"What have you eaten" Parallel Chat

[jpscloud]

You could screw some boards on your windowsills and make them 3 times as deep, for 3 times the amount of growing stuff.
Easier than moving house!

Good idea! I've temporarily put some bargain basement corner shelf things in the sides to give me a bit more growing space, and I'll very soon be able to put the lettuce and rocket out into the polytunnel, and keep just a few inside to grow quickly. The tomatoes and chillis don't need a windowsill because I'll have strong enough grow lights for them, so there's just the dwarf french beans (if I ever get them growing) for the windowsills then.

I didn't fancy the quiche for breakfast so I had porridge, surprisingly little rise in blood sugars after that, then quiche and salad for lunch and a very naughty takeaway for tea.

Early evening I had a small portion of slow cooked beef made by Andries

I love slow cooked beef, I must have a look in the supermarkets for some brisket or braising steak.

Good luck for tomorrow with the swimming!

 

[jpscloud]

My coverless duvet arrived yesterday and I tried it last night. Very comfortable and a great idea. I ordered another one today and it should arrive on Monday. It will never go into my washing machine, but I will ask DIL to launder it in her big, professional washing machine.

Glad it's a success! I have lower tog ones, and double them up according to season, so individually they go in my washing machine.

 

[Annb]

Breakfast: ham salad in a defrosted and refreshed (in the oven) roll. Tea.

2nd meal will have to be the bacon and cabbage thing that I planned a day or so back.

 

[jpscloud]

Yesterday I had porridge for breakfast again, sausage and egg for lunch and quiche with salad for tea. Some snacky things too.

I'm determined to do a bit of tidying downstairs today, there's not much more to declutter, but everything is piled up and disorganised while my cupboards are pretty much empty after several decluttering events! It really does look like I have some sort of psychological issue with organising and putting away. I always used to assume it was because I was overwhelmed and had no time when I worked full time and cared for my parents, then later grieving and depression dominated - but now I feel good and have time, so I don't know.

Breakfast is porridge, it seems to be fine with blood sugars as long as I keep moving around, lunch will be salad with something and tea I think will be resistant starch rice with chicken, but I might change my mind.

Edit: lunch is salad with the last of the quiche

 

[Annb]

Breakfast was Mushroom Fu Yung and a cup of tea.

2nd meal will be more of the cabbage and bacon.

There are some mushrooms left to use to I'll make a quick mushroom soup for tomorrow with some garlic and onion.

 

[Annb]

Cabbage and bacon for breakfast. Plus tea, of course.
Cream of mushroom soup for 2nd meal.

BG started off high today (9.6). After breakfast it dropped to 3.7 but a couple of digestive biscuits brought it back to 4.5 so I'm happy with that. All this yo-yoing makes me think HBa1c is pretty meaningless - it can only give an average figure over the period but doesn't really indicate what is going on. Never mind, the nurse is happy and I'll just carry on carrying on.

 

[jpscloud]

I got a bit done yesterday downstairs and a bit more this morning but I'm feeling a bit blah today - my sleep got a bit messed up and now I just want a nap, but I'm resisting because I want to get back to early mornings.

I had a small portion of porridge for breakfast, lunch was tuna salad with my home grown cosberg, rocket, pea shoots and onion greens and cucumer, also some iceberg lettuce because my lettuce isn't very big yet. A couple of snacks as well.

For tea I think I'll have the chicken and rice meal I planned for yesterday but had sausages and beans instead.

 

[Annb]

Breakfast: avocado spread onto Jacob's crackers. Tea.
2nd meal will be 2 courses - the last of the cream of mushroom soup followed by spiced chicken and peas,

 

[jpscloud]

I've had a good day - I got a good night's sleep and was up before 7am, ran some errands in the morning and did a little tidying in the afternoon.

I had a small portion of porridge for breakfast, chicken with mayo, lettuce, pea shoots and a tiny sprinkle of sweetcorn for lunch and I'm not at all hungry now so not sure what to have for tea, it might just be another piece of chicken as I have some in the fridge to use up.

 

[Antje77]

Unexpected visit from neighbour Astrid, tenant Andries joined, beer followed, then it was too late to cook a proper meal (for which I didn't have groceries anyway), and then Andries and Astrid decided to raid neighbour Tale's freezer and borrow his airfryer. Tale is away for work, his freezer lives in my barn, they nicked his airfryer from his unlocked home/trailer in my garden to use in my kitchen.

Anyway, I now know the DiaBox app connected to my Libre plays a very happy song to celebrate a rare treat of chips, a kroket and a kaassoufflé, and I'll go back to being a sensible diabetic tomorrow.

 

[Annb]

Breakfast: Eggy bread. I know, I know, but it was what I wanted. Tea, of course.
BG was ridiculously high at 03.00 today (16.4) even though it was around 9 when I went to bed at 24.30. Insulin brought it right down though and into range, so I figured I could get away with the eggy bread. Currently 6.6.

2nd meal - ready to go - will be based on the idea of stovies but made with minced beef, instead of sausage and celeriac instead of potato. Not sure that it looks all that good, but it should taste alright.

 

[jpscloud]

I bet that celeriac tasted lovely @Annb, I love it in savoury mince and actually prefer it to potato. And you've reminded me I must grow some this year - this time I will give them enough room to grow!

I had the usual small portion of porridge for breakfast, salad with chicken for lunch (I miscalculated my freezer space so still need to use another pack up tomorrow!) and sausage and egg for tea. One little snack today.

I managed to persuade a few dwarf french beans to germinate! I got one tendercrop, seven faraday and lots of yin yang. I'm looking forward to yin yang as shelled beans if I get the growing right. Initially they'll all be indoors but some might get evicted in late spring.

It was a lovely day here today, but I didn't get in the garden. Maybe tomorrow! So many jobs to do but first needs to be sorting out the polytunnel so it's ready for early spring, literally only a few weeks away now!

 

[Annb]

Well. My mock stovies didn't work. It tasted as bad as it looked. Mainly, I suppose, it was the texture. Would have been better without the mince. It went into the bin and I had some crackers with some ham and a few grapes instead.

 

[Annb]

Breakfast: toasted brioche bun out of the freezer with butter and a cup of tea. Pushed BG up to 12.5, despite insulin. Guess the chilling/defrosting doesn't work with brioches.
2nd meal will be beef meatballs in tomato sauce. Made the meatballs yesterday and it will take no time at all to make the tomato sauce. Might top the meatballs with slices of cheese - just for fun.

 

[jpscloud]

I didn't do much today, just pottered around. I had a hospital appointment a few days ago and predictably I'm feeling a bit under the weather now, hot and cold with some aches and pains, fatigued. I seem to always get a little something a few days after a hospital visit! It almost always goes in a few days and rarely amounts to anything, so fingers crossed. Ironically, I cancelled and rearranged the original (non urgent) appointment because I had a sore throat and didn't want to gift that to anyone.

I didn't have breakfast, no appetite, and had an early lunch of salad with cottage cheese. I've had an early tea of chicken with some mashed swede, roast potatoes and gravy. BG seems ok with roasties, again I move around a bit for an hour or so after eating and along with the medications I take that seems to keep things pretty level. Feeling a bit drained now and might get an early night.

 

[Antje77]

2nd meal will be beef meatballs in tomato sauce. Made the meatballs yesterday and it will take no time at all to make the tomato sauce. Might top the meatballs with slices of cheese - just for fun.

I found a dish I may want to cook for my vegan birthday guests (the others can eat from the barbecue), but it was a very quick paced video and no clue on how to make the tomato sauce. I've never made a tomato sauce to serve something in. A tomato sauce that takes no time at all sounds just like the right thing, can you tell me how you make it?

The weather in the Netherlands has suddenly turned from a very long, cold and grey winter to full blown spring, peaking at 18°C!
So I started my day with a quick swim, warming up again during the 30 minutes drive to the boat. My sailing partner had a doctors appointment so I went on my own first, picking him up after two hours for a second round.
It was just a tad too windy to comfortably pour and drink coffee while manning the boat on my own, so I paused for a wonderful coffee break before picking up my partner.

At some point I had an egg, and half a small bag of crisps to prevent a low.
I still had leftover salad from yesterday for dinner, and I stopped at the supermarket on my way back to get something to go with it. My stomach still doesn't really want meat, but I really fancied some fish. Lucky me, they sold fresh cod fillet at 70% off!
Bought a pack for today and one for the freezer, and had it with some kind of thrown together mustard sauce.

 

[Annb]

I found a dish I may want to cook for my vegan birthday guests (the others can eat from the barbecue), but it was a very quick paced video and no clue on how to make the tomato sauce. I've never made a tomato sauce to serve something in. A tomato sauce that takes no time at all sounds just like the right thing, can you tell me how you make it?

My usual tomato sauce is:

1 medium onion, chopped
crushed garlic to taste (depends on the size of the cloves)
1 tin chopped tomatoes
large knob of butter plus some oil to prevent burning
season to taste
stock cube to season (beef, chicken or veg)
(if you don’t use a stock cube or stock pot, you might need to add a teaspoon of sugar to take away the sharpness of the tomatoes)
fresh basil leaves torn

Melt the butter in the oil and sweat onion until translucent
Add the crushed garlic and cook for a further minute or so
Add the tin of tomatoes plus a full can of water
Add seasoning and stir to make sure the stock cube/pot dissolves
Simmer for about 20 minutes for a thin sauce or reduce until it reaches the consistency you want
Tear up the basil leaves and stir into the sauce
Puree with a blender and, if preferred it can go through a sieve as well

NOTE: you can add paprika if you like, or some people add HP sauce to taste for a spicier sauce

QUICK VERSION

1 tin chopped tomatoes
¼ cup dried, crispy onions
1 tbsp onion powder
1 tsp garlic powder
2 tbsp mushroom powder
large knob of butter
season to taste
stock cube to season
2 heaped tsp paprika
fresh basil leaves, torn

Melt butter
Stir in onion, onion powder, garlic, paprika and mushroom powder
Add seasoning
Empty tin of tomatoes into the pan, stirring to mix into the powders
Add ½ can full of water
Simmer about 15 minutes
Tear in basil leaves
Puree with a blender

NOTE: You can use fresh mushrooms, but would need to cook them in the butter at the beginning, before adding the powders.

NOTE: I sometimes like to add some more butter at the end to improve the flavour.

EDIT: It did, finally, let me post, but only when I deleted much of the original message from @Antje77

 

[Antje77]

Thank you so much @Annb , this is just the kind of recipe I needed, sounds very tasty too!
I'll cook the slightly longer version, I don't mind chopping onions, and the few times I bought onion or garlic powder it turned into a brick within a few weeks, I don't heat my kitchen. Useless stuff in my rather damp house.

I like the idea of the mushrooms, they should add flavour, especially because I'll have to skip the butter if my vegan friend comes over. If only vegetarian friend I'll use butter.

EDIT: It did, finally, let me post, but only when I deleted much of the original message from @Antje77

If you tried to quote the part with the pictures, that may have been the problem. Pictures are hit and miss.

 

[Annb]

Breakfast: a ham toastie - using some frozen white bread slices. Tea
2nd meal will be more of the meatballs in tomato sauce.

Legs day today, so the simpler the food the better - it usually knocks me out going to the Health Centre.

EDIT: I made some pastries yesterday. There's a children's party coming up so I'm putting some eats together for that. The pastries are a kind of sausage roll but with a disc of sausage with a ring of pastry round it. I've noticed that children seem to prefer the sausage to the pastry in normal sausage rolls, so we'll see how these go down. Had pastry left over so I made some individual pastry cases and put them in the fridge overnight for baking off today. They're in the oven right now. Once done and cooled, I'll put them in the freezer for future use.

Just have to get around to making some cupcakes now - same principle, less cake and more topping.

 

[Annb]

I've been told that someone else is providing lots of sweet things for the children's party but there are a lot of parents to cater for as well so I've been asked to make soup instead (something hot for this cold weather). It's going to be butternut squash soup.

The sausage rolls I made are OK but I should have realised that the heat required to cook the pastry was too much for the exposed sausage which now has a very hard surface. They are not good enough to be offered to people so I had a couple of them for breakfast.

2nd meal will be at the children's party so will probably be soup.