I'm Freezing

So...it's officially fall. And not that period following summer of semi chilly but pleasantly cool weather. It is COLD. Like break out the fall coats and scarves cold. And the heat in our apartment does not seem to be working. Fan-tastic.

I am just not a cold weather person. I really don't enjoy anything to do with the cold or being outside in cold weather. Aside from the one week (ish) of snow that is nice (but often does not appear anyway) around Christmas, I have almost no use for the cooler seasons. Almost. The one and pretty much sole saving grace is all-important: the food. Mmmm. Comfort food is really my specialty and absolute favourite to cook. Baked pastas, casseroles, stocks and soups...you name it. I love spending a cold Sunday with a roast-something in the oven and a pot of stock on the stove. And with the somewhat abrupt arrival of cool weather this fall, I've already made some dishes that could be new favourites in the comfort food rotation: chili, chicken corn chowder (there's the corn again), skillet mac and cheese...YUM.

But the best was actually the first of the season, and was somewhat premature. On what was probably the last really warm weekend in September, my friend Laura and I decided to try out some pulled pork shoulder up at an adorable stuffed moose-laden cottage (Like the dolls, not the beheaded kind) in Haliburton, Ontario. And man was it GOOD. So good that we ate the entire four pound shoulder between five people in less than 24 hours. We ate some on buns for dinner, in crepes for breakfast and stuffed in pitas for lunch. And you know what? It just made us crave MORE pulled pork. I made it again the following weekend.

And ate all of that too.

I think I'm in love.

(I realize this isn't exactly the best picture ever. But it's the only one I have, and from a Facebook page so it's the best I could do)

Pulled Pork Shoulder
adapted from theKitchn

4 to 5 pound pork shoulder, bone-in
1 tablespoon brown sugar
2 teaspoons cumin
1 1/2 teaspoons paprika
1/2 tablespoon salt
1 teaspoon pepper
1 tablespoon olive oil
2 medium yellow onions (or one VERY large one, as I did) peeled and cut into wedges
6 cloves of garlic, peeled
8 medium-sized tomatoes
1 bottle of beer (any kind...I used Keith's the first time, Guiness the second. Both were amazing)

1. Trim the pork shoulder of any thick layers of fat. Combine the brown sugar, cumin, paprika, salt, and pepper. Rub pork with the spice mixture, making sure to rub into all the nooks and crannies. Allow the pork to sit for at least 30 minutes, or up to 24 hours in the fridge (we did the rub the day before going up north and cooked the next day)

2. Preheat the oven to 325 degrees.

3. Heat the olive oil in a large dutch oven over medium-high heat. Brown the pork on all sides, about 3 minutes per side. Remove from the pot. Add the onions, garlic, tomatoes, and beer. Bring to a simmer, scraping the bottom of the pot with a wooden spoon to bring up any browned bits.

*Note: We didn't want to bring a dutch oven to the cottage, so we used a pan for the sear and then cooked about half the veggies and a bit of beer in the same pan just to pick up some of the crust, then moved the entire thing to a small roasting pan. The second time I made this at home, I used the dutch oven and both methods worked perfectly fine.

4. Return the pork to the pot. Cover and cook for 3 1/2 to 4 hours, flipping over the pork every hour or so to make sure the whole thing stays moist. When it's ready the meat will be extremely tender and pull away from the bone easily. Shred the pork in separate bowls, using tongs to pull large chunks of meat off the bone and then two forks to pull apart the meat. You can separate the meat from the fatty bits while you're doing this (or leave the fat in - it's tasty!). You can also do this in one large bowl, but I found that once there was too much meat in a bowl it got harder to pull apart. Also using smaller bowls will allow you to have different levels of sauciness. Discard the bone or set aside for another use.

5. Now...you can decide what to do with your pork. We made three bowls:

• Plain pork (which was a terrible idea, unless you want to use this for some other use later. We ended up mising this in with the other bowls later)
• Pork with the beer braise sauce and vegetables
• Pork with a beer braise/BBQ sauce mix, heavier on the BBQ sauce. We cooked this one in a separate, small pot for a few minutes so that the BBQ flavour wasn't so stark

Eat on buns, crepes, pitas or just out of the bowl. It's all delicious.

Diabetes, Cheerios, and Late Night Eating...

...you betcha, it's a smorgasbord today!

First up: a break-down of diabetes prevalence across the United States. Sorry the below map doesn't enlarge any bigger, but you can go here to see the enlarged version. Of course I found this interesting as I work with a largely diabetic population.

Among those 30 and older in the US, 13.7% of men and 11.9% of women have diabetes. A third of this estimated number are going undiagnosed. Colorado, Minnesota, and Vermont have the lowest rates of diabetes while the southeastern states have the highest rates -- Mississippi having the highest rates of all. Lead author and epidemiology research fellow, Goodarz Danaei at Harvard stated, "The Southern States have a very dangerous aggregation of risk factors for heard disease: obesity, high blood pressure, and diabetes [1]."

With more than 70,000 diabetes-related deaths each year, diabetes is the sixth leading cause of death [1]. You can clearly see that Oklahoma and Texas have much work to be done in diabetes prevention, especially among the men, compared to neighboring Arkansas, Missouri, Kansas, and New Mexico.

In other news, a federal court panel has ruled that five pending lawsuits against General Mills for claims touting the cholesterol-lowering benefit of Cheerios will be consolidated into one multi-district case. The FDA administered a warning to General Mills regarding their claims of Cheerios "lowering your cholesterol 4% in 6 weeks" and "clinically proven to lower cholesterol." A specific rate of risk reduction is not allowed, according to the FDA. Plantiffs states that General Mills made false claims which led them to eat the cereal as a way to lower cholesterol [2].

The FDA stated in May that eating Cheerios was "not generally recognized as safe and effective for use in preventing or treating hypercholesterolemia or coronary heart disease [2]. Shame, shame, Cheerios and General Mills!

Last up: light night eating produces weight gain. I found WebMD's take on evening eating and weight gain, which was in consensus with a post I made back in September. Similarly, recent research performed at Northwestern University found that eating at night led to twice as much weight gain, even when total calorie consumption was the same among mice. The science, however, is still unknown [3]s.

Kathleen Zelman, MPH, RD, and director of nutrition for WebMD recommends consuming regular meals, as well as consuming 90% of your daily caloric needs before 8 pm. Eating every three to four hours helps regular blood sugar and control hunger and cravings [3]. I concur, for what it's worth. :O ) 

And yesterday's diabetic diet...

Breakfast:

1/2 cup old-fashioned oats (2 carbs)

1 cup skim milk (1 carb)

1 tsp turbinado (1/2 carb)

1 tsp Splenda brown sugar (1/2 carb)

1/2 ounce pecans, chopped (0 carbs)

cappuccino with 2 Tbsp sugar-free International Delight

     Total: 4 carbs

1 cup whole wheat pasta (3 carbs)

4 ounce chicken breast (0 carbs)

3/4 cup marinara (1 carb)

1 ounce Parmesean cheese (0 carbs)

     Total: 4 carbs

Snack:

12 baby carrots (0 carbs)

small apple (1 carb)

     Total: 1 carb

Dinner:

1 cup mashed potatoes (2 carbs)

3 fingerlings of Biggest Loser "Fried Chicken" (2 carbs)

     Total: 4 carbs

Snack:

3 graham crackers (1 carb)

1 1/2 Tbsp peanut butter (0 carbs)

     Total: 1 carb

[1]. Bakalar, Nicholas. Diabetes: A State-by-States Breakdown. The New York Times. October 13, 2009.

[2]. Scott-Thomas, Caroline. Lawsuits Against Cheerios Cholesterol Claims Combined. Food Navigator. October 13, 2009.

[3]. Zelman, Kathleen M.  Is Late Night Eating More Likely to Pack on the Pounds? WebMD.

But fortunately, I'm alive...!

After almost a week without updating, I am finally installed in my new house, and could say that I have spent almost a week in Barcelona, despite having spent the weekend away.
I live in an apartment with two girls, Stefani, Belgium, and Mareen, Norway. Both are lovely and we get along very well.

We have been in a house spending the weekend, and I really enjoyed it. The house was beautiful and very big, and we were in the middle of the field, so you can imagine the amount of photos I've made the forest.
Here I leave with a few.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And I leave you with a couple of pictures of my new room, which I am slowly decorating, and vintage brooches I bought this weekend, are very nice.

 

 

So well... I think that finally, I'm back :)! Thanks for all your lovely comments at my last post, I'll answer them all in a while!!

And thanks for reading this too!!

Have a nice evening!

Capture The Flag

cool game to build teamwork for everyone.
 a game that uses brains and strength.

Lets learn this and play it sometimes.

Types of Wargames senario

This are some of the current wargames played over the world.

1. Capture the Flag
The classic for airsoft and paintball wars alike. There are two flags and two teams in this game. Each team has a base and tries to protect its flag, while organizing to capture the other team's flag. The object is to get the other teams flag back to your base, without getting shot. There are two styles of play, one rule is that when the flag carrier gets shot the flag automatically returns to base, and in the other scenario when the flag carrier is shot, another team member can pick up the flag and continue on.

2. Capture the Flag - with Only One Flag
This variant of capture the flag has two teams and two bases, but only one flag in the center of play. The first team to grab the flag and return to their base is the winner.

3. Assassination
This game is for just a few number of players. Two or more players are the assassins and must kill the other player(s) and get back to their insertion point before the time limit is reached to win.

4. Last Man Standing
This game is usually played with manual spring air pistols. The game is every man for himself, and the object is to shoot all of your opponents. Once shot, you must exit the playing field until only one member is left, declaring himself the winner.

5. Clearing House (SWAT style anti-terrorist)
Using a building that has been rigged with terrorist targets and friendly targets, a team must move through the building and kill all the terrorists without killing the innocents.

6. Terrorist Elimination
Like the Clearing house, but with live players as the terrorists. In this game, a team will be designated as the terrorists, and will have buildings to hold up in, and the other team must move through and eliminate all of the terrorists.

7. King of the Hill
Utilizing a heavily fortified hill, two teams should split up, and maybe only 20-30% of the players be housed in the fortified area. The other team of 70-80% of the players must march up and take the hill. At the end of the time limit, if the small team retains the hill, they win, but if the challengers take the hill, then they win.