Patterns are everywhere.
I was planning something totally different for this challenge. I was going to go take the photograph for this challenge right after I finished baking the cookies.
Delicious patterns
And then I realized I didn’t have to go anywhere.
Happy Thanksgiving everyone!
I have several friends that have turned vegan, or nearly so. It’s a thought I’ve toyed with off and on over many years. Mostly off. Vegetarian seemed more doable…but I’ve never given that a real try either, if truth be told.
I still think about it, and this morning I just watched the movie Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead. I intended to watch it yesterday, but was so exhausted I fell asleep right after doggy school and napped the afternoon away until we had to leave for a neighbor’s pig roast.
Pig
Yes pig roast. As in not vegetarian, nor close to vegan.
Turns out I really didn’t like the meat and munched on all sorts of (not vegan) salads, vegetables and of course deserts.
Good stuff
Still…this morning the whole healthy living thing is lurking on my mind, hence me making time to watch the entire movie. Which turned out not to be difficult…it is entertaining and thought provoking. I’m at the heaviest I’ve ever been in my life. I struggle daily with trying to wean myself away from things that aren’t good for me. I’ve been observing people when I’m out at lunch. Thin people tend to be walking the neighborhood. Heavier people seem to be hanging out with me the days I’m in the fast food drive through. Coincidence? I think not.
I have my annual physical scheduled next week; perhaps this is why I’ve been contemplating lifestyle changes. He’ll be telling me things I already know. The reason I’m so exhausted all the time. The headaches. The body aches. Things I could probably fix myself if I took better care of me.
So, as Katie and I head out on a great adventure this morning I’ll think some more. Seems like a change is in the works. Who out there has made lifestyle changes? How hard was it for you? Are you glad? Did you stick with it?
Tell me your stories, good or bad. I’m going to need some support.
Yes I am.
Neighborhood party
Devious squash
I just finished reading Forks Over Knives, a book about eating only plant based foods. It was interesting…but I don’t know if I could give up cheese. Still….several of the recipes looked good, so I headed to the store and picked up some stuff to make the acorn squash soup.
Who knew that peeling 3 acorn squash could be so difficult? The skin is hard! I finally figured out that if I cut the squash into sections along the valley in the rind it was easier to peel. But my fingers are still sore from gripping the vegetable peeler.
Katie was the unintended recipient of several small pieces of squash and peel. She loved both. I don’t know if that was because she doesn’t get people food and she thought this was special or because she really likes squash. Could be she likes squash because I know she loves cabbage, apple, carrots and just about anything else that hits the floor.
The soup has the squash, a sweet potato and carrots plus ground ginger and sage. It’s simmering now.
We’ll see.
Some of you were asking for the recipe for the Cranberry Glazed Sweet Potatoes. So here you go!
3 TBS dry sherry
1/2 Cup orange juice
1/4 Cup maple syrup
1 can whole cranberry sauce
1/4 teaspoon powdered ginger
2 TBS butter
3 pounds sweet potatoes, cooked, peeled and sliced.
Cook the sherry, orange juice, maple syrup, cranberry sauce and ginger over low heat 10 minutes. Stir in the butter until melted. Arrange the sliced, cooked sweet potatoes in a greased 9×13 pan (I use a glass pan) and pour the sauce over them. Bake in 350 degree oven 25 minutes. Servies 6-8.
And here are my notes:
1. I used water instead of sherry because I don’t have any sherry.
2. I used 6 medium sized sweet potatoes, boil them with the skins on till they are just fork tender (they’re going to cook in the oven, so don’t over cook them while boiling). Let them cool, then slice them up. You could cook these the day before and slice them later.
3. I tried this with imitation maple syrup once…it wasn’t as good. Just saying.
4. Probably could use grated fresh ginger, but the powdered stuff is fine.
5. I have also made this totally the day before, including putting the sauce over the potatoes, and just heated it up for the 25 minutes in the oven before company arrives.
6. This also make excellent leftovers! 🙂
Enjoy Karen and everyone else!
Karma challenged us to photograph our meals for a week. You’d think that would be easy, but it turned out to be quite the challenge. Who remembers to photo dinner before shoveling it in after a day at work? So I have, over the course of two weeks, taken photos of some of my more favorite meals. And, because I had a huge family meal right in the middle of the two weeks, you’ll get to see some food that only shows itself once a year. Enjoy!
At the beginning of the challenge we had just cooked a ham, and I was looking for something to do with the leftovers. My cousin suggested escaloped potatoes and they turned out wonderful! I didn’t get a photo of the finished product, but I did them in the crock pot and they were spectacular.
The wine didn’t go into the potatoes…but it was good.
Then later that week I did crock pot stew. See a theme here?
Good on a cold night after a long day.
Then it was time to get ready for the big dinner. Two of my favorite things to make are do ahead mashed potatoes….
Yukon gold, cream cheese & sour cream.
…and orange cranberry sweet potatoes that can also be done the day before. Both just get heated up the day of the meal, leaving you less stressed and more available to your guests.
You’ve got to try this one. Easy and amazing.
But the star of our big meal was the rib roast.
Yummy!
We had a wonderful time, and ate leftovers for a couple of days.
No we don’t eat like this every day!
After that we settled down to more normal meals. I forgot to take pictures of the night we ate hamburgers….or the night we went out to eat at a local eatery and I had chicken with dried Michigan cherries. Or the night we wolfed down a frozen pizza. After I heated it up.
I did remember to document the night we had scrambled eggs…which I thought would be boring, so I added sauteed onions, leftover ham, and cheese. Filling and quick.
Who says eggs are only for breakfast?
And Saturday night we had marinated chicken (you can buy it already marinated or marinate it yourself in Italian dressing for an hour or so), more onions (you can never go wrong with onions!), stuffing bought already prepared from the grocery store (Bob Evans) and peas. Pretty darn good and fast.
No leftovers.
So there you go….a week or so of meals. Oh. What did we have for desert? Well. We definitely didn’t take time to photograph that before we ate it. But it involved chocolate.
Thanks Karma, for making me think more about what we eat. AND for picking a perfect couple of weeks when I was really cooking. Versus any other two week period of the year when you’d see a lot more of this.
Healthy and fast. Perfect.
If anyone wants to recipes to any of this let me know. It’s all easy. Trust me on that.
We’ve got a big family gathering here tomorrow afternoon. Husband’s extended family is heading over for a get together and lots of food is waiting, almost ready! My biggest worry was that the rib roast I ordered turned out to be too small when I picked it up yesterday. “Oh well,” I thought, “everyone will just have to eat a lot of other stuff.” Still. It bothered me. Last time we did this we barely had enough meat and the roast was larger.
Today I made the salads and the do ahead mashed potatoes, the sweet potatoes and ambrosia. During all the preparation I realized I was running out of dish washing liquid. Really? I have to go to the store for soap? I planned this project so well specifically to avoid that last minute dash to the store. I really didn’t need anything, except that darn dish washing soap – and something for husband and I to eat today.
So I went to the grocery store which sits right next to a Subway sub shop. The plan was to pick up the soap and then run over to the sub store and pick up dinner for us tonight. In the grocery store I grabbed a couple things, bananas, stuff to make chili for later in the week…and guess what I found at the meat counter? ANOTHER rib roast just exactly the right size to add to the one I ordered! Tomorrow we will have enough meat! What were the odds that I’d run out of something which would make me go to the store when I didn’t really want to go out and that there would be one roast just the perfect size waiting for me. I muscled my way in between two women who were considering hamburger or pork and scooped that roast up.
And I sang along with the radio all the way home. Perfect. Like it was meant to be.
Which I’m sure it was.
Karma’s blog has challenged us to photograph our meals for a week. Or parts of our meals on some days. Certainly not all our meals…I mean how interesting can cereal look. Oh wait. Pretty interesting actually. But anyway, Karma is giving us until Jan 13 to put together a blog about the food we eat. You might want to go over to her blog to read the real rules as the above was only a representation of the truth.
This turns out to be a good time for food photography, given I’ll have a few days off and I have the big family dinner next weekend, so there will be lots of food prep opportunities. I wouldn’t want you to think we eat this well every week. Most of the time my husband is reduced to foraging for food either from the back of the fridge or some local eatery. And I bet there will still be a fair share of that between now and January 13.
Regardless, you MIGHT get to see a few of my favorite things to cook and/or bake. You never know. I’m hoping some or all of you will join in. As we move on into January let’s share what we use as healthy or comfort (or both) food!
Yum.
Change Is Hard 