I Might Never Eat Ice Cream Again

 Is there anything that a big ol' bucket of chia seeds can't do? 

I started using chia seeds a while back in place of pill-form laxatives and to bake with. (Did that even sound right???)

Anyway.

Chia seeds are awesome baked into bread, sprinkled onto sandwiches and salads, and in smoothies. Because they are also priced very reasonably, I don' think I have been without one of the big 2-lb, 9-dollar buckets for a while now.

The ones I get are
just under $9.00
for 2 pounds

But now... Oh, boy, now I've found a recipe that takes chia seeds to the next level.

I present to you something that tastes 6 million times better than my photo of it looks.

 

I'm a bad photographer!

That is chia seed pudding - or, as I call it, chia seed ice cream. Some people call it "Nice Pudding". Cute.

Listen. I got the first basic recipe from this Clean and Delicious video. I didn't have some of the stuff she had and I didn't want to make multiple flavors. This is her base recipe here and you can find variations under her video.

Original Chia Pudding Base Recipe (from Clean & Delicious):

• 1/2 cup unsweetened almond milk (or your favorite milk)
• 2 tbsp. chia seeds
• 1 tbsp. maple syrup (or your favorite sweetener)

Combine all ingredients in a wide mouth mason jar and stir well.  Refrigerate for a minimum of 4 hours and up to 5 days.  Enjoy with your favorite toppings.

Nutrients per recipe: Calories: 202; Total Fat: 9.5g; Saturated Fat: 1g; Cholesterol: 0mg; Carbohydrate: 24.4g; Fiber: 9.5g; Sugars: 11.9g; Protein: 6.5g 

I gave you hers so that you can see the nutrition label she put up. As I said, I did not have all the things she did so I went with this:

My version of the recipe:

• 1 cup liquid (which was coconut cream thinned with coconut water since that's what I had)
•  3 tbsp. chia seeds
•  1 tbsp. Specially Selected Raw Honey (from Aldi's because I was out of Nature Nate's Unfiltered)

• 1.5 tbsp. Hershey's unsweetened 100% cocao powder (don't ask me the difference right now)
• 1 tsp. Ceylon cinnamon
• A drop or 2 of vanilla extract 

Combine all ingredients in a wide mouth mason jar and shake well.  Refrigerate for a minimum overnight and eat really cold. I will even put it in the freezer for 20 minutes or so beforehand.

My photo came out horrible and I keep forgetting to get photos before I eat it up! I am going to post other people's nicer shots on this post...

I was having a weird kitchen pantry kind of day. I was going to use coconut milk for my liquid but... You're supposed to be able to get coconut milk by mixing a certain amount of water into the cream but I was too impatient to look that up. My concoction came out so yummy that I love it. It's like very cold, slightly melted chocolate ice cream.

Oatmilk or vanilla soy might be great in this but I am kind of loving the coconut cream and think I will keep that part.

The best thing about this is that I end up getting my daily serving of chia seeds even when I am tired of blending up my blueberry-chia smoothies. I love me some blueberries but, boy, I get tired of them after about a week or 2. Also, coconut cream is cheaper than blueberries and, without looking up the details, I know I read somewhere about how good cacao is for the body. 

This is so much like chocolate ice cream that I keep telling myself that I can indulge more often. I really like ice cream but rarely bother getting any because it's too many useless calories. This stuff, on the other hand...

So yeah. I just wanted to pass along that recipe. I had never heard of using chia seeds this way. In the future, I might doll things up with chocolate shavings or by adding some blueberries or strawberries as a topping. Lord knows I have a bunch of frozen blueberries. A few weeks ago, Hyvee mistakenly put 2 of those 1-pound containers of fresh strawberries in my delivery. When I called to let them know, they told me it was their mistake so not to worry. I rinsed and froze those bad boys. Now I have a way to use up some of them.

Some Tips & Recipe Variations

• My pudding ice cream does not get thick enough to scoop like some others.  This all depends on what liquid you use and how many seeds you use. I am fine with my thinner version. 
• Here are some variations and some troubleshooting tips (too thick thin, or lumpy).
• More tips on lumping issues.
• This Black Forest version might tempt some of you.
• How about meal-prepping or freezing your pudding?
• And if you want to make it a protein pudding.
• Chia pudding does not have to be sweet. Here is one recipe and here is another.

I'm going to shut this post down now. I have some chocolate pudding that's just about ready for my evening snack!

Peace

--Free

**RECIPES** Drinking Chia Seeds (without gagging)

**UPDATE**

I have CKD stage 3b and have learned that I have to watch my intake of chia seeds. 

Before you ever try something new in your diet, make sure to talk to your medical care team.

 Chia seeds are a great source of fiber, highly nutritious, high in antioxidants, a good source of protein, and omega 3. 

You can get a nice fix of seeds by mixing them into food, cereals, and baked goods.

Or - and this is the quickest way to ingest them - you can drink them. People make chia water or add chia to their juices. 

Personally, I have a slight aversion to the texture of soaked chia seeds. I can deal better with them in a juice because it reminds me of drinking aloe juice with the pulp. Otherwise, I just feel like I'm drinking globulets of something. Ick.

So here is what I came up with and want to share with anyone interested. I dump the chia (about 2 tablespoons twice a day) into about 8 ounces of water and drink it down before the seeds plump. 

Of course, I do have to swish some follow-up water to rinse away any residual seeds from my mouth and teeth but I don't mind. 

Because I'm not crazy about wet seeds, I bake them into this cookie recipe. (My alterations below the recipe.)

Apologies to Allrecipes but showing an image was easier than typing out the recipe because my brain is on off-mode today.

Source Link 
Allrecipes.com

My alterations & notes:

• I omit the raisins so my cookies are flatter. Adding an extra tablespoon or so bulks them up or you can add more oats.
• I omit the coconut flakes and double up on the seeds. I go overboard with chia, flax and sunflower. I also add about 2 tablespoons of ground flax.
• I once cut back slightly on the dry sugars. Instead of 1 cup each, I did about 3/4 cup each. And...
• I once substituted half the brown sugar with a golden monk fruit sweetener. This is the one time that I couldn't tell a huge difference in substituted sweetener.
• I once used 1 2/4 cup brown sugar (half light/half dark) and 2/4 cup white sugar for a total of 2 cups of sugar in the recipe. This was good but I really had to watch the bake time!
• As with any recipe, don't let the butter get too soft for creaming. I did this once and my cookies literally melted and stuck to the parchment. I couldn't even scrape them off and ended up wasting all those precious ingredients...
• I tried adding a tablespoon of blackstrap molasses once and this gave the cookies a darker bake and a slightly sweeter texture. Watch your bake though, the extra sweetness can shorten the time in the oven.
• This recipe can take a LOT of chia seeds. They are small enough that they don't over-bulk the dough.

This recipe is pretty forgiving and I've found you can play with a lot of the ingredients as long as your basic dry ingredients remain about the same.

The chia seeds kind of pop when you bite them

That's just one way to get a lot of chia seeds (and make your sweet tooth happy) but if you want to keep it healthier, stick to the waters. 

I do my first hit of chia water in the morning before I eat or drink anything else. I take another hit at night before bed (or earlier if I want to curb snack cravings). 

Knocking back the seeds this way is so much easier for me than dealing with wet clumps of them.

NOTE: I didn't find this out until I was prepping for this post. Apparently, if you have renal issues... 

oh, me, me!

:-(

...you should read up about ingesting lots of chia. Sucks for me. I will be checking with my docs since I am just borderline because of the sarcoidosis...

Peace

--Free

Bake Away The Blues (Bread & Water Roux)

 When I get stressed, baking helps calm me. Stress seems to send signals to my sarc to join the party so my brain might not be functioning well enough to do anything complicated. But I can almost always bake.

October was not good for my life. As if 2020 doesn't suck hard enough, it doesn't want to go out without dragging down as much joy as it can... Can I get an amen?

Anyway.

I spent about 3 days on the couch, not able to move or care. I watched YouTube videos hour after hour after hour. When I started getting sore from laying there, I decided to get up and maybe bake something - bread or rolls from scratch. Then, at some point, I got it into my head that I wanted to find a video on how to make brioche. 

Most videos on making brioche are either too talky. All I wanted was a recipe. I found one and... What a mess. I basically wasted a lot of flour, butter, eggs, and sugar. I should have looked at the comments before trying the recipe because there were a lot of people wondering just what the heck the baker was doing.

Also, I don't have a stand mixer. That seemed to be a must-have for kneading brioche dough. I was discouraged until I found the more awesome YouTube channel ever for baking recipes. The. Most. Awesome. Ever. 

The host/baker/cook in the Savor Easy videos ticks all the boxes for making great instructional videos. The entire focus is on the ingredients and procedure. Tomorrow, I will be trying a new batch of brioche.

Isn't that the best baking video? No frill, no life stories told, just right-to-the-point instructions. I need to learn from her! I'm hoping she has a recipe for babka. I've been wanting to bake one of those since forever.

I don't have the energy to start baking yet. I'm still mostly confined to the couch because, on top of everything else (cue the violins), I have a cold I can't shake. 

But -

Until I can get on my feet long enough to bake, I have been enjoying the Culinary Boot Camp videos from Chef Jacob Burton's channel. 

Like I said, baking/cooking is a stress reliever. I go through cycles of liking either baking or cooking, one more than the other. Winter seems to bring out my inner baker chick.  I don't like complicated baking challenges. You won't ever see me doing anything that involves preparing more than one dough or pastry for a finished product. I will never, ever qualify for The Great British Bakeoff. I like simple things that I can share with family or neighbors.

how satisfying is that?

There is nothing more simple in the baking world than bread, right? Well, I was always kind of terrified of making bread. A couple of years ago, I found a recipe from the Big Family Homestead channel and I made their recipe for Amish Sweet Bread. It was fun and easy and made the apartment smell fabulous. This is the recipe and it's actually called just "Amish White Bread". My bad. They actually have a good playlist of recipes very worth checking out.

I have talked about making Japanese Milk Bread for the longest. I just never felt comfortable with the recipes I found. Welp, Savor Easy has me covered. Theirs doesn't look the exact same as other recipes I've watched, but I think it will be good enough for me. I learned a while back that the secret to softer bread is to add a water roux. Say what??? 

The Water Roux Method

aka 

Tangzhong

Apparently this "water roux" is a bread starter known as Tangzhong and is what makes Hokkaido Milk Bread so yummy soft.

look how soft & fluffy...

The roux is a simple bread flour and water mix that is cooked to thickening. The tricky part is knowing ratios and when to add it. Here is a video I found that best explains the procedure and answers basic questions:

Her instructions are great but I still had questions, like what about how much to add to various recipe amounts? Thankfully, commenters had answers. This one is the most helpful of all:

"The Tangzhong roux should use 5% of the original recipe flour amount, by weight. The amount of water used should be 5 times the weight of the flour used in the Tanzhong roux. The water amount used in the Tanzhong roux should be taken from the original amount of water in the recipe. You are not adding an extra amount of water or flour to the recipe, just using some of the original ingredient amounts in a different way."

The same commenter also had this to say:

"I make the roux in a microwave. Use a pyrex cup. My microwave is 1100 watts. With room temperature water, 25 gm flour and 125 gm water I microwave for 20 seconds. Stir will with whisk. Take temp. Microwave 10 more seconds. Stir, take temp. Microwave a final 5 seconds. Stir and take temp. The roux is at about 65 C / 150 F. This is enough for a 450 gm / 1 lb loaf of bread. Cool to below 55 C / 130 F and add to bread maker."

Note: you can find conversions by asking Google or here is one site with charts.  Here is a graphic. Also, here is a calculator site, if you don't mind accepting the cookies. Ironically.

The only answer I couldn't find anywhere is to the question of when to add the roux. I have decided that, since the roux can be stored for later use, I can add it to a dough before I prep it for the first proofing. I dunno. I will try it that way. As soon as I get back into the swing of things, I will be getting my Tang-zhong. Get it?

If any of you have used or plan to use the Tangzhong method, let me know how your bread turns out.

Peace

--Free

Some Recipes & Calorie Counts

For the past month, I've been eating quite a bit and losing weight. I tried Keto, I tried OMAD and using the meal shakes, and all that. They all work for certain people and they would work for me if I could keep them up for life. And I can't. I cannot restrict myself to certain foods and trends. Life is varied and my food desires are just as varied. I failed because I had too many "cheat" days. There were days when I didn't want to be low-fat or high-fat or one-meal or fasting for 16 hours. Agh!

First I got frustrated and then I got real. After talking with my doctor, I was reminded that in addition to aging, I am also on certain medicines that inhibit easy weight loss. Okay then. So what I finally accepted is that the trick to staying in a healthy shape as you get older is to find what works for you instead of following every trend that comes along. Listen I even prayed about this situation!

My new reality is that I am over 50 and I am going to have to be diligent to maintain a healthy body. Because I did fail at other plans like Keto, fasting, and OMAD (one meal a day), I decided to hold off sharing what I'm doing until I could keep it up. I finally have this. I am down 10.7 pounds in 5 weeks and so far I'm not regretting anything. I am eating what I like but I do have to at least loosely keep track. This is what a typical day looks like:

Breakfasts

• I try to drink at least 8 ounces of lemon water. This is easier if I have some miracle berries beforehand. It's downright yummy after a miracle berry.
• As much black coffee as I want (I will tell you how I broke my sugary creamer habit) without getting too much sodium.
• Either 2 greek yogurt pancakes or a cup of overnight oatmeal with brown sugar (recipes will be shown later). The oats are a favorite because it's easy and very filling.

Snacks

• Baby carrots with a couple tablespoons of Ranch, or 
• Butter crackers plain or with cheese or with thin-sliced packaged ham, or
• Cheese and grapes/apples, depending on which  fruit I happen to have, or
• Tuna (with mayo and onion) solo or on butter crackers, or
• A single-serve bag of popcorn (my fave is kettle corn)
• If I have miracle berries beforehand - Plain, no-fat Greek yogurt or plain goat cheese on crackers

Dinners

• Cabbage (or a bag of coleslaw greens) steamed with sausages and bacon
• Homemade burger on regular bread with a salad
• Pork chop with salad, spinach/kale/collards on the side
• Ground beef stuffed with spinach or kale, onions and garlic and topped with a couple tablespoons of spaghetti or pizza sauce (see recipes)
• A dinner-breakfast of eggs and bacon and a couple of yogurt pancakes

Desserts

• If I have miracle berries beforehand - Plain, non-fat Greek yogurt/sour cream "cheesefake" (see recipes)
• A pint of Halo icecream
• Cheese-fake

If you notice, I don't use any artificial sweeteners. I don't like them and I'm not sure they are any better for my health than real sugars. 

I have to be really honest and tell you that I think the biggest kick-off to weight loss for me was giving up my heavily sweetened coffees. Here is what I was putting at least 3-5 tablespoons into a 16-oz coffee:

Almost 200 calories per mug

If I do need to "soften" some coffee that might be too strong or "bitter", I will use some of this instead:

100 calories is a lot better than 175

Since I tend to drink at least 2 16-ounce mugs of coffee in a day, I try to stick to this Luzianne brand which is too weak or any sweet creamer but perfect to drink black. I am so glad I found it. I know some people who choose McDonald's coffee as the one the can drink black. In my opinion, this Luzianne is way better and more consistent. Just be aware of the sodium in coffee. It varies, I think, by brand. I'm actually kind of over the whole dessert-coffee thing, tell the truth.

The other thing I had to train myself to was eye-balling calories. I faithfully used the Lose It app at first but now I can gauge how many calories a meal or snack is. I would buy the Premium version if it was a reasonable one-time purchase but... Ugh.

What I've learned about myself is that I am never as hungry as I think. What I am is a person who eats for every emotion: happy, sad, mad - everything but depressed. When I am depressed, I am even worse because I don't want to cook or take my time to find something decent to eat. I once ate nothing but some lemon teacake for about 24 hours. TWO lemon teacakes made with enough sugar to induce diabetes by smell and drizzled with a powdered sugar glaze. I didn't sleep, I just lay around in blue funk eating pieces of cake, sobbing and watching Andy Griffith reruns.

Great app but crazy-priced for the Premium version

So, I am that kind of an eater. And I will probably always struggle with depression. What I am doing now when I don't have the energy to cook or choose healthy meals, is fix the overnight oats and I eat a lot of baby carrots. I love baby carrots. I can eyeball what a tablespoon of ranch dressing looks like so I spend my sad or fatigued moments with a bag of baby carrots and ranch dressing. I think I once peed orange and cried white tears.

My big dessert hack is to eat a miracle berry and then snack on a cup of plain, nonfat Greek yogurt with a squirt of lemon juice mixed in. It's like eating cheesecake. And that brings me to the simple "recipe" for what I call Cheese-fake:

• 1 miracle berry (to eat just beforehand)
• 1 1/2 cup of non-fat Greek Yogurt, strained overnight (use cheesecloth or a substitute)
• 1/2 Tablespoon of lemon juice (fresh or bottled)
• Mix the 2 ingredients together
• Put into a small container (I use a Tupperware sandwich container) and out into the fridge for a couple hours.
• You can add more lemon juice or even top it with fresh, peeled lemon slices. The more lemon, the more cheese-cakey the flavor.
• If you want to splurge a little, you can make a Fiber One crust...

I have ended up with some weak miracle berries and will sometimes have to eat 2 of them to get the same effect so be warned.

Anyway,m here are those recipes. I collected them from various places (online and from memory) and made them my own. You can mix them up by adding different seasonings. By the way, I just used screenshots of my recipes stored in the Lose It! app. It works out all the calories based on the app's listings or what you scan in from your item packaging. Handy.

*** This is for the crust

On one of my OMAD days, I made up my own recipe for stuffed meatloaf using the following ingredients. You basically season the ground beef with seasonings shown (and any others you want) and roll it out on some plastic wrap or parchment paper to get it as flat as possible. Then you layer half of the spaghetti (or pizza sauce) and all of the other ingredients down the middle of the meat. Stay away from the sides. Roll the meat up with the stuff inside and make sure the sides are tucked around so the ingredients don't leak out. Wrap the bacon around it and plop it into a small loaf pan, top it with the rest of the sauce and cover with tin foil and bake at 350 for at least an hour. At the 45-minute mark, I like to uncover the meat and drain all the oil out before I finish baking it uncovered.  I only use the bacon for seasoning and will toss it when the loaf is finished cooking. Although it's a high-calorie meal, it's the only one I eat that day so I can even have a salad with a couple tablespoons of dressing at some point and be done with it. 

So that's it. There are a lot of recipes online for substituting greek yogurt for sour cream or frosting or whatever. Enjoy.

Peace
--Free

**RECIPE** No-Carb BLT from Delish

I'm doing well with my low-carb regimen. I'm not losing a lot of pounds, scale-wise, but I am starting to see great changes in how my clothes fit. Also, I can see the weight loss in my face. Time will tell how much I like that last bit!

My only criticism of this eating regimen has been repetitive meals. That's mostly because it's not yet time for me to do my grocery shopping and my 'old' groceries were not chosen for this diet. Good news is that my shopping list has shrunk. A lot.

Today, my niece scored so many points by finding this recipe from Delish. It's a "No-carb BLT", and it tastes SO good.

I had to make a quick store run for more bacon (because I eat so much of it), and I grabbed a couple more ingredients to make this BLT. I was starving, by the way. Of course, I didn't write down the video recipe (just went off the images), so this is what my recipe ended up as:

Ingredients:

• 1/2 a ripe avocado
• 1 1/2 Tbls full fat mayo
• 1/4 of a tomato (I used a hothouse one from Walmart)
• 6 slices of bacon, cooked to medium crispiness
• 3 leaves of  romaine lettuce

Instructions:

1. I sliced the tomato into medium sized "fingers" & mixed the avocado and mayo together with a fork.
2. I spread the mayo-cado mix onto the lettuce leaf, added some tomato, then topped it with bacon.

Best of all is that I didn't even need to use any seasonings because the bacon was seasoned enough.

I chowed on this so hard that I almost chewed one of my own fingers! It's a little bit messy because of the mayo-cado (especially if you dollop on too much like I did) but, oh man, is it a good dish.

Like I said, I was starving hungry, but I managed to get one good photo before I finished all of it off:

This is probably the best thing I've eaten since going low-carb. Man! 

To be honest, I will probably use the mayo-cado mix on other things - sausage or burger patties. 

Apparently, avocados don't keep well once ripened. In order to save money, I guess I will have to preserve some of them by tightly bagging them up with lemon juice. In the future, I will only by small quantities of unripe 'cados (or just go snag a couple of ripe ones as I need them). 

By the way, I think I mentioned in a previous post that one of my favorite low-carb snacks is cheese and olives. While I was at Costco today, I was able to taste these today. Costco (Anchorage, AK) price was $5.69 which isn't bad at all. Very, very yummy and I don't normally do near anything with jalapeno peppers. They aren't even that spicy (at least the heat doesn't last long), plus I eat mine with little pieces of mild cheddar cheese.

So, there you go. I hope that this is helpful for anyone trying to cut down on the carbs. Next post, I will share some recipes that I am collecting from some other online buddies.

Peace
--Free

The Extended Fasting Plan

I've lost about 14 pounds in the past 3 months. Six of those pounds came back for a visit recently. I backslid in my gym and eating habits.

So.

I'm getting ready to double down on the 8 pound loss.  And I even have a plan. (Yes, another of my plans!)


(The photos you're seeing will make sense as you read the post...)

First off, I have to get back to the gym. That's going to be much easier now that warmer and sunnier is finally showing up around here. Finally. Second, I am going to have to eat better - and that doesn't mean skipping one of my many cups of daily coffee with extra creamer.

I'm going to be using a modified fasting plan to both lose some weight and up my prayer life. Just as much as I've been ignoring my health, I've been slacking on reading my daily Bible reading and meditations. They might even go hand in hand.

Whatever.

The other week, a friend and I were talking about an article she'd read about losing weight "while you sleep". Yeah. Ri-iiight. Of course, that part was just to get readers to pay attention to the whole eating plan. It's simple (like my friend and I) so it's something I can do with a little bit of discipline. All I have is a little discipline, so it's really perfect.

The basic idea is that we fast while we sleep (which is why the first meal of the day is a breaking of the fast, or breakfast), so we could extend that fasting period. Of course, what we do eat for meals is a big part of the weight loss. That's it. Simple.

My friend (I'll call her "Daisy") has been doing this extended daily fasting for about three weeks. She's lost over 12 pounds. She jokes that she thinks that initial weight loss is just from dumping toxins. Apparently, because of what she is eating during the day, her body is in total cleanse mode. Here's an outline of her plan:

• No food after 6:30pm. She drinks a few 4-ounce glasses of water (some infused with lemon or with honey added). She generally goes to bed by 9:30pm.
• She's generally up at 5:30am. She immediately drinks warm water with lemon first. When she is ready for breakfast, she has her coffee with cream & tries to limit it to an 8ounce coffee with around 2tbl of her Coffeemate plain liquid creamer/no sugar. For food, she eats a piece of toast or a bagel with cream cheese.
• Throughout the day, she avoids any heavy food. She eats several small "snack-sized" meals (she likes a handful of trail mix; a cup of yogurt; etc.). She tries to empty her 16-oz water bottle at least 3 times. This is a struggle for her.
• About an hour before her fasting starts, she has a 'real' meal. She usually does turkey meat or a chicken breast with veggies on the side. 
• Once a week, she allows herself to enjoy a handful of chips or a couple of small cookies. She has a sweet/salty tooth and doesn't want to deny herself.
• She is not a gym-goer, but tags along with friends sometimes. She is walking her neighborhood "a few times a week" in the evenings, parking further away from entrances when she is out, and taking the stairs instead of the elevator.

Daisy is only looking to lose around another 10 pounds or so. Like me, she isn't looking to be her 30-year old self, but she does want to be in better shape and get into the clothes at the back of her closet. She's almost there.

She had me almost laying on the floor in a fit of giggles when she talked about her first couple of days on this fasting thing. She said she was so gung-ho about the idea of something as simple of not eating after a certain point in the day that she got carried away. First day in, she said she went to at least 2 fast food places and oinked out like crazy. And was SO proud when she didn't "cheat" after 6:30. When she got serious about eating better, she overloaded on water (not her favorite thing) and lost at least 1 pound just running to the Ladies'. I'm really proud of her though.

My eating plan is a little different. For one thing, I realize that this is almost more about eating better than it is about eating less. I don't plan to eat much different than I already am, but that daily cut-off point is going to curb my worst habit: late-day/late-night eating. Also, the water thing. Ugh. (I'd gotten better about drinking water, but haven't really lived up to that gallon-a-day thing for a while now...)

Here's my plan:

• Start the fast at 6pm. I'll only drink water - plain, with cucumber slices, or infused with either vanilla extract and honey, lemon and honey, or orange oil and honey*. My sleep time varies from 9:30 to 11:30, depending on how well I am resting. Insomnia.
• I'm generally up by 6 or 9 (again, depending on how well I feel). I plan to not eat before 9am, no matter when I'm up. I'll start with water and, to break my fast, some raw veggies or a 4-ounce cup blackstrap and vanilla soy. I'm not a breakfast eater. Of course, I will have to have my coffee, but I'm going to be better and limit myself to 1 8-ounce morning serving (with 2tbls of my sweetened and flavored creamer). 
• At around 11, I will have veggies with chicken or turkey sauteed with olive oil or palm oil and non-salt seasonings**.
• Around 1pm, I will have soup (which is salted, but I love it and it's only 260 calories for the Teriyaki Chow Mein that I love or 290 calories for the Maruchan Chicken flavored Instant Lunch that okay but cheap.
• At around 3pm, I will have either a spinach/kale salad with some chicken or turkey meat or just skip it. Depends on how hungry I am.
• About an hour before my fast, I will have a serving of sauteed veggies on naan bread.
• I'm going to try really hard to empty at least half a gallon of water during the day, but I'm bad with water. Being hungry after I start the fast might help! 
• I'm going to attempt to make it to the gym at least 3 times a week. At the very least, I am going to copy Daisy and try to walk around the neighborhood. Just walking a couple of times from one end of our street the other is not a bad stretch. I will have to trip it on the pedometer and update this post.

I will try to keep you all in the loop. If I make it at least three weeks like Daisy, I'll be lucky. She claims that it gets much easier after the first week. I'll wait and see...

Peace

Free

P.S. I ** a couple of thing to remind myself to share my delicious and simple recipes.

The water infusions are my favorite. I do them all the time, no matter what the rest of my diet is like! You can use either plain or a seltzer type water. You know, of course, about adding slices of lemon or cucumber to water for flavor. Another think I like is to pick up a little bottle of flavored oil or extract (generally used for baking/cooking) and add just the tiniest drop to waters. You can jazz up lemon and cucumber water by adding a bit of honey. (NOTE: Here in Anchorage, I have to either order my flavored oils or buy them from local health food and specialty stores. New Sagaya and Natural Pantry are stores that carry them in town.)

My veggie dishes are what I came up with a long while ago. I get on these kicks where I just want lots of fresh and colorful food. I love to sautee veggies in olive oil or palm oil (or both) and add as many seasonings as I can without too much sodium. My fave combo includes sweet orange, yellow and red peppers, mushrooms (any kind!), garlic. I'll sometimes leave the spinach and kale uncooked so that I can serve the other veggies and oil over the greens. If I'm feeling really hungry, I'll add a little tomato and avocado to the top.Okay. I usually add tomato and avocado!And maybe some crumbled bits of leftover bacon...  LOL

A variation of this is to sautee all the veggies (greens included) and then serve them over some warmed Naan bread. I love that bread. 

You can freeze the bread and then warm it later. I like to get the small single-serve pieces, but can't always find those. If you get the large pieces, you can slice them up to use small pieces at a time. To warm them, I like to lay them in a pan and use low or medium heat for a few minutes. The bread can also be toasted, but I like to keep the inside really soft.

For seasonings, I like to use tumeric, onion powder, a little cayenne, basil or Italian seasoning. This is one dish that I actually can enjoy Mrs. Dash with.

What I like about this is that, even if I don't use bread, it's filling and so, so flavorful. The best thing about this "eating plan" is that it's fairly cheap. You can use whatever vegetables that you catch on sale. The thing is to vary the seasonings for the food and make sure to flavor up all that water!

Peace

--Free

**REVIEW** Plantation Brand Blackstrap Molasses

Let me start this by pasting in what I shared on Google Plus back on the 18th of February:

The fatigue has been serious for a few weeks now. The ferrous sulfate docs give me causes constipation (yeah, sorry). 
Today, while at the infusion center, another patient (older lady visiting from Georgia) reminded me of an old remedy for "tired blood". 
Her: Where are you from, baby? Me: Texas, but raised here in Alaska. Her: Your mother from Texas and you never heard of using 'strap? Me: (Thinking of whoopings I got) Yes, ma'am. Strap, switch, belt... Her: No, honey. Blackstrap Molasses! 
And then I did remember! And I_hated_ that ' strap as much as I hated whoopings. I have learned in the past few years how to mask the taste of things that are good for me. 
I dragged my behind to the store after treatment and picked up some 'strap! 
I swear this is the same slavery time brand my mother used! 😲
I got home and slept for 4 hours, woke up and made some coffee and added a spoon of the 'strap (and I'm always going to call it that!) 
Still dog tired, but I'm going to keep adding 'strap to my coffee and see if it helps.

I'm drinking some in black tea now. After this, bed. 😴😴😴

#fatigue#chronicdisease#sarcoidosis #lifeisstillbeautiful#iamblessed#iamjoyful#nothingsgoingtobreakmystride#naturalhealthremedy#workedformymama #plantationblackmolasses #plantationseriously#evenauntjemimagotamakeover


Yes, it was like that. Here is the brand of molasses I'm talking about:

Okay, aside from my jabbing at the brand's name, I have to tell you what an impact this product has made on my life.

The very next day (after taking that first dose of 'strap), I put another 1/2 tablespoon in my morning coffee. Even though I felt much better than I usually do after an infusion, I knew I was going to have to find another way to get my 'strap dosage. It was not bad in coffee, but made it a little heavy tasting. Later, while looking up more information about molasses, I ran across a more delicious way to get my daily dose:

Tablespoon of the molasses in bottom of a coffee cup
Couple of drops of hot water to cover the molasses (to soften/thin it)
Stir the water and molasses
Add 8 ounces (or more) of your choice of cold dairy or soy (I use vanilla soy)
Stir well and enjoy
(Of course, I modified the recipe and will sometimes drop in a frozen cube of coconut milk! )

To me, the taste is like chocolate. Like I said, I have added a cube of coconut mile, but I also enjoy this as a warm drink before bed. At any rate, mixed with the soy, the molasses takes on a whole new (better) flavor. I bet parents could probably get their kids to drink it. Check with your doctor first!

The best thing about getting my energy from the molasses is that I don't get the constipation that iron pills cause. I thought it might be because of the added dairy/soy, but I found that BSM is used as constipation reliever. Also, it's just nice not to have one more pill to deal with.

Even if you're not concerned with fatigue, there are lots of uses for 'strap (I kind of knew about baked beans, but forgot all about BBQ sauces!):

• Considered an affordable "superfood"
• Uses of, varieties of, and other info on BSM
• 11 ways to use blackstrap (BBQ sauce included here)
• Cookie and bread recipes
• Light vs Dark molasses. Some info for cooking.
• Using for hair. Unsulphered vs sulphered molasses
• A recipe using cocoa powder.
• Blackstrap is vegan, apparently.
• Some vegan recipes (including a BSM one)
• As a remedy for acne (stroll down)

The brand that was available at my local health food store was Plantation (yeah), but I did find a more affordable brand (with slightly different nutrient levels) on Amazon. As far as I can tell, 'strap will "keep" for  up to 4 months or more without losing quality.

Plantation label

Golden Barrel label

Since there are several brands, I am going to be making future purchases based on nutrition labels (I've order the Golden Barrel brand), taste, and price. Availability here in Anchorage is limited to our health food stores (as far as I know) but, depending on where you live, you might be able to find it in grocery stores. I'm pretty sure my mother and grandmothers living in Texas weren't hitting Whole Foods in the '60s and '70s!

If you know of more information about 'strap, let me know.

Peace

--Free

**RECIPE** Juice & Smoothie Blends

Since I have been faithful about going to the gym, I'm losing pounds and inches faster than I expected. I think part of the weight loss is due to the better eating habits I'm practicing.

Juicing (or "smuicing" for those who also enjoy smoothies) is a great way to balance out my nutrition while trying to lose or maintain weight. The hardest  part of it all is just like with any kind of diet (or lifestyle  change), and that is variety.

I have no problem eating right for months and months. I do tend to get bored with my healthy choices of nutrition. So... I try not to get bored.

With the new - and very affordable - juicer I've had for a couple of weeks, I can change up from smoothies to juices just by rotating two appliances.

        

Juices are easier for me than smoothies. Here are my latest recipes:

Tropical Blend

Pineapple
Mandarin Oranges
(Can add a little bit of lemon if you want)

Blood Pressure Blend

Beets
Carrots
Apple (for more sweetening)

Workout Refresher Blends (for after the gym)

Celery + Ginger + Cucumber + Oranges

Beets + Apples

Cucumber + Oranges

Blend for Snacktime

Ginger
Cucumber
Apple

Someone mentioned to me that adding a little bit of cayenne to my juices could help rev the metabolism. I want to try it, but I have no tolerance for even mild heat. I might try adding cinnamon to a blend, but I haven't yet.

Another thing about juices vs smoothies: to help replenish the fiber lost from juicing, I like to add back in to the juice some of the pulp that the juicer discards. This means having to shake the pulp around in the juice so that it doesn't all sink, but it's worth it and doesn't really bother me as far as taste.

If anyone has any suggestions for juices or smoothies, feel free to email me.

Peace
--Free

My Favorite Homemade Eats

Make all the "black folk" jokes you want, but I love chicken. I like it smothered in vegetables or gravy or barbecue sauce. I like it fried, dyed and laid to the side. So there.

Of course, I don't always do chicken the way my mama use to. Most of the time (in the past couple of years), I've tried to do healthier versions of all my mama's recipes.

First up, this is the Baked Chicken recipe I use to replace the fried chicken I grew up eating.

• Season a pot of cold water with your fave spices. I use 1 bouillon cube to every 5 cups water and a dash of tenderizer. Set to medium to medium-high heat.
• Put the chicken (breasts, wings, or legs - whatever) to cook in the water. I leave the skin on, but you can remove it. ~shrug~
• While chicken is cooking, mix in a small dish some olive oil, chili powder, garlic powder, onion powder and a drop of liquid smoke. You want enough of a mixture to dab all the pieces of chicken.
• When the chicken is fully cooked through, remove from water & drain. Let the pieces cool enough to handle.
• Heat your oven to between 300 to 375 degrees (depends on how warm or cool your oven runs). Place a wire grill over a baking pan that's deep enough to add water to the bottom.
• Lift the skin of the chicken and dab on the seasonings mixture (I use my fingers). Make sure to season all sides of the pieces.
• Bake the chicken the crispiness you like. I like mine to be really crispy, so I will sometimes set the oven to broil for the last minute of cooking.

I use water in the bottom of the baking pan to catch the drippings. It stops the drippings from smoking up your oven, and it makes the pan easier to clean.

This is my Mixed Greens Concoction, which is so simple, I can't even call it a "recipe":

• Kale 
• Turnips
• Collards
• Spinach
• Broccoli
• Ginger (cut real thin) 
• Yellow, red or sweet onion (cut thin)
• Green onions
• Tomatoes (if you have them, because they are so good for you)

I put about an inch of water and a drop of olive oil into a pot with one dash of salt or a pinch of a chicken bouillon cube.

I start the water boiling and put in first the collards, turnips and ginger. Cover the pot and turn down to medium heat. (BTW: I like the tiny bit of heat ginger gives because I avoid spicy foods)

When the collards and turnip greens are starting to get soft, I add the broccoli - just laying it on top of the other greens without stirring. When the broccoli starts getting that bright green color, I add the kale on top of the broccoli - no stirring.

Let this cook for just a  couple of minutes. Turn off and remove the pot but keep the lid in place.

Slice your onions and tomatoes, sprinkle them with pepper and a little salt (or Mrs. Dash) and set aside.

Here is where you can deviate. Sometimes, I like to add the spinach on top of the rest of the greens and replace the lid while I slice my onions and tomatoes. Sometimes, I like to not steam the spinach and just add them to the top of the cooked greens on my plate.

Whichever way you choose to do your spinach is fine. When I have everything on my plate, I like to eat the greens with little bits of the onions and tomatoes. Sometimes, I will even drizzle a little more olive oil over the whole mess of greens! (By the way, I've done this "Greens Recipe" as a meal in itself - no meat. You'd be surprised as how filling and hydrating this is."

I use this next recipe to satisfy my burger cravings. There's no meat in it, but the dressing added to the veggies and bread gives me a sense of satisfaction. It's a simple veggie wrap:

• Get whatever type of bread you want as your wrap. I love using a plain piece of sourdough sandwich bread that I flatten with a can or rolling pin. (Okay, sometimes, I use two pieces, flattened together.) You can also use a tortilla, a pita pocket type bread - whatever.
• Cut up your favorite veggies. I use strips of green, yellow and red bell peppers; onions, spinach, and whatever else I have around. (Recently, I used some kale and collard greens. The kale wasn't bad, but the collards were a little tough. Still good though!)
• In a bowl, mix together some mayo and some french dressing with a drop of olive oil, salt and pepper to taste. Dump your veggies in the bowl and mix well so they are coated in dressing. 
• Arrange your bread (or whatever) on a paper towel with one end of the towel hanging beyond. Add your veggie/dressing mix and tuck your bread closed with the paper towel covering the bottom to stop drips.
• Dig in.

It tastes really good. The tangy dressing flavor can make you forget that you aren't eating any meat. It's pretty filling. I know that it may not be as calorie conservative as other healthy choices, but you are getting your veggies. (I came up with this one after I went to Burger King for one of my beloved Whoppers. I ended up tossing out the meat and I just ate the rest of the sandwich.)

Before I forget, I also still like this recipe for Water Veggies.

Enjoy!

Peace

--Free

Recipes (yes, I DO cook!)

Here are a couple of my recipes for those of working with a thin budget...

Dish-o-chicken

Since I've married, I've had to learn to improvise in the kitchen. A LOT! This is a pretty quick and easy chicken dish I came up with:

Ingredients

• chicken pieces (I use whatever's on sale) and I used six legs
  
• about 1/2 cup sour cream
• about 2 cups bbq sauce (I used tangy honey flavored)
• fave seasonings (I used garlic pwdr, italian, and crushed chicken boullion cubes)

Thaw and rinse chicken. While it's still wet, shake on the seasonings & let sit in a bowl, covered in fridge (for at least 1/2 hour, but try for a couple of hours).

Directions

• When ready, heat oven to around 350
• mix sour cream and bbq sauce
  
• pour 1/2 of sauce mix into bottom of baking pan/casserole dish
• layer chicken pieces in bottom
  
• pour rest of sauce mix over chicken, making sure each piece is coated/covered/slathered
• bake for about 30 minutes, then...
• check and turn the chicken in pan, keeping covered with sauce...
• continue baking, checking every 20 minutes or so (to keep chicken coated with the sauce) until done.

I serve my chicken dish with baked potatoes and steamed broccoli and instead of using butter on the taters, I used some of the chicken sauce (since I usually smother my broccoli with butter!) Once you try this, you can alter the sour cream/bbq sauce mix to be more or less tangy/creamy. And, yes, I came up with this one all. on. my own. Shoot, I'm thinking about writing a cookbook called the WalMart chef (for all of us po' folks!)

 

Easy One-Dish Meal

Hi guys. I know I promised something else, but I wanted to share this quickie recipe with you. I call it One Dish:

Ingredients

Hamburger Meat (browned with the seasonings) - or, if you like, chicken or tofu Potatoes (baked) Potatoes (boiled & smashed) Tomato Sauce Tomato Paste Garlic (chopped as fine as you like) Garlic (chopped in large pieces) Onions (chopped) Lawry's seasoning salt Black pepper (other fresh peppers if you want) Italian Seasoning Now - here's the cool part: I don't have any set amounts of ingredients to give you; use what you see fit for your family size. Personally, I use a pound of meat, 4 large potatoes to bake and 2 large potatoes to boil/smash, and then I season to taste. We have 5 adults and 2 kids in our crowd & at least 2 or three drop-ins at meal times! I have had leftovers enough for a couple of small lunch servings after all that. You'll need boiling bots, deep baking dish (or a couple of shallow ones), deep skillet.

Directions

Put the potatoes on to bake since they can take a while to be well baked Peel and chop other potatoes in chunks to be boiled later (When baked potatoes are half done, slit and insert pieces of garlic and finish baking) Start browning the meat & when mostly done, drain the oil (leaving a little in the meat to hold the seasonings) Add the dry seasonings to taste Add the Tomato Paste and Tomato Sauce (save the paste can) Using the Paste can, add water to dilute the meat sauce (it will cook down during the simmering) Simmer covered for at least 10 minutes on a medium heat (add more water if the meat sauce thickens too much) Start boiling your chunked potatoes Add onions and remaining garlic Reduce heat to low, cover & simmer for at least 20 minutes When boiled potatoes are done, mash them as smooth as you can, adding a touch of milk if you need to (can add a little butter, but try for plain mashed to keep down the calories). Set aside. When baked potatoes are done, peel off skin (or not; I sometimes leave the skin on) & line up in bottom of baking dish. With a knife sort of chop/chunk up the baked potatoes so they are spread around the bottom of the dish. Season the lining potatoes with some of your dry seasonings Ladle the meat sauce over the baked potato lining Spread the boiled/mashed potatoes over the top of the sauce Sprinkle top potatoes with seasonings if you want (I use the Lawry's for this) Put the dish in the oven on a VERY low broil just long enough to brown (you don't have to do this, but I like the brown-topped texture. You can serve by scooping portions out with a large spoon. NOTE: My niece likes to top her finished dish with cheese, but she is young enough where a couple of days at the gym works for her food sins! Enjoy!

 

Help me! I need this recipe, people...

I am hoping that somebody out there has a recipe for something that my mother called "hoecake." Mama was from Texas & she told me that her mother taught her the recipe. When I asked why it was called hoecake, Mama said she was told that slaves used to make up the dough and cook them on a hoe held near a fire. Oh. Okay.

This was a skillet-fried doughy thing that my mother would serve for breakfast with syrup, or for dinner with smothered potatoes and onions. Let me tell you something. This was my favorite thing to eat when I was a kid. Made me feel all warm and filled up.

I know that it was cheap to make because it was something we ate when money was thin (and we needed to be "filled up!"). I never got my mother's recipe for it & it's one of the few things that my sister did not learn to make.

So, if you have this recipe, PLEASE send it to me.

Peace
--Free

Update: Someone emailed me the recipe! (Thanks, Rae!) Yay. **singing** "I'ma have some hoecake, I'ma have some hoecake & you can't have none..." I'm playing. I'll share.