Day 175: Thanksgiving Pie

We had a late Thanksgiving meal because SS was at his father's Thanksgiving weekend and Monday wasn't a holiday here. I made roast beef for the first time because SS wanted to try it. I didn't think it was worth all the chewing. I didn't see a pumpkin here so I made our ”pumpkin” pie from carrots. If I hadn't known it myself then I wouldn't have noticed the difference.

174 days without chips. I can't believe it. Not much good happening with the rest of my eating though. I should work more with this blog.

Day 132: Chocolate Chip Cookies

Well still no potato chips but my eyes have been wandering in their direction! I was on a course for 2 weeks and I didn't do much new cooking.

I did make these vegan cookies. I have never put cinnamon in chocolate cookies before. I don't know if I like it or not. I might try it again but only using ½ tsp. I used regular sugar, syrup and oil. I look for recipes that don't use vegan margarine as I can't get it here and I would rather use oil anyway.

Day 110: I'm Still Here

I haven't been very active! I also haven't been very productive with my steps! Though I still haven't eaten any chips and it has been 110 days! Good for me.

I've been baking though. Here are some coconut oatmeal cookies.








SS takes a snack to school everyday because his day is so long. I've been trying to come up with things that will last out of the fridge for about 9 – 10 hours before he can eat them on the way home. I've been making muffins and loaves. This is a pineapple loaf.





This is black currant jam. I didn't want to make any jam as we still have some from last year but I felt bad that the owner of the black currant bushes isn't able to freeze them herself because she still hasn't bought a new freezer because she is going to remodel her kitchen and doesn't know yet what color scheme she will use. Last year I made two batches. One had water as the recipes called for but when I noticed that the berries had so much juice I didn't use any in the second batch. I didn't use any this year either. But I did use jam sugar because the strawberry jam turned out so well with it but the black currant jam didn't taste as nice as last year's.

Day 78: More Spelt in Our Food

I tried out the spelt again. Someone kindly sent me Dreena Burton's Peanut Butter Cookie recipe. She mentioned that she had use spelt instead of the flour called for in the recipe. So I did too but I didn't add the extra spelt flour as she recommended, and I suppose I should have because they didn't hold together too well. I also left out the molasses because we don't have that here. I only used ½ dl maple syrup (I couldn't make myself use more, it's so expensive) and ½ dl of regular syrup. We didn't notice the maple syrup, so I'll try just regular syrup next time and leave out the sugar. I made 8 cookies but they were so big that I'll try making 16 next time.

I made cinnamon raisin bread. I substituted 1 dl of spelt flour for the regular flour and next time I'll try 2 dl. Taking the bread out 5 minutes early wasn't enough because it was a bit burnt on top.

I need to get outside more!

Day 74: Banana Loaf

Not much to report. SS is still going here and there, so he hasn't eaten at home very often, and I'm just eating sandwiches and leftovers.

I used the spelt again. SS's grandmother sent home 2 bananas. She likes them almost starting to spot whereas I like them just turning completely yellow. By the next day they were quite spotty and I had no desire to eat them. So I made a banana oatmeal spelt loaf. I'm still using white wheat flour as we ease into using the spelt. I took my trusty old high school home ec banana loaf recipe and adapted it. Turned out quite well.

This week's journey step is not eating more than one row of chocolate a day. Will be difficult to remember!

Day 68: Experiments

I finally bought some spelt flour. I have been wanting/waiting to try it. I made some carrot bread in my bread machine but I only used 1.5 dl of spelt because I haven't used the machine for so long and I wasn't sure how it would work. And even though the breadpan fit and looked the same as the original, who knows what could have happened. The bread turned out great, but, as you can see in the picture, the crust was quite crummy. I stopped the machine 4 minutes earlier, but I'll have to experiment how much earlier I need to stop it. We didn't notice the taste of the spelt or the carrot for that matter.

I made some homemade margarine (1 part butter, 1 part oil and 1 part water). It was edible but I don't know how versatile it is. I also tried to make a homemade cheese spread (the one with the knife) from quark. I think it is too dilly and SS thinks it tastes too much like quark. I will keep experimenting with it.

Day 66: Strawberry Jam

I can't even remember if I went to the market last year but a friend was going to buy strawberries and I asked if I could go with. I thought that if I bought a box it would be much easier to bring them home by her car rather than on the back of my bike. I ended up buying a 5 kilo box.

We aren't big jam eaters. A jar can easily be in the fridge until the best before date has long gone. I had planned to just cut up what we didn't eat and put them in the freezer. But I had a bag of jam sugar that I didn't use last year when I was going to make black currant jam (which we eat on our peanut butter sandwiches). I wouldn't have made that either but the owner of the bushes didn't want the berries to go to waste because her freezer was broken and the berries were ripe.

Anyway I decided to make some jam. Only half of the recipe (1 kilo of berries) because I didn't know how it would turn out or if we would like it or eat it. And look what I got. It was still quite liquidy at this stage but after being in the fridge overnight it thicken up well and tastes great. Next year I will consider making the whole recipe if the jam survives being in the freezer.

Day 64: Nuts

SS hasn't been home very much, so I've been trying to eat up bits and pieces and things that he doesn't want to eat anymore (cheese spreads, etc.) so I don't need to waste them by throwing them away.

We both need more vegetable fat so I'm going to add 5 walnuts and 5 almonds each day to our diets. That is if I can find walnuts and they are a reasonable price.

Day 59: Look What I Bought

I have been meaning to repair my bread machine pan (either get the bread pan seal in myself but if it didn't work then buy a new one) but I was sure that if I try to find someone who stocks parts for this old machine that they would be expensive. I don't like kneading and have used the bread machine for that also.

I was at the recycling centre, looking for a glass lid for 2 of my casserole dishes that have never had lids, when what do I see on the floor? It looked like the correct size and felt like the same weight. They don't have prices on things there, so I went to ask. The man looked at it for a while and then asked what it was. After I told him he looked at it for a long time and I was thinking €€€€. Then he said € 0,30. Can you believe that! That's about 38 cents American and 43 cents Canadian and the tax is included. When I got home I looked up the price for a breadpan seal and one site had them for $USD 17.99. Repeat JUST FOR THE SEAL! Doesn't take much to make me happy! Of course I'm left with the extra pan, but I might need it too.

This week's step is to stop buying blue cheese. I don't even know why I really buy it because, though I like the first few bites each time, the rest of the package tastes so strong

Day 53: Macaroni Casserole

If I wasn't the one who 'developed' the recipe I would have said that there was something missing from it. I was right there interfering overseeing advising my SS on how to make the macaroni casserole but somehow it turned out different! It was good though. He would prefer to have a written recipe to follow rather than a verbal recipe. (Also he didn't seem to like it when I would stir, or mix, or something)

We have talked about trying to eat healthier. He doesn't need to be any skinnier, but though we don't eat too much junk processed food compared to most people we know, there are additives and preservatives in some of our food. This will be a struggle because finding suitable food in this city that we can afford will be a challenge.

To start off with something easy I suggested crackers because we don't really eat them that often, and usually the ones that we buy are just for snacking. We will finish the ones we have. If we 'need' crackers I would like to try to make some.

I jokingly started listing all of the foods that we would need to give up and that we could try deleting something once a month. He thought that that was a bit slow so we will also finish off the sugar free drink concentrate and not buy more. I think that this will be harder for him as he drinks it daily. He didn't like the idea of giving up white flour so I guess that that will be further down the line, if at all.