Skip to main content

No-carb "cider" and Halloween videos you haven't seen

In time for Halloween, here's a recipe for no-carb "cider" to sip while you watch scary (or mildly spooky) videos.

Photo from Pixabay.

Ingredients:

  • Hot water
  • Constant Comment tea
  • Doctor's Best magnesium powder in sweet peach flavor

Steep a bag of Constant Comment tea in hot water for a few minutes and remove the bag. Add one scoop of magnesium powder (sweet peach flavor). The combination tastes surprisingly like hot apple cider, but with zero carbs. Only have one, or at most two, cups at a time--too much magnesium at once will have you running to the bathroom. Constant Comment tea tastes good on its own if you've maxed out your magnesium dose for the day.

You can find both the tea and the magnesium powder at Vitacost.com. Kroger and other grocery stores carry Constant Comment tea, but I've never seen the magnesium powder at a grocery store.

With a hot cup of ersatz cider, enjoy a video in the spirit of the season.

The Amazing Mr. Blunden

Family friendly; mildly spooky. 

From Amazon's description: Adapted from Antonia Barber's story 'The Ghosts'. Once upon two times, there were two sets of siblings. Jamie and Lucy Allen lived in 1918 and Sarah and George Latimer lived and died in 1818 - or did they? This is the haunting story of how 100 years is travelled by two children to save Sarah and George from their dreadful Uncle Bertie. A family film about the friendliest, saddest ghosts ever. Watch on Amazon or find on YouTube.

Moonlight TV show and pilot presentation

Rated TV-14; mostly dramatic; sometimes scary.

This show was voted best new drama when it aired, but the writer's strike killed it after only one season. From Moonlight.fandom.com: "The series is a paranormal romance that follows a private investigator, Mick St. John, whose bride, Coraline Duvall, turned him into a vampire on the couple's wedding night 55 years prior; he struggles in the present day with his love for a mortal woman, Beth Turner, and his dealings with other vampires in the city." Watch the series for free on Tubi, Sling and other streaming services--or watch the pilot presentation below. 

A darker, grittier version of Moonlight set in New York City was filmed before the series. From the YouTube description: "In 2007, CBS commissioned a pilot "presentation" instead of a full-length 42-minute pilot for a new vampire drama named Twilight. The pilot script for Twilight--later changed to Moonlight to avoid confusion with that OTHER vampire series--was shortened to 25 minutes and filmed. CBS liked the presentation enough to order the series. However, in going from pilot to series, the show's setting was changed from New York to Los Angeles and the entire cast was replaced except for the series lead, Alex O'Loughlin. The pilot presentation never aired, but Warner Bros. did include it on a DVD set with all of their 2007-08 pilots that were ordered to series. The DVD set was sent to various media people for previewing. Here is a look back at a Moonlight that could have been..."

Part 1: 


Part 2:



Doctor Sleep

Rated R; a worthy sequel to The Shining by Stephen King.

Although this was a box office flop because of bad timing, this is one of the most suspenseful movies I've seen in years. From IMDB: "Years after the traumatizing events at the Overlook Hotel, Dan Torrance is now an alcoholic struggling to find a job. He moves to a small town in New Hampshire and becomes "Doctor Sleep". He then meets Abra Stone, a teenager with the brightest shine he's ever seen. When he learns that a cult of evil beings called The True Knot are chasing her with the intent to eat her shine, he does everything in his power to protect her...including returning to The Overlook." Watch on various streaming services for a small fee.  

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Dana Carpender's Podcast; Dr. Davis on YouTube; Labor Day Sales

Dana Carpender, who's written several recipe books and other works on low-carb, has a podcast and is still writing articles at carbsmart.com. She's a terrific writer and amateur researcher (otherwise known as reading , as Jimmy Dore jokes ). I use her book 500 Low-Carb Recipes all the time and I'm looking forward to hearing more from her. I've embedded her podcast on my blog (click on the three lines at the top right if you don't see it, or go to Spotify or other podcast source if you're getting this by email). Carbsmart.com doesn't seem to have a blog feed, so if you want to see the latest posts there, you can sign up for notifications at their site. Dr. Davis has been putting a lot more videos on YouTube, so I've added his channel to the lineup. Click on the three lines on my blog if you don't see it, or go to his channel here .  * * * * * Primal Kitchen is having a Labor Day sale-- 20% off everything. They sell high quality collagen powder, con...

Fermented bread and butter pickle recipe ft. L. Plantarum

After Dr. Davis said the other night that  L. plantarum  may reduce some of the effects of the herbicide glyphosate (which is everywhere), I'm re-running my recipe for fermented bread and butter pickles. Pickling cucumbers naturally have  L. plantarum  bacteria on them, and fermenting them with some brown sugar multiplies these bacteria. (Just don't use chlorinated water to wash them.) And if you're growing your own cucumbers, avoid spraying the fruits with  Bacillus thuringiensis , or Bt (leaves and vines are OK). It's unclear what effect a big dose of Bt would have on humans. Another benefit of DIY pickles: no emulsifiers like polysorbate 80, which is a common ingredient in pickles. If you have GI problems, it could be from emulsifiers. These sweet-and-sour pickles are the tastiest I've ever made. There's just a little added sugar (some of which the bacteria will consume) and turmeric that gives the pickles their bright color.  Special equipment Quar...

Lousy Mood? It Could be the Food

Here's a funny AMV(1) on what it's like to be depressed, apathetic and overly sensitive. Note: explicit (but funny) lyrics in the video. Hearing this song brought a startling realization: I used to be emo, but with normal clothes. Sulking, sobbing and writing poetry were my hobbies. When I was a kid, my mother said that she wouldn't know what to do to punish me if I had done something wrong. And yet things got worse. Over a two-week period in 1996, my best friend moved away, I lost my job and broke up with my boyfriend. I lost my appetite and lived on a daily bagel, cream cheese and a Coke for the next few months. I had tried counseling, and didn't find it helpful; in fact, I found reviving painful memories was pointless. Not thinking about them, on the other hand, worked wonders. Later on, so did studying philosophy and learning to think through emotions instead of just riding through them. But what's blown away all the techniques is diet. Since I s...