the phone to their friends).

re cooking - a very cheap and easy favourite here is mozzarella spaghetti. Cook spag and while it's on, sweat chopped onions and garlic and sling in tinned toms, worcester sauce herbs etc to make sauce. Tear up two balls mozzarella - the cheapo stuff will do.
Drain spaghetti, tip into sauce. Put half in ovenproof dish, add mozzarella bits, tip in other half and rest of mozzarella.Top with grated parmesan if you have it and bake for a bit. Yum. You can add sweetcorn or bacon bits or peas or pretty much anything.

Off to bed here.

Long day today and a longer day tomorrow.

Night night Brave Babes.

Sleep well xxxxxxxxxxxx

Current fave in our house is simple lamb pilaf.

Cubed lamb, brown for 5mins, add sliced onion and 2-3 garlic cloves. Cumin seeds, cardomon pods, 300g basmati 5-600ml chicken stock, cover and simmer for 15mins. add spinach, stir till wilted, serve....simples and very yummy!

Or chicken byriani pilau, same principle except swap lamb for chicken, swap spices for 2 tbl spns medium curry powder, do the rice and stock thing then add peas and cashew nuts at the end.

night night mouse, sleep tight little Nemo

off to bed babes

love you all

night night xxxx

Getting some ace cooking tips

Glad to see your back Silver - I would say councelling is a good idea if your DD is bottling things up - sounds to me like she has an amazing mum so she's halfway there.

Pease at last from the bloody adorable DC's. Not the dog has a bone that she is throwing around - getting more and more wound up so going to confiscate it in a minute