Midrange Budget Hotel Room Survival Kit

I've been away form home for the last week - up in Dundee for a conference - which is an awesome little city full of wonderful pubs, bars and cafes.

I haven't actually eaten any bad food and I've learn't from previous conferences to never have the same meal twice and keep an eye on the bread intake as it makes you sleepy in warm conference rooms. Visiting a city for work is always strange, you might do some partying, and you might do some sightseeing but it's never the same without your family so I've also found myself in my hotel room catching up on work.

This room at least had the basics which in this case was a kettle and some Nescafe. This is not like the time I had to stay for a long time in a Ibis Budget hotel pod and went to buy my own kettle and had enough dehydrated food to last me through an apocalypse. Alas it didn't have a fridge. Since this isn't my first conference rodeo I did some shopping on my first day and got the following:

Screw top red wine - although this led to a conversation on if it was better to drink red win out of a non-descript ceramic mug or a plastic cup (these were my two options and opinions were surprisingly divided - although I've opted for the plastic glass option)
Pre Packaged Cakes - Mr. Kipling in this case - I did also buy Jaffa cakes but they got a bit smashed when I took them out with me, and then a little bit stale after a day of two
6 pack of bottled water - fizzy in my case - but this saves so much effort in the long run.
One Coffee Filters with the coffee in them - usually I get hold of Starbucks Via, the only instant I can handle but I couldn't find any this trip - but the inbuilt coffee filters really make the difference - to the point where I'll take one down to breakfast with me because whatevere that machine was producing wasn't coffee.

I did also buy some grapes, but a few days in a hot hotel room and they don't look so appetising anymore.

What I have realised is this is a very packaging heavy way of stocking up for a week - but cost effective - as I sit here preloading for a night out on an alright wine out of a plastic glass I feel a little bit better for it all - and I've got cake for the way home too!

The Fish Graveyard

I suppose I should update you on the fish - we've currently got 3 Isambard*, Nietzsche , Vince - they seem fine. The extreme cold did a few in and they probably need some proper TLC. Anyway - Pete and I were trying to recall other fish we'd had over the years so I started scanning the blog for fish related posts and I came across the fish graveyard from an old bit of my website that still floating around the tubes of the internet... So here it is - in memory of of the valiant pets of old. And for the ones that don't have little grave markers (or dates) Darnell Bertrand Pushkin Heisenburg I should possibly make a marker for the tomb of the unknown goldfish because I'm sure we've forgotten one... .. time for some more fish? Any ideas for names?? *We were slightly uncertain for a while if it was Heisenburg or Isambard that had survived

Tofu Recipe Round Up

More for my own benefit then anything else I'm going to round up my favourite go-to weeknight tofu recipes. This is different from my pinterest board which is full of things I haven't necessarily tried yet but look yummy. Vegan Tofu Taco Crumbles Vietnamese Fried Tofu w/ Tomato Sauce – Dau Sot Ca Chua (I airfry the tofu for this one) I also like to slather it in BBQ sauce and bake it for about 40 mins with peppers and onions before adding it to wraps with some salad. I've also found it's a great substitute for paneer in things - it's not quite there but it's close oh, and if I do need to press it, and I haven't got time (which is almost always) I used the microwave method from this chirpy little video

The Pretty, The Easy and the things on Sticks #2

I've spoken before about Pinterest, and how pretty everything is on there, but there's another side, a very definite, and I can only guess american trend - the easy fix. Easy cheats, how to make things without the effort, how to cheat, how to make restaurant specials at home, so you end up with a massive jug of frappachino mix or a dressing not too dissimilar from the amazing blue cheese dressing at Pizza Hut (this is our holy grail - we've gone to PH just to eat the Blue Cheese dressing) and it shows an interesting side of people, and if you look at the ingredients they use, and most of these tips and tricks would be impossible to remake outside of the states. Source: therebelchick.com via Rebecca E. on Pinterest This isn't a new thing - Top Secret Recipes was one of the first websites I remember checking back and linking too - even if I was looking at recipes I had no idea what the original tasted like, but it's impressive so much effort is given over to ma...

Worm's World

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