Some of my friends accuse me, with some justice, of thinking that exchanging loving sensual massages is the cure to all sexual problems. In my case, I went through a period of zero interest in sex and, worse yet, zero arousal when we tried to have sex, so what little sex we had was terrible. We did a number of things, mostly aimed at reducing stress and helping me manage stress better, but what got my motor humming again was learning sensual massage with my partner and doing it regularly. The experience really made a believer out of me, and I have seen the same approach work wonders with other couples who are going through a sexual drought.

At the start, my SO would give me a full-body massage with no touch allowed in the genital area. I did his massage without that restriction, but also with no obligation for me to do anything for him. We started out doing 20 minutes each and gradually worked up. There's an account of how we managed online. This is from the discussion below the main post:

> We started going very, very slowly, working on the meditation and other kinds of stress management and exchanging full-body massages, with no sex at first, just learning how to do massage and learning what felt good and melted the tension away.

> This took several months, and I gradually began to feel like I was starting to wake up, just faint stirrings inside, but enough to wonder what would happen if we pushed things another notch. I started playing around, trying different kinds of caresses for getting him aroused. And along the lines of learning tantra, I started seeing how close I could get him to the brink of an orgasm and how long I could keep him there without going over, and also discovering what effects that had on his orgasms when he did finally finish.

> Part of this was me wanting to do something for him even if I wasn't in a position to share it, but I have to confess that a lot of it was pure curiosity on my part, my inner "mad scientist" coming out. Because I was standing beside the massage table I could actually see every reaction, every involuntary response to what I was doing. And it was like, here's this great biological and neurological puzzle, figuring out how the human male - or this human male - responds to tactile stimuli, and I couldn't resist the challenge! :)

> Eventually we switched the sequence, with me giving him the first massage. And doing that, and edging him for a good long while to a really strong orgasm, actually got me somewhat aroused. Then when he started massaging me, that just keep building a little bit at a time, so I encouraged him to try being more erotic, and having him gently massage my breasts and vulva actually felt good for the first time in ages!

> The progression was gradual, but I think I had my first orgasm in ages a few weeks later, and we had sex after the massages a few more weeks after that, for the first time in months. There was a lot of other stuff going on, including serious meditation practice and lots of non-sexual cuddle time. And the external situation was getting better for both of us too.

I know that massage therapy doesn't work for everyone. Some people dislike any kind of touch in this situation, not just sexual touch. But most people love getting a massage, and the hardworking mom of a two-year-old really deserves one! (Right?)

So if re-establishing loving touch is the goal, the question is whether she will allow you to give this a try. Does she like backrubs? Do they relax her when she's stressed? If so, you might suggest doing something like this as a way of helping her relax and as a way of sharing affection without having sex. Make it clear that giving her a massage isn't intended as foreplay, or as a bargaining chip to get her to give you something. Sex has to be completely off the table (heh!) unless she actually WANTS to do more.

If she agrees to give it a try, buy a folding massage table (under $90 from Amazon) and some virgin coconut oil, and maybe a good book on sensual massage with tasteful, completely non-pornographic photos. Start out with back rubs, and incorporate legs, arms, hands, and feet. Avoid the chest, abdomen, and crotch until she says otherwise. The butt can be off limits to start with or not, depending on whether she sees it as a sexualized area or just a spot that feels great when massaged.

Because of her upbringing and discomfort with nudity, you may need to cover the parts of her body that you are not working on with a couple of towels. It may seem silly to cover parts that are going to be seen and touched eventually, but some people feel much more vulnerable if they are completely uncovered all at one time. If she's one of them, be prepared with extra towels and adjust them as you go. If you have to, you can give a good massage without exposing more than a couple of square feet of skin at a time. Dimming the lights way down may also help her relax.

I hope this helps. Good luck!

I have a stupid simple but really popular soup: 1 part winter squash puree, 2 parts coconut milk with 1-2 T Mae Ploy red curry paste per cup of orange veg puree soup. I like Chaokoh coconut milk, because I can get a return of the oil split when I fry the paste, which is visually pleasing. If I am making enough quantity, I like to use a variety of orange veg/squash, freshly roasted, because that yields the most complex and interesting flavor. With light curry seasoning, it is a real hit for funeral meals or meals for shut ins.

That said, I am interested in tips for cleanly splitting winter squashes for roasting to make the puree. The things are roll-y and tough, no matter how sharp my blacksmith grandson makes my cleaver! My father, God rest his soul, made a starting cut in a vise with a circular saw and I do the same thing if I am quantity cooking them, but there has to be a better kitchen safe answer if I am just feeding a few folks. Helpful thoughts?

I learned how to cook Thai curry from a Thai friend, and I realized it's the brand/quality of ingredients that's really important. This is the brand of curry paste he used, and this is the brand of coconut milk. Both of these were significantly cheaper at the local asian market. I also got a good quality fish sauce, and these lime leaves that I added in with the coconut milk. It's honestly better than anything I can get in restaurants around me. My half-Thai brother-in-law said it was better than his dad's curry. And it's super easy.

Thank you!! I used this recipe, though I followed it loosely. I'm not that good of a cook, but turned out really tasty!

I can only give you estimates of the the ingredients, sorry.

Coconut Penang Curry - Chicken

Ingredients

• 1 lb chicken thighs
  
• 1 clove of garlic
  
• Salt, pepper
  
• 3 tsp Mae Ploy Penang Curry Paste
  
• 13.5 oz Chaokoh Coconut Milk
  
• Bell peppers (I used one)
  
• Broccoli (I used like 1/4 of a floret?)
  
  

  Recipe
  

  
  

1. Mince the garlic and cut the peppers, chicken, and broccoli into bite size pieces.
   
2. Season the chicken with salt and pepper.
   
3. Pour oil into pan and stir minced garlic until fragrant. Fry the chicken until cooked and both sides are golden. Remove the chicken from the pan once done.
   
4. In another pan (or clean the one you used to fry the chicken), add oil and stir in curry paste and fry until it's fragrant.
   
5. Add in the coconut of milk a spoonful at a time and stir. When you're halfway done with the can, add the chicken back in.
   
6. Continue adding in the coconut milk until there's none left.
   
7. Add in vegetables and let it simmer until your veggies are soft to your liking.
   
8. Remove from heat and serve. :D
   
   Most of the carbs is in the coconut milk, which is about 10g per can. Then the rest mostly comes from the vegetables, which you can omit/add in less of if you'd like and just add in more chicken haha.
   
   Net carbs: 24g for the whole thing. Depends on how hungry you are, but I ate like half of it.

If you have a Trader Joe's nearby their marshmallows are vegan (they are rebranded Dandies, I believe). Their Sipping Chocolate was also dairy free, but I think it's discontinued. :(

Guittard Grand Cacao Drinking Chocolate. Guittard is my favorite grocery store chocolate brand.

It is also really easy to make yourself, if you're into that.

Basic Hot Cocoa Mix: whisk together 1 cup good cocoa powder + 1 1/2 cups powdered sugar + 1/2 teaspoon salt

Next Level Hot Cocoa Mix: 1 cup good cocoa powder + 1 1/2 cup powdered sugar + 1/2 cup vegan chocolate chips + 1 teaspoon vanilla powder; pulse in food processor until chocolate is in small bits

Mocha Hot Cocoa Mix: add 1-2 tablespoons instant espresso powder to mix

Peppermint Hot Cocoa Mix: add 3 tablespoons well crushed candy cane or peppermint hard candies to mix

Pumpkin Spice Hot Cocoa Mix: add 2 teaspoons pumpkin spice to mix (or 1 teaspoon cinnamon, 1/4 teaspoon each ginger, nutmeg, cloves, allspice)

Mexican Hot Cocoa Mix: add 1 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon, 1/4 teaspoon cayenne to mix

Recommend mixing with plain unsweetened soy or cashew milk.

To make it 'instant' for mixing with hot water, add 2 cups coconut milk powder to the mix.

We never drink coconut juice, but, despite the generic sounding name, Natural Value Coconut Milk is spectacular and makes for a great smoothie (add coconut milk, ice and blend). The cans are BPA free and contain nothing but coconut extract and water.

It seems about as close as you can get to pureeing a raw coconut so I imagine their process provides very little negative impact on nutritional value. Granted it takes a little more effort than a can or box of coconut milk off the shelf, but I think it's well worth it.

I make my own dehydrated boil in bag meals. I use THIS SITE as a template and just modify things as needed. I use a lot of powdered heavy cream, powdered eggs, powdered coconut milk, powdered cheese (all purchasable off amazon), instead of rice I dehdyrate cauliflower rice in my dehydrator.

It requires a bit of experimentation on your part since they don't translate 100% but I've made some good meals, bag tacos, butter chicken, fajitas, pizza casserole, buffalo chicken casserole, breakfast scrambles, cheeseburger casserole, etc. I've been playing around with the idea of trying to make a few keto cobblers.

Portion them out into quart freezer bags with smaller bags for spices/seasonings, when time comes to eat boil a bit of water, dump it in the bag and seal it up, let it sit for 10 minutes or so wrapped in a handkerchief or something then enjoy.

If you are dehydrating yourself you want to use LOW FAT meats. I know that's counter-intuitive for keto but high fat content foods won't dehydrate right, so use lean cuts, then add fat later (heavy cream powder, etc)

here's the DEHYDRATOR I use

Here is the HEAVY CREAM POWDER

COCONUT MILK POWDER

CHEESE POWDER

EGG POWDER


I've priced everything out and for a day's worth of meals I'm around 10 bucks or so, vs Mountain House which are 5-8 bucks a meal and the Next Mile meals keto offerings which can be 15 bucks PER meal


EDIT:

You can also bring mayo packets with you and I like bringing Individual Justin's Peanut Butter Packs also, great way to up the fat and to eat "quickly" between meals.

I dehydrate my own jerky as a snack, also you can hit Walmart and get single serve individual foil packs of tuna and spam, they work good as a quick meal without having to boil water.

>You do realize they make powdered milk right? LMAO.

Powdered coconut milk needs to be dissolved in hot water, which you then can't combine with ice cream. LMAO.

https://www.amazon.com/Native-Forest-Coconut-Powder-Ounce/dp/B00QIVB19Y

Why wouldn't they just bring normal coconut milk?

>Yes its already on twitter and instagram. People were sipping these and throwing them.

Do you have links? I've only seen throwing, not sipping.

There's also the possibility they were making special batches. The powder still hasn't been explained.

This is also worth buying at this price. I get them at $1.40/can at my Thai grocer. This + Chaokoh makes a super simply and amazing curry. Same with the Indian pastes. The coconut milk is more expensive on amazon than Patels, so that may be worth an order along with the ghee.

Edit: "this" was a 6pack on amazon of Maesri thai curry pastes. Id really look into them and the coconut milk from Patel brothers.

I get coconut cream and cook it in seasonings garlic, pepper, onion, maybe some nutritional yeast flakes, and it tastes like cheese sauce, put it on errything.

To mix coconut oil into drinks like coffee emulsifiers are your friend. I recommend lecithin powder or flakes, it has some supposed health benefits on its own supposedly. Coconut cream usually has guar gum in it added, which is another emulsifier.


https://www.amazon.com/NOW-Foods-Sunflower-Lecithin-1-Pound/dp/B00MU73UKS/ref=sr_1_6

https://www.amazon.com/Thai-Kitchen-Gluten-Coconut-Cream/dp/B00R61K7FO

Oh, can't believe I forgot this, but coconut milk is awesome and has tons of calories. (You can buy it canned - 100ml = 171 kcal, or powdered, which you mix with water - 10g=69 kcal.) Substitute it anywhere you'd use regular milk. This is different from the boxed coconut milk that's sold as a milk alternative in stores - that stuff is watered down, has fillers added, and most importantly for you, doesn't have nearly as many calories.

This coconut milk is awesome:

Aroy-d Coconut Milk 100% Original Net 8.5 Oz.(pack of 12) https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00JUB8N3G/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_XLkLyb9FERMAR

I use it for shakes as well as coffee.

I use coconut milk powder [https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00BJNVM3G/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_awd_4NEJwb77MBEMH] sometimes in baking because I always have it on hand for curries. Canned coconut milk is $3+ in my area, whereas the packets of powder are only $0.99. It's not that great for curry because the creamy, thick texture is lost, but it made for really delicious coconut-chocolate chip muffins.

It should be in any Asian store in the aisle next to the canned milk or maybe where the packets of dry seasonings are. They might also be in a box with a set of 10 if you don't see loose packets.

I wish I could help you with Tom Kha Gai but that is still something I can't very well, but when its comes to making any other coconut milk food like green curry I use coconut milk that come in boxes For example this one works well for it

In addition to some of the other suggestions, I think many restaurants use quite a bit of palm sugar in their curries. In fact, a lot of Thai cuisine uses a lot of palm sugar.

Get coconut milk from cartons, not cans.

Definitely check out Hot Thai Kitchen. The recipes are clear and authentic and her videos are very helpful. I consider her thai cookbook along with David Thompson's "Thai Street Food" and Andy Ricker's "Pokpok" to be the holy triad of Thai cookbooks.

I'd splurge on a quantity of jumbo shrimp to butterfly and make beer-battered coconut shrimp to go with a spicy chicken coconut curry. Enjoy a coconut rum drink in a coconut shell cup, wear a grass skirt and coconut bra ensemble, monty python trot to the couch afterwards, dig into a pile of coconut macaroons, and listen to that lime in the coconut song on repeat until you want nothing to do with coconuts for the foreseeable future.

https://www.amazon.com/100-Coconut-Milk-6-pack-Aroy-D/dp/B00DUMDNTU

Aroy-d 100% coconut milk. This stuff is amazing.

Getting light coconut milk helps with the calorie count so much, though. Were it not for the light version, my lunches would be very different.

Light coconut milk can be very hard to find, so I ordered mine on Amazon (sadly, I haven't been able to find it in anything less than a pack of 12). It really makes a huge difference, though. The reduced fat is 315 calories per can, whereas regular coconut milk is 700.

Got this stuff on Amazon, it's really good and gigantic.

Thai iced tea is usually made with sweetened condensed (cow) milk. This is the stuff I drink, I'm a sugar addict so I had to wean myself off the sugarbomb that is Silk and this is much, much less sugary, but I like the flavor.

I've never been able to find a coconut milk in stores that's not loaded with a bunch of crap ingredients. I order these from Amazon and they're delicious.

Coconut milk in a box is intended as a milk substitute, and comes in either unsweetened or sweetened versions (from Silk, Diamond, etc. in the U.S.).

Coconut milk in a can is intended for cooking, and is entirely different. Very few would have added sugars, and can commonly be found in the Oriental or vegetable sections at a U.S. grocery (rather than the dairy cooler).

[Native Forest](Native Forest Organic Classic Coconut Milk, 13.5-oz. Cans (Count of 12) https://www.amazon.com/dp/B001HTJ2BQ/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_awd_RbqIwbSJMAXHD) brand coconut milk is BPA free. Sorry link is for bulk number of cans but writing this from my phone!

In cans, coconut milk usually comes in small (6 oz) and large (14 oz).

You can also sometimes find it in aseptic containers (similar to soy and rice milk) in 7 oz and 32 oz sizes. Don't get coconut water for this recipe, and you don't want to use the coconut milk beverages that you'll find with the non-dairy milks (soy, rice, etc) because it's watered down. Coconut milk for cooking is typically kept with the "Asian" foods like soy sauce, rice noodles, etc.

This is what to look for.

I'm super lazy so I just drink one of these
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B001HTJ2ES

I split it into 5 servings based on a 4 oz serving of shrimp. One serving came out to a little over 6 oz (after cooked). It would've been way better to make it with the light coconut milk, but that wasn't in the pantry at the time.

This is the coconut milk I used: https://www.amazon.com/Chaokoh-Coconut-Milk-13-5-oz/dp/B000WH9D3G

edit: I just remembered a serving of shrimp is 3 oz, not 4 (at least according to packaging) ... so the recipe should say 15 oz, not 20. Oops. Sorry about that! I was typing quickly and must've brain farted.

Oops,that should have said coconut MILK powder, not powdered coconut. This is a brand Ive used and liked: https://www.amazon.com/Native-Forest-Coconut-Powder-Ounce/dp/B00QIVB19Y. However I don't use it often so there might be tastier brands. And weirdly the coconut powder works better in coffee than coconut milk does. Creamier, less oily, etc.

I DONT recommend nut milks or their powders. Almond in coffer is gross. But you can try that too - some people like the taste and dislike coconut.

• • Make sure the coffee is very hot when you add it or it won't dissolve right

>coconut cream...do they mean like the coconut alternative to coffee creamer

Coconut Cream is canned and usually in the Asian food isle of most grocery stores. Here is an example of a can of it.

> pineapple extract readily available

I don't believe it is carried in many grocery stores but you should be able to find it at an Asian market.

Isopure Low Carb Protein Powder, 100% Whey Protein Isolate, Flavor: Dutch Chocolate + So Delicious Bev Mlk Coconut Unsweet Vanilla + Magic Bullet Blender = Thick chocolate milk shake.

1 net carb in 155 calories.

You want Chaokoh coconut milk, IMO it’s the most thick, flavorful, luxurious.
Don’t boil it too quickly or too much because the texture can get a little funky.

This is my recipe except I do about 3/4 coconut milk and 1/4 almond milk and a bit of nutella to cover the peanut butter taste a bit.

That coconut milk is 140 calories per 1/3 cup. 700 calories in a 13.5 oz can.

I buy this stuff.

unsweetened coconut milk is what I use. This kind: https://www.amazon.com/Thai-Kitchen-Organic-Coconut-13-66/dp/B003VYIZT0

or you can get the cream version, which I bought but have not tried yet:
https://www.amazon.com/Thai-Kitchen-Coconut-Cream-13-66/dp/B00R61K7FO?th=1

The silk is a beverage drink...not meant for really reducing etc. You need the cans or the aseptic packages on the dry shelves to do that.

https://www.amazon.com/Aroy-d-Coconut-Milk-100-Original/dp/B00JUB8N3G is what i use usually, or the cans.

Use coconut oil, then. 120cal per tablespoon. Amazon

Great idea! I was wondering about this when my local store didn't have my usual brand and I had to get the generic. It was disgusting. My favorite is Native Forest

Edit; The can is BPA free but it still contains guar gum which is a bean derivative. Some people that think they have a problem with coconut milk actually are reacting to this additive and don't realize it.

No TJ's near me. Where I live, coconut milk is only available in stores from $2.19 to $2.50 a can. I buy it from amazon at $2.08 a can.

This product claims to be 100% coconut milk. Maybe the carton is empty. Idk.