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No Joke

Simply Suwanee

Jok (โจ๊ก, pronounced joke), or the Thai version of congee also known as rice porridge, is about as comforting as a Thai breakfast can come.

When we visited Harvey at the nursing home, he was very positive (amazing!) about the breakfast he had eaten. He called it, “Fish Soup,” but nodded when Brian found a picture to show him on his phone.

It’s actually a very popular Thai dish called Jok and is routinely eaten as a fortifying breakfast. Brian got us some this morning so that I could try it. (Next time we order, we’ll get half as much because they super generous.)

Since it is known as a porridge, you won’t be surprised that we used up my carbs quota for the day and more with our breakfast. I’m not sorry, though. I wanted to taste it, and every once in a while, when I’m celebrating a milestone, I’ll treat myself to more. Ingredients are rice, pork, chicken, or fish chunks, mushrooms, onions, and other spices. Really, really nice.

The one thing that was difficult for me was the fresh ginger. I bit down on it and my mouth was on fire. Brian insisted it wasn’t spicy, but I had to try to swallow the rest of it whole and also drink the whole glass of water with breakfast.

Brian sent me a message later, which said, “Yes, ginger is spicy. Comes from a compound called gingerol, which gives it a hot, peppery, and warming flavor. While not as intense as the spiciness of chili peppers (which contain capsaicin) gingerol does create a noticeable “hot” sensation on the tongue.”

So I’m not nuts – just a bigger wuss than we thought. 😛 Other than too many carbs for this lady trying to lose the lard, this dish is a definite winner!

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Food in Thailand

Brian ordered delivery of some chicken tenders recently to go with the fruit and salad we already had. It came in a box with this message on the lid. I’m not sure if he had ever ordered from this place before. They just take the information from the electronic order and make the experience personal and pleasant.😊

Food is literally everywhere in Thailand. There are small stalls up and down every street, shops everywhere, people cooking on the street, restaurants, etc. Brian is trying to help us get healthier by sticking to a simple low carb diet for us since we are wusses about hot or spicy food, and we’ve had such incredible health problems starting in February when we were still in the states.

We can order almost everything – a whole cut up roasted chicken, slices of pork, salads, eggs and bacon, chicken tenders, soup, and more. Brian orders and pays for it via his phone. A few minutes later, his order has been delivered to the lobby/office/mail area downstairs by Grab (their Uber) and he is notified. He goes down and retrieves it. And the prices are really amazing. My husband and I had chicken, pork, fruit and salad for a total of $6.00 – delivered, within 20 minutes. We created a chef salad recently for the three of us by ordering salad with hard boiled egg and all kinds of other things, plus some chicken strips separately. We cut up the chicken into the salad, divided shares, and dug in. All for a bit over $6 for the three of us.

We are weird here, not liking spicy/hot food, AND we are trying to get healthier, eat low carb, and I’m still trying to lose the lard. We are also walking most days until my husband had his stroke. Now my ‘exercise’ is walking in the hospital to ICU where Harvey is, out to the waiting area when they need us to leave, downstairs for a hot coffee to warm up, as we did for the first time yesterday, etc. We will try for more when life returns to normal.

Happily, just looking on his phone, Brian comes up with a lot of variety for us with different meat, eggs, fruits on the Keto approved list, and salads. We have been delighted with our meals since we came, thanks to him. When we move into our new condo around the end of the month, I will have an extremely small kitchen, augmented by equipment we can get, such as a crockpot, a vous vide (equipment that allows precise cooking on everything known to man, including meat, fish, veggies, etc. in a sealed pouch and water.) I had never heard of this and am eager to try it. We’ll get a hard boiled egg cooker, a hot water pot, and maybe an air fryer. We’ll look at things carefully.

Honestly, as cheap and delicious as whole cooked, cut up chickens, and sliced pork done to perfection are, it’s hard to fight simple continuing to order those. Most people here seem to have one main deep skillet they use to cook lots and lots of things. It’ll be fun.

Did I make you hungry yet? 😜

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New Year’s Eve 2024

Her Zindagl

Happy New Year’s Eve! Whether you have wonderful plans for a big party, a ball drop, fireworks, or will have a quiet celebration at home like us, I wish you a happy day of anticipation of a bright new year. The end of a year should bring shedding of old ‘baggage,’ a lightening of your load, a filling of your spirit. Enjoy remembering the good things about 2024 today, then wish it well and welcome 2025.

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Accountability – If you’ve been reading my blog, you know I’m trying to lose my lard and get stronger and more flexible. I promised to report to you – as a way of trying to keep my goal active and hopefully reachable one day. As of today, I have lost 46 pounds and there are 48 fewer inches of me. I’m yo-yo-ing around in a 3-pound range these past few days, but I’m inching toward my interim goal and hope to meet it soon. The scales still smirk at me most days, but I will win.

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GeniCook

I told you my nice husband got us two rectangular stainless steel containers with glass lids recently. I always try to cook for more than one meal and we store the leftovers in individual portion containers in the freezer. These are large enough to hold TWO portions of the leftovers, so when I cooked recently, I put double portions into the two containers, snapped on the lids, and put them in the freezer. Yesterday I took one out and put it in the regular fridge. Last night I took the lid off, put the container in the microwave with a paper towel over it, closed the door, and held my breath. The food heated up just fine. No explosions or damage to the container or the microwave! I did use my hot pads to remove the container from the microwave. Last night the lid and the container went into the dishwasher. Sparkling clean and ready to use this morning! This is a really nice thing – to be able to use it so it saves us effort and time. I really didn’t believe what they advertised could be true, but I was wrong.

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This is my latest wood burned and hand-painted piece from the art room. I’m delighted to tell you he has been adopted! He will be mailed to his new home today. I couldn’t be happier. It was joyful to make him, and he will live on their front porch, hopefully bring good luck to his new owners for many many years. :0)

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We are running errands on this, the last day of 2024. When we get home, I’ll write more posts for the blog and may even get up to my art room this afternoon.

I wish you a happy day, full of fun, family, and celebration!

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Saturday 11-16-2024

Javier Perez-Ecuador-via Luisa Chiesa-Pinterest

Awwww. I want to hug her and help make her world right again.

LINDA’S CRAFTINESS – 8.5″wide, 4″ tall, 3.75″deep, with a circumference of 24″. The one-of-a-kind, hand-painted box is a nice size to store photos, mementos, souvenirs and more. $15.00 with Free Shipping. See all of these at HandmadeHavenbyLinda on Etsy.

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Raising Children Network

I’ve been having a good time trying to make some key chains in my art room lately. I got some blank wooden shapes and have been doing some wood burning and painting. I finished several yesterday and will try to get them listed on my Etsy site today. :0)

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Cheezburger

I’m 4/10ths of a pound away from my interim weight loss goal. I’ve been here before – several times – and ‘SOMETHING’ always happens to snafu actually REACHING and passing this next goal. I’m really hoping today will be different. I have made the lifestyle change, deciding to eat low-carb, but reaching interim goals of there being less of me increases my motivation to keep being a ‘good girl.’ Maybe tomorrow I can pat myself on the head and set a new goal. :0)

Lesson on Reading and Absorbing – One of the big things I’ve learned, now than I’m older than dirt, is how important it is to read carefully. (This is ironic, in that I have a Master’s Degree as a “Reading Specialist,” and yet I never learned to read labels on food and really read and compare nutrition on recipes.)

I’ve been missing Shake-n-Bake, a coating mix I had used for years – and my husband and I really love – to bake pork chops. I gave it up because it has 7 carbs per serving, and I was having trouble working that in to my day’s allotment. I basically gave up pork chops because of this.

I found a low-carb recipe for pork chops that emulates Shake-n-Bake! I was really excited and planned to try it tonight. Something told me to compare carb counts of the Shake-n-Bake and the new recipe. The new recipe was 9.7 carbs! SO – the former reading teacher learns AGAIN that reading carefully is important. I can still enjoy the delicious Shake-n-Bake if I work carefully on MyFitnessPal.com to make sure I stay under my limit for the day! DUH! Pork Chops tonight!!!

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I wish you a happy Saturday filled with fun.

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