Jim on Food: Brazilian Tikka Masala w/ Crumbled Cauliflower

INGREDIENTS (in order of appearance):

Olive & Sesame Oil

Crackling Whole Spices: Black Peppercorn, Cumin Seeds, Cardamom Pods, Fenugreek Seeds, Star Anise

Brazil Nuts

Pecans

Celery

Asparagus

Habanero/Scotch Bonnet Chilli

Green Pepper

Kiwi Fruit

Mushrooms

Courgette

Kale

Fish Sauce

Herbs: Mint

Powdered Spices: Chilli, Paprika, Garam Masala, Curry, Coriander

Water

Chopped Tomatoes

Greek Yoghurt

Result: Positive

Yes, your eyes do deceive you! That is not carbohydrate-oozing rice circulating the dish, but nutritious crumbled cauliflower!

The idea came to me in a dream.

It’s just lucky that I happen to like vegetables anyway, especially cauliflower, so I’ve discovered replacing my beloved rice with my beloved cauliflower is a “fun” (none of this is really any fun for me) and effective means of tricking my brain into thinking this nightmare hasn’t happened to my life.

As explained previously, I’ve reluctantly started a low-carb diet due to my not-improving Type 2 Diabetes. My doctor was very clear: cut out carbs or start injecting yourself with insulin. And that was that. I suppose there was a silent third option, which is to do nothing and lose a foot, but we didn’t hop down that road.

I hit a wall with this new diet a couple of days ago, when I felt I’d rather starve to death than eat another stick of celery, but I’m plowing on now. I’ve found a few more acceptable ingredients to bring into the kitchen, so I’ll be experimenting with those soon enough.

Greek Yoghurt has saved my sanity, as per usual. I used to eat it plain as a snack anyway, so buying in pots of the stuff and adding it to curries and mixing it with tuna chunks as a snack has broadened my menu a tad.

I believe “tikka masala” was an invention of the Imperialist British, who simply stole India for awhile. Tikka masala is not meant as the base of an entree, but as a marinade for a meat sharing starter. Or something. But, being a stubborn sort, us villainous Brits said: “Hey, this is nice, we think we’ll keep the recipe and have it as a main with rice on a Saturday night after being in the pub all evening!”.

And history was made.

A naughty treat to some, a national dish to others, and completely baffling to actual Indians, this is my pale imitation regardless. It’s basically just one of my normal curries but with yoghurt mixed in at the very end as I waited for the rice… erm… cauliflower to boil. I’m also going back and forth over whether to cut out meat entirely, so this was a test to see how I coped with just nuts as a protein.

The cauliflower and duel-nut replacements worked nicely (pecans smell amazing when they’re frying!), with the former being probably more authentic than a rice side dish. I’m now getting used to halving a whole cauliflower and finely grating off small florets with a knife, as new ways of working do take time to perfect. They are bloody messy things!

A delicious, sour dish overall, which soothed my emotional pain and spiced up my heart!

Let me know how you get on if you try out this combination!

Do stay in touch, darlings.

Toodles!

Framed to Perfection XXII

KOZURE OKAMI JIGOKU E IKUZOL! DAIGORO (1974)

Director: Chikashi Makiura

Cinematographer: Yoshiyuki Kuroda

It’s taken me so long to, once again, sit down to the final film in the Lone Wolf and Cub series because, well, I plain forgot about it. Oh well, worse things happen at sea! So, here we are, the best-looking instalment of the six films, mainly thanks to the makeup person discovering a way of not making all the actors look quite so sweaty.

I’m trying to get back into some “proper” cultural analysis and reviewing, after a difficult week of having to change my eating habits. My mind has been utterly consumed by carbohydrate counts and frying, boiling, and roasting vegetables.

If I see one more courgette, I swear I’m going to scream.

Going back in time to Feudal Japan, with swords slashing and daggers flying, seemed like a good reintroduction. I do enjoy period films, as I find them nice and cosy. You know, despite all the brutality. I guess no period in human history has been devoid of bloodshed. It just seems to be what we do. There’s even a theory that we consciously wiped out our Neanderthal cousins.

Sigh.

Anyway, the above shot stood out to me, as it showcases Daigoro’s patented sensitivity towards women once again. And his father’s sociopathic detachment regarding death. I suppose that’s a marketable skill if you’re a royal executioner by trade.

I also like how defeated assassin Kaori, sharing a name with Akira (1988)’s most horribly-mistreated character in cinema history, is partially obscured by a veil of reeds. This allows her a modicum of extra dignity, as Daigoro respectfully places a covering over her fallen head.

He does have a way with the ladies.

I’ll hopefully find more shots from this film to post as slowly go along, although I’m having to get back into the swing of talking about something other than what I’m shoving into my handsome face.

I miss rice and bread so much.

The Blake’s 7 boxset has just arrived, a cult sci-fi show I’ve bizarrely never-ever seen, so fingers crossed I’ll have a “first impressions” post for you soon enough. I’ve known of Blake’s 7’s existence since I was little, but have somehow always missed repeats of it on telly. If they have ever shown it since its original run, that is, which I suspect they have not.

Do stay in touch, darlings.

Toodles!

Jim on Food: Plum Chicken & Mushrooms

INGREDIENTS (in order of appearance):

Olive & Sesame Oil

Fresh Chicken

Celery

Asparagus

Plums

Fish Sauce

Mushrooms

Kale

Herbs: Oregano

Powdered Spices: Black Pepper

Result: Positive

Pretty much what it “says on the tin”, this one.

Welcome to Day 3 of my “enforced” low-carbohydrate diet, thanks to diabetes and my ignoring doctor’s orders to improve my eating habits when I was first diagnosed back in 2019. Long sentence, that was! But let’s try and make it fun, rather than bursting into tears, which I’ve nearly done a few times since that doom-laden phone call with my GP surgery last week.

I’m slowly getting used to my new mindset, which mostly involves breaking my instinct to just reach out to anything when my tummy rumbles. I’ll probably have to get rid of my brave little toaster, sadly. We’ve had some good times together. Alas! But, hey, needs must, as they say.

For this dish, I finally got to use that fresh diced chicken I had in the freezer, plus a bunch of plums that needed getting rid of. I honestly had no idea that plums were basically just small apples. Decades I’ve been knocking around. For some reason, I thought they were thick, fleshy fruit with a dark-purple colour to them. I guess because that’s the colour of plum sauce from Chinese takeaways. Hmm. Oh well, now I know!

Since I can only get a small bottle of sesame oil at a time, I tend to “motivate” it with an additional splash of olive, which seems to work just fine. Perhaps this is outlawed on the professional cooking circuit, but I won’t tell if you won’t. 

I disrespectfully chopped up the asparagus, as I do find it to be one of the most overrated of vegetables. I’ve even had it done “fancy” in a restaurant before and was all like: “Meh!”. So, yes, I guess I’ll mix it with celery from now on as an onion replacement.

The mushrooms were brutally cooked down by the plum juice, so I’m guessing those hardy little apple rip-offs have some pretty badass citric acid or something in them. I’m no rocket scientist. Usually mushrooms provide some body and bite, but not this time. I genuinely thought I’d forgot to include them as I tucked in.

I think I’ll phase out mammal and bird meat altogether, with fish meat being the exception. It turns out fish sauce is fine to add to dishes, unlike my beloved soy sauce. Sure, fish sauce smells like an old man’s sweaty, unwashed bum crack, but at least it’s something.

I also discovered yesterday that I can no longer use porridge oats as a thickening agent, as they have a shockingly-high carbohydrate count. I literally gasped when I saw the numbers. No wonder I felt sick all day after a simple bowl with milk! I was so embarrassed that I didn’t check sooner. I just assumed! People always go on about how porridge is a “healthy way to start the day”, but it isn’t. It really, really isn’t.

Well, not for diabetics, anyway.

I’m still going through my experimental phase, with it occupying a fair amount of my thinking. I keep forgetting there are movies and music and video games out there to experience and talk about, so please be patient with me. This has all affected my mood greatly, which is up and down like crazy.

I hope this informal recipe finds you in a better state. I’m sure you can figure out the portions yourself, as you’re all grown-ups and stuff. You know how a wok works, right?

Oh and I’ve found a cheeky replacement for rice, so more on that later!

Do stay in touch, darlings.

Toodles!

Jim on Food: Thai Chicken & Kiwi Curry

INGREDIENTS (in order of appearance):

Olive Oil

Crackling Whole Spices: Black Peppercorns, Cumin Seeds, Cardamom Pods, Star Anise

Soya Beans

Celery

Kiwi Fruit

Courgette

Mushrooms

Green Bell Pepper

Powdered Spices: Chilli, Curry, Garam Masala, Coriander

Kale

Skimmed Milk

Cooked Chicken

Result: Positive

These recipes will be very casual, without exact measurements or anything, as I’m really doing this for my own amusement and am certainly no professional cook or dietitian. As mentioned in my introductory post, I’m just a diabetic loser trying to cut down on his carbohydrate intake, with this series of posts attempting to carve some fun and creativity out of these dire circumstances.

I thought I’d go relatively-simple to start off with. I’m no stranger to curries or a stir-fry, with this being a little bit of both. I’ve given it the prefix: “Thai”, as its eventual-wateriness reminded me of a Red/Green Curry that you’d find in any reputable, erm, Chinese restaurant.

Close enough, I guess.

My fear with this recipe was that it’d end up a formless, tasteless mush, which it certainly did not. In fact, there were a few surprises along the way.

I can’t state this clearly enough: I do not like celery or courgette. The former creeping me out with its fibrous flesh and peppery tang, and the latter usually encountered as pathetic blobs in mother’s terrible stews growing up. However, as an onion substitute, the celery mercifully softened up and vanished, whilst the courgette miraculously kept its form, even serving as a credible alternative to potato.

After crackling the whole spices, the soya beans kinda had to go in next, due to my supermarket only having the frozen variety. The kiwi fruit, which I only know as an ice cream garnish, was easy to peal and chop. It’s a resilient little fruit, which was another surprise, as I genuinely expected it to disintegrate completely. But, no, it was a unique addition and made up for my deciding to cut garlic out of my life.

I’m not sure I needed the mushrooms, but I really was worried the dish wouldn’t have any body to it. They did their job admirably. As did the green bell pepper, which provided crunch. I’m not a red pepper person, I’m afraid. It’s nothing personal against the reds, I just prefer the bitterness of the greens. 

The milk was skimmed moo-cow milk, but I will be swapping over to soya and almond milk in the future. I just needed to finish the carton off first. Changing your diet involves a lot of fridge/cupboard emptying. I would usually allow the milk to sit longer in the pan, so as to burn off some of its moisture, but I wanted the vegetables to retain their body as much as possible. I often add porridge oats to curries should they be a little watery, but leaving it Thai-style-watery was just fine.

I don’t know what to think about kale. Perhaps no-one does. It didn’t wilt like spinach though, even adding extra bite to the dish. I’ll be adding it to most dishes, to be honest, so I better start liking it quick.

You’ll notice I didn’t include fresh chillies, but there was a practical reason for this. Simply put, I needed all the free space I could int he fridge to try out all these new foodstuffs. I’m a big fan of fresh chillies, usually adding them to meals by the handful, but there simply wasn’t the room for any this week.

I used pre-cooked sandwich chicken instead of fresh stuff, as a) I wasn’t sure I was even going to add meat and b) I just didn’t want to complicate matters by worrying about the dangers of handling fresh meat. I do have some diced chicken in the freezer though, so I’ll be using that soon enough. I also need to research whether I need to drop meat altogether, but hey-ho.

 

While I no longer can, I would obviously recommend serving this with rice. Saying that, I have something I want to try out as a substitute, so more on that in a later post!

So, there you have it, my first attempt at a low-carb dinner. I’ve made stuff like this before, mind you, but this time the motivation came from a different place. It was difficult breaking my habit of reaching for the garlic and soy/fish sauce, but what can you do. This is my life now, unless one of you wishes to run out and cure diabetes for me.

Get on that, before I lose what little will I have left.

Do stay in touch, darlings.

Toodles!

Jim on Food - An Introduction

I suppose meal recipes loosely fall under “culture”, what with food being intrinsically-woven into every aspect of our daily lives, so I’m surprised I haven’t done something like this sooner.

In 2019, after getting some rather provocative symptoms, I was diagnosed with Type 2 Diabetes. Ever since, I’ve frankly done sweet-fuck-all to amend my diet, assuming the seven tablets I take a day will sort it all out for me. This is not the right mindset. Well, two days ago, I was informed by my GP that, if I didn’t cut out carbohydrates right away, I’d have to start injecting myself with insulin.

Yikes!

I’m a very squeamish person, not even comfortable with someone else piercing my skin with a needle, so I decided to do some research and try lowering my carb intake. Don’t get me wrong, I did this with a heavy heart, being a perfectly normal lover of bread, chips, bread, pasta, bread, crisps, bread, and rice. In fact, when I was little, waiters in Chinese restaurants used to be fascinated by this little white boy hungrily gobbling up bowls of egg fried rice. Apparently younger customers usually just demanded the plain “children’s menu”.

The dim light at the end of my tunnel has finally been switched off, as rice is one of my true happy places.

So, yes, as I lay in bed yesterday feeling completely hopeless and unable to move out of pure misery, I decided to turn my pain into something positive. Cut to this. As I explore the low-mood world of a low-carb diet, I’ll post pictures and recipes and reviews of my own culinary attempts. I’m a “throw everything in the pot and hope for the best” sort of cook, so please don’t expect any complex, scientific baking.

Simplicity shall be at the forefront of my brave efforts!

My “extensive” research regarding all of this involved simply searching the internet for lists of the most low-carb fruit and vegetables and nuts and pulses, as thinking too much about my life-threatening illness isn’t something I particularly like doing. It’s amazing/tragic what you find is high-carb.

Goodbye, garlic and onions, basically.

Still, I managed to fill this week’s online shopping basket with a pretty decent array of fresh produce, so I’ll have plenty to work with. I just hope I can please my hunger, as I believe that’s the one thing carbs are good for.

Let me know if you have any recommendations or tips that might help make this rather grim turn of events just that little bit more enjoyable.

Do stay in touch, darlings.

Toodles!