Women Over Fifty

In Australia they celebrate Easter in a big way.  The day after Easter is still a holiday.  Here in Southern California we had only one Easter Day, but it was a great one.  We went to church and it was packed.  There was special music.  They were still serving fritatas and coffee cake after the service.  We greated friends.

Our granddaughter and her FRIEND came earlier than we expected, which is OK.  When my company comes, I quit fussing and relax and enjoy them - at least as much as I could and prepare the meal.  Our granddaughter is always ready to lend a hand.  I thought the ham I  needed to be cooked - not a heat and eat sort of item - but when I took off the store label and saw the one it was packaged with, it said it was pre-cooked.  So, I only had to cook it to 140 degrees F, or about two hours.  It was a huge ham for four people.  I had just chosen it for the good-looking ham I could see.

We had baked sweet potatoes.  I baked them the night before and re-heated them with butter and cinnamon with pineapple slices on top.  Baking sweet potatoes just brings out the good flavors.

Steamed asparagus, potato salad, and apple pie.  Typical holiday gorge-yourself-until-you-can’t-walk meal.  However, after the table was cleared I sent my guests away to walk the dog and I lay down to rest while they were gone.  Great hostess trick!

So today, I realize I’ve had a strenuous week and I’m still tired now on Monday. Thinking back on it, I did Curves three times, Zumba (much modified) twice, square dancing three times, and getting ready for a company meal.  No wonder I feel like curling up with a good book today.

I’ll go to Curves, then take it easy for the rest of the day.  When you’re over fifty and your chicks have flown the nest, you get to do that.

Marilynne

I must tell you that my most indulgent pleasure while traveling in Australia was having Devonshire Tea.  This simple delight is not available where I live, but it was available all over Australia.  It was often served as a quick food.  Well, I don’t know if you could go so far as to call it food.  Perhaps you could if you served it with fresh berries instead of jam.

This  delight is shortcake biscuit, berry jam (usually raspberry jam) and a cream over the top that I wonder might be clotted cream.  Perhaps Roz will tell us.  The cream is wonderfully rich and not at all sweet.

Devonshire Tea is served biscuit on the bottom, then a layer of jam, then the clotted cream on top.  You don’t have to eat it with tea.  You can have it with coffee if you like.  Anything else, and to me you haven’t got Devonshire Tea.

In the picture, I’m sitting in a boat, motoring around a lake on the tablelands above Cairns and having my Devonshire Tea.  It was so common for me to do this in Australia that my hubbie just had to take a picture.

Somewhere near Cairns we also came into contact with a crocodile farm.  In Australia, crocodiles are raised for meat.  However, they keep a few penned to entertain the tourists.

I stuck my camera lens through a hole in the fence so I wouldn’t have fencing in front of my picture.  It is a little unnerving to be so near to a croc and know he’s hungry.  You can see, the person feeding the croc is making certain that the croc understands that the chicken is his dinner, not the person feeding him.

After this death-defying feat we walked around the farm to see pens full of crocodiles in all sizes from babies on up.  (I’m surprised we didn’t also see a chicken ranch.)  We also saw emus, ostriches, and cassowaries as well as a few kangaroos.  I know the emus, ostriches and kangaroos are also raised as food, but I think the cassowaries were there just so we could admire them.  They are similar to an emu or an ostrich in that they’re a big gawky bird with gorgeous feathers and other parts so ugly you wonder how they get along.

Tomorrow we’ll see what else I remember about our trip.  I am amazed that I remember so much.  The pictures help.

Marilynne

Star fruit is one of the prettiest fruits I’ve ever seen, and also the most mysterious.  We were at the Farmer’s Market on Saturday and bought several fruits there. Star Fruit are grown in Thailand, Southeast Asia, Australia, and South America.  They are also grown in Florida and Hawaii.  I wonder where my star fruits came from?  Were they grown here in Southern California?

They are so pretty!  If you cut off the ends, you can begin slicing through them and you get beautiful stars with every slice. They’d be a treat to decorate a salad or on top of a cake.

They’re low in calories (30 calories).  You can eat them raw, cooked, or juiced.

I had one for breakfast this morning.  It was tart and a little citrussy.  That left me curious.  The taste they gave me at the Farmer’s Market was sweet.  I wondered if mine was ripe.  My husband skinned it and said it was a little sweeter that way.  After reading the site below, I think we need to give the rest of the star fruit a little more time to ripen.

Check out the information below.  They tell you a lot about the more exotic fruits  we have in our stores.  Most of the time I see them, but I don’t know how to fix them.  The site below will fill you in.

If you want to know more about star fruit, I recommend the following site:

http://thaifood.about.com/od/introtothaicooking/ss/starfruithowto.htm

 Marilynne 

My feet are dragging this morning about going to Curves.  I’m in a weird spot. 

• It’s lunch time,
  
• I don’t dare exercise hungry,
• I don’t dare exercise right after a big meal,
• I really want to go out to lunch today,
• I don’t like going over the lunch hour because so many are trying to exercise during their lunch break.

I know these are small potatoes beside the next reason,

• I don’t feel like exercising today.

Awwww!  Poor me!  I have to exercise, don’t I?

• I want to feel better,
• I want my knee pain to stay away,
• I want to look better,
• I want to lose weight
• I don’t want to give up on my goal of a full year at Curves.

I’ll go.  I’ll even go during the lunch hour.  I’ll eat a snack bar, exercise, and then go out to lunch.  It’s doable, but today I just had to whine a little before I left.

Marilynne    (I’ve been looking for a post where I could use this emoticon.)

I received a list by email suggesting ways you could save on your food bill.  The list suggests you not buy the following items:

• Bagged salad
• Energy or protein bars
• Spice mixes
• Bottled water
• Boxed rice entree or side-dish mixes
• Pre-formed meat patties
• Tomato-based pasta sauces

I forwarded the list to my daughters.  It’s always good for a lively discussion.  Let me point out that my daughters live in Northern California, Washington State, and Florida.  They don’t shop at the same stores or have the same life style.

• Bagged salad.  One daughter pointed out that the bagged mixes are often cheaper per pound than head lettuce.  I think they’re great time savers and cooking for only two, I don’t have to buy a few carrot curls, a slice or two of red cabbage and a green onion or two to make up a salad from scratch.  My husband, however, would vote for head lettuce just because that’s what he likes.
• Energy or protein bars.  I carry these because I’m diabetic and I can’t always predict where I’ll be when I need something to eat.  (Like in the middle of a business meeting.)  I choose carefully, looking for those acceptable to diabetics so I spend a little more.  (Sugar must be cheap.)
• Spice mixes.  None of us use these spice mixes a lot.  I do use pumpkin pie spice because it’s convenient.  It’s so important that spices are fresh.  I often buy the very expensive fresh basil or parsley.
  
• Bottled water.  Here’s where we disagree.  Some don’t buy bottled water.  Some buy the refillable bottles for water and I won’t change.  I love a fresh icy bottled water right out of the fridge, even when it’s cold outside and the tap water is cold as well.
• Boxed rice entree or side-dish mixes.  I would include any boxed mix that helps you cook dinner.  It’s the solution for those of us who are clueless as to what we’re booking for dinner.  Here, in one little box is everything you need - well, almost, you have to add meat, tomato sauce, water, of course, something else is always needed.  Except for adding fat, which I usually don’t, these mixes don’t offer a lot beyond the collected ingredients for a recipe.  They’re high in salt.  They are usually fast, but depend on it and you’ll find dinner is 30 minutes late.  On the other hand, my husband really loves to cook Spanish Rice from a box.  It’s one of his specialties.  We can save by me not buying the other boxes, which are extremely tempting to someone who doesn’t want to cook anyway.
• Pre-formed meat patties.  Now you’re getting me where it hurts.  Pre-formed meat patties can be frozen, separated while frozen, and cooked on my George Forman grill.  That’s a grill that drains all the fat into a cup while it cooks the patties.  I’ve noticed that the fat cup never has much in it when I use pre-formed patties.  One daughter says they’re often cheaper by pound at Costco.  One daughter is mostly vegetarian, and once daughter is raising two growing boys and just hopes to keep them fed until they grow up.
• Tomato-based spaghetti sauces.  I used to make my own spaghetti sauce. Most of my friends had recipes that took all day to cook.  I had my own recipe that I cooked in 30 min - less if my daughters were screaming hungry.  I don’t know when I began to use the jars, but here’s a place I could save.  They want a lot of money for a two-cup jar of spaghetti sauce.  I could really save big time.  However, I only serve spaghetti every two or three weeks.  It’ll take a while for the savings to add up.

Here’s some home-grown advice on how to save at the grocery.  Eat what you want, but cook from scratch.  Buy the meat, the potatoes, the vegetables (fresh if you can), and cook the dinner.  You may find you are liking what you eat.  Your budget will like it too.

Marilynne 

We have company this week and we’re loving it.  They want to see ocean?  We’ve got ocean.  They want to see fish?  We’ve got fish.  They love fried okra?  My husband’s specialty.  We’ve got the best fried okra in town.

My husband had already cooked bacon and eggs for breakfast.  We’d also enjoyed his bean soup for lunch.  So, when it came to cooking in last night, he was up again to make fried okra and pork chops smothered in mushroom gravy.  After I set the table I offered to make the potatoes.  We were out of room on the stove for frying pans so I decided to microwave the potatoes.

Have you seen the potatoes they sell that are encased in plastic and microwave in 15 minutes?  They come out so yummy, but they’re expensive and huge so I only bought two for the five of us.  Then I got to thinking that might not be enough so I decided to microwave the single red potato I had left in the pantry.

I don’t usually microwave potatoes unless I have them in their plastic shells.  How long should you nuke it?  Well, it was only one potato so maybe half of that time?

I cleaned and washed the potato and then wrapped it in wax paper and put it in the microwave for 8 minutes.  Why I chose wax paper over plastic we’ll never know, but I did.  I discovered that wax paper microwaved for 8 minutes doesn’t do well.  

I saw smoke rolling out of the microwave and opened the door.  (Dumb move itself.)  There was the wax paper on fire and the potato not far behind.  You wouldn’t believe the amount of smoke rolling out of that small space!  My company went running for the bedroom and shut the door, while my husband abandoned his okra and took on his Save The Females From Themselves personna and managed to get the burning mess outside and into a metal bowl.  We were saved!

Then the laughing and joking began.   The kitchen was filled with smoke - an unbelievable amount of smoke and everything smelled like burned potato.  Smoke burned our eyes.  We coughed.  Dinner was forgotten for a while.  We had to air out the house.  It was 45 degrees outside and we had the doors open and the fan going full bore.

Dinner was served some time later.  The two plastic encased baked potatoes were more than enough for the five of us.  Everyone ate their fill, but the topic of conversation was me, who couldn’t even bake a potato in the microwave.

I was banned from the kitchen.  My reputation as a baker of potatoes had gone up in flames.  

I ask you, is that a bad thing or a good thing?

Marilynne 

My husband was raised on bean soup, fried potatoes, hamburger sometimes, and any vegetables that were in the garden.  For him, it’s comfort food.

Today his sister is visiting us from the East Coast.  She got to talking about how much she liked soup, especially bean soup.  I laughed and told her my husband and I had talked about making a big pot of bean soup to eat over the three days of the visit.  Bean soup is nourishing by itself.  It’s not only cooked beans, but also carrots, onions, celery, potatoes, and when we have it, a bit of ham.

Hubbie is out in the kitchen now chopping vegetables.  If I were cooking, I’d put huge chunks of veggies in the soup while it cooked and let it cook down.  When he’s cooking he chops everything finely before he puts it in.  Sometimes he even precooks the vegetables.  Every cook to his or her own methods.  Certainly the bean soup is tasty.  Plan on the beans cooking for several hours before they’re ready to eat.  They do pretty well in a crock pot, but may take a really long time to cook in one.

Here’s how we make bean soup:

1 pound small white beans
2 or 3 fat carrots, peeled and chopped
1 or 2 potatoes, peeled and chopped
3 stalks celery, chopped
1 large onion, chopped
Ham, bacon ends, or salt pork to taste (optional)
Plenty of water

Pour beans onto a shallow plate, spreading them with your hands, rotating the beans for a good look.  Remove rocks, dirt clods, and funny-looking beans.  If it doesn’t look wonderful, throw it away.  Beans are cheap.

Pour beans into a 4-quart kettle and cover with water.  Swish the water around a bit, then pour off the water.  Continue to do this until the water pours clear.  Then cover the beans with water about two finger joints deep above the beans.  Beans absorb a lot of water while they cook so keep an eye on them.  Don’t just put a lot of water in first or you’ll be trying to boil it off - probably without success.  Plan on adding water as necessary, a small amount at a time.

Bring the beans to a boil, then turn down the stove until the beans are just simmering (almost boiling).  On our stove that means the stove is nearly off.  Simmer until the beans and veggies are soft, stirring occasionally.  The closer the beans are to being done, the closer you have to watch them to be sure the soup doesn’t stick to the pan or scorch.  The liquid should begin to thicken with the beans which  burst while cooking.  You want the liquid to be thick, not thin and clear.

If you cooked the beans with a ham bone or slices of bacon or salt pork, now is the time to take them out of the soup.  If there’s ham still sticking to the bone, cut it off and add it to the soup.  If you cut up the bacon or salt pork before putting  it in the soup, you can take it out or not depending on your taste.

We usually let everyone salt and pepper the soup to taste.  For me that means a little pepper.  For my husband that means a goodly shake of salt and pepper.  You can see why we don’t salt it first.

If you like tomatoes in your bean soup, use the canned chopped tomatoes and add them toward the end of your cooking.  Tomatoes will increase the likelihood that your soup will stick.

Enjoy.  My husband serves this with saltines and butter.

Marilynne 

Since I first wrote about my sugar freakouts, I’ve been thinking more about exercise and how the body changes in response to it.  I was an overweight  marshmallow before I started exercising at Curves.  Now my body is developing muscle.  I find it amazing to sit here and feel that I’m sitting on muscle.  My back is straight, my body tight.  That’s a big change and a good one.

I’m looking now for cause and effect and thinking about what might cause that deep, crazy need for sugar.   I’m wondering if it’s an after-response to exercise.  I’ve never been an athlete so I don’t know what an athlete’s needs are when it comes to food.  I don’t know what a diabetic’s needs are when I suddenly begin to exercise and develop more muscle.  It’s a big change when you’re over fifty and a marshmallow. 

So, I’m in research mode.  That means lots of testing my blood sugars and recording what I eat.  I don’t mind exercising.  I don’t mind logging test results, but I HATE logging my food.  

I log my food (sometimes) and my exercise (usually) on sparkpeople.com .  It’s nice to have a tool that I’m in control of.

Marilynne 

I really don’t want to tell you about this, but it might strike a chord with some of you who have diabetes.  I usually follow the rules made for the diabetics of this world.  I exercise.  I take my medicine as prescribed, including testing my blood sugars and injecting insulin.  I also take Byetta, which is supposed to help me.  It does - if I take it an hour before meals.

I am a spontaneous person and my husband is worse than me in this regard.  When I’m hungry, I just like to grab something on the run.  The easier it is for me to eat it and do something else at the same time, the more likely I am to grab it.

Before diabetes, that grab-it food was often cookies, cake, and candy washed down with milk or coffee.  After diabetes, my favorites are down to cookies and candy.  I don’t have cake in the house.  It is impossible for me to have it around and not snack on it continuously until it’s gone.  Fortunately, my husband prefers salty snacks to sweet ones.  However, that does leave the cake snacking for me.  Thankfully, cake is not usually within arm’s reach.  It’s OK.

Cookies I can eat by the handful until they’re all gone, but the cake rule applies to cookies as well.  The exception is when we’re making cookies to share with someone else.  My husband and I love to make the oatmeal raisin cookies that’s often on the Quaker oatmeal box.  We cut some of the fat and add applesauce.  We make it with Splenda for baking.   Splenda for baking is nice because it’s mixed with real sugar, but you use only half the amount called for in the recipe.  Everyone loves these cookies and they’re relatively good for you.  We leave a few cookies at home to eat and give away the rest.  It’s wonderful!  The house smells of cookies and there are a few laying around to eat, but not enough to be a terrible thing.

So, what’s left?  Candy.  Candy is easily grabbed.  When I’m in control, I allow myself one small piece of candy after dinner.  If I feel like I’m visiting the candy spot too often, the candy goes.

This is bad in a way because having candy around opens the path to sugar freakouts.  There are times in my life when I feel like nothing is more important in my life than my need for an immediate dose of sugar.  It was times like this that lead to me diagnosed with diabetes.  So why is it happening now?  I’m not sure.  Perhaps I’m indulging myself (the poor little me act) or maybe it’s a real need.  I need to start testing my sugars when this happens, but at the time, I’ve just got to have sugar NOW!  Yesterday I ate half a bag of chocolate covered mints.  I always buy the wrapped small candies for home, not the candy bars (except when I’m out). My blood sugar levels were really high after the mints and that feeling of need was still there.

I also feel really bad about doing it.  Is there anything more stupid or hurting for my body than for me to go on a sugar freakout?  I don’t think so, at least not in things I do to myself.

Today after Curves I didn’t stop at Starbucks for a latte and a sweet treat.  That’s getting to be a three-times-a-week bad habit.  I went to WalMart to buy wild bird seed, shampoo, and some cleaner for my stove.  That sounds safe, right?  I snagged a candy bar on the way out.

When I got home I made myself a low-fat turkey sandwich and had a tangerine to go with it.  I know what to do.  I usually do it.  But sometimes I just go crazy.

Marilynne 

Yesterday we visited the Farmer’s Market near us.  We were there for the square dance demonstration that I talked about in a previous post.  However, it was a pleasant place just to be.  It was sunny and warm and the site was shaded with a few picnic tables set around.

We raced out of the house before I got breakfast.  That’s not good for a diabetic and it’s not a good idea to do things like square dancing on an empty stomach.  Well, I wasn’t dancing anyway, I was distributing fliers.  I’d make a turn around the market, then I’d go back and get something to eat.

My first choice was a cup of ready-to-eat papaya and mango.  At my request the vendor drenched the fruit with fresh lime juice and chili.  If you haven’t tried this combination, you have a treat waiting for you.   I went to sit down and eat and soon found out that the chili she’d put on the fruit was freshly ground dried chili peppers, not the powder you buy in the store.  It both enhanced the flavors and added a lot of spice.  I was soon choking.  I’d planned to buy a latte from another vendor later, but I ended up running for some bottled water.  I am so glad they were selling cold bottled water near me.  There was a lot of fruit in that cup and I saved some for later.

After I’d passed out more fliers, I went back for an empanada.  This empanada was like a turnover made with a tortillia around sweet corn filling.  No sugar but corn is sweet.  The empanada had been fried, but not sugared.  It was crispy, but not donut-like.  I loved it and it seemed a good compliment to the fruit I’d had a little earlier.

So I ate well.  Later someone shared fresh strawberries with me.  I saw lots of fruits like star fruit where the vendor had cut a fruit up so you could have a taste.  This gives you a chance to try the new flavors.

We also met our neighbor from the back.  She and her husband make a living going from farmer’s market to farmer’s market selling plants.  They had big plants like ferns, and also little 2-inch pots of herbs.  Other plant vendors had things like violas and johnny-jump-ups that were ready to plant.  Another vendor sold worm casings which enrich our terrible clayey soil.

Lots of vendors, and I enjoyed every one.  I never did get back to the vendor who was selling freshly made crepes with different toppings, but I did manage to snag a bag of freshly made, but frozen tortillias.  These are sweet corn, poblano chili and cheese.  I can’t wait to taste them.  I heated them in my vegetable steamer.  That’s the Mexican way.

Marilynne