Kevin's Watch

Hah .. thats youre story and youre sticking to it You know we are real life humans .. but its a lot of codswapple, of no significant import

Monday was pub schnitty night

Tuesday Malaysian curry night with friends and bubbles

Tonight left overs

Monday was a veal stew with carrot, mushroom, onion, and garlic prepared in the Instant Pot and served with couscous.

Tuesday was eggplant parm at Menolly's request, as she wanted Italian for the meal on the eve of her surgery.

Sounds a fair request

And very delightful fare

Hospital food:

On Wednesday, I was served dinner pretty much as I was waking up from recovery. Although I had checked in to the hospital at 7:45 in the morning, having been on a complete fast, not even water, since midnight, none of us thought about looking at a menu and ordering dinner for me. By the time I came to, it was too late to order anything, as service had already begun. So, I was served the "featured" meal, which was a dry slice of turkey, it may have even been turkey roll, as I couldn't tell; steamed tender crisp broccoli, and mashed potatoes with gravy. To drink, I think they gave me cranberry juice cocktail. All I know is that it was sickly sweet, and I just asked for ice water instead.

Of that, all I ate were the mashed potatoes and gravy. Those were pretty good.

They also served a slice of a lightly glazed chocolate brownie/cake. It wasn't dense like a brownie, but it wasn't light and airy like a sheet cake, either. Sorta midway between the two. I enjoyed that as well.

With that being all I ate, I got hungry again about 10:45 pm. Food service was closed, but the nurses station had snack pack pudding. A chocolate pudding to the rescue!

Of course, right after I ate that, they decided to test my blood sugars, and they refused to give me metformin. I don't know why, but I hadn't had any since dinner Tuesday night. Between that and the carbs I ate, is it any wonder my sugars tested at 380 after major surgery? Apparently I was given my first ever dose of insulin during surgery, and they insisted on giving me another one after that reading. They claimed if I had been just under 350, they would have let me skip the insulin, but they couldn't do it with a reading of 380.

Even with the insulin, when they woke me at 3:45 am to check my blood sugars again, I was still up around 240. Still way too high, but they didn't insist on more insulin. Fasting blood sugars were taken around 7:00 am (I hadn't been able to fall back asleep since being woken at 3:45 am, but all I had was water in between), and my blood sugars were down to 144. Still not optimal, but way better than where they were.

I told SD that I would like some planned over eggplant parmigiana for dinner tonight, but having been awake since 3:45 this morning, my body has started to shut down. I was feeling a little nauseous sitting in a chair watching t.v., starting about 6:00 pm. I had planned to stay up until after dinner, and then crash, so my sleep cycle wouldn't be too screwed up, but by 7:00 pm, I was having chills and I just wanted to lie down.

It may be that I pushed myself too long and too hard. We got home about 2:00 pm, and about 4:00 the three of us went for another mile walk. I felt fine on the walk, but started feeling bad about 90 minutes after we came home. So, no dinner for me tonight.

I'll skip my medications tonight, and start fresh in the morning. Right now, water will do just fine...

You must have different recording metrics .. Trev is insulin dependent and of course its the lows we watch mostly for but when his blood sugar readings exceed 20 its pretty much off to the hospital .. and we are on ketone alert.

Yours are in the hundreds .. whats your baseline ideal reading? Here its 6 to 7 .. do you can understand my awe at 380 lol

Baseline for normal, or a diabetic? I think normal blood sugars fall about 78. My normal tends to run 93 to 103, when I'm on my proper medication, have not just had surgery, or carbo loaded for the first thing I ate after complete fasting for 18 hours.

Normal blood glucose range is 65 - 99 mg/dL.

I suspect Sky and Trev are more accustomed to seeing that represented as a range of 3.9 and 7.1 mmol/L. The conversion factor between the different ranges is a factor of 18, so Menolly's post-pudding 380 was a shade over 21 on the other scale.

Ahhh that makes sense SD and Menolly .. and hahahaha .. yeah Trev filled me in on the differences between the US and Aus.

If Trev gets a 3.9 thats a definite low and he would start feeling shaky and unwell. If he goes over 20 we start to worry. 24 plus and we pack him off to the hospital. LOL

His sugars escalate if hes gets sick. Though he was given 7yrs to live 10 years ago almost to the day. Good living and good diet has worked wonders for him.

Those are some fine looking ribs. The middle shot really builds the expectation of the mouth-feel and taste.

Are you just leaving those here for us to drool over, or are you going to talk about your technique?

It's what we call the 3-2-1 method.

3 - Apply rub of your choice and grill ribs over indirect heat (lid closed) for three hours. I use charcoal and add some hickory wood chips to add a smoky flavor at that stage.

2 - Then I wrap the ribs in tin foil, add a dash of apple juice (or Bourbon for the ladies) and cook them for another two hours with the lid closed. This can be done in the oven.

1 - Then another hour without foil (still indirect heat and lid on) applying a glaze (water, tomato concentrate, vinegar, honey, dry rub, salt, pepper and a knob of butter.

Temperature should be around 110 C / 230 F during the whole process.

Thanks. Sounds familiar, although in some circles bourbon has broader appeal than just the ladies.


Sometime when I have need of preparing two racks, I really should do one with bourbon and one with a good Washington cider (otherwise prepared identically), then present them for blind comparative tasting.

In any case, yours is a work of art, as we've come to expect.

Wow looks and sounds delish

Well weve been on a baked potato trend .. so we had them for dinner last night .. and I gotta say they are the fluffiest, yummiest taters ever .. hence their growing appeal

So baked taters with finely shredded cabbage and coriander, cheese, bacon and sour cream ..

Tonight baked taters with chilli et al .. feeling kinda eager

Potatoes...growing appeal...

Your wordplay is driving me bananas.

hmm...

Word play?

Potatoes have skins, which need to be peeled with a peeler. The scrapings are called peels, I guess.

But I generally thinks of peels as skins which are peeled off by hand, such as bananas or citrus. Not potatoes...

...and Menolly refers to me as "Mr. Literal?"
Only possible response: peals of laughter.

Just to return to thread topic, I made a crispy-skin salmon filet with paprika, mustard powder, salt and panko, along with a small kale and bacon white pizza, for Dam-sel and me last night. Menolly was feeling recovered enough from the week's surgery that she went to her Saturday games.

...and paying for it today.

I woke up about 7:30, but then dozed off and on until 10:30. Got some coffee, but wasn't hungry, so didn't have a soft boiled eggs or my breakfast pills until noon. Am lying back in bed resting with some ice packs, since. I really wanted to do some walking today, but I just feel physically exhausted.

Am starting to get hungry now, but haven't really shopped for doing keto yet. Not really sure what I want for a late lunch before dinner around 7-ish. Maybe I'll just mix up a can of tuna...

Dinner was a pork steak, seared with mustard, cumin, thyme, and paprika, then braised in a seasoned combination of heavy cream, butter, milk and chicken stock. Served this with steamed broccoli for all and a roasted ear of yellow corn for Dam-sel and me. No corn for Menolly, due to her keto diet.

All seemed to like the meal, but there were some quibbles. Menolly pointed out that of all the ingredients, milk was not keto-approved. Heavy cream and butter, yes, but liquid milk had too many milk sugar carbs. OK, I am learning a new system...

Dam-sel is concerned about the higher fat content of the keto diet. While I contend that most of the fat from the fatty cut of pork, the butter, the cream, all ended up in the braising liquid (which I served as a pan sauce, but nobody used it as such), she wonders whether this is still not a healthy change in our diet.

I am really trying to maintain a cuisine that my whole household can eat, be satisfied consuming, and potentially all lose weight eating. We don't have kitchen enough to prepare separate meals and still eat as a household...and I am convinced that devolving into "everyone feeds themselves" will both hurt the social cohesion and lead to friction over both kitchen access timing and who is responsible for what clean-up. It will also be really hard to keep the larder shopped up (much doing so frugally) if everyone is making up meals as they go along.

Besides, to be honest, I've tied too much of myself into being the cook of the house. Maybe I am not the only one who needs to adjust what my self-image is based on.

Ah, you'll figure it out. This is just teething troubles.

Dinner is looking like being roast pork fillet and roast potatoes, with some random roast veg and gravy probably.

--A