Tag Archives: healthy eating

Baking and Bits and Pieces.

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Cheese and Onion Soda Bread

Pale, non-Cheese and Onion Soda Bread

We had cheese and onion soda bread earlier in the week. Did I mention that. I have been distracted. It may have been in one of the deleted drafts.

It was a bit simpler making the bread as I ordered buttermilk from the supermarket. The only complicated bit was the chopping of the spring onions as I wanted to use small, neat, consistent pieces. The cheese was already grated, as I am getting lazier with my cooking. Having spread some cheese on top, as recommended, I was slightly non-plussed towards the end of baking when the bread turned dark brown – it was the cheese but I had to look twice o check it wasn’t the crust burning. The addition of cheese to the top adds nothing to the appearance or the taste. One again, the dough was soft and the cross closed up.

We had it with vegetable stew on Monday night and with leek and potato soup on Tuesday. It’s quite a lot of work for a loaf of bread that disappears so fast.

Last night we watched a programme about ultra-processed food. It seems the secret is to eat the rainbow rather than beige food. So they showed us a recipe with chickpeas. We both asked the same thing – if beige food is bad for you why show a recipe using the beigest of beige food? It might be good advice, but when it’s delivered in a condescending and gimmicky fashion by two people clearly intent on carving out a career in pseudo-science TV it gets a little irritating.

It was, however, a good reminder that I need to start examining our diet a bit more. In general, we do have a good diet, but there are things we can do to tune it up and lose a bit of weight. We have five a day, 30 a month and we eat the rainbow. The trouble is that we also eat pies, cake and biscuits. It seems that icing and coloured sprinkles are not acceptable ways to “eat the rainbow”.

Mmmm . . .

 

Apples

My Plans for Senile Delinquency

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We had oily fish with a rich white sauce tonight. I did mention to Julia that this sort of defeated the object of healthy eating, but just shrugged. I sometimes feel she isn’t as keen on healthy eating as I am. That sounds bad, as I’m not exactly a poster boy for the body beautiful. We had broccoli and carrots with it. And oven chips. It just gets worse and worse, doesn’t it? However, we are happy and mainly healthy, so why worry. Worry is a killer.

I’ve been looking at mobility scooters. Yes, this is slightly hypocritical after all I’ve said about them, bu they were advertised on TV yesterday and seem to strike a chord with me. I must be getting old. After checking the manufacturer in the advert I had a look on eBay. They are quite affordable and as they only do 8mph the 35 mile range represents four hours. I don’t know about you, but I’m not keen on the idea of sitting on one for four hours.

When I retire I am going to treat myself to one and use it for pottering about. I may well become a delinquent and start using it on cycle paths and in cycle lanes, even though this is banned. Cycles and electric scooters use footpaths all the time, so what’s sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander.

I’m not quite clear why electric scooters and electric cycles are allowed in cycle lanes but electric wheelchairs and mobility scooters aren’t. I’m also not clear why riders of electric cycles and scooters aren’t made to wear crash helmets. I’m happy to leave it as a free choice for cyclists, but when you start adding power it gets more dangerous. Then there is the question of insurance . . .

I think I may have found something to keep me occupied in my retirement.

First thought – organise a phalanx of mobility scooters to ride along cycle paths at 4 mph and hold cyclists up. Let’s see how they like it!

Everything a cyclist can do, a mobility scooter rider can do slower, and with worse reflexes. There are, however, some things I may not attempt.

Apples in the living room. And a couple of oranges. It was quite sunny yesterday.

Day 16

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Got up after a lie in and had to unfold my back. The two are linked, but I don’t want to buy a new mattress until the end of the year, as we have to do some building and other dusty stuff. I have a couple of weeks of sleep troubled only by an ancient bladder and dreams of old age and poverty, Then I have a week of being troubled by the inability to straighten up when I( wake. It isn’t too bad, just takes ten minutes longer to get up.  After that it seems to pass off again.

Julia has been ill since Friday, but it seems to be passing today. We think it might be diet related and a few days of light diet and no cheese seem to have done the trick. She was particularly subdued yesterday when I got home from work, which is not like her. “No cheese” is my general treatment for all abdominal pain, and often seems to work. I had trouble with IBS about thirty years ago. The doctor told me that he would tell me to give up smoking but the resulting stress would probably be just as bad for me. That was in the days when doctors gave realistic and practical advice. He also told me that a cup of tea and two cigarettes was not a nutritionally sound way to start the day.

I started eating proper breakfasts, gave up smoking and put on weight. However, with that and a certain amount of caution regarding cheese. This gives me the moral high ground when it comes to lecturing Julia about her health. I fully intend to take advantage of this.

The photo is from January 2017. She was, as I recall, making some cutting remark about the statue being similar in build to me. Ah, good times!

The Dying of the Light

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I have just finished eating a miserable, boring and tasteless meal. Low salt baked beans, low fat oven chips and cheap burgers. Even a large spoonful of chilli jam couldn’t bring it to life. This is, I suppose it’s the cost of being healthy.

Not for the first time, I have found myself pondering if life is worth the trouble if you have to extend it unnaturally by eating pap. In fact, after my last few weeks I’ve been asking myself the same question in general, regardless of the quality of my diet.

Even having another haibun published hasn’t cheered me up.  Generally I like to mention my successes in posts, smile modestly and simper a bit whilst feeling mildly smug. This morning I just looked at it, saw all the imperfections and uttered a small sigh.

Click here if you want to read it. But don’t feel you have to, if you are here to hear me moaning about life just read on. For a good poem, click here.

I wonder if Dylan Thomas ever looked at his poems and uttered a small sigh.

Today’s annoyance in the shop was a gas man, who insisted on walking round the shop with a meter, checking for gas leaks. We don’t have any gas leaks. This may be because we don’t have any gas, but we had to have it done anyway in case they were leaking next door.

Tomorrow they will be digging up the road in front of the shop looking for a gas leak. I’m not sure if I mentioned it last time they dug the road up looking for a gas leak. It was about a month ago. There ought to be a rule that if they have to do the job twice they don’t get paid for the first one.

As if that wasn’t bad enough they have just started major gas works, with road closures, on our way to work. The signs say it will take six weeks. It didn’t cause too many problems this morning, but it’s school holidays so things are always easier on the roads. The real test will be in two weeks when the schools go back.

When you’re growing up your parents never tell you about days like this.

A New Leaf

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I’m tempted to write a post about how I’m going to turn over a new leaf.

Regular readers will know that I’ve already dieted, eaten more fruit and vegetables and decluttered the house on a regular basis. Or, more accurately, I really, honestly, sincerely meant to do all those things.

The fact that my shirts are now tighter than they used to be and my total clutter total has been reduced by two bags of books indicates that things might not be progressing according to plan. The fruit and veg plan isn’t going too badly, though it does rely on a fairly liberal view of what counts as fruit and veg. Chocolate, fruit flavoured sweets and tomato ketchup are, according to my view, all acceptable. They aren’t necessarily as good as kale, apples and avocados, but they’re better than nothing.

I’m looking at various ways of improving on this. One way is what they call “reframing”. I learnt about that when they sent me to speak to someone about my weight. Basically, as I understand it, it means that if something goes wrong you take a step back, look at what happened and have another go. So I’ve stepped back, I’ve examined events and I’ve come up with a new plan.

I’ve decided to stop worrying about my weight, so that’s the weight problem solved. I’m going to add the jam in doughnuts and the cherries on Belgian buns to my list of “fruit” so that’s another item ticked off the list.

That just leaves the clutter. If I can find the book on decluttering that I bought a few months ago, I’ll finish reading it and then give it away. Every little helps…

 

Infamous delay

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At thirty, man suspects himself a fool;
Knows it at forty, and reforms his plan;
At fifty chides his infamous delay,
Pushes his prudent purpose to resolve;
In all the magnanimity of thought
Resolves, and re-resolves; then dies the same.

Night Thoughts, by Edward Young 1683-1765

You’ll know by now that I love a good quote, and whilst searching for one, I found this instead. I’m somewhat past 50 now but am definitely chiding my infamous delay, particularly at this soul-searching time of year. It’s nice to know that I’m not on my own in this, and that there have been others doing it through history.

I’ve reached that time of life when I’m starting to notice that a lot of people younger than me are falling off the perch, though I’m trying to balance this with the fact my family tends to live into their mid-8os. There have been a few exceptions, with several living into their 90s and another group (young men born in the 1890s) who died young, though that was more to do with Germans rather than genetics. I’m not that bothered about living to be 90 (though I reserve the right to change my mind at the age of 89) and I’m already too old to die young.

Anyway, on to things that I can change, rather than things I can’t.

I’m going to give up procrastinating. I have given up many things over the years, including smoking and biting my nails so how difficult can it be to give up procrastination?

Well, as I have just written 250 words getting to this point, and used a quote I found whilst looking for Young’s more famous quote “Procrastination is the thief of time” it could be tricky.

I’ve also spent time this morning making tea, answering emails and registering for the Big Farmland Bird Count next month, and drifted off for ten minutes on ParrotNet checking sightings of the Ring-Necked Parakeet in this area. We had one that used to visit regularly in 2014, though it could have been a local escapee rather than one of the general population.

Before going (I have tools to sort for tomorrow and a shopping list to write) I’ll leave you with this list “22 Foods to Avoid with Diabetes”

I’d say they were 22 foods to eat sparingly at any point in your life. Chips, pies, pastries, pizzas – they are not health foods by any stretch of the imagination. Home made pizza appears to be OK, which is good, as it allows me to use one of my stock of food photographs.

That’s pumpkin soup with chilli and ginger, a foraged salad of garden weeds and edible flowers and home made vegetarian pizza.

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