Plumfoodie's diary and ramblings

[Plumfoodie]

It feels like I've been eating all day today, but I was within my calories and made reasonably good choices so I don't mind too much. Apart from the amount of dirty dishes to wash up at the end of the day!

Breakfast: cottage cheese with berries, cherries and mixed seeds

Lunch: salad with mozzarella balls, olives, shredded turkey, red pepper and tomatoes, plus some oatcakes

Snack: olives, nectarine and instant miso soup (not all simultaneously - bit of a hungry fridge-raider snack, this one!)

Snack: pistachios and a glass of milk

Dinner: prawn/chickpea/fennel stew, broccoli, and a Nairns oaty cookie for dessert

 

[CaliSweden]

Food sounds really yummy. I love mozzarella, and miso soup is yummy too

 

[Plumfoodie]

Thanks Cali. Unfortunately the stew didn't work well, something about the combination of our ingredients was just not right. We might try again and follow the recipe more to the letter!

I looove miso. The instant soups are nice and good for a fast snack, but my favourite is to use the paste in a soup from scratch or other dishes. Mmmmiso!

 

[CaliSweden]

Yes, the best one is to use the paste. I boil water first, if I have veggies in it, then I boil those at the same time. Or even meat scraps, from fish, pork, beef, etc, it makes a nice stock for the soup. Then when it's done boiling. I turn the heat off, add the paste in a soup spoon, and mix it in slowly with a fork or chopsticks in the spoon, and let the liquid out the spoon, then add more liquid from the soup in, and mix until all the paste in the spoon is dissolved.

Then I taste the soup to see how thick it is in miso taste, if I want more paste in it or not. But to really make it taste better, you add Bonito dashi or konbu dashi to it. It gives it a whole better taste with more depth. Don't know if you can get your hands on it over there though. I use the powder ones, my mom sends them to me. Dashi - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[Plumfoodie]

Mmm I can see soup in my future today! Thanks for the tip about using the soup spoon to dissolve the miso, that sounds like it will work really well.

We can buy dashi powder online in the UK but usually I'll make some just using dried kombu and dried mushrooms since we can usually get kombu at the supermarket or healthfood store. I don't know how authentic it is but I found the idea online when planning a meal for a vegetarian friend.

http://www.justhungry.com/vegetarian-dashi-japanese-stock in case you are curious!

 

[Plumfoodie]

Yesterday started well and ended not well! After dinner I was on track but then monthly cravings seized me and I gave in! I had 2 mini chocolate bars and a funsize pack of Skittles. A bit pathetically I tell myself that's not so bad as I don't eat the purple ones (ref back to evilness of blackcurrants).

Breakfast: AllBran with berries, cherries, mixed seeds and milk

Snack: oatcakes with pb and no-added-sugar apple butter (I love this stuff and have to ration how often I open a new jar because of the expensive importedness)

Lunch: Quorn fillets and egg-fried rice with peas (made with allowed quantity of basmati, it made a nice portion)

Snack: olives and wafer thin turkey

Snack: hummus w/carrot sticks

Dinner: Greek-style salmon w/quinoa and broccoli

At this point I thought I'd finished for the day, but no...

Snack: 30g chocolate, mini bag of Skittles (importantly minus the purple ones)

Ugh, so much sugar!

 

[CaliSweden]

Ops I meant Ladle for soup, not soup spoon. As a soup spoon is too small. Silly me

 

[CaliSweden]

Hehehe okay it looks like we're all running on the same time schedule now, too fun

Oh skittles they have those there? Why not the purple ones?

Food looked good, and no worries we all understand about the sweets as we're all dealing with our inner Hulkzilla at the same time I think you're doing great

 

[Plumfoodie]

Ahh a ladle sounds more manageable!

The funny thing is I know that eating Skittles will give me an unpleasant sugar buzz (the choc is ok, not so sweet) but yesterday I just couldn't resist. I don't like the purple ones as in the UK they are blackcurrant flavoured, not grape, and I hate blackcurrants with a passion. I don't care how much vitamin C they have; they're little spheres of evil. If I wasn't on my phone I'd now put a whole row of yuck faces. Yuck yuck yuck!

 

[Plumfoodie]

By the way, rarely have I been so excited to see a new clear day on myfitnesspal, LOL!

 

[CaliSweden]

OMG the purple ones are black currants!?! What kind of horrible mind trick/tastebud trick is that. You see purple it should taste like grapes, but instead you get something else, ewwwwwww >_< I can understand why you don't like the grape ones.

 

[Plumfoodie]

I know, every time I accidentally bite into a blackcurrant-not-grape purple candy (not so often now, heh) it's like I'm betrayed all over again!

 

[Plumfoodie]

Today has been a good day. I was feeling pretty sprightly this morning so we went out for a walk along our local canal (well, it's half an hour away, but the path is flat unlike our evil hillside home location where you can't take a flat walk to save your life). I overdid it a little bit, probably should have done 1/2 or 2/3 of what I did, but I'm still feeling ok right now so fingers crossed I haven't knackered myself too much. It was nice to get out into the fresh air and we managed not to get rained on! And I got to play with an iPhone app that told us exactly how far we'd walked, what speed, how many calories I burned, etc. I do love a good gadget.

Food has been on-plan but not on-schedule today. We didn't have breakfast until 12:00 noon, 'morning snack' was at about 4:30pm, lunch at 4:45, and dinner is just cooking now. Oops.

Breakfast: poached egg on rye toast, sausage, lean bacon, mushrooms and tomato, plus a few almonds to get some good fats in

Unofficial, off the record snack: I had a bottle of water, two blueberries, one raspberry, a strawberry, and two extremely restrained bites of carrot cake at a cafe after the walk. I am not counting them

Snack: oatcakes with vegetarian pate (I used to have this stuff all the time when I was veggie, I love it. and so convenient in a squeezy tube!) and a few cashew nuts

Lunch: turkey/lowfat swiss cheese sandwich on low gi multiseed bread (our local bakery sells this baked fresh every day, no idea what's in it but it's delicious). I was so hungry from the walk that this was The Most Delicious Sandwich EVER.

Dinner: random chilli made up of things that were lying around, with a bit of cheese on top

 

[CaliSweden]

I know, every time I accidentally bite into a blackcurrant-not-grape purple candy (not so often now, heh) it's like I'm betrayed all over again!

Too bad I can't put a reason why I "LIKE" your post. I liked it because I can understand how tricky that feels. Like drinking a sprite or something clear with flavor, but grabbing say OH's glass and it has water or something else, and the brain just goes ewwwwwwww.

 

[CaliSweden]

Food sounds really yummy. The veggie pate sounds good, as I can't eat liver, organ meats make me feel sick.

The walk you had sounds lovely, and cool that you got to play with the app. My sis inlaw was showing me an iphone app that does that, really really cool stuff. I guess if I ever get into modern times and get a smart phone I will really want that app

 

[Plumfoodie]

It's amazing to me what the phones can do now, I hardly even use mine as a phone anymore!

You might be able to find veggie pate in a health food store?

 

[CaliSweden]

I'll have to keep my eyes open for veggie pate now I'm always learning new things from you ladies, I love it

 

[Plumfoodie]

Today has been a strange day. But on the plus side I got a lot of laundry done. My legs are a bit stiff from yesterday's walk.

Breakfast: turkey/tomato scrambled eggs and an oat scone with apple butter

Snack: oatcakes with veggie pate and milk

Lunch: turkey/lowfat swiss sandwich on multiseed low GI bread

Dinner: spelt spaghetti with parmesan, and Ikea meatballs (not exactly a balanced meal!)

 

[Plumfoodie]

I think tomorrow I'm going to try a barley risotto. I keep reading that these are the bee's knees for low GI and have now found a nice recipe for one with mushrooms in. We'll see!

 

[CaliSweden]

Food looks good Plum, I hope you're feeling better today. The barley risotto sounds really yummy.