Bread Pudding- using leftovers and day 8 of IDP

This morning I had a bit of a shock in that my ribs and chest pains were much worse rather than better and I'm guessing it's because I slept on that side at last, so will refrain from doing that again. To fortify and treat the family I decided to bake a bread pudding as my girls won't eat the crusts off any loaf of bread so the freezer accumulates crusts and JJ was ready to throw them out.... I thought BREAD PUDDING!
Just like when I see brown bananas I think: Banana Cake !I used DELIA's recipe which you can see in my cook book, or it's available free online :
http://www.deliaonline.com/recipes/type-of-dish/sweet/spiced-bread-pudding-with-brandy-cream.html

 
I had 50% extra bread so I increased everything by 50%, also I used muscovado dark brown sugar and replaced the brandy with rum.

 Here's the mixed fruit soaking in the rum, yum yum.

 I was lucky I had this mix in my larder so I didn't have to find all the raisins, currants and mixed peel...

 TOO late I spotted that Delia cuts her crusts off and I only had CRUSTS! Here they soak in the milk.
Next time I will blend them finer...

 I had steamed broccoli with 30 g of cheese for breakfast...

 Mixing the spices and the sugar...

 The mix pre- oven....

 IN the oven....

 Out of the oven and HEY , WHO did that? I didn't even get a photo before some was taken away and eaten! The rest was cooled and cut into yummy treat squares for lunchboxes.
( don't worry it was only a teeny tiny drop of rum) I can have some of this on Thursday next week, day 12, I'll freeze a square for me to try....Does it look delicious? It sure smells so GOOOOOD.

 This was part of lunch for me after I'd had some ratatouille...

 There was 40% off interweave online video courses so I treated myself to a Lily Chin one and within 5 minutes I'd learned TWO new ways of doing things, superb!It was on my wish list so I was quick to decide.
Also don;t you just LOVE that blue cabled sweater in the background?

 John Lewis have got some great designs and prints going for their 150 year anniversary...

 Fancy a nautical backpack? I do.....

 And dinner was broccoli and more carrots again.... Today WAS quite difficult and I was hungry a little.

So always make sure IF you ever try this, start on a Saturday then day 2 is a Sunday and day 8 a Saturday so you might not be working those days, they are not so easy...

I wonder what my weight loss will be tomorrow though?

Something to look forward to?

PS : IDP= Idiot Proof Diet , apparently it;s not a diet for idiots after all, it's idiot proof instead, meaning that it's so easy to follow....?????Is it?

In theory yes BUT it takes a lot of willpower!

The Idiot's Diet Plan....WOW lost 6.4 lbs in 6 days?!!!

 I am just about to finish my 7th day on the IDIOT'S DIET PLAN 11 day fast version of their eating programme and so far I have lost 6.4 lbs in weight. I do feel absolutely TERRIFIC and have lots of energy, I am hardly ever hungry- well only just before a meal is due- and have had absolutley NO cravings for any ''bad''carbs, wheat, bread or even chocolate or cake....
Above was my red and green meal, and below was one of my green meals.

 And scrambled eggs in butter are a real treat, a favourite as it is delicious and fills me up.

I'm telling you this NOW , because the hardest day is coming up tomorrow: it;s the ''all day vegetables '' day on day 8. And if I confess now maybe I'll be better at sticking to it.

I first discovered this diet after midnight when surfing the net in 2007....I was up late and it was an advert that caught my attention. I was ultra heavy ( that is well over 10 stone or maybe even just nudging 11 stone for me) at the time and depressed at having to go back to WW yet again...

So I tried it and lost 9 lbs in 11 days just like they had promised I would...After the 3 days off I found it harder second time and only lost 4 lbs, then went back to normal eating again BUT I didn;t gain it back for well over 6 months or more. Since 2007 I have tried it once or twice, most particularly in 2012 just before joining WW with Miss Y on a GPs recommendation... That's when I lost over 2 stone., some of quick with the idiot's diet and some of it SLOW with WW.

You can google the terms or find it here:

http://idiot-proof-diet.com/

For reviews and feedback from other people:
http://badjocks.com/idiot-proof-diet/


What is it all about? You eat 4 meals a day ONLY and they have to be 2.5 or more hours apart.
Then you use a diet generator online and they give you a very detailed and specific 11 day eating plan with the foods you can eat at each of the 4 meals for the 11 days, but you can swap your 4 in any order each day. You are not allowed ANY bread, potatoes, pasta, rice or any of those high energy/ calorie dense carbs. The only drinks you can have have to be less than 10 calories so I have  a mug of tea with only 30 ml of skimmed milk in it and a sweetener with no calories.
All the meals have a few choices but many are either protein only, vegetable only or fruit only meals.

Such as:

 Slices of ham = 1 meal.

 Or cheese! In my case my favourite EDAM!

 oR STEAMED green beans with a nob of butter?

 Turkey slices anyone? Or a chicken drumstick( skinless)?

 you can decide your own portions but only eat until you feel satisfied, NOT STUFFED!

 So I have been using cute smaller plates and eating very ''mindfully''....
This is a good ''office diet '' too as these foods are so easy to take in a lunch box!
It's a sandwich without the bread! Just the filling!

 And there's loads of fruit choices but fruit meals are in the minority, the only day you eat a lot of fruit is on DAY 2. I really enjoyed my pears, plums and oranges that day and oddly enough I had not eaten any of those fruits for weeks and weeks before that. And they were totally DELICIOUS.

I would love to understand how it really works as I'm sure it's something to do with how we digest our foods and how the body accesses our glucose or fat stores when it needs to.
I remember from Uni- days something about different metabolic pathways for different types of food and I do wonder whether this is connected to that? At least also as I'm still housebound with my broken ankle I'm happily sticking to this Challenge as otherwise I might be tempted by cake and cheesecake and chocolate and so on, snacking all day out of ''boredom'' and ''cabin fever'' and just ''feeling sorry for myself''.
And I'd be gaining not losing lbs! I weigh myself every morning to stay motivated and this is how it went:
daily losses in sequence: -2.2,-1.7,-0.1,-1.6,0,-0.8= total -6.4.

4 more days to go and then ''you can eat anything you want for 3 days'' , after which if you have more to lose you can repeat the 11 days with a newly generated plan or repeat the old one.
The generator has about 48 foods in it and you choose 30 for it to prepare the plan. Alas it includes a lot of nuts which I can;t choose as I;m allergic so the variety for me is quite limited.
And I can't quite understand why there is no cod or haddock or salmon , mackerel or other fish or meat proteins that one eats here. As supposedly the ''fat''content is not really limited? It's not ATKINS though as I did try that a few years back and was sick as a dog on ''day 3''. Never again! I felt DREADFUL!

Anyway enough of this, I have an assignment to write, an epic essay.... No more procrastination and doing '' other things''.
Cheerio, think of me with my 4 veggie meals won't you?

Norwegian potholder: the back and finishing tapestry border

This is what we'll be getting to, but a few other bits happened in the day....

 Just loving how this deep purple looked so glorious, it's probably those pale lime green stems setting it off so perfectly?

 I'm on a weird diet at the moment, this was lunch.... Yummy scrambled eggs.

 Had a weird day, isolated and feeling lonely at home, ribs hurting and the studying wasn't going well....

 Thought I'd share how BADLY we need some nice new potholders....
What a state my oven mitts are in!!!! The burn below is courtesy of teen daughters who now cook, bake and have become brilliant at making huge messes........

 thinking of these girls at school ans being home I thought I'd cheer them up- GCSE s and exam weeks coming up shortly, stresses running high, much revision being discussed....So I baked a banana cake!

 MMMM, maybe I used too much banana? It didn't rise so well, they loved it though.

 It's 4-5 mashed ''brown'' bananas, 2 teaspoons mixed spice, 200 g self raising flour, 75 g margarine, 220 g soft brown sugar,2 large beaten eggs.
Mix dry ingredients together then cream in the margarine and then add the eggs and banana. Mix well.
Pop into loaf tin and bake at 180 degrees C for 1 hour?
Sprinkle with honey or maple syrup and dust with icing sugar. Yummy!

 A floral reminder to keep cheerful myself too...

 And a joyful vase, I so love this Delft Blue!

 And this was dinner.... No cake pour moi.

 Yes yes yes I'm finally getting to the point: the potholder back!

 I ''winged it'' with plain colour stripes and random increases and have used ( UK terms)- dc circles, trebles as well as half trebles.
The Pauline Turner guide is increase 6 in every dc row, 8 in a half treble row and 12 in a treble row- from the book I mentioned yesterday? So use that as a guide if it helps?
Mind you, I like the Anne Paal way of not counting stitches philosophy and just going for it, when it feels it's curling up work some increases and if it's too wavy, stop increasing...It's very free and relaxing.
OR you could repeat the pattern for the front exactly but all in one colour as one Ravelry lady has done?

At the end though I found that you DO really have to count if you've worked the back differently as the stitch count needs to match !( Well it only needs to match if you are going to CROCHET it together?) I counted in 10's and placed markers to help me count, I had 157 in my ''front'' end row but only 130 in my ''back'' penultimate end row? OOPS!
So I increased 13 times by 2 stitches by working 3 dc in every 10th stitch for the final row on the back.
156 PERFECT!I quickly ''lost'' 1 stitch on the front and then decided on my border trim.
I want to do 3 blue, 3 lime green so I need a stitch repeat of 6? Does 6 go into 156? YES , great so that will work!!!!
Now the colour tapestry technique is a little tricky but worth the effort so keep looking!
AND first I spent ages sewing in all those pesky ends...
Now I started with the border very quickly and did it on the back by mistake but see the photos:

 This one shows that the last pull through before you change colour needs to be with the NEW colour?
I have done 3 lime dc and the loop is blue?!!

 Meanwhile you carry the lime yarn inside the two potholder pieces.

 These are the two loops on hook from the third blue dc?

 Yarn over and swap colour so the loop pulled through is lime green?

This time showing the blue loop again...
Now let's undo that as I was working with the back facing me and I did not want the trim to be the WRONG way around.... the back and front differ slightly?
So I undid it and here it is with the FRONT side facing me.

Here's that blue loop at the end of the third green dc again?

 This shows you how I am crocheting the two sides together, picking up BOTH loops of the V from both front and back?!!!

 I have worked two blue dcs completely and now I am at the third one, 2 blue loops on hook just before doing the LIME GREEN yarn over.

 So I am picking up the lime green from inside the two flaps and dropping the blue yarn into the gap between the potholder pieces.Drawing the lime green out and to the back of the work so I can crochet with that yarn.

 See? A lime green loop on hook.

 Picking up the stitches that match front and back again to work some green dcs.

 Two green dc made

 The first yarnover for the third stitch is still in LIME GREEN?

BUT as soon as you have those 2 loops on the hook you need to swap those yarns over again.

 SEE? Lime green goes into the space and the blue comes out and to the back?

 And here I am working it on my knees while watching Grey's Anatomy tonight...

 At the end work a 12 ch ( or I used 16 actually) and attach as a loop, then work back over the loop with as many dc s as it takes to fill it up well . Are you ready? TAH DAH!!!!!

 I AM VERY VERY HAPPY now!

 AND here is the back? i LOVE LOVE LOVE IT, am I allowed to say that?

Plenty big for my wee little hand.....?! LOL.

Mind you I have a variation in mind, where I add one ( or 2?) more layers and leave a small opening so I can actually have my hand INSIDE the potholder?

I hope this helps and that you enjoy making one ( or many) as much as I have done these few days.

HAPPY CROCHETING!