The teabags in our work tea room.  Behold the precision packing of those catering quality tea bags….  It was amazing how many people, myself included, smiled in appreciation when they saw this.

Gave the lawn a bit of a mow and attacked the hedge in a cathartic session with my trimmer this morning.  It is pretty crazy but gardening at around 6am in the summer is actually a lovely time to be doing it.  The sun’s just up and there’s a breeze to balance out the sweat you work up running around with the mower and then there’s that clarifying morning air.  At least it was clarifying until I spritzed the WD40 on the blades of the lawnmower and trimmer.  Fortunately, the freshly cut lawn trimmings freshened the air up a bit afterwards.

My basic marinade borrowed from mum – tablespoon or so of soya sauce, good dash of pepper and some sesame oil.  For sweetness, I add a little honey towards the end of the baking time.  You avoid burned chicken skin from the honey burning as the meat roasts this way.

I’m completely invested in the new rotation of work lunches I was trialling earlier this month.  I’m trying to add a few less processed sources of protein to my salads and the quickest thing I’ve come up with so far is using cold roasted chicken.  I marinade single meal portions in zip lock bags (cutting out the middle man deep glass dish) and bake in my turbo broiler the night before.  Toddler SSG usually has one drumstick for his dinner and the left overs go into salads.

In fact, the cold soba noodle salad has worked so well, I even brought it with me to the shops today.  For a budget friendly twist to the original smoked salmon component, I added a can of flavoured tuna.  This worked really well as the flavour of the tuna rounded out the dressing and gave it a flavour I’m much happier with.  I’m not missing my usual Saturday white rice sushi as much as I thought I would.  Who ever would have thought!?!

Veggie Twister zoodle maker – $39.99 from King of Knives.

My personal clean eating lite evolution (I have a diet coke on my desk at the moment which is why it’s a lite movement) has also seen me potentially embrace the zoodle.  I wasn’t that keen on them the first time I tried them.

But then I discovered that you can use them in spag bol (simply put your hot meat sauce over the raw zoodles to warm them up) and in a peanut chicken stir fry.  I’ll review my Veggie Twister in full after I use it but I selected it because it is so compact and the blades are concealed which makes it potentially safer in a toddler focussed kitchen.

This is pretty much all the holiday shopping excitement I have for you today.  Pill boxes so I don’t forget my vitamins each day and a stash of interdental brushes to keep my gums healthy.  Priorities.

Speaking of my jar of liquid coconut oil, I’ve currently got some in my hair.  I poured it out, in fact.  And it smells delicious!  Just like toasted coconut.  I wonder what it’ll do to my hair if it smells this good!

Do you shop for anything in particular before going on holiday?

What’s your favourite zoodle recipe?