Eating Outside of the Box

Guess I don't use Cream of Tartar much....

2009-11-02T23:15:00.009-05:00

Tonight's been a BUSY night! I got home from work around 4:45 and cuddled on the couch a bit with Lucas before he went off to work. I've found that although I miss him immensely when he works nights, I get LOTS of stuff done. I've cleaned out my sons room, shampooed carpets, scrubbed baseboards and many other projects on the nights he works. Tonight I decided to cook.

I had some pumpkin in the fridge I needed to use, and some bananas going bad, and had bought bunches of apples to make applesauce. I also needed to use up the leftover chicken and make some dinner.

I started out freezing the bananas...you'll find out why another day ;)

Then I sat down to a DVR'd Saturday Night Live to attack this pile of apples:

30 minutes or so later:

I used red delicious, roma and golden delicious apples. Bilo had them on sale - 3 pounds for $2...had to get lots!!

I used a different recipe tonight for the applesauce than the other night. I changed this a bit. I added more honey and less brown sugar. I would have used no sugar at all, but I ran out of honey. I also used about a tablespoon or so or lemon juice rather than the orange peel. I'm not sure how exact that is, since I really just kind of dumped some in.

Applesauce, pre-smashed. See that it's already turning to sauce, all on it's own?

I only used 22 apples, not 24 like the recipe called for, but still got 2 and 1/2 quarts. It was tasty warm. I hope it's as good cold. I sealed these jars so we can put them in the cupboard for when we need it.

Next up: Chicken Pot Pie. I previously posted about this recipe here. I really only used the filling and sauce tonight. I used a regular Pillsbury deep dish crust for the bottom and then added mashed potatoes to the top, instead of a top crust. Tonight's picture even looks the same as the other night we made this!!

This is where the camera died, so no more pictures of this meal - just be assured that it came out great. Pot Pie meets Shepards Pie....yummy!

Next on the list were pumpkin brownies. I really didn't want to make a bread, or muffins with the leftover pumpkin so I googled my way to this recipe. I stuck to this recipe completely, and my brownies didn't look ANYTHING like the picture.

(camera re-charged!)

They are very tasty though, and not bad for a first try.

After I got done cooking, I decided to clean out my cupboard that holds all my spices and baking goods. A few months ago, I needed nutmeg for something and dug and dug and found some. Apparently I didn't use it often, because I recognized the jar as being from a grocery store in NY, that had been closed for a LONG time. Sure enough, I looked on the label and saw this:

I don't know if you can see it, but it says 1991!!! However, I keep using it, and it seems fine. Then again, maybe it doesn't....I wouldn't really know, since I don't use it often.

So tonight I found something worse...can you see the date on this can??

Yes, that says 1977. The Cream of Tartar is AS OLD AS ME. I threw both away and put nutmeg on the grocery list. I'll wait on the other until I need it....which probably won't be soon.

Melissa picked a peck of pickled peppers

2009-10-26T22:44:00.004-04:00

But first she had breakfast. Pumpkin part 3! I had some very, very yummy pumpkin pie yogurt, topped with this Kashi Apple Orchard granola. It has raisins and apples and some kind of nuts and oats....sooo good!!

I had half a bottle of this apple juice with it, along with my water mixed with pomegranate blueberry that I drink all day long at work. Nice fall-type breakfast!

Lunch was some celery and peanut butter and a chicken sandwich. Not exciting and the picture is even less exciting. I must work on food staging...another day.

So, I didn't pick a peck of pickled peppers. I don't know how much a peck is. But we did have quite a few that needed to be dealt with. We've been harvesting peppers for about a month and just piling them up. Not a peck, probably, but we did have THIS many:

And we didn't pick them already pickled, of course. But every one of these guys ended up in a nice vinegar, salt and garlic bath.

I wish that I had taken a picture of the full jars, but I did not. You get the idea though.

I also put together another jar of dill pickles. These aren't from our garden, but I bought a pile of pickling cucumbers at Lowes Foods on Sunday (it cost me less than $2.00!). I can't wait for these babies to be ready!!

Tonight I decided to use up the apples in the fridge that were going soft. I made some homemade applesauce!!

Yummy apples and cinnamon on the stove:
Applesauce is super easy to make! I peeled, cored and chopped about 8 apples, added 1 cup of water, 1/2 cup of honey, 1 tsp cinnamon, a dash of nutmeg and a splash of lemon juice. Cook it all together until the apples are soft. Let the apples cool and mash it up. I used a hand mixer. It came out just a little chunky, like I like it!

I think I've now preserved everything we had to preserve for the week. I may go buy a bunch more of those cucumbers and look for a bushel of apples, because I'd like to have a cupboard full of this stuff!!

Pumpkin, continued

2009-10-26T08:34:00.005-04:00

I wish I had seen this last night when I made my lonnnggg pumpkin post. Anyway, here's a link to a Whole Foods blog post...all about pumpkin! Enjoy!

The Great Pumpkin

2009-10-25T21:46:00.005-04:00

"There he is! There he is! It's the Great Pumpkin! He's rising out of the pumpkin patch" ~ Linus

Nope, no Great Pumpkin, it's just me. I've been gone awhile, I know. I've had some things going on that distracted me from this and from my enthusiasm for being in the kitchen, but I'm back and ready to get going all over again!

It's fall, and there seem to be pumpkins everywhere! In the stores, in yards, even in beer! I've never eaten pumpkin outside of the regular pumpkin pie every Thanksgiving, so last week I decided to try pumpkin bread. As usual, I looked for a recipe that had no sugar and found this one on the website for the National Honey Board. To change it up a little, I added cranberries to it. Unfortunately, I didn't have quite enough honey, and I think I overcooked it. It was tasty, but horribly dry. I ate a couple of slices, and then it sat there. I hate that I didn't take a picture of it but, at the moment I wasn't thinking about the blog. Bad me.

This morning, I was struck with the urge to get back in the kitchen. I spent all morning in there! First thing I did was to freeze some bananas. I had no idea that I could do that! I can't wait to use them in all sorts of things. Then I went on a quest to salvage this dry, dry, dry pumpkin bread. It was either use it today, or toss it, which I wasn't excited about doing. My first idea was to make a slice of pumpkin bread french toast.

I simply sliced off a chunk of the bread, dipped it in a mix of egg and milk and cooked it in a pan with some butter - like you would with any other french toast. I didn't add any cinnamon or anything, since it was already full of spices. On the side, I chopped up an apple, sauteed it in some butter, and added some cinnamon and nutmeg. SO GOOD. I will be doing this with apples ALL the time now!! End result of the repurposed pumpkin bread? I'll give it a 3 out of 5. The "french toasting" of it didn't help the fact that it was dry. I didn't have any good maple syrup, so I drizzled some awful "pancake syrup" on the side of the plate to add some moisture. Tasty, but probably one of the worst things for me that I've eaten in awhile!

I still had 3/4 of a loaf of pumpkin bread. We had decided to roast a small chicken for dinner, and came up with the idea of making a stuffing out of the rest of the bread. I was worried about mixing it with celery and onion and how it would all taste.

Here's a semi-accurate version of how I made it. I really kind of just tossed it together, but here's what it was like:

3 cups toasted pumpkin bread croutons
1 stalk of celery, diced
1/3 onion, diced
1 1/2 tbsp poultry seasoning
3 tbsp butter
1/4 - 1/3 cup of chicken broth
handful of dried cranberries

Toss the croutons and cranberries in the poultry seasoning and set aside. Saute the celery and onion in butter until tender. Mix the butter mixture into the croutons, stirring to coat. Add chicken broth to moisten. Place in casserole dish, cover and bake at 350 for 30 minutes. You may want to stir it up half way through, to be sure all the croutons are moistened.

I'll give this reincarnation of the pumpkin bread a 4.5 out of 5. I'll have to try it again with some bread that isn't so dry, but it really was tasty. We've already requested to bring the stuffing to Thanksgiving dinner, and this will be the recipe we use!!

Off to bed now! I'll be back more often, I swear!

To take you out....

Rainy Days

2009-09-22T22:54:00.002-04:00

What's better on a rainy day than toasty bread and warm soup? Last night, after dinner was on it's way to being done, I decided to start a loaf of Jalapeno Cheddar Bread and a batch of Black Bean and Roasted Red Pepper Soup.

I looked back through my posts and couldn't find anyplace that I had given you the link to my very favorite bread recipe. We've made this Jalapeno Cheddar Bread in the bread machine a bunch of times, but this time it was definitely the best. The peppers I added were ones that we had dehydrated a few weeks ago. Some bites of the bread were pretty spicy - and delicious!

Look at the big hunks of pepper!!

When I made the Cuban Chicken the other night, I had prepared an entire pound of black beans. I didn't even use half of the beans, so I needed to find other things to do with it. I used some today for lunch, in my turkey wrap. Some more went into this Black Bean and Roasted Red Pepper Soup. I changed the recipe a little. I only used 1.5 red peppers and used 2 jalapenos instead of the pobalanos, and I roasted them on the grill. I used the vegetable stock to make a totally vegan soup (until I dropped sour cream in my bowl!)

We topped our soup with some sour cream, avacado, and tomatoes.

This was the first time we bought this large avacado. We stopped at Walmart to pick some up and while we were discussing the difference between the large lighter colored avacado and the small tough skinned darker ones, another shopper was nice enough to tell us the difference and which was better to use in certain recipes. Score one for Walmart shoppers - though that won't convince me to start shopping there again!!

Soup in the pan:

Soup in the bowl, with a side of toasty, buttery bread:

So good!! Even though it was rainy out, which would usually be perfect for the spicy, filling food - we decided to cut back on using the air conditioning, so it was a little warmer in the house than I would have liked for this food. It was still delicious, though!!!

Going to do some reading - time to start Harry Potter 3!!

Good night!

Wanted: Inspiration

2009-09-21T22:59:00.004-04:00

I've been pretty down on myself lately on my eating healthy habits, which is why I haven't been on here much. We're still doing really well focusing on whole foods, maybe too well. I feel like we've been eating too much REAL butter, REAL sour cream, and other stuff like heavy cream. I'm going to start making it a point to back away from the fatty whole foods for a bit. Some may say maybe we should eat the fat-free sour cream, etc., but I challenge you to find some that isn't full of junk. Seriously. Look at the ingredients in real sour cream and then look at the ingredients in fat-free. My rule for ingredients is the fewer, the better - and I need to know what the words mean, or it's probably nothing I want.

That being said, I'm hoping to have some better posts up here. Tonight we had turkey sausage and apple cole slaw for dinner. No pics because we were rushing to get everything done in time to sit down for House. To replace tonight's pictures, I'll give you a quick run down of the weekend past.

Friday night we went to do some grocery shopping and found these Wheat Thins Flatbread crackers that are all natural!! We topped it with 1/2 a brick of brie while we cooked the rest of our dinner. (see....fatty, fatty cheese....but oh so good!)

Dinner was Portobello Mushroom Caps, stuffed with Scallops and Sun-Dried Tomatoes. I just sauteed the scallops, mushroom stems and sun-dried tomatoes in the pan with some garlic.

Then we stuffed the scallops in these caps that had been on the grill, and topped them with a slice of havarti cheese (more fatty fatty cheese).

We decided on Friday to venture into the world of boxed wine. We hadn't bought it yet I guess because we felt there was something redneck about it...but this box was the equivalent of 4 bottles for the price of 1.5!!

Action shot....pouring the first glass. Tasted as good as the bottle - I'm sold!

Dinner with some brussel sprouts.

Chuck was trying to get his own dinner. He sat in this position for at least 20 minutes, which is a long time for a Jack Russel. See the stick bug in the bottom of the picture? That was his focus.

Saturday morning we were up and on the beach by 7:45-8:00. This is a good vision to start your day with!
We were there to do the Browns Backers (spelled wrong on the sign!) beach sweep before heading off to Nathan's KAB (Keep America Beautiful) Kids beach sweep.
KAB had a great turn out!

We found these pretty flowers all the way down the street to the beach. I had to take a picture!

KAB sign...

Sunday was football and bad snacking, but a delicious home made grilled chicken salad for dinner.

I really hope we can get back in a healthier groove, because I've been feeling just all around blah, and I'm sure it's because of the diet!! Wish us luck!!

Good night!!

My how the week flies by!!

2009-09-16T21:07:00.006-04:00

I have (thankfully!) been SO busy at work this week, that writing a blog and paying attention to the food we've been eating really has been one of the last things on my mind! I keep thinking to myself "well, this would be a good picture" or "I could write about this" and then don't snap the shot, or make a note, and then it's out of my mind. I'm really glad to be busy at work, but I miss the days where I have at least a few minutes to think about non-work things while sitting at my desk! So, I'll hit the highlights and the things I DID think about!

Monday night we had our first squash of the (almost) fall. We'd had some summer squash here and there, but that's not the same. It doesn't have that cozy feeling that some of the winter squash has. Lucas had never eaten acorn squash before, so I bought some for him to try. Simply cut it in half, place it face down in a dish with a little bit of water and steam in the microwave for 10-15 minutes, until a fork slides in when you poke it. I like mine with lots of melted butter and some brown sugar, and eat it right out of the shell. We had the squash with some boiled red potatoes and bbq (from scratch!) pork chops. Good dinner!

Sugary, buttery yum!

A while back I ordered from free samples via a blog I read: Hangry Pants. She referred me to the site the samples actually came from - here. I got this package of chia seeds and another package of something that I haven't broken into yet...saving that for another post!

Anyway, I dropped some of the chia seeds in my yogurt for breakfast Tuesday. I didn't add much, since I didn't know what to expect, so I'm not sure what effect it had. Guess I'll read up on it a little more, then finish off the pack. If anyone knows the benefits of chia seeds, fill me in!

That leads us to tonight. Our friend Tara came over for dinner, and we decided to try out a new recipe. Cuban Chicken with Black Beans. The only thing I would change in the recipe would be to use boneless, skinless breast. Boneless because I'm not a fan of bone-in chicken, skinless because the skin got kind of soggy after cooking in all the liquid and beans. Other than that, the meal was delicious!! We had to use green pepper rather than red, and we used brown rice. YUM!!

Tara brought dessert. She remembered that Lucas can't eat sugar, and brought him a sugar free chocolate ice cream. He had some of that after dinner with some banana jam and peanut butter. We girls (and Nathan) shared some of this cake. I ate it without reading the ingredients, knowing that it was probably full of things that "aren't allowed". It was really good - light and fluffy and CHOCOLATEY!! Sure enough though, after we ate it, I read the label and it's loaded with high fructose corn syrup, among other things. Oh well! Too late! It was already in my belly!!

So know we're caught up! Final note for tonight...we're watching the finale for America's Got Talent, and the most original perfomers on the show, and the ones who should have one, in my opinion, just got voted off!!! Check them out!! (the performance starts at about 2:14)

Good night!!

A Weekend in Review

2009-09-13T19:41:00.006-04:00

This weekend began with us going to the 5th Annual Paws Across the Water Duck Race in North Myrtle Beach. I posted a picture earlier of our office duck. Here it is among some of the other contestants. We didn't win in the end, but isn't he cute??

There were hundreds of ducks dumped into the waterway out of this cement truck. They floated down river until the end of the barricade stopped them, ducks were drawn, and winners were named.

We didn't win, but we had a great day in the sun!!

Next stop - Oktoberfest in Little River. There was a huge beer tent set up with a German band and dancers. There wasn't as great of a selection of beer as last year, and the food prices were a little high for us, but we enjoyed the people watching a bit. My sister and I were trying to figure out the point of the calf warmers on this guy:

Finally it was home for the Ohio State vs. USC game. We made sliders and breaded mushrooms for dinner.

Lucas even tried mustard! He avoids it at any cost usually, but decided he'd give it a shot. Look at the fear in his face:

Fear quickly turned to disgust!

He won't be eating any more mustard for awhile!

We all stood up for a good O-H-I-O cheer before the game started...

Today was the first Browns game, and the first meeting of the North Myrtle Beach Browns Backers at Wild Wing Cafe.

My good friend Tara, a Vikings fan, was brave enough to come out and watch the game with over 50 Browns fans! Her team won, but no one attacked her or anything. Lucas through a few things at her, but nothing solid that hurt her!

Touchdown!

Me and Lucas, right before the raffle drawing:

Lucas and Nathan, enjoying the game together.

After the game it was nap time, and then tuna melts and tomato soup for dinner. The season finale of True Blood is tonight.

Tomorrow I'll be back on track with some food posts! We were running so much this weekend, there wasn't much time for great food! I actually feel pretty yucky from the greasy wings, chips and dips and other football food! For the rest of the season, I'll have to try to steer clear of it all!!

Good night!!

TGIF!

2009-09-11T20:24:00.005-04:00

We found some new plates! We've been looking for new plates for 3 reasons. (1) we have plain jane boring plates, none of which match (2) we refinished our kitchen chairs, and wanted something that matched and (3) we wanted to spice up our food pics a little more than our plain white plates. We've been looking for cheap solid color plates, plastic or not, every place we go. We've even made trips to several dollar stores looking for cheap plastic summer plates. No luck at all. Last night we saw an ad for stoneware at Bilo on sale - 4 for $5!!! The colors looked like something we may want, so today we went to check them out. They were just what we needed!! See how they match our chairs?!

After work we headed to the beach for a bit, and took Chuck to run out some of his energy. As I type this, he's starting to crash for the night. He looks like a sleep baby.

Dalton's home from his dad's this weekend, so I wanted to make a dinner he'd eat, and the easiest idea was spaghetti. I'm not a fan, so I sauteed some eggplant (from our garden), green and banana peppers (from our garden) and mushrooms to put on top of the spaghetti sauce. I can't imagine eating the noodles too, because I was stuffed after this plateful!!

We're getting ready to watch a movie and SLEEP. Busy day tomorrow - charity duck race, Oktoberfest (and beer!) and then Ohio State game at night.

Good night!!

Tofu!!

2009-09-10T23:02:00.003-04:00

We've been talking about trying tofu ever since our vegetarian week, and finally got up the nerve to buy some this last week. We kept finding other things to eat, but realized last night that today was the expiration date on the package that we bought, so gave in and decided to give it a try. When we first opened it, it didn't look like the most appetizing thing we'd ever eaten.

We drained it and got as much moisture off as we could, and the diced it up, along with some veggies.

After Lucas announced on twitter that this was what was for dinner, we got a reply from Paul, of The Baker's Dog, saying that people tend to cook it in chunks that are too big....so I diced it even smaller, just to be safe!

It looks like a sponge. I really wasn't expecting good things to come from this.

My happy husband cooking up our meal:

After adding veggies and veggie stock: baby bella mushrooms, brussel sprouts, brocolli, red pepper and onion. The recipe I was following didn't make much sense to me. It called for chicken broth. If you eat chicken, why would you be making a tofu stir fry, instead of chicken stir fry? I mean, I eat chicken, but not with tofu...get my point? Anyway, I happened to have a carton of vegetable stock in the fridge, and used that instead.

Next step is more veggie stock, mixed with teriyaki or stir fry sauce and a little corn starch. Look how thick the sauce got - pretty quickly, too!

I borrowed some Bragg's Aminos from the office for Lucas to try. We noticed that some of the soy sauce we had been eating has corn syrup in it, so I keep meaning to buy some of this at Natural Foods. We also realized that there's less sodium in this, while tasting really salty, and that would be better for us, considering we tend to overdo it on the salt sometimes.

The finished product:

This may be the best food picture I've posted on here!

End result of our experiment - it was absolutely delicious!! We'll definitely be making tofu a semi-regular part of our menu!

Off to watch the last 2 minutes of the game!!! Good night!!

Best. Dessert. Ever.

2009-09-07T23:10:00.003-04:00

At least since the last one. So good that I had to write another post tonight.

Breyer's chocolate + banana jam + Jif All Natural PB + crumbled up pretzels. YUM!!

The Jif All Natural PB is so much more creamier than the regular!

Ok, THAT is the way to end the evening. Good night!

Mix. Chill. Eat.

2009-09-07T20:40:00.003-04:00

We spent our day off being busy! We spent so much of the rest of the weekend being slow and lazy, we woke up this morning and decided to get our butts moving and take advantage of the free day. We took care of a bunch of errands downtown - got the oil changed on the car, went to the pharmacy, dropped some things off at mom's. We also did our very first beach sweep for the NMB Browns Backers. We, as an organization, have adopted a beach access to keep clean. Lucas, Nathan, Dorian and I went down and spent about an hour picking up trash. We got a 40 gallon bag full of stuff - off the beach and into the trash. One of the locals came up and thanked us, and we all left feeling like we made a little bit of a difference.

Lucas had never been to Natural Foods, so we decided to go check it out. We got some ideas for some foods that we'd like to pick up, and ordered a veggie burger for lunch to share. It was really good!

Back at home, we went to check on the garden. We got a pretty good harvest today, and got to pick our first eggplant!!

We had so many banana and jalapeno peppers, that we thought it would be a good day to use the last two canning jars we had and preserve some of them. We got one jar of sliced jalapenos and one jar of whole banana peppers - canned and shelved.

For dinner we had catfish, potato salad and corn on the cob. Corn was on sale this week at Bilo 5 for $1.00, and was probably the best corn we've had all season!

Lucas set up his stations for breading the catfish. We wanted to try beer as the liquid rather than milk or eggs. What a great choice! It gave the fish a little extra flavor!

Lucas did an excellent job on the fish. It was delicious!
The potato salad was a new creation. We watched a show on Food Network the other day and she made a potato salad that looked quick, easy and good. Lucas refuses to eat mustard, so we haven't had potato salad all summer, because that was the only way I knew to make it. I decided today that I was going to throw one together using no mustard, just to see how it would come out. He suggested using a little sweet potato to see what that would do. The end result is that this is my new favorite potato salad!

My Potato Salad Recipe

2 russet potatoes, peeled, cooked and cubed
1 sweet potato, peeled, cooked and cubed
2 hard bolied eggs, peeled and chopped
1/2 green pepper, diced
2 tbsp mayonnaise
1/2 tsp celery seed
1/2 tsp mustard seed
1 tsp minced onion
1/2 tsp garlic powder
salt and pepper to taste

Mix. Chill. Eat.

Great way to end the day!
(well, until I sneak out for a snack!!)

Long, Lazy Weekends...

2009-09-06T18:05:00.004-04:00

are the best!!!!! I tend to lose track of posting on here over the weekends and until a few minutes ago, thought I didn't really even have much to say. Going through my pictures though, I came up with a thing or two. :)

I got out of work early on Friday, so we got the grocery shopping done and the house cleaned all before 5:00. Lucas is the President of the Cleveland Browns Backers club in North Myrtle Beach, and we had a friend coming over to put together raffle prizes for the upcoming season. It looked like an NFL store exploded in my living room. This was only half of the stuff we're giving away
While we were out shopping I finally bought some much needed new measuring spoons. I think I had three random ones - the others lost somewhere along the way (one was eaten by the garbage disposal.) I picked up these cute measuring spoons for $1.50!! I'm so glad to have the whole set! Is it completely lame that I'm so excited about this?

While the guys were working on football stuff, I decided to satisfy my craving for chips and dip that I'd had all week. I wanted some onion dip, like the kind that you make with sour cream and Lipton soup mix, but decided against it after reading the ingredients list on the box. I wanted to make some from scratch, so I got creative and came up with this recipe:

1/2 cup sour cream
1/3 mayo
1 tbsp minced onion
1 tsp season salt
1/4 tsp white pepper - more if you want
1 tsp Lucas spice (dehydrated onion/garlic/jalapeno mix)

Mix together. Chill. Eat.

It was BETTER than the soup mix, very oniony with a little bit of spice. If you're wondering what the Lucas spice is, that's the onion, garlic and jalapeno we dehydrated and powdered and jarred for spicing things up. I'm not sure what you could use as a substitute - maybe just some onion powder, garlic powder and red pepper flakes for the spice of the jalapenos? Just get creative. The main part of the dip is the onion, so you can add anything else you want.

We ended football planning by hanging a flag out front. Looks great!

Saturday we sat around and watched the Ohio State vs. Navy game (Ohio State won!!!) Chuck was dragging around his last mutilated toy, so I grabbed some old socks and made him a new one. He loves it!

Saturday evening we had some friends over for some ribs and coleslaw and beers. Look how beautiful the sky was! Cotton Candy Clouds!!

Today was spent recovering from last night. We've laid around the house and watched some movies and just have been munching on leftovers from the fridge. We tried this new tea we found at Big Lots on Friday. Big Lots has a surprising variety of (cheap) organic foods and drinks and household supplies. This bottle of tea was 70 cents! It was really refreshing. I told Lucas that it was so crisp and clear that it tasted like I imagined a cold mountain stream would taste....plus some berry juice. Very good find!

We bought this "brownie" at Lowes Foods on Friday since it was on sale. Being made of dates, it wasn't completely like a brownie, and had a fruity hint to it, but I could have been fooled if I didn't know what it was.

We just watched a great movie about the introduction of Napa Valley wines to the world during a blind Parisian taste test in 1976. It's not one we would have picked to watch, but it was on tv so we did. I'm glad we did, it was very interesting, and an entertaining movie. Check it out!

Tonight we're planning on more movies, dinner and bed. So glad I've got one more day before I go back to work!

Lotsa veggies

2009-09-03T22:55:00.003-04:00

I wasn't going to post tonight, mostly because I'm lazy, but tonight's dinner was so good I had to write about it! It was a completely vegetarian meal (would have been vegan if I hadn't added milk to the mashed potatoes!) I stole this recipe for Skillet Gardener's Pie from here.

It's basically a huge pile of veggies, with a vegetable stock/cornstarch gravy and mashed taters piled on top. I changed the veggie list a bit - no celery in the fridge, and I added some zucchini and the rest of the corn we've been trying to eat up.

We served ours with some grilled zucchini and the last of the grilled leeks. The three leeks we bought seemed expensive at $4 for three of them, but we've gotten at least 4 meals out of them...not too shabby!

That's it! I assure you it tastes 100 times better than it looks. If I'm going to continue this blog thing, I really need to take a class in food staging and food photography - if there is such a thing!

Oh, I also want to mention my delicious breakfast today. I left the camera at home, so no pics, but it was Stonyfield Organic Yogurt - Vanilla with Chocolate on the bottom, mixed with Kashi GoLean Crunch. Try it out - it's wonderful, and surprisingly filling! I'm trying it again tomorrow with the blueberry flavor of the yogurt...my last one :(

Ok, that's all I've got for tonight! Looking forward to HOPEFULLY a half day of work tomorrow and then another three days off!

Good night!

Eating Up All the Berries!

2009-09-02T21:48:00.004-04:00

As I mentioned, we got a great deal on blackberries and raspberries the other day at Lowes Foods. They had 6 oz packages on sale 5 for $5. We had to pick them up after the sale, on a rain check, because it was such a great deal and they couldn't keep them in stock. We had lots, and have been picking at them all week, but today was about the last day we were going to be able to eat them before they all went bad. So this morning, for breakfast, I took a handful and ate it with my Stonyfield Organic Yogurt, which was also on sale at Lowes this week - 49 cents each!!

My mid-morning snack was some delicious banana jam and peanut butter on crackers. I brought it in to share with the office, and couldn't stay out of it!

After work we all headed out to the garden and got quite the harvest today! Lots of jalapenos, green bell peppers and some tomatoes. One of the tomatoes may be too green to have brought in, but when I grabbed it to look at it, it came right off in my hand!

Dinner was some stuffed zuchinni, and stuffed pepper for Nathan, since I can't get him to eat zucchini yet. While that was making, I decided to use up the berries in a cobbler. I had about 1/2 a cup of buttermilk left in the fridge that I had intended to make buttermilk biscuits with, and decided to make a biscuit topping for the cobbler with it instead. I surfed around online for a bit to try to find a recipe to use, but couldn't find one that I liked - one that didn't have sugar. So...I made one up!! I love that I'm getting confident enough with the cooking and the way things go together that I can make my own recipes!!

First I picked through all the berries, put them in the dish I was baking in, and mixed them with some honey and lemon. They looked like this:

So juicy and gooey, already!! I mixed the biscuit topping, put it on the fruit, and tossed it in the oven. After a little bit I checked the oven to see how it was coming, and was so excited to see the juicy berries oozing out over the biscuit!!

And here's the finished product!

We put it on some Breyer's All Natural Vanilla while it was still warm. I made Lucas try it first, since I was nervous about it being good. He's my guinea pig around the house!! He loved it, and we shared this bowl full, though I will admit I ate most of it!

Here's the recipe! ENJOY!!!

Fresh Berry Cobbler

For the biscuit topping:

1 1/3 c. sifted flour
2 tsp. baking powder
3/8 tsp. salt
1/4 tsp. baking soda
1/3 c. shortening
1/2 c. buttermilk

1/2 c. milk

1 egg, beaten

Combine all dry ingredients in a medium bowl. Cut in shortening with a pastry blender until ingredients resemble coarse crumbs. Add egg, buttermilk and milk all at once. Stir quickly with fork only until dough follows fork around bowl.

For the fruit:

3 – 6 oz. Packages of fresh berries – blackberries, raspberries, blueberries or strawberries

½ cup honey

3 tbsp lemon juice

Mix berries, honey and lemon juice in a small casserole dish. Drop biscuit mix by spoonfuls on top of the berry mixture to cover. Bake in a 400° oven for 35 minutes.

Banana Jam

2009-09-01T21:42:00.005-04:00

I tried a new experiment on Sunday. I came across a blog that talked about banana jam, as in something to spread on your peanut butter sandwich. It sounded great, but was loaded with sugar, which Lucas can't eat, so I wasn't sure if I'd make it. I saved the blog page, and couldn't get the idea out of my mind. Finally I decided to do it, but do it my way.

Banana Jam Recipe

Ingredients

juice of one lime
3 1/2 very ripe bananas
3/4 cup of honey
1/2 cup water
1 1/2 tsp of ground cinnamon

Lightly mash the bananas in a bowl and mix in the lime juice.

Pour the water and honey in a pot and bring to a boil, while stirring.

Add banana mixture and cinnamon and boil over low heat for about 30 minutes or until thick, stirring constantly. The mixture will thicken as it cooks.

The jam is done when a spoon scraped across bottom of pan leaves a track that closes slowly.

Once you’re done, spoon the jam into hot sterilized jars and seal.

So I made it, and sealed it, and put it in the fridge.

Tonight after dinner we decided to try it out, hoping for the best. When I jarred the jam, it was still a bit runny, so I wasn't sure what we were going to get. What we got was such sweet, banana-y goodness, I couldn't believe it! If you've ever had banana baby food - which is AWESOME - this is alot like it, but with more texture.

We made some sandwiches out of whole wheat bread, Jif All Natural Peanut Butter, and banana jam. YUM!!!!

I imagine that this would be great on pancakes, or in oatmeal, or on top of chocolate ice cream. Hmmmm, we have some - maybe I'll go try it now!

Good night!!
If you're interested in the sugar recipe, you can find it here.

The Week in Review

2009-08-31T22:03:00.010-04:00

This may not be the most exciting post, but I let myself get so far behind, that I feel like I really need to just do a recap of the last few days, just so I'm caught up!

Starting off with last Wednesday - I had to post this picture of the Side-by-Side Quiche that we made. It looks so yummy! We made half of it with just bacon, for Nathan, and the other half was bacon, broccoli and baby bella mushrooms, for us!

Served up with some watermelon and sauteed zucchini sticks...YUM!

The next couple of days were boring food days. We had Subway on the beach Thursday night, and Friday night was an AWFUL tuna casserole. You don't want to see that....

Saturday we went grocery shopping, and for once, only went to one store! I had my rain check for berries (5 packages for 5 bucks!!) for Lowes Foods, so that's where we headed. We had to buy a loaf of french bread, to make the pizzas we planned for Saturday. I've always wanted to have a big loaf of bread sticking out of my paper bag. Doesn't it seem like in movies that EVERY time someone goes grocery shopping, they have french bread sticking out of the bag?? So here it is - french bread, wine and some leafy greens - just like the movies! (I'm adding this after the original post...apparently I'm not the only one who likes the look of this, though I should have taken it out of the plastic bag. Here's a related funny little story!)

Saturday afternoon we headed to Freestyle Music Park with the kids. SO MUCH FUN - and plenty of stuff for a separate post! We got home pretty late, but didn't eat at the park, so I got to work on the french bread pizzas.

Chuck was just waiting for me to drop something!!

I totally meant to take a picture when they came out of the oven, but there were only about two bites left of my pizza when I realized I hadn't done it! We were HUNGRY!

The next morning I woke up early and decided to invite my whole family over for breakfast. I had bought a quart of buttermilk last week to make Lucas's birthday cake. I had more than 3/4 of it left, so I had to find things to make with it! I started out with a big batch of buttermilk pancakes. My sister was the only one to come over from my mom's, since she had to work, and everyone else was still in bed. More for us!! We topped the pancakes with some of my Lowes blackberries and raspberries, leftover blueberries and mashed bananas. YUM YUM YUM!

I spent all morning in the kitchen, and did a spring (late summer) cleaning. I scrubbed every single surface! Then I messed it all up again! I made a buttermilk pie to send back to mom's. I'm not sure how it turned out and didn't take a picture. No one has called to say it's wonderful, so I may have been a big FAIL, but who knows...at least the buttermilk got used! I have about 1/2 a cup left, just enough to make some buttermilk biscuits to bake and freeze tomorrow night.

Before breakfast I had gone out to the garden and done a mini-harvest. We had grown some garlic chives, but gave up on finding them early on. I went two weeks without weeding, and once I went out, I couldn't tell which were the chives and which were the weeds. Sunday morning I went out and grabbed a handful and could easily tell which were the chives. The smell was SO strong! I decided to bring them in, chop them up, and dry them in the dehydrator. Nathan has already eaten them on his potatoes twice, so that was a success!

A little more of the recent harvest - tomatoes, jalapenos, banana peppers

Lunch was a salad of boiled eggs, mixed greens, blackberries, feta and Full Circle Organic Tuscan Italian dressing. YUM!

We had some company while cooking dinner on the grill. This little guy hung out on the cooler for a bit.

Dinner was completely done by Lucas - grilled salmon with dill, griled potatoe with monterey jack and chives, and grilled mixed veggies....sooo good!

That brings us to tonight, when I tried to make some chicken empanadas. Lots of work, and I wasn't impressed. Chicken, cheese, peppers, spices inside little pockets of pie crust, baked. The stuffing was good, the crust I could do without. Lucas liked it though, so it was still a success!!

That catches us up on the food front! Off to bed!! Good night!

Chuck and the Computer

2009-08-27T15:41:00.005-04:00

I'm going to have to post a non-food entry tonight, since we spent the evening on the beach and just had sandwiches - not too interesting! I'll write some more about my puppy instead!

Chuck has been fascinated with our computers since he came to live with us. Lucas and I lay in bed at night and we each have our netbooks in our laps, either surfing, or paying bills, or writing blogs. When Chuck was younger, he would stand next to the computer and chase the mouse pointer across the screen, and bark at it if he couldn't catch it. That has worn off some, but he's found a renewed interest in the last week.

I visited one of the message boards that I sometimes live in, and one of the members made the statement that he thought the board was broken because every time he came in, he could hear crickets chirping. Me, being the big joker that I am (yeah, right), thought it would be funny to post a YouTube video of crickets chirping.

Chuck was entranced by it. Ears cocked, standing at attention, with his face right on the screen watching the cricket - it was hilarious! We tried to record the whole thing, but the sound didn't work on the recording.

I decided to look for another video to entertain the pup. I came up with this:

Chuck went WILD!! It was funny to watch his reaction to different animals! He loved the birds and the monkeys. When the lion roared, he jumped backwards on to Lucas's lap. He didn't like the cats either, but I think that's because he had a run-in with one the other night!

After the video was done, he was all worked up. He ran around a bit, then jumped up on the bed. I had put away the computer, but he got up and started scratching in the spot on the bed wear the computer had been, as if the sounds were coming from the bed. He finally gave up after realizing he was getting nowhere!

A few days later I played the video again, this time in the living room. He got up on the back of the chair, behind where the computer was sitting, to try to find the animals. So cute...

(I had a really cute picture to insert here, but my stupid phone wouldn't let me have it...)

Last night I had left my computer open, sitting on the bed when I went to tuck Nathan into bed. When I came in, Chuck was laying flat out on the bed with his nose resting on the keyboard, just staring at the screen. I think he wanted the animals to come out and play!

Try the videos on your dogs! I hope it is just entertaining Chuck, and not making him too nuts, but it's too cute to keep to myself! I had to share the story!

Busy Night!

2009-08-25T22:56:00.004-04:00

Wow! I got A LOT of stuff done tonight! Right after work, I headed back to Lowes Foods. They are having a sale this week on raspberries and blackberries - 6 oz packages - 5 for $5!!! When we went to our usual store last night, they were out. I tried the Myrtle Beach location after work, and they were out, also. They were nice enough to give me a raincheck, and I found some blueberries on sale, so it all worked out in the end. Unfortunately, I had planned to use the raspberries later this evening for a special something...don't worry, you'll see what soon...but I ended up with a GREAT back up plan.

My son, Nathan, requested bacon turkey burgers for dinner tonight. Lucas threw these on the grill, while I came up with the sides. I used up the last of the potatoes from Saturday's party, with some jalapeno to cover the "fish" taste, as Nathan called it. Worked perfectly - spicy fried potatoes! I fried a few pieces of bacon for the burgers, and thought about the leftover leek greens from the night before. Though I had never done it, I know it's common to cook collards, or other greens in bacon grease. I did a quick search online to see what the thoughts were on the leek greens, since Alton Brown didn't tell us how to use them, and although no one seemed to be a fan, I decided to give it a shot. I'm so glad I did - they were SO tasty. I'm sure that they'd be just as great sauteed in olive oil. We've got two leeks left in the fridge, so I'm sure we'll have them again, maybe with some of the baby bella mushrooms we bought! Some of those made it to the burgers, you just can't see them!

After dinner it was time to make my big surprise. It occurred to me today that I never made Lucas the birthday cake I promised him!! He can't eat sugar, and since we're trying to stay all natural, we try to stay away from any artificial sweeteners. I found a recipe for Chocolate Honey Cake that I wanted to try, with a sugar free icing recipe that came along with it. When I thought I was getting berries, I was going to add some raspberry extract, instead of the vanilla the recipe called for, and top it with raspberries. Since that didn't work out, I decided to use the strawberries I had. I'll post my (revised) recipe under another post, as I need to rewrite it. The changes I made to it were to add half a banana to the cake mix (the last honey cake we made was a bit dry, and I thought it would add an interesting flavor) and I juiced 5 strawberries and added the juice to the icing. You can see the pieces of strawberry in the icing if you look hard enough!

I was worried about doing the double layer cake, as I had never been able to do it successfully, but it came out perfect! I need a little practice at icing the sides, but it was pretty enough!

Lucas was very surprised, and very happy.

The cake was so moist! I wish the picture didn't come out so blurry!

While the cake was cooling, Nathan and I recovered the kitchen chairs. Nathan had pulled the seats off the chairs the other day, and pulled out every staple from the last cover job I did. There were LOTS of staples, since I really don't know what I'm doing! Lucas and I picked out the fabric and I covered them tonight, and put the seats back on the chairs, with lots of help from Nathan. Finished results:

Now we just need to buy some new accents to go with the chairs to pull everything together. I'm excited about the new look!

So, after all that, once again I'm exhausted. I'm even skipping my situps tonight. My back is aching from hovering over the chairs and I'd really just rather sleep!!

Good Night, Everyone!!!

Don't do what I did....

2009-08-24T21:50:00.008-04:00

Right after work tonight we needed to do our grocery shopping. We had done some over the weekend, but it was mostly for the party. I love when our grocery bags look like this on the inside!

And I especially love when it looks like this on the outside! I got this reusable bag at the Disney Store, for something like $1.50. It's my favorite!

A week or so ago we saw an episode of Good Eats that was all about leeks. I really had no idea what a leek was, but Alton Brown can make anything look like something you want to run out and buy, so we did. As a refresher course we watched it again while prepping dinner. You can watch the episode here.

Is it weird that I think leeks are pretty cool looking?

We grilled and braised the leeks, as instructed in the Good Eats episode, and they were SO good. They didn't come out as pretty as Mr. Brown's, but that's because knives and I don't always agree. Make sure to cut the leek right down the middle (not all crooked, like I did) and it will stay together better on the grill. Doesn't change the taste though! Oniony, but not so much, kinda sweet, so good. YUM!

We found some catfish chunks on sale at Bilo for $2.00. We got two packs, for some reason, probably because I shouldn't shop when I'm hungry. I've never cooked catfish before. We breaded them with italian bread crumbs, ground mustard, celery seed and red pepper and pan-fried them with some olive oil. MORE YUM!!
We had some farmer's market green beans that NEEDED to be used up. We also had been thinking about mashed cauliflower for awhile. We didn't use fresh, but the frozen tasted just as good. Boil the cauliflower, add a tbsp of butter, 1/4 cup or so of milk, a handful of swiss cheese, salt and pepper and throw it in the food processor until it's the consistency you want. DO NOT try to use an electric mixer (like I did) or you WILL get cauliflower flying about the kitchen (like I did). Food processor is best.

We topped it with some of our new favorite all purpose dill dip. It's good for really anything. Of course, you need to make sure that you do not mix up the lids from the parsley jar and dill jar (like I did) or your dip will not have much flavor. Thankfully I figured out the problem, and added more dill to fix it.

Finished product:

The above picture was my attempt and making a pretty looking layered appetizer...leek, cauliflower, catfish and dill dip. It didn't look pretty, but it tasted awesome!

So, as a wrap DO what I did, and try this awesome meal, but DON'T mess up the process nearly every step of the way!! In the end it all worked out, so it's ok!

Good night!!

Low Country Boil Chowder

2009-08-23T23:27:00.005-04:00

As I told you in my last post, we had lots of leftovers from our Birthday "Stone Soup" seafood boil on Saturday. We figured the best way to finish them up is to create a giant soup that used all that we had left. As promised, here's the recipe!

Low Country Boil Chowder

6-7 slices bacon, cut in tiny pieces
1 med. onion, chopped
1 c. diced celery
4 c. diced potatoes, cooked
1 ½ c. seafood stock (see below)
3 c. milk, warmed
1 (16 oz.) can whole kernel corn, or 4-5 corn scraped from the cob
1 tsp. salt
1 tsp. pepper (or more to taste)
1 tbsp. butter
Clams, oysters, crawfish, mussels, shrimp left over from the boil (or fresh, cooked – as much as you want)

STOCK: Place all crab shells (or shrimp, oyster, clam, etc) in a large pot and cover with water. Bring to a boil and let simmer for 20 minutes or so. Strain broth through cheesecloth and discard shells.

In a large heavy saucepan fry bacon until crisp. Remove bacon and drain on paper towel. Pour off fat except for 2 tablespoons. Add onions to saucepan and saute until transparent, not brown. Add potatoes, celery and stock. Bring to the boil, then reduce heat. Cover pan and simmer for 10 minutes or until celery is tender. Add remaining ingredients and heat just to boiling. Reduce heat to low and let simmer for at least an hour. The longer it simmers, the better the flavors mix.

If you need to thicken the chowder, I mixed 2 tbsps butter and 2 tbsps flour, added stock until I had a thick mix, and added it to the soup. While cooking, it will thicken.

Enjoy!!

Happy Birthday Lucas!

2009-08-23T23:04:00.007-04:00

Lucas had his 38th birthday yesterday. For weeks we couldn't decide how to celebrate it, changing the plans from going out, to just spending time on the beach, and maybe a cook out at home in the evening. Last week, we came up with the idea of inviting over all of our friends and doing a Stone Soup kind of dinner, only with seafood and potatoes and corn, in the style of a Low Country Boil. If you don't know the Stone Soup story, it goes like this:

The Story of Stone Soup

Once upon a time, there was a great famine in which people jealously hoarded whatever food they could find, hiding it even from their friends and neighbors. One day a wandering soldier came into a village and began asking questions as if he planned to stay for the night.

"There's not a bite to eat in the whole province," he was told. "Better keep moving on."

"Oh, I have everything I need," he said. "In fact, I was thinking of making some stone soup to share with all of you." He pulled an iron cauldron from his wagon, filled it with water, and built a fire under it. Then, with great ceremony, he drew an ordinary-looking stone from a velvet bag and dropped it into the water.

By now, hearing the rumor of food, most of the villagers had come to the square or watched from their windows. As the soldier sniffed the "broth" and licked his lips in anticipation, hunger began to overcome their skepticism.

"Ahh," the soldier said to himself rather loudly, "I do like a tasty stone soup. Of course, stone soup with cabbage -- that's hard to beat."

Soon a villager approached hesitantly, holding a cabbage he'd retrieved from its hiding place, and added it to the pot. "Capital!" cried the soldier. "You know, I once had stone soup with cabbage and a bit of salt beef as well, and it was fit for a king."

The village butcher managed to find some salt beef . . . and so it went, through potatoes, onions, carrots, mushrooms, and so on, until there was indeed a delicious meal for all. The villagers offered the soldier a great deal of money for the magic stone, but he refused to sell and traveled on the next day. The moral is that by working together, with everyone contributing what they can, a greater good is achieved.

So we asked everyone to each bring a bit of the following: clams, oysters, crab legs, mussels, shrimp, potatoes, corn or sausage. We ended up with more food than we ever imagined! Luckily, one of our friends owned a huge steampot to cook it all in, and brought it along. She even brought the "stone" for the soup - a brick to set the steam basket on! Perfect!!

Yum!!!!!

It was fun watching the guys figure out how to dump the food once it was done!

We ate, drank and were VERY merry through the night, and had a great time with all of our friends. I count it as one of the best get-togethers we have EVER had!!

We had so much food leftover, that I needed to come up with something to do with it. The mystery was solved with a seafood chowder, and an afternoon of crabs and beer today! Around lunch time we covered our coffee table with newspaper and dug right in!

We made a seafood potato corn chowder for dinner, served with a fresh new loaf of the jalapeno bread. I will post the chowder recipe, but in a separate entry, as I don't have it all written out yet.

DOUBLE YUM!!

Another weekend ends with a great dinner, True Blood (SO GOOD TONIGHT!!) and situps - we did 90 tonight!!! Ouch!

The kids start school tomorrow, so I really should already be sleeping! I guess I just am not ready for the weekend to end!

Good night, all!

Don't Know What You've Got 'Til It's Gone!

2009-08-21T23:00:00.011-04:00

Well, the week of pretending we're vegetarians has come to an end. And it ended at lunch today with a humongous tuna sandwich. While we enjoyed all the vegetarian meals we tried this week, we were both happy to become carnivores again! Don't get me wrong, I could do it, if I had to, but I don't, so I won't. Welcome back, meat. You've been missed.

We finished up our vegetarian week with a delicious dinner of spaghetti squash and eggplant parmasean. Neither of us has ever cooked spaghetti squash before, but quickly learned it's easy, as most squash is. Simply cut it in half, gut it, place it face down in a dish and cook it at about 375 for about 30 minutes. Once you can stick a knife in it easily, it's done! Take it out of the oven and scrape it top to bottom to get a stringy mess of squash.

The eggplant was easy, too. Peal it, slice it, bread it, bake it. We breaded it in an egg and some italian breadcrumbs, placed it in a pan with marinara sauce and mozzerella cheese and baked it for about 30 minutes at 375. So easy!!

We had it with a bit of our leftover cheddar jalapeno bread. What a great ending to
vegetarian week!

This morning for breakfast I finished off the last of our pint of blueberries, using them to top my new favorite cereal. More Big Lots discount priced Kashi - this time one of the GoLean flavors, I believe Honey Almond Flax Crunch (I think, I'm not 100% sure of that title!). It's the best yet!

Lunch was a tuna, lettuce and tomato sandwich, with cantaloupe and cherries, and Full Circle ginger cookies for dessert. No pic - I ate it too fast!

Finally, dinner...after being SO good all week, and not even having red meat in nearly a month or so, we decided on cheeseburgers tonight. I swear it was the best cheeseburger EVER. Burgers on an onion roll, topped with good ol' American processed cheese, mushrooms, onions, tomato, spinach and mayo. YUMMMMM!!

So yeah, we strayed a little from our path tonight, but it was SO worth it. And surprisingly, I'm not even feeling yucky like I expected to!

After dinner we started preparing for the big party tomorrow. It's Lucas's birthday, and we're having a bunch of friends over to make seafood steampots and hang in the backyard. I made some veggie dip and chopped up veggies, and Lucas made a batch of almost-famous salsa.

Salsa fixins:

Once the cooking was done and the cleaning was complete, we settled into bed for some websurfing and old Criminal Minds episodes. Drinking Game Alert: Watch Criminal Minds and drink every time they say "unsub". You'd be surprised!! NOT that we're doing that tonight! Actually, tonight we opted for Full Circle Organic Chocolate Soy Milk and Full Circle Ginger Cookies. DOUBLE YUM!

So the night is over, and once again I'm skipping the sit-ups. Bad, bad girl. But I'm sleepy, and I think it's time to follow Chuck's lead. Good night!

Blueberries

2009-08-20T10:00:00.015-04:00

One of my favorite summer superfoods is the blueberry. We've been eating quite a few of these this week, since our trip to Indigo Farms last weekend. This farm is known locally for it's blueberry fields, and there are days that you can go pick your own. We haven't done that yet, but it would be a fun adventure! They also have a produce market, with some great prices, and what seemed to be a flower market, though we didn't go to that side of it.

Before I go on, let me point out that I have NO education in nutrition, other than what my nutritionist has taught me and what I've learned myself online. We all know you can't believe everything you read on the internet, but I believe the links I'm going to post here are reliable. Just remember - I'm no expert!

On WebMD, I found an article regarding Superfoods that was the basis for the list I previously posted. This is what they say about blueberries:

Blueberries -- Antioxidant Superfood

Packed with antioxidants and phytoflavinoids, these berries are also high in potassium and vitamin C, making them the top choice of doctors and nutritionists. Not only can they lower your risk of heart disease and cancer, they are also anti-inflammatory.

I'm not sure what a phytoflavinoid is, and couldn't seem to find a good definition online anywhere. So I kept looking for more articles on blueberries that had words that meant something to me. I found a great article here. It sets out all the health benefits of blueberries, their nutritional information and even a history of blueberries. I found it interesting that they weren't marketed as a food until 1916! This site also has a link to some recipes, though I haven't checked them out yet.

Here's a recipe I featured earlier in my blog, but only with a link:

Banana Blueberry Bread
Ingredients
1 3/4 cups flour, all-purpose sifted
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon Salt
1/3 cup Butter
2/3 cup Sugar
2 large Eggs
1 cup Bananas mashed
1 cup Blueberries

Directions
60 minutes Prep: 10 minutes Cook: 50 minutes
Sift together flour, baking powder, soda, and salt. Set aside.
Cream butter and gradually beat in sugar until light and fluffy.
Beat in eggs one at a time. Add flour mixture and banana alternately in three parts. Gently stir in blueberries.
Turn into oiled 9 x 5-inch loaf pan. Bake at 350 degrees for 50 minutes. Turn out of pan to cool.
____________________________________________
And finally, though it actually has nothing to do with food, here's a video preview of a new book by one of my favorite authors.

Blueberry Girl, by Neil Gaiman

Pictures Speak Louder than Words

2009-08-18T22:23:00.009-04:00

I'm tired tonight, so you get pics, with short descriptions...

Breakfast on Monday - Kashi cereal with bananas and blueberries from Indigo Farms

Lucas working on grinding the dehydrated onion, garlic and jalapenos for a spicy powder seasoning

End result...YUM
Dinner last night - spinach mushroom quesadillas, bean and cheese nachos and homemade salsa. Lucas makes the best EVER!
Yum...SALSA

Yummy, Messy bite

Today's breakfast - Kashi Maple Oatmeal and more blueberries

Tonight's dinner (credit for recipe to follow) BEST QUICHE EVER

YUMMY CHEESE

So fluffy and delicious....

Walking off the dinner with Chuck

A pic of us...

See, what happened was...Chuck went after the dog statue, then got tangled in the pole, and Lucas tried to get him out, and Chuck followed him...quite entertaining!

Then it was home to rest...well, after the 71 situps! I'm wiped out tonight!!!

Vegetable Lasagna Recipe

2009-08-16T21:01:00.003-04:00

Here it is!

* 9 uncooked lasagna noodles
* 1 teaspoon olive oil
* Cooking spray
* 1-1/4 cups chopped broccoli
* 3 chopped carrots
* 6 chopped scallions
* 1-1/2 minced garlic cloves
* 1 big can mushrooms
* ½ red pepper
* 3 tbsp butter
* 3 tablespoons all-purpose flour
* 1 cup milk
* 1/4 cup fresh Parmesan cheese
* 1/4 teaspoon pepper
* 5 oz frozen chopped spinach
* red pepper to taste
* 1cup low fat cottage cheese
* 1 cup low fat mozzarella cheese, shredded

1. Boil lasagna noodles per directions on the box.
2. Saute carrots, onions, garlic, mushrooms and peppers and broccoli in olive oil. Sauté until tender and set aside.
3. Combine mozzarella and cottage cheeses and red pepper in a bowl. Mix until and set aside.
4. In a saucepan, stir together flour and butter until well blended, then add milk. Heat to boiling, stirring constantly. Remove from heat when thick (it will take about 5 minutes). Season with pepper and add 1/8 cup of Parmesan. Stir until smooth, then mix in the spinach.
5. Spray a 9×9 inch baking dish with cooking spray. Spread 1/2 cup of the spinach mixture on the bottom. Next, then lay 3 lasagna noodles over the spinach mixture (you may need to cut noodles to fit the pan).
6. Pour spinach mixture over the noodle layer to cover.
7. Spread ½ cheese mixture over the noodles.
8. Spread half the carrot-onion-broccoli mixture over that, then add another layer of noodles.
9. Pour spinach mixture over the noodle layer to cover.
10. Spread the rest of the cheese mixture over the noodles.
11. Spread the rest of the carrot-onion-broccoli mixture over that, then top with a layer of noodles.
12. Spread the rest of the spinach mixture over the noodles and sprinkle with 1/8 cup Parmesan cheese. If there is not enough, add a little cottage cheese and milk and heat until thickened, then spread on top.
13. Cover and bake at 375 degrees for 30-35 minutes. Let stand 10 minutes before serving.

Two in one day!

2009-08-16T20:45:00.005-04:00

Yes, I'm actually posting twice in one day - can you believe it??

Just a quick recap of the rest of our day, which was VERY relaxing. We spent quite a bit of time just sitting on the couch and catching up on some shows we had on DVR. I finally got around to take a shower and head out to do the rest of our shopping. We needed to go to Big Lots to try to find some looseleaf paper for the kids for school, since there was NONE at Walmart last week. While we were there, we also picked up some All Natural Peanut Butter treats for Chuck, and stocked up on some Kashi products. They had some amazing deals on Kashi - GoLean cereal for $2.50, TLC chocolate coconut bars for $2.00 and microwave oatmeal for $2.00. I figure all of these were AT LEAST half off of normal prices. I was so excited, since we don't usually buy Kashi because of the price. After that, we ran to Bilo to grab some last minute groceries for the week, then back home to the couch.

For lunch we made some chip dip out of the left over roasted red pepper sauce from last night, mixed with some sour cream and eaten with Full Circle Organic Potato Chips. I LOVE these chips! We also had grilled havarti cheese sandwiches on Earthgrains Wheatberry bread, topped with some spinach, and a tomato on mine. YUM!

Some more lounging on the couch, then cleaning up the house a bit, weeding the garden and it was time to start dinner. I made the vegetable lasagna that we discovered a couple of months ago, with a side of jalapeno cheddar bread. YUM! Times Two!

I think I already posted my veggie lasagna recipe, but I'm not sure. If I didn't, I'll do it again in a bit.

Ok - True Blood starts in less than one minute - so I gotta run! Hope everyone has a wonderful Monday!!

Mmmmm veggies!

2009-08-16T12:42:00.012-04:00

Well, so much for trying to keep up! It's Sunday and I haven't posted since Thursday! We've been pretty busy since Friday, so I haven't really had time to get on here.

Friday morning started with breakfast at work, as usual. Lucas bought some Grape Nuts cereal, and I was excited because I had never tried it before. I made a bowl of it for breakfast and topped it with some of our homemade banana chips.

Looks yummy, but I wasn't a fan. I ate the banana chips, but got rid of the rest of it. I think they'll be good to use in recipes though, as breading, stuffing, etc. I was still hungry so I grabbed a Larabar that I had purchased. Kath, over at Kath Eats, eats these all the time, and I was curious so I picked up a few on my last trip to the store.

SOOO good! It only had dates, peanuts and salt, but tasted just like a peanut butter cookie! It was absolutely delicious!

We had an early lunch for the office at Olive Garden. I shared some artichoke spinach dip with Michelle, and had the portobello mushroom ravioli with cheese and sun dried tomato sauce. It was so good, and not too much to eat. We all decided to get dessert and share. I had a bit of the Black Tie Mousse cake, Lemon Sponge cake, and an amazing donut square dipped in chocolate.

After work we went to have some drinks with friends, then had to hit Walmart to buy some cleaning supplies for my cleaning job on Saturday, and something for dinner. Friday marked our first day of a week of pretending we are vegetarians, so we needed to pick up something quick and full of veggies. We decided on quesadillas, which were delicious and really quick to make. We didn't cook the veggies before putting them on the quesadilla, so they still had a bit of a crunch. It was so good we didn't even use the salsa we put on the plate! Tortilla, chedder jack cheese, red onion, jalapeno pepper, red pepper, green pepper toasted in olive oil just until the cheese melts and the tortilla is brown. Delicious!

Saturday I stupidly skipped breakfast and headed right to my cleaning job. That was HARD work. I cleaned a 6 bedroom/6 bath house and a 3 bedroom/3 bath house in 3 hours and was ready to DROP. I was starving when I got done, so I ordered some Vegetable Chow Mai Fun from the chinese place down the road. It was loaded with broccoli and hit the spot. Then we headed out to our weekly shopping trip. Holden Brothers Farm Market, Indigo Farms, and Lowes Foods were on the list. As always, we got a HUMUNGOUS bag of veggies at Holden Brother and then went in search of Indigo Farms. There we bought some blueberries and a huge watermelon, which was just $2! We also grabbed an eggplant for dinner later in the week. It's a really nice little place, and I'm sure we'll be going back! Lowes Foods was great as always, and we got some great help from Customer Service, especially from Paula, the manager. We had been having trouble with our Esavings, and they fixed it all right away.

Last night my sister came over and we had the Portobello Mushroom burgers that she had been begging for. We topped the night off with a bottle of wine and followed the Browns game online - then headed to bed.

This morning we woke up and decided to make Oatmeal Blueberry Pancakes. Another win!! I found the idea on Kath's blog, and changed it a bit to make it my own.

Here's the recipe, and some pics:

1 1/3 cups oats
3 eggs
2 tsp baking powder
2 tsp vanilla
1/2 banana, mashed
cinnamon to taste
Blueberries

Mix all together, make into pancakes (makes 5 medium size). Melt butter in pan. Add pancakes to hot pan. Flip when they start to get firm and won't fall apart when flipping. Serve with preserves, mashed banana or maple syrup.

I figured out a great way to mash bananas that aren't quite overripe enough to be mushy. Squeeze the banana slightly while it's still in the peel. Eventually the peel will split and a half-smashed banana will come out. Finish the rest of the mashing with a fork and it's easier then trying to mash a firm, ripe one!

Well, I think we're all caught up now! Today I plan to be lazy. I'm going to throw together some jalapeno cheddar bread - in the bread machine (cheating again!) and vegetable lasagna for dinner. Then it's True Blood!! I love Sunday nights!!

Grab your life preserver!!

2009-08-13T13:06:00.009-04:00

Lots of random stuff today, beginning with our new office duck! Meet our mascot for the 5th Annual Paws Across the Water Duck Derby! This is a race on the waterway to profit the North Myrtle Beach Humane Society. Businesses and individuals can purchase rubber ducks, they get dropped in the water to "race", and whatever duck gets to the finish line first, wins!

Created by our office receptionist, Liz - all out of her own creative mind!

Speaking of Liz, here's a picture of the giant watermelon I mentioned last night:

I had a little of this with my lunch today. My breakfast was a super juicy grapefruit, and a bag full of grapes. For lunch, I brought some egg salad, lettuce and tomato. We were out of bread at home, so I had to run to Bilo. I was so glad to see that the Earthgrains bread we have grown to love was once again free with 2 lbs of produce! I went back to the produce section and grabbed a huge bunch of firm, just ripe, bananas. The banana chips in the dehydrator last night were pretty much a fail (Lucas liked them!) so I wanted to make some good ones. You can tell just by this picture that they are going to be better than the last batch!

We also threw in a batch of jalapeno and banana peppers (from the garden!), onions and garlic. We want to powder the onion and garlic to make some seasoning. Look at how big our banana peppers have gotten!!

For dinner tonight we kept it pretty simple. My son, Dalton, had requested porcupine meatballs for dinner, which I usually serve with mashed potatoes and corn. Since Lucas and I aren't eating ground beef (for the most part) and the canned soup was FULL of stuff we don't want either, we decided to eat the mashed potatoes, with some sauteed mushrooms and onions, topped with brussel sprouts. I have to say that this was quite possibly THE most filling dinner we've had lately! I am still stuffed!

Lucas would like me to point out his cool new Google Phone - and even further, the cool Ohio State picture on the phone!

We ended our evening with our sit-up program. We're up to 67 sit-ups now! I'm still trying to get a good form and do them the right way, but I'm learning! My shoulders and neck were sore all day today because I'm doing it wrong and pulling myself up with my neck. I did better tonight - Lucas pointed out that I need to be doing more of a crunch and not lay back down all the way.

Well, I have to stay awake until midnight tonight to get the next batch of stuff out of the dehydrator. I'm going to try to read some more Harry Potter without falling asleep...wish me luck!

Best Day EVER!!

2009-08-12T20:26:00.016-04:00

Well, maybe not ever, but it was definitely a good one, which I needed after yesterday. Yesterday was filled with computer problems at work, kid problems at home and was one of those days where it seemed best to just call it a day and start over tomorrow. Once the house cleared out and calmed down, Lucas and I decided to make an spontaneous "what's in the fridge?" dinner. We decided on some mashed potatoes and veggies, which became an "out of the crust" pot pie. We had some left over chicken from Sunday's cook out, and I mixed up a quick gravy, added the chicken and the Full Circle Organic Mixed Veggies that were left in the freezer and like magic, we had a yummy, hearty dinner that we didn't even know was there!

At the same time, we decided to make our Sweet Watermelon Rind Pickles. We had the watermelon soaking for 2 days, which is 1 day longer than instructed, but I had forgotten to buy sugar the day before.
The recipe was super easy to make, and I just hope that I did it all right! The one thing I had to change was that I didn't have whole cloves, allspice and cinnamon sticks. I used the ground spices and mixed it right in with the syrup. I was a little disappointed because it turned the syrup brown, of course, so I added a little red food coloring to the mix....

And to the wine glass...

And to my face.... I made a mess.

In the end, the jars came out pretty great.

After dinner, we made a special recipe given to me by my boss. He calls them Monkeys in a Blanket. It goes like this:
2 slices of white bread
drizzle of honey
sprinkle of cinnamon
1 banana
2 tbsp of butter, melted.

Roll out the bread with a rolling pin until good and flat. Drizzle honey on the bread and place 1/2 a banana on top of that. Roll the bread around the banana. Sprinkle the cinnamon in the melted butter, then roll the bread/banana in the butter to coat. Place in a 400 degree oven for 15 minutes and you get sweet, hot, gooey, sticky, toasted bananas.

We finished the night with some tv, which Chuck rather enjoyed, too.

Today started out good enough - got to work, no computer issues, got some stuff done. Then I got a message on Twitter from Lowes Foods. They had read my blog entries about their store (see below)and thanked me and offered to send me a free cookbook! Score!!!! I decided right then that I need to pay more attention to my blog, since it's already paid off and I didn't even try!! That led to my awesome husband creating the new title for me...great job, baby!! Then, this afternoon, my brand new food dehydrator arrived at the office. I had mentioned to my boss that I really wanted one, and he went ordered one for me right away! Best Boss EVER, and I'm not exaggerating that one! Finally, my friend and receptionist, Liz, bought a HUMONGOUS watermelon at Bilo (I swear it weighed at LEAST 50 pounds!) She came and asked me to help her cut it up and that used up the rest of my dragging afternoon. I'm hoping to have a picture to post soon so you can see just how huge it is! I sent her my watermelon pickle recipe so she can use the tons of rind she'll have left over!

So I rushed straight home, put down my bags and broke out the dehydrator immediately! I sliced some bananas, apples and kiwi and got them going.

For dinner, I somehow ended up with 5 kids here to feed, so I made them the old standby of grilled hot dogs and a pan of macaroni and cheese. Lucas and I had stuffed cabbage rolls. We had some leftover Spanish Rice from Saturday. I boiled some cabbage leaves and sauteed some chopped up zucchini, mushrooms, pepper and onion. I added the left over spanish rice and some diced tomatoes to the mix and warmed it all through. The cabbage leaves came out so green and not rubbery like cabbage usually is. I wrapped up the rice stuffing, put them in a little casserole dish, topped them with more tomatoes and baked them. Soooo yummy!!

And that brings us to now. Lucas and I have barricaded ourselves in the bedroom and let the kids have the living room and the Xbox. Time for some tv and the stack of Better Homes and Gardens, Southern Living and Cooking Light magazines that are piling up, neglected by me.

Have a great night, everyone!

A Busy Weekend!

2009-08-10T22:32:00.004-04:00

Wow, we did A LOT this weekend!! Friday night was spent quietly in front of the tv. Neither of us really felt like cooking, so we ran and got some Chinese and watched a couple of movies. First up was The Soloist. It was a really interesting movie, and in several spots had me inspired to want to do something for the homeless, or just people in general. As a result, on Saturday morning we decided to make sure that the organizers of our favorite local charity, Feed-A-Family, were aware that we want to be completely involved in their work this year and do anything we can. We then watched the new Terminator movie, and I stayed awake through most of it, which is not a small feat for me that late at night!

Saturday morning we got up and planned our shopping trips for the day. We ended up hitting 4 stores - the Farmer's Market, Lowes Foods, Bilo and Food Lion. It was well worth all the stops. We got a GIANT bag of veggies at the farmer's market for $13. At Lowes, we found more reasons to love the store. On top of the great sales that we got again (organic milk for $2.99, down from %5.69!), the clerk we had went out of her way to help us when we had issues with our discount card. Also, they don't ever try to bag the milk there! Seems like a small thing, but I hate always having to tell the bagger not to bag the milk - it's such a waste of a bag. During the trip to Bilo, we learned that if you bring your own bags (which we actually remembered, for once) they give you a 5 cent discount from your bill for each bag. We only had two left once we got there, but I'm just excited that the incentive is offered. Score one for Bilo! Eventually I will get around to reviewing that store, also. I just haven't had time yet!

Saturday afternoon was a cooking marathon! We had family coming in that was very interested in what and how we've been eating, so we wanted to give them a real taste of it all. We made our homemade white bbq sauce to grill with the chicken. We had made hummus earlier in the week, and also made a batch of guacamole, and a batch of dill dip out of sour cream, mayo, dill weed and a few other spices. I think it's our new favorite dip!! After that it was apple coleslaw. I planned to get a lot more done, but my feet were killing me! I threw together some spanish rice for dinner, then we played some trivial pursuit and poker with Katie and Ryan.

Sunday morning we got up and started all over again. Watermelon rind was sliced and soaked to start the watermelon rind pickles. I meant to get them canned tonight, but forgot to stop and get the sugar. I mixed up some egg salad for the week, to get rid of the boiled eggs in the fridge. I threw together a pistachio pudding pie, with graham cracker crust (all sugar-free) for Lucas. The pudding isn't the most ideal dessert, but I wasn't up for making anything too involved after the rest of the cooking. Friends and family came, we ate the appetizers and dips and eventually it was time to cook the dinner. Lucas grilled the chicken, while I made the zucchini cakes - which were a HIT with everyone! Sunday night ended with True Blood and some Full Circle All Natural potato chips, with the sour cream dip, and one exhausted me.

So, not a lot of pictures, sorry for that! I'm really going to try to be better this week and get back into the groove of blogging! I have a couple of good posts to write, I just need time to form the thoughts.

Headed to sleep now, have a great night!

And back to your reguarly scheduled program

2009-08-05T21:03:00.003-04:00

I haven't said anything the last couple days about our meals! The night before last Lucas took over, and we had some grilled shrimp-kebobs with shrimp, mushrooms, peppers, carrots and a side of grilled avacodo, topped off with some brown rice (my only contribution!) It was so tasty!

Last night we weren't sure what to do, but we came up with an on the spot creation. Pitas filled with chicken breast (left over from pot-pie night), red and green peppers, onions and jack cheese, with a side of oven fried potatoes. It was so good! No pictures though, sorry!

Tonight's meal was planned ahead of time. We had planned to have tilapia and zucchini cake, and while Lucas was at the store to get the zucchini, he found some huge ears of corn on sale, so he threw them on the grill with the fish, while I made the zucchini cakes. Recipe here

These were so tasty, we ate SEVEN of them. The plan had been to have that as the main dish, and the fish on the side, since we only had a very little bit of fish, and I'm glad they turned out as tasty as they were!

After dinner we made some fresh hummus. It was totally trial and error, and Lucas had to swoop in and save the day, as he has MUCH more patience than me and I was getting very frustrated. We made it from dried beans, rather than canned, and it just wasn't going the way I planned. In the end, we just kept throwing things in until the consistency was right, and it came out great. I can't wait to warm some pita and eat some, but I'm still stuffed from dinner! The basic recipe was: a pound of dried garbanzos, cooked; lemon juice; olive oil; water (to moisten the mixture); jalapenos; cumin; salt. No measurements available, as we just kept tossing more in as needed.

Ok, off to watch the rest of my shows for the night, then some Harry Potter Chamber of Secrets. Good night!

Introducing Chuck!

2009-08-05T20:14:00.008-04:00

We have a Juck Russell who is absolutely adorable, and acts just like a little kid. He needs attention, wants to play and makes it known, and has to be right there with us, no matter what we do. Chuck came to us last fall, thanks to my co-worker Missy. Chuck's brother, Toby, lives with her, and the breeder, who planned to keep Chuck (then known as Charger) decided she couldn't keep him, and asked Missy to help find him a home. Missy asked me, and we decided to bring him home with us. He was right at home almost immediately, and I broke every dog rule I ever had. He gets on all the furniture, sleeps between us most nights, and eats every table scrap we can feed him!

Chuck has joined us eagerly with our new way of eating. He's figured out that if we're in the kitchen and say "Oops" it means that we've dropped some vegetable or fruit on the floor and it's all his. I will admit that we tend to drop things on purpose! He has figured out how to get to the compost pile, and knows that right after we dump some stuff out there, it's time to forage and get the goods. He really enjoys laying in the yard and gnawing on corn cobs!

Chuck just celebrated his first birthday. We took him to play down in Myrtle Beach at the awesome dog park they have. It's all fenced in and the dogs can run and play. He was by far the smallest dog there, surrounded by Great Danes and German Shepherds, but tried to play leader of the pack. He definitely got his exercise that night. After that we headed to see our buddy Paul at The Baker's Dog, in Myrtle Beach. Paul had a puppy birthday cake ready and waiting for us, and we also picked up a six pack of doggy bagels.

All the products are baked fresh right in the bakery, and Chuck is a huge fan. I love the people-pops. They look like little gingerbread men on a rawhide (I think) stick. I tried to get a picture of him eating his cake, but he devoured it TOO quickly!

We try our best to feed Chuck the best food we can get, in our price range. Right now we're feeding him Rachael Ray's brand, called Nutrish. I learned awhile back from our local pet store that the best dog foods are ones that do not have corn meal, or any other corn filler, as a lead or top ingredient, since corn doesn't usually process and passes right through, leaving most of what the dog eats with no real nutritional value. In Nutrish, there are no meat by-products, fillers, artificial flavors or preservatives, and the lead ingredient is meat. It's comparable in price to the other dog foods, that are usually filled with corn meal, and there are coupons available online for a significant discount.

I think that about covers all I have to say about Chuck. He's laying here now between us, just waiting to be told it's bed time - which will be soon!!

Lowes Foods Shopping Trip

2009-08-04T14:00:00.003-04:00

We made our shopping trip on Saturday to Lowes, and really had a chance to check out the whole store. I really liked it, and we'll definitely be going back!

The first thing I want to mention is the HUGE selection of organic/natural products that they offer. Every single section of the store had Full Circle products, from produce, to pasta, to frozen vegetables and even diapers (not that we needed any!!) The produce section had the normal organic produce that every store has, but then they also had another section with some organic produce you don't usually see. We didn't get any, since we had just left the farmer's market - but we definitely made a mental note. In the deli, they offer Boar's Head meats and cheeses, which are all natural. Throughout the rest of the store, the Full Circle products were abundant and comparable in price to the non-organic foods, if not cheaper in some cases! We bought all we could!

The Instasave section of the website was definitely worth the time it takes to point and click. We got eggs for 39 cents, and lots of other deals that shoppers off the street didn't get. The sales in the store were pretty good, too. At the end of the day, almost every single thing we bought was on sale!

On top of the savings at the register, at Lowes you earn S&H greenpoints for every trip. Right now, we only have about 900, which gets us a sale on bananas and lettuce. 3600 points will get you free milk, 3800 will get you free butter, and there are loads of other deals. You can also donate your points to charity, like the local food banks or schools, if they participate.

The store was very clean, and very well organized. The people who work there are friendly and the best part - the bag boy offered paper bags!! No plastic if you don't want it!!

We'll definitely be making Lowes one of our regular shopping stops!!

Catching up!

2009-08-03T09:21:00.013-04:00

Looks like I have some catching up to do here after a long weekend of no posts from me! This one is going to be picture heavy, to make up for not having many in the last few posts.

Last time we got together here, it was Friday night and we had just eaten my yummy steak-spinach rolls. You'd think that would have filled us up, but at about 10:30 Lucas and I both decided we needed a snack. We rooted through the kitchen and came up with nachos! I had a can of refried beans that had been patiently waiting to be used up, so I warmed them up with some jalapenos and banana peppers (from the garden!) a little onion, cayenne and chili powder and spread all that on some tortilla chips, smothered it in cheese and broiled it. It was better than we thought it would be - and gone in about 4 minutes!

Friday night (Saturday morning?) brought some crazy twists and turns, and we ended up having Dalton and Brianna with us. Brianna, who is 7, was up bright and early and ready to spend the day with us. Lucas slept in (not much sleep was had by anyone the night before) so Brianna and I went out to the garden so she could pick some peppers and beans with me. We cleaned up the kitchen, and I took her out to dump the compost bin from the kitchen, and taught her a bit about composting while we turned the pile. The soil out there is looking amazing, and I can't wait to use it next year! Then we went inside and made some baked apple oatmeal. A cup of oatmeal, a couple of diced apples, a bit of cinnamon, nutmeg, salt, and about 1.25 cups of milk, in the oven for 30 minutes and it's warm, gooey apple oatmeal.

The rest of Saturday was spent shopping (Lowes review to come soon!) and on the beach, which I thoroughly enjoyed and really needed. Saturday night we had dinner at mom's, which was pork chops and gravy and after eating it, I realized I shouldn't have. It didn't settle well. It's unfortunate that with all our "clean" eating I can't enjoy some of my all-time favorites as much as I used to!

Sunday was a day of resting and cooking. I love that every Sunday is becoming a ritual of sorts and we spend all day in the kitchen! Yesterday we made strawberry & cream banana bread, pickled some cucumbers and some jalapenos/zucchini/red pepper/carrots, and made chicken pot pies from scratch, which Lucas and I both agree are in our top ten favorite meals ever!

Here is the bread - it tastes as good as it looks!

This is me pretending I know how to pickle things! We followed recipes online, but changed them up a little bit. I hate that we have to wait so long to see how they turn out!

We have pickles!!

Lucas did all the prep work on the pot pies. Actually, he did the prep work, cooked the veggies, made the crusts - much more work on these than I did!!

Chicken pot pie veggies - potatoes, red pepper, mushrooms, garlic, onion and some Full Circle organic frozen mixed veggies

Pot pies, pre-baking

Finished product - SO good, especially with some white wine!

And that brings me to this morning. Breakfast was a huge, juicy Kiwi, orange juice and some Kashi honey grain cereal that we got at the new Big Lots yesterday for $1.80! Got in two superfoods and probably half of my recommended whole grains for the day, which I don't eat enough of!

Ok, on to work, and later will be my Lowes Foods review! My plan is to have a productive, positive day!

Foods that are Super!

2009-07-31T20:10:00.008-04:00

One of the things I'm learning more about these days is superfoods. Wikipedia defines Superfood as "a term sometimes used to describe food with high phytonutrient content that some may believe confers health benefits as a result". Different websites have slightly different lists of what are considered superfoods, and I'll let you research that yourself, but here is the list I've put together:

apples
avacado
beans
blueberries
broccoli
brown rice
butternut squash
cinnamon
dark chocolate
extra virgin olive oil
garlic
honey
kiwi
oats
onions
oranges
pomegranate
pumpkin
wild salmon
soy
spinach
sweet potatoes
tea
tomatoes
turkey breast
walnuts
yogurt

Wow, that's a long list. Yesterday, I printed it and put it right on the fridge, so I can always be aware of what I need to be eating a little of as much as possible. I've been eating some of these foods right along, without realizing the great benefits of the foods. The other morning I made a breakfast of pomegranate blueberry yogurt with oats mixed in, and a glass of pomegranate blueberry juice to go with it. This was before I even knew that all four were on the list!

This is one of my lunches I had during the week. It was more of that yummy Earthgrains bread with some cucumber (from the garden!), mayo and turkey and a side of apple and grapes. It was delicious!

Today, I had LOTS of superfoods on my menu! After a breakfast of my now typical microwaved eggs and toast, I made a lunch of brown rice, with some steamed veggies, including broccoli, and mixed in some cheese and some homemade salsa, which of course, was made with tomatoes. After lunch I had a couple of pieces of dark chocolate, which normally I would consider cheating but HA! It's on the list!! Tonight for dinner we made some thin steaks, stuffed with spinach, garlic, olive oil, Parmesan cheese, portobello mushrooms, sundried tomatoes, and broiled in the oven for a few minutes. We had a side of some red skinned mashed potatoes, and left over spinach mix.

We pretty much hit the superfoods jackpot with that dinner!!

Tomorrow we have plans to hit the farmers market, the big Lowes Foods shopping trip, then hopefully the BEACH!! Cross your fingers for some sun!! Off to watch a movie and cuddle with the hubby! Good night!

You can do it, too!! Organic shopping at Lowes Foods

2009-07-29T14:05:00.014-04:00

I haven't had too much to say this week, since the kids are home and that kind of limits what yummy food we get to experiment with. We try to appease Dalton, the picky one, with foods he'll eat while he's home, so it gets a bit repetitive. Yesterday was a good day for me, foodwise. I had some of my microwaved eggs and cheese with a toasted slice of my homemade bread machine bread for breakfast. For lunch I had a cucumber (from the garden) and turkey sandwich on the yummy Earthgrains bread we got for FREE at Bilo last week. If you bought 2lbs of produce (duh, of course we did) you get a loaf for free. We opted for the Wheatberry, and it may the best bread I've had, ever. Not sure how much it is to buy, but I'll be checking into it! I finished off lunch with an apple and some grapes. All that held me over until dinner, where we grilled chicken with our White Alabama Sauce, grilled potatoes and sauteed fresh spinach and portobello mushrooms. YUM!! I actually only ate the veggies!

Anyway, since I haven't had a lot to say about what we're eating, I decided I'm going to do a little learning. We spend so much time focused on shopping, and sales, and buying new foods, that I thought I needed to learn a bit about the stores we go to. A normal weekend shopping trip for us has become going to the farmer's market, Lowes Foods, BiLo and Food Lion, to hit all the sales. We get the fliers, plan menus for the week, make our lists and hit the road. I'm very surprised at how much I LOVE to grocery shop, when it used to be such a chore!!

Yesterday I spent A LOT of time on the Lowes Foods website, and learned a lot. The thing I love most about Lowes Foods,is that they carry an inexpensive line of natural and organic products, called Full Circle Foods. Most of this stuff is only 10 cents or so more expensive than the regular products, and is sold right along side of the regular ones, so you don't have to shop in that exclusive, expensive organic section. I was really surprised at the huge selection they offer, and I'm so glad that people like me can benefit from lower priced products that are so good for us! Other grocery stores are also beginning to offer this, so don't be afraid to try it out when you see the organic label!

We haven't spent much time actually browsing in this store, and at first glance, it seems pricier than the others we go to. However, the website offers up tons of sales that you don't get in the store. They have a page on their site called Instasave. You log in with your member card, click on the sales you want to take part of, and they automatically get applied to your card. When you get to the store, the savings are automatically there, and not available for the general public. I've got my list for this week, and am saving nearly $20 that other people won't be saving!

I was also impressed with the Lowes Foods Community/Charity work section of the web page. They seem to do a lot with the communities that they do business with, so that's a little more incentive for me to want to shop with them.

Ok, I feel like a Lowes Foods commercial!! We'll be doing our primary shopping at this store this week, just to check it out a little more in person. I will report back! Expect some "reviews" of the other stores we shop at - coming soon - including the farmer's market!

Going along with some of the theme of today's blog, take a minute to read this article. It's about not being afraid of your "diet". By diet I don't mean - way to lose weight - but just the daily foods you eat and the lifestyle that goes with it. This article talks about eating healthy, but that it's ok to stray from your "plan". It's a good one, written by Kath Eats blogger, Kath, who I read every day!

Ok, I think I've made up for the last few days of not blogging much! I'm leaving work now (yes, I posted this at work..oops) and headed home to RELAX, I hope!! Spaghetti on the menu tonight...boring!

I'm such a slacker!

2009-07-27T21:35:00.005-04:00

So the weekend got REALLY busy and I haven't blogged AT ALL! I'm afraid I'll get out of the habit, so I'll just fill in some blanks about the last few days and start right on track tomorrow!

Thursday I got a visit from my long-time friend from elementary and high school, Alice, and her boyfriend Shawn. They got here before I got out of work. We grilled the last steaks we had in the freezer and had some grilled potatoes/broccoli/mushrooms and grilled corn. We topped it off with some Mothership Wit. I don't think Alice was much of a fan, but the rest of us enjoyed it! We found out that Shawn also used to skate, and knew alot of the same people as Lucas did back in the day, and they were like long lost friends. I'm really glad they got along as great as they did! Next it was off to House of Blues for a Rancid show! It was even better than last year, I think! We stayed through the Rise Against set, which I was NOT impressed with, nor was I impressed with the sold out show full of sweaty, slimy, stinky guys. Guess I'm getting old.

The next day I worked a bit, then we hit the beach for a bit before the storms came. Look at the awesome picture my sister got of the clouds coming in on the beach:

We went home that night and did nothing, we were so tired from the night before. Dinner was an organic pasta with sun-dried tomatoes, zuchinni and mushrooms.

Saturday we invited my sister and her kids, and our friend Ryan for some dinner, beers and Wii. We grilled some turkey sausages and made a macaroni salad. I was disappointed that we couldn't get the organic pasta at Bilo - but I'll remember that for next time! We played Wii until the wee hours and finally went to sleep - LATE!

Sunday brought a day of cooking, as is becoming the norm. I made Rocky, our best man from our wedding, a batch of the mac&cheese that he loves, and added some bacon for him. The bread this week was cheating a bit. Nathan requested plain old white bread machine bread (which we sliced and toasted tonight and it's delicious!) I also made some peanut butter cookies (also cheated-pillsbury ready made Simply Peanut Butter cookies). We had the New York Style pizzas again, and I have to say, the first night we had them, I enjoyed them much more! I think freezing the dough was not the best idea!

Back to work today, and it was a long one! Tonight we just had turkey burgers and leftover macaroni salad...maybe we'll get more interesting tomorrow - it's not as easy when the kids are home!!

A little Rancid to take you out.....good night!

Not the cucumbers!!!!

2009-07-22T21:06:00.005-04:00

Yes, we've been infiltrated. The bugs have crossed enemy lines and have killed off my cucumber. I was out there just yesterday and everything was fine! Tonight, the plants were covered with bugs and three large cucumbers had been drilled into and turned yellow. All overnight! I'm so disappointed! So, we doused everything with the organic pesticide and are hoping for the best. The peas are also already lost, but I had given up one them already. The cucumbers were thriving! So, I'm crossing my fingers and hoping the bugs wander into oblivion. On a good note, we FINALLY have tomatoes growing, and I can't wait to get a good harvest!! Also, we discovered that the jalapenos that were turning red aren't problematic, just mature. Apparently jalapenos are usually picked when they aren't quite ripe, and that's why we're used to seeing green. Anyway, the peppers are fine!

Today was a day for food! This morning I had my now regular microwaved scrambled eggs with tomato and a slice of wheat toast. Snack was some delicious banana chips. The boss took us to lunch at a Thai restaurant. I had sushi - a mexican roll and a california roll. I was so stuffed that I couldn't make dinner when I got home! Lucas had to suffer and wait, but while we waited, we watched a movie that I had caught wind of over on the Joe Hill message boards. See below:

I would have lived without watching it, but I've seen worse. Definitely different.

Finally, we got around to making dinner. Tonight was some clean-out-the-freezer stuff. We had two peices of flounder and about a cup of scallops. We grilled the flounder, and some broccoli, and a box of Uncle Bens wild rice with sun dried tomatoes. I sauteed the scallops and threw them in the rice, along with some bigger sundried tomatoes that we had bought for the pizzas the other night, but forgot about. Add a glass of Sam Adams Summer Ale, and you've got another great meal!

I'm probably calling it a night very soon. A little Harry Potter and then sleep!

Mashed potatoes are good......

2009-07-21T21:10:00.005-04:00

Especially when they're stuffed inside of a baked potato! Tonight we had twice baked potatoes with a mushroom, onion, jalapeno and bacon topping, and grilled zucchini and squash on the side.

I bought GIANT baking potatoes, microwaved them, scooped them, mixed the scoopings with some sour cream, milk, butter and salt and pepper and replaced the potato into it's shell. In the oven at 350 for 20 minutes and voila, twice baked potatoes! With about 4 minutes to go I added a few shreds of monterey jack cheese to melt on top. In the meantime I made a blend of veggies for a topping, and fried some bacon to crumble on top. The veggie topping started with some garlic and crushed red pepper browned in some olive oil. Add chopped portobello mushroom, red onion, jalapenos from the garden, a little bit of chicken stock and a little bit of cream and you get a saucy, spicy, veggie topping. We sliced and grilled the zucchini and squash for about ten minutes. It was all delicious, as always!!

We topped dinner off with a Sam Adams Summer Ale. It's as good as it looks!

Not much else to say about today. I'm pretty wiped out after the last couple of crazy days at work. I think I'm going to settle in and watch the end of the season premiere of Hell's Kitchen, and call it a night!!

What's for dinner tonight?

2009-07-20T21:24:00.005-04:00

Tonight is Shrimp Tacos with Cilantro-Lime Sour Cream! So yummmy!! I added some diced cucumber and banana pepper straight out of tonight's harvest of the garden. The avacado we used wasn't super-ripe, but added a great texture to the dish, and the cucumber was a cool, softer touch. We doubled the recipe and used burrito shells rather than the fried corn tortillas. We also took the shortcut of using pre-cooked shrimp, so it didn't get to marinade in the spicy olive oil, but we cooked it for the five minutes and it was still delicious. My stomach is actually starting to growl again thinking about it!! The picture in the link is awesome - here's our version:

Here's what happens when you use too much cilantro lime sauce mixed with too much shrimp sauce from the pan:

I think dessert will be some Breyer's vanilla ice cream (ALL NATURAL!!) with some strawberries and banana added to it...yummmmm

Here's in interesting article to read about not being afraid of restaurants.

That's all I have for tonight! Going to get some ice cream now!!

Squash bugs, sit-ups and new music!

2009-07-20T14:10:00.005-04:00

I was thinking that maybe anyone reading this may not want to read ONLY about what we're eating. Since this blog is about the "newlyweds learning about life, love and happiness", I thought I'd add a little variety about life today.

One of the things we've learned about gardening this year, is that there are LOTS of different bugs that are specific to the plants they attack, that we had no idea existed. Our cabbage, beans, peas and squash were ravaged by pests before we could figure out what to do about them. A few weeks after the attacks started, we found this organic pesticide recipe online. It did the trick with getting rid of the bugs on the cabbage and beans, but not soon enough. We only have one cabbage plant that may or may not still make it. The jury is still out on the beans. There's lots of new growth, and not a bug to be found, but not much going on with them, either. The pests on the peas were just discovered yesterday, so we haven't done much with them yet. We totally lost the squash though. However, I came across some ideas here for getting rid of the squash bugs. I can't wait until next year to try the ideas!

On another subject, Lucas has been kicking some butt with this new push-ups challenge he's doing. He's up to 40 a day now. I keep talking about doing the sit-up challenge, but haven't done it yet. I think tonight I need to give it a shot! I'd love to have the ambition to start running, or at least walking, but I just can't get myself to do it! Lucas has inspired me to start the sit-ups though...so I'll get moving on it!

Finally, I just want to introduce one of my favorite new artists! Ladies and Gentleman, I give you Ray LaMontagne!

Grilled Portobello Mushroom Sandwich with Roasted Red Pepper Cream Sauce (AND DIP!)

2009-07-20T13:57:00.004-04:00

Grilled Portobello Mushroom Sandwich with Roasted Red Pepper Cream Sauce
makes two sandwiches

Ingredients:
• 2 portobello mushroom caps
• extra virgin olive oil
• salt
• freshly ground black pepper
• Monterey Jack cheese
• baby spinach leaves
• Roasted Red Pepper Cream Sauce (below)
• hamburger bun or Kaiser roll (we used onions rolls – any will work)

Preparation Instructions:

1. Preheat your grill.
2. In the meantime, wash all of your veggies. Remove the stem from the portobello mushroom caps, Wash the spinach and set it aside, and slice the cheese.
3. Place the portobello mushroom caps upside down on a plate and sprinkle them liberally with extra virgin olive oil and a little salt and pepper. Make sure they’re nice and wet, so that they can soak up all of that juice as they cook.
4. When the grill is hot, carefully transfer the portobello mushroom caps to the grill without spilling their contents. Add the cheese to start melting.
5. Watch the mushroom cap carefully. When it starts to blacken and wrinkle around the outside, check the middle with a fork. If the cap is very soft and pliant, and the fork sinks in without any resistance, it is done. Take it off of the grill.
7. Meanwhile, right before the mushrooms get done, toast the bun or Kaiser roll on the grill.
8. When everything is done, spread some Roasted Red Pepper Cream Sauce on both sides of the bun. Assemble the sandwich with the mushroom and the baby spinach leaves. Add a little salt and pepper if needed. Enjoy!

Roasted Red Pepper Cream Sauce

• 1 large red bell peppers
• 1 tablespoons minced garlic
• 1/8 cup fresh basil
• 2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
• ¾ cups half-and-half
• 1/4 cup grated Romano cheese
• salt and pepper to taste

DIRECTIONS

1. Preheat broiler. Halve the red pepper and remove the seeds. Lightly coat the red pepper with olive oil. Grill pepper under the broiler until the skin is blackened, and the flesh has softened slightly. Place the pepper in a paper bag or resealable plastic bag to cool for approximately 30 minutes.
2. Remove the skin from the pepper (the skin should come off the pepper easily now). Cut pepper into small pieces.
3. In a skillet, cook and stir the garlic, basil, and red peppers in the olive oil over medium heat. Cook for 10 minutes, so that the flavors mix.
4. Place mixture in blender (careful it is hot), and puree to desired consistency. Return puree to skillet, and reheat to a boil. Stir in the half-and-half and the Romano cheese; cook and stir until the cheese melts. Season with salt and pepper to taste. Simmer for 5 minutes or until thick.

Serve as is, or you can mix this with one part pepper sauce, two parts sour cream for a delicious vegetable/chip dip.

A year ago today....

2009-07-19T20:36:00.007-04:00

I met the man of my dreams. We talked about spending the day together and then going to the place we met to have some drinks with some friends, in honor of the day. What I love about who we are in our lives right now, is that we chose to stay home and clean up the house and work on projects and cook and garden rather than going to the bar. I think spending the day together like we did gave more meaning to this last year than anything else could have. We are truly lucky to have found each other, and to have realized what we found, when we did.

So, the day started with me playing on the computer and not wanting to do much of ANYTHING! We decided to finally roll out of bed and have some juice and eggs. I made the juice, Lucas made the eggs, which were delicious!!! The juice today was a new one. It had cucumbers, carrots, apple and lemon. I have to say, I was NOT a fan. Drinking a cucumber just doesn't feel right. I drank half of mine and gave the rest to Lucas, and opted for the Pomegranate Blueberry juice that I bought at the store the day before. He, however, loved the juice and drank it all down - to wash down the eggs he made, mixed with all the veggies from last night's pizza and some monterey jack cheese. Top it off with a slice of wheat toast, and it's one great breakfast!

House cleaning got done and then we decided on turkey burgers and a spinach, mushroom, olive salad for lunch. We melted some havarti cheese on the burgers and I used our homemade salsa from last week as a salad dressing/condiment. Lucas sprayed a little balsamic vinegar dressing on his salad. This all looked really awesome, but I was so hungry I forgot to take a picture first!

We headed out and cleaned up the back yard, after yesterday's mowing, and puttered around the garden a bit, harvesting some cucumbers and discovering that we have some BABY watermelons growing!! We then headed out front to weed the front flower beds. Next we came inside to watch a little zombie movie - perfect way to spend the "anniversary"...hehehe.

Once the movie was done, I was back in the kitchen. First I prepped the peppers for roasting and made some fresh lemonade. First time - so some adjustments were made to the recipes I found. Came out yummy in the end. Then on to the Banana Blueberry Bread. I only changed one thing in this recipe, I got rid of the sugar and added the same amount of honey, instead. I haven't tried it yet, but it's on the counter cooling and looks great. I will report back!

Dinner was Grilled Portobello Mushrooms with Roasted Red Pepper Cream Sauce and Spinach on a toasted onion roll and a side of fresh hash browns. I do believe that this dinner beat last night's dinner!!

The picture definitely doesn't look as good as it tasted...but I never claimed to be a photographer!

As I was cleaning up after dinner, I realized that the leftover red pepper sauce would make an awesome dip when mixed with sour cream. I mixed some up, and that'll be our snack tomorrow night, maybe!

I'll be back to post the recipe for dinner and for the dip, but right now I've got to get off of here and watch True Blood!!! Sunday means True Blood, which is great, but True Blood means it's Sunday night and the weekend is over...not so great!

A Perfect Saturday

2009-07-19T09:01:00.012-04:00

Saturday was spent mostly doing nothing, which made it perfect. We woke up VERY late, laid around, and eventually started planning this weeks menu and grocery list. I love that it's becoming a project for us - finding new recipes, trying our best to buy all natural. This week, more than half of the list was from the produce department. The rest was dairy, breads and just a couple of things in between. When I got home to put groceries away, the only thing that went in the cupboard was the popcorn! Everything else was fresh and to be kept in the fridge. For the first time, all the veggies and fruit didn't fit in the crisper, so now the shelves are overflowing with it! When we got home we went to check out the garden, which is becoming jungle like! The watermelon is literally taking over the whole right side.

The tomato plants are taller than me, but have yet to produce even one tomato!

Our compost pile is probably the prettiest, most useful compost pile ever! We have pretty purple flowers growing out of it, and some kind of vegetable plant, that's even blooming. I'm assuming its from the seed of something we threw away in there, but I'm not sure yet what it is. The leaves don't match any of the plants currently in my real garden, so I guess we'll just wait to see what it produces.

The compost part is definitely working though! That soil is probably better for whatever is growing in it than what's in the garden, which is very sandy. I'll be thrilled to use the compost on next year's garden!

We ate pretty well all day. Lucas had a bagel for breakfast, and I made some scrambled eggs with tomato and some Hormel All Natural salami mixed in. I made a batch of fresh apple carrot juice and it was delicious! Lunch was a turkey, lettuce, mayo sandwich and some pretzels. Then there was dinner. We planned to make a White Pizza, NYC style. First thing I learned last night was that I need to ALWAYS read the recipe before I try to make it. I had no idea that the dough was supposed to set overnight. We went ahead and used one of the balls anyway, and hoped for the best. Rather than just a plain cheese pizza as the recipe calls for, we added: roasted red peppers, portabello mushrooms, chicken, broccoli, black olives and a banana pepper from our garden.

The picture just doesn't do it justice. It was one of the best meals I've ever made!! We're going to play with the recipe for next time - a little less ricotta and a little more mozzarella and spice.

Well, off to start the day. Today is exactly one year from the day we met, and we plan to have a couple of drinks with friends this afternoon at the place we met. Other than that, housecleaning, some fresh lemonade and a (hopefully) delicious loaf of banana blueberry bread are on the schedule!!!

A day late...

2009-07-17T08:50:00.004-04:00

I did SO well yesterday with my menu! Yesterday started with delicious microwaved eggs with tomatoes and a piece of Nature's Own Honey Wheat bread. I had no idea how easy, and good, microwaved eggs would be for a work breakfast! I had that with some Tropicana oj and some Lipton berry tea.

Lunch was brown rice (again in the microwave, didn't work out as well as the eggs - must adjust the time!) mixed with some of our homemade salsa and cheese. I had a snack of my homemade applesauce oatmeal bread. I shared that with Liz and Scott and ended up sending Liz the recipe.

Dinner was a couple of leftover chicken pieces that we had in the fridge. We made it earlier in the week. We're now making all of our own bbq sauce, to avoid the corn syrup that's in most of the store bought kinds. This time we made a white Alabama style sauce. We threw those leftover pieces on the grill along with some sliced zucchini with olive oil and salt and pepper, some leftover baked potatoes sliced up with some red, orange and green peppers, wrapped in foil with butter, and topped off with some corn cobs. Everything came out delicious! Lucas got stuck cooking in a downpour, but moved the grill to the carport, and Nathan brought him an umbrella to bring the food in with. As we started eating, we decided we should have taken a picture of it all, because it looked so good...so pics may follow!

We ended the night with some poker, some Orville Redenbacher's All Natural Popcorn, some internet surfing and some Harry Potter. One good day...

Dinner tonight

2009-07-15T20:13:00.000-04:00

One of my favorite blogs that I follow is about food. We've been, for the last 2 months or so, trying to eat all natural, or real or whole, foods. This means no preservatives, no additives, no fillers. It's made food become a very focal point in our lives. Grocery shopping becomes a game, and cooking and creating new meals is a great way for us to spend time together.

So, after 2 months of this, with small slip-ups here and there, I've thrown it all out the window the last couple of days. You'd be SO surprised to find what little tolerance you have for "junk" food once you've been eating this way. The other night, Nathan, my 10 year old, requested tuna casserole for dinner. I'm not a fan even before this new diet, but now I'm even less. I make the casserole out of canned tuna (good), egg noogles (not as good) and canned cream of mushroom and chicken soups (full of crap). Now, I could probably find better versions of all of the above, but haven't had a chance to yet. So, I mixed it all up, and we ate it. It did taste good, and there are worse things...you'll see...so I didn't get too down on myself.

Lunch was Friendly's. I did the best I could with a tuna melt on rye, with a side of fries. I have no idea what's in the tuna there, or the bread, or the fries for that matter, but that's what I had...

Last night we made patty melts. Now, we've been trying to stay away from red meat and pork, but will allow ourselves to have some a couple of times a month. These particular burgers were probably not the best meat we could eat. I sauteed some fresh mushrooms and a white onion. We put the pattys and veggies on grilled Nature's Own honey wheat bread (all natural!). Lucas did well by adding some monterey jack cheese, but I put on my weakness - american PROCESSED cheese. We had this with a side of fried potatoes. All natural but covered in greasy butter. We topped it off with a mix of canned peas and frozen corn, both leftovers. Ok, so looking back at it, it wasn't TOO much of a stray from what we're trying to do. I guess all the grease made me feel worse, especially on top of the Friendly's earlier in the day!

Today for lunch it was Zaxby's. My friend, Tara, who I haven't talked with in months said "let's go to Zaxby's! It will be free!" I thought I'd get a salad or something acceptable....no, the "free" thing was some fried chicken parmesan on greasy texas toast sandwich, with a sauce that claimed to be cheese. It was AWFUL. I immediately went back to work and ate an orange, just to taste something fresh!

So, I've failed this week. But it has made me realize how much I appreciate the changes we've made. Tonight for dinner, we had stuffed peppers - made with FRESH green, red and orange peppers, red onion, jalapeno, chayote squash and garlic, ground turkey (no artificial additives or preservatives, minimally processed), brown rice and organic tomato sauce. It was AMAZING!

I'm trying to plan my lunch menu for tomorrow, and I'm excited about trying to eat ALL fresh food!

Hello!

2009-07-15T20:10:00.001-04:00

Ok, I'm just trying this out. It seems everyone else has a blog, so I'll see what all the fun is about....more to follow!