Thank you diabetes

I've now lost a little over 80 pounds and feel so much better for it. The extra energy, from not carrying that extra weight, not to mention the pressure off my heart, lungs, the ease of movement from not having all that extra on my knees, on my feet, all this is amazing. I still have a huge amount further to go, but I'm getting there.
Now I've lost enough for everyone to notice the difference, it's amazing the little, and big things that pick me up and help me do this, each and every day. The compliments are wonderful. I appreciate each and every person who has told me how much better I'm looking, how I should be proud of myself, or how they are proud of me. Thank you so very much everyone who has told me this. I love you for it.
I love the fact that I can sit in armchairs now and not feel pain as my thighs are squeezed against them. I love that my clothes are baggy, or gone as they are just too big to wear any more. I love that moving is easier, so I do more of it, so it becomes even easier, so I do even more of it. I love the Lao folks for whom losing a great deal of weight is rarely a good thing, who didn't want to ask me directly why I'd lost so much, so called Kam, my housekeeper to see if I was alright and if they could help in any way. It is so very kind and thoughtful. I love that someone called the other morning to ask if I wanted to go to Zumba. I'm not ready for that yet, but I love the fact that you did that. You wouldn't have - for very good reasons - this time last year.
I love that I'm losing weight, and getting fitter and getting my life back and getting my spark back and I wouldn't have been doing any of these things if I hadn't got diabetes, so maybe, maybe I love that I got diabetes. Of course it would have been so much better to do this without getting something so serious. I don't like waking up and pricking my finger to test my blood before I've eaten. I don't like the odd time I screw up the blood sugar, going too low, then bouncing too high as I try to fix it and yoyo-ing around for a day or two until I sort it all out. I don't like the dizzy spells and the muscle cramps and the pins and needles and the nightmares I've had about going blind. I don't like that my stupidity with what I ate has caused me to probably shorten my life by several years. That is so very stupid. But if I'm truly honest, this time last year, on the path I was on, I didn't, deep down, expect to be around by this Christmas. And if friends and family are honest too, neither did they.  And now, thanks to diabetes, now I expect to live a much longer, much more active and much healthier life for many many years to come. We can't tell the future. God knows this year has shown that more than any other, but I feel so full of optimism, that had all but evaporated, a year ago.

Pork with leeks and beans

Ingredients

For the leeks and beans:

2 large or 4 small leeks

1 tin butter beans 

1 tablespoon butter

200 ml vegetable stock

1 apple

For the pork:

500 grams pork tenderloin - sliced into 1 cm pieces

1 clove of garlic

3 tablespoons white wine

 1 teaspoon butter

1 teaspoon oil

1 teaspoon finely chopped sage

1 tablespoon grainy dijon mustard

2 tablespoons cream

Clean and chop the leeks into 3 cm lengths. Peel and dice the apple. Fry the leeks and apple in the butter until they start to brown. Add a spoonful of thestock and cover the pan. simmer for 10 minutes, adding more stock as necessary to prevent from burning.

Meanwhile, melt the butter and oil in a pan. Fry the pork pieces over a high heat, until browned. 

Finely dice the garlic.

Remove the pork from the pan and deglaze it with the wine. Once you have done this, add the garlic, sage and mustard to the wine mixture and stir. Return the pork to the pan and cook for a further minute. 

Add the strained butter beans to the leeks and cook for a further 2 minutes.

Meanwhile, stir the cream into the pork and allow to bubble, stirring all the time.

Turn of the heat and spoon the leek and beans on to a plate. Top with the pork and pour some of the creamy sauce over.

Eat immediately,

Caesar Salad

This salad, simply leaves and dressing, is so good. Of course you can add grilled chicken, avocado, olives, capers, and so on, but it stands so wonderfully well on it's own. Traditionally it's made with raw egg yolks, but as I'm wary of using those, I substitute them for the yolks of hard boiled eggs. I don't personally think that it makes a huge difference to the taste, but it definitely makes me happier to eat the salad. It also contains croutons, and these could easily be substituted with, say, roasted almonds, but they aren't a huge part of the salad, volume wise, and by the time they have been toasted with olive oil, they aren't going to have a huge impact on the GI, so I use them. But then have to resist the temptation to eat the rest of the bread!

Ingredients
For the dressing:
2 cloves of garlic
6 anchovies
2 tablespoons lime juice
1.5 tablespoons smooth dijon mustard
The yolks of two hard boiled eggs
Half a cup of olive oil
Half a cup of grated parmesan cheese

For the croutons:
1 teaspoon rosemary
1 teaspoon thyme
Pepper
4 garlic cloves
3 tablespoons olive oil
Fresh bread

Also:
The heart of several romaine lettuces
Shavings of parmesan


Mix the dressing ingredients in a blender.
For the croutons, preheat the oven to 200C.
Chop the rosemary and thyme into tiny pieces and add to a jar with the pepper, finely chopped garlic, and olive oil. Shake vigorously.
Slice the bread then tear into tiny pieces.
Pour the oil mix over the bread and mix well to coat.
Scatter into a roasting tin and put in the oven for about 10 minutes till crispy.
Put the whole lettuce leaves in a bowl. Pour over the dressing. Mix gently with your hands.
Arrange on a plate. Scatter the croutons over and finish with the parmesan shavings.

Asparagus soup with ham 'croutons'

500 grams asparagus, woody bits removed
500 ml vegetable stock
4 tablespoons cream - or thick yoghurt
a handful spinach chopped
one onion, finely chopped
salt and pepper
1 tablespoon butter
diced bacon or ham

Fry the bacon or ham in the butter. Once crispy, remove, and put on a piece of kitchen towel to remove any excess oil. Keep the fat in the pan.
Set aside some asparagus tips for decoration and chop the rest into 2cm lengths.
Fry with the onion in the bacon fat.
Add 100 ml of the stock and simmer for 10 minutes. Add the spinach and remove from the heat.
Using a hand blender, blend the mixture into soup adding more stock if necessary. Add the cream and heat till almost boiling. Add more stock as necessary and remove from the heat.
This is delicious hot or cold, served with some of the cream - or yoghurt, the bacon and the asparagus tips. Also delicious hot with a freshly poached egg dropped in.

Chocolate and coffee panna cotta

Ingredients

350 ml cream

1 sheet gelatin

1.5 tablespoons soft brown sugar (less if you like really bitter!)

100g chocolate, shaved into pieces

1 tablespoon instant espresso powder, made up with a little hot water to a thick paste.

 2 tablespoons milk

Cut the gelatin into small pieces  and soak in the milk.

 

Warm the cream with the brown sugar until it is completely dissolved..

Make the coffee to a paste and stir into the milk

Add the gelatin in milk and stir until completely dissolved.

 

Put into ramekin dishes, spinkle with the chocolate and stir through.

Leave to set overnight in the fridge.

Italian Beef Stew

Ingredients

1 onion - chopped up finely

2 cloves garlic, diced

1 tablespoon regular oil

1 teaspoon dried Rosemary, finely chopped

1 red pepper, cut into thin strips

1 tablespoon olive oil

500 grams beef, cut into thin strips

1 large tin tomatoes, or 1 kilogram of fresh tomatoes, roasted and finely diced

200 ml vegetable stock or beef stock

Generous handful of olives

Parsley to serve

Heat the regular oil in a large frying pan. Sweat the onions, garlic and peppers with the rosemary.

Heat the olive oil and brown the beef in a separate pan - or the same one, having set the onions, etc. aside.

Once browned, add the tomatoes and the onions, etc.

 Simmer for around 15 minutes

Throw in the olives.

Cook for a couple more minutes and serve warm with the parsley sprinkled over.

Cobb Salad

Ingredients:

Lettuce, a vinaigrette, and EAT COBB:

Egg
Avocado
Tomato

Chicken
Onion (spring!)
Bacon
Blue cheese

For the vinaigrette,  we used:
2 tablespoons olive oil
1.5 tablespoons red wine vinegar
1 teaspoon lime juice
0.25 teaspoon Dijon mustard
A little minced garlic
Salt and pepper

Lay the leaves on a plate.
Boil and peel the egg.
Poach or grill the chicken
Dice everything into cubes a little under 1cm.
Fry the bacon in its own fat.
Arrange all the ingredients on the lettuce.
Shake the vinaigrette ingredients together in a jar and pour over the salad.
Eat immediately.