Goundrey Merlot 2006

Another good wine.  And i love that it was only $14.99.   Also i want to point out that the last Goundrey I reviewed was also just $14.99.  We'll be trying to get a case of the Merlot, unfortunately the Cab Sav is out of stock at our local bottle shop.

Organic Cafe Maroochydore

I love this place and the silly people in Maroochydore choose the cafe around the corner that is the same price and suits their upper class attitudes.  oh brother!  This means I will always get a seat at the Organic Cafe, and it certainly stays busy enough to turn a profit.  The coffee is good and it caters to the meat eater and the veg alike.  It also caters to those with food intolerances.

I asked them to cut the pancake in half so that the kids would have half each and they did even better, they made 2 individual pancakes with extra ice cream and extra banana.  gotta love the babycinos.  I had the vegie stack which is always great(aparagus, avocado, mushroom, salsa and hollandise sauce on pumpkin toast.  not doing the rating system this time (a bit sick i am) but I can guarantee that there is a great range of food there.

I feel bla so i'm going to go now.

my weight and the low carb veg diet

I've been without body weight scales for about 2 months and finally on Monday I bought some nifty ones that do body fat %, muscle% and water%.  And of course they do your actual weight.  After a month of illness and no gym I knew that I had put on some weight, as evidenced by my increasing love handles and the fact that my size 12 jeans were all a little too tight.  Well I was right, I'd gained 2 1/2kg  blerghh!!  It may not seem like a big deal to most but my ideal weight is 63kg, I look good at that weight and I'm usually 65kg which I was just ok with, but that extra 2 1/2 is a killer.  it all goes on that butt and thighs.  Anyway my body fat is good at 24%(22-25 is normal).  I'm aiming for 22.  Not sure if this will equal to 63kg but we'll see.

Continuing to the point, I eat way too many carbs.  Its easy to over do it as a veg i think as you cut out so many fats by not eating meat that you just think you can eat pretty much anything.  So i'm cutting out potatoes and I'm going to try to cut out white carbs like white bread.  So i'm going to record the food i eat here as well as my scale readings.  I don't know if some of what i'm doing is right on this diet but we'll see.  I'm increasing my protein to compensate a bit.

Breakfast yesterday

weetbix with bran and full cream milk

lunch

bocconcini, fresh tomato and basil slices

a couple of drinks of chocolate soy milk to tie me over

dinner

pumpkin and balsamic onion quiche

baked sweet potato

quartered mushrooms

a small serve of soy sesame tofu

fresh asparagus.

My scales this morning read at 

66.5kg  24%BF 38.4% MM(muscle mass)

Oh and I've bought a low carb veg cookbook of Amazon so I should get that next week.

truffle oil?

I bought some today.  Haven't a clue really what to do with it.  My only 2 references being its vague use in recipe books and on the Iron chef.  ooooh Truffles.  So i put some on my spiced pumpkin pizza tonight.  Does it taste any better?  haven't a clue.   but it tasted good.  So if anyone knows the specifics of Truffle oil, i would love to know.  

The best chocolate cake ever

I just have to say that the best chocolate cake I have ever had is the one I made last week.  The Raspberry Blackout Cake from Vegan with a Vengeance is wonderful.  I accidentally bought mulberry jam so it was a slight modification to the recipe, but still turned out great.  It was also the easiest cake I have ever made.  How wonderful not to crack eggs, it was a simple add the wet ingredients to the dry and that was that.  I bought the book based on a review of this recipe and I was not disappointed.  I also made the vegan corn fritters that night which got dh's approval.  

I'm not going to put the recipes up here as I really do think people should buy the book.  

no pic, but i do have a pic of the home made rhubarb pie i made about a month ago.  If you would like the recipe please ask.  It was a fly by the seat of my pants pie that turned out very nicely, especially since I have never made a rhubarb anything before.

Vegan with a vengeance

I bought this book and received it a couple of days ago and so far so good.  I am very interested in becoming vegan rather than just vegetarian and this book was recommended to me.  So far so good too.  I just tried my first real vegan recipe.  obviously i have had vegan food, everyone has, ie. asian noodle etc, but this recipe was for cupcakes.  Usually you need lots of butter.  The vegan version was so much easier to make and quite tasty.    

I look forward to doing some more cooking with this book.

a warning about fake meats

Its been a big week. To sum it up and i don't want to rehash, here are some dot points.

-  sterilising toothbrushes on the stove = 2 firetrucks and toxic smoke saturated house.

-  same night - nasty, nasty head cold developed

-  early that day - nasty rash on upper torso develops

-  3 days later discover our cleaner (brought in because of the toxic smoke) has ripped us off and damaged household items.

its all done now thankfully, many lessons have been learnt and the cleaner is due for some Karma.

So onto the topic of this post.

I developed a rash on Saturday morning and couldn't place why.  It took me 2 days to figure out why and in the meantime i continued to do what caused the rash.  It took a google image search of about a minute to discover that I had 'Ribo rash'.  This is a rash caused by an allergy to the food additive 635 (and sometimes the related 631 and 627).  It took me another 10 minutes of searching food labels in the cupboard(of which i found just one offender), then i clicked to the real offender.  Sanitariums Vegie Delights range uses 635 quite commonly I discovered after reading their 635 disclosure page.  geez.  sanitarium says there is nothing wrong with 635.  Don't think because you have eaten them and had no issue that you are in the all clear.  I have been eating them for the last 3 yrs, but had excessive amounts this week.  according to the website www.fedupwithfoodadditives.info  this is common.  you can be fine eating it once a week, but go over your bodies limit and you'll know it.  I had itchy swollen eyes, earlobes and neck.  aswell my upper torso.  I've put it on my no no list.  its the first thing on my no no list as i have never had a problem with allergies before.   i figure if too much causes a rash then any amount is probably bad for me.  

In the midst of looking at label in my home i was appalled to find MSG in the powdered vegie stock(vegeta) i have used for 5 yrs.  i was shocked.