Healthy Diet!
Healthy living!
Now including:
How to save over 1,200 hours of electricity a year!
In the past 20+ years, I’ve only ever had to go to my local doctor’s for health reasons. I put that all down to: ‘Healthy diet, healthy living’. More to the point, a quite varied diet of 14/15 different main meals over a two week period (the 15th meal being alternated with one of the others).
Obviously, the two main seasons, winter cold and summer heat, play a part in my varied diet; salads in summer, in particular, midday meals.
For breakfast, Monday, Wednesday and Friday, I have half a red grapefruit, which I cut down the fruit and then cut a half into 4 long pieces. I next cut those in half before paring the fruit from the peel. I follow that with a single ‘Shredded wheat’ or 17 bite-size ‘Shredded wheat’ and sprinkle ‘Trekking mix’ bought from ‘Iceland’ over it/them along with milk and sugar. Owing to my dislike of anything bitter except dark chocolate, I have a mug of tea with my breakfast.
For Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday I have a bowl of porridge done in the microwave. It is claimed it soaks up cholesterol in the body, while the fibre in wheat slowly releases energy. To go with my porridge, I have a slice of toast with black cherry or strawberry jam and a mug of tea. In summer, I have a bowl of Shreddies in place of winter’s porridge.
Sunday. That is my big roast dinner day and so I have a bowl of ‘Corn flakes’ and a mug of tea for breakfast.
Lunches pretty much go hand in hand with main meals while they both, as mentioned, differ according to the two main seasons, despite there being four.
Because food from or used with one meal can be used with another, the best place to start is Saturday; tonight, as it so happens (when I typed this up).
Saturday: Lunch is a lasagne from ‘Tesco’. I find it to be perfect, while I enjoy 3 different Italian meals in all. Tea is either a potato cut up into pieces and boiled in water and then simmered for a total cooking time of 40 minutes and then mashed, which I alternate from one fortnight to the next with a potato cut in half, the skin scored like so: ‘–|–|–‘, and baked in the oven 200C fan and 210 conventional oven for 60 minutes. With that I have two fried sausages and half a tin of baked beans (see Wednesday) cooked in the microwave on 800 for 4 minutes.
Sunday: Two scrambled eggs done in the microwave for 2 minutes, at which point I check it, on 1.5 slices of toast: ‘Soft medium white bread’ by Rowan Hill bakery, which I buy from Lidl. I find it to be the perfect size for sandwiches and toast. Afterwards, I smear jam on the half slice.
Evening roast is either lamb cut from a half leg or half shoulder (blade) or beef cut into sizeable pieces. With that, I have oven ‘roasting potatoes’ by Harvest Basket from Lidl, and four vegetables as: sliced carrot, cauliflower floret and very fine whole green beans from Iceland and peas from lidl. I bring that to the boil and simmer for a total cooking time of 15 minutes. 5 minutes before the end, I pop a Yorkshire pudding from Lidl in with the potatoes.
Monday: either chunky beef soup from Sainsbury’s or Tesco (they both cost, look and taste the same) with a carrot cut into batons along with two slices of bread: marge spread on one slice and then covered with the plain second slice, or a cold meat sandwich. Depending which day and week it is, what accompanies the sandwiches other than a carrot cut into batons differ (see Friday). For the sandwich itself, I place four slices of cucumber on the bottom slice of bread followed by the meat and a tomato sliced into 4 pieces, across and not down, very important that, and here is why:
The centre, almost like spokes of a wheel, holds the pips in place. If you cut the slices down the tomato, you run the risk of the pips spilling out, especially if there are only two spokes barely holding them securely. Branston small chunk pickle goes on top followed by an iceberg lettuce leaf and the top slice of bread.
Tea comprises a ‘Birds Eye’ chicken quarter pounder, reduced fat straight cut chips from Iceland, they being the perfect size straight cut chip, and frozen peas boiled in water and simmered for a total cooking time of 15 minutes.
Tuesday: Lunch differs as: Winter, chunky chicken soup, carrot batons and bread as before. Summer, beef burger with onion (see tea) in a sesame seed burger bun from Iceland.
Tea is spaghetti bolognaise. The recipe I use for the bolognaise is: 2 thickish slices of onion cut in half and then thinly diced, placed in a saucepan with oil. Once the onion shows signs of being transparent, I add 4 ozs of minced beef and season that with a small amount of garlic pepper, stirring it until the meat has lost its original pinkness. I then add the following: 6 small mushrooms, each one cut into 9 pieces, half a tin of chopped tomatoes (the remainder placed in a plastic food container, which I keep in the freezer) a measured desert spoonful of double concentrated tomato puree, 1.5 teaspoons of sugar, 2 bay leaves and half the chopped tomato tin of water. For those who are unaware how you measure half a tin of something, it’s quite simple. Providing it is the same cylindrical width all the way down, you empty out the contents until you can, by tilting the can at a 45 degree angle, see the bottom upper part of the tin while the contents tipped forward is at the top lower edge. Something like this:
Bring all of that to the boil and then simmer it for 20 minutes with the lid on the saucepan.
Allow 15 minutes of that and then bowl a litre of water in a kettle. Add salt to your intended saucepan. The one I use is a plain metal one, shiny but not chrome. Wait 2 minutes while the kettle is bowling and heat up the saucepan for the pasta and remove the lid from the bolognaise. Place the boiled water into the saucepan and then drizzle a small amount of oil in it. The oil stops the pasta from sticking together while that may happen if you let the water inside the saucepan simmer off. In all, that last final part should take 20 minutes, total cooking time of 1 hour (approx). To serve, remove the bay leaves, place the pasta in a good size bowl and add the bolognaise. Draw the pasta up through the bolognaise with a spoon and fork. To eat, gather up several strands of spaghetti in the prongs of the fork and touch the tips against the spoon. Twist the fork around inside the spoon to tangle up the pasta and enjoy.
To accompany that, I add 2 slices of a lemon cut in half to a highball glass, one that is slim and tall and mix a measured amount of sweet vermouth with lemonade, which I shake rather than stir, as it makes it cloudy, it's said.
Wednesday: Winter lunch is the same as Tuesday’s summer lunch. In summer I have a cold meat sandwich. Evening meal is a fry up. Oven chips from Iceland, the half a tin of beans leftover from Saturday, two moderate size mushrooms cut in half and fried for 5 minutes, a fried egg 5 minutes and a single sausage 15 minutes.
Thursday: After a morning’s shopping, when I stock up for the long weekend (Friday to Monday) with mixed peppers, a whole cucumber if needed (1 does over a fortnight) an iceberg lettuce, again, if needed, 3 mushrooms, two moderate one slightly bigger from Tesco, a pack of 6 tomatoes from Sainsbury’s and a tub of creamy coleslaw from Lidl.
lunch comprises 6 Birds eye chicken dippers with tomato sauce on them (see article entitled ‘Consumer watch – Supermarkets!’).
For tea, I have a light roast, as: Sainsbury’s or other supermarket’s individual steak pie and everything else from Sunday’s lamb or beef roast.
Friday: Lunch is one of two defrosted ‘Speedy Chef’ Doner Kebabs from Tesco. Although there are at least 4 slices of meat inside, I use two and put the other two in a plastic bag, which I put back in the freezer. I throw away the cabbage and onions it comes with, separating the top from the bottom and heat up the kebab in the microwave for 2 minutes. For filling, I place three slices of cucumber on the meat followed by creamy coleslaw from Lidl, three slices of tomato, eating the left over, and add an iceberg lettuce leaf. Granted, it can be a bit messy, but it is oh so lovely, and with carrot batons on the side. A fortnight hence, while I warm-up the 2 slices of kebab meat for 90 seconds, I pop a 9 inch Tortilla wrap in with it for the recommended cooking time. I place the strips of kebab meat in the middle of the wrap, shown here in a side on view:
(– ). I then add everything the same as when I had the kebab and fold up the bottom, the right side of the wrap: (–(| and then fold in the sides. Again, I have carrot batons with it.
From what I’ve mentioned so far, I have a desert that comprises fruit and or a piece of fruit late evening, 5 servings of fruit and vegetables a day. Incidentally, despite where self-service supermarket checkout’s list tomatoes and cucumbers, they are, in fact, fruit, denoted by the fact that they contain pips.
Friday tea is a combination of American with a Spanish influence, one that I picked up while holidaying in Ibiza. A beef burger with tomato sauce on it followed by a slice of fried onion, two moderate size fried mushrooms and the ends of the larger mushroom (see Saturday) and oven chips. For the Spanish influence I cut a portion of cucumber equal in thickness to four slices in half and cut each half into 4 wedges. To that I add 3 slices of each pepper (red, green and yellow) cut into small, bite size pieces and a tomato cut down its length into 6 wedges. If it’s summer, I add pieces of celery cut from about 2 thirds of a stick. For the iceberg lettuce, I don’t, as most people have a tendency to do, soak it in water. Instead, I finger shred about 3 leaves from an iceberg lettuce cut in half. That releases its natural moisture. I place the lettuce on the top most half of a large plate and trail the cucumber etc over it. Now, that’s what is called healthy eating; the salad balancing the grease of the burger etc:
Second Saturday: Lunch is a bacon and tomato on toast sandwich.
For tea, I have two dishes. A salad starter comprising finger shredded iceberg lettuce, cucumber and peppers the same as Friday and sweet corn. I then season that with salt and pepper before adding pineapple pieces (photo 1). As with Friday, I cut a tomato into 6 wedges and place them around the edge of the bowl before adding grated carrot, beetroot slices and coleslaw (photo 2).
For the main course, I have 1 of two 9 inch pizzas cut in half with the same additional toppings. Either a ‘Goodfella’s’ deep pepperoni or a Margherita, a plain pizza topped with mozzarella cheese. I place 4 anchovies diagonally on the Margherita followed by mixed peppers as with the salad. With the ‘Goodfella’s’ pizza, I add pieces of yellow peppers. To my chosen pizza I add 4 slices of pre-fried mushroom, 3 halved black olives, a tomato top and tailed and then cut into 3 across with two pieces of pineapple on each:
That’s what it looks like before I cook it in the oven and I accompany it with coleslaw.
Sunday lunch is two boiled eggs with toast.
For tea, bare with this, I roast half a large size chicken from Lidl cut lengthways in an oven (fan 190) for 75 minutes, quarter to the hour. At 20 minutes past the hour I mix the sage and onion stuffing which I put in a small pie tray at 30 minutes past the hour along with the oven potatoes. Everything is then the same as Thursday.
At the end of the cooking time, I take the chicken out of the oven first and separate it as: wing half from leg and the drumstick and wing from the main parts. I have the latter two as lunch on Monday and wrap those along with the breast itself in kitchen foil, leaving the remains of the leg for Sunday’s roast tea. Incidentally, that half a chicken does 4 meals.
Monday lunch mentioned above. Tea is fish and chips with boiled peas or grilled kipper with half a tin of new potatoes, fried tomato and mushrooms covered with Hollandaise sauce.
Tuesday lunch is a burger, the same as the previous Tuesday summer.
Tea is either a cooked meal or salad. For the salad, I place everything from Saturday’s salad except the beetroot, tomato and coleslaw into a bowl, season it with salt and pepper and add nuts and raisins from Tesco before adding a small amount of light French salad dressing from Lidl and tossing it all together. While I’m doing that, I boil and simmer the other half a tin of new potatoes. For the chicken, I cut three slices for a sandwich on Thursday from the breast and place the remainder on the right hand side of the plate, the salad down the middle and the potatoes on the left.
Winter alternative is sweet and sour chicken: 4 dessert spoons of long grain and wild rice from Tesco placed in a pan with 1 inch of water and salt, 90 minutes before I cook it. Bring the water to the boil (5 minutes) and simmer for 15 minutes. Do not remove the lid until then. Ideally, use a saucepan with a transparent lid. Before starting the rice, prepare the vegetables. In all this is a 20 minute meal. Cut the bottom end off a small to medium carrot like so ‘\’ then cut thinner than usual slices along it the same ‘\’. Tip! Cutting a carrot at an angle stops the slices from rolling away. Add to that 3 slices of each pepper cut into bite size pieces and cut 2 mushrooms into slices. Using a second clean pizza dish, either place kitchen foil on it or an old flattened out metal pie dish and place a tomato cut into 6 wedges around it and place pineapple pieces in the middle. Almost there. Swill some water around a milk saucepan and empty it out. Next, add several shakes of a vinegar bottle to the saucepan and add half a bottle of sweet & sour sauce to it. Place the remainder in the freezer. Cut the breast half of the chicken in two and cut each half up into chunks, the second for Thursday's lunch.
Once the rice has come to the boil, cover it with a lid and put the sauce, along with the cold chicken pieces in with it, on a moderate heat, stir and lower the setting. 5 minutes after you covered and turned down the rice, place the tomatoes and pineapple under a grill, setting 120 and turn it around after 5 minutes. Also, heat up a wok with enough oil to cover and spread the flat bottom, which my one has. Heat the mushrooms first as they take marginally longer than the vegetables, stirring and frying.
Serving. Place the vegetables in a serving bowl and add the grilled tomatoes and pineapple. Add salt to taste, drain and cover that with the rice and add the sauce with the chicken; could serve two people with a dessert of your choice to follow.
Wednesday lunch: ‘Chicago town’ mini pepperoni pizza with mushroom, peppers, tomato and pineapple accompanied with coleslaw.
Tea depends on what meals I had around it. In winter, if I had kippers on Monday, and provided Tesco has unsmoked gammon stakes I grill one of those and have boiled peas and the remainder of the tin of potatoes and pineapple pieces on the gammon. Otherwise, I have a minted lamb grill from Sainsbury’s with the other half a tin of potatoes or oven chips and boiled peas.
Thursday lunch. Winter, cream of chicken soup from Tesco, the cut up chicken from Tuesday and 3 slices of each mixed pepper cut into bite size pieces and stir fried, added to the bowl of soup which I heat in the microwave for 4 minutes. As with all my soup dishes, I accompany that with 2 slices of bread and carrot batons.
Summer: Chicken sandwich, the same as all other sandwiches, except that the chicken is placed vertically on the bread. That way the slices of chicken are cut in half.
Tea is a roast pork chop cooked for 30 minutes (longer if it’s thick) and everything else from Sunday.
Friday, the final day of two weeks of a healthy and varied diet. Lunch is a bacon and tomato sandwich, while tea is fish, chips and peas. Irrespective of what I had for tea on Monday I alternate plaice and chunky cod in batter from Iceland for tea.
Looking at all of that, I have a lot of white meat: chicken, fish and pork, as it should be, balanced with red. Not bad for someone who is at least 40 years of age and in the peak of health.
UPDATE!
April 5 2022
On the first of this month, new tariffs for energy came into effect, thereby increasing the cost of living. As far as electricity goes, something that we all depend on for household machines and lighting, you could save yourself over 1,200 hours of electricity per year.
Some of that, in particular, in winter when nights are longer, can be saved by preparing a meal during daylight hours, something I do with the two main ingredients for bolognaise; mushrooms and onions. I further save myself cooking time for it by cooking twice as much as I need and putting half in a freezer container, which I then heat up in the microwave next time. If you have this cheap dish weekly, you’ll save yourself 26 hours, that being the total cooking time for the sauce. You will also save 20 minutes of lighting, depending on the time of year and when you have your evening meal.
The vast amount of electricity can be saved by watching TV, around 3 hours of an evening on average, with the light turned off.
Other suggestions are: a wall light fitted centrally above the headboard for couples, and a bedside lamp for singles.
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