Friday 29 January 2016

Currently reading: The art of racing in the rain.


The Art of Racing in the Rain.

Thoroughly enjoyable - I'm not the whole way through as I post this but, you can really tell Stein understands dogs like only a lifelong dog lover can. There was some genuinely laugh out loud moments.

Wednesday 27 January 2016

The Katering Show.


Full credit  & a language warning - while I've seen this before I did lift it from Kate Quit Sugar earlier in the week.  Don't watch if you don't like swearing. 

Tuesday 26 January 2016

Homity Pie

A facebook friend posted a delicious looking photo of home made pies yesterday, when asked what they were we were told they were 'Homity Pies'.  She went on to explain they were "popular in the second world war" and were "still popular in Devon because we never caught up with time." He he he.  

Anyhow, they looked delicious - similar to quiche but potato and cream, not egg based. So I gave it a crack (pardon the pun).


I googled, there are SOOO many versions out there - but here's one you could use 
http://the1940sexperiment.com/2014/06/05/homity-pie-recipe-no-134/

We filled ours with potato and cream - as is required.  But we also had mushrooms and left over corn beef to use up. I added onion, peas and cheese.  So we had something I could imagine my Mum calling "Bubble and Squeak Pie".

Thoroughly delicious - it'll be a great way to use up left overs in winter.  


Hey Ho Mach Pelican

These guys hold a special place in my heart for personal reasons. A really great band, I was lucky enough to see them a few times in Sydney during their time. 

She's a Mod - Mach Pelican



Sunday 24 January 2016

4/25 - You spin me right round baby.



Also - I get asked when ever I share photos with these guys in them - so: 
http://www.windenergy.org.nz/te-apiti-wind-farm
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Te_Apiti_Wind_Farm

Saturday 23 January 2016

Day 16(?) - no sugar

Sugar wise, this week has been ok.  I made a few slips, but I think all in all OK.

Positives / Good points

  • Hubby got home from a work trip 2 weeks early.
  • I've only added sugar to my tea or coffee once since the start and it was like 1/4 of a tea spoon.
  • I have driven past both the hungry jacks and the service station with really awesome ice cream on multiple occasions - when I thought I might actually willingly kill someone for a cheeseburger or ice cream *(I can't actually eat ice cream but still often do)
  • We had a meal this week which was out of this world good - it's the next 52 foods. It was phenomenal
  • I've been walking the dog more - it's become a chore I don't enjoy - poor pup but I'm trying to get back into good habits for him so I've had a decent walk most days this week. 


Negatives / not such good points.


  • Hubby came home bearing all kinds of sugary crap - 2 bars of chocolate, some sports drink mixes - I gave in to both.  Well - I had one mouthful of chocolate before I told him he was a bad influence and gave it back to him and the sports drink wasn't actually *too* sugary - which is why I allowed myself - but it was gross.  It was actually one of those salty sports ones so that was a waste of being naughty.
  • We had spag bol this week - I don't think it was all that bad - the canned tomato sauce was a bit higher than the recommended / aimed 5g or less of sugar per 100g *1: Links below, plus we served it on pasta one night and a sweet potato the other night.  We had it in fridge/cupboard/freezer and it needed to be used up.  Plus I was feeding hubby earlier than I had planned.
  • I used the salad dressing that came with the bag of salad last night - and went back for seconds.  No idea how much sugar is in it.  Way too much I suspect - but I can only go on what's on the back of the packet and I wanted it. 
  • my eating habits are all out of whack.  I've never been into breakfast - I'm trying to make myself eat it more often.  I am eating dinner at the normal time but I'm finding I'm *starving* late evening. 
  • Hubby is struggling.  He's said he's really feeling the significant cut back in junk in the house. 

Kind of not a positive or a negative: 

  • No change to my skin.  I noticed the first time I dabbled in quitting sugar, about 12 months ago my skin just started glowing immediately. Not this time.  Not that there is anything really wrong with my skin but I was looking forward to it feeling nicer.
  • No weight loss that I can tell.  We don't own scales so I can't say for sure - but I would have hoped for some thing kind of obvious. Not the whole reason I'm doing this but it would have been nice. 


Next week is supposed to be cold turkey week

We'll see.  We need a better meal plan - especially now Hub is home. I was hoping to have 3 weeks to navigate this and figure it out before he came home.  Moral support is great, but I really was looking forward to just dealing with the first few weeks in isolation. 
So the plan is to read the Sarah Wilson books for weeks 3 and 4, then to nut out a plan using the CSIRO books we have here. I'd really love to sign up to the 8 week plan which kicks off in feb but we just can't afford it at the moment - so we'll figure it out. But that's this weeks goal:  a solid meal plan. 



Links / references
https://livelighter.com.au/top-tips/cut-back-on-sugar
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/you/article-2612225/Sarah-Wilsons-I-Quit-Sugar-Life-Lets-gist-again.html
http://www.stuff.co.nz/life-style/well-good/teach-me/75116166/can-you-eat-fruit-on-a-sugarfree-diet

Wednesday 20 January 2016

Smooth. Like a slug. (aka yuck)

So earlier in the week I made my my "meal" for the 52 foods thing I'm doing. This time 'round I picked another smoothie from the Sarah Wilson site - the Cucumber Cooler. It was hot, I thought it would be refreshing. 

It was pretty yuck. 

It looked gross, it kind of smelled funny, it was gluggy and needed to be shaken up before each mouthful.  It wont be happening again.  It was a waste of a good cucumber.  I'd have been better off eating it whole AND I'm glad I saved some for dinner. 

Who knows - maybe it's amazing and it's working its magic as I type.  I'll report back if I do feel energized.  You wont know if I've died from it because I've scheduled some posts - so if I go quiet after about 6 months worth of music posts - I've either stopped blogging or this smoothie killed me. 

Actually that's really mean. I'm sure I wont die from the smoothie.  Hi Sarah, or Sarah's web monkeys if you ever read this.  Love your work :D


PS - in the interest of getting more of my own images onto the blog - here ya go. It looked just like it tasted. 

Tuesday 19 January 2016

I don't want to be the person that I want to be.

One of my favourite Palmer songs. 


If I ever won squillions of dollars I'd buy the hotel this was filmed in (in Newcastle Australia) and do it up. 

Monday 18 January 2016

3/52

Cropped and that's it.  I've learnt about aperture and shutter speed lastthis week - and have spent a lot of time playing and figuring it all out. *


And when I say "figuring it all out" I mean I now know what the terms mean. 

Saturday 16 January 2016

Sunday things.

I don't want this blog to be all about quitting sugar - but it's one of the biggest things going on right now.  It's informing my decisions. It's consuming my waking hours - in mostly good ways. It's informing what I choose to make for "52 foods".

It's been 7 days today - it's been easy-ish.  I've broken a few times.  I've stuffed up a few times.

By broken I mean I was so desperate for something sweet I blended frozen strawberries, half a banana and some shredded coconut with milk and ate it like a smoothie.  It was good OK, would have been better if the 'nana was frozen.  We're out of strawberries now so that exact concoction wont happen again.

I also bought some kiwi fruit and 2 blocks of chocolate today. I needed something sweet and I wanted chocolate  - both high cocoa and low (for chocolate) sugar.  I didn't get the ultra low stuff with artificial sweeter.  One was full - like very full of lactose and the other was had so much sweeter in it and the usual "laxative warning" on it.


This meme always makes me think of a girl I used to work with.  She and I had a running joke around our budgets - no body ever had a budget for anything - especially "that". ("That" being anything we wanted for our programs ...  anyhoo...  you never know who might read this so...  doop de doop de doo)...

I also bought some bread and when I got it home I realized I'd read the pack incorrectly.  But I'll have to eat it up - I cant justify or afford to throw it out. (I hate food waste).

The headaches have stopped.  I'm not hungry.  I'm drinking a lot less caffeine because I don't enjoy instant coffee or tea without sugar.  I drink "real" espresso coffee without sugar so I'm still enjoying that when I get to a coffee shop. 

I have a job interview tomorrow and I go back to uni in 3 weeks time  - I expect this blog will either die or settle into a pattern if i get the job and when study starts up again. 

I'm enjoying the blog - I hope I can keep it going and find a niche for it - but what ever - I'm writing it for me - not an imaginary audience so ...  um...  I don't know. I mean we all start somewhere right?  Some things just take better than others.  I'd love to have readers - maybe not reading this stream of brain farts - but you know. Reading something I've written.  I'll stop. 

I'm off to schedule the next 52 foods post - it's technically this week. 

Bye. 

Friday 15 January 2016

Glug glug oh oh.

Something made me sick yesterday.  No details - I'll spare you all (you all being no one and the internet at large).  Anyhow...  Who knows if it was the shake (unlikely - too much time had passed).  or dinner.  Dinner was lamb, mushrooms, corn on the cob and sauted potatoes - so not too likely to be the cause either. And yes - I know I should be avoiding corn and white potatoes but I had the spuds in the fridge to be used up and the corn was on sale and in season and I do not regret my decisions.  Well.  I do a little bit - but not directly related to the corn. 

Anyhow - only other thing different was some soda water - I had a glass after dinner and I had some poured into a cooled herbal tea - maybe that was it?

And in case you're wondering - I'm not skipping meals - I didn't get out of bed until about 1pm so there was no need for a third meal - I had breakfast at lunch time and a meal which could have been dinner or lunch 4/5-ish hours later.



On that note - I had a really long day today and I'm a bit sunburnt and all I want - all I really really really want is a lemonaide (or a L&P) and an icecream (maybe a sundae) and some chocolate. Fighting the urge to go out. Today is the first day I've really wanted something - man - I would kill for a lemonaide. 

Thursday 14 January 2016

Glug glug glug

Well I did it - I made something new that I've never made before - so 52 foods is still going strong. 

And it was edible.  Drinkable?  I consumed it and it didn't make me vomit and it filled me up. So that's a win. 

This weeks "meal" was Sarah Wilson's zucchini bread thickie

I made it on my usual lactose free milk, with peanut butter (I couldn't find anything else in the supermarket) and oats as that's that I had on hand - and I loathe quinoa.

It was thick, gluggy and OK - it was overwhelmingly nutty (I think I accidentally added too much peanut butter).  It certainly wasn't the vibrant green in the photo on the IQS website. And it's not strictly approved for this stage of the IQS diet as it has a banana in it and I think we're supposed to quit all fruit for the first stage. But my reasoning was that it was the banana or some stevia or another concoction and I don't much like the thought of green smoothies so - meh. And I didn't want to buy Stevia.  (I'm poor.  We'll cover that at some stage).

Just a little tip - if you use the little pulsing kenwood mix thingamajig - dont add the chia first - it gets stuck in the bottom.  I think it probably needs to go in half way - maybe even as far as to add half the oats then the chia and the rest of the oats. 

Tomorrow I'm planning to try the cucumber cooler smoothie  and at some stage I'll get around to taking photos of my own food.  Not that they're all that appealing to look at.  Seriously - today's effort looked .....  um...  it tasted better than it looked.  

So this is...  day 5?  Headaches have stopped.  I've been sleeping a lot - A LOT - not sure if it's related or just coincidence - I'm unemployed at the moment - I am my own master - I'm free as a bird to do as I please - as long as that thing is free! I slept off a headache on Wednesday - didn't get out of bed until 2pm (really unlike me).

I picked up some soda water and some herbal tea when I did the groceries the other day so that I could feel like I had something yummy to drink and I've been ploughing through the water. 

So far it's been easy, but I know it will get harder again - or maybe the weaning I had been doing was enough and I've passed the worst of it?  Who knows, time will tell. 



Monday 11 January 2016

Well. That was quick.

I don't think there'll be a 52 foods post this week - I didn't plan anything new on the menu.  I also bought way too much salad and need to chomp and chew through that and well - there's the whole no sugar thing.

Who knows. I might surprise myself.  I'll see.  I'll pull some cook books out and see what inspires me - but to be frank - there is a shit tonne of salad in the fridge and one uninspired me this week.

On the sugar front:

Going well. I think. Headachy as all get out. 

Had to do some googling to help with what is in and out re: snacking. 

Always check the nutritional info listed on food packaging, jars and bottles. A quick snapshot: choose foods with less than 5g (just over 1 teaspoon) of sugar per 100g. This quick reading should keep you roughly in check and will wipe out 90 per cent of processed foods.
But if it’s dairy, remember the first 4.7g of sugar per 100g is lactose. Lactose is fine for most of us to consume, but anything on top of the 4.7g is added sugar. (PS - I'm low lactose / lactose free)
3 And if it’s a liquid: it must contain no sugar. A serving size for a juice can be 375ml; some servings can be up to 750ml (at juice bars), and a serving of pasta sauce can be 250ml. Even if it’s only 5 per cent sugar, a liquid’s usual massive serving size renders it a sugary dump. The take-home: never drink anything containing sugar!


Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/you/article-2612225/Sarah-Wilsons-I-Quit-Sugar-Life-Lets-gist-again.html#ixzz3x01v0X4K 


Sunday 10 January 2016

Saturday 9 January 2016

1 down, 55 to go.

Too early to want to talk about this beyond putting it up so I can remember.  One full day without added sugar.  I did have a pepsi max at lunch - and some Chinese take away - as we ended up out right on lunch. So there is absolutely room for improvement. I wish I'd been a bit smarter - I'll start taking  bottle of water with me from now on.  Won't be checking in every day - But here I am - 1 day down. 55 to do. 



Friday 8 January 2016

Not to put too fine a point on it...

Well I had this on my list of things to talk about "at some stage" but I jumped onto facebook earlier today and saw that it's the 26th anniversary of a big album  Flood by They Might Be Giants.  So today (well, today American time, yesterday Kiwi time) seems like a great day to acknowledge the name of the blog. 

I'm a huge fan of TMBG. I fell in love the second I first heard them and to this day, some 18 years later (yikes) I still adore them. 

I don't think there is too much to say.  You get them or you don't.  Look them up if you don't know who they are.  You'll get it or you wont. That's OK. To each their own. 

As I said, I just want to acknowledge that yes - the blog name is a nod to they. They've been a big, very important part of my life.  Severe Tire Damage was the first c.d. I bought with my own money (maybe one day I'll tell you what the first c.d. I owned was...) 

No photos of my own to share here.  My best Giants shots are all pre-digital and sitting in a box in my garage! 

Here's one I grabbed from Flickr. Thanks to the photographer, Chris Devers, for sharing. 
They Might Be Giants, kids show, Regent Theatre, Arlington MA, 23 May 2010[/url] by [url=https://www.flickr.com/photos/cdevers/]Chris Devers[/url], on Flickr


And...  something to leave you with ...  You will learn this about me - I rarely ever name something an absolute favourite.  So here is one special clip - Don't lets start - the first video I saw of theirs - we're talking pre-youtube people! 

Enjoy. I wont be offended if you don't. 




I was just chatting to this about my husband - I was telling him that there was just such pure joy and elation at "capturing" this clip.  Back, pre-youtube and in the days of very limited dial up internet access I'd set a video to tape Rage before bed on a friday and saturday night. The following morning was spent checking the tape for "cool" music clips. I can't tell you how much I lost my shit when I found this clip.  My first TMBG video clip. 




Thursday 7 January 2016

52 recipe challenge

There is so much I want to get done this year and a few things are related to food.  I adore food. 

I'm conflicted because I love baking and I am really interested in pickles and preserves - but I also want to have a good crack at quitting sugar and while those two things can co-exist they are - at a basic level - very different ends of the scale. 

On one end you've got a philosophy which promotes not adding any sugar to a diet and at the other end you've got recipes which call for cups and cups of sugar to be added to sugary fruits bottled up together. 

All that aside this year I'm aiming to make, assemble, cook, prepare 52 new dishes.  One a week, all on a sliding scale of complexity.  

This weeks meal, as mentioned, as from a favourite blogger - Kristin at Iowa Girl Eats. 
Tonight we sat down to a huge bowl based on her Italian Sub Salad with some changes - I forgot to roast the chickpeas - so they went in straight from the can (yum!), I omitted the bananna peppers but we did add jalapeno pickle (yum x 2) and I added some cubed cheddar (I'll refrain from more yums - but it was yum).

I've created a pinterest board for the stuff I collect during the course of the year. It wont all be from the net and other bloggers - I have a healthy cook book collection too - however it did suffer in the move - a lot was culled. 

Wednesday 6 January 2016

Hello

Hello.  

I posted and ran the other day. I thought I'd take a quick minute to pop in and give you a tiny bit more info about me - but this will be quick too as it's late and I'm tired. 

I'm L, I have recently moved to New Zealand from Sydney, Australia with my husband and out dog.  I hope this blog will be equal parts "adventure in a new country" as well as a bit of a way to document 2016.

2015 was a huge year, for a lot of reasons, many of which were not so great. 2016 (and beyond) is supposed to be about relaxing and enjoying a new country. With that in mind I am trying to challenge myself. I'd love to travel a bit - but that might be difficult with a dog who gets car sick, I want to cook more, I want to study more, I want to sew and learn new skills. 

So...  

  1. I have said yes to a 52 photo challenge - the first weeks photo was included in my first post. For those of you who don't know what a "52 photo challenge" is - it is one photo a week for a full year.  My extra personal challenges are to try and make sure my dog doesn't feature in more than 50% of the photos! And I want to learn to take better photos. I only have a "point and shoot" but it does have manual focus and other settings so I will be focusing on better photography - with the ultimate reward being better photos and, if I stick with it and I'm happy with the results, a new "grown up " camera next year.
  2. I will cook (or prepare) a new recipe ever week. Because of the international move last year there were extended periods of time where I was cooking for one, or living in a share situation (a flat mate and my parents at separate times) and all of my belongings except for my clothes were in storage for over 8 weeks.  I have a (newly unpacked ad re-discovered) cook book collection, an extensive saved tab in my RSS reader, an equally extensive saved tab in facebook and a healthy pinterest board. I'm determined to get there. This week will be this yummy looking "Italian Sub Salad" from Iowa Girl Eats - a favourite read of mine. 
  3. I'm a student. Before the move I worked full time and studied one class a session - fitting it into life as much as possible. This year we're hoping we can reverse that situation and I can study a little more and work a little less. I'll let you know how that goes for me. I'm sure I'll revisit what I study, why and lots of really interesting reads related to that as we progress here. 
  4. Sew more is self explanatory. I missed my machine which "she" was in storage.  I wont make promises. I love sewing - but we'll see how we progress.  I am a complete newby - don't be surprised if the extent of my sewing results in you seeing multiple cushion covers. Also my husband suggested the best name ever for a sewing blog which I registered when I set this page up.  If I actually get more sewing done than cushions you might see me post over there more often. Honestly, it was too good to leave!
  5. New skills - polish up the sewing, learn more about photography, take some "moocs" (Massive Open Online Courses) I participated in a few last year and loved them.  This year I am determined to get this one done!
Now, these aren't resolutions (blurgh - yuck) these are a mix of board and specific things I think I'm likely to share here and that I want to get done this year. As I said, 2016 is a year to relax and learn and enjoy.  Also - I said to hubby the other day  - I want to look back at this time and say I did things. I sewed, I cooked, I walked the dog and explored. I don't want to look back at this time while I'm settling in and job hunting to be characterised / summed up by my playing the the xbox (believe me, that's a possibility)! 

And to end a quick phone snap - this beautiful new country I find my self living in.



Monday 4 January 2016

One + 1/52-2016

Fist post.  

+ I agreed to take part in a 52 week challenge.  

1/52/2016