Oops I ate too much

This is a weight chart showing my daily weigh in since the beginning of 2018. I've marked the weight I recorded this morning 79.5 kg.

Oops I ate too much

I’ve been relatively well behaved this week in terms of my food consumption but the end of the week saw me blow out a lot.

This is a weight chart showing my daily weigh in since the beginning of 2018. I've marked the weight I recorded this morning 79.5 kg.

It started on Friday when I chose the staff special chicken schnitzel with chips and gravy for $10.50. That evening I went a little further and enjoyed a crispy Balsamic Brussels sprouts and Spam dish with fennel salad.

This is a photograph of the staff special chicken schnitzel with chips and gravy.

This is a photograph of a plate of crispy Balsamic Brussels sprouts with Spam and a limey fennel salad 💚

On Saturday morning I weighed in at 78.5 kg/173 pounds and enjoyed a Coon cheese® omelet with sesame and poppy seeds. The real weekend splurging started at lunch when I bought a plate of roast pork, applesauce, potato bake and roast vegetables from Fancy Fillings at Westfield Belconnen. I asked for a small plate. A big plate must be huge.

This is a photograph of Saturday lunch. Small pork and vegetables plate from Fancy Fillings at Westfield Belconnen..

Saturday dinner was huge with a 300 gram/10.6 once piece of scotch fillet steak plus cheesy horseradish cream roasted vegetables. Not to mention the bags of almonds and cashews I ate in the afternoon.

This is a photograph of rare scotch fillet steak served with cheesy creamy horseradish roasted vegetables.

When I weighed myself this morning (Sunday, 11 February 2018) I was 79.5 kilograms/175.3 pounds. An ordinary bloke would look at that and think he should refocus and be more careful with what I ate today. Not me though, I had a special date to keep.

Dobinsons has recently opened at Westfield Belconnen and I’ve been enjoying a coffee every Saturday and Sunday. Today I was due to claim my free coffee and cake 😃💚👍😋🍰 Of course what cake would I choose but a vanilla slice.

This is a photograph of the coffee I bought on Saturday with my Dobinsons coffee card showing the next coffee would be free and I'd also get a piece of cake.

This is a photograph of a cup of coffee and a vanilla slice from Dobinsons Westfield Belconnen.

What else has been happening?

I’ve been missing podcasting. I have been planning a regular weekly show which will be called the Yummy Lummy Cooking for one Podcast. I’ve been prevaricating though, I’ve been busy and the planning has been placed on the back burner. The feeling to do something hasn’t gone away though and I thought I needed something short sharp and random. Hence, the Random Yummy.

I’ve recorded two episodes and dropped them Friday and Saturday night. The first was on cooking Balsamic Brussels sprouts and the second was on cooking a cheese omelet with seeds. These shows will drop randomly and you can listen to them in your favourite podcatcher. Just search for Yummy Lummy and hopefully you’ll find them. If you like them, please subscribe.

MEATER® review

Last night I released a review on my MEATER® meat thermometer. I really like using it. It’s so easy, the iOS app works well, and so far, the meat has been perfect. I’m cooking a lump of lamb with it tonight.

What I’ve eaten this week

Monday

Lunch

Leftover chicken thigh and a recipe

This is a photograph of Monday lunch. Leftover chicken thigh seasoned with salt, pepper and garlic powder. I’m reading a recipe.

Dinner

Baked salmon and fennel salad

Tuesday

Lunch

Leftover salmon

Dinner

Pork chop and stir-fried kale slaw

Wednesday

Lunch

Leftover chicken thigh and reading about date formats

Wednesday lunch. Leftover chicken thigh while reading about formatting dates. I prefer YYYYMMDD.

Dinner

Bacon and cheese wrapped chicken maryland with fennel salad

Thursday

Lunch

Leftover chicken thigh and dreaming of Spam

This is a photograph of Thursday lunch. Leftover chicken thigh with sugar-free creaming soda, while reading my Hawaiian Spam cookbook.

Dinner

Chicken maryland and more fennel salad

Friday

Lunch

Chicken schnitzel with chips and gravy

This is a photograph of the staff special chicken schnitzel with chips and gravy.

Dinner

Crispy Balsamic Brussels sprouts with Spam and fennel salad

This is a photograph of a plate of crispy Balsamic Brussels sprouts with Spam and a limey fennel salad 💚

Saturday

Breakfast

Coon cheese® omelet with sesame and poppy seeds

Lunch

Roast pork with apple sauce, potato bake and roast vegetables

This is a photograph of Saturday lunch. Small pork and vegetables plate from Fancy Fillings at Westfield Belconnen..

Dinner

Rare scotch fillet steak with cheesy creamy horseradish roasted vegetables

This is a photograph of rare scotch fillet steak served with cheesy creamy horseradish roasted vegetables.

Sunday

Morning tea

Coffee and vanilla slice from Dobinsons at Westfield Belconnen

This is a photograph of a cup of coffee and a vanilla slice from Dobinsons Westfield Belconnen.

Final words

So, I ate too much this weekend. It’s not the end of the world and my goals are still clear. I’m still headed in the right direction.

I hope you have a good week.

On the radio

This is a photograph of a Dog staring behind a tree. It looks like a pointer. It's tail is at a 45 ° angle and the dog is standing erect.

On the radio

So today I was on the radio. Regular readers here and over at Yummy Lummy will know of my love of the iconic Australian pastry treat, viz., the Vanilla Slice. I joined Jolene Laverty on Lish Fejer‘s Sunday Brunch show on ABC Canberra, and we talked about our love of vanilla slice.

As an aside, Who listens to the radio? by The Sports was one of my favourite songs growing up.

I mentioned Jolene earlier in January after she wrote a brilliant piece for The Guardian and she was kind enough to mention my vanilla slice review on Yummy Lummy. Lish reached out to Jolene to appear on her show and she generously extended the invitation to me too. I had a lot of fun. I’ve appeared on radio and TV before when I was working in Darwin, but this was my first in-studio experience.

Jolene had made some vanilla slice after she wasn’t able to buy any at her chosen bakery yesterday. I brought in some from the new Dobinsons Bakery Cafe at Westfield Belconnen. I really liked the flavour of Jolene’s slice. It had a lovely caramel flavour to it and the pastry was thin but it held enough without being friable.

This is a photograph at ABC studios Canberra of Vanilla slice from Jolene Laverty and Dobinsons Bakery cafe. I was on the radio.

The Dobinsons slice was really very good. I brought it in because Jolene had mentioned she hadn’t tried a slice with passionfruit icing. The custard of the Dobinsons’ slide had a near perfect consistency. It was soft and tongueable. As Goose would say, these are the ducks guts.

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It was fun eating and talking while on the radio.

Hear me on the radio

You can hear the fun we had from about the 35 minute mark. Click on the link and it opens the ABC site and you can listen to Lish’s entire show from today. We even had the High Commissioner from New Zealand telling us about his favourite vanilla slice too.

More cooking news

This week I received in the mail two products (which I paid for) to help me cook meat. The first is a MEATER® thermometer and the second is an Anova Culinary precision cooker.

MEATER® thermometer

This is a very fancy meat thermometer which despite oven temperatures can communicate via Blue Tooth or Wi-Fi with a smartphone app. While I do own an old fashioned meat thermometer, I like the idea of using something that I can read in real time without having to open the oven door. I’ll be writing a proper review for Yummy Lummy soon.

This is a photograph of my new MEATER probe in its box.

I like that with meat thermometers I won’t overcook my meat. I just need to get the internal temperature to the desired temperature, remove the meat from the heat source and then let my meat rest.

My default for cooking chicken has been to cook for an hour at 200 °C. The meat was always moist but I always wondered if I could cook the muscle for a shorter period. Obviously, cooking chicken requires some care, so getting the internal temperature of the largest muscle bundle to 75 °C is paramount. The MEATER® turned out to be a great aid. I was able to more than halve the cooking time. The flesh was juicy, moist and tender. The juices ran clear and I felt safe.

Last night I cooked a piece of Scotch fillet steak in the oven using my MEATER® and it was delicious. I even went to the extent of searing the outside with a kitchen torch.

Sous Vide Everything

Over many years I’ve contemplated sous vide cooking. I know it’s recently become a fad and up until recently, I had assumed that unless I used old second-hand laboratory equipment I’d be up for a really expensive closed system. I didn’t realise I could purchase a water recirculator and a plastic bucket to do the job.

This is a photograph of the box containing the Anova Culinary Recirculator on a window sill

I’ve been watching Sous Vide Everything on YouTube and the hosts (who are South Americans living in Florida), have convinced me there is an affordable and space conscious way to cook sous vide.

One of my major concerns was where to set up a cooker in the one bedroom flat I rent. There is barely enough space for the bench top oven and induction hob I use. I see that with a detachable water recirculator I can use a plastic bucket to store things and put it away after each use.

While the recirculator arrived this week, I’m still waiting for the plastic bucket and lid. I bought the container via Amazon Australia and expect delivery later this month. I’ll let you know how it goes. I’m excited about cooking salmon and red meat sous vide.

What else happened this week?

Not much really. That said, I did break the 79 kg barrier that I’ve been sitting on for so long. I expect after today’s vanilla slice extravaganza though, I may be approaching 80 kg when I weigh in tomorrow morning 😳 😜

Graph of my weight loss since October 2017

This is a graph demonstrating my weight loss since October 2017. It's a graph of time on the X axis and weight on the Y axis.

What I ate this week

Monday dinner

Baked salmon and a colourful fennel salad

This is a photograph of Monday dinner. Baked poppy and sesame seed, chilli crusted salmon and lime flavoured fennel and radish salad. This is a really colourful photograph.

Tuesday lunch

Leftover salmon

This is a photograph of Tuesday lunch. Leftover salmon with fresh garden tomatoes. You can see the beautiful sweet globes with the leftover salmon.

Tuesday dinner

Chicken Maryland cooked with the help of the MEATER®. The tomatoes were a gift from a workmate. They were amazing.

This is a photograph of Tuesday dinner. Poppy and sesame seed crusted Chicken Maryland with fennel and tomato lime salad. It's really colourful.

Wednesday dinner

Chicken Maryland cooked with the help of the MEATER®

This is a photograph of Wednesday dinner. Celebrating breaking through the 79 kg barrier with #meatermade Chicken Maryland and fennel and tomato salad. Using my MEATER thermometer, I cooked the chicken until it reached an internal temperature of 75 °C and allowed it to rest for 5 minutes. The meat was moist, juicy and delicious. The salad contains fresh garden tomatoes from a work mate, lime zest, lime juice, fennel, radish, red onion, capers, parsley and dill. #weightloss #lowcarb #igfood

Thursday dinner

Baked speck and vegetables

This is a photograph of Thursday dinner. Baked speck and vegetables with cream and cheese. It's still in the oven-proof dish I cooked it in.

Friday lunch

Chicken schnitzel with chips and gravy

This is a photograph of Friday lunch. Chicken schnitzel with chips and gravy. I ate this at the Canberra Hospital and Health Services tuck shop.

Friday dinner

Speck and fennel salad

This is a photograph of Friday dinner. Speck and spicy fennel salad with radish and lime zest. It is a colourful salad.

Saturday breakfast

Crispy bacon and poached eggs

This is a photograph of Saturday breakfast. Worcestershire flavoured poached eggs with crispy bacon.

Saturday lunch

Macca’s Nugs and mustard

This is a photograph of Saturday lunch. Nugs and mustard from Maccas.

Saturday dinner

Scotch fillet steak cooked with the aid of the MEATER®

This is a gallery of photographs showing a sequence of what I did to prepare the steak. Click on one photograph and scroll through each image.

Sunday breakfast

Coon cheese and sesame seed omelet

This is a photograph of Sunday breakfast. Coon cheese and sesame seed omelet served with a slice of lime and a caramel cream coffee. I love lime juice.

Sunday lunch

I ate vanilla slices

This is a photograph of Vanilla slice in the display cabinet at Dobinsons Bakery cafe, Westfield Belconnen. This is a photograph of Vanilla slice from Dobinsons Bakery Cafe. I shot the photograph at Westfield Belconnen. It shows a tray of four slices in a cardboard box. This is a photograph at ABC studios Canberra of Vanilla slice from Jolene Laverty and Dobinsons Bakery cafe. I was on the radio.

Final words

I’m not sure if you’ll ever hear me on the radio again, I hope so, it was a lot of fun.

I’ll be enjoying a pork chop for dinner. I’m not sure if anything exciting is happening in the week to come. I hope you have a good week and eat well.

Ducks guts

A great piece of Australian slang and best epitomised by one of the best sequences of cinema ever made. In fact, I prefer watching this than anything else I’ve ever seen at the movies including Star Trek movies.

Hear Goose at about the 1 minute mark but better yet, watch the entire clip.

NATIONAL CLUBS GYMNASTICS CARNIVAL 2017 MY JOURNEY TO AND FROM BENDIGO

This is a photograph of Metal straws and a straw cleaner because I hate that plastic straws are killing marine mammals and reptiles.
I like metal straws because I hate what plastic straws are doing to marine mammals and reptiles.

 

Birthday treats from work mates

Gumnut patisserie Birthday Vanilla Slice from Kaitlyn for my 52nd birthday Gary Lum

Birthday treats especially at work don’t have Calories! I wish this were true, but who cares. It happens once a year and when you have friends like the ones I have it’s amazing.

It started early when a dear friend brought me my favourite vanilla slice from the Gumnut Patisserie from Bowral. There’s just something amazing in the pastry the way they have a caramel flavour to the flaky pastry.

Gumnut patisserie Birthday Vanilla Slice from Kaitlyn for my 52nd birthday Gary Lum
Birthday Vanilla Slice

Just before lunch (I didn’t eat lunch) another dear friend visited me and gave me a Queensland nut caramel tart from Urban Bean Espresso Bar. I love Queensland nuts (Genus Macadamia), especially on a delicious caramel tart. The best thing is the boys from Urban Bean are all NSW loving cockroach supporters and the friend who gave this to me is a Queenslander!

Urban Bean Espresso Bar Queensland nut birthday cake from Jacinta to me Gary Lum
Queensland nut birthday cake

I attended an executive meeting in the afternoon and a couple of my work mates bought me a cake to share with other members of the meeting. It was a delicious cake with yummy cream. It had a couple of layers separated by cream and jam.

Michele's Patisserie Birthday cake from work friends. I have such great work friends from Sarah and Rosemary for me Gary Lum
Birthday cake from work friends. I have such great work friends.

So I was on a sugar high all day. I wonder what my blood sugar level is.

For dinner, I needed something savoury so I put a piece of baked salmon in a puff pastry parcel along with some Coon cheese. I served it with a Hass avocado (thankfully Hass has replaced Shepard in the supermarkets) mixed with sour cream and chilli flakes.

Birthday baked cheesy salmon parcel with creamy avocado made by me, Gary Lum
Birthday baked cheesy salmon parcel with creamy avocado

In the last few weeks, I’ve alluded to the amazing generosity of my work mates here, here and here.

I love my jobs and I love the people I work with.

I hope your birthdays are as good as mine!

Gary Lum QR Code

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