Celeriac Soup

Souper for a dreary day!

1 celeriac, chopped

1 head of celery, chopped

2 granny smith apples, peeled and chopped

1 tin of butter beans, drained and rinsed

fresh parsley

salt and pepper

hazelnuts, a handful chopped and roasted

Prep time 10 mins

Instant Pot cook time 10 mins, allow 10 mins to come up to pressure

Serves 6, 156 calories per serving

This is a fab soup, rich in Vitamin K and B6.  No oil added but some
fat derived from the yummy hazelnut topping.  This is a lovely, easy to digest, warm and comforting soup.  The butter beans give it a creaminess.

Add all of your veggies to the Instant Pot. Add enough water to come around 2/3 of the way to your veggies.  Add some Himalayan rock salt.

Set Instant Pot to 10 mins at high pressure.  Then do a QPR.

While the soup is cooking, toast your chopped hazelnuts in a dry frying pan. Set them aside to use as a crunchy topping on your soup. 

When your soup is cooked, whizz it with a hand blender in the Instant Pot. Add your chopped fresh parsley, adjust seasoning to taste.  Garnish with toasted hazelnuts

Enjoy!

Nutritional stuff

156 calories per serving

Each serving is rich in Vitamins B, K, A and C.  Good for folate, potassium, manganese and magnesium.

For U❤️

It is not my job to bind you
Or to mind you, to feel you or to heal you
It is not my job to please you, to tease you, to need you or to feed you
It is not my job to find you, to remind you
of what you can be
But
I am here
And
I love you.
It is my job to be me.

2/5/16

Happiness tips

How to find your way back to happiness when you have been hurt.



Most of us have been hurt emotionally and it can be very difficult to move on and recover from that hurt. Pain can change us, it can leave marks and scars. Pain in life is inevitable - we will all feel hurt sometime - but how we live with that pain is a choice, we can suffer with it or we can move on with it. We can allow the pain become our identity or, let it go, and allow the pain make us stronger. Can we be happy after pain? Here are the steps I used to find my way back from hurt.

1. Figure out exactly what is hurting you, define your pain.
2. Express that pain, write it down, get it out. Focus on the lessons learnt.
3. Yesterday is history. Don't torture yourself by reliving the past. Stay in the present.
4. Let it go. Stop retelling the story. You don't need reassurance that you were the victim or that you did nothing wrong that will only keep you rooted in the past. Let it go and in letting go, move on.
5. Forgive yourself. Forgive yourself for the choices you made in bringing you to be hurt.
6. Stop being the victim or playing the blame game. You can't change the past, but you can change your now and create your future.
7. The pain is not you. Don't let the pain become who you are, don't let your hurt define you. Let it go, make room for happiness.
8. Who were you before the hurt, before the pain? Who do you want to be? Find that person.
9. The little things that bring you joy in the moment: what are they? A sweet, a hug, a kiss, sitting in the sunshine, feeling the rain. Find your moments of joy. Find the small things that make you happy - you'll find they aren't the small things after all.
10. Share that joy with others. Let the small things add up, they won't wipe away the story of your pain, but your pain won't define you.

We all deserve to be happy, we all deserve to allow ourselves to be happy.
Be happy.

41

Things I don't like about being 41:
1 grey hairs
2 crow's feet
3 not being 21

Things I love about being 41:
1 being a mum of a teenager and a 7 yo
2 having a proper grown up relationships and friendships with my parents and my grandma
3 having friendships that span decades. Having people in my life who have shared so much history - those bonds will never be broken
4 having the experience of 41 years, experience in work, in college, as a parent, as a friend, as a daughter, grandaughter, niece, boss, employee, volunteer. Nothing really replaces experience.
5 I am still young at 41!
6 having knowledge that everything will pass, good and bad, and to make the most of every experience.

The positives definitely outweigh the negatives (but I would still love to book a holiday to the 90s!)

Omega Bread - Vegan, healthy, wholemeal and very tasty!

I know I've done a bread recipe on here before but this bread is so easy I had to put it on.
I use this as a way to get linseed/omega into my kids.  I like to make our own bread as then I know exactly what's in it - I hate reading complicated ingredient lists on the sides of packets.
Also, good it's wholegrain carb goes really well with lentil soup or beans to make a full protein.

450 gr Wholemeal flour
50 gr milled linseed
teaspoon brown sugar
teaspoon salt
heaped teaspoon easy dried yeast
400 ml warm water
a little vegan margarine to grease the tin
some sunflower or pumpkin seeds to sprinkle on top if you like

Equipment
2lb loaf tin
Large mixing bowl
Large metal spoon for mixing
Wire rack for cooling

1.Put all the dry ingredients into a large bowl and mix well.
2.Add the warm water.  Mix well. Mixture should be wet but not sticking to the sides of the bowl.
3.Put into tin.  Put a few seeds on top, if you like.
4.Turn oven on to 180 C
5.Leave bread to rise while oven heats up.
6.Bake in the oven for about 40 mins.
7.It should come away from the sides of the tin when it is ready and turn out very easily.
8.Cool on a wire rack.

The dough will rise well.  I have sprinkled some sunflower and roasted pumpkin seeds on top here, use whatever seeds you have, or don't bother, it is fine without too.

A Veggie Shopping List @ the taste.ie

Delighted to have my veggie shopping list published by The Taste Magazine this week.

Here's the online link to the article  http://thetaste.ie/wp/a-veggie-shopping-list-by-louisa-moss/

Hope it helps when you're doing your first veggie shop!

Thanks to all at thetaste.ie for including me.

My first time.. at Boyne Writers' Group!

Last night I went to my first writers' meeting with the lovey group that produces Boyne Berries.

They very kindly published two pieces of mine in the past;  one poem and one short story.

Must admit, I was a little bit nervous going to the group and wasn't sure what to expect.  Everyone brings something  that they have been working on, either poetry or prose, they read it out themselves and then everyone comments.

Sounds terrifying, doesn't it? 

But it wasn't, I had nothing to be worried about at all, it was lovely to be with a group of lovely people who love to write and I look forward to many more lovely evenings with them.

If you are interested in writing and would welcome some friendly support, Boyne Writers meet every second Thursday in Trim.