Standing at the Trailhead of Winter

I've taken the leap into making sauces/dressings for my salads and other dishes that a sauce/dressing just seem to go naturally with. And in the process, I cleaned out the rest of the heavily processed, packed with oil and sugar foods from my fridge. It really is amazing to see just how much oil and sugar is used to create salad dressings and other kinds of sauce. When I think about how much dressing I used to put on a salad, even when all I would have for a meal was a salad, all of the calories were coming from the dressing. They weren't nutrient dense calories, either. Just calorie dense calories. Bad calorie dense calories. I cringe now thinking about all the oil and sugar I was consuming.  So now I'm making my own sauces/dressings. Knowing exactly what is in the sauce and how much of each ingredient is in the sauce creates peace of mind about what I am putting into my body. The first dressing I made is an avocado/lime/cilantro combination. It pairs wonderfully with mixe...

Nearly 27 miles today. With intensely numb toes by the end. So numb I simply couldn't feel the floor after taking off my cycling shoes. My fingers? Just fine. My face? No problem. Even without my balaclava. I've searched the apartment for my neoprene booties, but so far no luck. So the toes are just going to have to go numb.  Towards the end of my ride. I didn't realize until after seeing this photo on the computer that I'm actually in it, too. My go-to for thawing out my toes was hot chocolate spiked with a little bit of Bailey's Irish Cream. I'll ride 27 miles in 35 degrees with a real feel of 29 any day if it means hot chocolate with Bailey's is waiting for me at the end. I thought about having a second but then I thought, "J, save that last bit of Bailey's for another day. You'll be glad you did." So I tucked the Bailey's back in the fridge, behind the milk and orange juice (not that anyone else will drink it, but just to be ...

Since January 1, I've cooked each evening except one, and that night was a "everyone is on his/her own night." Each evening, I worked to include herbs and spices, and each meal save one was given the thumbs up. The save one meal didn't get a thumbs down; it received a sideways thumb, and I think that was because I didn't get the black beans pureed the way they needed to be for the black bean soup to be creamy. I tried to puree the beans while they were too hot, and well, putting hot food into a blender then turning it on just isn't a good idea. Even though I was pressing down on the lid to prevent it launching to the ceiling, it still popped off. Black beans spewed everywhere. As if the first try wasn't enough, I made a second attempt. Yeah, not a smart move. The lid took off like a rocket, allowing black beans to splatter across cabinet doors, my sweatshirt, this computer, and my exposed wrist, which burned and now sports a nice red welt. It was carnage. ...

So that French toast I said I was going to make for breakfast? Effing spectacular! Much like my search for the best pancake recipe, I've been on a quest for years to acquire the best French toast recipe. I finally found the Holy Grail of French toast recipes, and when I made a serving for Funny Delightful Son, assuring him this French toast was going to blow his mind, the end result was him saying, "You keep cooking like this and I'm going to become obese." Yeah, it was that good. What I've found in my very short cooking life of a month and one week is that the really tasty, delicious, make your face contort in pleasure foods are those that throw out the idea of don't eat this or that because "it's bad for you." For years now, I've allowed myself to not eat, to beat myself up over eating, and to try one way of eating then another way of eating because whatever way of eating was "better" for me. When I made my resolution to make th...

Tonight's dinner, a rather late dinner since I sat down to watch the Boilers lose to the Badgers (sad face), was individual chicken pot pies. Last night, I made coconut crusted cod on a bed of seasoned spinach (and had to saute a second batch of spinach as both boys wanted more), and other meals throughout this week included chicken enchiladas, and broccoli cheese soup with crusty Italian bread. Most of the meals I've been putting together take around an hour and a half from start to finish, but in the end, hearing the boys say, "Mmmmm, that was good" and "Thanks, Mom" make the time well worth it. I've also found, too, that the entire process is almost a meditative one. I've never been so mindful about a knife chopping an onion or the thickening of a sauce like I find myself now. Another change I've noticed is the more I cook, the braver I'm becoming with using herbs and spices. I never used to work with anything beyond a bit of salt and pe...

Tonight's Homemade Dinner: Fish and Scallops Stew with Homemade Bread   Update: I got to thinking after I posted the picture about how much it cost for this dinner. It fed three (Hubby isn't a fan of fish--he bought himself a frozen pizza, which I am not figuring into the cost for the meal), and speaking for myself, the one bowl with one piece of bread was very filling. The boys ate a couple slices of bread. Angel Baby loved the stew and told me as much at least three times. I think he was disappointed in only getting one bowl of it. Funny Delightful Son liked the stew but wasn't enamored with the scallops. Their texture reminded him of bacon fat and he's not a fan of bacon or bacon fat (sigh--bacon is simply delicious). Anyway, back to the cost. When I added up the costs of the ingredients, the stew and bread together came to $4.58 per person, or $13.75 total. While the stew was completely gone, I still have bread left over for toast or sandwiches. The total...

Because of the upcoming cross-country trek I'll be taking part in, I've been working on my nutrition. This has included eating lots of fresh fruits and veggies, some carbs, some protein, and gallons of water. Occasionally, an urge for sugar fills me, like last evening after dinner, and I'll soothe the urge by baking cupcakes or cookies. Once I eat a cupcake or a couple of cookies, I'm satisfied and don't feel the need for anymore sweets. Last evening, the desire for oatmeal raisin cookies kept nudging at me, so I pulled out the ingredients and baked up a couple dozen. As I was measuring out the brown sugar, the baking soda, and the flour, I thought about the many times Mom had made cookies for us: oatmeal-molasses that she swore would come out wonderfully chewy if you used your hands instead of a spoon to mix all the ingredients together, chocolate chip without the chips because Dad didn't like the chips, and chilling the butter cookie dough for an hour to ensur...