I try not to talk about my health journey, however I feel that there is some information I should share. I am a type 2 diabetic with Polyendocrine Metabolic Ovarian Syndrome (PMOS) formerly PCOS. I just learned about the new name for PCOS, and love that it is being taken more seriously. Because of this I do need to pay attention to my feet more than I would prefer, but whatever. I was trying to get the bunion on my right foot to stretch out a little more since I started wearing Doctor Martens Sandals and have built up some new callouses on my foot. Somehow during this process I managed to strain the muscle or tendon in the arch of my right foot, which is making it a little painful to walk on. A couple days of icing and trying different types of arch support later and I had to admit that I need to take a day off and rest it. Since I am teaching a class at another library tomorrow, Saturday, and cannot cancel on that I am spending the day resting my foot, I ordered some Gel arch supports to get the support in a gentle way and hope that they will make a difference.

One of the other things that I have been doing in any free time I have this week is attending Get Organized HQ free digital conference this week. I am always trying to get myself more organized and this annual seminar tends to give me more tips and tricks to help get organized and understand why I am the way I am. Every year I get more tools and take the time to focus on something that is going to help me in the year to come. This year I watched a seminar on how to get organized when you grew up in chaos. It was a hard watch, however I believe it will help me. One of the other topics that I have been trying to work on is meal planning. I am a full-time public librarian, and my director has been trying hard to get our salaries to catch up with inflation however the truth of the matter is that we are essentially public servants since Librarianship is almost always a non-profit endeavor. This might be fine if I did not have crafting of all sorts as my only hobby/distraction. Crafting tends to be expensive so I am trying to save money where I can, unfortunately, as a diabetic carbohydrates and sugars are the enemy and the cheapest options. As you can probably tell already, my body needs to set up obstacles around any part of my food plans so I also have Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS) which makes my healthy food choices limited. This means that my meals should be Low Carbohydrate, Low FodMap, and inexpensive.

Rice and Pasta are the least expensive fillers that are Low Fodmap however, they do tend to be high in carbohydrates and spike blood glucose. I had heard something about day old rice being better, if refrigerated since Bacillus cereus is a concern for improperly cooled rice. Upon doing some research it appears that the UK medical community has done some research that finds that day old, cooled, and reheated rice and pasta significantly decreases the glucose spike to almost non-existent. They speculate that the starch has been converted to a starch that is insoluble in the stomach. Cold pasta does lower the sugar spike but not as significantly as the reheated version. Fortunately for me my cousin in law introduced me to Congee. This is a delicious Chinese comfort food that I have modified for how I am used to cooking. The relevance is that what I make is essentially chicken soup with rice thoroughly cooked in until it essentially breaks down. The texture is not pleasant for some, however I find it satiating and versatile. Mostly I eat it throughout the first week and freeze portions for later lunches, as you can tell one pot makes a huge amount. This means that I reheat the rice, which can greatly decrease the glucose spike while allowing for a great deal of seasoning since chicken soup and rice is a perfect base. Often I do add black beans to up the protein, though they are not a low fodmap food and may mess with my IBS.

Chicken soup can easily be made with a rotisserie chicken carcass/bones since they already have significant flavor. I often use the breast meat and thighs for various meals and then the skin, bones, drumsticks, and wings, are either cooked into soup or frozen for soup later. My personal recipe is to put the chicken, water to cover, onion and garlic powder, some salt, and boil it until the broth stops tasting like chicken water and starts tasting like chicken soup. You can add water if it starts to get low since adding water does not affect how the soup tastes. I do not know how to describe it except you will know it when it happens. I have not found a single shortcut for this, you have to just take the time and let it boil until it is broth. This does not have to be done in a single day. I often start making it before I go to work, turn the burner off about 90 minutes before I am going to leave so I can put it in the fridge before I leave, then take it out and start heating it again when I get home. I know several people, chefs included, say that you can add bullion cubes as a short cut, I refute this. I often cook this until it is soup then let it cool down to remove the bones. I have never been able to get all of the bones and cartilage out since there are a lot of very small bones. Once I think I have all of the bones out I start heating the soup back up and put a couple of cups of rice and any vegetables I want to add, usually I add a couple more cups of water to make sure that the pot will not boil dry…burning the rice will effect the whole pot. Any flavor you want can be added, soy sauce, ramen soup base, Indian curry spices, Japanese curry sauce cubes, or anything else you like can be added to this. If it is bland I add in flavored vinegars when heating it up as they add a lovely zing.

I will be trying to make turkey broth in my InstaPot this holiday season since I do not have a soup pot large enough, and a glass stovetop that I do not want to shatter. I do have some other recipes I will be sorting through so that I do not get too bored with this dish, however I wanted to share it since you can add so many different flavors to make it unique and it makes great lunches.

That is all I have for today, not crafty at all, however I hope it might help someone else with similar concerns. Until next time I hope that you Live Life a Little More Abstract!