Tuesday was a lot better than Monday, or a lot more successful in any case.
My dirty cuppa was less dirty than usual in that I used sweetener tablets instead of sugar. I took a break from the aspartame because we wondered if it was causing my skin to flare up. But as my skin is flaring up again, after the light treatment over the winter, it can’t be that. Nor can it be bananas, as I stopped eating those too. But as not eating or using them has had zero effect, bananas are back on the diet and I’m using up the sweeteners and the xylitol until they’re all gone.
The other aspect of our diet is that we’re trying to consume fewer ultra processed foods and more natural foods. We already cook from scratch and make things from scratch as far as we can. But that’s another reason aspartame and xylitol will be off the menu. And, of course, there are the carcinogens some people think are in aspartame, and xylitol is poisonous to dogs.
Long term, the plan is maybe to cut sugar right down or even out. But I believe that if it’s natural, then it has some role in our diet. Just like I prefer to buy fruit and vegetables when they’re in season because I believe they’re in season at the precise time our bodies are deficient in whatever the food is nutrient rich in.
So for now, my day starts with a slightly less dirty cup of tea although it does still have milk in, even if it is semi-skimmed (half and half?).
My reading hour was a tad disrupted as news broke that MPs were starting to demand that our prime minister resign or set a timetable to hand over to the next person. So I turned the news on and left it running all day,
For what it’s worth, I think Sir Keir Starmer and his cronies treated Jeremy Corbyn very badly when he was leader of the Labour party, and since, when Starmer even ejected him from the party. Jeremy Corbyn is more Labour than many of the leaders we’ve had since John Smith, who I believe would have been prime minister had he not suddenly died. And now Starmer is getting a taste of what Corbyn had, and others before them. And leaders of the Conservative party. So I don’t feel badly for him on that score.
I do think he has missed a massive trick to get the country on his side by making a lot of very bad decisions one after the other after the other, making lives worse for the very people who elected his party into government. He comes across as weak and lily livered, indecisive and divisive.
I don’t think he should resign over the recent local election defeats. The ignorant knuckle-dragging oiks who are currently voting Reform UK don’t seem to understand the basics of British politics. Electing local councillors has absolutely no effect on national government. The less ignorant know exactly what they’re voting for and the ‘message’ they’re ‘sending’ the government. But the majority don’t.
Anyway, it was pretty apparent pretty early on that Starmer has no intention of resigning. He threw down the gauntlet daring anyone to challenge his leadership, and I think that is what will happen. Although the only person who I believe can save the Labour government at this stage isn’t even an MP, and when he tried to become an MP, the ruling body of the Labour party blocked him. Speaks volumes.
So that was my distraction for Tuesday. I still put some washing away, hung some washing up, emptied the dishwasher, fed the dog, kept the poet and me fed and watered while he fed the garden birds, and walked the dog, with the poet. I still managed my LazyFit bed pilates for the day, my floor work and my standing work. I rattled off and posted yesterday’s blog post. I spent the entire afternoon working on the rewriting/proofreading job. And I made a trifle for our puddings for the next 3 days.
We have a number of recipes and meals that we rotate over an 8-week period, and trifle is a popular one when it comes around. I love trifle and, when he’s not eating a fruit crumble I’ve made or an apricot cut-and-come-again cake, it’s the poet’s favourite. He’s also a bit partial to an upside down pear cake…But yesterday, trifle was his fave.
I like trifle because it’s so versatile. I was first introduced to it as a child when we could get one of several flavours in a box by Bird’s. We could have chocolate, strawberry or raspberry flavour. And the box consisted of:
- a packet of ‘sponge’ fingers that were always rock-hard
- a packet of jelly crystals that were always welded together
- a flavoured custard powder
- a Dream Topping
- the tiniest packet of coloured sprinkles in the history of the world
All we had to do was add a pint of milk for the custard, a quarter of a pint of milk for the topping, and 3 tablespoons of sugar for the custard.
Bird’s trifle was very popular in our house when I was growing up, but sometimes my mom would make her own from scratch, using plain vanilla custard, and raspberry Swiss roll instead of the sponge fingers. We could get sponge fingers in the supermarket, also always rock hard, and we could get trifle sponges too. But Mom always made it with a Swiss roll sliced up.
These days, I make it ‘from scratch’ using rock hard sponge fingers if I can get them, of trifle sponges, or tinned fruit, or fresh fruit (but that makes the jelly take longer to set), or raspberry Swiss roll. I make a jelly from a block of full fat, full sugar jelly or from sugar free jelly crystals, but I think people who make their own jelly using arrowroot would still be able to make it.
I use a strawberry blancmange packet mix for most of the trifles, or I use a chocolate blancmange packet mix if I’m making a chocolate orange trifle (using tinned mandarins, drained, in orange jelly). I’d like to experiment and make a raspberry, strawberry or chocolate custard either with custard powder or from scratch (the poet makes a gorgeous custard from scratch), especially as we only seem to be able to get strawberry blancmange at the moment. But for now, and for speed and convenience, I usually use just the strawberry blancmange packet mix.
I still use Dream Topping for the topping, but only because a trifle lasts us for 3 days and a fresh cream topping doesn’t last more than 2 days. But if we have guests, or if I can’t get a Dream Topping (full fat or sugar free, I’m not proud), then I will whip up a fresh cream topping.
And I have a selection of coloured sprinkles, or hundreds and thousands, or silver balls if it’s Christmas, for decoration, although the poet prefers his without and a lot of people garnish their trifles with fresh fruit.
There are so many things you can do with a trifle, like put sherry in the jelly or make a coffee-flavoured one. Although why anyone would want to ruin a perfectly edible trifle by doing either of those things is totally beyond me. Ugh! It can be layered. Sweet biscuits and other finger-type treats or chocolate wafers can be used. Mini chocolate flakes. And it can be made as one big trifle (our choice) or several individual trifles (such as in the image above).
My Bird’s-based trifle is fine as it is and it can be used for regular puddings or on special occasions. (It’s not Bird’s, it’s mine!) Plus, it’s low in calories and even lower if you use semi-skimmed or skimmed milk and less sugar, although I find that semi-skimmed and skimmed milk burn the custard pan and the Dream Topping rarely works. Saying that, I put a quarter of a pint of semi-skimmed milk in our Dream Topping yesterday rather than 150ml, and it worked perfectly. I think having the milk slightly under the metric weight was the key.
The poet made us a spaghetti bolognaise, which is also versatile and low in calories, but that’s a story for another day. He made the bolognaise before heading off to a band rehearsal, then he cooked the spaghetti when he got back. I was going to do it, but he wanted to and he was earlier home than he thought he would be.
Today, it’s more of the same, but we have a fish dinner (‘naked’ cod fillet with potatoes, peas and sweetcorn) for tea, and trifle for pudding.
Yummy! I found my big Trifle dish the other day. I’d love to make one of the big ones again, but there’s no shelf in the fridge on which it fits. I sometimes make smaller, individual ones.
we’re lucky to be in an area that has lots of fresh food and local farmers. It makes it easier to avoid a lot of the processed stuff. I had soup from a can the other day that tasted so salty to me. I use salt, but not as much as the canned stuff does!
I make a big trifle or a big jelly but I make individual ones too, depending on my mood. We do usually have room in the bottom of the fridge for the big bowls and the individual ones go on there too until they’re set.
I threw a load of cans out recently as the dates had all gone on them. On cans! That’s how often we eat out of cans now. Apart from baked beans. And chopped tomatoes. We use those a lot!