Hot Spell Over

    We had a very hot weekend and Tuesday, although overcast and rainy was still quite hot and humid. However, some time overnight the weather suddenly changed, a wind came up from the north and the temperature dropped to 12C. What a shock when I opened the front door this morning to pick up the newspaper! At some point during the night I got up to close the windows so the house had stayed at a very comfortable 17C and it has only risen a couple of degrees since. Good gardening weather!

   Yesterday I had a couple of sets of tennis before the rain arrived. Judy and the kids were due to come over for lunch and luckily the rain stopped for a while and they got in the pool. They had great fun although the rain started up again but they were well and truly wet anyway so it didn't cramp their style.

   Today I biked over to the Senior's centre to man the coffee bar. It still is not very busy there as a lot of people are away for the summer so it was easy to keep ahead of the coffee requests. I was home by 12:00 noon and had a busy afternoon in the garden. It is looking much tidier but there are still little pockets of weeds that need to be obliterated.

    Yesterday I made some delicious Raspberry scones from the "Ricardo" magazine and have been overindulging in them. I read an article in another magazine that a good way to drop some pounds is to abstain from carbohydrates after lunch - that will be hard to do with them tempting me from the freezer! I will have to relegate them to breakfast or morning snack.

    Dinner tonight is a yummy and healthy fish casserole I made yesterday and the broccoli tabbouleh from Monday. Not many carbs in that. The fish dish was a basa fillet cut into 6 or 7 pieces and covered with a cheese sauce into which I had wilted two kale leaves, chopped up small. This was covered with bread crumbs and more cheese and baked in the oven. It  was exactly enough for two meals. I don't seem to be making any headway with using up the kale and now the cherry tomatoes are starting to ripen. The lettuce has shot up like a rocket but I may be able to salvage a few leaves.

Ricardo

    I received a new magazine today and have already tried one of the recipes! The magazine is called "Ricardo", after the chef who has developed it and the recipes. I seem to recall that he had a cooking show on the Food Network a few years ago.

   The recipe I tried is Broccoli Tabbouleh. In the photo it is shown with Pork tenderloin and an egg but I just had it with some leftover chicken  which I cooked yesterday. It was very quick and easy to prepare as you chop the broccoli quite finely in the food processor so it takes just minutes to cook. And the bulgar wheat also only needs 4 minutes. It seemed a bit bland so I substituted low sodium chicken stock for the water and added a dash of turmeric. It made enough for a couple of meals.

 

And, as promised, a photo of Lucy lounging on the couch in one of her quieter moments!

 

The Last of Wimbledon

   Well, that's the end of Wimbledon for another year. Rather a disappointing Men's Final as Roger Federer seemed to be worn down by all his previous matches. He did manage to win one set and Novac Jokovic was furious! He came out blazing after that and won the next two sets handily.

   Lucy left around noon with her tail wagging crazily to be reunited with her owners. She really was very little trouble but I like to be on my own! I cut the grass this afternoon between swims (got to keep cool) and now I am waiting for the sun to go down so that I can do a bit more gardening.  Leftovers for dinner - baked fish and couscous - and still more raspberries!

A House Guest

   I have an overnight guest tonight - Lucy the dog - my son and daughter-in-laws. I will try to get a photo of her before she leaves tomorrow. Meanwhile here are some shots of the grandkids in the pool yesterday. It's extremely hot today so I haven't been out much but did take a couple of dips. I will take Lucy for a walk once it starts to cool off.

James almost swimming but needs his "floaties" when in the pool alone.

The other two in the deep end - hard to get a photo of them above water