First off, I would like to explain briefly my extended hiatus from blogging. We are fine, but there has been an unusually large amount of family “stuff” going on. My grandfather, mostly. Also, there has been changes to the staff in my department which has resulted in my having more work to do.

I didn’t write my proposed “mini” blogs because the comments I received to the idea was in favor of the longer version.

So, what have I been doing, family matters aside? Waiting for the salmon season to return so I can afford it again. Right now, I only purchase it once in a great while when I can find it and only then if I can pseudo justify the cost to myself. From what I have read on the boards, some areas of the country have been having problems with farmed fish being sold as wild. I am very fortunate that I can find it at all at any price.

Sadly, due to last years accidental over fishing by an estimated 10,000 fishes combined with bad conditions and hungry local wild sea lions, the season won’t open in many areas until very late...we are talking a delay of several months. In addition, much of the fishing is or will be very restricted. It is best to wait. Further messing with the already poor situation could only make things worse.

The kids (baby goats) are now old enough that I can get my unpasturized milk now which I have been enjoying with my green chai. I have missed it since I use the green chai instead of coffee and it just doesn’t taste the same without the milk.

I made a spice cake over the weekend substituting goat milk, spelt flour, and clarified butter for the cow milk, cake flour, butter and omitting the allspice entirely. It was somewhat dense, but very tasty and definitely worth doing again. It had a cream cheese frosting. The O’s and A shouldn’t have had the frosting, but they wanted it on theirs anyway which was their choice. I tried it without the frosting first.

To me, the cake would have looked a bit odd without the frosting, but the sugars caramelized on the outside very well so it had a sort of crisp crust that was similar to a light candy coating. I would have liked it just as well without the frosting, but I had already made it since I didn’t know the cake was going to form the sugar crust. Next time, I’m not sure I’ll make the frosting since no one but me in my family should have it.

While at the grocery the other day I found a line of juices done by Columbia Gorge called Super Ciders. I tried the ginger one. It is a mixture of apple, pear, and ginger juice and was nice. I also remember seeing a cherry one, perhaps I’ll try that one next.

On the experimental side, I’ve been playing with cheese, bread, and veggies trying to come up with some good sandwiches for my paninis. This was for two reasons. I found nice extra aged gouda from Holland and shortly thereafter, a book called Great Grilled Cheese by Laura Werlin. So far, I like the “Dutch Grill” on page 30 the best. However, that’s not surprising since it uses gouda, which I was looking for ideas for anyway.

Speaking of using bread reminds me that I want to remind everyone, again, please read your labels very thoroughly. I found what appeared to be a loaf of dark rye bread. The bag it was in was even labeled very clearly in large bold letters “dark rye”. I picked it up to see what else it contained. To my horror, I found that it didn’t even contain any rye at all! I figured I was just missing it somehow and had my husband look at it. He couldn’t find any rye listed anywhere on the ingredients list either!

I had finally gotten back into the routine of regular exercise, but that has gone by the wayside for the moment again. This time I am not making excuses to get out of doing it, I have hurt the bottom of my right foot...which makes doing aerobics kinda hard. I'm going back to the doctor later this week. It’s nothing serious, more of an aggravation than anything else.

One more thing I would like to mention before I close this blog. Stress and habits. Whenever I am under stress, I still tend to return to old habits. I don’t return to eating avoids...but I had been hitting the white potatoes, pistachios, and wheat. This was not a good idea. I had been of the opinion that letting myself eat these neutral items was better than feeling deprived and stressed out because they made up part of my repertoire of treats for myself.

Well, now I’ve gained weight back from eating lots more neutrals than beneficials and giving in to eating out (I always chose foods that should have been fine, but we all know I was just deceiving myself there. Should be and actually are fine to eat are not the same thing. It’s so easy to miss avoids when you have the labels on all of the ingredients and you make it yourself...how could I have been stupid enough to trust a menu?).

I have come to the conclusion that the way I feel about having to re-shed the extra weight is more of an issue for me than refraining from the neutrals and the stress release of eating out would have been. At least I know what caused the weight to creep back. Before the BTD, it would have been a complete mystery to me. An annoying/frustrating lesson to learn, but better late than never. With this knowledge, I have gotten the scale to start it’s way back down again. : )

I hope your week is off to a good start!