May 27, 2015

Spotlight on Push-Ups - 13 Reasons

It's been a while since I lasted posted because, I got too busy, which is great! It means my life life doesn't revolve around a screen.

Anyways, I am going to start giving some spotlight or certain exercises. Where I briefly talk about the benefits doing this exercise in your workouts. And to remind myself why I do them.

Push-Ups. We hate them. We love the. We need them. 









1) enhances upper body strength
2) boosts metabolism - revving your body into a fat burning machine
3) torso stability
4) uses every major muscle - causes every major muscle is needed to execute the move
4) improves posture
5) helps protect shoulders from injury 
6) stretches muscles - like the back and biceps
7) core strenghtening
8) can do anywhere
9) free exercise 
10) gives you positive endorphins - boost ego - feel stronger
11) enhance cardiovascular system - so cardio and strengthening in one!
12) helps prevent lower back pain
13) increased bone mass





May 19, 2015

Wednesday WORDS - Scottish Dialect - Part 1

The Scottish dialect is one of my favourite accents. It's like music to my ears! Of course, it is also very difficult to remember what it sounds like in your  head, while writing scenes with Scottish characters talking with a Scottish accent - like Tom (from my Renmington Pirate book series)!

Image is from the popular new TV show called "Outlander" (originally a book series) set in Scottish culture of the 18th c. (A few decades before my Remmington Pirates book series is set). The show is one of the ways I train my mind to be familiar and comfortable with the Scottish accent. Also, watching interviews of people from that country (i.e. Scotland, Ireland and England) helps train my inner voice and the characters in my head to use those accents when writing or simply talking in my head. 

Why train your inner voice to speak with a different accent?
As a reader, I like to be able to hear what certain accents sound like and to bring the book more to life. I do confess, though, that, that does not always happen. I mean seriously, you're trying to the read book fast, so your brain is going to switch the voice in your head to the accent that you speak in your every day life - assuming you speak???

But I like to challenge my brain to speak to me with different accents when I'm reading and writing - mostly when I'm writing. It expands my culture and makes me feel awesome! 



With writing a book that includes different accents, it helps to differentiate between how they sound when they are spelled out in writing.

So I found various websites to help me remember.

Examples of Old Scottish (before the 1800s specifically) vs English Dialect:

English say "I"
Scotsmen say "Ah"

English say "I don't know"
Scotsmen say "Ah dinnae ken"

English say "I will not"
Scotsmen say "Ah willnae"

(I will post more in Scottish Dialect - Part 2)


Scottish Accents in Interviews:

James MacAvoy

Gerard Butler


Ewan McGregor


Scottish Slang Videos:

MVPT




NEXT TIME I will show some more of the Scottish words and dialects and in examples from my Remmington Pirates book series.


By the way...buy the first 16 chapters of my Remmington Pirates book series on Amazon in the ebook edition here:

Tuesday TIP - Eat Clean Like a Nutritionist

What does "Eat Clean Like a Nutritionist" mean? What does it look like?



For starters,
Drink water before and after every meal. Drink water between meals. Hydrate, hydrate, hydrate! Get those toxins flushing out of your system, they're better off in the toilet's system!



Secondly,
Avoid starchy carbs. Eat one serving only after a high intensity training session of at least 15-20 minutes. I don't really feel like 15 minutes is even long enough, but 20 minutes is perfect. 30 minutes is better. 40, 50, 60 minutes or even longer means you can definitely have a serving of starchy carbs - cause your body is going to send it straight to repairing your body after being torn down in exercising - which is great! That's where you're body will start to rebuild itself stronger and to be faster.



Thirdly,
Eat at least 1 cup of green veggies three times a day (like breakfast, lunch and dinner). Bonus two you for eating 2 cups!



Fourthly,
Eat meat. If you have the option of choosing starchy carbs or meat. Choose meat.



P.S. Aim for Peanut Butter without sugar. The few the added ingredients the better!
So Fifthly,
Have some healthy fat and calcium in your meals. Healthy fats and calcium help get rid of the flabby fat on the waist, arms, legs, wherever else it may be hiding.

And Lastly,
Avoid Cane sugar as much as possible and limit all the other sweeteners too!

Challenge:
Try 1-2 or even 4 days without any sugar! See what happens! How do you feel?

Which by the way, another thing I am learning to remember to ask myself - after every time I eat something, especially something not "healthy" - "How do I feel? Does my body feel great and energetic or sluggish and blah?"

Listen to your body!

I know it's hard! The past few days I have not done such a great job of that but a new day means a fresh start (even though we still have to deal with yesterday's mistakes).





"Today's decisions, decides the future." (Unknown)



Monday MEAL - 15th-16th Century - Mete Pies

So for dinner, my family and I tried the Mete Pies from this one website, for various reasons. One in looked delicious and sounded so. Two, I wanted have a taste of Renaissance cooking and Early Modern England cooking, because this same meal would have been eaten in my Remmington Pirate book series that I am writing. And three, it seemed easy enough, given the short notice for getting some ingredients gathered. Oh yes! And four, it WAS easy to turn it into a gluten free meal.

From the mid 1400s

Mete Pies galore!


We modified it to be gluten free, and instead of pork we filled four of the pies with ground beef and 2 with cut up turkey burgers.

"Traditional English Meat Pies were made with pork because it was more economical. Every cottager kept a pig, and there was an ample supply of pork in the butcher shops of London." (http://www.thebrasssisters.com/pages/2009/02/hearty-english-meat-pie/) 


My Version of Mete Pies (gluten free):
For the meat (which is cooked first)
Six 1/3lb Turkey Burgers OR 2lbs ground Beef

While the meat is cooking make the dough:
3 cups flour (Betty Crocker's GF All-Purpose Flour)
8 Tbsp. butter (Next time I'm going to try Earth Balance Butter to make it dairy free)
4 egg yolks (Next time, maybe try 4 egg whites instead to cut calories?)
1 tsp. salt
Dash of ground Garlic
about 3/4 cup water

Add to the cooked and cooled meat:
1/2 tsp. cloves
1/4 tsp. dried parsley
2 Tbsp. Beet sugar

Divide Dough into 6 balls. Roll out. Put in oven-safe cereal bowls. Fill with meat.
Put:
Dash of black pepper in each pie
1/2 Tbsp. butter in each pie (Next time I'm going to try Earth Balance Butter)
Fold top over the meat (some of the pies may not reach top middle, that's all right. It'll taste the same.)

Bake at 350 degrees for 50 minutes, or until golden brown.

Beefy Mete Pie
As with being distracted in watching the last two Mad Max movies, I forgot to take pictures of the finished meal before they got devoured. But I got one!

Wait, I found another whole one!





THE ORIGINAL RECIPES: are as from the website (the link is below)

Mete Pie
15th c
"This simple recipe is perfect for using up leftover cooked pork. It has a flavor and aroma that is more than a bit like glazed ham."

"The original recipe called for marrow which can be hard to get at the local market. I've used butter in its place, but lard or suet should also work. If you can't find cubebs, subsitute 1 tsp. of black pepper and a pinch of orange peel."

2 lbs. pork
1/2 tsp. cloves
1/4 tsp. mace
2 tsp. cubebs [subsitute 1 tsp. of black pepper and a pinch of orange peel]
2 Tbsp. sugar
4 Tbsp. butter
double recipe for Short Paest for Tarts

"Boil or slow-cook the pork until tender. Allow to cool and then chop into small pieces. Add spices and sugar, put into pie crust, dot with butter, cover with a top crust, and bake at 350°F until golden brown - about 30 minutes. Serve hot."

"Source [Two Fifteenth-Century Cookery-Books, T. Austin (ed.)]: xxxiij - A bake Mete Ryalle. Take and make litel cofyns, and take Chykonys y-sothe; other Porke y-sothe, and smale y-hackyd; other of hem bothe: take Clowys, Maces, Quybibes, and hakke with-alle, and melle yt with cromyd Marow, and lay on Sugre y-now; than ley it on the cofynne, and in the myddel lay a gobet of marow, and Sugre round a-bowte y-now, and lat bake; and this is for soperys."


http://medievalcookery.com/recipes/meteryalle.html

------------
Short Paest for Tarts aka Pie Crust
16th c

"Most of the pie crust recipes from 15th century are tacked on to the end of the recipe for some kind of pie filling. They're usually very simple mixtures of flour and water, and often don't call for any fat. This 16th century recipe is one of the earliest that is strictly for making short crust pastry. The addition of eggs and saffron give it a wonderful flavor."

1 1/2 cups flour
4 Tbsp. butter
2 egg yolks
1/2 tsp. salt
pinch saffron
about 3/8 cup water

"Mix flour, salt, and saffron together in a large bowl. Cut or rub the butter and eggs into the flour mixture until it forms fine crumbs. Add water a little at a time until it just sticks together - too much water will make the dough too soft and sticky. Cover with a towel and allow to rest for 30 minutes. Roll out on a well floured surface."

"Source [A Proper New Booke of Cookery, A. Veale]: To make short paest for tarte. Take fyne floure and a cursey of fayre water and a dysche of swete butter and a lyttel saffron, and the yolckes of two egges and make it thynne and as tender as ye maye."

http://www.medievalcookery.com/recipes/shortpaest.html


Happy Living!

P.S. Here is another great source of inspiration for these famous Mete Pies of old!
http://haandkraft.blogspot.com/2009/10/medieval-pies.html