It’s my last day working from home this week! I cannot believe the week has gone so fast. Tomorrow will the first day back in the office since I crawled out of there at the end of May.

I’m not looking forward to it. I just know I’ll be shattered by the end of the day. The commute, my clinic and the child protection on call. I’m not sure what I can do to mitigate against the effect it will have on me. I know that in the past week I have found that working slightly reduced hours, pacing myself, having lunch and only dealing with the priorities has really helped in keeping me going and I’ve not felt too drained. Like I said in a previous post – I’ve had to say no to a number of things and provide alternative ways of contributing clinically and this seems to have worked. People seem to have been appreciative of the time that I have been able to give. I guess that’s a lesson for me going forward.

I think tomorrow it will have to be much the same – focus on what I absolutely need to do and don’t get distracted by things that do not need my specific input. It’s already quite a challenging work situation anyway – with staff off sick and vacancies – the load is heavy across the board.

Well tomorrow is another day…

Today – we eat!

For lunch today I thought about making some tarts. I was watching some morning TV last week while babysitting and there was a recipe for mascarpone tarts that looked delicious

They have a mascarpone base with fruits, chocolate and nuts as the topping. I’m hoping to make these and try and get them perfect in time for any birthday based gathering I might have in the next few weeks. I did think that they might also lend themselves to a savoury version, so I was pleased when I found a such recipe when I was meal planning from the roasting tin cookbook on Monday morning. There has been a roll of puff pastry in the fridge for a unspecified amount of time *cough, cough* but it seemed healthy enough!

Another ridiculously simple recipe to put together. I was little late to lunch today, a phone call to an educational psychologist (such a precious resource you don’t want to miss them when they call) but I managed to get back on track.

The recipe makes 8 but I only had enough space in my tray for 4. Maybe the were too big? Anyway I had 2 and Ignacio only 1, the mustard was too intense for him. I must admit I did find it overpowering too! We ate it with the leftover halloumi and onion salad from the beginning of the week.

So that’s it for this week and my home lunches. It’s also the end for Boris too. I watched live as he stood outside number 10 and told us he would be leaving- eventually…

It’s such a relief. It was an untenable situation. However who knows what is next. We can only hope it’s better – it has to be hasn’t it? But for now maybe we should be clapping on our doorsteps at 8 this evening…?

Ingredients

1 x 320g ready-rolled vegan puff pastry sheet

2 teaspoons mustard

200g chestnut mushrooms, finely sliced

1 x 240g jarred sliced artichokes drained, halved to 1/2 cm thick

1 lemon, juice only

A few springs of fresh dill, roughly chopped

Sea salt flakes

Instructions

Preheat the oven to 180oC fan/200oC/gas 6. Line a baking tray with grease proof paper, then cut the pasty into 8 pieces and space them evenly on the tray. Spread a little mustard over each pastry square, leaving a 1 cm border.

Arrange the mushrooms on top of the mustard on each tart. Arrange the sliced artichokes on top, then transfer to the oven and roast for 25 minutes, until golden brown.

Once cooked, squeeze the lemon juice over the artichokes, then scatter each tart with dill and a pinch of sea salt before serving, or cool and refrigerate until needed.

Reference: The Quick Roasting Tin, Rukmini Iyer, page