The Thermomix Is Here!!!

Winnie has wanted one of these appliances for a while. A customer of his give him a demo about a year ago and he was very impressed. There was a stall at the Mt Barker show and when he saw it he dragged me along to have a look. We booked a demo and as of last Tuesday we are now the proud owners of a new Thermomix.
Is it worth it? Yes, for us I say it is, with our style of cooking and all that it can do we will definitely get our moneys worth out of it. I would suggest to anyone who likes kitchen gadgets, who likes the idea of milling their own grain, making their own caster sugar and icing sugar. It chops, kneads, cooks, blends, all sorts of wonderful things.
It would be a great way to set up a kitchen if you are just starting out, or like us, have old appliances that needed replacing all at once.
We haven't stopped using it yet and pretty much make every meal in it.

Thermomix

Juice Fast part 2

Well it's a week tomorrow when I started my juice fast. It strictly wasn't really an all juice fast. I ate nuts as well and on the third day added a tin of plain tuna for protein.
Yesterday I had  a light evening meal. I am keeping with the juice for breakfast and possibly lunch too. The two things that I am trying to avoid at the moment are gluten and sugar.
My skin did improve some, but I think I have to keep with my changes for a while to see some real results.
One thing that this exercise has given me is more incentive. I have spent a great deal of time in my kitchen and have interest again in cooking, now all I have to do is keep up the momentum.
Winnie has also been dragging my arse out for exercise, which has been great.
One extra bonus of this is that I lost 3 kg. It's not really my goal to lose weight with this, but I could stand to lose some. My main goal is to tone up and get healthy. At 45, with rampant diabetes in my family, I can't afford complacency and I am getting sick of my lack of motivation for anything but sitting on my backside and doing not much. I am also getting sick of not feeling as good as I could.
I know this is not going to be a quick fix, and there is not such thing as a magic pill to do the work for me. I spent many years getting my body into this shape and I am realistic in thinking this is going to take a while.
So the plan is to have juice veg as much as I can, to try and give myself the right level vitamins and minerals I have been missing.
Eat healthy meals that use as little fat, gluten, salt and sugar as possible, as well as keeping away from processed food where I can.
And lastly not deny myself things that I like, but have them as they are meant to be; treats that are had on occasion and not on a daily basis.
It's time for long term changes.

Juice Fast.

Okay, back to health.
I have not been kind to myself over winter. I slacked off on my juicing and started eating too much sugar again.
And my bodies been telling me what it thinks of all that. My skin is not good at the moment, even though I stopped drinking milk. And I have just not been feeling well in myself lately.
I have been skipping meals too, breakfast being the main one, sometimes not eating till early afternoon. All habits that are not good for someone who has diabetes running through the family.
I decided to go a little extreme this time, instead of just adding juice in to for my breakfast. I thought I would attempt a 10 day juice fast and see how I go.
With the way I am eating now it can't do any harm and if I don't succeed, I can always keep juicing for breakfast and lunch then have dinner with Winnie which is still pretty good health wise.

So this is the first day. Breakfast this morning was a juice of; Celery, kale, carrot, apple, parsley and cucumber.

I am using my cold press juicer so there is lots of body to the juice, it's not a pure liquid and is not oxidized by a fast spinning proses. An added bonus is I really like the juice and feel energized from it.
Now all I have to do is get through the sugar withdrawals. Blah!

Health kick! (Ouch!)

Well one of the reasons we started our own veggie garden was to get our own healthy food, none processed and chemical free.
We are slowly getting there. the berries have been fantastic and other crops are coming along. It is hard to keep things going in summer here so I am not starting anything new at this time of year, it is going to be hard enough to keep what we do have alive and if we get too low on water (We only have rain water tanks here.) I am going to have to let things go.
Anyway that is the food production side of things.

One of my biggest problems is eating, I don't do it regularly and having rampant diabetes in the family, this is not a good habit to have.
Winnie's issues are heart disease. He already has had surgery to insert a stent and he has lost his brother to a heart attack.
So we have good intensives to try and keep healthy. Winnie's photography helps him. It keeps him fit with light regular exercise. He takes fish oil in his diet and keeps an eye on what he eats, although he still loves all those processed meats.
I am starting to have problems with my skin now, it's never really been great, but it is getting worse again now. At my age, 44, this could probably be attributed to hormone changes. 
I am going to be trying something new, as well as going back onto the fish oil. I am going to try apple cider vinegar  and honey. I have been reading up on it and it all sounds good. I did now a fellow, many years ago, who swore by it, he was well into his nineties, so that was a good recommendation in itself. It has a lot of suggested benefits, from aiding digestion and relieving stomach complaints, to helping with weight loss.
So I am giving it a go, along with making myself eat a regular breakfast. It will be interesting to see how I go.

Frozen Fruit Smoothies (No Dairy.)

Winnie found a recipe for these on the net and we have been making variations of them for quite some time now. They are thick enough to eat with a spoon, depending on how you make them and we have been using them as a substitute for ice cream.

What you need for this is a strong blender, one with the power to blend ice.
The ingredients for the original smithies were;

1 Frozen banana.
6 Frozen strawberries.
4 Ice cubes.
Enough orange/passion fruit juice to blend the mixture.

We have changed amounts and combinations to suit our own taste. The liquid component is important to help blend the ingredients and stop the mixture from seizing up. The ice cubes can add extra volume to the mix and strangely give it a kind of creamy texture.
Since trying these we have tried a number of different things in different combinations; pears, kiwi fruit, pineapple, watermelon,  berries and different kinds of juice.
It is a great way of not wasting fruit too. Anything in our fruit bowl that is getting a bit too ripe and we are not going to eat it in time, goes into the freezer. When we do buy strawberries we eat what we want at the time and the rest goes in the freezer. No more wasted fruit for us.

So give it a go, it's something yummy and is good for you too. Not many things can boast that.

Have been getting a good feed.

Winnie and I have been munching out on strawberries and raspberries every day now since they have started fruiting, we are getting quite a good feed out of them, now that they are in full production.

The noises made while eating these are obscene. The boysenberries are just starting to color up now and I am looking forward to tasting them soon.

The harvesting has begun!

 Along with the strawberries, we are starting to get raspberries too. The noises Winnie makes while eating them are almost obscene. LOL. They are incredible strait from the bushes. We did have a problem with the birds getting in at first but that seems to be solved now.

Another thing that has that has been very prolific in my garden is the chamomile, I had to trim it back from the red current bush, it was getting so high. I am not usually a drinker of chamomile tea but I am going to give it a go, the flowers smell amazing and I am curious how different the tea will taste when picked fresh. I am drying some too, to be stored.

Some of my picking lettuce has already gone to seed but there is still plenty to eat for a while and I noticed the first flowers forming on my peas today.