Cinque – do you have your test results or do you have an impatient wait for those? Glad the FD went well.

I agree about the meringue – I never liked it wither by itself or as part of a dessert. I used to be able to say no to lemon meringue pie for that reason. Then cafes started making lemon or lime curd tarts and I found that a whole lot harder to walk away from those. Thankfully it’s not something I would ever try to make myself so it’s a rare cafe treat that I’ll limit to 2-3 times a year. It’s also such an intense flavour that a little bit goes a long way.

Penguin – if the kids and grand kids could see today’s pie & burger they might rethink their view of your food choices. I also worry about the amount of soft drink I see my family drinking. I am really thankful that I never developed a taste for it. I grew up on cups of tea, rainwater and an occasional glass of cordial. Nothing much has changed, except that I haven’t had a glass of cordial in years.

I had my main meal for lunch today – a grilled kassler chop, a small serve of veggie gratin and 1/2 bunch asparagus. So dinner was a small bowl of soup and 2 slices of the wholemeal seed bread that I baked this afternoon. All the remaining bread is now sliced bagged and wrestled into the freezer – finding space for 2 loaves was a bit of a challenge.

Ive never been much of a sugar person and I’ve never given MissD cordial, fruit juice or soft drink although if we go out for a meal (which is very rare these days) she will have a small lemonade. She always gets an excellent report at dental checkups yay yay!

At gymnastics tonight I watched a child aged about 6 ask her mum for a drink. The mum offered her a bottle of home brand vitamin flavoured water which I am sure is absolute rubbish. The child asked for plain water and was abruptly told to drink the bottle because it was more healthy than plain water. She refused it and then wasn’t allowed to go get plain water from the tap so went thirsty. Go figure ?

On SBS tonight was the first part of a British documentary about obese children and junk food. Really interesting stuff and so many totally ignorant lazy parents. Yes harsh words but seriously – blaming the Government because they fed their kids junk food and couldn’t be bothered preparing and cooking healthy foods. I will stop talking about it now as it made me so angry I want to scream and I may say something I will later regret.

Cinque – that iranian dish sound really interesting – if it turns out well would you mind posting the recipe – I’m always happy to add to my bulging recipe file.

GDSA – I also watched the “Junk Food Kids” program. I agree that the food parents feed their children sets this horrible cycle off – whether it’s a knowing choice, ignorance or just giving in to nagging that leads them to those food choices. It’s a stark reminder that a whole generation is likely to be blighted with obesity – as the doctor dais 90% of obese children will remain that way.
I had really mixed emotions watching this, because I was taken right back to sitting in the GPs room with my mother as a 4 year old being told I was too fat, I wanted to crawl into a hole and hide.
The child with the rotten teeth was also a familiar story. As a toddler my niece wouldn’t drink anything but soft drink – she had all her baby teeth extracted by the age of 5.

For those of you who have found the documentaries on food and obesity interesting I want to mention another. It’s called “Secrets of the Kitchen” and is on SBS at 3:30pm on Thursdays. It’s looks at a range of households and their food choices, cooking, family meal times etc. It’s a British program and features a range of families (and one share house of young men) across the country. I was happy to see just how many men in the families did most of the cooking. As much as I hate all of the reality cooking shows, they have at least made it ok if not cool for men to know how to cook.

Time for a cup of decaf chai and bed.
I finally have my rescheduled physio appointment tomorrow – last week’s appointment was called as the physio was sick.

Duck egg question. Our girls are both laying everyday now so will make a cake using duck eggs this weekend. Ive googled substituting duck for chicken eggs with conflicting advice which is -use the same number of eggs or use 2 duck for 3 chicken. Has anyone any experience or advice on which way to go?

Oh by the way, MissD named the ducks Garry and Larry – keeping with tradition in our family of giving our animals names from the opposite gender.

Good morning everyone,

Welcome here Stay! How are you going?

Welcome back CM! Waving to my Charlie (as his honorary aunty) and to his new buddy Lucy.

Progress report: Capital L “Life” is continuing with another and sad challenge, as DFIL has passed away, but we are doing OK. Tuesday FD got to late afternoon. Fasted again yesterday and did well till later in the evening when I undid all the good of the day’s fasting. . I am craving sugar inthe evenings, and also forgetting to walk-away-from-the-kitchen. I will continue to do 2FDs.

Merry

Good morning everyone,

Merry your message came through as I posted this, but I have got back in to edit it.
Farewell to your FIL. I am glad he made it to his 100th and I am glad he can rest in peace now.
best wishes to you all.

x

Back to my original post:

Ha, I’ve just written a post on a different thread how happy I’ll be to share the chelou recipe if it is good. Oh dear, and it is only the start of the day. But now I have written it here too!

I’ve taped that junk food documentary, but I am not sure if I can bear to watch it. I do think it is a social problem that we have all these different small families where adults are meant to provide good food every meal. When we lived in tribes, in large household and extended families it was much easier. It is hard work getting the food organised. It isn’t just the cooking it is the planning and the shopping and storing and preparing and then the cleaning up afterwards. Once there is stress and illness and disability and poverty it becomes really difficult.

When I was sickest, if I said to my daughter “I’m too ill to cook” she would jump up and down and say “Yay! KFC!” I love cooking and can cook efficiently and it amazed me that it was easier to drive through peak hour traffic and buy KFC (for her, I didn’t eat the stuff) than to cook something simple. But it was.

So different from when I was well and a group of friends dropped in unexpectedly and I would happily invite them for dinner and be whipping up food and entertaining at the same time!
Those were the days!

I’ve seen bit of the “Secrets of the kitchen” one too!

Well, I’ve enjoyed a lovely post fast break fast and now it is time for coffee.
best wishes all. Cheers to the Friday Fasters, and good wishes for the rest of us working out the difference between hungry and non hungry eating today.

Morning all.

GDSA, re your duck eggs for baking. No experience but I’d think 2 for 3 should work as long as they’re not substantially larger than say extra large chook eggs. I always use extra large in baking instead of large, without issues. I seem to remember egg white to yolk ratio is a bit diff in duck eggs (more yolk) so should work. Will be interested to hear how it goes. What are you planning to make??

Planning to get my sourdough starter fed and ready to bake something tomorrow morning. Also making some Golden Paste this morning….great for arthritis and has helped my sore hands a lot.

Weigh in for me this morning. Down .9kg to 64.2. (although yesterday I was 63.6…..ahhh what happened!!!). So since Monday I’m down and I’m happy with that. Let’s hope the wheels don’t fall off over the weekend!!! Decided on another FD today just in case.

Have a fabulous Fri-yay. CM xx

Merry – so sorry to hear of your loss. Sending you a digital hug.

GDSA – with the duck eggs, go by weight. Modern recipes assume that hens eggs are the 55-60g size (the 700g cartons). So just weigh the duck eggs when substituting (you can weight them whole with the shell still on).
Really old recipes often state eggs by weight as they assume people won’t have eggs in uniform sizes (that’s a modern thing). I have some recipes from my grandmother’s era where you weigh your eggs first, then every other ingredient is proportionate to the ounces of eggs.
The other thing is that, for most recipes, small differences in weight don’t make a noticeable difference.

Thin – I have never heard of putting paint brushes in the freezer – not you’d find room for it in my freezer!

Penguin – the media tend to link obesity with socio-economics here too. The more recent stats I’ve seen on this topic show that there is a link, but also some differences in gender here (wealthier men are more likely to be obese than wealthier women are, but in the poorest households the opposite is true). This trend is slight in Australia, but when I recently saw US stats on this it was a pronounced difference there. It means that to tackle the issue government probably needs more than one approach.
I have family living in the outer southern suburbs (which have more than their share of people who are struggling financially), but I’ve spend many years living in high socio-econimic suburbs – so I’ve noticed some differences. I’ve noticed differences in access to types of food. The poorer the area the denser the fast food outlets are. They exist in all areas but not at the same density. As an example, in the region where I live there is only one town with a lower soico-economic profile and it’s also the only place in the region that has KFC and McD. In the other towns it’s all expensive restaurants and trendy organic wholefood cafes. However, in the outer southern suburbs there are few cafes and restaurants other than fast food outlets. In wealthier suburbs they have options – fast food, cafes, modest restaurants, expensive restaurants. I tried to take my niece and great-niece out for lunch and we had so few choices near where they lived. Their eating out options are geared to places you can take the kids too, not places that cater to business lunches or the “ladies who lunch” or restaurants geared toward adults only.

Well I have to rush now – physio appointment.

Merry, I’m so sorry to hear of your loss of your DFIL. 100 years is definitely a life to be celebrated and perhaps some things learned about how to survive that many years on this earth.

I’ve been sitting in my hotel room in So. Calif, reading all of your posts. So many interesting topics! Like thin, I’ve started looking at the paint on a couple of rooms here after hearing all the talk about new paint and carpets from penguin. It does seem like when one of us in this forum gets interested in something, many of the rest of us join in. Painting, kefir, miso soups, weight loss and obesity programs on the tv… Great minds think alike, I’d say. 😎

I ate at The Outback restaurant tonight. It was fairly close to the hotel I ended up having a small filet mignon, grilled asparagus and Aussie Fries, which looked and tasted suspiciously like French fries. I thought the would at least have some secret seasoning from Oz, but I tasted only salt. Then I remembered that you don’t even call them fries, you call them chips. 😄 But I had only eaten a couple pies of fruit all day, so I ate them all. I was surprised when I added everything up on myfitnesspal it came almost exactly to my TDEE. Almost all was eaten after 5:00 pm.

Thin, it’s great that your DD doesn’t like to drink sodas. I think kids end up liking, and continuing to eat foods they were raised eating, with a few exceptions or additions. There are exceptions of course. I remember as a kid that I loved runny eggs, the whites with very little white. I think it was my grandmother who ate them that way, and we lived upstairs from her when I was young. My parents didn’t even like to look at eggs cooked that way, much less eat them!

Penguin, if you were to take all the food suggestions from TV commercials and billboards and ads, you would probably think junk food was a normal and acceptable thing to eat. We have to go out of our way usually, to find healthy advice about food. It’s no wonder so many people eat junk food. (I do admit my addiction to Diet Pepsi, even though it probably isn’t good for me.)

Cinque, it is indeed easier to get takeout food like KFC. Like you mentioned it takes not only cooking but planning, shopping, putting away and cleaning up afterwards. We usually have Subway once a week when the weather is hot. I feel like with all those veggies there is at least something healthy about them.

GDSA, I’ve only bought duck eggs one from a local lady with ducks but I would say 2 duck eggs to 3 chicken sounds about right. They’re big! The ones I got were very slightly pink and had kind of a glossy look. They were really pretty.

Thin, I love the idea of Dancing by Ourselves! Do you watch that TV Show called Gray’s Anatomy? (A guilty pleasure here) It looks like it’s broadcast there. Have ever seen some of the episodes where a bunch of them “Dance it out” in the living room or kitchen, or wherever to burn off stress? I’ve always thought that was cool. I think we should definitely promote dancing by ourselves, or virtually with each other for exercise and feel goodness. (Is feel goodness an expression?) “Virtually with each other” could be a little tricky with the time differences, but surely we can figure something out! 🎶

Thin, Buena Park tonight. The Outback is there too.

I never drink the regular sodas, only the diet. They don’t seem to give me sugar cravings. It seems to me that humans are hardwired to like sweet things. I’m not sure that I would ever be immune to craving it.

Thin & Cali – my painting is wobbly enough when I’m trying to stand still. I shudder think what it would look like while dancing.

There is no justice. After all of our condemnation of junk food, yesterday I ate porridge for breakfast, a homemade pork pie and an apple for lunch, a burger, fries and pickles accompanied by a beer about 7.30 pm. I lost weight???

Hi Everyine
Sorry for your loss Merryme. I think all of you have cooking skills far above mine!! My hubby does a lot of the cooking here- he loves it.
I’m very late posting today. I had 2 of my grandkids all day. We went to the library for Story time where there is a cafe and they make cupcakes that are themed to what the stories and crafts are about. I bought one for the girls to share as I was doing a FD. I also didn’t eat any of their leftover crusts at lunch 😊
Our sons dog had to go to the vet and stay overnight in a drip. He had been vomiting and diarrhea and is very dehydrated – poor thing.
We have no plans for the weekend so I think I can keep up the good work 🙂

Good morning everyone,

LJoyce what an amazing zen event. I am so glad you could make the most of that last can of proper tomato soup.

My special food is junket. I was the only one of the 7 kids who liked it, so my mum made it for me when I was sick and home from school. It is one of the ‘not very sweet’ foods that I would love to eat again.

What a treat of an eating day you had Penguin. An important part of life.
But while the scale is loving you at the moment, the evil thing will probably balance it out by adding on an extra kilo after your next fast!

Your newspapers seem to have everything covered.
Awful to hear of the train incident, but relieved it wasn’t worse.
Isn’t it dreadful that, these days, that is my thought.

Good work Stay! There is a special award for managing not to eat the grandkids crusts! Especially the ones where they have licked the butter off 😉
Hope the poor dog recovers quickly.

I made fava bean soup yesterday. Lovely. The mince didn’t manage to thaw overnight in the fridge I gave it another night and I will make that recipe today.

Cold and rainy here, day before fast day.
Oh dear just remembered I have got fast day and I’m minding 3 year old granddaughter tomorrow. I think I can make it work for me!

Best wishes everyone

Penguin I saw the IED incident on last nights news – frightening stuff. Equally scarry is the Nth Korea missile launching. Peace and harmony I say.

Its 7am Saturday morning and Im having a coffee soaking up the beautiful sunshine on the front verandah listening to the birds in the gumtrees with a cat sleeping each side of me on the lounge.
MissD is having a sleep in.

Found some great recipie b,ooks at the library yesterday – quinoa, paleo and vegie books. Also a book on raising backyard ducks which I’ve started to read and found lots of interesting facts on duck behavior – funny little creatures they are indeed ! I never walk away from the library without at least 10 books – good thing theres no limit on borrowing.

The radio talkback gardening show, the handman show and the quiz starts in 1 hour – never miss it – i love saturday mornings at home. When MissD wakes we will cook brekky on the bbq so good thing its not a FD. Will do our baking this arvo – will most likely be cupcakes – its always cupcakes – MissD’s favourite.

Time for another coffee. Have a great Saturday everyone and a great whatever day it is in your part of the world Penguin and CalifDream

CaulifD, you name the dance track, I’ll dance to it! Buena Park is close to where my OH grew up.

Good morning SH’s,

Just finished brunch, which wasn’t as exciting as GDSA’s, but I liked it. I soaked some rolled oats in kefir and almond milk overnight then added some bran, dried cranberries and cinnamon.
GDSA – I’d forgotten that about duck eggs, they do have really strong whites. Enjoy the baking – do you think your daughter will let you sneak some spelt flour into the bowl?

Cinque – I used to get junket too. My mum made 3 things every time I had tonsillitis – tomato soup, scrambled eggs and junket and that was pretty much what I lived on until I got better. To this day I still crave these things when I’m sick. Junket tablets are hard to find these days, so I usually make a custard when I’m craving it. Luckily custard is one of those things I like made the traditional way – only slightly sweetened. For some time I used stevia in it but I’ve found that I can get away with sugar in it because I don’t use much.

Penguin, sorry to hear you’ve have yet another violent event. I echo GDSAs thoughts, I don’t understand why we can’t all be a little kinder to each other.

The sun is starting to peek around the clouds. The weather is meant to be clearing for one fine day tomorrow before the rolls back in.

NFD today, I’m planning to fast tomorrow.
I still have half of the tub of lamb shank stock left in the fridge so I’ll turn that into a lentil and carrot soup this afternoon, that should provide tonight’s dinner, with homemade bread and scrambled eggs. The soup by itself should work as a FD meal tomorrow.

Enjoy your Saturday.

I’ve taken advantage of the sun and lack of rain to get some more gardening done. Finally finished removing all of the blackberries that were growing over the neighbours fence. I just managed to squeeze it all into the green bin with some forceful cramming and a bit of cursing. I’ve picked up the usual wounds from dealing with blackberry thorns – the top I’m wearing is going to have to be soaked to get the blood stains out.

I’ve just made a very late lunch. I’ve toasted some of the bread I made this week and topped it with grilled haloumi and a mound of cherry tomatoes and dressed with black pepper and olive oil. It’s so good – I really love haloumi. It’s not something I eat much through the winter, but It becomes a favourite protein in the hotter weather.

Time for a cup of tea now.

Yesterday was just the latest. One lot or another have been doing this for most of the last 50 years. We have had lots of practice at coping and just get on with life. I did get a bit twitchy recently on an international flight out of a not very efficient airport. A young Muslim girl turned up late with some strange packages. She was allowed on the aircraft where she connected an iphone to a laptop. I spent most of the next four hours watching her like a hawk. That is the problem – perfectly innocent Muslims are now suspect

StayinThin. That dog sounds like every dog I have ever owned. No matter how well fed, the first response to anything they find is “can I eat it?”. I had an otherwise lovely working Labrador who believed that every girl should wear some fox manure behind her ears.

Hi Everyone! I’m fasting today, the first in a couple weeks at least! I just couldn’t fast and work on assignments and deadlines and then there were all these new learning curve hurdles I had to overcome which precluded fasting at the same time.

I think I’ve gotten the new routines under my belt so to speak and yesterday I handed in my final assignment for my TAFE Diploma so to celebrate I decided to FD for today. It is as if my body is going ‘ahhh’!

My clothes have become much tighter over the past couple of weeks I didn’t fast and so it has been a relief today to finally feel free to go in the direction that this FD is taking me!

Isn’t it wonderful that this WOL is so forgiving! Cheers everyone!

Eating my second piece, I realise that i forgot that it also haas currents or sultanas.

Good morning to everyone,
Spring has sprung today. Sunshine and blue sky! I won’t know myself!

Minka Congratulations! You did it!
http://images.dailyhive.com/20160728133444/Celebration-of-Light-fireworks-by-Team-Australia-2016-Larry-Chen-Flickr.jpg
I hope you had a lovely fast day. Reward for all that hard work.

Penguin, The Secret garden was one of my favourite books as a child, and your robin brought it all back to me. What a wonderful garden of birds you have.
One of the not-too-sweet things I miss is my Italian style baked ricotta cheesecake which is quite similar to the curd-cheese tart you are describing.

Glad your scales are in a good mood, Gday!

LJoyce, lovely clothes! No wonder the family love them!

I had a good mindful eating day yesterday and I am fasting today.

Tomorrow I am doing the Food Hygiene Course at Melbourne Polytechnic, with a couple of people helping me with my community food project. It is 10 – 4pm which is an enormous day for me, so wish me luck. If I have the energy I’ll see you on Tuesday. (If not sooner)

Best wishes everyone for a good day, a good fast, mindful eating, and friendly scales. Whatever is applicable.

Penguin, I enjoyed reading your account of the robin. It reminded me of childhood in England. We have a willy wagtail living on our patio. He spends every night perched on exactly the same spot on my hammock. There were two when they were young but I fear a neighbourhood cat killed the other. He sings a beautiful song and makes a lot of chit chat.

Cinque, my attempt at a topical, cryptic poem about ducks Larry and Garry being allowed to marry didn’t go over too well but, yes, I liked your poem thanks! No win for thin though. I’m still suffering the consequences of the Indian meal out nine days ago and today’s the last fast day until the neighbourhood meal out. I keep anxiously revisiting that menu seeking out the least damaging dish and thinking what a silly position I’ve put myself in. In the interests of appearing sociable, I’ll be going to a noisy pub where any conversation will have to be yelled and ordering a meal so I can challenge myself with how little of it I can eat! Not worth it.

I’ve more or less decided on CaulifD’s suggestion of chilli mussels which has never appealed to me before. CaulifD, you may not know that this dish comprises mussels served in their shell in a bowl of watery, tomato-based soup with lemon, sugar, onion, garlic, wine & herbs. I’ve always been put off by imagining the shells getting their cleaning in the soup!

LJ, I forgot to say that when ordering salads, I try to remember to request the dressing be served on the side. I agree, they’re often swimming in it. I love a real caesar salad which needs to be prepared at the table because of the egg and I’ve only ever found one restaurant to do this – a French restaurant in Tijuana that we used to cross the border to frequent when we lived in San Diego. With chef’s license (the poet’s equivalent), anything is possible and there are as many variations as restaurants.

I walked into town yesterday, about 11kms and then spent the rest of the day gardening. Today, I’ll finish the indoor painting after my normal 5km walk. Perth’s major department store had a huge display of Christmas paraphernalia taking up the entire window. That will remain until the end of January so it’s essentially 4½ months of the year promoting a two day holiday. I didn’t go inside by way of a little protest.

Hi Minka, hurray for the end of your TAFE assignments. Hope your FD goes well Cinque and LJ. It’s miso soup with chicken, Chinese cabbage and shiitake mushrooms for me.

*and chilli of course!

Gosh JJ, they’re coming out of the woodwork. First CM, now you! How ARE you? Welcome back!

Seriously, curd tarts and lemon pudding – I’m definitely sitting in the wrong kitchen at the moment!

Good morning Minka, JJulie, GDSA, Cinque, Thin, StayT, and good evening CaliD & Penguin. And hello anyone else who’s reading.

I was going to do a FD today but have changed my mind. I had a look at my plans for the week and realised that Mon & Fri were actually the better options. So NFD today it is. I’m going to have to decide what to add to the bow of lentil soup I’d planned for today.

Minka – congratulations on finishing your studies. It’s a wonderful accomplishment.

Penguin – I am familiar with curd tarts. I love all forms of traditional baked cheesecakes – I don’t much care for the over sweetened gelatin & philly cheese versions that are more common these days. But Italy, England and parts of eastern Europe have some lovely baked cheese cake traditions. I particularly like the Yorkshire curd tarts because they taste like a cross between 2 of my very favourite sweets – custard tarts and baked cheesecake.
You have a similar relationship with the robin that I have with the magpie family that reside in my garden. They are busy hatching out their one chick for the year at present. Like your robin, they also sit a few feet away watching me as I garden and looking puzzled when I chat to them. It’s nice company and adds to the pleasure of gardening.

Thin – sounds like you are getting some miles in. I definitely don’t have that much energy. I did 1 1/2 hours of gardening and was well and truly ready for a rest.

Cinque – Hope your day with your grand daughter is fun. Enjoy your course tomorrow, sounds interesting. Please let us know what you learn.

I have a family brunch out at Balhannah at 10:30am so I’d better get moving.

Have a nice Sunday. Did I say the sun’s out here – I almost considered short sleeves until I realised I was getting a bit carries away, the forecast is still just for 21C.