Posted on

Starting over

I suddenly arrived at a difficult crossroads on my blogging journey. I didn’t like where all roads were taking me, so I’ve decided to leave Instagram and start over in a new direction with my blog. Crazy I know, considering I had 75k followers late 2021 (which was slowly decreasing and melting away as I’d stopped posting so regularly). Instagram is changing, rebranded ‘Meta’ and now rapidly going in a new direction which I don’t think will be good for my soul. It started as a photo sharing platform, a way to see the world through someone else’s eyes. Someone who could take better photos from interesting angles and add a few words to share their journey. I really do miss that about Instagram.

Meta (formerly FaceBook and Instagram) makes its money from advertising and selling data from users and creators to provide the product – for free. It’s a great business strategy and worked well until they started censoring the content, based on input and restrictions put on them by their clients. Accounts were shadow banned or disappeared overnight, with no resource or humans available to resolve or even discuss the issue. After all, you are getting the platform for free, so why should they provide you any ‘customer’ service.

Click here to buy my T shirts on my FiftySister store.

Influencers post highly filtered photos which everyone seems to appreciate. Post a photo without one and people will be horrified and share their unfiltered feelings on your timeline in record time. Verbal abuse never bothered me, but the effort deleting, blocking or reporting the accounts was such a waste of precious time.

This place name, without fail, always makes me laugh.

So here I am, back on my blog, all new, starting over from scratch. I am both relieved and excited. There’s no mystical algorithms, trolls or pressure to post daily, but I will post regularly as I miss telling stories, writing and sharing a photo here and there. If you sign up for my mailing list I will send you an update once a month and hopefully will be adding offers, vouchers and promo codes if any companies want to work with a silver haired, unfiltered, cruelty free, midlife woman. Let’s see…

Have a beautiful day.

Gail x

Fresh water swim spot just outside Tavira, Algarve, Portugal.
Posted on

Crispy tofu with shiitake mushroom side

Very addictive crispy tofu

Don’t be afraid of tofu! My husband thought he would hate it, but he loves it. It doesn’t really have much of a taste of it’s own, it takes on the flavour of everything on it.

Crispy tofu with shiitake mushrooms

A simple way to enjoy crispy coated tofu, with a veggie sidedish of shiitake mushrooms
Print Recipe Pin Recipe
Prep Time 10 minutes
Cook Time 10 minutes
Course Main Course, Snack
Cuisine Asian
Servings 4

Equipment

  • frying pan, saucepan

Ingredients
  

Crispy Tofu

  • 2 cups Extra firm tofu (organic is best!)
  • 4 tbsp cornflour
  • 1 tsp garlic powder
  • 1 tsp smoked paprika
  • 1 pinch salt
  • 1 pinch black pepper
  • Oil for frying

Shiitake mushroom side

  • 1 tbsp cooking oil
  • 2 cloves garlic - grated or crushed
  • 1 thumb ginger - grated or minced
  • 0.5 cup green onions
  • 1 veggie stock cube
  • 1 tsp garlic puree
  • 2 tsp red pepper puree - sweet OR hot
  • 2 tsp hoisin sauce
  • 2 cups shiitake mushrooms
  • 1 carrot - peeled and sliced
  • 1 tsp cornflour, mixed in 1 cup of water
  • 1 tbsp sesame oil
  • 2 tsp soy sauce

Instructions
 

Shiitake mushroom side

  • Fry garlic and ginger until soft then add green onions to soften
  • add 1 cup water and heat.
  • add hoisin, garlic, pepper puree and stock cube, mushroom and carrots
  • add cornflour mixed with water and stir until thickened.
  • add sesame oil and soy sauce. Stir and it's ready!

Crispy Tofu

  • Mix cornflour, paprika, garlic powder, salt and pepper in a bowl
  • break up Tofu into bite sized pieces and cover in the cornflour mix
  • Heat cooking oil in a frying pan until hot but not smoking.
  • fry until golden brown and crunchy. It's ready!

Notes

Serve with green onions, sliced fresh chillies and steamed rice.
Keyword mushroom, shitake, tofu

I’m a huge fan of crispy tofu! Prepped this way with shiitake mushrooms is one of my husband’s favourite meals. It seems like a lot of ingredients, but keep these items in the cupboard as I will use them often.

I’m not going to bore you with lots of writing, but this does make an excellent lunch!

It easy and delicious but just one word of warning, my husband eats too much of this when I make it, ……it’s a bit ‘windy’ though!

Now… cook off!

Gail x