Spanish pork – Recommended Recipe!

Spanish Pork – serves 4, ready in 40 mins

Ingredients

100g chorizo, diced

1 large onion, halved and thinly sliced

500g pork fillet, cut into 3cm pieces

1 each red and yellow pepper, deseeded and sliced

400g can chopped tomatoes with chilli and peppers

2 tsp smoked paprika

12 pitted green olives, halved

Rice and chopped parsley, to serve

Method

1.       Cook the chorizo and onion in a large pan over a medium heat, stirring frequently until the onion is soft – the fat from the chorizo should be enough to cook the onion. Add the pork and peppers and cook for another 2-3 mins.

2.       Add the tomatoes and paprika. Heat until simmering, then cover and simmer for 20 mins.

3.       Add the olives, then cover and simmer for another 10 mins. Serve with rice and chopped parsley.

Per serving: 341 calories, 2.6g sugar, 16.6g fat, 5.9g saturated fat, 0.4g salt.

Source: Asda instore magazine.

Tuesday Afternoon Positive Thinking!

After a busy summer business-wise, September is always a strange month of mixed feelings.... birthday happiness, work fatigue and pre-holiday excitement!  But one thing's for sure, I need a "positive thinking" boost with the back to college/school and after school activities.... my children started to train at the local Dojo a couple of months ago and today I came across the packaging for their Gi's.  Don't ask me why I kept the plastic packaging... there must have been a reason and today I *think* I know what it was!

I picked up the bag and was about to file it in the B1N (my Mum's code for bin!) when I started to read the wording on the bag.....

Too weak?

Too tired?

To busy?

Have an old injury?

STOP THE EXCUSES!

Stop dreaming of what you could have been.

Stop telling the same old stories, because it changes nothing!

AND DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT!

Get up.

Get out.

Sell your TV.

TOUGHEN UP!

Stop being pushed about!

Stop listening to people who say you will never make it!

And be somebody!

It's your life.

TAKE CONTROL!

Only you can say "you can't"

And you don't have to listen!

Wording courtesey of Blitz Sport.

Each of the above sentences make real sense to me so I thought I would share with you too!  OK, scrap the "Sell your TV" line... I don't think I would manage without the welcome distaction of X Factor on the weekends (sorry, my weakness - bad, I know!!).

We all have hard times sometimes and are close to giving up but perserverance does pay off!  It can also apply to more than sport - I am in my third year of learning Welsh and, at times, think I have spent an awful lot of time learning and I still couldn't hold an impromptu conversation with a stranger in the street!  But then I look at how much I DO know and the smile is back on my face!

My children have both struggled with confidence issues and the karate training is helping them to become more confident (sometimes too much!).  I'm proud of what they have achieved so far and hope that they will have a good sporting career (amateur at least!).

I'm also really proud of my husband who has just registered as an Open University student to study for a BA(Hons) degree based around language subjects, primarily Spanish.  He won't mind me telling you that he suffers from dyslexia and as an adult dyslexic who had very little support whilst at school, this is a huge step for him. 

So with me learning Welsh and my OH learning Spanish, we will be more than prepared for one of my goals in life - to travel to Patagonia in South America... Welsh and Spanish are the two languages used in this part of Argentina!  It will be a few more years yet but we've got the time to wait!

So anyway, the moral of today's post is, whatever it is, go for it!  It is better to have tried and failed and started again than to have not tried at all!

What or who are you proud of?  Share if you can and we can give each other a pat on the back!

What time is dinner?

This question is probably asked in most homes every day - definitely in mine on a weekend as my son's tummy starts to rumble around midday!

However, that's not the question I'm actually asking... what I want to know is what time is it when you eat your meal known as dinner?  Still confused???

This question always divides comunities or groups, especially ones where there is an amalgamation of different family roots.

What do you call the meal you eat at midday?  And then what about the meal you eat in the evening?

In our house, we eat breakfast, dinner and tea.... and then supper before bed (if you have eaten all of your tea!).

Looking back in history to the 1700's and early 1800's, working families ate breakfast, dinner, tea and supper - so I'm right, or living in the dark ages!  It was only when lifestyles changed and in the Victorian era, afternoon tea at 3pm became popular with the explosion of tea rooms serving tea & scones.  High tea followed afternoon tea at about 6pm and then supper at about 9pm.  The morning meals were breakfast and then luncheon at midday.

Maybe the Victorian's had the right idea though... eating little and often is actually better for you than eating three large meals a day - with the working lives that we have in our culture now, this is more the norm.

Personally, I think the Spanish have the right idea - a siesta in the afternoon is much more tempting than an extra meal!

So, is there a North/South divide regarding the names of mealtimes?  Let me know below with the area you are from and see what we find out!  PS... there's always time for cake!