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"What have you eaten" Parallel Chat

Managed a glorious sea front low carb picnic yesterday - despite the weather odds, especially as it rained at home much of the day so feel like we rolled the lucky dice. Also had a small tub of vanilla ice cream mid afternoon - very sweet but enjoyed it.
Not sure about today as some low carb quiche left over will see how we feel later. Salad will be involved. The salad leaves look very perky this morning after their day long watering!
Aiming to freeze some of the small tomatoes later today to store for roasting in small batches over the next few months.
 
I was out today for lunch at a vegetable farm place, they grow produce for veg boxes and have a field kitchen. It was amazing, quite expensive but really lovely food.

I had porridge for breakfast and will have something from the freezer for tea - must go and have a look for something now.
 
Proper rain this morning - really making a difference to the garden. I managed to freeze lots of portions of black Russian tomatoes yesterday ready for future roasting but still have a fair few tomatoes to harvest! Mmm wonder what's for breakfast!
Planning a chicken curry for dinner tonight and hoping to make a batch of Panda Flour flatbread so can have one with it.
Definitely more of a cooking weekend ahead as stocks running low of low carb baking and it's cooler!
 
Porridge for breakfast, tuna salad for lunch and chicken and mushroom with garlic, ginger and chillies in coconut milk (slow cooker batch cooking today!) for tea.

Plenty of rain now, every day! I'm going to harvest my winter squash today, I'm nervous about slugs and rotting now it's wet every day. Yesterday one of the side dishes was roast uchiki kuri squash which I am growing, and it was so delicious, quite like sweet potato in texture and flavour. If they store well I'm all set up for a roast squash winter.

I need to dodge the rain to fill up the garden bin now I'm paying for it, before Weds, so that's the main garden job for now.
 
Ham sandwich for breakfast. I don't know why I bother really because the bread we get here is so awful but I got it for a recipe, and it was there, and my mouth was sore so RyVita didn't appeal. Tea.

Still struggling to move around so 2nd meal will have to be something ready just to defrost and eat.
 
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Very dark and rainy here this morning. Yesterday I ended up picking and freezing the last of the dwarf french beans which had a very prolific last flush even though they're in small containers - they were consistently watered and given tomato food and really seemed to thrive in the heat. So I didn't get around to picking the squash, I'll do that today.

I had porridge for breakfast, it'll be salad for lunch probably with tuna again and chicken and mushroom for tea.
 
Planning to roast a chicken and some sausages this morning ready to mainly eat cold for meals over next few days with salads. Will also make a hummus for lunches over next few days.
Hoping to spend some time out in the garden today during any dry spells - doing some cutting back and yet more tomato harvesting!
 
Breakfast casserole for 1st meal. (bacon, onion and bread in a custard of eggs and double cream). Made it yesterday and chilled it overnight to reduce carb action. Tea.

BG just dropped into the 3's so I had a can of espresso to bring it back up. Now in the 4's.

2nd meal: An experimental baked dish of mushroom, onion, peas and red lentil pasta in cream and milk (using up the cream before it gets too old but it was so thick that I had to thin it down with some milk). It half cooked it yesterday and will bake it off this afternoon.
 
@Annb, your casserole sounds delicious! We had ham with a courgette and new potato dish that I love, followed by blackberry-and-apple with a small scoop of vanilla ice cream. Oh, but I shall be glad to get back to my own kitchen tomorrow! My sister is back but staying with her partner overnight, ready to resume care tomorrow. I love being here, and I love my Mum and she really doesn't need much care, but cooking in someone else's kitchen...
 
There was rather a lot of the breakfast casserole so I divided it in 2 and had it twice yesterday. Which leaves the baked experiment for finishing off today instead. That will be meal number 2.

Breakfast will be ham and cottage cheese with some tomato. I'll have to have it soon. I am expecting a visitor this morning so will have to get myself organised early.
 
Bright and almost chilly this morning while I was out in the garden harvesting tomatoes for today's cooking plans. I'm going to slow cook a rich garlic and tomato sauce (almost tomato puree texture) this morning for a low carb pizza I'm planning to make later. I'll also use a few of the chillies I've grown but with care as I've not tested their level of heat yet!
I made hummus yesterday but accidentally opened cannellini beans rather than chick peas. It produced a much smoother hummus, more like a dip, but very flavoursome.
Hope everyone has a good bank holiday Monday.
 
Porridge for breakfast, cottage cheese salad for lunch, chicken and mushroom for tea.

I discovered one of the containers with swedes in that has been covered up is now literally full of whitefly and greenfly! I've taken off the cover so the predators can get in there - there are ladybirds and their larvae around still - and will keep an eye on the other containers. Of course, if there are any cabbage root flies still around they will immediately move in - everything wants to eat my brassicas! I'll try nematodes again maybe.
 
Am home. Am exhausted and my insides are playing up a bit! Supper will be last night's courgette and new potato dish with a hard-boiled egg (snack pot from Tesco as I got us a meal deal for lunch as I realised I couldn't wait to get home and go to Lidl, although we pass several Lidls on the way home we could have stopped at, but brain fog....).
 
A sunny morning today, so I'll be off out into the garden as soon as I've done my morning jobs indoors. I thought I might have to clear everything out of the mini polytunnel now, with all the cold dark wet weather - but it looks like we'll have at least a bit of sun and night time temperatures are still above 12 for the moment, so I'll wait a bit.

I'll risk bringing my polytunnel calamondin tree indoors, the risk being whitefly and scale insect, but it's covered in flowers and I really like using calamondin in cooking so in it comes. It can go under grow lights on a heat mat with the chillies which are flowering again but whether the fruit sets or not, we'll have to see!

I picked all the squash, the 5 uchiki kuri are definitely ready but the 3 crown prince probably could have done with another couple of weeks of sun, but they weren't getting that so I'll hope they ripen more indoors.

I also picked my single cauliflower - the others aren't heading up yet - and I'll have half of it tonight with my tea and the other half tomorrow. I'm very cross with the caterpillars that somehow were inside the cover and ate all the tender leaves closest to the florets, which I really love. At least they left me the florets I suppose!

Porridge for breakfast, something with salad for lunch and chicken and mushroom for tea with garden vegetables.
 
@jpscloud feel for you with the fly attack on your swedes. Enjoy your gardening today. I had an issue with my rocket leaves - they looked like lace rather than salad leaves!
Made a wonderful tomato puree yesterday as a low carb pizza topping and froze some for future use too.
Off out soon so planning something simple later maybe chicken and mushrooms. Just about to have some low carb granola before heading out.
 
I think I'm glad I don't have a garden! Except for a pot of basil on the window-sill! Which survived going down to Sussex, even though I did tend to use it in preference to the pot there, as mine was more visible! Blood glucose 6.0 today:(. Back to overnight oats (actually 2-hour oats, as I was too tired to put them on last night so put them on first thing) for breakfast - all last week I had bran flakes or grape nuts with fruit and yoghurt (which my mother has, and very nice for a change); lunch was a ham, cheese and pickle sandwich on (I think) seeded sourdough bread (but it may have been a low GI loaf) followed by an ice lolly. Supper will be some kind of chicken and rice - I'm thinking a lazy Mediterranean chicken pilaf, or else some kind of curried chicken. I saw a YouTube hack the other day where he par-fried his chicken breasts, then spread them with a mixture of mango chutney and curry paste and finished them off in the air-fryer, which sounded extremely good! I need to find the energy to go out to Lidl, though - still rather tired today.
Edited because I'd typed microwave when I meant air fryer - brain fog, again!
 
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I think I'm glad I don't have a garden! Except for a pot of basil on the window-sill! Which survived going down to Sussex, even though I did tend to use it in preference to the pot there, as mine was more visible! Blood glucose 6.0 today:(. Back to overnight oats (actually 2-hour oats, as I was too tired to put them on last night so put them on first thing) for breakfast - all last week I had bran flakes or grape nuts with fruit and yoghurt (which my mother has, and very nice for a change); lunch was a ham, cheese and pickle sandwich on (I think) seeded sourdough bread (but it may have been a low GI loaf) followed by an ice lolly. Supper will be some kind of chicken and rice - I'm thinking a lazy Mediterranean chicken pilaf, or else some kind of curried chicken. I saw a YouTube hack the other day where he par-fried his chicken breasts, then spread them with a mixture of mango chutney and curry paste and finished them off in the microwave, which sounded extremely good! I need to find the energy to go out to Lidl, though - still rather tired today.
My problem (one of them) is that I do have a garden - rather a big one plus 3 acres of croft. The croft is OK - our neighbour grazes his sheep on it since we can't manage that any more, but the garden is wild and getting wilder. I can't do it any more and even my pot plants aren't flourishing. Neil manages to keep the grass down, but that's all he can do. What survives has to be strong enough to do without any kind of help, so we have a small forest with some paths cut through it, plus some shrubs hiding us from view from the road. My late husband would be horrified - he was a keen vegetable gardener. It makes me quite sad not to be able to do any kind of gardening any more but I have come to the conclusion that I have more important needs for my waning energy levels than trying to get cans of water to my pot plants. Some have survived the reduced water levels - just on rain water, some haven't. The crocosmia are wonderful though and do very well with no help at all. In fact, they have even stopped the onward march of the rampant sea buckthorn, which themselves have put some wild rhododendron in their place.
 
My problem (one of them) is that I do have a garden - rather a big one plus 3 acres of croft. The croft is OK - our neighbour grazes his sheep on it since we can't manage that any more, but the garden is wild and getting wilder. I can't do it any more and even my pot plants aren't flourishing. Neil manages to keep the grass down, but that's all he can do. What survives has to be strong enough to do without any kind of help, so we have a small forest with some paths cut through it, plus some shrubs hiding us from view from the road. My late husband would be horrified - he was a keen vegetable gardener. It makes me quite sad not to be able to do any kind of gardening any more but I have come to the conclusion that I have more important needs for my waning energy levels than trying to get cans of water to my pot plants. Some have survived the reduced water levels - just on rain water, some haven't. The crocosmia are wonderful though and do very well with no help at all. In fact, they have even stopped the onward march of the rampant sea buckthorn, which themselves have put some wild rhododendron in their place.
A garden is a success if it has one thing that brings you joy each time you go in it - never mind how overgrown it gets, a couple of determined chaps with the right tools will have it all cut back in no time should you decide to get someone to do it. I do love how crocosmia look but I think I've said before, I had a nightmare trying to limit the spread of the ones at mum's house when I became responsible for her garden!
 
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