LJ. One pound above original goal. Should hit it tomorrow although cauliflower cheese tonight may slow things down.

Thinatlast. It is counter intuitive but I find total fasting easier than low cal days and day two easier than day one. The village pub is dangerous. It is full of good local beer and home cooked food. Noon will be a boiled egg and a small piece of bread.

House refurb finished. Garage sorting out today. I have just given to my neighbour a diver’s dry suit that has been in a box for 20 years. He wants it for recovering balls from a pond at his golf club. Next is my son’s caving kit which doesn’t get used anymore.

CalifD, I read your link about the whoosh effect with great interest and OH and I had a discussion about it on our way home tonight. It seems to answer some questions about the “plateau” and I thought if people understood it they would not loose motivation and keep going.
The food platters looked just wonderful. I love salmon, either cooked, sashimi or the finnish salted/dill raw salmon my cousin makes, I just dont seem to like smoked salmon though.
I have purple carrots in my vegie patch as well as the normal orange ones. Carrots seem to take longer beore harvesting than the other vegies do.
I made a platter on Sunday for lunch. It included almonds.dried apricots and other nibbles that I bought from Coles. Then camembert, colby, danish harvatti and swiss cheese with gluten free wafers, water crackers and hommus chips with a couple of gluten free dips to go with it. We also had cooked chicken pieces and a salad. All this on a large timber platter made in the Barossa by the disabled. It is a great platter and a good reason to buy one.
That is me for today, good night all…….good morning for those just arising!!

Good morning all and welcome to the forum Arelkade. Well I’ve cracked the 63’s and this morning weighted in at 62.9kg – yay. My monthly waist measuring has also seen a decrease of 3cm from last month – another yay.

A few months ago i came across a beautiful black mini skirt when sorting through a crate of old favourite clothes that I’d had stored in the shed. It was my favorite item of clothing in my late teens (30 years ago now) and I couldn’t bear to get rid of it. Tried it on yesterday and it fits like a glove…. woohoo. I was ecstatic to say the least. And it looked good on me too so another woohoo.

This morning was looking at my weight loss chart on my fitbit app for the last 9 months. Very interesting to see the flow of weight loss, plateaus, small weight gains. The cycle was almost pattern like which I guess is the body getting used to a routine and then shaking up the routine a little to get through a plateau. I think it was ljoyce who commented once that we need to have some variation at times to trick the metabolism out of a plateau. Ljoyce please correct me if I havent relayed your past comment accurately.

Well lots of yays and woohoo’s for me today. Its great that we can ‘toot our own horn’ on this forum without feeling like a total wally (Aussie speak for idiot).

All else is going well in life. My new man is turning out to be more and more amazing each day….yeah yeah I know I’m all starry eyed and all that lovey dovey stuff but gee I’m so damn happy!! MissD has had a string of friends over all week for school holiday fun. Weather has been mid 30’s so water balloon fights have been the flavour of the week.

Time to go and get stuck into some household chores. Cheers for now everyone

Good morning everyone.

Welcome Arelkade! What brought you to 5:2? Very glad to have you here!

That black skirt sounds gorgeous Gday!

Cheers Penguin, you are getting close to wearing your vintage uniform pants! It must feel great to have the house sorted, good luck for the garage!

Watch out Dubai! Intesha is coming!

Love the salad platters!
My mum made one with iceberg lettuce, wedges of tomato, slices of cucumber, sticks of celery, cubes of kraft cheddar and no dressing. Luncheon meat (processed), sometimes kabana. 1960’s.

Thin I hope your fast day got you nicely back into your happy range. I am fasting today…. except I forgot I had organised to have lunch with a friend! After a bit of thought I’ll just make the most of it. She is making broccoli soup for lunch, and said it is a healthy version, so even though it won’t be a Fasty McFast Day, it should be okay for maintenance.

Cali did you see that a baby echidna is called a puggle? I do love echidnas.

JJulie I am glad you were able to have that lovely chicken curry. A fast day will balance it out!

LJoyce, hoping you are right and that it wasn’t a bad reaction to your treatment this time.

Joffy, so good to hear from you and, can you believe it, I guessed right for your fast day food!
Glad you are feeling good and enjoying your new clothes. It must be what my Buddhist friend calls ‘the space between the breaths’ as you settle at 107 before the next step down.

Lindsay you are right those little ones are so lovely, and they do love their grandparents! Is your colonoscopy tomorrow? I will send special good wishes that it goes well and is helpful for your health.
If it is too hard to fit in another fast day on Friday, don’t worry, you are on the right track and you will get to your healthy weight anyway. Chocolate buttons were just a blip.

I’ve also got a health thing coming up. I’m organised to have a lung biopsy on Tuesday to see what the ‘thing’ in my lung is. It is a mass but it doesn’t have the signs of a typical cancer so I am very much hoping it isn’t cancer at all. It hasn’t changed since they first noticed it in June (no xray before that), it is an odd shape and it wasn’t at all warm under the PET scan. They are going to check it out by a tube down my throat! I’ll be home the same day. Should it be something they need to remove it is operable, they have seen it early. Otherwise they will keep an eye on it for three years and if it does nothing in that time they will figure it is safe. Fingers crossed.
I am a good candidate for surgery. Very glad I haven’t got those 30 extra kg any more! Thanks 5:2!

It is warm and grey in Melbourne, best wishes everyone for a good day.

Good morning everyone,

Well this morning I woke up feeling lighter but the scales said I was still the same. Must be all that water filling up my fat cells!!! Anyhow decided to make minestrone soup for today’s fast and OH told me it smelt good. (he loves minestrone) I put in the beans and used a vegetable base stock with a can of crushed tomatoes (checking they were not high in calories due to sugar) celery, leek and diced carrot and two snake beans which were the first picked from my garden. I dont want to put pasta in it so thought of konyaku and wished they made it in macaroni shapes. We decided to use the block konyaku and dice it so we will see how that goes. I have to go to the shop to get a zucchini to add to it and am thinking of what else?

Does anyone know much about the gluten free pastas? I am wondering if they are better to use for this type of soup.

CalifD, I will take a photo of my platter and post the link to it. The only way I know to do this is by facebook link. I did try to find a photo of it on the website for the place that makes them but they dont seem to advertise them. This was a gift from my cousin who lives in the Barossa Valley, South Australia. (great wine growing region made up of lovely country towns. My grandmother was born in one of these towns called Mt Pleasant and my cousin lives in a town not far called Tanunda) This is a nice link to the area http://www.barossa.com/

Gday, congratulations, I totally understand how happy you are with breaking through the 63’s. And also fitting into your beloved black skirt and a mini skirt at that!! Gives you a great feeling inside. Not to mention that you are also on top of the moon with your new wonderful man. Woohoo to you!!!

Penguin, I am waiting for you to tell us you have done the same as Gday and are into your old uniform pants. Another day to celebrate is coming soon.

LJoyce, I hope you are feeling better. I thought I saw a post that said you were not well.

Intesha, I have never been to Dubai, but my friend has been twice and the pictures she posted showed amazing buildings and her hotel was incredible!! Have fun and stay safe in your travels.

Cinque, hope all goes well with your lung biopsy. I recently had a CT scan on my lungs as I had a persistant cough for more than 6 months. They found a shadow in both lungs that they said did not look like cancer as cancer seems to have a defining edge to it. They thought it was infections. I went on a course of strong antibiotics for 10 days then another scan. They said it is now all clear. My cough is not as it was but still seems to be there every now and then, so my doctor also changed my blood pressure medication as he said a cough could be a side effect of the one I was on and I had been on them for quite a few years.
Fingers crossed for you and will be thinking of you on Tuesday.

You said Melbourne is warm and grey, well so is Cairns. We seem to be hazy today and muggy.

Work is being done on our roof as I am typing. We decided to get solar, as I said before, but had the roof checked out before we went ahead with it and decided to rescrew and recoat with solar reflectant paint. (our roof is colourbond not tiles due to the risk of loosing tiles in cyclones) They should be finished today, then we can book the solar in to be done. I am so looking forward to saving money on electricity!!

That is it for now so will catch up soon

Stayin, Yes the link should take you straight to an album on my FB page. One album is of the Botanical Gardens and the other of the Cairns Aquarium.

Good morning SHs, late start for me today I couldn’t seem to drag myself out of bed this morning. Feeling a bit seedy this morning and in need of lots of water – my body always seems to get dehydrated as it tried to metabolise the treatment drug.

Cinque – I really hope they find nothing serious in the lung biopsy. I have everything crossed for you.

GDSA – well done on the under 63s and the mini skirt. If you start wearing clothes like that again, your daughter will start raiding your wardrobe.

JJ – the only gluten free pasta I’ve used was “L’Abruzzese lentil & rice spirals”. I didn’t put it in soup but I can’t see why it wouldn’t work. When I make minestrone for a FD I usually leave the pasta out completely and add a few more beans as I find them more filling.

Thin – given other things you’ve mentioned about your hubby’s reaction to food, I’m not surprised by the “last supper”. Hope the surgery goes well.

Penguin – I think “wally” applies to pollies everywhere. Hopefully the extra activity cleaning out the garage will shift that last pound.

Intesh – I’m not a coffee drinker but for gold dusk even I might order one.

Lindsay – I think you said you have prep for the the colonoscopy today – hope that’s not too traumatic a process. My memories are of it being very unpleasant. There is always a silver lining though – with a completely empty digestive system you’ll weigh less.

If I can summon up the energy I’m thinking I’ll turn some frozen chilli con carne into a spicy shepherd’s pie. I have carrots, celeriac and potatoes that I’m hoping will create an interesting mash for the top.

Have a good day everyone.

Thank you JustJulie & Lindsay L. I’m looking for to learning lots from everyone else’s experiences. The Fast Diet book was very informative and I instantly felt ‘ I can do this’ so, fingers crossed, I will make the best of it! Past attempts at getting healthier and losing weight have been difficult for the long term for me. I’m sure 2 FD will be more manageable. Love reading everyone’s posts – thank you all

LJoyce, your chilli con carne pie sounds nice. I put chilli in a lot of recipes as I like the bite it gives. I recently made a butternut pumpkin soup with chipolte and cannelini beans which you then blend. OH love this one too.

I ended up not putting pasta in the minestrone soup and just did as you suggested and added extra beans. OH has just had a bowl of this soup and said it was great.

Julie and LJoyce, I just started eating more beans again. I had gotten away from them for a while, no particular reason, was just eating other things. I had a bowl of pinto beans last night, cooked in the Instant Pot (pressure cooker) with chopped onions, a little chili powder, cumin and salt. I added hot sauce before I ate them. Even after eating at least 6 slices of sourdough toast with butter yesterday, apples and some not so healthy breakfast cereal, I was down just a little in weight. Legumes seem to have some magic powers with all their fiber. That’s happened to me before, that I lost on days where I would have expected to gain because of the high carb load, but the addition of beans seemed to help. Maybe it was the fiber that made me feel fuller than I was.

Penguin, good post! All of the people that are closest to me are cancer survivors: 8 years, 17 years and 20+ years. All of them have been clear since the episodes. And the 20+ year survivor just turned 88. It’s still scary, but not as much as it once was.

CalifDreamer. Just re-read your posting about beans. I have recently seen some papers which argue that beans, lentils, chickpeas, pulses in general convert white fat into beige fat, which is less harmful and contributes to weight loss. The gut flora also like pulses. Because pulses/legumes are the basis of so many tasty and otherwise healthy meals I am more than happy to go with that argument.

Good morning everyone,

I had a good fastlike day yesterday…. the broccoli soup did have cream in it, but it was delicious, and we had some English muffin with it. I think I was still under 800 calories for the day, so that is fine. I’ll do Fasty McFast on Sunday.

Thankyou so much for your kind words and information about my lung biopsy. I was given the choice to have an operation to remove the mass and then test it, but I felt ok to have the biopsy and see what it says, and hope I can avoid losing part of my lungs. So while I have my fingers crossed, I am not too scared. (And glad I’ll go easy on the porters!). I’ll get the results the following week.

Thinking of you today Lindsay. Best wishes.

JJulie, I think we have to be fb friends with you to be able to see the photos in your albums. It says: “The link you followed may have expired, or the Page may only be visible to an audience that you aren’t in.”

Arelkade, I do think 5:2 is just the best when it comes to a long term strategy for a healthy weight and a healthy life. I do so hope you can make it suit you.
We all seem to do it faithfully, but with variations that suit our lives and our personalities. We will love to see how you make it fit your life.

Well now it is not a fast day I can enjoy all the talk of chili shepherd’s pie and other foods! I have just about eaten my freezer out so it is time for me to think about cooking (ooh lovely fun).
I just love legumes so I will make one big bean or lentil based thing. I bought some white maize grits and am experimenting with them, so I think I will try samp and beans (I’m on an African food discovery tour in my head) using the last of the red beans. And then I think I will make a chicken casserole and a savoury pumpkin pie. That should last me for the next couple of weeks!
All I’ll need is salads and other veggie sides to go with everything.

But I’m feeling like breaking my dietary law, as well as laws of physics, and just nip over to Penguin’s for a slice of curd cheesecake!

COLD, grey and wet this morning. I might stop at JJulie’s on the way over!

Hi, I’m still around and fitting in FDs when I can. This week is turning out to be another 6/1 and the scales show it. I wish I could be one of those who maintains on a 6/1 configuration long term, though my way is different. I’m glad I’m able to fit in at least one FD, so am thankful for that and today is the day.

I sure miss following all the posts. I feel a bit selfish for writing and not reading, though there is still so much going on, this is all I can manage.

I did happen to read your wonderful post at top of page, Intesha about Dubai! I’ve only been to the airport and an overnight in Abu Dhabi which was fun, but didn’t go anywhere but to and from airport/hotel. Would love to return and how lucky your friend is to have you as a guide!

I appreciate the stability of this thread and of those who contribute, even if I’m not able to fully participate at this time.

Hi all, thank you all for you posts. Up to day 5 & still ‘finding my way’. Feel better just knowing that I’m finally trying to be a much healthier me. I can feel a little difference in energy already – though if I eat carbs feel a bit sluggish! Early days with many more to come. My buy the Fast Diet Recipe book – sounds interesting.
Hubby & I are having a weekend in Forster NSW Australia – so a challenge to try to be good!!!
Have a great weekend everyone.

Cali – funny how we all have different preferences. Red kidney beans are one of my least favourites and when a recipe includes them I always use borlotti instead. I like the flavour, but I find the skins on kidney beans tougher than most other beans.

CalifD, So sorry of course. My name is Julie Skarstrom. Just message me that we met on this forum and I will accept.

I love red kidney beans too especially in Chilli Con Carne.

OH has finished all the bought hommus so I am going to make my own again. I bought sesame seed oil today to add to it.

Dinner tonight is Miso Salmon with stir fry vegies.

I also made broccoli soup today and thought about adding beans to it. Is that going overboard? Anyhow I didn’t in the end and it was still filling for lunch.

I just had another serve of the chilli con carne shepherds pie – just as yummy on night 2.

Stay – I suspect your son needs to met a few pulses in different forms.
– Pureed into dips – they just make it thick and hommus is only the start. I make a white bean dip that just requires plenty of garlic & lemon and whatever herb you fancy, it purees up to a lovely creamy dip.
– Legume flours added to flatbread – he’ll never know they are there, although the bread will have more flavour than just grain flour.
– chickpea flour made into a pakora batter – dip pieces of vegetable, paneer, chicken, prawns etc into it and either fry or bake.
– Dense little burgers and croquettes like felafel. Because these are made from legumes that have been soaked, drained and minced (but not boiled) they have a really different texture to things made with cooked legumes/pulses. Every country across the middle east has its own version of this type of croquette and I suspect I’d like every single one! Traditionally they would be deep fried but I pan fry or bake.

Thin – glad your hubby finally got into surgery. I suspect he was bemoaning the long gap between his last food at 5am and 4pm surgery.

Thin, I’m glad your husband’s surgery went well other than the delay? It was yesterday, right? (She asks thin, while realizing it’s already tomorrow there…Oh, never mind. 😁)
Does he have to remain there or can he come home right away? Hope he isn’t in any pain.

LJoyce, that shepard’s pie is making me hungry. It sounds like a good winter dish. The weather here is trying to make up its mind whether to be summer or winter. It’s been sunny every day lately but cold at night.

Penguin, it sounds like you don’t need to go to a gym after all that exercise moving the stones. It sounds like hard work, but I bet your friend the Robin won’t have to go looking for dinner tonight.

Stay, like LJ mentioned, bean dips are the easiest way to add beans to your diet Lemon juice garlic and basil is one of my favorite.

Julie, miso salmon sounds good. How do you make it? My broccoli soup is just steamed broccoli, unsweetened soy or nut milk and salt and pepper, all puréed. Maybe a little nutmeg sprinkled on top. Super easy and good.

FD was good yesterday and I lost .5 kg. Down to 60.1 this morning. My goal is 59, but would like to get to 58 so I have a cushion. The last kg’s are definitely the hardest to get off. More beans!

Good morning everyone,

Thin, I loved your concern. Thankyou. And I am sorry I wasn’t sending good wishes along for your OH’s op. Maybe my neglect caused the long wait and the mob ph glitch! (Yes I am that powerful! 😉 ). I am making up for it now sending lots of good wishes for today. I hope he is recovering well.

Minka, so glad to see your post. I do hope your life settles down a bit so that you can read and write here more, and to manage two fast days a week! But in the meantime I am so glad you manage to pop in and tell us how you are. (Chances you read this? 7% 😉 )

Wow Penguin, you get a lot done! Say hello to your robin from me! I hope ‘Only Connect’ turns up on the ABC here. It took ‘Pointless’ about a decade to get here, so I won’t hold my breath.

Stay, I wonder if your son is affected by the bad rap lentils got when they were connected with boring old hippies (Neil from The Young Ones https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fYHEACE-v0k ). And legumes are connected with farts and belly-ache since (as LJoyce said) you need to build up the gut bacteria to cope with them. Maybe small amounts in things will win him over.

I’ve been thinking of which are my favourite. I use so many types I often have to make myself use up a jar before I buy a different one or I can have a dozen jars of beans in the pantry! At the moment I have chickpeas, split red lentils, whole mung beans, and split fava beans. The ones I am using up is what I thought were small red kidney beans but are different, much softer. I have discovered they are called Red Beans or Mexican beans.

I had thought I didn’t like red kidney beans so much, just too big and maybe tougher skins, I often replaced them with black beans (which I love). But these smaller, softer red beans have made me miss big red kidney beans and I am hanging out to have them again!

JJulie I am glad you discovered the Bean thread, I just had a new look through it and there are recipes there I am so keen to make!

GDay, best wishes for your fun day with OH!
Arelkade, best wishes for your lovely weekend with yours!

Cali, Congrats for that 60.1!

Day before fast day for me, and I am staying at home (first time for a week). Bliss.

Cheers all

Just a quick note to let people know that I am still in the plan and haven’t fallen by the wayside. I lead a quiet lifestyle. To the newbies I lost 35kgs over 18months, reaching my goal weight a little over 2 years ago and have been fairly constant. Family celebrations blows the eating plans out the window, but with this program I go back to normal and it comes off. I still have some family members still trying to sabotage my diet, others that are quite supportive. Just ignore the negatives.

I have had quite a busy time in my yard. Taking 3 and a half weeks to remove weedmat that was not allowing the soil the breathe and killing the plants. Weeks to erect shed shelves and painting the MDF. Trying to catch up on the weeds and getting the spring vegetables in.

I have been trying to get qoutes to get things done here. The quotes were excessive and another still hasn’t sent it 2 months later. Plumbers wont even get back to you. I got a quote from another type of business out of town. Email enquiry 10 minutes reply, up the next week ordered yesterday delvery within a month. Very professional in their customer service.

Hello,
What a treat to hear from you GL502! Congratulations on your weight maintenance, your weed mat removal, your shelves, and a plumber with good customer service: a promising sign!
I hope it is not too dry in the Wimmera! Good luck with your Spring planting!

Congratulations JJulie! Into the 70’s! You did it!
And what lovely cooking too!
I love pastry and make sure I make my own: nicer, and it does mean I don’t have it often, which is best.

I do love the Hairy Bikers. I have a pastry recipe of theirs that has mashed potato in it, but I think it is best for pot pies, where the pastry is just on top.

LJoyce I am so lucky here, I am in one of the most multicultural areas of Melbourne and it is easy to get all the dozens of beans and lentils. Would it work to post you a packet of the dried split fava? It will be perfect for felafel.
The shop I buy them from has frozen felafel mixture that is so delicious and cheap I don’t think of making my own. When I moved here twenty years ago the ingredients on the packets said “beans, herbs, spices”.
I mainly use the fava for a soup with Middle Eastern spicing that I just love, but I keep meaning to make a dip with it too.

Hmm, well I have done a bit today but I had better go and tackle some more. Bye.

PS There are gorgeous native robins in Victoria, when I lived in East Gippsland I got to know them well. The yellow robin was the friendliest, http://bioacoustics.cse.unsw.edu.au/archives/html/canberrabirds/2011-06/jpgfpWSsxfyWb.jpg
but my favourite was the pink robin https://ih1.redbubble.net/image.12230409.8439/flat,1000×1000,075,f.jpg .

Hi GL502. You weren’t here when I started hanging around back in May or June, so happy to meet you! 35 kg in 18 months is impressive. The fact that you’ve kept it off for 2 years is impressive too. This seems like the best plan for keeping it off because it allows for some “regular” eating and celebrating. I have a little over a kg to go to get to my goal weight, but I can see already that I’ll probably be fasting 2 days most weeks in order to maintain, because that allows for a day or 2 of splurging. Do you still fast for 2 days or can you get by with one?

Cinque, your robins look quite a bit different than the ones in North America. http://cdn.history.com/sites/2/2013/11/connecticut-state-bird-P.jpeg The ones here appear to be quite a bit bigger. Their eggs are blue. Some of them are somewhat friendly although most would not get close enough to let you touch them.
Those small red beans that you were talking about yesterday, the ones you thought were like small kidney beans, I bought some of those a couple weeks ago, but haven’t cooked them yet. I was thinking they would be like kidney beans too. Thanks for the heads up. I bet these are the same as yours, more of a Mexican type of bean. The only kidney beans I could find in our store were lighter, more like pink. I haven’t seen the dark red ones for a while, only in a can. I’ll have to check another store. We have a wide variety of beans here too, at some of the stores, the more specialty type.

Julie, thank you for the Miso salmon recipe. I have red and brown miso paste here. I’ll have to find some white. Time for a trip over to Whole Foods which was recently bought out by Amazon. I haven’t been there since they bought it. It’s a wonderful store but everyone calls it “Whole Paycheck”. We’re hoping that Amazon lowers the prices.

Snap CalifD, I also woke to 60.1kg this morning which put me in a good frame of mind for visiting the winery. The high was 17C today so we rugged up warmly and headed out to the Swan Valley. The wine tasting was on the stingey side but plenty for us (me being the driver and OH taking occasional pain meds – recovering well thank you all who enquired).

OH and I managed to keep a straight face during all that wine gobbledygook, lingering blackcurrant depth, gasoline notes on the nose and the like but we both started giggling when one wine was described as “approachable”. So, do we just leave all the others alone as deemed too hostile to drink? I was very happy with a bottle of 2Euro red in the Seville supermarkets and find it all a bit pretentious. Anyway, apologies to the connoisseurs. The food however was delicious, a large platter of assorted goodies to share. I left feeling as if I could have eaten more but very content which was lovely for a meal out. We went on to a brewery that we know well for coffee. No pretence there.

JJulie, good job hitting the 70s. You’re on a roll. Do you have a goal weight? I used to cook salmon with tamarind paste but have virtually stopped buying all the jars and things that traditionally fill the fridge door. I’ve come to love salmon steaks with no sauces at all. Just seared with a sprinkling of sesame seeds on top. Served with lime wedges.

I’d forgotten all about Monterey Jack. I used to buy it at Trader Joe’s with jalapeno peppers in it. Do you have TJ’s in your part of California CalifD?

GL502, welcome back. It’s good to hear from someone who left us but who stayed with the WOL. Sadly, a long silence often seems to mean falling off the wagon. Congratulations on maintaining your significant loss. We have to ignore the saboteurs. That includes the messages inside our own heads sometimes.

There seems to be a glitch with this thread again. Someone referred to Minka’s post which didn’t sound familiar. I scrolled up and found it along with several others that I hadn’t noticed before. I think I am caught up for the moment.

Thin – glad you had a nice day out, despite the pretentious wine reviews. Sound like your OH found an enjoyable way to medicate for the post surgery pain.

Cali – I may have been remembering it incorrectly because she mentions monterey jack a lot. I’ve made that casserole a lot, although I mostly just follow the spirit of the recpie and adapt it to a simpler lower cal version. Mollie’s original recipe has 3 layers and I usually just use two. My main layer is a cross between a bean-tomato-capsicum chilli and a ratatouille. I crumble 100g of white leicester or some haloumi into that, then top it with a cornmeal muffin batter (mine contains creamed corn so it stays moist). I usually end up with a huge baking dish full that provides many meals. The only time I used the cream cheese was the first time I made it – when I stuck closer to the recipe. If you want the cornmeal muffin recipe I’m happy to post it.

Cinque – I suspect I could find the split fava bean online, and I might be able to hunt down a middle eastern grocer in the suburbs – I tried the central market but couldn’t find them. So far I’ve just substituted chickpeas in the Egyptian recipes and they taste great. I just always wondered what they’d be like with the fava beans.
Have you used adzuki beans – I’m wondering if they were the small red beans you and Cali were discussing? I bought a few at the central market (when I couldn’t find the favas I didn’t want to leave empty handed), but I’m not sure what they’ll be good in. They are red and quite small – about the size of a black-eyed bean or navy bean. I think they are used in Japanese cuisine – one I know little about.

I decided to do a FD today instead of tomorrow. It went fairly well, although I was hungrier than usual for a FD and I suspect I ended up somewhere in the 500-600 cal range.

😁 Penguin, our discussions here have certainly gone beyond the humble lentil. 😄 You mentioned that robins are often pictured on Christmas cards. Here they are associated more with Spring. Many Christmas cards picture the Cardinal, which we don’t have in CA but are common in the Midwest where I grew up. https://www.flickr.com/photos/93962598@N05/11698496335/in/photostream/ Do you have that bird in the UK? What about Cookoo birds? Like the ones on the German cookoo clocks? We don’t have them here, but when we were visiting Italy we could hear them in the garden.

Thin, that wine with the aromatics of beef blood and sweaty saddle leather? Eww, yukkk! Dump it down the drain! Quick! 😆 We have a lot of wineries all around here and there are the same pretentious wine tastings and tours. Sometimes after a couple glasses of wine they sound more feasible. 😁 We import a lot of Australian wines here. One of the big wine stores Total Wines has pages of them. Besides the common ones like Yellow Tail I don’t know which ones to buy. http://www.totalwine.com/wine/australia/c/000263?storename=1101&page=1

LJoyce, I’m starting to see more fava beans in the store. I’ll have to look for some recipes and try them. I’m definitely going to be adding more pulses to my meals. I’ve gotten away from them enough that I had the gas reaction to them yesterday. That seems to go away after eating them for a week or so.