Valentine's Day II

A couple of other unexpected things arrived through the letterbox today: the paperboy delivered The Times instead of our Daily Telegraph, which was a surprise, as was the surprising Valentine Card from Tescos. They say it with Clubcard points, apparently. Whatever it was they're saying, they're being pretty cheap about it - but maybe I shouldn't turn up my nose at 25 extra points on laundry or cleaning products for Valentine's Day ... be grateful in all circumstances says St Paul. Thanks, Tescos.

My decision earlier today to return to the anti-Candida diet hit an early snagging point come dinnertime. Lunch was fine – I had the leftover vegetable bolognese from Tuesday. Gillian McKeith would definitely have approved as it contained Quinoa and Aduki beans (rumoured to be her favourite. The amazing thing about Aduki beans is that they don't appear to cause flatulence. I like that quality in a bean). On the meal plan for dinner tonight was Mushroom omelette and home-made chips. Mushrooms don't feature in the anti-Candida diet, nor does cheese, if I remember rightly. Come to that, tomorrow night's home-made pizza will also fail to comply with the new eating regimen. Then Vicky's cooking for us on Sunday … looks like the new diet will need to begin with next week's menus. When I plan the week's main meals, I usually aim to include two fish dishes, at least one vegetarian meal, one egg based meal, and the rest meat.

This afternoon I went over the allotment and pulled some leeks (for leek and potato soup using the chicken stock from Sunday) and picked some purple-sprouting broccoli – very proud of the broccoli! Steamed it for a few minutes and it was lovely: full of flavour and very tender (not to mention anti-Candida compliant).