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Progress Diaries & Journals

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I do hope you get below 110 Fatdog. You deserve it based on persistence alone. Now carrots. I think it was Juliana who posted this (can't remember), but I can vouch for it being seriously good on a fast day (and even less calories without the yogurt).http://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/3141 ... range-soup. Oh and Greek Maria has a very nice carrot keftedes. If it isn't in your book that you already have. Happy to send it to you.
Hubs is the cook in residence round here but even I can do a carrot parcel, and it is the easiest thing in the world, hence I can do it :grin: ...........Chop your carrots as thin or as thick as you like then place them all on a large sheet of foil, sprinkle with olive oil, some freshly ground black pepper and if I fancy being a bit exotic I then sprinkle, sparingly, some chilli flakes. Wrap up your parcel, pop in a hot oven for anything from 20-40 minutes depending on how big your parcel is and how chunky, or not, you have sliced the aforementioned orange vegetables . .........Voila, you have the sweetest carrots you will ever taste, yum, yum, hope you enjoy and good luck with that pesky fairy

Ballerina x :heart:
@FatDog, love the sound of that spicy fruit compote...mmmm
You WILL get to your target never fear!

@BallerinaI've done other root veg or mix as you suggested in individual foil parcels, makes them so sweet and caramelises all the natural sugars. I can eat a mound of these just with a dollop of Greek yogurt!
Hi @FatDog remember this from way back http://germanfood.about.com/od/soupsand ... l-soup.htm
A carrot soup recipe which sounded nice. Wishing you all the best for your target for Christmas. Thanks for the effort you go to always a great read. I am trying to find the energy to start baking your linseed rolls and bread recipes. I will get there. Have tossed regular flour so to narrow the odds
Wednesday, low-carb day one-hundred and seventy-eight, repair day

Weigh-in at start of day wt. 111.2lbs (analogue scales corrected ~108.0lbs); 0.4lbs gain
... t.measures - ub. 28.7, w. 25.6, t. 30.5, h. 34.5 inches

Boing. Understandable I suppose. There are still reasons to be cheerful: the trend is down.

That's yesterday's recipe stuff and logs done - now back to that corner. Don't seem to have quite the same energy for it today - can't really see my creamy feed day coffee making that much difference energy-wise, given that I'm (hopefully) fat-burning anyway - nah, it's probably the fact that it's a dark dreich day out there (lights all on and it's only half two), and the OH is faffing about creating further muddles (whilst defrosting the defunct fridge which I'm hoping he'll, eventually, concede as dump-fodder) ...

Whoomph... it's 7.45pm and that's my first five-minute sit down since starting about five hours ago. Dinner's on the go, simple as possible - roast mixed veggies with cheese and a lincolnshire veggie sausage - but I'm still trying to get "the corner" complete. Think that it's done now, but so am I.

I was rather hoping to do ricotta cheese and sun-dried tomatoes on the veggies, but BN voted for the simpler grated cheese. I could now eat a heffalump - probably the excessive bouncing about that I'm doing which would usually be associated with eating lots (escpecially as ciggies are no longer a reward option). I'm trying to think which tea will do the best to stave off the munchies (psycho, not *real* hungry). I'm so wanting to be good today and keep the calories as near to 500 as I can. I really wonder whether I'd be better off with a zero calorie / liquid repair day - eating definitely throws my I-want-more-food switch - might give it a try in the new year.

Maybe an anti-munchie activity would be to just sit back and gaze at and browse my beautiful cook books - it is *so wonderful* to be able to *get at* them now (there might even be a couple that I had forgotten I had!). And I've counted: I've 78 cook books and a baker's dozen exercise / "diet" books - nothing like as bad as my OH had led me to believe! Ooops, and I've five more on their way, plus the two CBB books awaiting publication. Still sub one hundred. Now, a *real* cookbookaholic would have *hundreds and hundreds*, wouldn't they? We'll not mention the many thousands of other books that I have - most round at my flat, but a goodly number beginning to encroach upon the OH's lair :)

So, I'm finishing my peruse of Tamasin Day-Lewis's "Good Tempered Food" (yes, it's a meaty one but it was one I rescued from the pulp pile as it had been vandalised with a black marker pen, remember?) and, apart from the fact that she lives in the world of (and has the budget of) the 1% and is nauseatingly OTT ("the Clarence Court Cotswold Legbar eggs make a very light cake"), some of the recipes are rather tasty looking. Her akri bhindi has tempted me to give okra a go, and her gnocchi di zucca to give gnocchi a second chance, and who could resist sesame and roquefort biscuits?

Now, to work: the BN came by bearing two beautiful savoy cabbages, some salad, and a tub of marscapone - so I'm needing cabbage recipes, preferably ones that involve marscapone(!), or ricotta (from our freegan friend the other day). What a pleasure - I can just sit upon my puff and take the books down from the shelves and peruse them - nae lifting and shifting mighty piles or fear of collapsing stacks - bliss!

Oh, so many lovely cabbage recipes! Curries, wraps, stuffs, stir-fries - I'm rather spoilt with choice. HFW has a lovely stuffed cabbage leaf recipe that might go on the menu for Sunday (it's one to share with others, methinks), but the next two days will probably see an adulteration of a Gayler stir-fry and a "layer cake", the latter partially inspired by my layered pancakes (done a while back, which were part-inspired by Tamasin oddly enough) but given impetus by CBB's "cabbage gateau" ("Vegetarian Foodscape").

........ Calories 505.88 Carbs 16.74 Fat 35.44 Protein 27.64 Fibre 9.85

Not quite a "goody-two-shoes" day, but nearly :)

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

Thursday, low-carb day one-hundred and seventy-nine, feed day

Weigh-in at start of day wt. 110.6lbs (analogue scales corrected ~107.25lbs); 0.6lbs loss
... t.measures - ub. 28.7, w. 25.6, t. 30.5, h. 34.5 inches

Please, please, please? Oh great weight-loss fairies, please give the FatDog strength of will to be good today too...

Seems that I inadvertently reduced my waist measurement on the tracker yesterday - my waist *is* probably down, but I'm not so convinced yet that I wish to register it - corrected now.

Joy and disappointment with the post today. Joy with the arrival of the beautiful "Cafe Paradiso Cookbook" by Denis Cotter - a quick look and I'm further smitten with Cotter. And then disappointment, as "the Classic 1000 Vegetarian Recipes" isn't the "very good" hardback that I ordered (albeit for a ridiculous £1.98) but a rather scabby "good" paperback edition - not sure whether to send it back or not, will see how the seller responds.

Gah - thought I'd get Jerusalem Artichokes from Mr. T's on the way home from work and, for the first time in ages, he didn't have any - too puggled to go back to Mr. A's (have I mentioned that Mr. A is the Asian spitting image of Ronnie Barker in 'Open All Hours'? even down to the mobile eyebrows - he's a really lovely warm guy with a very dry sense of humour - it's one shop that I genuinely look forward to going into). So home, knackered, minus one of the critical ingredients for my stir-fry tonight. Ung. Concede defeat - another tinned dal (dal makhani, Heera), nice salad, inherited yoghurt and poppadums (OH kindly forayed to the co-op for the latter). Then, some hours later... compote and cream and almonds and whisky (a la cranachan)... mmmmmmmm... I *like* this pudding lark (shame about the figure). Fingers crossed, the accounts will be kind (I'm rather winging-it these days, i.e. eating then doing the numbers - gradually "teaching myself how to eat sensibly without the aid of a spread-sheet" sort-of thing, not doing *that* well so far:)).

Grummph, did rather badly with the carbs there - simple sums are not my forte, obviously: I've rather been counting up the "big stuff" (dal, poppadums, compote) and forgetting that lots of little stuff (nuts, chocolate, merlot) mounts up too...

...... Calories 1505.55 Carbs 70.78 Fat 84.07 Protein 44.31 Fibre 16.25

And I must say thanks to all for the carrot reminders and ideas - my newly accessible cookbooks have revolutionised my cabbage recipe seeking, so I think carrots should be a doddle now. Next to "do" my data into that dratted database (wish I knew what was holding me up) to get the equivalent revolution-in-access to my old(er) recipes - some of them were quite good, if I recollect (including carrots and cabbage).

Humongous thanks to you all for hanging in here with me xxx FatDog

Gawd knows how I'm going to get to sleep tonight as I'm as hi-do as could be - nope, nae pills, just excitement at a) what the scales will show tomorrow, b) which, if any, cookbook will arrive and c) attacking the chaos of the kitchen to transform it into a workable space. That, and I'm listening to psychotropic-at (seriously funky, smooth, chilled, laid-back jazzy stuff: tracks such as "astronaut", "earth" and "pyramit") which I love but can no longer find on-line - you try googling psychotropic, but not at work(!) - if anyone knows where they lurk, pray tell :)
Hope the V&P Fairy brings you early Christmas joy after your fast day today. Good luck for Saturday's weigh in FatDog :clover:
Yes, everything crossed for you for your next weigh in FatDog. :clover: :clover: Will be dancing a Highland reel for you! :grin: :grin:
Friday, low-carb day one-hundred and eighty, repair day

Weigh-in at start of day wt. 110.8lbs (analogue scales corrected ~107.25lbs); 0.2lbs gain
... t.measures - ub. 28.7, w. 25.6, t. 30.5, h. 34.5 inches

That's the new normal - lose a bit post repair, gain a bit back post feed day. *But* there's (usually / hopefully) a net loss of 0.2lbs overall; earlier days, in my more rapid loss phase, I'd lose or at least stay the same post-feed-days.

The eeeevil scales-fairy is at it on the digital scales today (even the OH is grumbling), but the analogues show the same as yesterday (possibly less, they're not the easiest things to read) so I'm going for the lower figure of 110.8 rather than 111.2 (not least so that I don't make myself miserable for the day). If I'm horribly wrong I'll just not show a loss post-repair, when I weigh tomorrow.

Meant to mention it yesterday, but I acquired a broken-backed copy of the "Moosewood Restaurant Low-Fat Favorites" for a rather excessive two quid. Had heard much about their stuff (including that it was way too full of high fat, so the low fat version might be 'normal'?) but it was the curried potato cabbage rollups recipe that sold it to me, in spite of the near falling out pages. Looking forward to giving it a good peruse.

Today is "attack kitchen" day: think that some big tupperware boxes are needed. Hum. Stalled. I'm rather lacking to get-to-it drive for some reason - it's that there darkness at half-two that's doing me in again, methinks. Solstice tomorrow, then the days will lengthen - yay!

Am angling to do the cabbage gateau tonight. Pondering what, if any, other layers I could put in it without ruining the simplicity and / or my carb/calorie counts!

Well, the kitchen attack didn't happen - some plotting, but no attacking. Faux-tupperware tubs much smaller than hoped - not sure if they'll help the kitchen revolution or just be a miserable waste of money. And cross communications in my head led to me making a complete xxxx of the calories and carbs. Somehow I calculated that reduced cabbage, apricot and walnut quantities meant that I could go halfsies with the OH - I was wrong. That's a one third repair day, not even a half repair. Rude words. *Very* rude words. It's one of those moments that towel-throwing crosses one's mind. I'm very well fed but craving more chocolate. And wine. Howl! NO. NO! NO!! NO!!! You'll just feel sh*te if you do, it's already bad, don't make it badder. get. a. grip. Just post and make yourself a herb tea, drink it, then head for bed, okay? Just think of your real coffee and cream tomorrow morning.

........ Calories 1035.29 Carbs 33.16 Fat 58.89 Protein 35.70 Fibre 10.58

Right - grumps over calories should not detract from a recipe with considerable potential. I thought this very good, but it definitely needed a wee bit of white (possibly cheese on non-repair days) sauce - either between the layers or to the side.

cabbage gateau, inspired by layered pancakes, confidence from CBB's gateau (Veg Foodscape, p58), flavours from Cotter's WGGaM, p58
cabbage, savoy, whole leaves, 32c/C4.1/F0.4/P1.7/Fi2.4/100g
......... 188g - at least 9 of 60.16 7.71 0.75 3.20 4.51
ricotta, Galbani, 165c/C4.0/F13.0/P8.0/Fi0/100g
......... 250g 412.50 10.00 32.50 20.00 0.00
apricot, dried, co-op, fine chop, 185c/C36.5/F0.6/P4.0/Fi8.4/100g
......... 30g 55.50 10.95 0.18 1.20 2.52
pecans, co-op, fine chop, 720c/C4.3/F72.0/P9.2/Fi9.6/100g
......... 30g 216.00 1.29 21.60 2.76 2.88
cheddar, cathedral, grated, 416cal/C0.6g/F34.7g/P25.3g/Fi0g/100g
......... 30g 124.80 0.18 10.41 7.59 0.00
onion, white, co-op, fine sliced, 40c/C7.6/F0.2/P1.3/Fi1.4/100g
......... 44g 17.60 3.34 0.09 0.57 0.62
garlic, fine chopped, 149c/C33.06/F0.5/P6.36/Fi2.1/100g
......... 8g 11.92 2.64 0.04 0.50 0.17
caraway, whole seed
......... 15ml 0.00
s&p 0.00
total for cabbage gateau 898.48 36.12 65.57 35.82 10.70
FatDog's ½ portion of cabbage gateau 449.24 18.06 32.79 17.91 5.35


Method: 1. wash the cabbage leaves, ping in a lidded dish for 3 minutes, and thoroughly drain; 2. place a cabbage leaf at the bottom of an oven-proof dish that's roughly the same circumference as the cabbage leaves; 3. spread one eighth of the ricotta over the leaf then sprinkle half the onion over, season with s&p, and sprinkle over one eighths of the caraway; 4. pile the next leaf on and squish down firmly, and continue in a similar manner with half the apricot, walnut, and garlic, then repeat from the onion again; 5. sprinkle the grated cheese over the final layer; 6. bake, covered with foil, in a pre-heated oven at 200C for about 20 minutes until the cabbage is tender; 7. wheech out and bung under the grill to brown off
mmm, @fatdog that cabbage gateau sounds delish! It's such a shame, for me, that my DS is such a carnivore so I don't get to try many of your recipes as I refuse to cook separately for him and us. But I'm filing this one for when he's away from home!

Re the calorie miscalculation...don't fash y'sel (spelling??), it's only one day in a lifetime of IF after all. Just move on...
:heart:
Saturday, day one-hundred and eighty-one, weekend feed day

Weigh-in at start of day wt. 110.4lbs (analogue scales corrected ~106.85lbs); 0.4lbs loss
... t.measures - ub. 28.7, w. 25.6, t. 30.5, h. 34.5 inches

Report for the end of week 34 on 4.5 : 2.5 - 0.8lb loss this week (total loss 35.6lbs); measured but unrecorded shrinkage (definitely several smidgens off everywhere).

[imagine] Punch (as in Punch and Judy) going "That's the way to do it! That's the way to do it!" [/imagine] and you'll have me about right this morning. Though I'm not so sure that I'm chuffed with the tracker telling me that my TDEE is now below 1400 calories (1399 to be exact) - FatDog's tummy growls then whimpers in horror :)

May the winter solstice bring you beautiful and happy things and, as the longest night passes (up here in the North that is), the thought that we're heading for spring.

Oh, I should have mentioned this yesterday: had my BP done at the quacks (the usual check before they hand out a repeat HRT prescription) and the lovely lady doctor was exceedingly impressed with my reading of 100/80. So was I! Until last year I had a fairly respectable 112/80 but it had been creeping up along with my weight, my last reading was a shocking 130/90 (I think); borderline obese = borderline dodgy BP. Now a happy FatDog.

Today I *must* crack the kitchen chaos. Lights on at just gone half one in the afternoon is not conducive the brightest start to the assault on the kitchen-front, but getting it sorted (at least a bit) will be a reward in its own right, so here we go...

Oh, except my "Meat Free Monday Cookbook" has arrived, and I need just a leeettle time to snoop at it?... And, surely I have to have a wee chance to look at the library copy of "Plenty"? FatDog! Stop. Procrastinating. Okay, I'll compromise - stimulating fruit / herb tea first, supped over a cookbook, followed by a concerted attack on the kitchen.

Oh dear. I simply *have* to have my own copy of "Plenty" by Yotam Ottolenghi, there's no question. First impressions weren't that favourable - the stupid padded cover for a start - but I now think that I must have randomly hit the tiny handful of indifferent recipes in the book. Seriously, at least half of them have me going "I want to cook / eat this": Broccoli and Gorgonzola pie, Shakshuka, Mushroom lasagne, Caramelized garlic tart, Puy lentil galettes, the list goes on and on... Drool. Howl.

Bit lost today and damned if I can get going - procrastination rules the hours (e.g. how to measure for a bra [how does one know if it's the new or the old system being used on a label?], listening to the afternoon play and then looking up Brahms' German Requiem [which was the feature of the program that followed]). Gah, it's four p.m. already and I've made *no* progress - just looking at it and despairing. There's a bit of me that just wants to run away and play with some recipes for dinner. Another bit that wants to do the classic "eat something" as a displacement activity (eek! please no, I must resist). And another bit that simply wants to move house.

A *firm* plan of action might be in order (no, not another excuse to procrastinate), i.e. identify targets & tasks / priorities / dependencies (gawd, that's my PRINCE [projects in a controlled environment] training coming out). Actually - I should have started with that a few days ago *embarrassed thingy*.

Wow, the OH is being supportive, and is engaging (in his wonderful OHish way) with the "project" by offering to go up to Argos for bigger boxes - don't think he's seen what the weather is doing out there. Fortunately, boxes aren't urgently required just yet - I've a few of those collapsible / stackable crates that we can use in the interim, and they'll give us a better idea of what dimension lidded efforts would be best in the longer term.

My ghast has been rather flabbered - beyond being *exceedingly* thankful, I feel a very strange mixture of embarrassed, flattered, and honoured at the "nominations"...

Right, that's it - it might be very early (just 5pm) but I'm having a lump of cheese, some nuts and a wee glass of wine to kick me off - those shelves are getting it... in a minute... The computer will have to move out the way - that'll knock one means of procrastination out... Hmmm... that's weird: my cheese tastes exceedingly salty (usually rather insipid) and the nuts bland (usually salty) - perhaps my body is telling me something, not a scoobie what though. The wine is delicious (and has gone straight to my head, in spite of the "fat buffer").

Too delicious - it's now near six, and no progress. Well, the discussion with the OH about the putative link between autism and mathematical / scientific (and possibly certain types of artist) parents was jolly interesting, but it "ain't got the kitchen done".

Well, it's not the whole kitchen done but, all my herbs, spices, legumes, seeds, nuts, dried fruits, flours, baking stuff, etc., etc. are now stashed, (mainly) accessibly and in a beautiful orderly manner, into 14 pretendy-tupperware 7L tubs (the lid clips of two of which have snapped already - buy cheap, get xxxx). That's a remarkable improvement - I might be able to find things now, without rummaging and resorting to expletives - the order is almost soothing upon the senses. Unfortunately (but very kindly) OH gave over his top shelf to me, so his stuff is now sitting on the living-room floor awaiting a new home... I should, perhaps, remind my kind readers at this point that our kitchen / living-room / bed / OH's study / FatDog's corner are all in the one space. Out of chaos comes order? Or so we hope - it's a start at least.

There's serendipity for you - OH is now listening to Melvyn Bragg discussing a scientist called Prigogine who demonstrated that it was "possible to create order from disorder" - let's hope it inspires the OH to greater order in our kitchen.

Anyway, as a result of the horribly delayed start, there were no culinary experiments with cabbage tonight, indeed 'twas remarkably like a re-run of Thursday's fare (with an equal over-whatsit of carbs).

What a delight! I managed to extricate two different teas without creating the usual cascade of boxes-of-tea and cooking stuff! Bliss.

FatDog slumps down with tea, and the remnants of her wine, to finally give "The Best of Rose Elliot - The Ultimate Vegetarian Collection" a proper looking at. My initial skim made me think that it was a cookbook that I wanted to add to my collection - its aesthetic appeal is strong. Not so now. Don't get me wrong: I think it's a pretty good cookbook, beautifully presented / laid out (though there's the odd photo that still has that 1990's hair-shirt / unappetising appearance) - it's excellent for someone starting out their veggie cookbook collection - but it adds diddly squat to the collection that I now have (including a couple of other RE books). If you know of a complete veggie tyro, I'd suggest this tome, Troth Wells' Global Vegetarian Kitchen, and Vegetarian Times' Complete Cookbook (2005) would make a great foundation set. Do note though, that the recipes therein are likely to need a goodly bit of tweakery to convert them to low-carb, so not so good for a faint-hearted low-carb veggie novice.

Being a FatDog of very little self-restraint, I'm actually tempted to post this tonight to help put a stop to any further calorific indulgences.

........ Calories 1554.95 Carbs 69.18 Fat 89.80 Protein 44.35 Fibre 15.17

Gosh, as a final nice-thing-to-report, the OH has declared me the 'maven' of our housekeeping. Sleep tight all. Will *try* for a lovely recipe tomorrow xxx FatDog
Sorry, I haven't read all the replies, so sorry if this has been mentioned, but I've noticed Rose Elliot's Low Carb Vegetarian book and a few other low carb vegetarian books on amazon. Let me know if you want me to post them. I'm definitely low carb now, but would also like some interesting vegetarian recipes, so I might order a few of those books for the new year.
Hello @Cathgal and welcome to this thread!

Low-carb veggie recipes is what this thread is all about, along with a whole pile of FatDog haverings and mitherings (usually to do with food / cooking / kitchen / foraging / cookbooks / fitting into or finding clothes) etc. - essentially anything remotely related to being a 4.5 : 2.5 low-carb vegetarian. I'm currently trying to lose weight, but I'm hoping very soon to maintain by the same means (though I seem to have slipped inadvertently into maintenance already, and I've not yet reached my target!).

Rose Elliot was my original guardian on this journey ("the Vegetarian Low-Carb Diet") but I wouldn't really describe her recipes as inspiring, much later I acquired the cookbook for VLCD and would say likewise of that. Celia Brooks Brown's "Low-Carb Vegetarian" on the other hand was probably what saved me from dumping the whole idea pretty early on: her recipes are delicious *and* inspiring. I have two other 'standards', Robin Robertson's "Carb-conscious vegetarian" and Sue Spitler's "Low-Carb Vegetarian Cooking" and I've yet to be moved to cook anything by either of them. I'm waiting on CBB's (now just CB) two latest offerings coming out... Otherwise I generally rely on vegetarian (or even omnivore) cookbooks and make modifications - most have been mentioned up-thread, but I need to do a bibliography sooner rather than later I think.

Do, please, let us know what you've found as my low-carb-veggie-cookbook-radar is not infallible - it was another bright-eyed reader who spotted that CBB had her two new books in the pipeline. Cheers, FatDog :)
Sunday, day one-hundred and eighty-two, weekend feed day

Weigh-in at start of day wt. 111.4lbs (analogue scales corrected ~107.75lbs); 1.0lbs gain
... t.measures - ub. 28.7, w. 25.6, t. 30.5, h. 34.5 inches

Boing. And it's true (probably) as the analogues are up too. Carbs? Yup, carbs' water loading (probably). Sigh. Well, it's not the post-repair weight that counts anyway - one needs that trend weight down to target, which ain't likely before Christmas. Hogmanay, perhaps. I don't think that my TDEE going back above 1400 is any consolation either.

I might take out my frustration with a practical explosion of energy expended upon kitchen reorganisation. Might as well - got up earlier than usual as I've not slept for thinking about how to arrange things (but all in that half-dream-like state, so none of it makes much (if any) sense on waking).

Have discovered that 25ml of cream in my coffee is more than enough to make it deliciously creamy (along with 150ml soya milk). That's a few calories saved. Or, more to the point, it means I can have a second creamy coffee later, without pushing my allowance. This is good.

The concept of "bobbing along at the bottom" came into my head, and now I can't stop thinking of how to fit "FatDog" and "tracker" and "weight" into the "red, red, robin comes bob, bob, bobbin' along..." Christmas song. Sad.

Procrastinating again - you can tell, as I'm havering away on here instead of "doing stuff". In my defence, the OH is still snoring gently, so I can't really go banging about in the kitchen bit whilst he's away with the fairies, unless I want to wake him (which would be cruel).

I so need that database for my recipes - was doing a quick tot-up of how many I've done (prompted by @Ballerina's post in the nominations), and I think it's somewhere near 150 recipes; many of them are stabs at low-carb adaptations of others' lovely ideas, but there's a goodly few FatDog originals in there too. Might just be enough for the e-book I've been pondering - it'd be good to get the idea that 5:2 / low-carb / vegetarian is definitely do-able out to a wider audience (Celia Brooks' two new books might help, but neither seem to bring all three approaches together, as far as I can tell). And making a wee living (if only to cover cookbooks and food costs) out of something I seem to be doing near full-time anyway would be exceedingly helpful!

Do wish the OH would wake (it's *very* late now) - maybe I should start clattering those pans after all...? Clatter I did, and sleep on did my sleeping beauty! So, that's our equivalent of the "under the stairs cupboard" cleared - filled a single collapsible crate and it should fit on the top out of the way shelf nicely (once we get up there!). Slow but sure, that's the *only* way to do it, methinks.

Cupboard number one is now converted to cook/bake ware stowage (yay! no more having to ask the OH to get stuff down from the high shelves) - and we rediscover a goodly slice of kitchen bunker as a bonus. Thus pans can be stacked at the end (in anticipation of new rail shelf from which they can be hung) and the *ghastly* 19xx's pot-stand gets to go to heaven. Bottle and bag banks move from tripping-over position to window recess where the pot-stand lived and, at last, I can reach the wall-press from the left *and* open the window without needing a ladder.

Next. That's the OH's "heritable family dinner service" (unused for at least 12 years, very incomplete, and pattern worn off!) boxed up to be stowed out of the way. And the plastic-tub-apocalypse - all those oh-so-useful pots from takeaways of yore that one kept, even though they never *quite* came clean - gone to landfill I'm afraid (they don't recycle). That's cupboard number two freed up. FatDog's tinned stores, that had been living under the table and preventing the chairs from being properly put in, now have a real home :)

Next. We can finally move the table to get at the left-side wall-press shelf, and the bottom shelf is now cleared of dead Kenwood parts (see up-thread; need to advertise on freecycle as its an affy shame to junk them - especially as each bit is listed up to a tenner on ebay!). Then first up wall-press shelf is decanted of stores to proper homes, and the defunct storage tins (spices dumped - they're from 2004 - and legumes "properly filed") moved to more inaccessible bottom shelf. OH's stores now moved off the living-room floor to first shelf.

Ooof, and so it goes...

VBF plays the heroine and arrives just as things are getting rather tricky, involving ladders, heavy boxes, much dust and high shelves. Come nine we're sufficiently done to consider food (OH has *much* ordering of his bits to do yet, but essentially the worst is sorted! yippee!!!).

Not a hope of stuffed cabbage leaves. Tinned dal and salad *yet again*, though the VBF and BN hadn't been afflicted with it twice already this week so I guess they didn't mind - nor did I, or the OH, for that matter, it's just a little unimaginative of me; so convenient though, and not entirely unhealthy as far as convenience food goes.

And it's pretty darned good in here now. A bit to go, but the stowage is all wonderful, bunker-space looking clear-ish/able, crockery, cook-ware and all that jazz accessible without recourse to others or steps. It is seriously looking brilliant and it's one happy FatDog in the house.

But eek! @callyanna has just reminded me that I need to resolve what we're having for Christmas dinner. Given that I've no idea how many might be attending, or when, that's just a little challenging. I think, however, that I'll be going off-piste - doing a "black run" maybe? Shame I can't ski. There's always the microwave.

........ Calories 1556.48 Carbs 62.29 Fat 82.86 Protein 45.56 Fibre 15.10
Hi FatDog! I really hope you seriously consider collating all your low carb veggie fandabidozy recipes into an e-book or better still get them properly published and out there to rival CB, RE and others . Do you have no literary contacts who could help you as your talents are presently going largely unrecognised. Jump to it girl!
Your revamped kitchen sounds wonderful, nothing like a good clear out to make one feel virtuous and organised.
I'm sure you'll come up with something wonderful for your Christmas dinner as usual and wish you and your OH all the very best! x
I look forward, even though I never ever open a cook book, to seeing your name in print, e or otherwise, you have put SO much effort into this that you owe it to the rest of us to publish and be damned. Sorry, got carried away there, try again, you owe it to yourself to publish and be feted.

Ballerina x :heart:
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