Meatless Monday {2019 – week 1}

This post and idea has been a long time coming (last Meatless Monday was 1 year and 16 weeks in and 27 weeks pregnant with my twins!)- to be fair I’ve kind of had my hands full with two little people for the past 2 years and it has just been enough of a challenge to keep my head above water and keep on Instagram regularly… but new year – fresh start, time to try to get the whole fab fam into Meatless Mondays (although I have decided that lunches for the boys (hubby included) are going to be a write-off, as long as I get the breakfasts and evening meal meatless I count that as a win all-round and I, myself, will be fully meatless #dowhatyoucanwithwhatyouhavewhereyouare) and try to blog about it and a summary of my week in 4 images again on a weekly basis. 

So here we are 2019 week 1 of Meatless Monday… 

Mondays now are one of my 3 days a week in the office whilst my lovely in-laws look after our boys. 

Here’s my  week in 4:

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1. Wedding Photo Wall: One of my big ongoing projects at the moment is our wedding photo wall, to fix the issue that we are now 5 years married and without a single photo of our wedding up in the house, there are many reasons for this, but it really comes down to time and money, like all the other ongoing and half complete projects, but also that it took until just before the boy were born to get our hall/landing/stairs decorated (which is where said picture wall is) and then just haven’t had the time to put it up since. But I digress…as ever… I have always wanted this photo wall to be more than just a few photos of our big day, I want it to be quotes and readings from the day and keepsakes, but also an opportunity to display family wedding photos going back generations, and we had a bit of a break through, with help of a variety of wonderful family archivists, we now have photos of all of our Grandparents on their wedding days from the 1930s to the 1950s… amazing – beautiful and very special. I look forward to getting this complete in the next couple of months and will of course to a full post about it when I do. 
2. Up a clothes size: We went up a clothes size for the boys just before Christmas and my jeans were looking more shabby than chic – so I decided it was time for a round of machine dying… got into this a few years ago but it has been wonderful to refresh all manner of 2nd hand clothing for both myself and the boys for just around £7.50 a box for a whole load on eBay the now even come in these super handy capsules with the salt all included and so you literally just chuck it in your machine no messy no fuss. You do need 4 washes in the machine in total, that’s the downside, but I usually use the quick wash 30′ cycle and it works just fine. So 1) to wet the clothes, 2) to dye them, 3) to rinse them and set the dye, and 4) to rinse the machine. Highly recommend doing this every few months to anyone. It really does make you feel like you have new clothes 🙂
3. Thought Provoking MEME: Saw this meme on Facebook this week and it really made me think – how strange it is that something like our perception of the Internet can literally go full circle in just a decade or two
4. Too True!: This image just basically summarises my world at home at any given point you’d like to mention 

Right onto food…

Breakfast:

A cup of tea using my absolute favourite teabags of all time (Waitrose fairtrade marquess grey tea bags) organic semi skimmed milk and honey, then I decided to try this new bread this week and I am a bit obsessed! – It’s called Chleb Polski and it’s from Morrisons and it is delicious and much healthier for you than regular breads as it is a sourdough, so I find it nicely fills you up without giving you that heavy feeling which is so nice, I’ve been having it with Morrisons (cheap cheap) basic blackcurrant own brand jam, which I also love and real butter (which I have to say you just cannot beat – the French have been right all along – and Julia Child 😉

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Lunch:

For lunch I fell back into my favourite from old days Meatless Mondays (circ. 2015/16) of hummus, sugar snap peas, toasted pitta, peppers and carrots (Bento box from the fabulous Rex.London – these really are so handy for these meze lunches and this website really does do the best selection in both value and design which I have seen). My snacks throughout the day consisted of an apple, a clementine, a packet of square crisps (which disappointingly turned out to be salt and vinegar rather than cheese and onion (damn you Walkers with your confusing blue then green then blue packets of cheese and onion ;), and a Tunnocks Caramel bar (always a favourite).  

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Dinner:

Was a bit dull to be fair, but was all I could think of that everyone would eat at the time, we went for tomato and mozzarella tortellini with spinach and sun-dried tomatoes, olives and red pesto. Went down all round but I for one definitely missed the meat in this dish and that is definitely the goal post I find of a successful vegetarian dish, if you eat the whole thing and don’t miss the meat then you know you’ve done a good job. Could have been that I didn’t put enough pesto in, could have been that they were own brand tortellini and I do find that the Italian brand ones, like Giovanni Rana are always better, but hey ho, it ticked a box…I’ll try and make it more interesting next time.  

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Please check out my Pinterest meatless inspiration board: #MeatlessMonday  to gather some pinspiration:

Along with the official Meatless Monday board which I am also now sharing on:

Find out how I got on to Meatless Mondays in the first place by watching this video:

And check out #meatlessmondays on this blog to see all my Meatless Monday posts and recipes. Hope you have a lovely week 🙂