Shatteroo

Knackered tonight, so anything even approaching sense will have to wait (nothing new there, all line up in an orderly fashion, we may be some time).  Cupboard and freezer lists ?  Mealplans ?  As if.  I did take some photos though, they will have to stand for the rest.  Paleo rules to follow sometime soon I hope - and Hex, there are three levels of adherence, and the lowest one allows you coffee, too (just no milk in it).

Guess which one I'll be following ?  After all, I need a caffeine withdrawal headache like I need a hole in the head (which now makes me think of trepanning - aren't you glad you live in the 21st century and they give you pills instead ?  I may have my ambivalence about prescription and over-the-counter drugs, but I'm still bloomin' glad they exist, for emergencies).

Right. Food stocks.

 

Onions and spare apples hanging offa nail in the shed - nice and cool in there, keeps a lot better than on a shelf in a steamy kitchen or in the fruit bowl respectively.  No rush to eat up the onions either - they are allowed on Paleo. 

 

The outside freezer - some meat in there, which is not necessarily ideal for Paleo purposes, but can be used in "open meals" at least;  home made stock and tomato sauce should be OK to use, as can frozen fruit.  Quorn is DD's - again, no rush to tackle that much from the freezer.

 

Juice is DD's; beans will keep; potatoes (5kg in total) need to be eaten up.

 

Fridge - not much there that will still be there after three weeks; no problems there.

 

The freezer part of the fridge-freezer - a fair number of beans that need eating up; ice cream and peas are among the few things that DD eats, so no rush there either.

 

The kitchen open shelves - cheese sauce, oatmeal, chapatti flour and soba noodles should be eaten down as much as possible; rice and popcorn are consumed by DD, so again, no rush there.  Not bad going so far....

 

This cupboard is on the hit list - peanut butter, Bovril, various baking bits....

 

....a lot of porridge oats and muesli (DD eats some occasionally, but there is a lot there)

 

.... still a large amount of legumes....

 

.... various oils and condiments that will not be on the new plan.....

 

.... a selection of different flours....

 

.... sugar for wine making, a massive bag of pasta..... And we shan't be short of teabags, either.....

 

.... this is getting a bit silly now.....

 

....um, yeah.  Let's hope that DD's cake-and-ice-cream phase lasts a good long time....

 

.... don't worry about these, they will not last long at all.

 

So, what do you reckon ?  How much of this will we be able to eat over the next three weeks ? 

The Inner Caveman

I have spent a few hours last night reading this book.  

 

Since being diagnosed with fibromyalgia, I have had so many people recommend Paleo diet to me that I thought it'd be silly not to at least investigate further.

So, having read it.... What do I think ?

Well, I'm in no doubt that Paleo diet is a healthy diet.  I believe that any diet that cuts out all processed food is almost certain to be, if not 100% healthy, at least a great deal healthier than a standard Western diet.

What I can not accept, though, is that this is the only healthy diet.  Okay, so we might have all descended from hunter-gatherers, and therefore be genetically predisposed to thrive on a hunter-gatherer diet.... But the argument that "only 333 generations ago" or "only 10 000 years ago"  none of our ancestors were agricultural, or eating grains, is to my mind a very thin argument against our ability to digest grains, or thrive on domesticated animals.  The author of the book maintains that, in geological terms, these 10 millennia are just a blink-and-you-miss it..... Which may well be true - but in biological terms ?  If 10 000 years is insufficient for our guts to adapt to extracting optimum nutrition from grains and legums, then we really do not deserve to survive as a species, let alone rule the planet.

Besides, do you believe that all vegetarians are doomed to forever be sickly, overweight specimens with reduced brain power (I can think of a couple of you immediately who may have serious issues with that premise ;o) ) ?  That is.... Well, that is just such a caveman contention, don't you think ?

A lot of research quoted in the Paleo book is also handled in this book. - but handled in a rather more balanced manner.  The difficulties with digesting grains and legumes can be dealt with by simple expedients of soaking, sprouting or lacto-fermenting, as appropriate.  The strong bones, teeth without cavities, wide palates and mostly disease free lives seen in modern hunter-gatherers are also in evidence in agricultural communities that follow the above.  So whilst Paleo looks like a really good way to eat.... I do not accept that it is the only  good way to eat. 

And I do not, can not, accept that crawling out of our caves and learning to cultivate the land, to domesticate animals and to give back instead of just taking as we  did in our hunter-gatherer mode, has doomed us as a species.  And I do not, can not, accept that the simple miracle of a rising loaf of sourdough bread is in any way a signature on the dotted line of our death warrant. 

What I do believe is that we did - as a species - take a sharp turn into a nutritional dead end at some point, but I believe this to have happened in fairly recent times - last century or two, not a millennium or two - and this is something I think we should all be worried about, and should strive to correct as much as possible, by going back to basics and kicking out the processed foods as much as possible (this, of course, is the case of "do as I say, not as I do" - remember my £20 invested into Approved Food mixes ?). 

Oh, and let's also not forget that, whilst we are all created equal, we are by no means all created the same. Some of us might be genetic products of  those 333 generations of agricultural evolution, and can therefore digest and extract optimum nutrition from all the foods that are the results of humans taming the Mother Nature and learning to work with her, symbiotically - but there are those among us whose ancestors might have been hunting and gathering as recently as 4 or 5 generations back, in which case, Paleo might well be the only optimum way of eating.

The big question, though, is - how do you know ?  Unless you have the last 333 lower sections of your family tree's trunk all mapped out - how do you know ?  And even if you do, what if there has been some mixing of backgrounds and ancestries in the distant or not to distant past, leaving you a genetic mongrel with uncertain digestive powers ?

Well, how can we ever be certain of anything ?  By giving it a go, of course, and trying for ourselves.

Which is why my next challenge (and one that's hopefully going to be a little more fun for my readers than watching me stretch a whole chicken from Sunday to Sunday) is this:  run down our cupboards and freezer as much as possible over the next three weeks; at which point we'll be going to Italy for a week and padding out on those old non-Palaeolithic staples of pasta, pizza and gelati ....

And then, when we get back, we (that is, yours truly and OH, DD, as always, will be paddling her own, mostly vegetarian, and wholly illogical, canoe) shall be going Paleo.  For a few weeks, at least.  Just to see what happens.  Oh, and we'll be trying to do it as frugally as possible, although how on earth I'm to keep us both in meat and fish when Lidl's half price mince is off the menu is anyone's guess.... But if you have any tips of your own, please share ! Anyway, that's what makes it a challenge, as opposed to just  "change of diet".

So, tomorrow I am hoping to be back with lists and pictures of the cupboards and freezer contents that need eating up over the next three weeks - might take some time.....

Rubber Chicken - Part 7

Finally, the end (of last Sunday's chicken) is night.  Remember the stock made from the bones etc. ?  Well, hold that thought.

 

 

 

In the meantime, more about the day.  9th of March ?  We've had many a May without a single day that was so warm and blue - with a completely cloudless sky.

 

So after the morning of sorting out the probiotics - a new batch of kefir and kombucha started off ; the fermenting - a 5-gallon lot of Chardonnay started off from a kit - and yet more laundry (the throws, fleecy blankets and cushion covers having a post-winter clean), into the garden I went.

 

Via the conservatory, of course - the first seeds of the year (the Christmas present scorpion chillied) are coming along nicely.  The tins next to the little pot contain my seed collection, not chocolates !

 

 

Laundry out on the line...

 

...celandines...

 

... and three colours of crocus.

 

 

I have managed to tackle most of my weekend facienda (to do list), with only the seed sowing left over.  I did organise the said seeds, prep the pots and the ground in the beds for those going straight outside though.  I would hope that I might catch up with that during the week, but with work and all that DD has planned for me to do for her during the week, it's highly unlikely that I will have either time or energy to do so.  I can but hope....

 

And eventually, time for dinner - chicken noodle soup.  A handful of veg of your choice, a tub of chicken stock, a handful of soup noodles.  I had neither mushrooms nor sweetcorn - favourites for this soup - so went with leek, which turned out to be a mistake, as OH - no leek lover he - found it too leeky to eat.

 

 

 

Oh well.  There's always the healthy option of a chocolate cake (from and AF mix) instead (baked as a traybake in a brownie tin).

 

 

Rubber Chicken - Part 6

Remember that pasta sauce I made the other night, and the half that was set aside when the other half was stirred through spaghetti ?

 

Well, here is what I made with it:

 

4oz of plain flour, 2 oz of solid fat (AF vegetarian suet, in this case), enough water to bind.

 

And here they are - two perfect little chicken pies.

 

We were lucky enough today to have blazing sunshine coupled with a fairly strong breeze, which meant laundry, laundry and more laundry - and most of it brought back in fully dry.  And the garden is waking up - crocuses all over the place, tulip foliage coming along nicely, and here and there golden coins of celandines.

 

It's always good to be getting to this point of the year, and feeling well enough to take advantage of any clement weather we are lucky enough to have.

 

Hoping to catch up fully with my cleaning and cooking ahead for the week tomorrow, as any "free" time I am likely to have during the week will likely need to be spent dealing with DD's stressing and panicking whilst I am helping her complete her coursework and start revision for her exams.  The girl does not do pressure well at all, no matter how much we do in order to relieve it or remove it.  Oh well.  This too shall pass.....

Rubber Chicken - Part 5

Chicken Jambalaya

 

And here, friends, you can see the last 100g of chicken meat from our Sunday roast.  The end of rubber chicken, then ?  Nope.  Remember half the sauce we stashed away yesterday - and all that lovely stock ?

 

But back to tonight's meal....

 

 

 

 

A splash of oil; a chopped onion;  a small piece of chorizo, cubed.

 

Add two crushed cloves of garlic (my garlic crusher fell apart during tonight's crushing;  in the future, you'll be seeing a lot of "finely chopped garlic" instead, for as long as my hands co-operate without a crusher) and some crushed chillies - chilli powder is fine if you don't have any.

 

Add a handful of sweetcorn and the same of peas;  sweetcorn was the kernels off a cob saved from yesterday; peas came from a bag in the freezer.

 

 

Add a tin of chopped onions, or a carton of passata; or, as I did, a tub of homemade tomato sauce outta the freezer.

 

Add long-grained rice; 50-75g per person, depending on appetites (we are big eaters, we go to the higher end); and water - twice the volume of rice.  A bit of sea salt; a few dried or fresh herbs, if you have them.  Add the chicken, stir, bring to the boil.  Turn down to simmer, simmer for 5-10 minutes, then stick the lid firmly on and leave for 10-15 minutes more.

 

Serve. 

 

 

You can, of course, make this meal with raw chicken instead, in which case you'd add the cubes of meat to the hot oil just before or just after the onion, depending on how brown you like your onion to be. 

 

Shopping tomorrow - we normally go on Friday afternoons and keep the weekend free, but when Lidl's half-price offers are worth making the trip for, we'll swap to Saturday.  Tomorrow it's pork chops, potatoes.... And crisps, I'm afraid.  At 5p a bag though, it could be a lot worse.....

Rubber Chicken - Part 4

Are you getting bored of this yet ?  Well, tough.  OH asked tonight at the dinner table if this was the end of my rubber chicken, to which I replied - not by a long shot, mwahahahaha.... Or words to that effect.

Then I asked him the serious question - has he had enough of it yet ?  He very bravely denied it - apparently, served up in all the different forms, it's OK.  As long as it was not starting to go off or anything.

Which reminded me to mention a very important food safety bit - if you are stretching your rubber bird as far as I am doing, then freeze that baby - it's fine in the fridge for up to four days, but any longer than that, and it should really go in the freezer.

So, tonight it was the night for pasta.

A splash of sunflower oil, two onions - one red and one brown, just for fun.

 

The last three cobs of corn out of the freezer, boiled briefly, then kernels cut off - these were the late cobs, and not pretty enough to serve "on the cob"  - that's the last of my homegrown sweetcorn left the freezer now. 

 

Kernels from two cobs added to the onion, the third one (pictured below) saved in a container in the fridge for tomorrow's dinner.

 

Chicken and some "instant cheese sauce" from AF added to the onion and the sweetcorn.  If I didn't still have half a tub of super-cheep Approved Foods cheese sauce mix to use up, I'd have just made a basic white sauce instead.

 

Half a packet of spaghetti (I know, piggy portions, but there were leftovers) boiled up, and then half of the sauce stirred through the spaghetti.  Yep, only a half.  We'll revisit the other half another time (remember the safe storage instructions though - and if you are worried about the chicken being reheated more than once, do the sauce without the chicken, set half of it aside, put half of your chicken bits in the half still remaining in the saucepan and heat through, and leave the other half aside until cold, then mix the remaining half of cold chicken in and store.  I'm afraid I don't bother - not suffered any ill effects from it yet.)

 

 

 

And here it is - the finished product. 

 

 

 

BTW, remember that stock I made ?  After using some in the risotto yesterday, I stored the rest in empty margarine tubs (each one holds 500ml of liquid) and stuck them in the freezer.  And yes, we'll be revisiting these, too. 

 

Rubber Chicken - Part 3

Today's rubber chicken is twofold - first, all the bones, gristle, skin, and generally stuff you are unlikely to eat went into a biiig pot with a slug of cider vinegar, a couple of bayleaves, some parsley and a few chunks of carrot.  Brought to boil, then left to bubble long and slow until every bit of nutrition (calcium galore) has leeched out of the bones and into the broth.

 

The reason for using the vinegar is nothing to do with the flavour - it will all cook out and be unnoticeable in the finished product;  but what the vinegar is supposed to do is help leach all the locked-up calcium from the bones, and into the stock, thus packing extra nutritional punch !

 

 

 

Second part consisted of splash of oil + a finely chopped onion + a few sliced mushrooms + a cup of Arborio rice.   A couple of cups of  stock, boil, then simmer, stirring frequently.  When the liquid is all but absorbed, a dash of sea salt crystals, a handful or grated cheese, and a handful of chicken meat scraps.  Heated through, and served with more cheese on top.

 

Sheer comfort onna plate.

 

No more from me tonight - after three hours of lugging kickstools up and down the stairs;  a 3/4 hour walk back home;  a couple of hours of keeping DD's simmer from becoming a full-blown blood boil; and then another hour's walk to town and Specsavers to acquire a new pair of glasses for that self-same DD (whilst she can still get them for free !).... I am wiped.

 

Incidentally, DD's old glasses broke (one of the arms fell off) a few weeks back - I taped'em up with a bit of cloth tape (when the superglue failed to fix them in the first instance), and they've been in use since, and remain in use still, as the new pair won't be collected before Monday.

 

Superglue - and strong sticky tape - keeps my world together, I tell ya.

 

Nighty night and - hopefully - sees ya all tomorrow.