Salmon mornay of why will you be another 30 minutes cooking when I hungry now? You smell divine.

This is a combination meal of two of my favorite foods, Tasty cheese and red salmon served with steamed vegetables. I can hardly wait for it to cook.

Ingredients (serves 4)

• 100g extra virgin olive oil
• 1/2 cup whole grain self-raising flour(store wholegrain flour in the fridge when not using)
  
• 1 1/2 cups tasty cheese, grated
• 1/4 cup chopped fresh dill
• 2 tablespoons plain whole grain flour(store in fridge when not using)
  
• 1 1/2 cups skim milk
• 415g can red salmon, drained and flaked
• 4 hard-boiled eggs, chopped

1. Rub oil into self-raising flour until it resembles fine breadcrumbs. Stir in 1/2 cup cheese and dill. Mix with hands until it comes together to form a dough. Shape into a small rectangle, wrap in greaseproof paper and place into the freezer for 30 minutes or until firm.
   
   
2. Preheat oven to 200°C. Melt remaining butter in a saucepan over high heat. Add plain flour and cook for 1 minute. Remove from heat and slowly add milk, stirring constantly. Return to heat and stir over medium-high heat until sauce comes to the boil.
   
   
3. Add remaining cheese. Reduce heat to low and simmer for 3 minutes. Remove from heat and allow to cool slightly.
   
   
4. Stir salmon and egg into sauce. Season. Spoon into 4 x 3/4-cup capacity or 1 x 4-cup ovenproof baking dish.
   
   
5. Remove dough from freezer and grate. Sprinkle over mornay. Bake for 25 to 30 minutes or until top is hot and golden.
   
   

I have had these mixed berries in the freezer for a time when I would not be able to purchase fresh fruit as I travel and as my recent travels have not been in the outback, that had not happened and it was time to recycle the contents of the freezer.  

So I am using up the mushroom soup that had been pushed to the back of the freezer as a gravy to be served with meat and I am making the most delicious mixed berry smoothies with the frozen fruit.

I didn't bother with a recipe i just used powdered skim milk in filtered water and added a good dollop of low fat unsweetened Greek style yoghurt, thew in a few thawed berries and whisked with my small battery operated hand whisk then added the frozen berries like ice cubes and served with a long spoon so I could stir these around occasionally and eat any remaining ones at the bottom of the glass with the spoon. 

Tell you what - it was GOOD. A great light start to the day and I will enjoy my usual breakfast of oat based muesli and yogurt with fruit for supper if I work late and I do usually want a mean around 10 pm which is 4 hours after we have eaten dinner.  Tomorrow I might try having a smoothie for my late night supper. It was YUM!

_Never Buy Soup, it is so much cheaper, time saving and tastier, home made.

Soup is so easy and inexpensive to make and making soup is a huge time saver as I make it in quantity and freeze at least 20 additional meals when I make it.

Tonight we are having Asian vegetables and red curry soup served with a dollop of plain yogurt in the center and a wholegrain bread roll .

I’ve always hated trying to shop for soup. I need to pull a magnifying glass out to read the ingredients and there are always nasty ingredients in there, I am not a vegetarian but for those who are even the most vegan-sounding soup is made with chicken stock or a little beef fat. Campbell’s makes a vegetable soup that isn’t vegetarian. That isn't right.

There is always too much salt, fat, and additives in commercially tinned soup and then in case you haven’t heard, soup comes in cans lined with BPA. Nasty.

When I buy my fresh vegetables I use up all of my previous weeks vegetable left overs by dicing them into the soup stock pot. Then I add 4 large onions, soup bones and a dash of vinegar draw out the calcium and minerals in those bones and maker the soup mineral rich. I cover the bones with cold water to increase the drawing out the minerals action while I prepare the remainder of the ingredients.

I chop up all the leafy part of the celery and add the washed outer leaves of the lettuce, the part we do not always eat in the salad. Then I pre prepare my broccoli and cauliflower and de-stem my mushrooms and all that stem part of the vegetables, if it isn't too woody, makes it into the soup pot. So far I am using up  a lot of food that is thrown out in other people's homes. 

Now a trip to the vegetable herb garden for any over produce and a huge bunch of seasoning herbs, parsley, bay leaves, etc. The funny thing is, when you make soup at home, you don’t have to add any junk and it’s always bursting with the flavor of whatever vegetables you put in it. That’s the magic of eating whole foods.

Campbell’s and their corporate buddies have somehow managed to convince us that making soup is a task better left to the experts. In reality, it’s the easiest, quickest meal you can conjure. You don’t even need any special ingredients.

I just open my fridge to look for inspiration but you could also Google whatever you see in there followed by “soup recipe.” I guarantee you’ll find lots of them. So get to it. Here are a few examples (based on what we have sitting around right now) to get you started.

Soup making can be seasonal, when pumpkin is cheap try Pumpkin soup. Great variations are curried pumpkin and cabbage soup - blend with a blender if you like creamy soup and add yogurt when serving. 

Chicken, onion, leek and wholegrain rice is a favorite soup in my home since childhood. It is more flavorsome if you can make it with an old boiler hen rather than a young roasting chicken.

• Vegan Sweet Potato and Pear Soup
• Orange and Lentil Soup
• Curried Apple and Leek Soup

_Next time - Before_ you're too depressed to act, can I suggest kicking some ass?
Do you know I have never know serious depression in all my 65 years of life? 
Oh for sure I've had some hellish times and events to live though and run away from - but I have always recognized 'the blues' or mild depression' as a sign to 'kick ass' some one's ass - maybe even once and I have acted. Not all my actions were perfect though i always tried to act wisely in the difficult situations. But I NEVER once put up with the cause of the depression and didn't adapt to it. 

Now I hate to be a sickening Pollyanna but in August 20 2010 I discovered I had pain on movement and had to rest until a tumour was removed in November - then there was skin cancer and months of infection, then there was months of pulmonary fibrosis complications and pneumonia then a broken vertical and skin cancer and now more skin cancer. Breathlessness and pain on walking. So do I get depressed? Hell NO! (excuse the expression.)

I am going swimming today and I have written and had published a novella and am now striving to get the 100,000 word novel I wrote while forced to rest,  I regained an awful lot of the weight I had lost when I managed to fight back from health problems in 2007 and I'll do it again but I'll not allow any black dog monsters into my life - ever.   Kick ass - fight off depression while it is small and manageable.

I have always wondered at how people look at an erosion scared mountain or an ancient wounded warrior tree and exclaim at the beauty and look at the baby sapling and express the longing to see it when it is magnificent with age. Yet they allow a multi-billion dollar cosmetic and fashion industry to sell them the crazy idea that their eyes should be huge and their mouth pouting like an infants and hips should be waif like. Beauty is there to be seen now as you are.

Beauty In Imperfection's _

I got indigestion the other night and I wished I had some ginger handy.   I am a great believer in letting food be my medicine and I believe that most health problems are due to poor choices made in the food we eat and poor choice of exercise as in under or and over exercising.
Ginger is one amazing product. 

10 Health Benfits of Ginger Ayurveda gives ginger the status of a virtual medicine chest. That's because this wonder spice has time-tested digestion-friendly properties, in addition to its numerous other health benefits.

_I loved this and the ending was so surprising. Isn't that what is supposed to happen in a great story?
Watch this to the end. It made me cry but was I'm glad I watched it. So helpful.

flickspire - Jane Handly Childhood Story www.flickspire.com

The video grabbed my heart and didn't let go. The way the story is told and the message hit me like a ton of bricks. It was just the shot of inspiration I needed today, so I wanted to pass it along to you.

I so agree with this attitude.  This is based on the guidelines in the 1 Million Kilo Challenge adjusted to how I would apply it for myself. It is close to the eating plan I originally used to release my excess weight in 2007. Not so much a diet as a lifestyle.

The type of food and the amount that you are eating is far more important than the amount of calories or kilojoules.

If you base your eating solely on calorie or kilojoule intake, you don't take into account the quality of food you are eating. This means you could rationalise adding a Mars Bar or piece of cake and then eat less for dinner to stay within your recommended range. We don't believe this is a healthy, responsible way of living and eating, nor does it facilitate weight loss, in the short or long term.

Eating for permanent weight loss is about changing bad food choices into healthy ones, which becomes a natural part of your every day life. This saves you from being bogged down, consumed by and a slave to laborious maths every time you need to eat. That's 5 times a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year worth of calculations. No thanks!

I believe:
• All your food should be as close to its original state as possible, so minimal processing, preservatives and additives
• Half your plate should be vegetables
• One quarter should be lean protein: approximately 100g red meat, 125g skinless chicken, 150g fish or 180g tofu
• One quarter should be unrefined, unprocessed carbohydrates ie. brown rice, lentils, chickpeas, beans, barley etc
• Minimal added sugar, and only unprocessed, without compromising flavour
• Minimal added fat, preferably unsaturated and added as an ingredient rather than cooking in it.

For those of you who like to know figures, this is a good aim for most females who desire to release weight,
1200-1600 calories a day
This will be made up of:
250-350 calories for breakfast
350-450 for lunch and dinner
and around 150-200 per snack for mid morning and mid afternoon.

I like to choose healthy and portion controlled and be aware of calories without counting them fanatically.