What is your favourite wartime recipe?

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Candy Apples- A 1940’s Halloween Treat? CLICK HERE for recipe

I have a FREE weekend (so far…except for Halloween and grocery shopping)

This means I get to catch up on a whole lot of cooking with at LEAST a few different recipes as for every lb I lose I’ll re-create a wartime recipe on my blog.

Is there a wartime recipe you’d like to see re-created? If so please leave your suggestions as a comment and I’ll try to tackle a couple- see what they come out like!

And now for something non- 1940s BUT tomorrow is Halloween! At work we have been busy putting together some fabby recipes and crafts for a useful Halloween page. My friend Jana brought in some Frankenstein Cookies to work yesterday (I do admit to tearing an arm off to taste it- it was the tastiest arm I have ever gnawed on)…

You can see the Franken Cookies, Candy Apples, Ghosty Cakes, Orange Jack O Lanterns and soups by CLICKING HERE

I wonder what treats they had in the 1940’s for Halloween?

C xx

Week 12 weigh in – 3 lbs off!

Being attacked by dogs and high school children and rapidly running out of time before having to leave for work (and I still have to pluck my chin hairs) so just a very quick update for now..

A day late with my weigh in this week but it’s very good news- 3 lb off!!!

I’ll do all the full calculations later but I’m down to 282 lbs – can hardly believe it!!!!

C xx

Being less fat means you can do stuff…

carolyn350smallToday I marched for climate change…. if this event had taken place just three months earlier I would have had to have shown my support from just the confines of my home hooked up to my lap top computer.

I am discovering that being less fat gives you more choices. I may have only lost 30 lbs and realistically have another 120 lbs to go BUT just three months ago it was very painful to walk just the length of the garden as well as stand for any time period. In stores, because of the pain in my back, obviously caused by the huge amount of extra weight being carried around my middle (and all over) I would find relief in pushing a cart (shopping trolley) as this gave some relief by leaning on it ( I bet there are others that have discovered that trick too!) …..you kind of get used to those discomforts over the years.

So having lost 30 lbs I find I can now walk 1/2 mile and stand indefinately and today I was able to march for climate change as part of 350.org, in the cold, pouring rain……..Not even the weather could dampen my enthusiasm- it was a very happy day for me.

Please click here to check out the photos!


Week 11 weigh in – down another 2 lb!

Start weight: 315 lbs (22 st 7 lb)

Last weeks weight: 287 lbs (20st 07 lb)

This weeks weight: 285 lbs (20st 05 lb)

Week 11 weight loss: 2 lbs

TOTAL weight loss to date: 30 lb (Yay! 2 stone 2 lbs)

I admit to weighing myself earlier this week and I was already down to this weight- I was secretly hoping for more by the time I jumped on the scales this morning but I guess that’s not so bad..

Nearly 1/3 rd of the way there already!!

C xx

The big feed – invited to lunch.

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Eating away from home when you are trying to stick 100% to something like I am doing can be quite challenging, especially when you are invited to lunch..

This past weekend was VERY busy for me..and for once the children took a back seat. On Saturday I enjoyed a day helping Dave down at the Mahone Bay Marina with the office admin as it was annual haul out time and it’s literally all hands on deck. It is always quite amazing to see the boats hauled out of the sea with a crane and placed on the wharf on their cradles or trailers to spend the winter on land. Eating at lunch on Saturday was easy- I just brought sandwiches from home and enjoyed a homemade cookie that Margaret dropped over.

Sunday was an entirely different matter. I had been invited over to Dominik & Pheobe’s house to partake in Sunday lunch with John & Ina, Corey & Cheryl. As the smells wafted around their house I prayed silently that it would be something that I could gobble down without worrying about it too much..

The lunch was delicious…. minted peas, sweetcorn, chicken and roast potatoes.. the most yummy roast potatoes cooked to perfection (something I have never really managed to do). It goes without saying that Dominik (he who cooked the glorious spuds) was interrogated ever so politely until every single ingredient and method was stored away in the vicinity of my cranium, securely for future retrieval.

Pudding was frozen blueberries with a warm white chocolate sauce over the top. I don’t think there would have been white chocolate sauce in the 1940’s….Briefly I considered excusing myself from the table with my dish to the bathroom to run the blueberries under the cold tap to remove their coating but HELL that was about the most crazy idea ever. Anyway, it was just a fleeting one as one whiff of the chocolate sent me into an mmmmmm, mmmmmmmm frenzy as the pud was gobbled down.

Finally the homemade wine hit the table. John & Corey had brought wine from home and the temptation was just too strong and I enjoyed 1/2 a glass of each ( I was driving later)…..

I guess the choccie sauce and the wine deviated from a typical 1940’s diet and I did feel a little guilty afterwards but hey sometimes when pleasures fall into your lap you have to take them where you can. I think anyone in the 1940’s would have done the same…..

C xx

Getting rid of THE biggest black pants…

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I will remember today as a significant one..

October 16, 2009 was the day I cast aside THE BIGGEST BLACK PANTS (the ones that have been falling down) I have ever worn in my life and put on a slightly smaller pair of BIG BLACK PANTS…. I wanted to stamp on the pants to within an inch of it’s life and then cut it up for cleaning rags but decided instead that I would always keep these big black pants as a reminder just how BIG my bottom was (it still is actually but just not quite as big!)

Above all, when I have lost 100 lb I want to be in one of those photographs where the person fits inside just one leg of the pants and if I assassinated my pants there would be no doing this in 9 months time.

So the BIGGEST BLACK PANTS OF ALL have been folded, placed in a bag and labelled BIGGEST BLACK PANTS Oct 16, 2009 and placed in the closet.

In 9 months time we will say hello again and hopefully we’ll have a photograph taken together.

C xx

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The Story of the Wobbly Bits (part 1)

As a teenager I always perceived myself as chubby but in reality my weight of 145-160 lbs for a 5 ft 6 inch lass was pretty average. You know what it’s like though. As a teen you are full of insecurities..

Then about 18 years ago the weight started to increase significantly. I had already given birth to my eldest daughter and she was around 2 or 3 years old. I really don’t know what happened for sure around that time that changed (I have an idea but it would be unethical to spout it out) but something did as I began wearing pants all the time (and have done so ever since).

When you start to put on weight you initially notice subtle changes….. you start to wobble more and there is more of you appearing in places where it didn’t before. Gradually jeans no longer feature in your wardrobe but rather stretchy pants with elasticated waistbands… I knew leggings were invented for something.

(part 2 soon)…

Apple Crumble

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Monday was thanksgiving and I prepared a simple and modest slap up meal (that’s a contradiction in terms if ever I heard one!)

No slap up meal is complete without the obligatory pudding/dessert and this is essential in creating that bloated  ‘I-NEED-THE-COUCH-RIGHT-NOW-BEFORE-I-POP’ feeling that all good celebration meals should create..

I WAS going to make an apple pie but decided on the crumble at the last moment to save time..

Apple Crumble

  • 8 apples (2 per person)
  • 4 dessert spoons brown sugar
  • cinnamon
  • 2 oz margarine/butter
  • 4 oz wholewheat flour
  • 4 dessert spoons of white sugar
  • weeny pinch of salt

Method

Peel and chop apples into thin slices

Place in saucepan, sprinkle a little water over, brown sugar and cinnamon

Simmer gently for 5 minutes

Drain a little and place in greased cooking dish

Mix together flour, salt and white sugar

Add in the margarine/butter in small pieces and rub together with fingertips until a breadcrumb look is achieved

Sprinkle over the softened apples

Place in over at 220 c for about 30 minutes

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Week 10 weigh in – another 2 lb off!

Start weight: 315 lbs (22 st 7 lb)

Last weeks weight: 289 lbs (20st 09 lb)

This weeks weight: 287 lbs (20st 07 lb)

Week 10 weight loss: 2lbs

TOTAL weight loss to date: 28lb (Yay! 2 stone)

Well it’s the first time in my life that I have lost weight so slowly and steadily but I am determined NOT to count calories and focus on changing my eating habits rather than worry about the amount of calories I am consuming or thinking of food as bad and good.

The beauty of being limited by ‘rationing’ is I know at the beginning of every week how much milk, fat, sugar, eggs and meat I have to last and then I use these wisely in my meals. Naturally my meals take on a different appearance with plates being filled by veggies rather than OTT amounts of meat and carbs (although I do put away quite a lot of potatoes and wholewheat bread!)

Although I’d love the weight to fall off I am soooo pleased with the way this is happening…the biggest thrill (apart from all the support I am getting on here) is trying on clothes that wouldn’t fit and seeing that I can actually do them up now and one day, not so long in the future, I’ll even be able to wear them.

And above all, this week, I have a spring in my step. I am walking quite FAST – I feel much lighter on my feet. Much more of this I’ll be floating!!

Ok- lunch break over. Time to get back to work…must make sure to hold on to my pants (trousers) as I walk JUST incase (grin)

C xx

Bread stuffing

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I don’t suppose there was much meat to stuff during wartime 1940’s unless you were lucky enough to live in the country and raise your own animals BUT people did raise backyard chickens and turkeys as well as rabbits and I guess these would have been raised for special occasions like Christmas and thanksgiving..

Our thanksgiving this year was a very simple affair and consisted of pumpkin soup for starters, main dish and then apple crumble for dessert. I didn’t have a big turkey but we did have a small free range chicken. I live in the country so I guess in reality I would have raised my own poultry (and I did keep chickens, geese and ducks prior to moving to Canada!)

So yesterday we did enjoy chicken and we did enjoy homemade bread stuffing and here is the recipe and it is VERY FRUGAL on the rations..

Bread stuffing (for those special occasions)

Ingredients

  • Loaf of bread
  • 1 or 2 oz butter
  • dried or fresh herbs such as sage, thyme and parsley
  • onion
  • 500 ml of vegetable stock

Method

Get a large bowl and take all the slices of bread and tear them up into small pieces and place in bowl

Sprinkle on your herbs to your own taste (I like lots!) Add salt and pepper

Dot the butter/margarine over the top

Chop onion finely, saute in butter and then add to the bowl of bread and stir

Take the warm vegetable stock and pour a little of the stock over the bread to moisten it.

Stir until it starts to stick together (not too moist)

Place it in ovenproof dish or form into balls

Cook in oven at about 200 c for 30-40 mins until browned and turn once

Makes 16-20 balls or serves a LOT of people!

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