Eatbetterers part 3 -gather around healthy people !

[DameDiazepamTheDramaQueen]

Third thread of healthy eating, no calorie counting just good, healthy food for us and our families.

Thanks folks. It's weird about the blood pressure though - you'd think that a life change like a stressful move, and the resulting bad eating habits wouldn't exactly have a good effect on my bp!

holmes - perhaps you should do it more often

good news here - no brain surgery - seems possible bleeding in his eye and not his brain. I brought him in bananas and casher nuts (this is his preferred food anyway). I think he may be discharged tonight and I am making lentil bolognese with wholewheat spaghetti.

how's your dh Dame?

That's great news, Still!

Good news about Dh coming home

Dh is ok thanks, getting better. I've aged 20 years though

Good news Still.

Dame hope your DH is ok.

Sorry to hear about your husbands still and dame

Eaten the biggest load of rubbish ever this week, been out loads and now feeling knackered but determined to do it all better this week. day off tomorrow so going to food shop and get organised. Just made loads of soup!

Have been enjoying some good food over the last couple of days - roast pheasant yesterday and marinated slow-cooked pork belly with rice and veg tonight. And I managed to resist a Magnum when the rest of my family had one earlier!

I may be too busy to cook properly over the next few days though - new puppy has arrived!

Hello I'd lke to join in if I can - I found the link from 'Food' homepage on site.

I have always cooked a variety of meals sometimes using jars etc without much thought really. My DH starting eating lean as much as possible a couple of years ago. I'm now following this as I've recently started training at the gym and want to something about my health. I don't want to follow a rigid 'diet' and havn't been. I have cut lots of obvious things out - wine, cakes and takeaways. I've found myself losing weight and feeling much better.

My approach has been to cook from scratch, quite simple meals often traditional meat and gravy type dinners with chilli, lasagne etc thrown in. I have been following a strict budget so meals like spaghettie carbonara made from veg plus bacon pieces that are only 80p have featured. Some weeks I have only spent £40 for a family of four.

Having read a few articles and seen an item on BBC this am I would like to know more about what other processed foods are bad and can be changed for better alternatives. So we buy butter instead of spread for instance. Cereal is limited to twice per week (bran flakes or weetabix)

I think I need to:

Swap vegetable oil for olive oil
Gravy granules - not sure
Stop buying cerreal bars - we did make our own no cook ones before!

Any other pointers welcomed tia.

Welcome smile It sounds like you've been doing well already. Although I cook from scratch it is really boring and I am still stuck in the same meals. But we had asparagus (despite being veggie our ds had never had this) as it was reduced to 10p a pack! Kids loved it.

I think once you stop having cereal bars you won't want them. They are vile sawdusty things (and I can pack away some crap!). Are you looking for better snacks? I've found healthy snacks other than fruit and veg so hard I've just given up. Although nuts are obviously good and I quite like to eat avocado with a spoon!

Things have gone a bit tense here as dp needs surgery after all. I think soup will feature heavily as he may struggle to eat so I need your best recipes, veggie please. Staples are mushroom, butternut squash, lentil, leek and potato, roasted tomato, parsnip, and now fennel. Not a bad list but there must be more exciting ones.

Sorry I mean I've given up snacking!

hi stillearnin

Yeah some of that nice veg is more than carrots and broccoli isn't it. I threw the budgetry towel in yesterday and bought some nice smoked salmon steaks, olive oil and feta cheese. I needed to prepare some nice lunches - can't keep eating cheese salad sandwiches everyday!

The cereal bars are for DS snack at breaktime. We made some homemae ones that were basically oats, butter, honey and dried fruit which set itself in fridge - they were yummy and we need to make these everyweek I think.

I havnt read all of thread but I hope your DP is comfortable all things considered until op. I love roasted squash and tomatoe soup with a bit of ginger and paprika for a kick but finished off with a bit of cream. I fnd smokey bacon always good but we are staying away from that for now.

Afternoon

I've just had a raw spinach and chicken whole wheat wrap, it was really delicious. We're going to have steak and salad tonight- spinach, avocado, tomatoes and spring onions, yum!

Hope everything's ok with everyone

Hi dame

I had raw spinach today too..but with boiled egg and salmon - I did drizzel salad cream though. three brazil nuts and an orange for afters.

Better gt Lasagne on...home made - half meat/half frozen mixed veg serving with broccoli. No white sauce just cream cheese and extra mature as cooking o slow cooker so there is enough liquid in the red sauce to cook properly. Least avoiding more refined flour, if not cheese!

Still I had a lovely 'bottom of the fridge' soup today. Just elderly mushrooms, a few lentils and some carrot and onion with veggie stock but a good helping of chilli and cumin to spice it up. Twas lovely and would be even better with a bit of natural yoghurt or soured cream through it. Sorry to hear about your husband.

I'm back to gymming it and eating well. Had steak tonight with mushrooms and kale. Lovely! Been food shopping and bought lots of nice fish and veggies.

Hi all - long time no see!

Sorry to hear about the poorly DH's still and Dame.

I've just made the most yummy, nutritious and sustaining Califlower, Squash and Coconut soup (it was in this week's Riverford leaflet, I just added chilli). Yummmmmmm.

I've also made your smoked haddock dal a few times over the past few weeks Sleep - we're all really liking it, and now buying smoked haddock on a fairly regular basis.

That sounds lovely, Bramshott! I'm still being a bit rubbish altogether on the food front. Have managed to cut back on the sweet stuff a bit, but with new house, new job (albeit very part time) and new puppy I'm in a kind of grab-whatever-food-is-handy mode. Plus I'm not managing to run as often because of all that stuff too! I might be a lady of leisure again after Christmas though...

Holmes I am going to absolutely force myself to do 30 mins run or other exercise a day. With all the nonsense going on with dp I think it will do me good. I feel like I've got enough on but I can waste 30 mins worrying!

Bram that soup sounds lovely. What form does the coconut take? Can you bear to do a quick run down of the recipe?

Smile - how old is your ds? Mine is 14 and he is only just starting to grow and is constantly hungry. He has school dinners but at break the school has cakes and pastries on! So for snack I've been giving him sandwich wraps with decent fillings or a bit of fruit. It is like a 4th meal so might be too much but it has to be better than a 'dangerous' pastry (as my dd calls them!)

It was a tin of coconut milk. Basically just 1 onion (chopped & fried); 2 gloves crushed garlic; 1 cauliflower (chopped); 1 squash (diced); dried chilli flakes (my addition); 400g tin of coconut milk; 800ml stock (I used chicken stock from the freezer plus a bit of extra water and marigold veg bouillon).

I have been trying to get back into a daily walk after several weeks of inactivity (or rather too much work activity and rushing around, but not enough actual exercise). I find it really clears my head and helps me to work out problems while I walk, but I always go first thing (8.30 - 9.00) or it just doesn't happen.

Ha ha - garlic gloves! I don't think anyone would speak to me if I had those!

Garlic gloves - how very seasonal

I'm going to try that one next week. I am the same with running before 10 or not at all.

Sorry to be a PITA but I can't find your smoked fish dhal recipe Sleep. can you repost it when you get a chance? Any other dhal recipes? Never done It but love a lentil!

Lentil recipes would be welcomed here to I just bought 2kg for £2 in asda last week and havnt made anything yet - 2kg chickpeas too!

short - Sleep's recipe is on http://www.naturalbalancecoaching.com/blog/4584246681/_page/2 her blog . You have to scroll a bit to older posts to find it.

oops - trying link again! blog with Dahl recipe

A good few days here. I made some big batches of creamy tomato soup and carrot and coriander soup. Just had some of the latter for lunch. Dh has bought a whole (butchered!) organic lamb for the freezer - one of the benefits of teaching the children of local farmers! Also managed to get out for a run on Monday (while puppy was asleep! ) and should manage another tomorrow.