light :: chai :: smoothie moustaches

Our breakfast table this morning saw us enjoying Berry Blast smoothies from Heather's Wholefood Kitchen and, for balance you understand, croissants alongside!
Today saw crisp clear blue skies, the like of which are so very welcome in February and which lift the spirits so immediately.
The light in the dining room at breakfast time (around 8am) was just gorgeous and here you can see our usual set up of diabetes kit, Lego instruction manuals and breakfast.
In this rather foodie post I must also mention that Andrew and I have been enjoying the odd chai made with rice milk of an evening. It has been lovely on these chilly evenings to sip something so gently spicy and warming.
I managed to give up tea and coffee about ten days ago.
I love both but had such a snotty heavy cold that I couldn't face the cow's milk I normally have in tea and the thought of a milky latte made me feel ill, so I went cold turkey on the caffeine and thus the milk.
After a couple of days I had a few hours when I would have gladly sold a kidney for a cup of really strong tea or coffee but then it was fine.
I had been using oat milk in cooking and smoothies but this week tried rice milk and prefer its taste. The problem here can be that these things are not so easy to come by. The big supermarket near me, for example, sells oat milk but not rice milk. For rice milk I have to travel further. I suppose it all boils down to me getting organised and buying in bulk as all these things are long life products anyway!
And, of course, how could I not post this picture of Frank with a great big smoothie moustache?! We've had smoothies twice this week already and I am finding them a great way to sneak all kinds of goodies into my suspicious around food boy!
The Wholefood Kitchen course is going really well and my intention for the course is to really increase my intake of veggies. I love them but admit I am lazy about eating loads of them. Fruit I manage more often but veggies take a bit more prep and I have committed myself to taking the time to make this happen.
This evenings meal of curried vegetable chowder was soooo tasty and will last two more meals, so the prep time really isn't wasted.
Happy Sunday to you all.

pancakes :: snow :: a quilt

In an attempt to record and share more of our days (because they are so immensely fascinating, you understand!) I am going to try to post often in the same way as Heather, whose daily posts have been a wonderful source of beauty and out-breaths recently.
We have taken to having pancakes for breakfast every Sunday and that little routine sees me jumping out of bed before the boys to pad downstairs and mix the batter, so it can sit for a while before we start cooking.
We each have our favourite topping.
Frank goes for agave syrup (although having read about it recently I will be removing it from the pantry soon) and Andrew and I go for lemon juice and maple syrup.
We get two pancakes each (big, thin ones like crepes) from a mix of 4floz oat milk, 1 egg, 4oz spelt flour, pinch salt and 1 tbsp oil.
It leaves us rather wanting a little more but that's no bad thing.

And the table always groans under the weight of Lego. Every meal!

We had snow last night.
About five inches and it drifted so in parts of the garden it was quite high.
Straight after pancakes we headed out, all layered up, to throw snowballs at each other and get thoroughly cold.
Today was the day when I realised I have a hole in my wellies and my feet were very cold very quickly.
My lovely blokes longjohns worked a treat though!

And in the late morning I managed to complete my first ever quilt. Here you can see it on the big bed, although it is for Frank and his little bed next to ours.
The fabric was from the V&A stall at a Knit & Stitch Show two years ago and is all based on fabrics from the V&A archives.
They are beautiful and I am so glad to have been able to keep them together.
You can see in this picture how we sleep.
Frank sleeps directly next to me in a little bed (Andrew cannily took a saw to a regular single bed and made a kind of Frankenstein's monster of a bed!).
Frank didn't used to sleep here, except when he was tiny, but I never rested well with him away from me.
This way we all sleep better and I can check on him frequently because, let's face it, the deep sleep we all used to enjoy pre-kids and especially pre-diabetic kids is AWOL for a while.
It works for us, for now.
He learnt to make snowballs today.
And throw them.
His little snow suit is one brought back from a Finnish flea market by a friend.
We rarely get this much snow but this suit is fabulous when we do.

Tomorrow the Wholefood Kitchen starts for Andrew and I.
Will post more on that in the morning.

Mellow Sweetness

I have really been enjoying mellow days with my boys over the Christmas and New Year holidays.
Some days have been filled with such gentle sweetness that I have felt a surge of joy at my luck to have these two men in my life.
After our Solstice celebration it was heads down and into Christmas.
We went to a lovely party hosted by a friend on Christmas Eve and I was able to catch up with my friend Tanya and her hubby Rob. He was sporting the biggest smile ever having finally landed a job after eighteen very long and tricky months and many, many interviews. I just didn't want to talk to anyone else having seen them go through such a hard time and just loved feeling the energy pulsing out of them that evening. They are good people and like many in this economic climate have been through a lot.
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Christmas Day saw us eating croissants as we opened our gifts and then heading off to celebrate Christmas with Sue (Andrew's ex-wife), Sarah and Tom (his children from this first marriage, they are 29 and 25 respectively).
Sue made a fantastic lunch of turkey, roast potatoes, sausages, veggies, bread sauce, cranberry sauce and gravy.
Frank was in his element!
At around 4pm we all tucked into the mince pies I made along with a cup of tea.

I used a pastry recipe from Sarah Raven's Complete Christmas book (which I love!! Highly recommended) and filled the pies with sugar free mincemeat made by my friend Fiona.
The little bird lids on the lids were a last minute decision as a full lid can be heavy and I love a bit of whimsy at any time.

Boxing Day saw us three in the woods getting some much needed fresh air and gathering some sticks for the fire.
And for New Year we drove down to Reading to stay with Severine and had such a lovely time, full of mellow sweetness again.
Severine knows us well and was happy to have a quiet, reflective evening with good food and some games and chat about our plans for the coming year.
We played a music quiz, drank champagne, ate smoked salmon and made a list of what we want to achieve in 2012.
Actually, Andrew let Sev and I drink the champagne as he toasted the new year with (hold onto your knickers) CHOCOLATE MILK!!!!

I have no idea what Sev actually thought but I could hazard a guess!

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And my plans for 2012?
They include posting here more often.
So on that note, I will be back soon with more on my plans for 2012.
Blessings to you all for a healthy, happy and joyful 2012 full of mellow sweetness.

In these days of long shadows

We are busy busy, busy preparing for a season of gift giving: making cards, writing gift tags, making Christmas treasure hunts, knitting, reading recipes and making choices, baking and general elving.
A few days ago Frank and I went to Frinton for fresh air and a race on the beach (he always wins, but only because I cry less at losing!) followed by fish & chips and a great score of a Scooby Doo puzzle in a charity shop.
It was blissful.
Blue, blue sky and just me and my boy on that beach.

It makes me happy, this stretch of coast. Always.

And then we stay home a lot too; making things, crafting, elving and baking.

I took this picture as a way of telling the tale of how I reached without looking for my coffee and nearly took a swig of a bowl of beads today!
They actually had to touch my lips before I realised it wasn't my drink.
Must use my eyes next time.

And more elving, preceded by a fun afternoon decorating the ginger biscuits we made in the morning.
Oh yes, we had fun with that one!

Hope you are enjoying your winter too!

And take note: these biscuits are NOT BURNT.
Neither are they strangely blue!

Recipe for charcoal cookies

Yup, I made them and they take merely four hours to bake.
Easy.
Here's how you do it.
Take all your usual ingredients for really good quality chocolate chip cookies: organic butter, soft brown muscovado sugar, spelt flour, Green & Blacks dark chocolate, organic eggs and so on.
Make two batches of these cookies and then let them cool on wire racks in the kitchen whilst popping the last batch in the oven for a quick ten minutes.
And here is where you raise your game from cook to kitchen genius.
Forget this last batch and sweep yourself and your family off into Colchester for lunch.
Meet D-Mamas and friends with D for lunch as part of the support group you help run and chat merrily away.
Order coffee, order falafel and salad, have more coffee. Stroll back to the van and drive home feeling great about knowing such lovely people.
Open the front door, smell the burnt fat and think "Oh, damn, I left the oven on".
Walk slowly to the oven and look inside, still expecting to see nothing in there, because really, what kind of fool leaves cookies for four hours!?!
Find this:

Slap your forehead and know for a fact that you are the biggest muppet of a cook since the Swedish chef on the Muppet Show and spend three days trying to get the dark stains off the tiles and the smell out of the house.
Put the cookies in the bin outside, because even the compost would surely be poisoned by this travesty.

Happy eating!

That Stonking Soup Recipe

Autumn is just wonderful here in England; a time I look forward to when I am shade-hopping in the heat of summer.
It is soup season and I am very grateful this Autumn to have discovered the recipes, both online and in books, of Heidi Swanson of 101 Cookbooks.
The cauliflower soup that follows has become one of my favourites ever. It's up there with the Cranks Armenian Soup that I love so much.
This soup is creamy and comforting and so very yummy with the mustardy croutons, and yes, I do make the croutons every time, they work so well and then I don't feel obliged to inhale lots of bread on the side (I have form on this one!).

Cauliflower Soup

Ingredients:
170g chunk artisan wholemeal bread, torn into chunks, about 3 cups in total
2tbsp butter
2tbsp extra-virgin olive oil
1/2 tbsp Dijon mustard
1/4 tsp sea salt
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2tbsp butter
2 shallots, chopped(I never have these around & so add another half a white onion)
1 white onion, chopped
sea salt
1 large potato, peeled and cubed
2 cloves garlic, chopped
3 1/2 cups veggie broth/stock
340g cauliflower, cut up into florets (I just use a whole small/medium cauli)
2/3 cup grated strong Cheddar for soup plus extra for topping
2 tsp Dijon mustard
Extra-virgin olive oil, to serve

Method:
Preheat the oven to 350F/180C.
First make the croutons by melting the butter in a small pan. Off the heat add the olive oil, salt and mustard.
Tip the chunks of break into the pan and stir to coat.
Place on a baking sheet and bake for 10-15 minutes until golden and crisp, turning them during baking as necessary.

To make the soup melt the butter in a pan and saute the onions with a big pinch of salt for 5 minutes.
Add the spuds and saute another 4 or 5 minutes.
Add the garlic and the veg stock and stir.
Cook for 2 minutes then add the cauliflower.
Cook until the cauliflower is just tender, 5 minutes more.
Off the heat blend with an immersion blender.
Stir in half the Cheddar and the Dijon mustard, taste and add more salt if necessary.

Serve with more grated Cheddar, the croutons and a drizzle of olive oil.


And eat, ideally with a small boy that refuses not to be in the picture and pouts as he says "soup, soup, soup" over and over again!
Enjoy and I hope it's stonking enough for you all.

Eight and Fifty-six

What is going on?

August is speeding by and I can barely keep up!

Living with a lively five year old keeps me on my toes and we have been enjoying long days out and two big celebrations this past week, with more to come soon (my Mum turns 80 next weekend).







In no particular order we have celebrated our eighth wedding anniversary and Andrew's (56th) birthday.

He looks good on it, hey??

Our wedding anniversary was spent enjoying (vegan) pancakes for breakfast and a lazy family day just hanging out together.

For Andrew's special day we spent time at our friend's beach hut on Mersea Island. The photo above shows his (vegan) chocolate cake, which went down a storm and tasted so good with the sea air. But then doesn't everything taste better with sea air in it?

Frank decorated the top and took great care with the berries and candles.

I went to my first Knitting under the Willow at the Natural Dye Studio in Hollesley, Suffolk and bought some amazing yarn. My friend Jan and I both cast on an Ishbel shawl on the day but I am not convinced I am up to lace knitting yet.

I'll give it a go though.

And the 30 Day Vegan continues.

For a couple of days I had withdrawal symptoms for my strong English tea with milk and then my head cleared and I feel fine.

The course is one I would very highly recommend as it is very supportive and I have to say I have been blown away by how easy I have found the transition.

Heather is very generous with her information and I have learnt to "crowd out" my diet with all the good stuff.

So, rather than focus on what I am not eating I fill my tummy with loads of wholefood goodness!



The blueberry breakfast loaf has been a staple here and I love it with almond butter.

The quinoa tabbouleh is yummy too.

And I have even managed to complete Andrew's Christmas jumper (yes, last Christmas before anyone asks).

I don't think I will go back to tea with milk. I feel so well not eating dairy products that I might just have a little Greek yoghurt (we have a brand here called Total and it's just too yummy to not eat!) and a little cheese here and there. Fish I miss but not as much as I expected.

It is proving a really eye-opening experience and is definitely helping me with my mid-afternoon energy slumps.

The D is mostly behaving itself but it never lets up, does it? The nights are long but I have made my peace with that. It was, however, a bit of a shock to spend time on our wedding anniversary looking at the wedding photos. We each had years and years of good nights' sleep like regular folks and we looked great! Na ja ...

Tomorrow sees the fantabulous return of the Colchester Free Festival so we will be cycling into town to enjoy some kiddo crafts and stories and then some live music from local bands.

Love to you all for a happy and peaceful, and safe if you are on the East coast of the USA, weekend.

Peanut Butter Krispy Treats

Thank you to everyone that took time to respond to my call for help. It really, really helped to hear other stories and some great ideas too. You are all fab!

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In an attempt to get the Boy Wonder to consume a variety of grains ... oh, who am I kidding ... in an attempt to get Frank to eat ANY GRAIN OTHER THAN WHITE WHEAT, I stealthily add various things to recipes he might eat.
To his white bread I add whole wheat or rye or rice flour. He used to eat rice but won't now. He will allow pasta on his plate but tends not to eat it!! At someone else's house he will devour a whole bowl of Bolognese and pasta but, alas, not at home.
He is suspicious that I am sneaking contraband into his food.
He has a point ...
I have taken to adding ground linseeds or ground almonds to his porridge, making it also with half oat milk and half cow's milk. I sneak squash and sweet potatoes into Bolognese sauce. He will eat raw carrots and celery and peas from the pod and that's it for veg.
I am sounding so over-controlling here but I am concerned as he won't eat other veggies or rice and with his Type 1 Diabetes I am aware that any days of high BG will result in an extra loss of nutrients.
I think we do OK, all in all.
I am not panicked about this but maintain an awareness of what foods are building his body. He eats ice cream and crisps, I am no purist and am very clear on the idea of never forbidding any foods. Children with this condition need no extra food issues in the mix, ideally.
I am reading "The Healthiest Kid in the Neighbourhood" by William Sears at the moment. Lots of the information in it isn't new to me as I have always been interested in nutrition (thankfully, as I had a head start on getting a grip on the whole carb counting thang) but it is very informative about snacking and phases kids go through. I have also found it really useful for giving me ammunition when shopping with Frank. Saying things like "We don't buy that in our family" has been working wonders. However, I think of people like Meri, with older kids, and know I will only be able to use this for a short while. I'll be shopping on line soon!!
One snack that I have rustled up this week has met with a lukewarm response but hasn't been rejected outright are the Peanut Butter treats above. They are really tasty (Andrew and I love them!) and from this book, which has me inspired to go veggie again very soon.
I bought my ingredients in the Wholefood Store in Manningtree (the store I long to be locked in overnight!) and used puffed quinoa instead of rice. They are gluten free and I like to keep them in the fridge to keep them more solid and chewy.

Peanut Butter Krispy Treats
3/4 cup smooth unsalted peanut butter (I only had salted so I omitted the extra salt)
3/4 cup maple syrup
1 scant teaspoon fine-grain sea salt
2 1/2 teaspoons agar flakes
4 cups unsweetened crisp brown rice cereal

Combine the peanut butter, maple syrup, salt and agar flakes in a large sauce pan over a low heat and stir constantly until smooth, hot, melted and bubbling just a bit. Turn off the heat and add the cereal. Stir until well-coated. Transfer to an 8 by 8-inch baking dish and press into place. Refrigerate until completely coo, then cut into small rectangles with a sharp knife.
Makes around 20 treats.

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In more specifically D-related news we had our first failed site two nights ago and were up until 3am testing and bolusing every hour until we decided to grasp the nettle and change that bastard. Frank moaned a bit but then chatted to us and we all go on with it. the cannula was all bent sideways. His pre-breakfast BG was 5.7, such a relief after 23.8 and similar all night.
In retrospect as I primed the set something felt different in the spring-action thingy, but instead of not using it, I kind of imagined it would all be OK even though it felt a bit wrong.
Next time I won't do that. And from what I read there will be a next time.

River Cottage Canteen

(Andrew's bitter at the River Cottage Canteen)

After leaving Devon last week we headed East.
En route to my sister's place in Dorset we stopped off at the River Cottage Canteen in Axminster.
We are big Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall fans in this house and so admire him for all he has done to raise awareness of local food issues and animal welfare.
At the canteen Frank was able to have an organic beefburger and chips (he never eats the bun). The salad leaves on the side were regarded with horror and removed by me.
He regards them rather like I would a dead rat on my plate!
(The boy wonder and his meal)
(The other boy wonder eats his faggots)

And Andrew chose Faggots.
I kid you not : pig's heart, liver, and fatty belly meat wrapped with caul (membrane from the pig's abdomen) No idea what it's called in the USA.
Am pretty sure it's not the same thing ... ahem.

I had the beef burger too. I am not at all fond of red meat but felt that here, in this cafe, of all places, it would have come from a happy cow.
I was veggie for22 years and still struggle a bit with the dead animal aspects of meat, even though I am in favour of it being eaten and farmed sustainably.
This day was a happy food day.
Other days are not so great.
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I love to cook and have had such a great time introducing my boy to a whole variety of foods and tastes.
He began with rice porridge and mango and banana.
He ate everything I gave him, except avocado.
My boy that eats absolutely almost anything has now become the same child that (I swear he said this) told me three nights ago, on being presented with his bedtime snack of dried apricots, almonds and slices of apple: "This apple isn't crunchy enough, Mummy".
My mouth dropped open and I felt bewildered, again.
I am struggling to get a variety of food into him.
He is eating things one day and refusing them the next, often for the most spurious reasons.
He will eat meat and potatoes.
White bread and peanut butter (although I an now sneaking almond butter into him by stealth as I hide it under the peanut butter! Mwahaha!).
Carrots and peas from the pod.
He would live on bacon or

salami given the chance.

Have any of you been through anything similar to this?
Is it a phase?
Do you have any recommendations?
What more can I do?

P.S. I honestly don't let Frank know I have these concerns. He knows I want hm to eat lots of different foods that help him grow strong, but that's the extent if it.

Fish Biscuits!

No, it's not more Cockney Rhyming slang!

Nor have I just sneezed!

Or cursed!

It is the recipe for the savoury biscuits I promised you and, relax, they contain NO FISH.

Their true title is Rosemary & Olive Oil Crackers but as Frank is such an Octonauts fan we made them in the shape of fish so we could re-enact Tunip handing them to everyone on the Octopod (anyone without a four year old will think I've gone mad. I haven't).

Whatever floats his boat, eh?

They are very, very moreish and very, very easy to make.

The recipe is from a little book called "cookie magic" by Kate Shirazi that I use all the time and for anyone in the USA it has some great really traditional English biscuit recipes. The kind I grew up on, except the ones I ate back then were mass-produced and not home-made.

It's a reliably good book and fun to look through with Frank when we are looking for cookie inspiration.

:: Makes 1 batch.

115g/4oz/a generous 3/4 cup plain (all-purpose) flour, plus extra for dusting

pinch of salt

1 tsp fresh rosemary, finely chopped

2 tbsp olive oil

2 tbsp water

To finish : 2 tsp rock or crystal salt, 2 tbsp olive oil

Method : Pre-heat the oven to 200 C / 400 F / Gas Mark 6 and line two baking sheets. Mix the flour, salt and chopped rosemary together in a bowl. Whisk the olive oil and water together then tip into the flour and mix until you have a smooth dough.

Roll out the dough on a lightly floured surface and cut out shapes. Place the shapes on your lined baking sheets and prick with a fork.

To finish, mix the crystal or rock salt with the olive oil and brush over each cracker.

Keep any leftover oil and salt.

Bake the crackers for 12-15 minutes until golden..

When they come out of the oven, brush again with the leftover oil and salt and leave to cool on a wire rack.
We like these with butter smeared on top or just as they are as a snack with maybe some apple slices.

They definitely need the second coat of oil and salt.

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Tomorrow morning we are off to trial that great new tent of mine at a campsite in the Cotswolds.

There will be 49 other families touched by Type 1 there.

So, lots of pancreases in the naughty corner in the Cotswolds this weekend, hey?

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There will be bacon sarnies!

There will be homemade chai in the evenings!

There will be sun (I hope)!

Back in the middle of next week.

Love to all.

xxxx

Fridays

Many a Friday looks like this: A bus trip into town to go to the market Photocopying mosaic sheets at the central library (OK, this was a one off!)

A visit to the bread stall for a cheese straw.

A cheese straw attack.

With gusto (and a side of insulin).

Happy Friday all!

Spring is here!

Oh, and it feels good to have the (albeit Northern European) sun on my face and even sometimes on my arms!

We have been having chaotic times with :

• the dining room emptied of all furniture, books and toys for a lovely guy called Jack to sand and varnish for us. It looks great but we have to wait a few days for it all to harden before life can return to normal.


• Frank and then myself developing nasty colds and coughs.


• Planting and digging in the garden (working on beetroot and spuds now)


• Nature walks with my boy


• rhubarb from the garden, which I'm going to stew with orange juice and have with yoghurt and granola. Drool, drool!

Happy Spring to you all!

P.S. I am intending to make a vlog sometime showing what we carry around with us. Jen and Reyna and others in the DOC have done great ones. I am going to wait until I get my voice back as I sound like I smoke forty a day with this cough!

Put the pancreas aside and let's talk Spleen

And specifically Spleen Qi Deficiency.

Have I put you off already with the weird Qi word?

I hope not.

I hope you know me well enough by now, some of you at least, to know that I love good food. I'm not a great believer in faddy food trends but rather favour well-made food with real ingredients.

So, I am not about to get all weird on you all.

Let me tell you the story ...

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I am a MamaPancreas called Jules.

I am a good pancreas and do a great job but I am tired.

Always longing for just a bit more sleep; not much, just a bit MORE than I am getting.

Since Frank started pumping insulin I and my sidekick Andrew have been doing more BG tests than ever and have been testing at 10pm, 12 midnight and 2:30 for around six weeks.

Those times make it hard to get sleep in between and have both tended to stay up until midnight every night.

This shouldn't be too bad but I was feeling really tired.

More than usual.

Add to this the general waking up suddenly every morning with a four and a half year old landing on me like an eagle swooping down on its prey, and the subsequent long days of mamalife.

I felt like I was walking through treacle.

Wading through life.

I hadn't expected to be skipping exactly but less backward drag in the heavy feeling legs and arms would be good.

So I decided to take restorative action and eat lots more salad and make green smoothies and pink smoothies, and eat raw food as much as possible.

You see I have a soft spot for craft blogs, and all these amazing women with their Waldorf children who wake up singing and bake bread together whistling and never watch TV, were drinking green smoothies and bleating on about how great they felt.

I swallowed this, wanted the light feelings and was dazzled by the idea, the mere smidgen of the idea of being LESS BLEEDIN' TIRED!

For the last three or four weeks I have included lots and lots of smoothies in my diet, lots of salads, lots of raw things.

OK, I still craved milk chocolate and gave into those cravings sometimes and I have been eating bread a lot too, to the exclusion of other starches, but let's be clear: I have been eating lots of salads and loads of fruit.

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Then came last Thursday.

My sometimes day to do my own thing.

The day when heroic hubby sometimes steps in for me to do my own thing.

After a fruit and yoghurt breakfast I drove joyfully out to meet my Knit&Natter group at the tea room at the Tiptree jam factory, knitted sitting in the sun, nattered and then left bang on time to drive home as I knew I'd have lunch alone.

A huge salad and a green smoothie were made.

Spinach and oranges and red onions and pine nuts and cucumber and feta cheese were in the salad.

Mango and banana and apple and more spinach were in the smoothie.

I ate the lot whilst sitting on the bench in the garden in the sun.

Idyllic.

I felt smug.

I was treating my body well.

I would feel so much better soon.

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Cut to eight fifteen that evening and I was putting Frank to bed.

He is in his little wooden bed next to my big one and as he drifts off playing alphabet games with me I felt more weary than ever in my life.

My very bones felt tired.

I was face down on the double bed slurring my words Frank fell asleep and I slept too.

This is sometimes normal, this falling asleep with one's child, but believe me when I say this felt different.

There was no feeling of "I'll just have a nap".

I was pole-axed.

I woke at 9:45 just in time to do the ten o'clock test.

And then my tongue felt sore.

It felt really tender. So I stuck it out at myself in the mirror and saw a tongue but with these weird teeth marks, like scallops, down the edges.

Weird, maybe it's a sign of tiredness, I thought, and padded over to the laptop to look it up.

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Ah me, I know what you're probably thinking.

The Internet.

Don't go on the internet for medical stuff. It will overload you.

Well, it didn't.

I was fine but I did startle my husband by laughing and snorting madly for long minutes at a time.

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A tongue with indentations down the side is, in Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM), a sign of Spleen Qi Deficiency.

Fair enough, "But what does that even mean?" I hear you cry!

Here it is (and I am only kind of summarising what I have found out after a week on line, I am no expert in this):

In TCM Spleen Qi Deficiency can develop when a person is or has been stressed for a long time, is not rested sufficiently and has extensive worries either real or imagined.

Sound familiar?

It is a result of the body's resources becoming drained and of "dampness" and "coldness" and foods that create damp and cold in the body (as viewed by TCM) being consumed in large amounts.

Symptoms can include tiredness, heavy limbs, weight gain, sore tongue with indentations, weak muscles and thus sometimes prolapses and hernias.

Foods that worsen this condition were listed on quite few sites and they were ALL, without exception, the foods I had been eating and had been increasing in my diet:

Raw foods, salads, iced drinks, smoothies, cold water, wheat based bread.

I kept laughing because even the bloody pine nuts were mentioned!

EVERYTHING, absolutely EVERYTHING, I had consumed that day had wiped me out.

The theory is that cold and raw foods take extra energy for the body to process them as they have to be heated by the body to body temperature before it can extract the goodness from them.

I had always thought raw was always always preferable to cooked.

It seems not in certain cases, such as mine.

I would have loved to be cynical here but what I had eaten and how awful I was feeling just slotted into place.

By chance I hadn't eaten Spleen supporting foods but had eaten Spleen depleting foods.

To the letter.

It was a strange experience reading those papers and visiting those sites and seeing that maybe I wasn't so bad at no sleep as I'd thought.

Maybe nurturing my Spleen Qi would be of benefit because I'm not up for buying supplements or tonics when good food and some sleep and exercise should be good for all of us, right?

The next morning I began eating more cooked and warm foods:

oatmeal and maple syrup, rice cooked with milk and cinnamon, rye toast and honey, stewed apples or pears with maple syrup for breakfasts.

Soups and stews, and herbal teas like ginger tea for lunches.

More soups and stews, warm stir fries and sweet potatoes baked in their jackets for dinner.

Sweetness is needed and natural sweet flavours like maple syrup and dates and figs are good for this Spleen Qi Deficiency apparently.

Eating these has helped my chocolate cravings be less strident.

I am eating hardly any raw foods.

Just for a while, almost as an experiment.

It feels quite maverick in contrast to the raw foods, green smoothie, spring cleansing blogs I'm reading.

And the verdict?

After a full-on weekend and a really massively busy week this week so far and continuing until the weekend (hubby working two jobs this week, Frank out for the count with a fever today, Jack coming to sand the floor in the dining room on Thursday so it has to emptied etc etc - ie.LIFE!)?

The jury is out long term but in the short term I am feeling so much less tired.

I promise you I am sleeping no more at all but just feel normally tired rather than pathologically exhausted.

I know nothing really about Traditional Chinese Medicine and its recommendations but I am going to look more into it.

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Here are some links :

http://www.pulsemed.org/dietspleendamp.htm

http://www.mybodywisdom.net/pdf/Spleen_Qi_Nutrition.pdf

http://www.curepoint.co.uk/healthy-diet.shtml

http://www.acupuncture.com/nutrition/diet.htm

I was going to ask you to let me know what you think, but I reckon you'll do that anyway!

This was the week that ...

...saw such wonderful Spring weather that we found loads of ladybirds sunning themselves in the garden and couldn't resist letting them crawl over our hands (I was secretly daring this one to try to nip Frank's finger! He has such tough fingers the ladybird would probably hurt itself more trying!!). ... saw us drinking green smoothies, although, to be honest this has now stopped. Frank objected to the colour, Andrew wasn't fussed and I am avoiding raw food for while (more on that soon).

... saw me completing my Reiki II course and loving it. (Thanks Meg, Lisa and Liz!)

... saw Frank and I planting garlic, and masses of it, in the garden. There will be no vampires on this side of town!

... saw Andrew and I planning a camping trip to Devon. Cream teas! Oh yes!

... saw me so tired that I could barely function. I need to sleep ... but wait a moment, maybe sleep isn't what I need (more on this later in the week)

... saw me changing Franks pump alone (twice!) and Frank not crying but looking at me and saying, "It didn't even hurt".

It has been a busy week full of activity and joy.

The house is neglected as is only good and proper during a week of such balmy temperatures that we have been outside most of the time.

Frank's BGs have been understandable rather than random and long may that continue.

All is busy but well on Muffinmoon Mountain.

Goodnight all!

Back soon (I won't leave it a week this time).

Armenian Soup

This recipe is from my oldest and most favourite cookbook : The Cranks Recipe Book by David Canter, Kay Canter and Daphne Swan.

My copy is from 1982!

As I said it's my first cookbook.

Cranks was a wholefood cafe and restaurant in Covent Garden in London for a long time.

It was not fashionable for a long time either.

The food was wholewheat and in most cases brown and a bit of a shock for most people's palates.

But for me, brought up in a family where white flour and processed food are kings it was a revelation.

I spent my pocket money as a teenager buying vegetables and tofu and wholewheat flour. We weren't well off and my parents didn't want to buy food they considered weird and scary.

I was the first to bring an onion into the house!

And a mushroom!

This book revolutionised what food I ate and taught me how to cook.

There are few pictures and so I learnt to not worry about how it was supposed to look and let myself learn from what came out.

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Armenian Soup

Ingredients:

red lentils, rinsed (100g)

dried apricots, unsulphured if poss (100g)

2 large potatoes

vegetable stock (around 2-3 pints) - his needs judging by your own preference of thin or gloopy

lemon, juice of one

ground cumin (2tsp)

parsley, chopped (6tbsp) - I often don't have fresh parsley and so just leave it out, it's still fine

salt & pepper to taste

Method:

Place lentils and apricots in a large pan.

Roughly chop the spud and add to the pan with the remaining ingredients.

Bring to the boil, cover and simmer for around 30 minutes, checking regularly that the lentils aren't soaking up all the stock and making it all burn (I speak from experience! Do not take a bath and leave this soup cooking).

Add more hot water or stock if so.

Allow to cool and blend until smooth.

Reheat to serving temperature and adjust seasoning to taste.

Serves 4-6

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This freezes well and is fine left for a day in the fridge, although you will need to add more water as it thickens too.

I love it.

Mr Muffinmoon loves it.

My Knit & Natter group love it.

Frank falls to the floor clutching his throat and gagging at the mere sight of any soup.

Sigh.

Shrove Tuesday

So, ahem, more than a week has slipped by with me not finding time to post.

I will attempt to address the balance by posting more regularly for the next few days.

We are doing fine.

Lucky Pump is ticking over and we even managed to do a site change with no tears on Frank's part.

I cried though.

I spend the day of set change building up to it and get in a bit of a state at the moment, but I recall doing that with the injections and it got easier.

It's Shrove Tuesday today, aka Pancake Day, and Frank is (I'm almost scared to jinx it all by writing it) showing more interest in a variety of foods so we went for pancakes for dessert this evening.

Andrew is great at tossing the pancakes in the pan and he and Frank did that together.

Then they were enjoyed with a little muscovado sugar and lemon juice.

Frank ate two and declared them "really yummy".

I was proud of him as his usual response to an offer of an undesirable food is to make barfing noises and fall to the floor clutching his throat.

I then reply with withering sarcasm, "A simple "No thanks Mummy" would suffice Frank".

And on we roll.

Back soon with tales of my new tent (a birthday gift) and a recipe for the soup we've been going mad for for the past month.

Happy Tuesday, friends.