Sometimes I just want to eat something sweet. This morning was one of those times. I love Danish Pastry, and that is what I craved. But the only store bought pastries that work for me, with comprehensive labels, come in packages of four or six. I cannot purchase in individual pastry. Herein lies the problem. If I buy four, I will eat four. If I buy six, I will eat six. If I buy one, I will eat one. I only want to buy one, which I cannot do. So instead, I found a recipe for a mug cake, skipped the Nutella, added a dollop of peanut butter, and a dollop of raspberry jam, then sprinkled chocolate chips over it, and baked it in the microwave. It hit the spot, scratched the itch, quenched my craving.
I am careful of sugar laden treats, as I feel sugar contributes significantly to my high blood pressure. I’m not sure it works this way for everyone, but I certainly found it to be the case, after monitoring my diet and my blood pressure daily, for more than a year. I love sugar, but it is something I have to be very careful with. My mug cake had a total of two tablespoons, or six teaspoons, of sugar in it. That is my daily quota! So today I am over quota, because I also added a teaspoon of maple syrup to my morning coffee. I enjoyed that cake, and won’t need to bake another for a while.
It is raining today, providing the newly washed Iris The Trailer with a thorough rinse. The weather reports say that next week we will see sunshine again, and then I will be up there on the ladder, scrubbing away to remove the black dots left by the lichen. When the surfaces are clean, marine wax will be applied and buffed. Slow but sure, that’s me.
Green, a very welcome colour. The day gets greener as the rain falls. Sometimes it is wonderful to live in the universe’s colouring book.
Worldly Distractions
Weather
11°C
Date: 11:00 AM EDT Wednesday 25 April 2018
Condition: Light Rain
Pressure: 101.2 kPa
Tendency: Falling
Temperature: 10.5°C
Dew point: 9.7°C
Humidity: 95%
Wind: ENE 17 km/h
Visibility: 5 km
Quote
“If you limit your choices only to what seems possible or reasonable, you disconnect yourself from what you truly want, and all that is left is a compromise.”
Robert Fritz
I think Spring has arrived in the Midwest. I hope you get sun and warmer weather soon. I’ve never made a mug cake, although I’ve seen some recipes. I have made a couple of dump and poke cakes. I like the latter because they’re less sweet than the dump cakes. Sometimes you just need a sweet treat 🙂
I love the phase, “the universe’s colouring book.” Thanks for the smile. 🙂
Sandy, yay spring! It is warm enough here that rain falls, rather than snow or ice, so I am quite happy with it. I have made a dump cake, but hadn’t heard of poke cakes, so I looked up a few recipes for poke cake, my they sound good!
Thanks Wendy, your smile made me smile 🙂
Sugar and blood pressure, eh? I know a couple people who may find that very interesting info. -Kate
Kate, I wouldn’t have believed it myself. Cutting down to 6 teaspoons of sugar a day, or less, made a real difference. That is the amount for a woman, it is a bit more for men. Cutting back on sodium was crucial, and when I cut back on sugar as well my blood pressure started to lower towards normal. I am happy to say it is under control now, holding steady with minimal medication.
That’s interesting about sugar and blood pressure. I’ve heard about it causing inflammation and lowering the strength of our immune system. But we do seem to need a little (I like to think what was in my bowl of chocolate ice cream tonight, hah! )
Does chocolate contain sugar??
Oh dear what a predicament – hypertension or chocolate??
Choices choices.
I don’t really fancy a cake made in a mug so maybe I’ll have a little chocolate now and again and trust the GP gets the reading correct lol
Enjoy your warmer weather Maggie
I thoroughly agree with sugar and blood pressure. After I started low carbing I found my eyeglass prescription changed. Turns out that lower blood pressure causes changes in the shape of the eye, changing what’s needed to correct your vision.
Joan, sugar is something I would not willingly avoid completely! I love sugar. An interesting thing I discovered is that after a few months of keeping my sugar and sodium intake within bounds, 6 or fewer teapsoon of sugar a day, between 500 and 1200 mg of sodium a day, my tastes buds have altered. Now my morning cereal, if made with milk, and with a tablespoon of dessicated coconut added, seems like a sweet treat to me, no sugar added. My muffins seem very sweet, and there are only two tablespoons of sugar added to the batter. As for sodium, I don’t use the salt shaker at all, and from time to time I use a light sprinking of Garlic Plus, which has 110 mg of sodium in a teaspoon, lots of flavour, tastes salty to me, but helps me keep the sodium within daily limits. (A slice of bread has 160 mg of sodium, or more,)
Cathy, powdered cocoa does not contain sugar, but chocolate bars and sweets do. You can figure out how much sugar is in a bar, and then choose to eat the amount you have decided to allow yourself, which is what I am doing with my sugar intake, choosing carefully where my 6 teaspoons are going to come from!
High blood pressure is an inherited trait in my case. It missed my Mom, who can eat whatever she likes without consequence. It was a serious issue for my Granny, and one of my Aunts, both suffered massive strokes in their 70s. Your doctor can tell you if you have high blood pressure, and/or if you are at risk. I am at risk, so paying attention to these things may lengthen my life significantly, or not, but this is something I can do for myself, so I do.
During the period when my blood pressure was at its highest, and my triglycerides as well, it was so high the doctor said he had never before seen levels so high, I was eating one small slice of chocolate cake every day. Oh how I loved that!!!!! But for me, the combination was too much. At that point I was not watching my sugar or sodium intake carefully. Now I make choices, after assessing how much is in what… do I want those ten corn cihps that put me over my daily limit, or would I prefer to have a tuna sandwich at lunch time, and stay within my daily limit. In Ontario I am able to find canned vegetables and legumes that are sodium free, and that leaves me with a lot more freedom of choice in menu planning.
Teri, that is very interesting about the eyeglasses! It makes sense.
I try to eat mainly complex carbohydrates, whole grains, vegetables, legumes… these sweet treats of mine are the exceptions to that, although I did add rolled oats and flax seed to my mug cake, lol. The Danish pastries have no healthy ingredients in them, and they have lots of chemicals added… I could taste the chemicals for days after eating the Danish!