diet – Page 7 – Myfrenchkitchen

I think the time has come for some good ole healthy eating. I always that little “click” before I can step forward into action.. Maybe sniffing a delicious mango was that “click”… or was it the belt of my jeans that needed a different hole. Whatever. A click is a click and can’t be ignored! Let’s do it! This simple salad is chock full of vitamins and fiber and very few calories.

Recipe:

Cleaned 1 mango and sliced it into juliennes.
Cleaned 1 handful of mange tout and sliced it on the diagonal into juliennes.
Wash 1 handful of mint leaves and Italian parsley leaves and break into a bowl.
Cut 1 large spring onions on the diagonal into strips and add to the herb leaves. Add a handful of haricot mungo sprouts, the mango slices and the mange tout strips to the salad. Add 1 lemon grass stick, harder outside removed and finely chopped to the salad. Mix lightly with your fingers.
Drizzle the salad with some olive oil, a bit of nuoc nam sauce, lemon juice, chopped fresh ginger and a teaspoon of acacia honey anf season with salt and pepper.
Finish off with a sprinkling of dry roasted almonds and lastly black sesame seeds.

Those who bask in summer at the moment, will enjoy the salad as is, but for us in the North, it is probably a little too cold. So I enjoy it with a big pot of green tea. You can always drink a tisane(herbal/flower infusion). Along with the salad it will be great for digestion.

…walk, walk and walk..

…load up on fruits and vegetables…

…eat more fish..

drink enough water every day…about 6 to 8 glasses.
eat smaller and varied portions.
have an extra light hand on the salt, sugars, butters and creams.
Cut off fat from your meat.
when and if choosing bread, then choose whole wheat…whole wheat rice, grains, lentils, wild rice, quinoa..
and….

…laugh…

And lastly something I received from a friend. I don’t know where it originated and some of you might already know it…but here it is, hope it cracks you up like it did me..

“The Bathing Suit (by a middle-age woman unknown).

When I was a child in the 1950s, the bathing suit for the mature figure
was-boned, trussed and reinforced, not so much sewn as engineered. They
were built to hold back and uplift, and they did a good job.

Today’s stretch fabrics are designed for the prepubescent girl with a
figure carved from a potato chip.

The mature woman has a choice, she can either go up front to the
maternity department and try on a floral suit with a skirt, coming away
looking like a hippopotamus that escaped from Disney’s Fantasia, or she
can wander around every run-of-the-mill department store trying to make
a sensible choice from what amounts to a designer range of fluorescent
rubber bands.

What choice did I have? I wandered around, made my sensible choice and
entered the chamber of horrors known as the fitting room. The first
thing I noticed was the extraord ina ry tensile strength of the stretch
material.
The
Lycra used in bathing costumes was developed, I believe, by NASA to
launch small rockets from a slingshot, which gives the added bonus that
if you manage to actually lever yourself into one, you would be
protected from shark attacks. Any shark taking a swipe at your passing
midriff would immediately suffer whiplash.

I fought my way into the bathing suit, but as I twanged the shoulder
strap in place I gasped in horror, my boobs had disappeared!

Eventually, I found one boob cowering under my left armpit. It took a
while to find the other. At last I located it flattened beside my
seventh rib.
The problem is that modern bathing suits have no bra cups. The mature
woman is meant to wear her boobs spread across her chest like a speed
bump. I realigned my speed bump and lurched toward the mirror to take a
full view assessment. The bathing suit fitted all right, but
unfortunately it only fitted those bits of me willing to stay inside it.
The rest of me oozed out rebelliously from top, bottom and sides. I
looked like a lump of Playdoh wearing undersized cling wrap.

As I tried to work out where all those extra bits had come from, the
prepubescent sales girl popped her head through the curtain, “Oh, there
you are,” she said, admiring the bathing suit. I replied that I wasn’t
so sure and asked what else she had to show me.

I tried on a cream crinkled one that made me look like a lump of
masking tape, and a floral two-piece that gave the appearance of an
oversized napkin in a serving ring.

I struggled into a pair of leopard-skin bathers with ragged frills and
came out looking like Tarzan’s Jane, pregnant with triplets and having a
rough day.

I tried on a black number with a midriff and looked like a jellyfish in
mourning.

I tried on a bright pink pair with such a high cut leg I thought I would
have to wax my eyebrows to wear them.

Finally, I found a suit that fitted, it was a two-piece affair with a
shorts-style bottom and a loose blouse-type top. It was cheap,
comfortable, and bulge-friendly, so I bought it.

My ridiculous search had a successful outcome, I figured.

When I got it home, I found a label that read, “Material might become
transparent in water.”

So, if you happen to be on the beach or near any other body of water
this year and I’m there too, I’ll be the one in cut-off jeans and a
T-shirt!

You’d better be laughing or rolling on the floor by this time. Life
isn’t about how to survive the storm, but how to dance in the rain, with
or without a bathing suit!”

Until next time,

from the middle aged, dieting, but laughing diva.

Spaghetti squash makes for an quite an interesting meal…served with a homemade tomato sauce, or with oven baked tomatoes. Especially great for those who want to cut down on carbohydrates…and calories..

Suggestions:

Don’t overcook the squash, or else it won’t shred off in strands, but be mushy.
The squash can alos be cooked in the microwave oven – prick all over with a knife and microwave for about 15 minutes or more until the skin is tender but not soft. (whole squash of about 1 kg)
The squash on its own is fairly tasteless and bland, so take care to make your tomatoes/sauce flavorful.
Instead of oven baked tomatoes, a tomato sauce can be made by sauteing some onions, adding chooped tomatoes and reducing at low heat until thick anad flavorful. Season with salt and pepper, lemon juice, balsamic vinegar and add shredded basil leaves.
Chopped olives and parmesan cheese can be added when serving the dish.
Marinate tomatoes are tomatoes that have been dried in the oven until semi dry and still holds juice. It must be refrigerated and doesn’t keep as long as dried tomatoes, but is much more flavorful.
This spaghetti with sauce can be served as an accompaniment to any kind of fish.

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I don’t do a lot of fall decoration, but I do like a little pumpkin and some fresh autumn fruit here and there. Some leaves… Nothing very whoo haa. Just a little something. A little autumn flavor brought inside.

Normalement je ne fais pas trop de décoration d’automne, à l’exception d’une courge çà et là. J’aime aussi les fruits saisonnales en abondances , comme des poires, de jolies pommes de saison et n’oublie pas de délicieux coings! Et bien sur, les belles feuilles mortes, que je ramasse quotidiennement partout sur mon passage, remplacent les bouquets de fleurs estivales. Je ne fais rien en grande pompe, mais tout ça donne juste un petit gout d’automne dans la maison et ses alentours.

autumn deco-autumn leaves in vase — ..autumn leaves in white vase..

Flowers get replaced by autmn leaves and greenery, picked up on walks by the Loire..in vases, in bowls.

autum deco-fall leaves decoration — ..autumn leaves..

White pumpkins make for attractive decor everywhere in the house. place some small ones on a stack of books, or on top of some dried moss, stack them in urns and pots…

collage autumn decor 2 — ..sandpot with pumpkins...and old books with pumpkins..

Their shapes and smooth whiteness harmonize well with the rustic texture of outside walls and pots, urns and wooden surfaces.

autumn deco-urn and courge — ...urn with pumpkins..

Outside they can stand quietly beside a pot planted with white cyclamen. Or even inside keeping a vase of drying hydrangeas company. Alongside apples, they seduce us with color and form. A still life.., there.., to admire and enjoy the quietness of autumn.