Food and Mood - Recipe 2, Corned Beef Cobbler

Prep time: 20 minutes
Cooking time: 30 minutes
Serves 6-8

This is called a 'cobbler' because the dumpling things look like a bit liuke the surface of a cobbled street when cooked. You could make just the hash if you wanted.

Ingredients - Hash

1 small onion, chopped
1 tin corned beef (buy one with a ring pull, not a key. Ring pull tins are safer and easier to get the corned beef out of)
4-5 medium potatoes
1 standard tin baked beans
1 carrot, peeled and chopped
1 stock cube

Method

Pre-heat oven to 200C (gas 6)
Peel potatoes and chop into chunks, put into a pan together with the carrot pieces.
Add enough water just to cover the veg.
Bring to boil then simmer until veg are cooked.

Whilst the veg is cooking make the cobblers.


Ingredients- Cobblers

150g self raising flour
25g margarine or butter
1 teaspoon mixed herbs
Milk to bind

Method

Rub the flour, herbs and marg or butter together.
Add milk gradually, mixing as you go, until you achieve a firm dough.
DO NOT ADD too much liquid! Go steady! The mi should hold together, without sticking to the bowl.

Roll into small balls then flatten a bit, place on a plate and pop intop fridge until needed.

Now chop the corned beef up a bit and add it to the pan along with the veg and beans.
Bring to the boil, then transfer whole mixture to a casserole dish.
Fetch cobblers out of fridge and arrange on top of the hash.
Bake for 15-20 minutes until cobblers are browned.

Food and Mood - Recipe 1, Butternut Squash Lasagne

Food supposedly affects mood a lot, so one of the things I am currently accessing is a short (too short!) 'Cook and Eat' course at my local community centre. It's not what I hoped for, mas we cook as a team rather than individually, but I am enjoying it.

We make 3 courses each week. I thought I might share some of the recipes here, as they are pretty easy to do, even for a cooking-idiot like me.

Butternut Squash Lasagne

Prep. time: 60 minutes
Cooking time: 30 minutes
Serves 4

Ingredients

1 butternut squash, peeled and de-seeded
I courgette, skinned and sliced
1 large onion, peeled and chopped
1 large tin of tomatoes
2 tablespoons of tomato puree
1 clove of garlic, peeled and chopped
Ground black pepper to taste
6 lasagne sheets

Drizzle of oil for cooking squash
Small knob of butter or marg for cooking other veg


Method

Pre-heat oven to 200C
Place butternut squash pieces on a baking tray, drizzle lightly with oil and cook for 15 minutes.
Put onions and courgettes in a large pan with a small knob of marg or butter and cook for 3-4 minutes until softened
Add remaining ingredients to pan, bring to boil and simmer for 15 minutes
Remove squash from oven and add to pan. Cook for further 15 minutes

Whilst this is cooking make the cheese sauce.

(Keep the oven on meantime, you'll use it again soon)

Cheese Sauce
1/2 pint or 300ml milk
40g flour
25g butter or margarine
100g strong cheese grated

Method

Melt 25g marg or butter in a small pan.
Add flour, mixing well.
Remove pan from heat and add the milk a little at a time, stirring well so that it forms a smooth mix.
Return pan to heat and bring slowly to the boil, stirring all the time.
Reduce heat and continue to cook until sauce thickens.
Remove from heat and add cheese gradually - Keep a little cheese back for sprinkling on the top later.


To make up dish layer veg, then lasagne, repeat until all used, finishing with a lasagne layer.
Pour over cheese sauce and sprinkle with remaining cheese
Cook in oven for 30 minutes.

Don't forget, you can freeze any left overs for use another time.

Acknowledging Your Achievements

Today was a bit of a rough day, but I am aware that I dealt well with some difficult circumstances. One of the things I tend to forget is to recognise my achievements. I think that's a common thing when you are suffering mental ill health. For me, my inner critic loves to point out how I failed at things, that I didn't achieve as much as I needed or wanted to achieve, and that voice overwhelms the good stuff I have achieved.


So, today I didn't find any financial help for dealing with getting rid of my old home.

I did, though . . .

• look at four different charities' websites, where I might have found some help
• understood the qualifying terms on those websites
• identified the charities whose qualifying terms I met
• with support, spoke to or e-mailed those charities identified as possibly helpful

I also . . .

• got up
• got dressed
• ate something for lunch, at lunch time
• took my medications 

• did a washing load 
• pegged the washing out to dry
• retrieved the dried washing
• put the washing away

• swept my lounge
• put out my rubbish
• contacted my nurse
• spoke with my support worker
• read a book
• wrote this blog entry

So, though my inner critic still isn't impressed, I am not so bad a person after all.

Time for an update. I have moved to my new home, a very pleasant one-bedroomed flat. With help from my amazing best friend Jessie Blackwood I have got the place in reasonable order and it looks like a home rather than a dump site. Keeping it that way is proving challenging, but I have support and am muddling through.

I still haven't disposed of the old place, though, nor the contents thereof. My Cognitive Behaviour Therapy has been put on hold because this issue is stopping me making progress with the therapy. My therapist has put a hold of about 12 to 16 weeks on working with me. I am about half way through that time now, I believe. The goal is to be free of the past things and the house by the time she is ready resume working with me. I admit, I am still heavily prevaricating.

Today I went to the Mindful Media group in Stockport, which works in association with CAHSS and Stockport MIND. I have been asked to provide some peer support with literacy and IT there. I have agreed to try this, with assurances from S that it is all very chilled and target free and totally in my hands in regards how I approach it.

I was terrified whilst we were discussing this! I was shaky and weepy and utterly lacking in confidence. I could see all the potential pitfalls of having a go at this, but I managed to come around. I actually think I see an approach that would be 'special' to Mindful Media; I am calling it 'Person-Centred Literacy' for now. It does what it says on the tin, if I can manage to create it. Something like this would have triggered all my buttons when I was well . . . I am very scared of cocking up, but I'll give it a try. I have, though, asked S to monitor me and to jump on me if I start being a perfectionist and self-critical of what I am doing and how it is going. I need to have a very positive experience with the project.

@---}--}-------

I am angry that I have lost so much confidence through being bullied at work and becoming ill. I realise now that my OCD impacted on my performance at work, because the manner in which I was bullied led to me over-checking things. My extremely high levels of anxiety, my paranoia and my over-checking all impacted on my performance, setting the stage for what followed. I doubt I can ever forgive my bully, 'puh', for keying in to my weaknesses and exploiting them. I had a pre-existing illness and what occurred aggravated it to the point where I reached collapse.

I'm recovering, but it's a case of 'slow and steady wins the race'. Meditation is helping; Reiki is helping; my support workers are invaluable to me, as are Jessie and SK. I know I would not still be alive without the people around me who have xollecyively worked so hard to give me so much respect, affection, love and Unconditional Positive Regard. UPR will be at the heart of the approach I take to peer supporting for Literacy at Mindful Media. Blessed Be all those who contribute to helping me get well again.

Return to Counselling

I have begun, this week, a new round of CBT Counselling. The sessions' aim is to help me reduce and manage the anxiety I experience in relation to clearing my home of the accumulated clutter that has resulted from my OCD Hoarding.

@---}--}-----

I've been lucky, I managed to find a couple of agencies willing to help my with the physical aspects of the task and my friends have the sympathy aspect covered. Now I have the emotional / psychological angle covered too, so I am hoping we can really move forward on this now.

I have made progress, but its been quite painful--and it's come with variable results. I do have carpet visible in my lounge right now! Quite a lot of it, actually. (It's blue) I can get into cupboards and such that haven't seen the light of day for years, too. Resisting the drive to classify everything I come across as either 'will come in handy' or 'sentimental attachment' is hard, though.

When we  (my brave helpers and I--well them, mostly) started cleaning, I had a hard time because I couldn't disassociate myself from my belongings. After the initial euphoria of seeing space being made I then hit a point where throwing things away, emotionally and psychologically, was for me equating to throwing my actual self away. I believed that if my stuff was rubbish, so was I. I've not really gotten past that one yet, I just pushed the belief to the back of my mind and am trying to get on despite it.

@---}--}-----

Going into the first CBT session I was anxious, filled with trepidation and tearful. I hate that I cry so much. I wasn't sure what goal I might set for the CBT work, but I knew my relationship with my 'stuff' has to change, that I need to 'let go' and also to 'lose the fear'.

My new counsellor did a very thorough job of assessing whether I will be able to cope with and perform the work the CBT will set me. I have a lot going on in my life right now, and she wanted to be sure that by taking me on as a client she wouldn't actually be making things worse for me. I suspect it was a borderline call, but we are going ahead. I know it will be tough, CBT is very much a 'short, sharp, shock' treatment. I'm up for it though, being as I am desperate to live through what's happening right now; shifting my clutter, both physical and mental, is what the hour calls for. Wish me luck, say some prayers for me. Blessed be.