Tag: food

So you have cancer. Now what?

Food glorious food

So, turns out I have prostate cancer. I wrote about it first here…

It’s not like it’s gonna take me out anytime soon and I am continuing with frequent check ups and mri scans and all of that sort of nonsense just to make sure it’s not getting any worse. So not a great deal to worry about.

I did though take the opportunity to review my working hours at work and dropped a few and now I only work 4 days a week Tuesday to Friday.

Not wanting to be overly dramatic, it did occur to me that perhaps I might use this as an opportunity to rethink things a little bit and just try and give myself a little bit more time in the day. Again it’s not because of worries of any sort, it’s simply because I thought it’ll be rather nice to only work 4 day’s week. I’ve not had an epiphany or some such.

I did do it previously but they were particularly long days I didn’t really have the energy of the inclination to be working for 9 hours A-day. So now I only work 8 hours A-day 4 days a week which is fabulous and I have every Monday off. It’s only an hour difference but that hour does make it quite difficult to squeeze all of the working time into the day when I don’t want to start before 8 and I don’t want to work after 5. Makes me seem a bit picky doesn’t it…

Anyway to get to my point what I’ve actually been enjoying doing is bulk cooking for a couple of hours on a Monday morning so that I don’t have to do a great deal of cooking for the rest of the week. I know I need to eat healthier and stay fit and well as I can so this all seemed to fit nicely together.

Just means I don’t have to spend as much time during the week preparing food and after work I can take the dog out for a walk after I’ve thrown something in the oven and Hey presto all sorted.

I realised I could have done this before and there was absolutely nothing stopping me I guess it just felt like I was taking some sort of actions to improve things in terms of both preparing better food as well as not being quite so busy.

So each week I whip up a quick menu and pop to get whatever I need. I then usually have to pop back to get the things I didn’t remember. I then head into an absolute frenzy of cooking and pot washing and Try to do everything in about 2 hours. I was a bit worried about how long you can leave food in the fridge I’m kind of wondered whether I was going to give everybody diarrhoea so I tend to put Tuesday and Wednesday is food in the Friday and Saturday goes into the freezer. This week we had burgers on Monday and then Tuesday is fish pie, Wednesday is a Thai green curry, Thursday is a vegetable filled cottage pie, Friday it’s a beef Madras curry, There is a vegetable pasta thrown in there as wellAnd if I remember correctly some sort of chicken chasser.

I think I need to work a little more vegetables in there but mostly I’m rather enjoying it.

Not really sure why I’ve told you all that and if my writing seems a little odd it’s because I’m doing it through dictation While I’m lying on the couch with the dog.

Pizza Review #2 – Salty Goodness

A rather yummy 8.5 on the pizza scale!

I recently bought an Ooni pizza oven, which you can read about here. When I did the post it was suggested that I add a subject to the blog of the pizzas I do, so here you go. This, is that…

Still going to work through the format but lets do it this way:

Pastrami and Roquefort

Base – Shop bought Pizza Express ready rolled. Pretty good and nice and thin. Makes a big one you can share too so great for when you have guests – which we did.

Sauce – I made my own marinara with tomatoes, garlic, olive oil, oregano and salt and pepper.

Toppings – Pastrami and Roquefort cheese

Cheese – Roquefort and Mozarella

Verdict – It works. Really works. Roquefort is a blue cheese, so salty and strong, and the sweet sauce balanced it up nicely. Base was super crispy, so it was just one of those pizzas where you want to keep shovelling it in because it just tastes and feels great in your mouth. And cutting back on the mozarella meant it wasn’t too oily or dripping with cheese, so I felt like I was almost having diet pizza – which meant I could eat twice as much!

This is another I did – BBQ chicken with red onion and peppers
Youngest child and sister eatign some of the rosemary and garlic focaccia I did too, and her family and the reset of mine were about too…

It pass the morning after test? What’s that, I hear you ask.

When it comes to pizza a good test is just what it tastes like the next morning, cold, with mayo or salad cream. Well, it was really good. The saltiness and the vinegar of the salad cream were a perfect blend and the pastrami was still rather good cold.

All in all, a top pizza and one I shall make again- though next time I will add sun dried tomatoes too to balance out how strong the Roquefort is…

Pizza Review #1 – The Old Maid

A disappointing 4/10 at best.

I recently bought an Ooni pizza oven, which you can read about here. When I did the post it was suggested that I add a subject to the blog of the pizzas I do, so here you go. This, is that…

Still going to work through the format but lets do it this way:

Base – 75p LIDL base, average at best but carries a heavy load if you so choose, not too thick, an ok crust and handy when you forget to make dough, or are in a hurry and don’t have 26 hours to spare to prep a proper full on epic dough.

Sauce – Green pesto

Toppings – chicken, Anchovy wrapped capers

Cheese – Feta and a little Mozzarella

Verdict – Bloody hell, that was as dry as a post menopausal, cat loving, God fearing, lube lacking, bake sale supporting, kids-these-days hating old maid. If I’d topped it with talcum powder and old sponges it would have been more moist. Next time there’s a flood Ill whip up a batch and they’ll happily serve if we run short of sandbags. I’m surprised sand didn’t spill out of it when I sliced it up.

Ok, so I’m not saying it wasn’t edible, it was, I had coleslaw and salad with it so I was able to get it down, and I think it needed the sweet peppers I could not find. They would have lubricated it quite nicely I imagine.

So no, on balance I wont make it again…I liked the pesto and chicken and feta individually, and will put anchovy on anything, but together it needs reworking. Plus it was a tad anaemic looking too. It was hard to tell the difference before and after really.

Did it pass the morning after test? What’s that, I hear you ask.

When it comes to pizza a good test is just what it tastes like the next morning, cold, with mayo or salad cream. Turns out that it was actually much much better the next day. After a little moisture had crept into the crust and the salad cream had made the chicken less cardboardy it was a far more pleasant snack.

So there we go, pizza review number 1. Stay away from the Old Maid!

Oh I would not eat a vegan

Just a little something before bed…

Kinda inspired by this if you’ve never read it. I think its one of my best…I even did an audio version.

There are things that pass my lips that I so willingly enjoy

A baby cow, a deer, some sheep, to them utensils I deploy

Fried , roasted, dipped in fondue cheese my preferences are wide

I know they’re cute on the outside, but I so crave the meat inside

Loin, flank, short rib, grass fed, food bid, to stop my clothes from spoiling

Oh whip me up wild roaming fowl, salted, spiced post boiling

These things I lust, my lips do quiver in anticipation

I realise it leaves some folk in the most sternest consternation

But they are safe, so rest assured, my menu rightly lacks their cut

For far too lean and scrawny I do find them, they don’t satisfy my gut

And even though you add some veg, add onions or some aubergine in

No thanks, fear not, I’ll have a salad, for I could never eat a vegan

Screw your cost of living crisis, I’m hungry!

Bravo Ooni, what clever people you are!

We all know there is a cost of living crisis going on, right? Turn on the news and there is an endless list of reasons to feel like, what is the bloody point. Brexit, Tories, Ukraine, fuel costs, heating prices, covid…oh the list goes on and on.

Well on the upside, and it is a very small upside when compared to the yawning chasm of doom of the downside, our company gave us each £1000 to ease the strain of the burden of the rocketing costs of just being alive.

So what did I do, you ask? Did I put it towards my heating and electric bill, which is about to double? Did I put into savings for a rainy day? Maybe I donated it to those more needy that I am?

Did I fuck. I bought a pizza oven, that is what I did.

I have cancer, as I have written about before, and whilst not the worst type, it has certainly given me more of a ‘French’ approach to life recently. You knwo what I mean. If I was French and I had been given £1000 then I know for a fact that I’d be bollocks deep in brie and baguettes whilst sipping on red wine and contemplated what industrial action to take next.

Yup, so with my blue and white stripy t shirt on and a string of onions around my neck I thumbed my chin to the world and took my pedal bike to the internet and ordered one of these. (That is the last of my French stereotyping I promise)



Oh and how glad I am that I did.

I still need to get a table for it, but I did also pick up a little garden kitchen table this for the prep toop, and with a shop bought dough and a few choice toppings I hooked it up, turned it on, and waited for 30 minutes. It can do a 16 inch pizza apparently, but I am still waiting for the large pizza peel so kept it small to start. Mrs afterwards is away at a spa with her mum and sister and niece this weekend so it was just us boys at home…

The dough was a bit rubbish, but I fashioned a pizza-ish shape and chucked it in and 80 seconds later we had a perfectly cooked pizza! Our Tom thought it was fabulous, and Sam agreed wholeheartedly as he wolfed his down, still somewhat hungover from the night before.

The first ever pizza from our oven

I then played about and made a few more and didn’t burn them too much, especially given it gets to 500 C.

By the time I had fed everyone a few times, including a special one for the dog, it was time for mine I was ready to sit down with a bottle of rose prosecco and my anchovy and Pineapple pizza! But alas there was no pineapple, so it was just anchovies, and my god it was good. Crisp base, delicious toppings and a wood oven taste even though it is a gas oven. They do one with wood but I wasn’t overly fussed by pushing the boat out too much. I was quick and easy.

Oh and I realise you may have thoughts on pineapple and anchovies. Well you’re just wrong, ok. It is a perfect balance of salt and sweet. I do occasionally throw olives on, or I will have Roquefort for the saltiness, but keep your pizza gatekeeping to yourself! 🙂

Looks a bot charred but wasnt at all…

The kids helped clear up kind of and then disappeared, and I then had a nap in the hut with the dog. I think it was the prosecco to be honest.

Anyway, I am off work this week and imagine it will be pizza most nights…

No wonder I am so fat!

On the matter of eating endangered species

Ome from the archives…

I would not eat a panda

it does not appeal to me

Despite it being grass fed

and not tough and quite juicy

It’s flesh I would not sauté

bake or broil or steam or fry

I would not make some pastry

and then bake it in a pie

Please do not serve me blue whale

it would surely be obscene

To brown it in a skillet

with chopped garlic and some cream

I could not sample blow hole

or a steak of flesh most pink

Do not prepare me sperm whale

or an orca or a mink

Bald Eagle’s off the menu

it could never pass my lips

I’d never shallow fry it

And then serve it with some chips

Please do not bring it to me

if you do I will reject

The smorgasbord of tasty

claws and wings and beaks and necks

Be gone you furry entrée

do not ask me to abide

A puppy stuffed with kitten

and Koala on the side

It leaves me feeling queasy

and on me it does repeat

I gag on eucalyptus

flavoured mar-su-pi-al meat

I’d never eat a chilli

made of simians for sure

Orang-utan with lentils

that I surely would deplore

I’d not enjoy chim-pan-zee

milk poached with fresh vanilla

I’d rather eat a salad

than bar-be-cued gorilla

But pig and cow I’ll gorge on

and chickens fill the belly

Once eels I even sampled

But the hot ones not in jelly

So why’s each species different

some not headed for the pot

whilst others we eat freely

quite delicious cold or hot

——————————————————–

Fancy something else?
https://afterwards.blog/2017/07/03/first-blog-post/
https://afterwards.blog/2017/07/14/we-unlikely-few/

Hey. Psst. You, yes you. Got a nasty limerick for you.

It’s just one. It will be fine. No one will know trust me…

A flatulent baker called Martin

Won all contests he’d entered his tarts in

His baked wares were the best

And he proudly confessed

“‘Cos as well as sweet treats, they have fart in!”

Yup, still more of my ongoing journey of calorie deficit and intermittent fasting

A second and more learned opinion on my progress to date.

Okay so I will admit to having neither fasted nor counted calories over the Christmas period. Intentionally though, not because I was face down in a sherry trifle with a chicken leg in each hand in an act of delicious self destruction.

Sometimes you just have to not worry overly, try to remain somewhat in moderation and know that this is temporary only and have in mind exactly when you intend to get back on the horse.

Ive lost and gained and lost enough weight in my life to know the frustration of having to lose weight just to get back to the weight you once were and I am now far more mindful of this when I do choose to ignore the disciplines that have proven successful so far.

I am not in denial of my most carnal urges, and for this week I am enjoying them very much. Without guilt.

I love the sweet deliciousness of cocktails and nibbles and chocolate. I am a huge fan of the sensuous sweetness of whipped cream and the unctuous wonder of all things made of pig.

But with the new year on the horizon and opportunity to start things again I am looking forward to getting back to things in a few days time. But until then, I think I shall have a woo-woo and some baklava!

Even more of my ongoing journey of calorie deficit and intermittent fasting

A second and more learned opinion on my progress to date.

Well it was my annual health assessment this week, so I dragged myself over to Leeds to allow the nice folk at BUPA to do the things they like to do to me. Last years assessment was the beginning of a bit of a mini spiral for me when, just before Christmas, they declared me in fine shape which I took as a sign to eat, drink and be merry – and I then continued to do so post Christmas and into lockdown and by the time I looked at the scales in May I had put on about 10kgs.

I make no excuses for this, I like to eat. I like to drink, and whilst I am often a grumpy old fart, I can also be found being merry from time to time.

Anyway, this was when this most recent journey began. Fast forward one year and it was with great trepidation, and a little excitement, that I took off my coat and boots and stepped (wearing the lightest clothes I could find that morning) onto the scales.

Over 10KG down on last year. Throw in the 10KG or so that weren’t even on their records and that’s not bad going at all.

A battery of tests was to follow and it turned out my heart was okay, my BP in an ok range (I had ran out of tablets so it was a little elevated) and my cholestrol, blood sugar and haemoglobin were all looking good. My body fat was down 7% (though I am still more than a third made of fat) and my waist was down 7cm or some such.

So on the whole everything trending as I had hoped and they were obviously happy with the results.

At the end of the session the doctor even caressed my testicles and stuck a finger up my bottom which I am assuming was a reward for my fine efforts this year.

Winner winner!

Personal Pronoun Sex Limerick time.

Apparently that’s now a thing too…

A promiscuous temptress called Brenda

Not especially choosy on Gender

Whether he, she or Eir

Xemself, Hir, Shim – Don’t care

She’s ain’t fussy-  just wants sensual splendour

________________

I don’t think I’m ignorant, perhaps a little sheltered and middle aged white man and all that…I just honestly had no idea…read it for yourself…

gender pronouns – Bing images

My ongoing journey of calorie deficit and intermittent fasting

Manboobs, Sexy Pokemon and Sage Advice

So I am now about 7 months in and surprisingly pretty much still at it. That in itself is a huge surprise but I think something is seeping into my consciousness that tells me when I’m stuffing too much into my face or eating outside of the windows I have set for myself.

The weight loss is not as rapid as it once was and I did stall for a while but that was because I was eating too much and not moving enough. it’s pretty simple stuff but my goodness it’s hard when the Great British bake Off is on TV and I feel compelled to bake. And who knew that eating an entire cake would mean you wouldn’t lose weight that week. Shocking.

The fasting is probably easier than the calorie control, I mean what is so hard about not eating right. I say that tongue in cheek. Or cake in cheek. My biggest challenge is accidentally eating whilst I am making the boys lunches for school or perhaps making snacks and stuff. Quite often I will have a mouth full of something before I even realise.

And then there are those moments of ‘I don’t care I have tried hard for so long I am eating a handful of cake and then some ham with horse radish sauce on it at midnight.” That usually follows the “I wont eat much today as am going to have a bottle of wine later as it has been a long week” stage.

The “Oh well, tomorrow will be better” phase tends to be next to follow…

I have a full health scan in a few weeks so will be interesting to see how that pans out. I am hoping my blood pressure is looking better and I might treat myself to a prostate examination to celebrate! Kidding. 😉

Anyway, so this is 7 months apart and about 50lbs down. Mostly though just looks like I shaved 🙂