Tag Archives: diet

Seasons

Posted in Aga cooking, eating disorder, food, food is medicine, fruit, functional food, gluten free, healthy eating, home baking, home cooking, home grown, home produce, jams, preserves, pudding, recipe, salad, sorbet, Uncategorized, vegetables, vegetarian by

Chatting with a friend the other day, we started to discuss the seasons – random I know – and tried to pick a favourite.

I found this really difficult but in doing this task I realised that my love of the different seasons revolves around food choices!

Spring: I love spring – the fresh colours – vibrant greens of new buds, blossom laden trees – replaced with fruit in the autumn, blankets of yellow for daffodils. Planting of vegetables under glass ready for the frosts to stop. Hens, ducks and quail come back in to lay.

Summer: fruit sorbets / nice cream. Arrays of salad vegetables. New potatoes…yum

Autumn: the amazing palette of colours and the trees enter their quiescent phase for the winter. This is when I really wish I could paint. With autumn comes such a marvellous bounty of fruits and vegetables and the sound of the tractors harvesting wheat, barley, maize. hay for the animals etc. Nights turning cooler – one pot suppers / casseroles / fruit crumbles  /  jam/ liqueur and chutney making / freezer filling.

and then there is winter…curtains closing early, log fires burning, mulled wine, fruit cakes, mince pies, rich food and of course – family gatherings.

If I had to choose one…probably  autumn.

How about you?

 

 

Leek and potato soup 

Posted in Aga cooking, beating cancer, coeliac, dairy free, eating disorder, food, food is medicine, fructose free, functional food, gluten free, healthy eating, home cooking, mains, Uncategorized, vegetables, vegetarian by

I love autumn and winter – perfect weather for a bowl of warming and filling soup. I tend to make my soups hearty rather than a consomme type.

This soup is so easy to make and quick – from thought to tableware in half an hour😊

For a pan load that will provide 4 generous servings I use:

Ingredients:

3 leeks washed and chopped

5 white potatoes  peeled and chopped into small pieces

1 pint of stock – vegetable  or chicken

Cup of milk – optional

Salt and pepper.

Method:

Put the leeks, potatoes stock and seasoning in a pan. Cover and bring to the boil. Simmer until soft. Remove from the heat and blend until nearly smooth. I like to leave the odd chunk. Put back on the heat and add the milk if desired. bring up to boiling and serve.

Marathon or sprint?

Posted in eating disorder, food, food is medicine, functional food, healthy eating, specialised diet, Uncategorized by

In my younger days I was always on some form of diet – I’ve tried many – the ones where you spend a weekly fee, get weighed and celebrate ‘loser of the week’ (whole new meaning to the term ‘ loser’!); ones where you eat cabbage soup and very little else; meal replacement – shakes; meal replacement – shakes, protein bars and gloopy soups; not carbohydrates at the same meal as protein; very low calorie diets; eating very little carbohydrate and freely eating protein and any fats and so on…and so on.

Gosh – when I read that list back it is frightening.

What was even more frightening was that if I had put some weight on I would start one of the diets again with the view, ‘Well…it worked last time’. Thankfully I am beyond all that now. I was, however having a chat with a someone recently for whom this cycle of diet, put weight on , diet was a regular occurrence. When they uttered the words, ‘I’m doing that diet because it has always worked,’ I couldn’t stop myself from saying,’But it doesn’t work!’  They looked so affronted. I then explained my thinking – ie. if you are repeating a diet format to lose weight, again, then it hasn’t worked…as you have put weight back on. The restriction for a set time frame enabled  / facilitated weight loss but once stopped the weight piles back on. Enforced change has taken place – not actual changes…healthy changes that can become habit.

So I believe to get your body to its healthy weight is not about a sprint diet but more of a steady marathon of small changes over time that can be sustained.

Your thoughts?

 

Baked apple stuffed with raisins and honey

A deliciously simple desert that reminds me of autumnal suppers as a child.

Take a large cooking apple and remove its core. Place on a oven proof dish. Stuff dried fruit of your choice into the hole and place a heaped teaspoon of set honey on top. Bake in the centre of the oven- gas mark 5 / 180 C until the apple is soft. I served this with a generous pouring of cream. If you wish to play around with the flavours and make it a grown up pudding – a drizzle of a liqueur on the dried fruit before cooking is a tasty addition.

Personally I like the simplicity of the flavours as it is.

What to do with some much produce…apple, honey and rosemary jam 

I first tasted this delicious combination at a friend’s house a couple of years ago. Whenever they visited some friends in France they would come back with a jar of loveliness called: Confiture de pommes au romarin et au miel de montagne. I acquired a recipe and then promptly forgot about it until recently. Recipe translated and tweaked resulted in 5 jars of apple, honey and rosemary jam in my kitchen yesterday. I resisted the urge to taste it until today to allow the rosemary to infuse the jam…delicious.

This is what I did:

Ingredients:

2kg of cooking apples – peeled, cored and chopped in to small pieces (pips saved)

100g sugar

250g honey – I used set

Juice of 3 lemons – keep pips

20 ml of water.

Rosemary sprigs – washed and dried

Method:

Put the sugar, water, lemon juice and honey in a large pan and bring to the boil – stirring frequently. Put the apple pieces in to the syrup mixture along with the apple and lemon pips wrapped in a piece of gauze. Bring back to the boil and simmer gently for about 15 minutes or until the apples are soft. Remove from heat and mash about half of the apple mixture down – I used a potato masher. Put back on the heat and simmer for anohter 5 – 10 mins.  Put in to prepared jam jars and push a sprig of rosemary in to the mixture ahead of sealing the jar.

I have no idea how long this will store  – probably quite irrelevant as one jar has nearly gone already. I didn’t treat this like an ordinary jam, cheese or jelly in that a setting point wasn’t reached. The consistency is of a very, very thick sauce. Delicious on toast but I would imagine equally scrumptious with pork or game.

Spiced lentil / quinoa balls in a roasted butternut squash sauce

Posted in Aga cooking, coconut oil, coeliac, food, food is medicine, functional food, ginger, gluten free, healthy eating, healthy fats, home cooking, mains, meat free, recipe, specialised diet, turmeric, Uncategorized, vegetables, vegetarian by

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Preheat oven to 180 C / Gas mark 5.    Line a baking tray with greaseproof paper

Ingredients:

For the ‘meatballs’                                              For the sauce

1 cup quinoa                                                           Medium butternut squash

1 cup green / puy lentils                                     About 400 ml vegetable stock

1 tsp ginger                                                             4 spring onions (coarsely chopped)

1 tsp turmeric                                                         10 cherry tomatoes (chopped in half

2 tsp coconut oil                                                    About 100 ml coconut milk

1 egg                                                                          Spinach (large handful)

(Chick pea flour)                                                    Coconut oil

1 tsp cumin seeds                                                  1 tsp cayenne pepper

Method:

Deseed and chop the butternut squash in to medium-sized chunks. Drizzle with coconut oil and pop in the oven for 30 mins to soften

Rinse the quinoa and lentils and put them in a pan with 3 cups of water and the cumin seeds. Bring to boil and cook until soft. Drain any excess water.

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Allow to cool. Add all the other ingredients (except chick pea flour) and mix thoroughly. If the mixture is loose add a desertspoon of chick pea flour and mix again. You may have to do this a couple of times. Take a generous desertspoon full of mixture and roll in to a ping-pong sized ball. Lay the balls on the prepared tray

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and cook in the oven for 10-15 mins.

When the butternut squash is roasted, put half in to a blender along with the vegetable stock – you want a thick sauce consistency so add the liquid a little a time until this is achieved.

Fry the spring onions until soft. Add the cayenne powder and stir for a minute. Add the tomatoes and cook for another minute. Add the butternut squash sauce

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and once heated through add the spinach and allow to wilt.Stir in the coconut milk.

Place the ‘meatballs’ in to the sauce and simmer gently.20160916_180635Prior to serving pop the remaining butternut squash chunks in to the sauce.

I served this with naan bread. Enjoy.

If the egg was replaced with tofu, this would be a vegan dish.

Nature’s bounty

Posted in food, food is medicine, healthy eating, home baking, home cooking, home grown, home produce, Uncategorized by

Someone said to me over the weekend, ‘You never get anything for nothing.’

To which I responded, ‘Blackberries!’in probably a very annoying manner!

But it’s true…if you know where to look at this time of year nature provides an amazing array of gorgeous fruits to harvest. Riding through the forest this weekend I passed elder trees with boughs hanging from the weight of berries – jam, chutney and wine. The hedgerows were bursting with blackberries – perfect on their own or sublime when combined with apples. Old twisted and gnarled damson trees seem to survive on some otherwise inhospitable land – perfect for crumbles, chutneys, damson cheese / jelly / jam and of course drowned in gin and sugar and left for the next 3 months to create a warming and festive liqueur.

An afternoon stroll along a country path can reveal: sloe, bilberries, plums,  and hops.

I love this time of year – so much, for nothing. 🙂   All the fruit gathered and sitting in various receptacles in cold rooms in the house is then followed by hours of baking, cooking, freezing and of course the delight of eating these autumnal flavours throughout the following year.

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Damsons and cooking apples from the garden

 

Most peculiar

Posted in beating cancer, breast cancer, cancer, cancer treatment, eating disorder, food, food is medicine, functional food, Uncategorized by

It’s been a funny old week – definitely not the amusing type.

I am now in to my second week of cycle 1 of chemotherapy and have experienced some odd and some deeply unpleasant (won’t go in to that!) effects. Changing tastes:

Firstly I have absolutely no appetite –  a novel and curious feeling for a devout foodie.

Secondly – for a few days when I did feel the urge to eat it was for foods I never normally eat. I longed for shop bought fish, chips and mushy peas – the combination tasted like nectar! Another night I sent my poor husband to the shops to buy a tin of Baked Beans (reminiscent of a pregnancy midnight raid!) and wanted only beans on toast with cheese on top. This, unlike the fish ‘n chips, was a total  disappointment – unsure whether my tastes are changing or just that I have not eaten processed foods for so long.

I have gone off tea and coffee and am enjoying powdered skimmed milk as a hot drink!

I am seeking much stronger flavours  – no subtlety to my palate at the moment.

Somethings I eat have no flavour yet I can smell them. Flavour is the combination of taste -what your taste buds pick up (sweet, salty, sour, bitter and  potentially umami) and the smell of the food. The roof of my mouth seems to be completely inert at the moment (the same feeling when you have burnt it).  The roof of the mouth is the palate – and presumably where the terms palatable  / having a pleasing palate come from. I can only assume this change is what is affecting my dietary choices and experiences.

All very odd and quite fascinating … as long as it settles down!

 

One Lovely Blog Award

Posted in food, food is medicine, functional food, gluten free, healthy eating, home baking, home cooking, home grown, One lovely blog award, Uncategorized by

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A huge thank you to the lovely Dolly of koolkosherkitchen, an extremely supportive and helpful blogger-friend with an amazing blog, who has nominated me fo One Lovely Blog Award.

Here are the rules:

 

  • Post to accept the nomination.
  • Thank the person who nominated you and link to their blog.
  • List 7 things about yourself.
  • Link to the blogs you nominate.
  • Notify the recipients of their award.
  • Post the rules!

Seven things about me:

  1. I have a wonderful husband, family and friends who support me through the ups and downs of life and whom I feel thoroughly blessed to know.
  2. I am and always have been an animal lover – taking  in waifs and strays all my life. Presently I have 3 dogs, 2 cats, 1 horse, hens, ducks and quail. All keep me busy and keep me out of mischief!
  3. I love music – having a truly eclectic taste. One minute I may be listening to AC/DC and the next listening to Faure’s Requiem.
  4. Books, books and more books – I love reading. Shelves are bending as I add to my collection. I have a few favourites that I read every couple of years – To Kill a Mockingbird, A Suitable Boy, An Equal Music (am a Vikram Seth fan) and Shipping News.
  5. Poetry – have always loved it – ever since my daddy bought me my first book of verse when I was six years old. I love words – I love to learn new words – language is such a delight to explore and use, yet we tend to stick to a core vocabulary.
  6. Nature – flora and fauna – love it all and the magical sights and treasures this planet has to offer.
  7. Lastly, if I can only share 7 things – I love cooking and exploring flavours and playing around with ingredients. Cooking gives me a real freedom of expression.

Now the difficult part – nominating 7 and only seven other blogs. I apologise if I have not included you but I have so many fantastic blogs to choose from 🙂

  1. Lathiya from Cookwithsmileblog https://cookwithsmileblog.wordpress.com 
  2. Jack from Pepsfreefromkitchen https://pepsfreefromkitchen.wordpress.com
  3. Daal from Happiness Between Tails https://happinessbetweentails.wordpress.com
  4. Amanda from A Thousand Crumbs https://athousandcrumbs.com
  5. Jane from Cakes, bakes and simple suppers  https://cakesbakesandsimplesuppers.wordpress.com
  6. Aleks from Healthy food and travel blog https://aleksdajcz.wordpress.com
  7. Rachel from How to provide https://howtoprovide.com

Thank you, Jo x

The Black Cat, Blue Sea Blogger Award

Posted in Aga cooking, food, food is medicine, functional food, home baking, home cooking, The Black Cat Blue Sea blogger award, Uncategorized by

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Thank you very much to What Katie Did Next who has nominated me for the wonderful Black Cat, Blue Sea Award.

“This award is for bloggers who strive to write for everybody, and no matter how many viewers they get, make an impact on a reader. This award is an expression of gratitude to the nominee.”

A wonderful gesture from Katie whose blog is both insightful and a fascinating read 🙂

Anyone nominated has to answer three questions, set by the person who nominated them, and then nominate their own recipients whilst also setting them their own three questions to answer.

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The questions set for me to answer are:

1. If you could swap lives with someone for a week, who would it be and why?

It doesn’t say the person has to be living – I would have loved to swap places with Charles Darwin, as he spent time on the Galapagos Islands. Why – because his finds on the island supported his theory that species of living things have changed over time leading to his publishing of The Origin of Species and his theory of evolution by natural selection. Life changing.

2.What is your favourite book, movie and CD?

Favourite book – very difficult to narrow it to one book: To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee (just beats A Suitable Boy by Vikram Seth)

Favourite movie – Old: Breakfast at Tiffany’s   Recent: Pretty Woman

CD – this is so difficult… Pink Floyd – Dark side of the moon.

3.Where do you see yourself in 10 years?

If I’d been asked this 2 months ago my answer would have been very different but having been diagnosed with Breast Cancer and undergoing chemotherapy, radiotherapy and drug therapy…I just want to be here.

I would like to nominate the following people:

Sara Ms.Health-Esteem

Laura Feast Wisely

Fran Nelipot Cottage

Sumith Keralas.live

Dolly Koolkosherkitchen

Grace wingingitbygrace

Deborah and Charlotte Desires of the Foodaholics

My questions for you are:

1.If you were an animal what would you be and why?

2. What is your favourite book?

3. Who is your hero / heroine?