Penguin, oh yeah, I can pass up a regular donut with frosting any day, but jelly donuts with sugar on top call out my name! I avoid being anywhere near those.
This topic contains 27,915 replies, has 832 voices, and was last updated by LJoyce 4 hours, 17 minutes ago.
Ljoyce what brand is tbe kefir you buy? I have access to woolies, coles and a small foodland so wonder if they would stock it. Ive never purchased it before – where would I find it in a supermarket?
On the doughnut subject I do love a hot doughnut rolled in sugar and cinnamon. Cold doughnuts with toppings are not my thing. Im fussy what I feed tbe chooks – good input equals good output – as in eggs! Will take the KK doughnuts to work and leave them in tbe kitchen for colleagues. I will be interested to see how many are eaten and who eats them – a mini social study.
MissD and I have tomorrow (Friday) off as its a ‘student free day’ at school so will make today a FD. My belly is growling already (its 5.30am) so not a good start. I didnt have any tea (evening meal) last night as the KKD taste put me right off so I just had a cuppa instead. Will try and stretch out until midday before I eat.
Ha ha penguin. Jam in the middle reminded me – I mentioned a few pages back the Ford Escort bread van that my nan bought for me from my uncle’s firm. He was an accountant at Rank Hovis McDougall. On Monday mornings, the company would regularly receive calls from local bakeries complaining that their customers had bought jam doughnuts sans jam. The jam was stored in huge glass jars like vats and workers had to muscle them down from the shelves and inject the doughnuts. Leftover jam had to be placed in another container and the large jars cleaned. It turned out that, when it was close to knocking off time on a Friday, they’d try to avoid the extra work by making the opened jars last. So some doughnuts would have a miserable little amount of jam and others none at all. Have you ever purchased any jam doughnuts and felt cheated on the jam?
Good morning everyone,
Oh Minka, my heart goes out to you. Why is it that when life is most stressful and pressured, some random bureaucratic thing jumps up to exacerbate it further!
It always happens, although I am glad to say that my ones have been on a much smaller scale (touch wood and whistle). What can we do but be glad our loved ones are safe, and work through it step by step.
Hi Cali, re whey in soup, or bread, it is the protein in the whey that makes it good, Yes, the poor probiotics will toast.
I hope you found a lovely cooling uncooked dinner! We used to make Vietnamese rice rolls when it was too hot to cook.
I have read up on kefir more and would want to try before I start making it as I like my yoghurt very mild and kefir might be too yeasty and sour for me, even at its best.
LJoyce, I hope today is better, how hard all those treatments are on you. So glad they exist of course, but you are a hero for managing them all so stoically.
Sarahwat, so glad you are enjoying your potato. Can’t imagine what it would cleanse, but it is obviously suiting you well!
Penguin, how glad your garden will be for that rain. The hot summer in the North makes me worry for our summer coming. It has been a shocker of a winter for me, but I just wilt in the heat! Fingers crossed we get a gentle one.
Apart from the famous hot, fresh doughnuts at Vic Market (watch out, the jam is like molten lava), my favourite doughnuts were the ones I ate when breastfeeding. I was SO HUNGRY and a doughnut was perfect. Off the menu now, but great memories!
Well, yesterdays fast day wasn’t quite normal as (post viral fatigue I think, hope) my orthostatic intolerance is bad and I can’t be upright for long. Got ready for my darling home help in the morning but then decided I needed something to eat. So it was that sort of a fast day. Sensible, but less of a fast that usual.
I think my brilliant idea that I’d recover from my winter viruses once we click over to September…. might have been a bit optimistic. So now I am making all the sensible decisions to do less.
Thank goodness that research has just come out about too much activity over 40 years old can lead to heart attacks. I’ll miss that bullet! And since most research reminds me I will die early because I have to be so sedentary, that one made me cheer!
Well now, best wishes to you all with your own interesting lives and personal ways of fitting 5:2 in to them. I do hope today is a good day and, fast day or not, is a good step to long term health. Cheers all!
Thin your saw your post in my ‘edit window’ Hello! Yes I have been jam cheated with doughnuts!
Good morning all, FD for me. Just having my first pot of tea for the day before heading out to do some errands – I have the car packed up with things to go to the Salvos – not clothing this time but teapots, crockery, baking dishes, a dinner set, vases, etc. I’ve been gradually culling the excess over the last few months and I had so many boxes of things in the spare room it was time to remove it. I stated this process when I bought that dinner set from the Salvos about 3 months ago. I loved the “new” antique dinner set, but I needed to deal with the accumulated crockery that I no longer used. I also treated myself to a new set of baking dishes. Most of mine were either from the 80s when I married, or oddments that I had accumulated. I now have a matching aqua blue collection of ceramic baking dishes and also a collection of Falcon enamelware – these are a really old fashioned design and are metal baking dishes and roasting trays with a baked enamel finish. They are incredibly cheap – I got 5 different sizes for less than $50. https://www.petersofkensington.com.au/Public/Falcon-White-Blue-Enamel-Pie-Dish-Set-5pce.aspx – These have been around for ages – my mother had some of these and I remember the baked pudding that was always made with the Sunday lunch roast was always in one of these enamel baking dishes.
GDSA – I’ve checked out all the brands of kefir that are available in stores near me. There are only 2 that don’t have lots of added things, so these are the only 2 that I buy. They are:
Blue Bay – this contains unpasturised whole milk (not organic) and kefir & ABC (yoghurt) cultures. It is unbelievably thick and the bacteria are active and even left in the fridge overnight it sometimes separates itself into a thick cheesy yoghurt and whey – it needs a good shake before use unless you actually want to scoop the top of to use as yoghurt or cream cheese.
Milk Thief – this contains unpasturised organic whole milk, kefir & AB cultures & pectin. This is the consistency of cultured buttermilk and has an incredibly creamy mild flavour. For drinking on its own, this is my favourite.
Both are good and both will let me make more kefir by putting 1/2 kefir and 1/2 fresh milk into a container and leaving it on the bench for a day or two.
When it’s first delivered to the stores it has a use-by date at least 6 weeks out, so plenty of time to culture more.
The one brand that is most readily available is Babushka but I would never buy it – it’s made from powdered milk and most of it has added flavours and sugars.
The most reliable Supermarket for me to find them is Foodland. They are located next to the expensive milks (eg the Paris Creek), often on the top shelf, they are in 1 litre white plastic bottles. I’ve checked 2 different Foodlands – the bigger the store the more brands they carry, but they shelve them in slighly differnt places – just check the entire milk and yoghurt display. They range from $7-11 depending on brand, and whether you get cows or goats milk (cows is cheaper). Until I actually looked for it in the supermarket I hadn’t even noticed that it was there. I just assumed I’d need to go to the health food store for it.
I’ve found some online photos so you know what to look for:
http://www.ruskiwaydeli.com.au/cow-kefir-cultured-milk-probiotic-drink-blue-bay-1
https://www.familylifeorganics.com.au/fermented-foods/7274-milk-thief-probiotic-kefir-1l.html
I hope you can find it. It might be worth checking Coles and WW too, you never know.
Thank you so much LJoyce for the info and the links. The labels dont look familiar but I guess I haven’t been looking before so may not have noticed them on the shelves. Doing our weekly shop at coles tonight so will check it out.
KKD update – colleagues have eaten half a box of doughnuts so far. Only one complaint that they were too sweet.
On the weight front have been hovering between 64.5 to 64.9kgs over the last week. Happy that I’m able to maintain without too much effort.
Back to work now, 3 hours and go and then a long weekend for me. Yay.
GDSA, how rewarding that you can just observe the doughnut consumption while thinking, “I don’t need that”. I love that realisation.
Merry might recall the name of the documentary that several of us watched last year about the ratio of fat/sugar. It might have been the one entitled, “The Men Who Made Us Fat”. Anyway, food manufacturers have determined that products containing an equal ratio of fat to sugar are highly addictive. I believe one example given was cheesecake. Ice cream might have been another. But the example that stood out for me was the pink glazed doughnut.
Cinque, that’s a bit gloomy. I hope we don’t lose you anytime soon. I’m sure you’re not that sedentary – not with all the care of your little grandies surely. But nice to counter the findings with research stating that, after 40, we should perhaps sit down with a nice cup of tea. LJ will like that, as do I.
GDSA – hope you track down some kefir. Do you have a health food shop? If the supermarket doesn’t have any, they might.
Enjoy your long weekend.
I feel “lighter” having gotten rid of all those belongings to the Slavos.
As the weather is nice here today I managed to do an hour of weeding (I hate onion weed 😡 ) and I also moved and restacked what’s left of my wood pile. I had 4 huge pieces of redgum that had been part of my 2 tonne wood delivery. I put them in the boot to return to the woodyard and replace with more appropriately sized pieces. Unfortunately there wasn’t any point even driving into the weigh point, as they had virtually no wood left on site – they have trouble keeping up to demand this time of year. But I know they always have a large delivery Friday mornings, so I’ll try again tomorrow.
I had a bit of reflux earlier – that sometimes happens on a FD when I have lots of fluid going through my stomach but no solids. I ate a raw carrot and that seems to have settled things down nicely.
Thin – I remember that documentary – it was presented by those British doctor twins (although I think one of them lives in the US). I remember him walking around with a box of donuts offering them to strangers to see what type they chose. I also remember thinking that they clearly had poor taste if they though icing was better than cinnamon sugar. Although the ratio idea does work, because I’ve never liked sweet things that are mostly sugar (eg pavlova, meringue, fairy floss). But put a slice of cheesecake or a bowl of icecream in front of me and I’ll have a difficult time walking away.
Nice to know that sitting down with a cup of tea is good for me, but I need no encouragement to do so – in fact I probably do it rather too often. I can’t remember if I ever shared how I started my pot of brewed tea ritual (I forget what I have and haven’t shared). My mum was a tea drinker and she hated teabags and tea served in chunky mugs with a passion. She always made tea with leaves in a pot and sat down to drink it slowly in a china cup & saucer (these were her 15 minutes of peace in very busy days). Although I was also a tea drinker I had become lazy and was using teabags and mugs. When my mum died I felt the need for a connection to her memory and I started doing an afternoon tea tray. Everyday when I came home from work I would make a pot of tea (made with leaves) and put it on the tray with a china jug of milk and one of my mum’s pretty cups and saucers and I would sit in the lounge and drink it slowly. It wasn’t that I spent the whole time thinking about her, it just allowed me to feel gently connected. It evolved from there until I began to really dislike the taste of teabags and I loved the teapot ritual so much that I did it more often. Now that I’m retired, I have no excuse not to always make tea that way – it was always a bit more difficult at work (I used an infuser ball there). I also find that sitting down with the tea tray is a good tool for calming down and being a bit more centered. You just need to not expect the cup of tea to be accompanied by biscuits and cake – I have broken that link a while ago thankfully.
That’s lovely LJ. I’m not a collector of stuff and I’m always on a de-cluttering mission. But one thing I treasure is my grandparents’ art deco demitasse coffee set from the 1930s. I don’t use it but, when we extended our house, I designed the kitchen and made a special space to house the coffee set. I see it every day which reminds me of my nan and sometimes get it all down to wash in warm soapy water so it doesn’t crack as I did last week. It’s not valuable but I love it. It depicts orange groves. Here’s a photo of the set that I’ve just found on the internet. http://imgur.com/a/opqKC
Thin, that’s a really elegant set – and unusual with orange trees instead of the usual flowers. I’ve scoured lots of second hand stores and auction houses looking for old china, but I’ve never seen this design before. I don’t think the value of china matters at all – if it has sentimental value or it’s just an object you love then it has value to you. When I designed my current kitchen, part of the design was a large built in dresser where my favourite pieces can be displayed along with my everyday china (also mostly antique finds from auctions).
Although I have a small number of pieces that I don’t use because I’m scared of breaking them, I do use everything else. I don’t think these treasures should be packed away, part of their joy is in using them.
Hi all, hope you are all well. Sorry it’s been a couple of days and I also have to apologise that I have only skimmed through all the posts as it would have taken far too long as there have been some very long conversations but from what I did see all very interesting 😊 Update on son is he is well and truly on the mend and the swelling has gone down and the scabs are already staring to heal!!! He hasn’t made it to school all week, more from embarrassment I think but then he never usually needs an excuse not to go any way 😩 I have had a bit if a busy week so my intended FDs, although started out well kind of fell by the way side come dinner 😢 So far today is a good FD as I didn’t actually eat anything until 3.50pm. I was absolutely starving mid afternoon but was busy getting my nails done so food had to wait 😂 Hoping to stick to it and have a chicken stir fry for dinner but I’m just really struggling ATM. The scales have been up and down all week and I have overindulged on NFD so I’m hoping to get a better handle on things next week. I’ll pass on the Tax debate I’m afraid as all things Government give me the pip lol. Hope you are all having a great day fasting or not 😊
Frangi – Hope you manage to stick with your stir fry. I’ve just had an early dinner – also a stir fry, but instead of adding any meal I made some really nutty satay sauce and added that.
I find that if I’ve gotten through to about 4:30 and the hunger is getting to me, I just have an early dinner and make sure the veggie portions are generous. I find it puts a dramatic end to the hunger and it doesn’t reoccur later. It feels a bit odd eating dinner at 5pm, but better than breaking a FD.
Hi again! I did end up feeling the need to eat while I composed and typed my assignment yesterday, so only fasted until about 1 pm. I deferred my fast day till today and have kept that commitment which feels really good.
I didn’t get to bed until midnight again last night due to how long it took to complete the work I submitted.
I’m so tired though, that I fell asleep in class today.
When I don’t fast I tend not to weigh myself. My clothes are still comfortable, so I’m going to assume that all is well enough for now.
I want to mention that I really enjoyed reading of the mindful eating experiences that you described a few pages back LJ. As I’ve continued to read the ‘Neuroslimming’ book I also found an exercise that matched your exact description of how you sampled delicacies at that high tea awhile back. That was when you tasted a bite or two from different plates in a considerate manner and then handed around the rest of the plate for the others to sample. There’s a whole chapter written about that exercise and how it benefits our brain chemistry, though I’m a bit tired now so am not able to recall! In any case, it was great to recall your description as I read the chapter since you affirmed that what was suggested in the book can really work and be beneficial, and isn’t just ‘good idea’ or ‘pie in the sky theory’ – pun intended!
Thin, several hundred of us felt cheated by one batch of doughnuts. When I was in the RAF we would exercise going to war for a few days twice a month. Our food would come out to us in insulated boxes. By local tradition the CO would let the cooks know when the war was going to end and the last meal before we all got nuked would be doughnuts. On one occasion the first meal included doughnuts, to general delight. Happiness lasted until the CO went on the tannoy and said that notwithstanding the doughnuts, the war had several days to go.
Minka, glad to hear that you got your assignment in and managed your FD today. I actually think that the fit of our clothes is an excellent guide to whether our weight is stable or changing. I always do a bit of a happy dance when the tight jean feel loose.
I’m glad you liked my little zen food exercises – I am still doing them, I just don’t report them anymore as I thought they might be getting a bit boring for everyone. I find it easier to slow my eating down and pick up the complexities of flavour now. Yesterday I used a pear for my exercise – a perfectly ripe packham pear. I was shocked by just how intensely sweet and juicy it was – I’m not surprised that most tinned fruits in “natural juice” are all packed in pear juice. Of all the foods I’ve tried this exercise on, the ones I’ve most enjoyed doing have been fruits. I think it’s because they have so much going on visually and with textures and complex flavours. Initially I did this as a dessert exercise after dinner but I’ve moved it to mid afternoon as that was when I was having trouble with snacking and doing the zen exercise really slows my eating down.
Thin, when I was growing up, dinner was always on the table at 5:30 sharp. (This allowed one hour for the family to eat dinner, do dishes, wipe down the kitchen & sweep the floor – all in time for Bellbird to start – the one and only soapy I’ve watched regularly – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bellbird_(TV_series) )
Over the years I moved dinner back a bit later as I wasn’t usually home by 5:30, let alone have dinner cooked. These days I usually eat at 6-6:30, although it will vary depending on appetite and how big or late lunch was.
Evening all. So far I have managed to stick to my stir fry, think I’d better try for an early night to keep me way on track for this FD!!! Dinner time here used to 5pm but since the husband left we have stretched it out to 6ish! My daughter always has quite a bug snack when she gets in from school these days as she is always complaining they never get enough time to eat at lunch!!! 😡 A new Principal took over last year and they have introduced a NUDE FOOD policy which is to try and cut down on rubbish at the school. So they now are supposed to take everything in containers and they are not allowed to take any packaged food out at recess or lunch play, they have even done away with the bins around the school!!! 😩😩😩 They now only get 15mins to eat at lunch in class so if they haven’t eaten sufficient in that time bad luck 😡 At least she only has until the end of the year left and I told her she can take as much time as she likes to eat at high school next year 😉😂 in regard to the KKD you can’t beat them!!! Unfortunately I am a huge sweet eater and love anything cake or the like 😂 I have to say though that since living in OZ I am disappointed with the variety and long for the fresh cream cakes in the bakeries back in the UK lol. Ok enough about that as it’s making me drool and I still have another few hours to go on FD. Hope you all have a good night 😊
Good story penguin! Do you have an early warning food associations for the start of a war?
We started the 5pm dinners when OH had a longstanding flight testing job based locally which required a very early start but he was home by 4pm and hungry. Our daughter was a baby then and I followed a strict routine of getting her to bed by 6pm. We’re a small family of three and we’ve always eaten together. I think I made a point of this because I resented the way my step-mother handled meal times which was to palm us children off with some early ‘kid-meal high tea’ like poached eggs on toast with baked beans and then later, she and my dad would have dinner together comprising what I considered a ‘real meal’ such as steak and whatnot. I was 15 so didn’t really consider myself a child. OK, these days, I’d prefer the poached eggs but the main thing is that we eat as a family and everyone gets the same quality food. It was one of my many ‘issues’ with food.
Actually just adding to that wicked step-mother story, my brothers (blended family) were quite a bit younger than I so they were getting their ‘high tea’ at 5pm. She’d ask me all smiles whether I’d like some of whatever it was they were having that day as if making some inclusive, kind gesture. I learned to say ‘yes please’ because I quickly realised that declining wasn’t going to get me a seat at the dinner table with her and my dad. I’d just get nothing. Old bag. She’s the one who lives in Wales, penguin. If I send you some jam doughnuts, can you pop over and take care of her for me?
Good morning everyone,
First day of Spring!
Having my first cup of tea for the day, I am a looseleaf tea lover too! I generally use an infuser because it is just me, but I make a pot for visitors.
Just loved to read about your beautiful tea ceremony passed down from your mum, LJoyce.
And Thin, what a beautiful coffee set!
So sorry you had the trials of a wicked stepmother, but didn’t she give you some great stories. She belongs in a Jane Austen novel!
Penguin, such restraint about becoming an assassin!
Hope you finished off your fast day triumphantly Frangi. Glad your son is healing well.
Poor Minka, falling asleep in class. I hope you get an easy day soon where you can just do nothing as long as you want! So impressed with the good decisions you make for yourself, like a serene light with chaos all around!
Gday, is today the first day of your long weekend? Enjoy!
I want to do nothing today, and get things done, and I had better decide which weekend day will be better for fasting. Not much serenity happening here, sigh. But it is Spring, and I have got a lovely cup of tea to drink. So hello day!
1st Septemeber – Happy Spring everyone (actually that would be welcome to autumn for Cali & Penguin). It’s a cool but sunny day here and I’m sitting near the lounge room window so I can pick up a few rays.
I love it that Welsh words have made it into our forum. I love learning new things, although I suspect I’m way off with pronounciation.
I had an odd night. Went to bed with a headache and woke in the middle of the night with an strong feeling that I was about to vomit. I sipped a little water and it eventually calmed down. I have no idea what’s going on – I feel perfectly fine this morning except for a little residual headache. I’d be surprised if it was something I ate as all I had yesterday was lots of veggies and one piece of fruit. I suppose it could have been manure residue, although I did wash everything you have to be really careful if you don’t peel things, even organic produce will still be fed with manure or compost, or be sprayed with a liquid fertilizer made from manure dissolved into water.
I’m just having my first pot of tea for the day and my stomach seems fine.
I soaked the oats in goat kefir overnight – I added a lot more cinnamon that I usually would. I’ve finished adding all of the extras, and although I won’t eat it until a bit later I did taste it – couldn’t taste the goat milk flavour at all. That’s a relief, I was starting to worry that I’d have to tip it out and wait for the store to get some cows milk kefir in.
I put half a litre of the goat kefir into a big jar on Wednesday afternoon and added an equal amount of cows milk. Normally when I do this the whole jar has turned into thick kefir within 24 hours, but not this time – it doesn’t seem to be fermenting much at all. It might just be the batch of kefir, or it might be that I’ve mixed goat & cow milks. If all else fails I can heat it up and turn it into a soft paneer style cheese. (That’s the only cheese that I know how to make.)
I need to go back to the woodyard this morning to see if they have had a delivery yet.
Hope you are all getting some nice spring weather.
Hi all of you Southern Hemispherites, out there! G’day to Cinque, Thin, LJ, Joffy, Intesha, GDSA, Merry, CalifDreamer, penguin, Frangipani, JOdyW and Redmoonstar,
This morning I’m breaking yesterday’s FD. I’ve had to wait until almost noon since my FD started on Tuesday night at about 11:30 pm when I’d eaten my final mandarin while putting the finishing touches on an assignment that I emailed to the teacher prior to midnight! Whew! I’d just gotten that assignment in within a whisker of still being the due date!
Class was cancelled today and I’ve just found out I have to work tomorrow, so I’m here writing one of the three assignments left to submit before the end of the Diploma course! Given that I’m breaking my fast today, I’m going to see if I can actually finish this day without resorting to emotional stress eating while working on this assignment and maybe I’ll do so well with eating with more care, that I’ll even have enough time left in the afternoon to start one of the other two assignments! How wonderful that would be! …A dream come true! Since the assignments I’m working on today aren’t due for 2 weeks, I feel less pressure so maybe I just possibly can complete these assignments while eating sanely and considerately. I can feel all the brain chat telling me otherwise! I’ll let you know which wins, my deepest desire or all those compelling inner voices telling me there is ‘no way’ I’ll be able to write assignments without snacking while I do so. I’ll see which wins out today and keep you posted!
A fine morning after a cool night, so a heavy dew on the grass. Out at the crack of sparrows with grand daughter’s dog. He is a small curly haired mutt with a coat that acts like a sponge so he comes back rather soggy. First words from the neighbour “Its getting Autumnal”
Time to call the saw mill and lay in a supply of his off-cuts for the wood burner. Had the oil tank filled a couple of days ago. Harvest Festival in the Village Hall this weekend, an opportunity to give away my surplus veg and buy someone else’s.
Minka – hope you have had a productive day with the assignments.
Minka – The harvest festival sounds like fun. Hope you find some unusual veg to swap your own excess for.
Cinque – after discussing dumplings with you a week or so ago I finally made some for tonight’s dinner. Gravy beef was on special, so I’ve made a huge pot of beef & veg set and made a small portion of dough to put on top for the last 15 minutes of simmering. There will be masses of leftover stew for the freezer – no dumpling though as I find it’s best made fresh, it doesn’t reheat well. My mother used to make a suet pastry as her dumpling top few stew – she made one big disc and then cut it into wedges. I don’t use suet I actually make a scone dough – it works just as well and has far less fat. I haven’t eaten anything like this since winter last year so I hope it lives up to the anticipation.
Hope you all have some nice weekend plans – I suspect a few of you will have fathers day events.
L Joyce. Shin beef and veg cooked very slowly in the oven. Suet dumplings added to the open tin so they bake crisp on the outside and soft inside. Known in the family as “pudding in the corner”, because decades ago it was made in a rectangular baking dish. Lots of leeks, shallots and tomatoes in the garden. Must do that.
Question. What is gravy beef?
Penguin – cuts of meat seem to be one of those things that has different names in different countries (although I find there are more differences between Australia and the US). When it comes to long slow braising you can’t beat gravy beef (that’s shin beef to you, or also know as osso bubco without the bone) – once those connective tissues soften and dissolve there is nothing quite so tender or full of flavour. I have a bit of a mushroom obsession and I usually add an equal quantity of mushrooms to beef in any stew – as I also added a further 7 different veg I think I’ve well and truly covered the bases today. I made my usual gravy by flavouring the broth with worchestershire sauce and red currant jelly (plum jam works too if I haven’t got any red currant jelly). This pot also got a splash of red wine too as I happened to have an open bottle in the fridge.
I have just polished off a bowl of it – really good, glad there’s lots of leftover. 😀 It may reconcile me to the fact that today’s nice sunny day is the last I’ll see for a while – rain forecast here for the next 5-6 days – so much for spring!
Happy Friday evening all. Have skimmed through posts as time poor and very tired.
Ljoyce i used spelt flour in my cauliflower bake and it worked fine. A bit more chocolate coloured than white sauce coloured but tasted delicious all the same.
Busy day today doing jobs around the yard and MissD had a friend over. Spent the arvo cooking and am now ready for bed – 7pm and wanting my pot of tea snd book. Im with you LJoyce i love my teapot with the china cup and saucer from my nanna.
Hi! I actually did fine today! I was able to work on my assignment and eat with care. I think this is a first! I can’t ever remember doing so in the past. I guess I’m creating new neural pathways in my brain. In the neuroslimming book, the author vouches for the fact that every time we practice a certain way of doing things that we are strengthening neural pathways and when doing something new, are trailblazing new brain paths.
This week at TAFE we learned about what causes ‘phantom limb’ pain. It is because the limb that was amputated was in pain prior to amputation and the brain is in a type of feedback loop of being used to that, even though physically the limb is absent and so the condition that started the pain has been eliminated from the equation, or so it seems! We saw how the use of something called a ‘mirror box’, overrides the existing habit of pain and teaches the brain in a most unusual but clever manner, that the arm is there, fully flexible and free of pain. Here’s a short YouTube 2 minute video on this unique and effective therapy! …No need for pain meds in this case, a simple mirror does the trick! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YL_6OMPywnQ
By the way, in the 2 minute video above, the doctor says that he doesn’t really know why phantom pain exists. My TAFE lecturer has a PHD in brain science and she explained in great depth why phantom pain exists and why the mirror therapy works!
G’Day, everyone! Well all of you except for penguin and I are probably sleeping now. Happy Spring to everyone in the Southern Hemisphere! Our first day of Fall doesn’t begin until Sept. 22nd. It definitely still feels like Summer here today with an expected high of 41 or 42, depending on which weather service you listen too. The very hot weather is expected to last through the weekend. Monday is a national holiday here, Labor Day, a day when we don’t go to work. 😄 . I need the long weekend! The last couple of weeks have been stressful work wise.
I love your tea ritual, LJoyce. And please feel free to share your zen food tasting experiences with us. I think I can speak for everyone in saying how much we enjoy them! They remind me to pay more attention to what I’m eating.
I have some teapots but none are really old or fancy looking. I love those, but just never got around to buying one. I also like the British/Australian tradition of afternoon tea and have always wanted to start that tradition here, in my own home. Maybe when I retire. Have any of you heard of blooming teas? A few years ago I bought some and enjoyed watching the little pods “bloom” as they brewed. They were always Japanese or Chinese teas. None that I tried were favorites as far as the tea flavor itself, but it was a pretty show, watching the pods bloom when hot water was poured over them.
Here is a picture of one brand:
https://www.amazon.com/Primula-Blossom-Glass-Teapot-Borosilicate/dp/B001FB6IJK/ref=sr_1_3_s_it?s=grocery&ie=UTF8&qid=1504282614&sr=1-3&keywords=blooming%2Btea+primula
Well, lots more to write, but have to get some work done, so have a great day, thin, Cinque, LJoyce, Penguin, Frang, GDay, and Minka.
Hello everyone,
Another cold grey morning, but I’m enjoying it.
Minka, what an interesting course you are doing. The feedback pain loop makes such sense. Congratulations on the successful eating and study combo!
I’ve had those blooming teas Cali! Just gorgeous! (But I am like you and prefer others for every day.)
Very much enjoying the ordinary black tea (with milk) I am drinking now!
We don’t wait for the equinox to change seasons here, but since the traditional four seasons don’t really play out here, (the Indigenous people had 6), it is all academic. That said, it is lovely to see the magnolias in bloom, and pink blossom out.
LJoyce, you are brilliant for adding just a little dumpling to the top of the stew. I’d ruled them out imagining a whole raft of them that are best eaten fresh, and so ruled the whole idea out.
I had a good gentle healing day yesterday, but off to pick up Miss 3 year old to keep for a few hours, so looking forward to that, and we will see how gentle we can be!
Enjoy your long weekend Cali!
I’ve got ricotta in the fridge to use, so I will make something with that today and eat some! So tomorrow will be fast day. Actually, I might just bake it so it lasts and eat it tomorrow. Hmm decisions. Yes, I will fast today!
Cheers all!
Morning SHs from a very damp Adelaide – the forecast rain arrived through the night.
My jar of kefir didn’t appear to be progressing so I turned it into a paneer style cheese. I stated with 1 litre of combined goat kefir and cows milk and ended up with a little lump of curd that fit easily into my palm – the rest was whey. This process always serves as a reminder of why cheese has so many calories. I know the whey can be used for other things (such as making fermented veg), but I threw it out.
If you ever want to turn milk into paneer all you do is heat it up to a bit below boiling and then add a souring agent (eg live yogurt or lemon juice) and stir gently until it separates into curds and whey. I didn’t have to add anything to this batch as it already contained kefir, I just had to heat it until it separated. Then I squeezed out as much whey as I could and chose to flavour this batch with a little oregano. This is one of those rare cheeses that can be cut into slices and grilled or panfried and it keeps its shape – it doesn’t melt, it just gets a nice golden brown surface – basically it behaves the same way as haloumi when cooked.
Minka, I’m so pleased that you made it through a day of doing assignments and not snacking all day. I used to find that so difficult when I was studying, it’s such a hard habit to break. You should feel really proud that you’ve started a new pattern. Well done. Hope the assignment progress went well too.
Thanks for posting that video – interesting that something that simple can work – I guess it’s basically giving the brain more data – visual data that is can use to review it’s conclusions about pain messages. I love it when medicine finds a solution that doesn’t require new drugs.
Cali, your seasons probably are truer to label than ours – we stick to the 1st of the month for Dec, Mar, June & Sept to define the start of the seasons. They don’t line up though – where I live March is often the hottest month even though it’s technically autumn. The worst heat wave we had here in the last decade occurred in March – it’s what finally convinced me to invest in an air conditioner. I hadn’t really thought that I needed one before that, as the nights are usually quite mild here in summer – I live just 17km from the city centre, but because of the elevation it’s normal for the night time temperature to be 5-10 degrees Celsius lower than the city. I find that I can tolerate day time heat so long as I have a fan and it’s cool enough to sleep at night.
Cali & Cinque – I too have used those blooming teas. You really need a glass teapot to properly appreciate it. The only ones I’ve seen are made from herbs with perhaps some green tea leaves incorporated. They are impressive to look at but brewed dried herbs aren’t my thing. I actually like my teas to be made from the tea plant, even if they have added other flavourings added (like spices or pieces of dried fruit). Like Cinque, I also prefer the fermented tea leaves (ie black tea which is turned black by fermenting, rather than green tea which is dried but not fermented). I used to drink only traditional blends like queen anne, assam, darjeeling, earl grey and yunnan, but I have expanded my boundaries with the T2 flavours – these are the first flavoured black teas that I actually like.
I have a habit of getting a bit cranky with coffee shop staff who offer me things like peppermint and chamomile when I ask for tea – they wouldn’t offer someone dandelion or chicory when they order coffee, so why is it acceptable to offer a tea drinker substitutes instead of what they actually asked for? Sorry, I get a bit of a bee in my bonnet about this!
Cinque – enjoy your grand daughter time. Just pace yourself (if she’ll let you), so that you don’t fall in a heap tomorrow.
There is one more benefit to just making enough dumpling for that first meal. I usually can’t be bothered doing it for the remaining bowls of stew, so I usually just have the treat of dumplings once and then either have the remaining stew on its own without added grains, or I’ll choose something easier to put with it, that still allows me to reheat the stew in the microwave.
GDSA – glad the cheese sauce worked. I actually think that the branny nutty flavour of wholemeal flours combine really well with the flavour of cheese, so I’m not surprised it tasted nice. I think a lot of things that we automatically use white flour in can be substituted for something better if we want to. I made dumpling to go with my stew last night and I used a spoonful of w’m spelt and a spoonful of w’m SR wheat flour to make my little dumpling dough. It tasted great.
Penguin – I had never heard of thickening a stew with black pudding – I imagine it would add a hit of spice to the flavour as well. I remember the one that my dad liked had a spicy flavour.
If you want the zen reports back I’m happy to keep posting – I just thought they might be getting a little repetitive for you all.
Have a Saturday all.
LJoyce, that’s why I bought my glass teapot, when the blooming teas first became popular. You really do need something clear to be able to appreciate those teas. My favorite tea is still the black tea as well. I used to drink it with lemon and a tsp or so of sugar, because that’s the way my mom drank it. I’ve since tried it with milk or cream and like it that way because it doesn’t need sugar. My OH always drinks it with milk. I think he picked up the habit from a girlfriend who was British, before he met me. I am normally more of a coffee drinker and like French Roast coffee. I’m trying to avoid caffeine lately because of stress with work and all. Decaf coffees don’t taste as good to me. Tea would be a better option because it’s lower in caffeine. I have been making a pot of tea after dinner some nights, mostly because I hear Cinque and LJoyce talking about making a pot of tea and the power of suggestion makes me want one too. 😊
I do like some herbal teas like the Bengal Spice, or India Spice. I have a lot of boxes of other herbals, but truth be told, they just don’t always hit the spot like black tea does. We have spearmint growing in the back garden and a freshly picked sprig of that in a cup of hot water is very nice sometimes. Kind of like a spearmint tea. I know green tea is supposed to be healthy, but it just tastes grassy to me. Even the Kombucha I made with it once wasn’t that good.
Minka, I have an idea after watching your mirror video. Imagine taking a half plate of food and sitting next to a mirror like that and eating it. Would our brains think that we ate a full plate? 😄 Would we feel full on half a plate because that’s what we watched ourselves eat? Hey, it could work! 😁
Penguin, what is Black pudding? I’m going to have to Google that.
Cali – you probably don’t want to know what black pudding is. It’s one of those things that dates when when every component of the animal was used.
It’s a blood sausage. The main components are fresh blood, minced fat and oatmeal – does it sound appetising yet? The whole lot is poured into an cleaned intestine, tied off into sausages and carefully poached in water to set the blood into a solid. It can be just sliced and eaten cold (that’s what my dad did) or it can be fried as part of a traditional English fried breakfast.
My dad actually preferred white pudding to black pudding. This is also a sausage, but doesn’t contain the fresh blood, just more oats and more fat and a little meat (probably organ meat) – white pudding is a lot more like a haggis mixture.
They get their names from the colour. Once cooked, black pudding is nearly black and white pudding is actually pale grey – but in contrast to the black pudding I guess the names make sense.
Are you feeling tempted to run out and get some for breakfast?
LJoyce, euwwww! I can understand why penguin didn’t disclose this ingredient to his family. 😁 But apparently it’s being hailed as a new superfood! http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/03/22/black-pudding-hailed-as-a-superfood/
I found a mail order shop on the east coast, in North Carolina, US that sells it, but now I lost the link. (Do you have problems with posts you’re typing here disappearing when you go to look up something else?)
I suppose it’s no worse than tripe, which is the inner stomach lining of cow’s or other animals. I’ve eaten that in a restaurant with some type of tomato sauce, but it looks awful when I sometimes see it in the grocery store. https://www.thespruce.com/what-is-tripe-435436
Cali – all of these foods formed part of the family meals when I was growing up. Thankfully I had a kind mother who didn’t force me to eat anything that I didn’t like – luckily for her it was a fairly short list – consisting mainly of anything containing offal. I know there are others who were forced to eat everything on their plate regardless of whether they liked it. Eating everything on the plate was also enforced in our house, but thankfully my mother made sure that there wasn’t anything on our plates that she knew we wouldn’t eat. I suspect she had some bad memories of her own and didn’t want to inflict that on her own children.
The only person who liked the black or white pudding was my dad. Because they were precooked when you bought them, and they had a very soft texture, he used to spit open the skin and spread it on toast for breakfast – like a meat paste. He also liked something called “fish paste” which used to come in tiny jars – even the smell was disgusting.
Everyone in the family liked lambs fry (lamb liver) cooked with bacon, onions and gravy – except me. Mum would cook a lamb chop for me when everyone else was having liver. Neither mum or I liked tripe but my sister and dad did. I remember how foul the smell of it was during its many hours of boiling. Once it had boiled to tenderness (a matter of opinion I think, at still had the texture of rubber), mum would make a white parsley sauce to put with it (basically a bechamel with fresh parsley). On those nights when dad and my sister ate this rubbish, mum and I had scrambled eggs.
I understand the need they had to help the budget by using the cheap offal as a protein source. Thankfully we have other options these days – I’m more than happy to use legumes which are even more economical. This would not have occurred to my mother, except as additions to soups. I think it’s only since vegetarianism became more popular in the west in the 1970s that legume recipes were readily available.
LJoyce, we ate chicken and cow liver with bacon, onions and gravy, one of our favorite things. I still occasionally make chicken liver the same way. Worries about cholesterol keep me from making it more often. Cow liver can easily get over cooked and tough. My dad didn’t like lamb so we never had that.
When I had the tripe in a restaurant, it was prepared similar to this: http://www.cortonaweb.net/en/recipes-cortona/tripe-tomato-sauce As I recall it was rather bland and the tomato sauce was more prevalent. I don’t remember it being tough. Now days, having to cook something so long would end up costing more in energy costs than whatever savings there might be on the tripe. Unless it could be cooked in a pressure cooker.
I’m with you on the legumes. I generally prefer plant sources to meat anyway.
I mostly try to keep my mid-afternoon snack to either an almond milk based hot drink or a piece of fresh fruit. Today I decided I felt like a pear, and because I have some homemade fresh curd cheese in the fridge I sliced up the pear and served it with a couple of slices of the cheese.
I’ve used a pear as my zen exercise previously, so today I’m changing it up a bit with the addition of the cheese to keep it interesting.
Until I get really close to the plate the sweet floral fragrance of the pear is completely dominant and I can’t smell the cheese at all. I have to be just 3-4 centimetres from the cheese to smell it. I think the aromas I’m smelling in the cheese are the oregano that I added when making it and the sour milk smell from the kefir that I made it from. I’m surprised by the smooth texture of the cheese where I’ve sliced it – it means I did a good job of squeezing out the whey. I notice that both the cheese and the pear are speckled. The pear has a yellow-green skin completely covered by fawn freckles (it has as many as I do!). The cheese is a creamy-white with a scattering of fawn flecks from the dried oregano. Both are really attractive and appealing foods to look at and they look like they belong together on a plate.
The texture of the pear on the tongue is full of contrasts. The texture of the cut surface of the pear is really rough but the skin surface is smooth and almost glossy in its feel – clearly those freckles are just part of the skin colour as they make no impression on that smooth texture. There is no flavour coming from the skin, just smooth texture. It’s a completely different story from the cut surface of the pear. It’s very sweet and juicy – sweeter than I expect a fresh piece of fruit to be. The floral fragrance that I noticed initially is less apparent now as the sugary sweetness dominates. When I bite into the slice of pear I notice 3 things: resistance from the very fibrous texture of the pear, a burst of sweet liquid and a strong impression of sweet pear flavour. It’s not until you do an activity like this with a pear that you notice just how fibrous the texture of a pear is – it makes me realise why pears are one of the highest fibre fruits.
The texture of the cheese on the tongue is slightly fluffy and I’m surprised that it starts dissolving into a soft fluffy creamy pulp very quickly – this might not sound appealing but it’s quite nice actually. The flavours replicate the aroma – oregano and mildly sour milk. The oregano hits my taste buds first and as the cheese dissolves a mildly sour dairy flavour takes over. I’m left with an impression of creaminess and that mildly sour flavour. I quite like it. I did a zen exercise on vintage cheddar and this curd cheese has a much fresher and less complex flavour.
I tried tasting both together. The sweetness of the pear dominates as the foods dissolve, although there is an occasional burst of oregano flavour. The cheese dissolves on my tongue without chewing but the pear does not, it requires a little help. Interestingly the strength of the sweetness in the pear completely cancels out the mild sourness of the cheese.
It had never occurred to me that oregano was a flavour that could be used in a dessert, but the combination of sweet pear and fragrant oregano is really nice.
That was a thoroughly delicious and satisfying afternoon tea – and just a little bit unexpected. Every time I do this exercise there is something I didn’t expect. It’s slowly teaching me that I don’t know everything, there are always new experiences to be had even with things I thought couldn’t surprise me.
For those of you who didn’t see my earlier post about the cheese. It is a homemade curd cheese made by heating 500ml cows’ milk with 500ml of goats milk kefir. I added a pinch of dried oregano and squeezed out all of the whey – I added no salt and no rennet. When it’s still hot this is a crumbly curd but when it cools it becomes a sold cheese than can be sliced. I normally wouldn’t add oregano, but I was worried about the flavour of the goats milk kefir dominating. I need not have worried as I couldn’t taste the goat milk at all in the finished cheese.
The reason I don’t tell them what is in the stew is that a couple of the young ones really don’t like trying new things. They would happily live on a very restricted diet. After I tell them that they have already eaten something they will usually eat it again. I have smuggled a few new things into their life this way – grated carrots in the pasta sauce for example. It is a trick I learned living in Hong Kong, where my Chinese mates would wait until I has half way through a meal before asking “is this the first time you have eaten dog”, or snake or whatever. Their motivation was different, but I did enjoy a few things I would not have otherwise eaten.
Black pudding remains very popular in every European country I have visited. It varies enormously locally. The differences regularly feature in the Yorkshire/Lancashire arguments. (Cali – think Wars of the Roses, still gently simmering) and it is one of the few traditional foods you can find hygienically wrapped in plastic in a supermarket. It is still possible to find white pudding, but it seems to be becoming less popular.
Good afternoon all. A restless nights sleep has left me feeling quick exhaused again today.
CalifDream my posts disappear too if I leave the page, even happens when I click back to a previous page which is very frustrating when needing to look back on a past comment.
Made 30 sausage rolls for the freezer this arvo and pasta sauce ready to make lasagne in the morning. Will make the pasta from scratch using spelt wholemeal for the first time.
My brother who had the car accident a few months ago came up from Adelaide for a visit today. He’s in good spirits, has just started driving again in the last week but will be a few more months before he can return to work. Was nice to catch up.
Have decided to book myself in for a massage later this week. Feeling the need for some relaxation. I’m enjoying my weekly yoga class but am starting to feel the effects of continually being on the go the last few months, both physically and mentally. Feeling a bit puffed at the moment be honest. The masseur has just installed a sauna at her clinic so debating whether to give that a go too.
Were supposed to be getting some rain tonight so fingers crossed. Right now I can picture myself tucked up in bed with a book and cuppa listening to rain. LJoyce I hear Adelaide thought they were experiencing an earthquake last might but was in fact a giant clap of thunder. My brother said it was the loudest thunder he had ever heard – did you hear it in your neck of the woods?
Hi GDSA – I was surprised to hear about that clap of thunder on the news today. I didn’t hear a thing. I was either too tired or it happened down on the plans – the flat northern suburbs usually get the worst of the thunder.
It sounds like you need a bit of “me time” built into your weeks.
You could try a sauna, although I would recommend the cold shower after if you expect to drive home safely – they make me incredibly sleepy. Basically anything that raises my temperature above normal body temperature makes me sleepy.
I am so pleased that your brother has worked hard enough at his rehab that he is not only driving again but expected to return to work. So many people don’t manage that after a car accident so I hope he’s pleased with his progress.
I haven’t made pasta from spelt, in fact I’ve only ever made pasta dough a couple of times and not at all in the last 3 years. However, I haven’t used anything but 100% wholemeal pasta sheets to make lasagne for years. The wholemeal adds more flavour and texture. You already know from the cauliflower cheese, that you can use spelt to make a cheesy bechamel to put on top of the lasagne. I started using the wholemeal lasagne when I was a vegetarian as I thought it added more flavour to the veggie layers. Even though I now hide a bit of mince in the pasta sauce I stuck with the wholemeal pasta, it’s become my normal. Will your daughter cope with the brown pasta layers do you think?
Cali & GDSA – I access this forum on my laptop, so if I want to open another site to find a link I just open a new page in either a new tab or window, then I don’t lose what I’ve typed on this forum. It probably all works quite differently if you are using an ipad or smart phone.
Penguin – I haven’t seen either black or white pudding here for ages – not that I’ve actually looked. I think its use faded with my parents’ generation. However black pudding has become a fashionable item again – all it seems to take is for one tv chef to use an ingredient and suddenly its trendy – honestly they are all like a bunch of sheep copying each other to use all of the currently trendy foods.
I found a recipie for vegetarian black pudding that I’ve been meaning to try, https://the1940sexperiment.com/2017/07/24/mock-black-pudding-recipe-no-167/ I’ll get around to it soon hopefully.
LJ. This is entirely your fault – tonight we will eat pudding in the corner. With red wine, without black pudding – my wife is old enough to be entitled not to like things. To be fair, I didn’t take much persuading. It has been a favourite since childhood, along with steamed puddings, bread and butter puddings and everything else that parks itself around my middle.
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4:16 pm
30 Aug 17