A Personal Update

It seems I’ve been neglecting my blogs somewhat, in my defence I’ve had a very busy few months.

I don’t often talk in too much detail about my work, I usually just moan about it or complain about, what I see as, poor decision making or lack of understanding in the companies upper management structure. I’m a low level manager heading up the estimation team, my team is the smallest in the company, normally consisting of myself, two product estimators and an estimation apprentice. The company I work for is quite fortunate in that it is part of the building industry and hasn’t really been affected by the pandemic. In all honesty the current situation has actually been beneficial to our business as it’s restricted the flow of cheaper, lower quality, alternative products, manufactured abroad, from flooding the market and has allowed us to pick up a larger market share. As product estimators this has meant my teams workload has increased, couple this with one of my estimators leaving in august, it has meant that we’ve had to pick up a lot of the extra workload. Because of my teams hard work we’ve managed to cope fairly well, though it does make our jobs very intense and often means skipping breaks and working extra time (I’m not referring to this as overtime because we don’t get paid overtime), unfortunately our success has meant that I’ve not been able to convince upper management to replace the estimator that left further intensifying my teams jobs.

What this means to me is that most nights, when I get home from work, I generally don’t have the energy to sit at my computer or laptop and write anything. It also means that I’ve not had the drive to actually try out any new recipes or think too much about reviewing anything that I’ve bought or anywhere that I’ve visited. Since my blogs are generally just my own personal thoughts, recipes or product reviews, I’ve not really written anything about anything at all.

It also means that I’ve been somewhat neglecting my diet and exercise regimes and have slipped back into some of my old habits. This has led to me putting on quite a bit of weight, has lowered my self-confidence and has led to me not feeling comfortable with sharing selfies or other images of myself.

Hopefully in the New Year I’ll be able to get in a new employee, get myself back on a more even keel, lose a little bit of the weight and find more time for myself.

I want to embrace my slightly eccentric aesthetic, be a little more wizardy (yes, wizardy is definitely a word) and learn about herbal remedies, foraging, vegetable and herb gardening and tarot reading (more because I love the artwork and the idea of interpreting a narrative than any actual belief in physic abilities or the cards power to tell the future).

Obviously I intend to write and post about my exploits, but whether I do or not remains to be seen.

I hope anyone reading this has an excellent holiday period and finds the opportunity and time to visit, or at least talk to, family and friends.

Be safe.

June 2021 - Body Image

I’m having a real body image crisis at the moment and I can’t see a way out of it.

November 2019, I was the healthiest I’ve been in my adult life, I’d dropped 8 or 9 stone in weight, was exercising most days and was fitting into a 34 inch waist jean and large t-shirt. By mid February 2020 I’d slipped back up to a 36 waist, extra large.

I’d been quite proud of my success, I didn’t want to slip further and really had to do something about it. I dropped my maximum caloric intake down from 2000 a day to 1800 and increased my workout schedule from 3 to 5 times a week, I figured I’d be back on track in 3 or 4 months.

It’s now June 2021 and I’m still in the same place I was in February 2020. 18 months of 1800 calories a day and exercising 5 days a week and I’ve lost no weight, if anything I’m looking slightly more portly than before.

I’ve tried increasing my protein by swapping out a meal for a shake, I’ve tried upping my vitamin intake with supplements, I’ve tried cutting out carbs and reducing fat, I’ve increased the amount of water I drink. I can’t decrease my caloric intake further because I lose all energy and get a pretty hefty brain fog on much lower than my current level.

I’m completely stuck, I don’t know what to do and it’s really eating away at my already virtually nonexistent self esteem. I look at myself in the mirror and see a fat tub of lard. I look worse to myself now than I did before my original weight loss. My self loathing is a constant companion.

Creamy Mushroom Pasta

As a brit I've been having a real identity crisis when it comes to food recently, the British seem to have an overwhelming obsession with all things potato and I'm absolutely sick and tired of potatoes and potato based products (obviously excluding fried potatoes, frying just makes everything better).

Baring that in mind I've been eating a fair amount of pasta as of late and therefore a lot of the recipes I've come up with are pasta based. The recipe below is yet another pasta dish, it's a rich, flavourful and satisfying meal that feels a lot more decadent than it really is. Since both the sauce and pasta can be cooked in advance and kept in the fridge for several days, or even frozen, this can easily make a super quick, lazy midweek dinner.

You will need:
400g dried pasta
1 tbsp vegetable oil
1 large onion, finely chopped
600g mushrooms, sliced
4 cloves of garlic, crushed
1/2 tsp mustard powder
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 tsp ground pepper
2 tbsp white wine vinegar
1 tbsp hendersons relish
200g fat free quark
120g parmesan cheese
2 tbsp water
2 tsp cornflour

Method:
1. Cook the pasta in boiling water for 2 minutes less than the stated cooking time, drain, retaining the water and set aside.
2. Pre-heat the oil in a large saucepan, over a medium high heat.
3. Add the onions and mushrooms to the pan and cook for about 5 minutes.
4. Add the garlic, stir through and cook for another minute or so, until fragrant.
5. Add the mustard, salt, pepper, vinegar and relish, stir and cook for 2 or 3 minutes.
6. Stir through the quark and parmesan.
7. Add the cornflour to the water, mixing until all the cornflour dissolves, before adding to the pan and bringing up to the boil.
8. Add in the drained pasta, stir thoroughly and bring to a simmer, if the mix looks a little dry add in some of the retained pasta water and allow to simmer for 2 or 3 minutes.
9. Season to taste with a little more salt and pepper, stir through to ensure everything is evenly distributed and serve in 4 bowls.

Notes:
Swap out the vegetable oil for spray oil and cut down on the parmesan to make it more diet friendly. If you're not too bothered about calories, add more cheese and some broken up crispy bacon for more flavour and to give the dish a little texture.

Just A Bit Of A Rant About Employment

I’ve just received confirmation that all staff will be expected back in the office, on full working hours, from the 8th of March. I guess it’s back to 90 minute, traffic hell, commutes to and from work and skipping lunch breaks because of the extra pressure to perform that being in the office brings with it. 

Now I’ve got used to it and adjusted my body clock to account for it, losing those 3 hours from my day and my 30 minute workouts over lunch are really going to hit both my mental and physical health hard. 

So much for the pandemic permanently changing office work for the better, it seems far more likely to me that it’s going to change it for the worse.

If you don’t want to read the rantings of a perpetually working class, over opinionated, generation rent, aging millennial (yes, I am currently wearing skinny jeans… fucking zoomer.) I’d suggest you stop here… Otherwise, have at it.

I might not be a business analyst, but I’ve worked in industry for a long time and have weathered many a storm and remained relatively unscathed whilst doing so. This is thanks to being quite technically minded, trying my best to be an “information sponge”, having a reasonable level of insight into how things work and being a good judge of things to come. As I see it, thanks to business closures, caused by a mixture of the government mismanaging both the pandemic and brexit, it’s going to give the surviving employers greater scope to work their employees harder than ever. Surviving employers are going to want to take advantage of diminished competition to expand their market share and claw back lost revenue, but they’re going to want to do it without increasing costs because of the long term uncertainty that brexit has caused. 

This is likely to lead to them relying on a mixture of expendable “zero hour” contracted agency staff and expecting their existing full time work forces to increase productivity. A decrease in the amount of competition for employers generally leads to an increase in the amount of competition for employees, essentially a hell of a lot more people are now competing for a hell of a lot less jobs. Couple this with the fact that there’s now a massive influx of very talented, very experienced individuals who are currently unemployed and will be looking to start a new job ASAP and you have a situation where previously indispensable, relatively well paid, staff are now fairly easily replaced by equally capable people who are willing to accept lower pay out of desperation.

The foreseeable future is looking bleak from an employee standard point. The glass ceiling is going to be lowered, expanded and reinforced. Anyone below it will find themselves pushed into a more cramped, more competitive, higher stress environment. They will find themselves working harder and longer hours for the same or lower rates of pay. People at the lower end of the scale will find themselves suffering from stress caused by poor work/life balance, job insecurity and financial strains.

People above the glass ceiling will almost certainly experience the opposite of this, widening the gap between rich and poor. Basically because it’s been made harder for low level workers to break through, competition for high level jobs will decrease and therefore high level job security will increase. Meanwhile lower levels of business competition and an increased level of productivity to fill this void, whilst working to keep costs as low as possible though pressure on the workforce, is likely to create higher profits and therefore higher pay or bonuses to those upper echelons. 

Needless to say our current conservative government will be working hard in the background to ensure that this is the case, slowly chipping away at employee rights whilst firming up the control an employer can exert over their staff. As is generally the case with conservative policies, this will help to strengthen the stranglehold that large business concerns have over the economy, making it ever harder for smaller, independent businesses to compete on any level.

Basically if you’re already rich, and you’ve weathered the covid storm, you’re going to be doing great. If you’re poor, you’re basically screwed and as long as you continue to work, spend, repeat, whilst you’re capable at least, the government couldn’t give a damn if you sink or swim, live or die.

Ok, rant over… I’m perpetually tired and my bones hurt.

I Binged Today...

I binged today, it’s been the worst binge I’ve had in a long long time.

About 2 years ago, over the course of 10 months, I lost 8 stone (that’s 112lb or 51kg for anyone outside the UK). The last 2 years have been a real struggle to keep the weight off, a struggle that I’ve been slowly losing. As I relaxed my calorie count old habits re-emerged and I started to occasionally binge eat again. Since the peak of my weight loss I’ve managed to regain a around about a stone (14lb or 6.5kg) and I currently weigh in at almost exactly 17 stone (238lbs or 108kg).

Whilst this is nowhere near what I used to weigh, that being 25 stone (350lb or 159kg), it is by no means small and I’m still classified as clinically obese for a man of my height.

Unfortunately I’ve discovered that losing weight hasn’t really affected my ability to binge large quantities of food, nor has it really altered the maximum portion size that I’m able to eat. Today something in me briefly gave up and in the time it took me to regain control, a period of around 20 minutes, I ate 8 packets of Maltesers, 6 packets of Hula Hoops, 4 KitKats and 2 toasted crumpets. Considering this happened after I’d eaten my main meal, and having already consumed in the region of 1800 calories for the day, I should be feeling horribly bloated and generally ill. The problem is that so many years of constant binge eating has left my capacity to eat extremely high and because of that I barely even feel full. Had I not regained control of myself when I did I really don’t know when I would have stopped or how much I could have consumed.

Needless to say I’m extremely disappointed in myself and am currently feeling quite a lot of self loathing.

Super Simple Salmon

I love salmon, but don't often eat it because of the cost. When I do I like to taste the salmon, I want it front and centre with the rest of the meal complimenting the flavour rather than overpowering it.

Below are two simple, quick and delicious salmon recipes that I've absolutely loved eating.

Watercress Salmon Pasta

Pan fried salmon with tagliatelle in a watercress sauce.

You will need:
400g tagliatelle
1 small onion, roughly chopped
4 cloves of garlic
150g watercress
Juice of half a lemon
Salt and pepper to season
1 tbsp vegetable oil
Pinch of smoked salt flakes
4 good sized salmon steaks (around 200g each)

Method:
1. Cook the tagliatelle in boiling, salted water for 2-3 minutes less than the stated cooking time, drain the pasta, but retain the water in a bowl.
2. Add the onion, garlic, watercress, lemon juice, seasoning and 2-3 tbsp of the pasta water to a food processor and pulse until a paste is formed.
3. Add the watercress paste to the pasta, thoroughly stir through, place a lid on the pan, cook over a very low heat for 1 minute, remove from the heat and set aside.
4. Pre-heat the oil in a pan over a high heat, pat dry the salmon, season the flesh side liberally with the smoked salt and pepper, place in the pan skin side down and cook, uncovered, for 3-4 minutes.
5. Drizzle 1 tbsp of the pasta water over the salmon, put a lid on the pan, turn the heat down to low and cook for a further 2-3 minutes.
6. Remove the frying pan from the heat and set aside to rest for 1-2 minutes.
7. Serve up the pasta into 4 bowls and place a salmon steak on top of each.

Creamy Salmon Pasta

Pan fried salmon with tagliatelle and spinach in a creamy sauce.

You will need:
400g tagliatelle
4 cloves of garlic, crushed
4 spring onions, sliced to a thickness of around 5mm
200g reduced fat soft cheese
400g spinach
1 tbsp vegetable oil
4 good sized salmon steaks (around 200g each)
Pinch of smoked salt flakes
Salt and pepper to season

Method:
1. Cook the pasta in boiling, salted water for 2-3 minutes less than the stated cooking time, drain the pasta, but retain the water in a bowl.
2. Add the garlic, spring onion and 2 tbsp of the pasta water to the pasta, stir through, cover and cook over a very low heat for 1 minute.
3. Remove the pasta from the heat, stir through the soft cheese, if needed add in another tbsp of the pasta water, add the spinach to the pan, cover and set aside.
4. Pre-heat the oil in a pan over a high heat, pat dry the salmon, season the flesh side liberally with the smoked salt and pepper, place in the pan skin side down and cook, uncovered, for 3-4 minutes.
5. Drizzle 1 tbsp of the pasta water over the salmon, put a lid on the pan, turn the heat down to low and cook for a further 2-3 minutes.
6. Remove the frying pan from the heat and set aside to rest for 1-2 minutes.
7. The spinach should have started to wilt from the residual heat in the pasta pan, season to taste and stir the wilted spinach through the pasta.
8. Serve up the pasta into 4 bowls and place a salmon steak on top of each.

With both of these dishes if you wanted to really boost those salty savoury flavours you could add in a few capers as you're stirring everything through the pasta or grate some parmesan cheese over the dish before serving.

Both recipes could also be made a little more budget friendly by swapping the fresh salmon for frozen prawns, or even tinned salmon, and stirring them through just a few minutes before serving.