My little tomato plant has doubled in height over the past three weeks.
It was starting to look sad about a week ago, and I wasn’t sure it was going to make it. It seems to have recovered and looks like it’s doing pretty well.
Kale chips
With the spring CSA and the bunches of kale that have come with it, I started making kale chips and am hooked on them now. They’re so easy to make and surprisingly tasty too.
There are lots of kale chip variants around. The one I started with was posted on allrecipes.com. I use an olive oil spray instead of drizzling, but the results come out pretty much the same.
Start with a bunch (or bunches) of kale washed very well. All those curvy and frilly leaves can capture a lot of dirt. Dirt is fine for growing things, but doesn’t make for very good eats.
Once the kale is nice and clean, rip the leaves off the stems into bite sized pieces. Dry them off well. A salad spinner works really well for this. If you’re going to use regular olive oil, drizzle 1-2 tablespoons (depending on how much kale you have) over the leaves and mix around so that all the leaves are coated.
Lay the leaves onto a sheet pan in a single layer. Spray with olive oil (skip this if you’ve already used oil) and then sprinkle on your seasoning of choice. I like Old Bay. Don’t use too much.
Throw into an oven at 350°F (176°C) and bake for about 10-12 minutes. Check on them at around the 8 minute mark. If you ripped your kale into small pieces, they might be done already. When the leaves start turning brown at the edges and looking a little shiny, take them out and let them cool. As they cool, they’ll start to get a little crispy.
Once they’ve cooled down some, dump them into a bowl and enjoy.
You might have to go through a few iterations to get the amount of seasoning you put on right. You might even want to try them naked (unseasoned), but I find kale chips a little on the bitter side that way.
Replacing the heat exchanger
Had a preventive maintenance check done on the AC system for the house and they tell me the big heat exchanger thing outside will need to be replaced soon. The cooling fins have a lot of calcium build up on them and are starting to corrode away at the bottom. The guy who came out to do the inspection said it would probably last through the season but wasn’t optimistic about it lasting much longer.
Given that I’m sure they’d love to sell me a new unit, I take his forecasts with a few grains of salt. It’s pretty clear though that the unit needs to be replaced fairly soon as in within the next year or two.
So that looks like about $4000-6000 to replace. Ugh.
My unit must suffer from something location related, because my neighbours’ units on either side don’t seem to be suffering from the same problem. Their units look pretty clean and almost new compared to mine.
I wonder if spraying the fins down with CLR would help clean up the calcium buildup. I’m a little worried there might not be much left underneath the calcium and I’d end up making things worse. Spot test.
Time to do some research on these things and figure out what I need.
Glucose monitoring
The first few days of blood glucose monitoring have really been eye opening. According to my little meter, my blood glucose levels are considerably higher than what my doctor tells me is normal.
No wonder I’ve been feeling like crap the past few months.
Guess I have some work ahead of me. There’s a lot out on the Internets to read about diets and foods to avoid. It’s a lot to take in, but I’m slowly digesting it.
New diabetes diagnosis
At a recent routine physical exam, my doctor gave me a diagnosis of type 2 diabetes.
I wasn’t entirely surprised by it given some symptoms I had been having for the past month (also part of the reason I scheduled the doctor’s visit) and mom’s history with diabetes.
I can’t say I was really bothered by the diagnosis. I certainly wasn’t upset or angry about it. My initial reaction was more of an “Aw crap” type of mildly annoyed reaction.
Doctor put me on metformin for blood sugar control and I got one of those blood glucose meter things. I’m supposed to test my blood glucose levels in the morning for the next few weeks to establish a baseline fasting glucose level before heading back to the doctor for a follow up visit.
Right now the hard part is remembering that I have it and that I have to think about what I eat now, especially the high carb foods that I have a small addiction to. From what I’ve read so far, diet is all about reducing/cutting out the carbs. Low carb is going to take some getting used to.