Mortgage free in Forever Home :-)

KajiKita

savingholmes said:

KajiKita said:

Cut flowers from my garden yesterday, they won’t last as long as shop bought flowers but I am really pleased with them 😊
I have recorded them as worth £3 on my produce tracker as that is the cheapest you can buy shop bought flowers for. I thought I had posted this earlier but it doesn’t seem to have made it onto the forum …. Will wait and see if this posts …

Hi KK - I am still only on page 98 of your diary - but these flowers made me smile... 

Awww …. Thank you for reminding me. They’ve made me smile all over again 😊
Do you want some therapy for the 98 pages! 😂

KK

KajiKita

SandyShores said:

We tried a vegan diet for a while Kajikita, but there were a few things I really missed - diary products were a biggie.  And while we eat a lot of meat-free or veggie foods, when you are vegan it takes that extra bit of effort.  I admire anyone who is vegan though, and if you can cook two different meals you must be super-human!

I have been fully vegan for c. 5 years and I have learned a lot from it (making creamy sauces from cashews, how to make a cheez sauce, tried all kinds of ingredients I would never have even thought about before. But it’s getting harder and harder as my health is deteriorating. In all honesty i agent been cooking two meals - I have been eating in alignment with Mr KK so when he has a chop, spuds and veg I have a plastic burger … i.e. a UPF 🤷‍♀️ I have much to do and I have to keep working so have to protect my heath as much as I can and I genuinely think that cutting down in UPFs will help my health. Taking a high quality, female focused probiotic over the last couple of weeks has made a significant difference to my mood and energy levels (when I don’t have a bug! 😉). Being fully vegan is perhaps something I can go back to when I retire and have more time to cook from scratch. 

KK

Cheery_Daff

Can you keep it pretty simple with week night meals? Stir fry, tinned chick peas, nuts? Toast a load of cashews at the weekend in the oven and just sprinkle them on for protein - no need to make into a sauce. I was vegan for 7 years (20 years ago, when you couldn't easily get hold of a burger or whatever) and ate a lot of stir fries, and pasta with tomato and lentil sauce. Big fan of toasted nuts and seeds over everything 😁 Ooh, and peanut butter for a kind of satay sauce 🤩 especially with smoked very firm tofu. 

Can see why you can't be doing with making two meals every night though. I confess it's every man for himself in this house for the most part 😂 (I'm not vegan any more, but we rarely eat the same thing anyway)

Cheery_Daff

But no, don't compromise your health of course! Just don't feel like you have to do anything complicated like cheesy sauces (although I absolutely get experimenting being a good thing, just maybe not every night!)

penny_less

Love the flowers!
I am vegetarian, and toyed with the idea of going vegan. I love cheese, and tried vegan cheese and whilst the taste was ok (especially vegan feta!) there is almost no nutritional value to them. Virtually no protein. Lumps of processed coconut oil really.  So, I stick to dairy cheeses, which obviously are processed, but aren’t a UPF.

penny_less

I also do the same as you with evening meals, ie add a plastic burger instead of a chop. This needs to change in my case as it’s not really food is it? Difficult though, as like you I haven’t the time, not the want of cooking two different meals.

KajiKita

@Cheery_Daff - it’s definitely not every man for himself for meals here - we always eat together and I typically cook, though we both make our own batches (casseroles etc) at the weekends (I got to a point where I couldn’t bear to handle raw meat any more, so Mr JK now does his own).
If I toast nuts at the weekend what would I be sprinkling them on, if I am eating the same meal as Mr KK but without the meat - boggling at the thought of two veg, spuds and roasted nuts! 😂 Unfortunately I love sauces and gravy - I like moist food. I’m just hoping that  it will be easy to pre-make batches of things like veggie burgers or pastry based things, with eggs to bind and cheese to add protein and fat, that either Mr KK or I can ‘bung in the oven’ to serve, if I go veggie. 

@penny_less - yup it’s the total lack of nutritional content in vegan cheese which means I avoid them, plus the fact that they …. let’s just say ‘pass through’ very quickly (with stomach cramps to accompany! 😳) It’s the plastic burger instead of a chop that I am struggling with. I need to eat more healthily overall, and that volume of UPF every night (sometimes it will be unavoidable) is not helpful. 

KK

Ramouth

I also tried a full vegan diet but struggled to get enough quality protein without resorting to UPF or eating too much fibre.  My compromise is eggs as years of eating dairy free has left me intolerant.  I also occasionally eat muscles if I am really craving protein as they have no central nervous system and therefore do not suffer.  I do feel sad for the chickens so try to get them from garden gates where they are pets rather than from commercial farms but will just buy supermarket free range too.  We have to look after our own health and being flexible with diet can definitely help with this.

Cheery_Daff

Ha - I was thinking of sprinkling nuts on a quick stir fry, but clearly that's not going to work sprinkled on mash and gravy 😂 Home made burgers might well be the way to go 😊

KajiKita

Ramouth said:

I also tried a full vegan diet but struggled to get enough quality protein without resorting to UPF or eating too much fibre.  My compromise is eggs as years of eating dairy free has left me intolerant.  I also occasionally eat muscles if I am really craving protein as they have no central nervous system and therefore do not suffer.  I do feel sad for the chickens so try to get them from garden gates where they are pets rather than from commercial farms but will just buy supermarket free range too.  We have to look after our own health and being flexible with diet can definitely help with this.

Thanks for the input. 😊

Cheery_Daff said:

Ha - I was thinking of sprinkling nuts on a quick stir fry, but clearly that's not going to work sprinkled on mash and gravy 😂 Home made burgers might well be the way to go 😊

Aha! I get you now 😊 I do periodically do what I call a rice mix (sir fried rice with onions, garlic, sweet peppers and mushrooms, so I could add the chickpea / nuts mix you suggested to that 😊