The FastDay Forum

Thanks *very* much for the heads-up on that @hymns&faith! I regularly trawl Amazon for veggie low carb stuff - I've acquired most everything that I think is worth having in that category, but keep looking for more (greedy FatDog) - and hadn't spotted that one.

For those interested, it's not available until January, and CBB is no longer CBB but plain CB (Celia Brooks).

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Low-carb-Gluten ... n+low+carb

I suspect it will be more fully 'lush' with pictures and, if CB is on form, stowed with delicious recipes. Wish that there were a look-inside for it... I'm drooling already.

Edit: I can hardly contain my excitement...!!!! CB (ex CBB) has a 5:2 vegetarian book out 'soon' (she says pre-Christmas) http://5-2veg.tumblr.com/. If it's remotely low-carb (and, surely it has to be) then I have some serious competition at hand, which can only be good if it encourages more folk onto this WoE.

Edit-again: and it's here on Amazon http://www.amazon.co.uk/Vegetarian-Over ... 15&sr=1-10

And Very-final-edit: Just in case they're asleep, FatDog barks frantically at @izzy and @PhilT - here's something for your Santa list

Oh, now I am so glad I told you about this! Sorry I didn't post the link - I just didn't think of it. I feel like I'm coming down with a cold or something and not thinking clearly!

Guess it's time to nap and cuddle in with the dog. Hope it's not the flu.

... and I much hope that it's *not* the flu @hymns&faith, and that you feel better soon ...

If I can help in anyway with the shall-I-do-veggie-low-carb-and-5-2 decision, please let me know! I feel quite evangelical about this particular WoE and would be delighted to help lead you to it (but I'll be hugely objective whilst doing so....)! FatDog

Monday, day one-hundred and forty-eight, repair day

Weigh-in at start of day wt. 112.0lbs (analogue scales corrected ~109.25lbs); 0.0lbs loss
... t.measures - ub. 28.8, w. 25.8, t. 31.0, h. 34.75 inches

Report at the end-of-week 21 of low-carb : total low-carb weight loss 25.8lbs, and last week 2.0lbs weight loss, and the tape measure shows a touch off the waist, double touch off the hips and a quarter of an inch off the stomach.

I should be doing cart-wheels, but the black dog has my ankles in its teeth. But I'm dead chuffed, in theory, with these results.

Starting the week with a deficit deficit again - 350 calories, similar to last week - but given last week's miracles this week can be a good one too (says FatDog, gritting her teeth and putting on her shiny, happy, smiley hat)!

RC's "Day 5" doesn't have any toning exercises, one is meant to do extra aerobics which, I'm afraid, I neglected to do - unless rushing out to the co-op for cream, last thing at night, counts?

Carbs blown (for a repair day they're meant to be no more than 19g), dear reader, because I was envious of the guys' dinner - they were getting freegan Yorkshire puddings and new potatoes to go with the veggies & brie-cheese (all bargains, the best being the brie for 28p) - and I was meant to do a linseed-minute-bread for me. Nah, FatDog couldn't resist the Yorkshires - ooooh, nothing to regret there - utterly worth every indulgent bite.

........ Calories 621.27 Carbs 40.17 Fat 37.37 Protein 28.84 Fibre 8.57

broccoli, cauliflower, and green bean brie-cheese, a FatDog bottom-of-the-fridge concoction
broccoli & cauliflower mix, sainsers, wee florets, 38c/C2.4/F0.9/P4.0/Fi2.2/100g
......... 314g 119.32 7.54 2.83 12.56 6.91
green beans, tesco, top, tail & ¼'d, 29c/C3.2/F0.5/P1.9/Fi2.2/100g
......... 175g 50.75 5.60 0.88 3.33 3.85
brie de meaux, tesco, 260c/C0.0/F20.0/P18.4/Fi1.0/100g
......... 170g 442.00 0.00 34.00 31.28 1.70
cream cheese, full-fat, co-op, 260c/C2.8/F25.0/P5.4/Fi0/100g
......... 72g 187.20 2.02 18.00 3.89 0.00
soya milk, coop org unsw, 30c/C0.1/F1.9/P3.4/Fi0.6/100ml
......... 25ml 7.50 0.03 0.48 0.85 0.15
sunflower, pumpkin and pine nuts, co-op, 665c/C13.7/F56.6/P22.6/Fi6.3/100g
......... 60g 399.00 8.22 33.96 13.56 3.78
cranberries, dried, 325c/C77.5/F0.3/P0.1/F4.7/100g
......... 30g 97.50 23.25 0.09 0.03 1.41
s&p 0.00
total for broccoli, cauliflower, and green bean brie-cheese 1303.27 46.65 90.23 65.49 17.80
FatDog's ¼ portion of broccoli, cauliflower, and green bean brie-cheese 325.82 11.66 22.56 16.37 4.45

Method: 1. rinse the green beans in salted water, crudely drain, and ping in a lidded dish for 6 minutes (these took 9 minutes the other day!) then drain thoroughly and keep hot; 2. do likewise for the broccoli & cauliflower mix for 5 minutes; 3. reserve the crust of the brie to go on top, and melt the rest of the cheeses with the milk in a grill-proof dish (that's big enough to hold the veggies as well, or you'll lose half your cheese on the pot-sides) - I did this in the microwave for a minute; 4. mix the hot veggies, seeds and cranberries in with the cheese, season, and distribute the chopped brie crust over the top; 5. grill until the brie crust is melted and golden and the 'sauce' is bubbling; 6. this was heaven served with Yorkshire puddings, the carbivores had extra tatties.

On a non-repair day I'd be sore tempted to at least double the cranberries, and maybe dump the soya milk and up the quantity of the cream cheese - but it was delicious anyway...

==================================

Tuesday, low-carb day one-hundred and forty-nine, feed day

Weigh-in at start of day wt. 111.6lbs (analogue scales corrected ~108.75lbs); 0.4lbs loss
... t.measures - ub. 28.8, w. 25.8, t. 31.0, h. 34.75 inches

First reading on the scales was 111.2 - I confess, that really had my heart racing - but then the readings stabilzed on 111.6lbs. Still, that'll do very nicely; and, as the analogues confirmed a decent loss it's not an eeeevil scales fairy prank; so, thank-you V&P vary-fairy, thank-you very much.

Restless sleep with near nightmares involving recipe concoction and cooking; all a bit vague now but in the bit before waking there was a dish of three parts that I was struggling to balance flavours in - apples, nuts and a lime sauce came into it - wish I could remember the rest as I can recall thinking that it was a jolly tasty combination! I'm blaming last night's brie for the dreams - its pong is still wafting 'fragrantly' around the flat now...

Back on track with RC's "Day 6". RC must live in a different time dimension - the five minutes for her "five-minute tone-up" is what a "Scottish mile" is to a mile (the former can be anything up to 2 or 3 miles!). See, there are five wee exercises, each of which involves (usually) two sets of between six to twelve repetitions, with a little rest between sets, and effort made when breathing out hard, and occasional 'holds' of two to three seconds. Short of hyperventilating, and doing the other bits way too fast for any benefit, one ain't going to get the exercises done in anything like "five-minutes"! Don't get me wrong - I'm actually loving the minimalist nature of this as a way of easing back into 'exercising' - but underestimating the time required is silly. In all fairness, it's not just RC that does this, methinks every exercise book / video I have encountered does the same - are they trying to get us to use 'bad form' and / or injure ourselves? I'm wondering how long my "15 minute home workout" will be

Think today needs to be dynamic - shifting my books would be a good thing to tackle and the dust apocalypse will have the black dog running to the nearest dog's home for sanctuary.

I'm going for minimalist cooking tonight. Resolved yesterday evening on 'pizza' but I'm thinking this morning of bread in some form; I might try a flat bread using a variation of the bread dough with onions, garlic and herbs baked into it (maybe another try with yeast is in order) to go with bargain cottage cheese, humous-that-must-be-used-before-it-walks, baby vine tomatoes and olives. The only messages needed is a bag of decent salad, which the OH *might* be persuaded to pick up.

Hmmm. So much for the dynamism - 14:30hrs and all I've done so far is take a couple of packages that were left with us around to neighbours. And that was hard when the postie knocked - I'm waiting on a couple of books that are now four days beyond estimated delivery date, but the postie had nothing for me (sniffle). And now OH is going off to the gym and then the library so I'll have to do the foraging myself - wonder if I'll manage to resist the charity stores?

Must get the yeast / bread starter going first. Phew, OH promises to multi-task and pick up the salad on the way home (we shall see; dog of little faith - he did).

Yeast looking very 'inactive' right now - it is baltic in here mind, and I've only just put it into a wee warm water bath to counter the cold, *and* I've had to feed it honey as we no longer have sugar in the house. Slack FatDog has probably cross-infected her honey pot too, as I used the same measuring spoon with only a dry wipe, rather than a thorough clean : sod's law the yeast will grow in my honey pot but not in my dough.

Yeast finally demonstrates that it might be alive and all together the "dough" seems rather lovely (I'm using HFW's magic dough flour to water ratio, 500g flour : 325ml water, this time). However, I'm never quite sure what they mean by smooth, but after 15 minutes of kneading, that'll have to do. Now to proof... Oh dear... Three hours later and the rise is risible (is that one a FatDog original? think I could trademark it?), okay it's increased about a couple of cm in diameter all round - but it's hardly "twice its size".

Not one to be defeated by a dough-ball, yet again I live in hope and roll the dough out - this time into two nice rectangular slabs that could, once cooked, conceivably be flat-breads and thus slathered in humus and cottage cheese for dinner. Mmmm. Hmmm. They quite definitely did *not* bear any relation to a flat bread. However, they did a darn good imitation of rye bread - *really* quite delicious, albeit not remotely what was wanted / hoped for.

Red pepper humous (again, when will I learn?), merlot and an extra dose of 85% Ghanaian chocolate were my downfall. And half of a banana that the OH had rescued from the depths of the fridge (nearly forgot it, could have saved so many calories & carbs had I done so:) ).

Rather a big "oops" for a Tuesday really.

I could blame it on my disasterous attempts to recover a friend's computer from multiple viruses - she knew *exactly* what daft sh*te she'd downloaded that invited them in (a pretty fish-bowl screen saver, you have been warned). Avast (virus checker) went into kill mode but unfortunately clobbered chunks of the operating system so the laptop will no longer boot. I now need to do silly stuff like booting from an ubuntu USB stick to have a vague chance of recovering her precious photos. And then I'll need to do a factory restore (again). It's no wonder I needed a drink (though I'll be doing all the work tomorrow - "serious pro tip": never try to fix a computer after a glass of wine).

On the other hand such over indulgence could just be rather self-destructive and reckless behaviour engendered by being dogged by a black dog.

........ Calories 2038.27 Carbs 71.22 Fat 111.01 Protein 65.64 Fibre 28.24

oat bran, linseed & soya 'magic' dough, no. 1
soya flour, 424c/C16.0/F20.0/P39.0/Fi12.0/100g
......... 60g 254.40 9.60 12.00 23.40 7.20
linseed, golden, fresh ground, 534c/C1.5/F42.16/P18.29/Fi27.3/100g
......... 45g 240.30 0.68 18.97 8.23 12.29
oat bran, Holland & Barrett, 389.2c/C59.1/F6.5/P12.6/Fi9.3/100g
......... 45g 175.14 26.60 2.93 5.67 4.19
yeast, dried active
......... 2.0ml 0.00
honey
......... 2.5ml (½ tsp) 9.00 2.30 0.00 0.00 0.00
xanthan gum
......... 3ml 0.00
water, warm
......... 100ml = 10ml to grow yeast + 90ml 0.00
sunflower oil, 125c/C0/F13.8/P0/Fi0/15ml
......... 11ml = 10ml + 1ml for oiling the bowl 91.67 0.00 10.12 0.00 0.00
salt
......... small pinch sprinkled on board and kneaded in! 0.00
basil, dried leaf
......... half a dozen good pinches 0.00
oregano, dried leaf
......... two or three good pinches 0.00
garlic flakes
......... couple of good grindings 0.00
black pepper, fresh ground
......... several good grindings 0.00
total for oat bran, linseed & soya 'magic' dough, no. 1 770.51 39.17 44.02 37.30 23.67
FatDog's ½ portion of oat bran, linseed & soya 'magic' dough, no. 1 385.25 19.59 22.01 18.65 11.84

Method: 1. proof your yeast first: put warm water and honey and the yeast in a wee pot in a warm place - it should be nice and frothy within about 10 minutes (mine was never convincingly frothy, and it took over 40 minutes to show much evidence of life at all - rather desperately I went for it anyway); 2. mix the dry stuff together, make a well, add the oil and the yeasty water and mix (I used a wide flat knife) then gradually add the rest of the water until you've something akin to a dough; 3. knead the dough for "up to 10 minutes" until it's "smooth" (FatDog waves hands about at this point - never noticed any real difference after 15 minutes, so just went ahead); 4. make a ball, lightly oil it and bung it in a clean bowl, cover with a damp tea towel and put it somewhere warm to rise (apparently this can take up to 2 hours, mine had minimal growth after about 3 hours, at which point the hungry FatDog gave up and, again, went ahead); 5. shape your dough into rolls, single loaf, whatever and bung into a pre-heated oven at 190C for 30 minutes, covered for the first 20.

So, if yours fails at the same three points as mine, you'll have a rather delicious rye-style bread; and, if it doesn't, you might have some lovely bread, who knows?

Hi Fatdog. Can you tell me why you set a goal of 19g of carbs on a fast day. Is it a quarter of your goal for a normal day?

There is method to my madness @rawkaren, sadly I can't remember the gory details (they're up thread somewhere).

An early aim was to keep my carb : fat : protein to 15% : 65% : 20% respectively - a 'bastardisation' of Atkins and Eco-Atkins levels.

This stuck for repair days (giving 19g : 36g : 25g) which I reckoned was do-able as, when I started with RE I was doing 20g carbs or below a day for the 'carb-cleanse' .

I 'try' for over 70% fat on non repair days and, consequently, below 15% for carbs and protein (63g each). Currently I'm trying to do less than 50g of carb on non repair days - with varying degrees of success - as when I took my carb level up to 70g as a norm (as per RE's "plan") weight loss "seemed" to stall (I still need to do those graphs...).

Feeling much better today. ooh these recipes look marvelous. I have to try that bread! Thanks.

Amazing fatdog, you are even more obsessive than me, I find just the weighing and counting and adding quite enough for the old grey matter. Thank god I`m not a vegetarian. Do you feed that lovely looking hound meat? Been fasting the easy way today, shape yogurt, blueberries and waitrose love life lasagne + salad. You could try their spinach and ricotta cannaloni which I had yesterday. I`m not working for them just too busy shopping to cook.

Wednesday, day one-hundred and fifty, repair day

Weigh-in at start of day wt. 111.4lbs (analogue scales corrected ~108.75lbs); 0.2lbs loss
... t.measures - ub. 28.8, w. 25.8, t. 31.0, h. 34.75 inches

Well, that's jolly nice. Thank-you V&P vary-fairy.

A couple of RC's "Day 7" toning exercises today went for the stomach muscles - goody - that's the bit I really want to hit: really skinny ribs and a flabby tum is not a fetching look.

Decide to have another bash at the 'magic dough', this time using 'instant' yeast. And it fares not much better than yesterday's endeavours. Bother. What am I doing to my poor yeast to make it work so insipidly? I'm sure that I'm not making the water too hot or cold. Hmm. Need to get a kitchen thermometer and, whilst I'm at it, an oven thermometer would make sense too.

Still, risen or not, my wee roll is more than edible with quorn ham, boursin, tomatoes, and rocket. I had just the one roll (OH had two) and the remaining one is sitting in a placky bag, calling to me to eat it. Noooooo.... FatDog must resist! How else can the V&P vary-fairy have a hope of being nice to me on the scales tomorrow? It's close to the witching hour - if I can make it that far then a slow amble to bed should save me...

I can actually *feel* the muscles that I worked-out earlier today - it's a very rewarding feeling. Though I'm a bit embarrassed at calling the RC "toning" a work-out: it might take more the the claimed five minutes but it's probably not much more than ten - *blush*. Oooh, now I'm wanting to get to bed quickly so that tomorrow "comes sooner" and I'll see what the vary-fairy brings

........ Calories 539.39 Carbs 21.63 Fat 34.15 Protein 32.44 Fibre 12.71

==================================

Thursday, low-carb day one-hundred and fifty-one, feed day

Weigh-in at start of day wt. 110.6lbs (analogue scales corrected ~108.0lbs); 0.8lbs loss
... t.measures - ub. 28.8, w. 25.8, t. 31.0, h. 34.75 inches

Gosh! Thanks vary-fairy! Into my final pound I know it might go up again before finally hitting the target, and wobble before settling, but ... affy excited now! Into that long landing called peri-maintenance.

That makes me so glad that I resisted my second roll yesterday. I know, I'm being Nadal-like again, but sometimes we need magic rules to motivate us when weight loss / gain can be so arbitrary and random, seemingly bearing no relation to one's behaviour at all!

RC's "Day 8" - even more stomach (yay!) and shoulders: dead chuffed that the latter didn't hurt in the "wrong way".

Ooooof! Well that's the FatDog back down to the ground with a very hard thump. Went to download the statements for my one and only credit card, which I'd not really looked at for a couple of months as I was in credit due to a double payment (*their* system failure). Oh dear. Oh deary, deary, dear. My bookaholism is *definitely* a problem. Methinks (indeed, I sincerely hope) that the shock of seeing all those £2.81 entries (and, every now and again, one for the odd £7) might shake some sense back into me.

In perspective, my bookaholism costs *much* less than a regular smoking habit would (*so* happy that I stopped - it's the best present one can give oneself *ever*). Though that's a bit of a deception on my part as I only ever smoked rollies, costing less than £20 a *month*, not ready-mades at £7.50 a day! Still, it makes me feel a little better - a least I'm not burning my books!

Maybe I should make a pact with myself : no more books, but when I've stabilised my weight for two weeks at (or fractionally below, rather than above) my target of 110.0lbs I'm allowed to buy "Plenty". Hmmm. Watch the addict wriggling upon the hook of perverse logic that it uses to try and justify fulfilling its addiction. I don't need a bribe to achieve and maintain my target - I want to get there anyway - and, as doing so is a reward in its own right, no reward is needed either. Think my compulsive book-buying days *must, quite simply, be over*. Howwwwwwlllll. FatDog immediately goes into withdrawal.

Dinner? Should be slightly (not there yet) celebratory but moderate (ha! "moderation is for monks", as a friend's grandpa used to say), and maybe ready-made, so what is it to be? If the far co-op had that nice pasta I could go for that, but since the refurb they've stopped stocking it, and the near co-op never had it in the first place. I suppose I could hit Waitrose for my favourite pasta (up-thread)?

On the other hand, I'm still after the holy-pizza-grail which would be suitably indulgent if I could get it to work. Guess I could do my nice brown roll recipe (which essentially uses egg rather than yeast as a raising agent) - as I know that this works fairly reliably now - it would just be a 'bready' base but, if rolled thin, might do a good pizza-base imitation. Then lashings of tasty stuff on top. And a big bag of salad. And a merlot, or two. That'll do methinks. Not forgetting 85% Ghanaian chocolate.

Some time later. Convenience foods - tick. Over carbed - tick. Over caloried - tick. Celebrating and enjoying it - tick. Sadly, in some books, that planned over-indulgence (gawd help me if I'm spontaneous) is equivalent to binging / evidence of an eating disorder. For me, that gets a *big fat cross*. Sorry, but if I *choose* to over-eat one evening and make-up for it the next day (say, by not guzzling anything until the evening), I honestly don't think that there's anything much wrong with my eating habits

Anyway, rant over: I had a Higgidy feta cheese, red pepper and pinenut pie with salad, and vine tomatoes, and a delicious Rioja (more expensive than my usual tipple but irresistible at half-price - £5.49 instead of nearly £12). Double dose of 85% chocolate (16g in total) for pudding. Yum. Wonder if I should have a 'coffee with cream' to finish dinner off? Hmm, that would take me well over my limits - I'm tempted, if only partly in a bloody minded response to earlier "online conversations" (hormonal, me?).

And over my limits I went, and it was delicious! Even the OH indulged: some kind freegan / bargain hunter / friend had left bargain whipping cream and a packet of to-die-for (if you're a broke FatDog / parsimonious OH) Cafe Direct Fairtrade organic real ground coffee on our doorstep. Investigations are in hand to identify the good-fairy - but we're both delighted and thankful to them, as that was a lovely treat.

........ Calories 2028.73 Carbs 75.03 Fat 137.00 Protein 47.74 Fibre 15.98

I might *just* get away with the above over-indulgence: over 13g of the carb (and ~340 calories: my 'second roll' from last night, with cream cheese) were consumed immediately after I got in from work at 19:30hrs, having left for work at 14:30hrs. Lots of standing, walking, stretching, squatting, lifting etc. (none of it that heavy or intense mind) - all on my morning coffee-with-cream and nowt else. So I suspect that, in terms of damage, the 13c carbs and 340 calories might be "mitigated" - which leaves the rest of the calories nearly within my limits and carbs at a not-so-terrible 62g. We shall see what the scales say in a couple of days. Call it 'practising maintenance' if you're feeling generous

Complete aside: this needs a thread of its own, if it doesn't already have one - but about to head for bed so ain't searching just now - meantimes I'm bunging the link here because, methinks, it is extra good news for us veggies / low-carbers (it justifies my being nuts about nuts):

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-25026705

Will chase up the actual research tomorrow - promise. xxx FatDog

Wow Fatdog, who's on a roll then? You are doing SOOOO well, congratulations, gosh I'm envious of that tiny teeny waist, grrrrr

Ballerina x

Friday, day one-hundred and fifty-two, repair day

Weigh-in at start of day wt. 111.4lbs (analogue scales corrected ~108.0lbs); 0.8lbs gain
... t.measures - ub. 28.8, w. 25.8, t. 31.0, h. 34.75 inches

"Easy come, easy go", as the saying goes, except it's rather the other way round in this case. As the analogue scales haven't obviously moved from the reading they gave yesterday, I don't think that I'm going to get into too much of a tizzy: it could be, quite reasonably, a slight revenge-of-the-carbs from yesterday (carbs cause water retention - but why then no change on the analogues?) or just the eeeevil scales-fairy, or a bit of both.

I am, however, going to sulk because the postie has been and the last of my books has still to arrive (it's a week late). But my parcel therapy will continue well into next week, after my last book, as I've ordered my Pure Via (stevia sweetener) and teas on line as they're cheaper than the supermarket or H&B! Crazy.

Black dogged again. Don't get me wrong, I like dogs (well, I *am* a dog) but this black one is getting to be a PITA - I just wish it would go away, where's its bleepin' owner? Go on, shooo! GO AWAY!

Bread baking therapy to the rescue - given that I can't do book-buying therapy anymore. And YAY! It's frothy man! Did double (4ml) of the open packet of instant yeast (that I'd kept in the fridge once opened) in 25ml of much warmer water, and the yeast was doing its best to clamber out of the 100ml measure it was being grown in. Fingers crossed. No herbs / seasonings this time. Let's see if the 'plain' version works first. Risen - not doubled, but risen more than *anything has ever risen*, within an hour; split then squish the ball into four 'rolls' and leave for another hour to re-rise. Praying. Prayers went unheard. What I'll do next time is split and "shape" the rolls before I try to get them to do the first rise, that way I won't "knock them down", for them only to refuse to do a second rise! Still - once baked they were more than respectable receptacles for my cream cheese, quorn ham and mustard topping (with rocket on the side). I had two of them dear reader. Oops.

Along with a double dose of 85% chocolate, 1.5 glasses of wine (150ml) and a half creamy coffee, I've turned my half-repair day into a one-third repair day. That's the third lowest weekly deficit that I've managed to generate since recorded history (1940 calories, equivalent to about .55 of a pound). Never mind. Peri-maintenance it is.

........ Calories 982.50 Carbs 35.78 Fat 58.95 Protein 38.58 Fibre 19.42

Think I'm going to post this *very* early so as to deploy the "once posted can't have any more calories trick", yet again

Good to catch up with your doggy antics and be inspired. Definitely doing the cauliflower bean and broccoli recipe next week. I have been searching for gram flour but still no luck

Congratulations not only for your results but also for your fabulous thread

You probably already know so forgive me if I'm preaching to the converted but, hubs bought 100 gms of fresh yeast from Tesco the other day and the cost was a staggering 1p. I don't know why he bothered as we both suffer terribly if we eat much bread but he just loves baking it so we give a lot of bread away round here, shame! Keep up the good work FD

ballerina x

You probably already know so forgive me if I'm preaching to the converted but, hubs bought 100 gms of fresh yeast from Tesco the other day and the cost was a staggering 1p. I don't know why he bothered as we both suffer terribly if we eat much bread but he just loves baking it so we give a lot of bread away round here, shame! Keep up the good work FD

ballerina x

Thank-you @Ballerina! And no, I didn't know about the Tesco fresh stuff - that might well be worth having a shot at. The initial flowering of the yeast yesterday was quite spectacular (I was hopping from one foot to the other going "ooooh look" - OH and visitors were a little perplexed and bemused), so I was somewhat disappointed when the second rising didn't really happen. I suspect it might be to do with the temperature - our room is not that warm, certainly not the cosy 85F - 100F that I've read that yeast likes - so I'm trying to figure a way of maybe using the oven on a very low peep.

I can understand your hubs' baking love - I'd never really baked before low-carbing but I am finding it hugely addictive! Methinks I'm going to have to restrict my baking to once or twice a week anyway, as I'm very much getting into the "bread eating" habit again, and it is *not* helping the weight loss, at all... Maybe bread on a Thursday (remnants Friday) and cake on a Saturday (remnants Sunday).

I've never baked much before either @FatDog, but having said that needed a sweet fix yesterday and made CBB's Cardamom cake. Don't know if you've tried it but it is scrumptious! Think her servings are a bit optimistic though, might serve 8 midgets but 4 would be more realistic, or maybe we're just greedy guts in our house! x