ElsieD

May you both soon feel better. I'm sending healthy vibes your way. Were the beans HamBeens? Elsie

@Smithy Are you okay?

I'm hoping someone will try the Creamy Tomato Soup Crackers and report back.

@Tropicalsenior Do you grow cilantro in pots? I've tried, and failed miserably. I have grown bay leaf, rosemary, thyme and parsley but cilantro eludes me. I have even tried gtowing cilantro from seeds that were meant to grow in pots. It is the one herb we use a lot of.

I have a jar of Peruvian aji amarillo. How do you make the sauce?

@Smithy That's great! Maybe you, @Maison Rustique and I can compare notes as we go along. John and I are living proof that it does work without a great deal of sacrifice. But, no CLD meal tonight. Pizza is on the menu.

Here is what we had for lunch today, Peanut Sauced Stuffed Pitas which is on the CLD. Innards consists of chopped cooked chicken, satay sauce, red pepper, green onions, sambal olek, a bit of salt. They are supposed to be topped with cilantro, carrots and bean sprouts. I was out of bean sprouts so diced some cucumber and put it into the mix instead. We have made them numerous times, they are that good. The picture shows one topped, the other before adding the topping.

Congratulations! Once you have been on this a while you develop your own little catalogue of recipes which should help you in planning your meals. Although i plan a week, sometimes two weeks in advance, i will often substitute one recipe for another. Tonight's, for example, may be replaced by pizza. A new wood fired pizza place just opened up within walking distance of where we live and John wants to give it a try. So there may be no coconut-lemongrass chicken bowls for us tonight!

Another feature of this diet is that you can save the recipes you like or want to try to "My Cookbook". Some of the recipes that we have made and will make again that we have saved are noted below. I picked the ones I did mainly to show you the variety of recipies available. Turkey and Andouille gumbo Upside down shepherd's pie Pork medallions with grainy mustard sauce Cowboy style beef and vegetable ragout Pork ragù with polenta Asian spicy noodles with chicken Mushroom and sweet pea risotto. I have made this a couple of times, once adding merquez sausage into the mix which was really good Easy sesame-hoisin salmon (I used cod) Peanut sauced chicken pitas (lunch) Pita pizzas (various toppings)(lunch)

@Smithy as far as menu selection goes, there is lots of choice. I just looked at my menu for this week and it contains the following: Coconut-lemongrass chicken bowls, sesame carrot salad Goat cheese stuffed chicken, spinach salad, roasted carrots with thyme Seared cod with bacon, braised fennel and kale, sprouts and bacon, apple salad with Dijon vinaigrette Thai Red Curry shrimp, sauted lemony broccolini Jerk chicken with pineapple salsa, green beans with lime and cilantro Apple and rosemary pork roulade, rolls with honey orange butter, roasted green beans Classic lasagna with meat sauce, romaine mushroom salad. This was what I picked out a week ago. In looking to change some of these meals, i kept hitting the suggestion buttons to see what else was on offer. I stopped looking after 58 options per day. I hope this answers your question. I'm happy to answer any questions anyone may have about this.

Tonight's dinner, turkey-ricotta meatballs with arrabiatta sauce over linguine was based on a blogger's recipe who claimed it came from Cooking Light although I can't find it on that site. However, it fit the calorie count and we enjoyed it. Best of all, there is room left for dessert which will be a couple of mini eclairs.

Last year we decided we wanted to lose a few pounds and decided to follow the Cooking Light Diet (CDL). You answer a few questions and they tell you how many calories per day you can have based on the number of pounds you want to lose per week. CLD provides you with a menu plan each week based on the calories you are allowed to consume. You choose what you want to eat for breakfast, lunch, dinner and a snack based on the menu selections they provide. If you don't like their suggestions, you can change them choosing from a large number of suggested substitutions. What we like is that nothing is off limits, and that includes bread, pasta and spuds. With some items they have been known to suggest a beer or wine pairing. All suggested items come with calorie counts. We record our calories using Fitness Pal. I am not a fan of most of their lunch and snack items and since I am not a morning eater, i often have breakfast for lunch, sometimes but not always based on their suggestions. So, the only things I am apt to post about are their dinners. If a breakfast/lunch/snack appeals to me and I eat it, I'll post about it. This program is working for us. In three months, we are about halfway to our goal. If anyone else out there would like to lose a pound or three I recommend this program. To give you an idea of what we are eating, i will from time to time post a picture. We have liked the recipes, some more than others and have only had one which we considered a dud. Tonight we had jambalaya, with a side of collard greens. This is the first time I have made this particular recipe and we liked it very much. We will have it again.

I had a different problem with my BSOA and replaced it with the Air. I use it as my main oven and it gets a lot of use. I'm curious to know if anyone has contacted Breville about this problem? Seems rather widespread.

@andiesenji Count me in as another person who doesn't eat French toast as I don't like soggy middles. Is your recipe available? Edited to add: just found it on your blog! Looks good.

@Anna N I haven't laughed this hard in a long time. Thank you.

@Eric Srikandan what are the interior dimensions?

So now I know of one place in Ontario that carries it which must mean that someone in these parts might. Do you recall if it was a specialized brand or one of the well-known ones?

Thank you. Sadly, I have never seen it available in Canada. Maybe an American eGulleter can tell me if it or it's equivalent is readily available in the States?

What is the fat content of the cream you used?

Stuffed peppers. Ate better than they look.

Yes, we couldn't believe it when we saw all the tiny dishes and utensils. They really had to stretch to come up with that one. We thought it was dumb.

Your site would appeal to me more if you offered both. It seems to me if you only offered spicy items you might be turning off people who would happily order both or just the savoury items. I don't know about anyone else but if I come across a site that specializes in something I'm not interested in, chances are slim to none that I would ever look at that site again. (That said, we like both spicy and savoury and are looking forward to your site.)

We just watched Restaurant Wars. I didn't much like the person that got booted so I am glad they are gone. Don't want to spoil it for anyone so won't mention who.

They are packed in water in a bag which is packed inside an outer resealable bag. Note that they are made with Konjac flour and do not have any tofu in them.

Did everyone quit watching this?