So, it's going really well. Guts are sorting themselves out. Arthritis less annoying, still there, I mean, it's not a miracle cure but I did a whole workout at the gym with weights this morning without thinking about my arthritic knee or my owie toe (pro tip--do NOT drop logs on the joint between your big toe and your foot and then ignore it because it doesn't bruise. Damaged all the tendons/ligaments which froze up and now I'm like 3 months in to trying to get the mobility back to what it was.). The toe mobility is coming along, I suspect the lower inflammation level is helping. Maybe it is placebo effect and I don't care.
Also, not as itchy. I have the driest skin on the planet according to a healthcare provider and it is often itchy. Less so now.
I've made my own chocolate treats like mochas with dehydrated coconut milk powder, just coconut bits, home brewed coffee (drinking 1/2 as much as before...2 cups per day rather than 4), and cocoa powder. No sweetener. It's quite good. So that helps with the skipping candy bars at the store even when on super sale. I stocked up on cocoa powder just for this.
The chickens are laying well now so eating more eggs. Some people find them inflammatory but I seem to do fine on them.
Eating a tiny bit of whole wheat organic flour. About a cup a week cooked into things like chocolate service berry bannock made with no-sodium baking soda or no-sodium baking powder. I have a bit of vanilla extract, organic real stuff, if I want to kick it up but so far haven't bothered.
Having banana eggs or just eggs and anti-inflammatory spice mix for breakfast most days.
To support my good diet, I'm buying more produce, while keeping it frugal. Last Saturday I had to be in town for a thing so I combined that with my grocery run and laundry duties to minimize trips.
I got organic purple and green cauliflower heads, one each, for $1.50 each! Since they each weighed over 1.5lbs, I hit my "Dollar a pound all year round" (that's a Jeff Yeager guideline for saving $$ on groceries...buy what is cheap and use it all).
I made a critical error when cooking up the first head, the green cauliflower. I cut out the stem and leaves and put it in the chicken bucket (a pan that holds food scraps that the chickens can eat...then I add water and let it cook on the wood stove if that stove is going, because chickens don't eat raw onions). OOPS! I Don't keep that pan clean enough for human consumption of contents so...darn it!
I had forgotten that the stems are fine diced up small and put in soup or mashed potatoes or whatever! Even fried up. Same with the leaves and the ribs from the leaves! It was like 1/2 the weight of the cauliflower.
SO, yesterday I had the purple cauliflower florets for lunch with some boiled eggs and a dressing made from the dregs of fancy mustard, vinegar and olive oil. It was good.
I KEPT the stem and leaves in a bag and took them home. Last night I diced them up into a pan. There was about 1.5 cups of usable food. The chickens just got those dry hard nubbins from where there were cuts/trims. I added water, a chopped onion, a couple of carrots (saved the top bits to regrow the greens in little cups of water because that is fun and carrot tops are my go-to version of parsley), a 1/4 cup of dry green split peas. This is my first attempt at cooking split peas. Seasonings: marjoram, thyme, fennel (the stuff I have the most of...that's how I chose) We'll see at lunch today how it is.
Brought it to a boil and simmered it until I got sick of simmering it. No, I did not fry the onion. I could have but then everything I own stinks of fried onion. It's in a jar in the work fridge. Most of it. There was like 3/4 of a cup of soup that would not fit in the jar so that's at the house (which was 34degs F when I lift this morning, basically the whole place is a fridge today) waiting to become tomato soup tonight. I'll add more water and a can of (low sodium) tomato paste. Again, tomatoes inflammatory to some but I do well on them. That usually makes a decent tomato soup. Pepper and vinegar can fix most crappy soups.
Lesson: cook up the stems. If you want, you can peel them. The peel is usually the hard, fibrous, bitter part. ALSO full of vitamins and whatnot. I left it on this time. Of course I wash my veg too. If I don't care for the skin in this soup, I might leave it out next time.
My groceries, being INGREDIENTS and PRODUCE was cheap! I threw in some probiotics which were on a rare 20% off sale and might encourage the guts to improve. My Dr. (jesus I'm old...I still BLOG and I quote my Dr...) approves of them. Also stocked up on the powdered coconut milk. It was on the same 20% off sale and I don't tend to binge use it if I stock up. Unlike nuts and dried fruit...I don't dare have a back stock of nuts, nut butter or dried fruit because apparently that is my kryptonite. I just eat the entire stock way to fast and throw my guts out of whack.
Groceries, for 2 weeks plus some restocking, was about 27$. That is being used with my pantry staples like the flour, cocoa, coffee, tea, and fresh eggs. I spend about an hour in the evening making something for the next few days lunches if need be. That keeps me from spending that evening sitting in a chair spiraling down a youtube rat hole. And of course it saves me running to the store for something for those lunches which happened now and then before.
No comments:
Post a Comment