Thursday, October 30, 2003
I think I've mostly slept through the last couple of weeks. Haven't had time to post. I hate being so tired all the time! Also, my elderly laptop crashes more and more frequently these days - I'm afraid its days are numbered.
To make up for it, let me offer this interesting link:
http://www.heartcenteronline.com/myheartdr/home/research-detail.cfm?reutersid=3893
The gist of it is, heart failure patients should eat more! Now, I've enjoyed losing weight, but this article suggests I would be less tired if I ate more. Hmmm. Have to think about that. If this means I can eat more chocolate...
Also, as any good blogger should, let me offer another link. Nothing to do with heart failure per se, but lots to do with getting a lot of good reading material:
BookCrossing. A terrific community, and a great way for people to share books. The various forums are populated by many people who are sympathetic to the disabled, the very ill, the "different" in any way. I've had fun releasing books "into the wild" and sending them directly to other BookCrossers. If you're reading this blog, you like to read; if you like to read, you should check out BookCrossing.
To make up for it, let me offer this interesting link:
http://www.heartcenteronline.com/myheartdr/home/research-detail.cfm?reutersid=3893
The gist of it is, heart failure patients should eat more! Now, I've enjoyed losing weight, but this article suggests I would be less tired if I ate more. Hmmm. Have to think about that. If this means I can eat more chocolate...
Also, as any good blogger should, let me offer another link. Nothing to do with heart failure per se, but lots to do with getting a lot of good reading material:
BookCrossing. A terrific community, and a great way for people to share books. The various forums are populated by many people who are sympathetic to the disabled, the very ill, the "different" in any way. I've had fun releasing books "into the wild" and sending them directly to other BookCrossers. If you're reading this blog, you like to read; if you like to read, you should check out BookCrossing.
Wednesday, October 15, 2003
Banana ice cream
This is easiest if you have one of the little ice cream makers that you stick in the freezer ahead of time, so that the liner is cold. The kind where you then put the ingredients in the frozen liner, and stir once a minute for 20 minutes, until you have fairly firm ice cream.
Recipe: (double for a larger ice cream maker)
1 large banana, thoroughly mashed
1 can sweetened condensed milk
Additional sugar to taste (from 0 to 1/4 cup, depending on taste)
1 can evaporated milk (this is usually skimmed milk)
1/2 teaspoon lemon juice
Optional: a few drops of vanilla or almond extract
1/4 cup small semisweet chocolate chips
Blend ingredients together thoroughly in a bowl, then pour into the ice cream maker and follow manufacturer's instructions. If you do this before dinner, and then stir the thing once a minute till you are done eating, you have dessert ready as you come to it.
If you don't have an ice cream maker: Put bowl in freezer. 15 minutes later, remove from freezer and use eggbeater to thoroughly blend again. Freeze another 15 minutes and blend again. Do this one more time. Then freeze until time for dessert.
Makes 4 servings.
Also optional: add some finely diced candied ginger along with or instead of the chocolate chips. Or candied orange peel finely diced. Or dried apricots ditto.
If the canned milks are from skimmed milk, then this is a low-fat dessert. It's high in potassium (useful for those taking diuretics). If you use a small packet of Nutra-Sweet instead of sugar, then the only sugar is that from the sweetened condensed milk, so it's fairly low in sugar.
Note: you may be tempted to throw in more chips, AND all the candied fruit, AND the dried fruit. This is OK, but the texture will be less and less like ice cream, and you'll be left with more crystals in the frozen product, instead of a smoother finished ice cream.
This is easiest if you have one of the little ice cream makers that you stick in the freezer ahead of time, so that the liner is cold. The kind where you then put the ingredients in the frozen liner, and stir once a minute for 20 minutes, until you have fairly firm ice cream.
Recipe: (double for a larger ice cream maker)
1 large banana, thoroughly mashed
1 can sweetened condensed milk
Additional sugar to taste (from 0 to 1/4 cup, depending on taste)
1 can evaporated milk (this is usually skimmed milk)
1/2 teaspoon lemon juice
Optional: a few drops of vanilla or almond extract
1/4 cup small semisweet chocolate chips
Blend ingredients together thoroughly in a bowl, then pour into the ice cream maker and follow manufacturer's instructions. If you do this before dinner, and then stir the thing once a minute till you are done eating, you have dessert ready as you come to it.
If you don't have an ice cream maker: Put bowl in freezer. 15 minutes later, remove from freezer and use eggbeater to thoroughly blend again. Freeze another 15 minutes and blend again. Do this one more time. Then freeze until time for dessert.
Makes 4 servings.
Also optional: add some finely diced candied ginger along with or instead of the chocolate chips. Or candied orange peel finely diced. Or dried apricots ditto.
If the canned milks are from skimmed milk, then this is a low-fat dessert. It's high in potassium (useful for those taking diuretics). If you use a small packet of Nutra-Sweet instead of sugar, then the only sugar is that from the sweetened condensed milk, so it's fairly low in sugar.
Note: you may be tempted to throw in more chips, AND all the candied fruit, AND the dried fruit. This is OK, but the texture will be less and less like ice cream, and you'll be left with more crystals in the frozen product, instead of a smoother finished ice cream.
Tuesday, October 14, 2003
Bringing lunch to work - the continuing saga.
If you want to bring salads, first, you need Tupperware. Small containers you buy from the supermarket AREN'T as tight/spill-proof as Tupperware. The littlest size containers, often used to hold raisins in kids' lunches, are ideal for salad dressings.
Second:
Flavored vinegars, without anything else added, make excellent tart salad dressings. Or make your own - buy good red vinegar and throw in dried herbs and let them steep for a few days, shaking occasionally to distribute the flavors. Dried "Italian seasoning" mix works fine, as does "pickling spice" mix - a mix of several colors of whole peppercorns, some dried herbs, and dill. You could go ahead and add a little olive oil to this, but it tastes great without it.
Lemon or lime juice are also good bases for unusual dressings. Add a little bit of sugar, not nearly as much as for lemonade, to ReaLemon or ReaLime, or squeeze your own if you are a masochist, and then throw in poppy seeds, sesame seeds, little bits of chili pepper, etc. This kind of dressing works really well on salads that are made of mostly solider veggies, grated, rather than all greens. Grated carrots, bean sprouts, sliced cucumbers, grated beets, jicama (Jerusalem artichoke) tossed with just a few greens, and this kind of dressing, is very refreshing. Add green grapes to your regular salad, too, not just to fruit salad.
For sandwiches, you can get away with using zipper-top bags such as ZipLoc, but your sandwich can be squished flat in them. Again Tupperware can help you with this. And if you are making a sandwich with something messy in it, such as homemade guacamole (mostly avocado), then you decide which better suits your needs: a bag, which you can throw out, with the mess/spills in it, and not have to clean, or a Tupperware container from which you can easily scoop up spilled stuff and put it back in the sandwich, but then you have to rinse the container. Your call.
And of course, Tupperware is great for bringing dinner leftovers to work the next day for lunch. Leftover spaghetti with no-salt tomato sauce; leftover goulash made with light sour cream and extra lean beef, leftover macaroni made with low-sodium cheese sauce base (now that Heluva isn't selling low-sodium cheddar any more, I have to resort to stuff like that, instead of real cheese, sigh).
If you want to bring salads, first, you need Tupperware. Small containers you buy from the supermarket AREN'T as tight/spill-proof as Tupperware. The littlest size containers, often used to hold raisins in kids' lunches, are ideal for salad dressings.
Second:
Flavored vinegars, without anything else added, make excellent tart salad dressings. Or make your own - buy good red vinegar and throw in dried herbs and let them steep for a few days, shaking occasionally to distribute the flavors. Dried "Italian seasoning" mix works fine, as does "pickling spice" mix - a mix of several colors of whole peppercorns, some dried herbs, and dill. You could go ahead and add a little olive oil to this, but it tastes great without it.
Lemon or lime juice are also good bases for unusual dressings. Add a little bit of sugar, not nearly as much as for lemonade, to ReaLemon or ReaLime, or squeeze your own if you are a masochist, and then throw in poppy seeds, sesame seeds, little bits of chili pepper, etc. This kind of dressing works really well on salads that are made of mostly solider veggies, grated, rather than all greens. Grated carrots, bean sprouts, sliced cucumbers, grated beets, jicama (Jerusalem artichoke) tossed with just a few greens, and this kind of dressing, is very refreshing. Add green grapes to your regular salad, too, not just to fruit salad.
For sandwiches, you can get away with using zipper-top bags such as ZipLoc, but your sandwich can be squished flat in them. Again Tupperware can help you with this. And if you are making a sandwich with something messy in it, such as homemade guacamole (mostly avocado), then you decide which better suits your needs: a bag, which you can throw out, with the mess/spills in it, and not have to clean, or a Tupperware container from which you can easily scoop up spilled stuff and put it back in the sandwich, but then you have to rinse the container. Your call.
And of course, Tupperware is great for bringing dinner leftovers to work the next day for lunch. Leftover spaghetti with no-salt tomato sauce; leftover goulash made with light sour cream and extra lean beef, leftover macaroni made with low-sodium cheese sauce base (now that Heluva isn't selling low-sodium cheddar any more, I have to resort to stuff like that, instead of real cheese, sigh).
Wednesday, October 01, 2003
Did you ever have one of those days where you wake up, and look at the row of ten pill bottles, and think "I just can't do this"? And then sit there for 15 minutes psyching yourself up to go ahead and spend a minute swallowing pills? I skipped mine one morning when I had that feeling- and certainly felt awful the next day. Wound up not even going to work. Every few months, I just wake up with that feeling, but usually I can talk myself into it by the time I finish showering and all. It's not that hard, it's just that sometimes the repetition of it all seems - boring, monotonous, pointless?
Also, my saxophone got stolen last week. One of the few reasons we have a car at all, instead of just the bikes, is because of the difficulty of carrying large musical instruments on a bike. Not impossible- there's a guy in the band who carries his tuba on his Harley. He's several inches over 6 feet, and has a tuba case with backstraps, so he can wear it like a backpack; the majority of the weight rests on the seat, and the straps stabilize it. However, for people in the 5'6" and under range, strapping on a tuba would be quite uncomfortable, would stick up above one's head, and would alter the center of gravity of the bike - and knowing where the center of gravity is and how your bike moves around it is one of the important elements of motorcycle riding. At least a tuba is fairly symmetrical in weight and shape; a tenor saxophone, while a few pounds lighter, is asymmetrical, making the weight distribution off-center, and making it difficult to put straps onto the case that would hang straight.
Luckily, we have replacement-value coverage on our homeowners', so I was only de-instrumented for a couple days. State Farm allowed me to come pick up the check in person, and I picked up my new horn Monday of this week. So I only missed one rehearsal, last week's.
The new horn doesn't have a soft case yet- the store didn't have them in stock; it's on order. So I had to carry it in the hard case, which is large and weighs a lot- puts the whole package to within a couple of pounds of the weight of a tuba. Heaviest thing I have carried in quite a while. But I was able to walk up the uphill corridor to the band hall without stopping, even carrying the case! I am doing OK, I guess! I still wouldn't want to try sprinting with a saxophone in hand, though - not that I ever really felt like it :-) The weather is slightly cooled off this week- it's finally no longer going over 90, and it's even dropping below 70 at night, and cooler weather always makes me feel more energetic, even long before I became ill.
My birthday is later this month- I'll be 50. I look under 40, and my innards, namely my heart, seems to be performing like someone over 60, so it averages out- I guess.
Also, my saxophone got stolen last week. One of the few reasons we have a car at all, instead of just the bikes, is because of the difficulty of carrying large musical instruments on a bike. Not impossible- there's a guy in the band who carries his tuba on his Harley. He's several inches over 6 feet, and has a tuba case with backstraps, so he can wear it like a backpack; the majority of the weight rests on the seat, and the straps stabilize it. However, for people in the 5'6" and under range, strapping on a tuba would be quite uncomfortable, would stick up above one's head, and would alter the center of gravity of the bike - and knowing where the center of gravity is and how your bike moves around it is one of the important elements of motorcycle riding. At least a tuba is fairly symmetrical in weight and shape; a tenor saxophone, while a few pounds lighter, is asymmetrical, making the weight distribution off-center, and making it difficult to put straps onto the case that would hang straight.
Luckily, we have replacement-value coverage on our homeowners', so I was only de-instrumented for a couple days. State Farm allowed me to come pick up the check in person, and I picked up my new horn Monday of this week. So I only missed one rehearsal, last week's.
The new horn doesn't have a soft case yet- the store didn't have them in stock; it's on order. So I had to carry it in the hard case, which is large and weighs a lot- puts the whole package to within a couple of pounds of the weight of a tuba. Heaviest thing I have carried in quite a while. But I was able to walk up the uphill corridor to the band hall without stopping, even carrying the case! I am doing OK, I guess! I still wouldn't want to try sprinting with a saxophone in hand, though - not that I ever really felt like it :-) The weather is slightly cooled off this week- it's finally no longer going over 90, and it's even dropping below 70 at night, and cooler weather always makes me feel more energetic, even long before I became ill.
My birthday is later this month- I'll be 50. I look under 40, and my innards, namely my heart, seems to be performing like someone over 60, so it averages out- I guess.
