India, Water, Hypoglycemia.

Talk about a coincidence, when I came in from seeing The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, Matt was watching a programme about travelling in India. I had reacted to the movie thinking how much I would love to do something like the characters, but after watching this travel programme telling us all about the bugs, diseases, and other nasties available in India I think I have changed my mind. The traveller was telling us about the Ganges, the holy river Ganges, into which large quantities of sewage is emptied, and into which incompletely burned remains of dead bodies are thrown, not to mention all the people bathing and doing laundry along with all the animals that drink in the river, and then, if you please, he goes and does what the Indians do and dunks himself in the river with all this bacteria and god knows what floating past. He is crackers. He does actually end up with a bug in his intestine because some of the river water got swallowed because it was in his mouth. The Indians have develop immunity apparently. I think he was absolutely bonkers to do such a thing, you wouldn’t have got me near the Ganges. They also use it as a garbage dump, this is a sacred river? Seems weird to me. The water is completely airless because it is so polluted. Yuk. This is definitely one country where I would drink bottled water. I’ve never been there of course and I have been told it is a wonderful place to visit, but…..

Knowing our water was supposed to be turned off at 9 a.m. yesterday morning, Matt woke me at 6:45 a.m. I could have killed him, doesn’t take me that long to shower. Later on we tried the water out and it still appeared to be working so maybe it was all unnecessary anyway, so I will have to kill Matt twice, or maybe the super and Matt. One thing, on Thursday night we got some much needed rain and it was still raining on Friday morning. Some people are complaining, well not a great day to be out and about, me I am cheering. The asparagus needs it LOL.

For some reason, I have recently been having bouts of hypoglycemia (sugar lows) and they aren’t funny. I had one yesterday morning and my reading was at 1.9 which to an American would be 34.2, I re-checked it immediately and it turned out to be 3.7 which is 66.6, still pretty low but not so serious. I felt like sh*t and I am not sure why this is happening. I am not eating any differently or basically doing anything differently and it is a little scary. I felt rough for the rest of the day. Oh well. Fine now.

This is the latest offering from Mushrooms Canada, I thought it looked a very interesting salad. Notice the salad servers, giraffes I think, rather cute.

Marinated Mushroom, Rice and Feta Salad

Ingredients
3/4 cup (175 mL) brown and wild rice mix*
1/3 cup (75 mL) olive oil
1/4 cup (50 mL) lemon juice
2 tbsp (25 mL) raspberry, rice wine or cider vinegar
1/4 cup (50 mL) minced fresh tarragon or basil (or 2 tsp/10 mL dried leaves)
1/2 tsp (2 mL) salt
1/4 tsp (1 mL) pepper
1 lb. (500 g) fresh small mushrooms
1 cup (250 mL) halved cherry or grape tomatoes
1/2 cup (125 mL) Each diced yellow sweet pepper and red onion
2/3 cup (150 mL) diced feta cheese

Method
In a medium saucepan bring 1 ¾ cups (425 mL) water to boil; add rice mix, reduce to simmer and cook, covered for 35- 40 minutes or until water is absorbed and rice is tender. Transfer to a large bowl to cool slightly.
Meanwhile in a medium bowl mix oil, lemon juice, vinegar, tarragon, salt and pepper; add mushrooms and toss to coat. Marinate 1 hour or more. Add to room temperature rice. Stir in tomatoes, peppers, onion and cheese. Serve or refrigerate covered.
Makes 4 main course servings
* Look for the mix in bulk sections of supermarkets

Tip

• For convenience cook rice a day ahead and marinate mushrooms up to 24 hours, although they will darken in colour.
• Brown rice is much more nutritious than white rice since it is the whole grain and contains bran, that adds fiber and vitamins.

Have a great weekend