Had some emergencies to deal with first thing this morning. That’s okay. Shit happens sometimes. So it took me a while to get to any words at all.

I’m dealing with a pretty significant headache this morning. I believe that the diet caused this.

I’m going hard-core keto right now, to see if that will help with the perimenopause symptoms. However, I’m doing it “by feel” as it were. I am measuring my ketones using a urine sample every morning. But I haven’t been recording all my food, making sure that my ratios are correct. In part, that’s because we have no internet out here, and many of those apps take a lot of bandwidth. In part, it’s because I’m lazy and I figured I could wing this.

And I was correct, for the most part. I have been able to wing this, as it were. I started producing ketones after the first day I really stuck to the diet. They’ve hovered between the “trace” and “small” level of ketones, as measured on the strip, exactly where I want them to be.

However, yesterday I got grumpy. And headachy. Why?

Because I had eaten too few carbs. That’s what always happens to me. I can’t do extremely low carb. My body does not like that. Staying in the trace to small region is much better for me.

What do I mean by extremely low? From previous times when I was actually keeping track of everything I ate, generally lower than 30g of carbs in a day.

Looking back, I can see where I messed up. I had cut everything that contained more than a few carbs from my diet. All I was eating was meat and veggies. Nothing starchy, very few nuts, and no sweets.

Yeah, going to need to change that. Probably should start measuring my macros again. I’m not sure what I’m going to do, however.

I considered keeping a list of all the food I’ve eaten on my phone in a note, then transferring it regularly to the computer. But I know myself. That’s a pain and I won’t actually do it.

Getting a regular app might be the best choice for me. Though I’ll have to watch how often it updates and how much data it uses. I really like MyFitnessPal, but again, data hog.

Anyway – back to the different words. I am still trying to do my words before anyone else’s. So after dealing with the emergencies, I realized I couldn’t blog. Still didn’t have enough words.

Instead, I wrote ad copy. We’re starting to run Amazon ads. We haven’t seen a lot of movement yet, but as the marketing troll says, we’re in the wet spaghetti phase. I have three series that we’re going to start advertising: The Tanesh Empire trilogy, the Franklin books, and the Cassie books. Tanesh is finished, final Franklin will come out Oct 21, and final Cassie will come out Dec 10.

The first thing I did was I went out to Amazon and started scrolling through the “sponsored products” for some fantasy books, reading the ads, getting an idea of what I needed to produce.

Then I started putting together phrases and ideas in short bursts. Surprised me how easy it was. Then again, I had so little concentration. A short focused burst was all I could manage.

That did the trick for me. A little bit of focus and I’m finally able to write a bit more. That, plus it’s later now, and my headache has finally started to recede.

So, one more thing before I attempt the fiction. I made a fermented, dairy-free, “parmesan” nut cheese. I put all the ingredients together last night and let it ferment over night, then baked it this morning. Wow. So yummy!

I got the recipe from a PCC Cooks class. The credit is, “Recipe by Birgitte Antonsen, inspired by a recipe by Miyoko Schinner.”

I’m including it here, along with my alterations.

1 c raw cashews, raw sunflower seeds, brazil nuts, or a mix (I used cashews)
1 1/2 c water for soaking, plus 3 T water for processing
1/2 t salt for soaking, plus 1 t for processing

1/4c nutritional yeast
2 T chickpea miso (I didn’t have any miso on hand, so I used 2T of our homemade coconut yogurt instead. Basically, you’re looking for something fermented that will continue to ferment the cheese)
1/2 t garlic powder
1/2 t onion powder (since Blaze is allergic to onions, I instead did 1 t of garlic)
2 T lemon juice (since the yogurt was so wet and already tangy, I went with not-quite-full teaspoons of lemon juice)

Soaking and fermenting: Soak the nuts/seeds in 1 1/2 c of water with 1/2 t salt for 4-8 hours. Drain and rinse. (I soaked mine for closer to 10 hours.)

Add nuts/seeds and remaining ingredients (plus the water!) to a blender or food processor. I used our small Kitchen Aid food processor. Blend ingredients together until they’re smooth. This took about five minutes, with a lot of scraping material down the side and restarting.

Place mixture in a glass container, preferably sterilized, and cover.

Culture for 12 hours at 90-90 degrees F.

The recommendation that Birgitte made was to place the mixture in your oven with the light on. This really worked! I don’t know how hot it actually got inside the oven, but it was nicely toasty warm this morning when I fetched it out. Will have to get a thermometer and measure the actual temp someday.

Remove the glass container from the oven, then preheat the oven to 250 degrees F.

On one or two cookie sheets, spread out parchment paper, then spread out the mixture very thinly using a spatula. Now, in the class, Birgette used two pieces of parchment paper, put the mixture between them, and then used a rolling pin to spread the mixture out. I tried that, using a wine bottle as we don’t own a rolling pin. However, the problem doing that was that I spread it out too thin, and it stuck to the parchment paper. The next time I try this recipe, I’ll just use a spatula.

Bake for 15 minutes, rotate, and bake for another 15 minutes.

Remove and cool somewhat, then break into smaller crumbs and flakes.

The original recipe calls for two additional 10 minute intervals. I think because I used yogurt, and because the mixture was too thick in places, that wasn’t anywhere near long enough. I ended up with three additional 15 minute intervals, letting the mixture cool and crumbling it up. I wanted it to fully dry.

When it’s cooled completely, place in an airtight container and store in the fridge for up to a month.

We actually divided the mixture up and put half of it into the fridge, and the other half into the freezer.

HOWEVER. I don’t know if that will be necessary. OMG is it good. It turned out nicely tangy and crunchy. I’ll be adding it to steamed veggies, salads, and sprinkled over sauces. It doesn’t taste exactly like parmesan. (Then again, it’s been a REALLY long time since I’ve had any.) It does fill the same niche as the cheese would–a nice tangy layer.

I hope your Monday is going more smoothly than mine.

But now – I think I finally have enough brain to actually write fiction.