Day 18

The 7:54 Moment: Domestic Bliss, Dietary Dilemmas and Brain Spasms.

Today Matthew, my husband writes on the challenge from his perspective.


As the male compatriot on this dietary expedition I’ve generally been an enthusiastic co-adventurer with Elizabeth. However, in a tragic display of poor timing, I’ve recently discovered after a spate of cooking with very mixed results, that in true bloke fashion the epicentre of my culinary abilities lays with the frying pan. If I can fry it, I can cook it. This ability includes all your basic proteins from beef to lamb, chicken, sausages, bacon and eggs.
On the food challenge I’ve also broadened it to include fried, er, I mean ‘sautéed’ tomatoes, onions, capsicum, zucchini and leeks. Add to this the occasional veggie stir fry or fried rice and I think I cover most of the basics a man would want or need to eat. However, I did find myself in a spot of bother Sunday morning when it can to making a ‘nice’ breakfast.


Setting the scene, our eldest was sleeping over with friends, our youngest was happily occupied with her bottle, and we were planning a relaxed Sunday morning breakfast before heading to the local beachside park for a pre-school picnic. Into this scene I waded, frying pan in hand, to make a ‘nice’ breakfast while Elizabeth got ready.


Knowing full well the boundaries set by the 30-day challenge I began:


Me (to self):     Fresh pear and pineapple juice – check! Coffee – check! Now for the food. 
                       
                        (Long pause)


Me (to self):     Umm

(Another long pause)

Me (to self):     Ok so I can do eggs, scrambled or poached and I’ll have them with…. Um….nothing! What do you have your eggs with if you can’t have bacon, or sausages, or even toast!

This outcome was clearly unacceptable to me so I proceeded to pull several packs of bacon from the

freezer in clear contravention of the 30 day challenger’s cooking code. Call it a brain spasm, but I had

no idea how to proceed. Undetered by this  unforgivable breach of the code and re-assured by the

comforting sizzle of my frying pan I finished the bacon and eggs and called the family to the table.

That’s where it went strangely pear shaped.

She:                 Why did you make me this!?!?

Me:                  I was making a nice Sunday breakfast. That’s what we said didn’t we?

She:                 What about the challenge? You know we aren’t eating this?

Me:                  Well I couldn’t very well give you fruit again now could I? That’s so ‘everyday’.

She:                 I like fruit. If you want it to be nice, put it in a nice bowl, light a candle, do something like that!

Me (with a look of utter incomprehension):

                       

                        Nice bowl?!?

For the sake of brevity we’ll now skip the rest of the scene to get to the key points:

1. If you are changing up your menu, you need to do some homework on how to cover both everyday meals and also special occasions. Otherwise you’ll fall back into old habits.
2. Agree with the other people going on the journey of diet change with you what their expectations and ideals are. It may be that a nice bowl is all that is required to mix it up, rather than cooking a three course off menu meal of wonder that is just going to miss the mark and leave everyone with physical and relational indigestion.
3. If you have a dietary or relational blowout on the journey, talk it out, plan for the future and get back in the saddle.

Til next time, (raising my carrot stick skyward)

Cheers! Matthew

Breakfast: Weird poached egg sitting all alone on the plate, coffee and fresh juice.

Lunch: Wraps.

Afternoon Tea: Coffee.

Dinner: Pumpkin soup with left over homemade 'wrap' chips.

Day 14

The 7:54 Moment: Phew I'm tired. I sat down today and really went through the food plan menu. I was becoming very overwhelmed and bored with what we were eating and I had total brain overload in coming up with new things to eat. - You take out meat and wheat and dairy and you realize how much they add diversity to each meal.
The last thing you need on a healthy food plan is to come up short because then 'take away' sounds mighty good and taste even better.


So to make life easy and diverse I have dedicated a certain 'type' of food to a certain day. i.e. Rice meals on Monday nights, soup on Tuesday nights, and on... I'm bringing back the diversity baby! :)

Also because we are being healthy that means lots of salads. Now, salads can get really boring and old, quick. This is also a complete de-motivator. The trick to these leafy meals is to break them down and build them up again simply and with different tastes of the bowl:


1) The base: Cos lettuce, or spinach, rocket, or general salad mix, even cabbage, ...


2) Add ONE main salad item as the star of the dish - grilled capsicum, or mushrooms, some roast pumpkin.


3) Next, add a sprinkle of friendship, around 2 types: grated cheese and shallots, or toasted nuts and mango slices, feta and semi dried tomatoes, snow-peas and alfalfa,or...


4) Then add a drizzle of dressing to have a 'salad delich': pesto, or a vinaigrette, yogurt, or...


Do these four and  you get  = salad delicious! - With no 'salad burnout' and a different type to try and/or look forward to next time. 


Breakfast: Rice thins with honey and our fresh juice. - twas a bit light on today.


Lunch: Salad wrap.


Afternoon: Gluten free cupcake and a coffee.

Dinner: Went to friends house and ate salad with a touch of chicken, I won't tell you about the choc-mint ice-cream we had for dessert!!!!. (Thank you my friends it was lovely.)

Day 13

The 7:54 Moment: Today we are back on track.
It felt really good to get back on the food challenge plan and I had the fleeting thought that maybe a new habit was forming? Could it be that now that its a 'feast'


Now some of you may have noticed that I don't have a morning tea spot, that is because I don't eat morning tea. My girls do though and I usually give them fruit which keeps them going til lunch.
I find if I have a great big, filling breakfast it keeps me well and truly going - this is just me though! 

On another note, hubby and I sat down to a movie and this always gets the taste buds a hankering for some chippies or chocolate - your junk food of choice! 
We simply popped some organic potato, very thin sliced, in the oven and then munched away on our healthier option.


Breakfast: Breakfast Pikelets. You can add anything to them: 1/4 cup almond meal, fruit pieces, oats,...http://fradazhealth.blogspot.com/2010/08/day-2.html

Lunch: Kids fun Lunch: Pirate ships carrying treasure! Cos lettuce cups filled with honey soy fried rice with corn, capsicum and peas and a carrot stick mast. Fried rice is a great way to get rid of any left over, unused, veggies too.


Afternoon Tea: 1 gluten free mini cupcake with a touch of icing -remember I said to make something yummy healthy nice to help get back on the wagon.http://fradazhealth.blogspot.com/2010/08/day-12.html

Dinner: Vegetable soup.


Movie Snack: Roast Potato thins with sweet chilli dipping sauce.

Day 11

The 7:54 Moment: No comment!!! 

See you tmrw. xx

Day 6

THE 7:54 MOMENT: 

Guess what? I am not feeling so crabby!!! Lol,

Ok - I am not a 'crabby' or angry person but being female I am subject to fluctuating hormones. I have noticed today I feel more settled - it's the perfect word. More settle in myself, more settled to cope with and get into all the demands of my day. I really do put it down to being off meat, wheat (except for that bit in the wraps) and dairy.

Hubby went to Sydney today for work and was a good boy and ordered the 'pumpkin and pine nut salad', he said it had a touch of chicken in it, but not much, which he ate...No did not envision him chocking on his chicken!!! - Much!!! (Joke)

I was proud of him for mostly trying to stick to the rules.

Big But: He brought me a gift, isn't that nice, wonderful, arrrh love. I looked at the cute little bag and joy flooded my soul: jewellery, a cute book, candles...  - IT WAS CHOCOLATE!!!

The smile fall from my face along with all the love, praise and affection I was about to bestow on him.

"Darn you" I heard myself cry at him..."Why???" "How could you???" and "What were you thinking???"

He simply replied, as men do, "You'll just have to wait 24 days."

He was totally unaware of the forbidden love coursing through my veins as I imagined what that smooth, creamy, the only amazing brown colour in the universe there is, chocolate would taste like, there in the gift bag...from hell.

...I made him change Arden - Grace's big stinky whooper of a nappy!

Moving on, Tuesday is also my child friendly lunch day. I try and make something fun and interesting for the girls. I used my new found lunch freedom - store bought healthy wraps (70% corn flour and a touch of wheat.)

Breakfast: Pikelets using my mums amazing recipe with a drizzle of maple syrup and warm apple and canned pineapple pieces. http://fradazhealth.blogspot.com/2010/08/day-2.html\

Lunch: Tuesday fun lunch for the kids = Farm Barns!  Wraps with 'hay'- grated carrot and a small amount of grated cheese, with left over rice from last nights dinner. With toasted pine nut 'mice', all topped with a smige of mayo for flavor. The girls loved it.  To mine, I left of the mayo and added avocado - my kids won't eat avo, yet!

Afternoon Tea: For the girls, left over breakfast pikelets spread with a thin amount of butter and dipped in hundreds of thousands. 

I had a warm green tea.

Dinner: Soup. Lentil, spinach and mushroom soup. So yummy and very filling.

Here is how to make our 'Farm Barns' wraps!

RECIPE:

Farm Barns

Wrap breads of choice.

Grated carrot

Small amount of grated cheese
Cooked rice

Toasted pine nuts

Mayo

Avocado

Heat wraps in microwave or oven. Spread wrap down the middle with avocado and/or mayo. Place grated carrot, a small amount of cheese and rice on top. Sprinkle pine nuts over the top. Fold or roll up wrap and serve. 

Copyright Elizabeth Findlay 2010

See you tmrw. xx