conversations with invisible pigs and sheep

This is actually something that has been taking up a bit of my time lately, so I’ll bring it here. The deal is that the damage that Jim’s kidney incurred with the infection he had last year puts him at risk for high blood pressure. At the recommendation of the nephrologist, we’re limiting his salt intake to 1000mg/day, half the adult recommended daily intake.

The biggest hit we’re taking is milk and cheese — two huge staples of the high-fat diet we’ve been feeding him in an effort to keep his weight up — his seizure medication suppresses his appetite.

So anyway, tonight’s dinner is pizza. By making it myself (which we’ve been doing for over a year now, anyway), I can make a completely tasty low-salt version for Jim.

For the dough, I use a recipe from “Not Your Mother’s Slow Cooker Cookbook” — it goes along with their pizza sauce recipe (which was a complete failure the one time I tried it). I modified it by heating the water before putting it in the bread machine, increasing the amount of semolina flour, and eliminating the salt. Salt is THE flavor maker in bread and dough, but with the strong flavors from the pizza, you don’t miss it here. Second is salt-free spaghetti sauce. There are two we’ve found, Trader Joe’s and Francisco Rinaldi. I think TJ’s is better, but the drive there sometimes means we have to make do with the FR. Lastly is the cheese. I thought that this would be the breaker on pizza altogether, but then I found fresh mozzarella at Trader Joe’s that is really low in sodium. I can chop it very fine, and it melts just like shredded cheese.

Now, we’re off to the park as the bread machine does its magic and makes the dough while we’re out.

about pictures and things like that. I’m bogged down with a backlog of chores and “to-do’s” (like ironing, laundry and income taxes) from being sick and then being out and about most of last week with Jim’s doctor’s appointments.

Jim is very excited that tomorrow is “P” day at school. Since he’s “not a girl and doesn’t have a purple shirt”, I picked up some Rit dye at the store and dyed a white t-shirt purple (it looks funky), and threw in some undyed sockweight yarn too. They both came out funky and mottled. I told Jim he can wear a regular boy shirt over it. But the big deal is deciding which “P”okemon should come to school — “P”onyta, “P”alkia, “P”ikachu, “P”iplup, or “P”rinplup. Only Palkia and Ponyta have been ruled out — Palkia is too big for Jim’s backpack, and Ponyta is in the garage.

Colin is out daredevil boy. He’s climbed into a box with Jim, stood up in the grocery cart, and learned how to climb up onto the stool that goes with my chair. (So the boxes and stool are no longer in the family room). Two of his molars have broken through, and the other two are on their way, so hopefully we’ll both be sleeping through the night soon. We have successfully got him napping in his crib twice a day though — it helps that I’ve made an effort to be home at naptimes.

I went a little crazy last night — it was bugging me that Jim’s old clothes were unlabelled after moving, and I knew there was clothes Colin could wear now, but I couldn’t find them. So I went through about eight buckets of clothes, and sorted them by size. I know it will be a little wacky, because of how things shrink, but I found a treasure trove of 18-month pants, shorts and t-shirts. I still have two more boxes to go through — stuff from last summer, and the 4T stuff that Jim has just recently outgrew.

Also, on the gift certificates. We’ve tried them out and it’s going well. I just keep them in my wallet and spend them as I go. Shoprite is especially good because they print out a balance if you don’t use the while card, and tape it to the card when they give it back.

Last week I used an Amazon gift certificate we had from Christmas returns, and I got a mini-donut pan, rocket pop molds, and best of all, a waffle maker. We tried it out this morning, and it was good! The Joy of Cooking recipe makes 5 waffles, so we all had our share with 3/4’s of a waffle left.

Today I ordered sodium free baking powder and baking soda, so that we can have Jim-friendly pancakes and waffles whenever we want. I also got a low-sodium cookbook with a number of good recipes, so I’m looking forward to trying them.

So, last week I found out I have inherited my family’s tendency towards high cholesterol. There’s that tendency, plus the list of foods the doctor told me to cut down on? Well, that’s been the makeup of my pregnancy/post-pregnancy/feed the kids diet for the past three years: eggs, cheese, red meat, fried food.

So, it’s high, and my LDL is also high, but the doctor thinks we can change it with diet. Since this is the family of the future, I downloaded some software to track my intake of fat, saturated fat, and cholesterol, and found out what my intake of these should be, to reduce my cholesterol numbers.

So, of course I have put in in my height and weight into the software to calculate my caloric intake, and I’m told that I need to lose weight (duh?). So this is a new diet on many levels. Family now have an added challenge of either offering a low-fat option for me along with what the family eats or sometimes having a new low-fat meal. So for Colin’s birthday dinner, I made chicken cacciatore (not an authentic recipe, for sure) to go along with the lasagne that everyone else got to eat. Last night it was chicken stir-fry, and the night before was pot roast, but I only had one piece of roast. The good thing is that with all this cooking, there’s leftovers for lunch.

It’s kind of like being on Weight Watchers, but less strict. I’m not limiting my calories as much as if I were trying to “diet”, because I’m still nursing. But I also think that I’ll be able to cut down on calories as my appetite decreases. I’m already having an easier time today.

In the the “nothing much but” category… With all the cooking, there’s more veggie preparation too. Last night I cut my finger making the veggies for the stir fry. It hurts like crazy, and the cut is right where I rest the needle on my finger when knitting. So, I have to stop knitting on Jim’s sweater for now. Which bugs me because it’s so close to being done — just the neckline and seaming.

So, with no knitting, I picked up a sewing project. Which means cleaning up my office first. I got that done (amazingly), and I’m working on some aprons for two little girlfriends of Jim’s, and maybe one for me, too.

Jim and I are slowly returning to the land of the healthy. But not without taking Dad down with us for a couple of days. The low point for all of us was Tuesday night/Wednesday morning around 3.30 am, when all three of us were up — Dad and I couldn’t sleep, and we woke Jim up to get nebulized. He got wheezy on Tuesday, so he’s back on the nebulizer, and we’re keeping an eye on him. But, as always, he’s not acting sick.

The worst for me was the sinus pain that actually went all the way down into my teeth. It made simply things like bending over very painful. But if I keep up on the sinus meds, it’s goes away.

I know it’s not a problem with my teeth, because Jim and I went to the dentist on Tuesday morning. It was his first time, and he was pretty good. No crying or being scared, but a little wiggley, and the light bothered him. His favorite part was the rinsing, and the water in the sink that washes everything away.

I missed a couple days knitting, which Dad says is the sure sign that he knew I was sick. I couldn’t even concentrate on anything simple, like a sock. Although I ended up starting the second Jaywalker one night when I couldn’t sleep — my biggest problem with being sick. And now, I just have a few rows to go. Then it’s a choice between picking up the baby sweater or my sweater. I think I’ll finish up the back of my sweater, and then move onto the baby sweater. With the sunny weather, I should be able to get some pictures.

Last night, I made my second try at homemade pizza, and the concensus was that it was pretty darn good, especially the pepperoni version. My first try was so-so, the crust was great, but uneven, and I only had spaghetti sauce, and that was lousy, even for pizza lovers like Jim and I. This time I used a semolina flour-based crust, and spent a bit more time working it into the pans so that it more even. And we used boboli sauce, which seemed a bit sweet, but with the pepperoni, it was better balanced. Next time, I will probably try making my own sauce — I tried the crockpot recipe in the crockpot, but it burned, but I think it will be good cooked on the stovetop.

Foamed/steamed SKIM milk does not do justice to the cinnamon hazelnut goodness.

Five seconds ago…. Jim made poop.
Thirty seconds ago… This cinnamon hazelnut coffee rocks the house. And maybe the neighborhood. Oh my, I never had flavored coffee this good.
Two hours ago… My wonderful KitchenAid stand mixer that I use for everything is not powerful enough to knead bread dough.

Two days ago…. I can rip back a small section of knitting and then re-knit it. And it’s not that hard!

If not for the coffee, and the bread that is sitting on the counter cooling right now, I think I would be sad. Must go change the boy’s diaper now.