Tag Archives: hot breakfast cereal

A Few Days

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Saturday, May 19, 2018

Today I learned that it is not wise to wear crock type footwear on chilly rainy days. Puddles in parking lots, when the temperature is hovering around 10C, are just waiting for the unsuspecting Crock wearer. I will not be a Crock wearer on another such day, nor will I be unsuspecting.

Tonight supper consisted of leftover homemade pizza, and seedless grapes for dessert. I love fast food pizza, ordered and pickup up, but only on the first day. It looses its appeal when reheated. Homemade pizza is good the first night, and just as good the second or third night. The real bonus for me is is that homemade pizza crust contains no sodium, so that a few slices of pizza won’t put me into sodium overload. Although I love it, I don’t put pepperoni on pizza, it is too high sodium. I do like a bit of low-sodium bacon cooked and crumbled on my homemade pizza, with sweet onions, sweet peppers, and mushrooms. I use my homemade Red Pepper Sauce as well, no sodium in that. The cheese, well, it is the cheese I have to watch, high in sodium, and in cholesterol. The biggest drawback to homemade pizza is that I have to make it, but then, so far Attila is willing participant in pizza construction, so it isn’t so bad at all.

Sunday, May 20, 2018

Well, I started this entry yesterday and got distracted. It didn’t take much to distract me either. Attila was going to the garden centre to spend a $20 gift certificate he received, so I decided to go with him. Today he will plant the tomatoes, peppers, and rosemary. The compost toilets at the Rideau Camp use peat moss, so a good supply was purchased for the 2018 season. It was raining the during the entire visit to the garden centre, which was only partially sheltered. I wore a parka and heavy winter boots, which allowed me to remain comfortable while I wandered about. It is lovely to spend time around growing things… the labels are a big bonus, suddenly I know what I am looking at.

I have had Food Mills recommended to me numerous times. I recently found a relatively good quality one on sale, a Cuisinart Food Mill. It arrived this past week. I tried it for the first time last night. Attila had unearthed yet another bag of vintage whole tomatoes from the freezer. I removed the stem and ends, popped them frozen and whole into a large soup pot, then heated them up until they were thawed and warm. They were drained, ladled into the food mill, and in about 20 minutes a lovely tomato sauce was extracted. Two 500 ml jars of tomato sauce are labelled and in the freezer.

Who knew!! I am in love with the Food Mill. It is so easy, I wonder at the decades I’ve lived without it. How did I do that? I wish I had listened to all of you who told me about the Food Mill quite a while ago!

The skins and seeds were left in the food mill. I scraped them onto a piece of waxed paper, spread them thin, and place the waxed paper on the cooking rack. I am hoping to place the dried skin and seeds in the blender to create a powder for flavouring. The results may or may not be satisfactory.

The clean up was super easy.

Inspired by last night’s success in the kitchen, pre-dawn found me in back there, beginning preparations for my complete protein Vegetable Soup. I was happily chopping vegetables, sautéing the beef and onions, grabbing the bits of this and that that I had saved over the last week, adding them to the soup pot, when Attila rose with the sun.

Attila is planting his garden today. I watch. I occasionally offer input, but never criticism. Breakfast on the back porch consisted of a toasted bagel, and a banana smoothie. Funny how how food tastes even better when you are watching someone else work! But really, Attila is playing, not working, he enjoys gardening so much.

Well, here it is, almost noon, and I am still sitting in my pyjamas; quite comfortably I might add.

I think I’ll get dressed now, and go wander in the garden, see if Attila wants any help.

Worldly Distractions

Weather

18°C
Date: 11:00 AM EDT Sunday 20 May 2018
Condition: Mostly Cloudy
Pressure: 101.5 kPa
Tendency: Rising
Temperature: 18.4°C
Dew point: 12.6°C
Humidity: 69%
Wind: NNW 21 gust 32 km/h
Visibility: 24 km

Quote

“The greatest of faults, I should say, is to be conscious of none.”
Thomas Carlyle
1795 – 1881

The Purple Ball

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Last summer we had a serious wind storm. During that storm, a large purple ball blew into our fenced yard. It would have been quite a feat, jumping that fence, the ball must really have wanted to live here. I’ve been watching that ball, it blows around the yard with every passing breeze. I never know where I’ll see the ball, sometimes it is out of sight altogether, hiding near the back porch, or behind the shed. Most of the time it is resting comfortably somewhere in the yard, against a fence, on the compost heap, beside the ash tree, near the cloths line pole… I’ve grown quite fond of peeking out the kitchen window every morning, just to see where the purple ball has gotten to.

I have to get back to the bank again this week, how tedious! Also, the car has to go in for servicing, which isn’t a big deal, but things have to be scheduled around the event, as it leaves us with one vehicle.

I have decided that this week I will not attend Tai Chi, it is too hard to fit it in. However, if I am honest, there are factors acting as deterrents in my Tai Chi attendance this week. I didn’t want to attend the class with Little Miss Bossy this week. I was going to attend the next day’s class, but it was cancelled for an “intensive” Tai Chi event, which several people were adamant I should attend, which I did not want to attend, and there was a pot luck dinner after the event, Russian Roulette, no thanks, and I didn’t feel up to trying to explain about my allergy, and why I won’t attend the pot luck dinners, which in my experience is regarded as an antisocial act… avoidance seemed the best choice. Then two extra tasks needing a vehicle came up for later in the week, so that is that, no Tai Chi this week. I will be back at it next week. My knee is feeling better every day, so I should be in good form for it.

I have been enjoying hot breakfast cereal every morning over the last few months. I have taken to those offered by Bob’s Red Mill, Whole Wheat Cream of Wheat (discontinued), 6 Grain Cereal, High Fibre Cereal, and one called Mighty Tasty Cereal, a mixture of rice, corn, sorghum and buckwheat. The same method of preparation seems to work for all of them, 1/4 cup cereal, 1 tablespoon of flax seed, 1 tablespoon of desiccated coconut, 4 dates chopped, and 3/4 cup of lactose free milk, or almond milk, depending on my whim. I microwave this mixture for 1 minute, then stir, microwave for 30 seconds more, then stir, and if needed microwave for 30 more seconds, then stir. My adjusted palate finds this mixture dessert-for-breakfast sweet. I find that left to my own devices, I tend to eat the same foods every day. This habit developed as my interest in food dwindled, as more and more foods contained my allergen, and my choices dwindled. So it is quite pleasant to have these four different breakfast cereals, plus regular oatmeal, awaiting my pleasure each morning, choice without danger!

Worldly Distractions

Weather

3C
Date: 4:00 PM EST Tuesday 6 March 2018
Condition: Mostly Cloudy
Pressure: 101.2 kPa
Tendency: Falling
Temperature: 2.8C
Dew point: -5.3C
Humidity: 55%
Wind: ENE 20 km/h
Visibility: 24 km

Quote

“We can’t take any credit for our talents. It’s how we use them that counts.”
Madeleine L’Engle
1918 – 2007