My Favorite salad - Starkist Tuna in Olive Oil

This is by far my favorite way to have a salad (for now at least). Ever since I discovered tuna fillet in olive oil, anyway.

It's ingredients are: tuna, olive oil, salt. I get them for about $1.58 - but it is so worth it to avoid soy and mystery ingredients! So, I cut up whatever is in the fridge and dump the can of tuna on top, shake some balsamic on it and tah daaaah! You have a salad complete with dressing.

Nothing to drain, barfycat doesn't want a taste and I'm happy!

Golden Sweet potatoes

D2D sent me yams and golden sweet potatoes and I just couldn't wait to roast them. I've decided that roasting and grilling are about the only ways to really cook veggies. Everything comes out so flavorful and good - without a bunch of seasoning or prep work (you know how I hate prep work).

So, I peeled these babies, sliced em 1/2 inch thick and put them in the oven at about 385 for 30 minutes. Voila! I admit, I ate them straight off the pan and the picture above is leftovers, the next day. I swear they got better overnight!

Also, I used my new plate - pretty huh?

What do you roast? I've heard that you can roast brussels sprouts but never had any that way. Do you think it stinks up the house?

I luv Chard Chips this.......much!

I'm always entranced by how gorgeous red chard leaves are. I love them! I especially love them chip style:


This time I finally did it right. I cut out the stem and ripped them into bite size pieces. Then dried them, put in a bowl with a drizzle of Evoo and salt and tossed till coated. Pretty, yes?
Baked them for about 15 mins at 350, until they were crisp and ate almost all of them right out of the oven. Heavenly! Best thing ever!! Not to mention the perfect color combo for Christmas ;)

See you later!

Review: Bob's Red Mill GF Bread mix

I was totally in the mood to bake bread this weekend and lucky me, I had a Bob's mix in the cupboard that I'd put off using because it requires more egg whites than yolks. But I decided to give it a try and find out how many extra yolks I'd really have and it was only 3.

So, not to waste those cute pillowy yolks (have I told you how I truly love separating eggs? it's like dicing onions - I could do it all day!) I decided to scramble up an extra one with a whole egg and some veggies for breakfast while the bread was baking. Good no? i also cooked one up for barfycat - she loved it ;)

It's sliced up zucchini innards (after I made zucc noods) & onion sauteed in evoo, S&P. Also, cut up some cute little tomatoes and scrambled them with the eggs. Num :)

Here's the bread:

The bread turned out as good as I can expect! When it was fresh out of the oven it was warm and soft - I could have eaten the whole loaf at once! But, the next day it was really crumbly, even after warmed in the micro :(

I don't blame Bob. See, I messed up, a lot! First, I melted the butter in the micro but added cold milk to it! which of course solidified that butter right up...so I put the bowl on the warmer while I separated the eggs and kept whisking until it was finally incorporated and warm (heed the instruction that all ingredients must be at room temp).

Then, after I dumped the ingredients into my cuisi bread maker in proper order, forgot that I didn't add the vinegar...so I dumped it in on the edge and hoped it would get mixed in good enough. I pushed "Start" and went to do some other chores...an hour later I came back to see how it was doing and found out it had done the entire cycle without the mixing paddle!! Luckily, it hadn't baked yet so I cleared it, dug under the pasty goo that was forming and stuck the paddle in. Closed the top - went to finish my chores...an hour later came back to see how it was doing and had forgotten to start it! Ugh! Slapping my forehead and stomping feet ensued. Then, I pushed Start, crossed my fingers and waited...10 minutes till it started stirring. Then checked back every 30 minutes until it was baking.

So, I'm sure all my messing around is directly related to the crumbly bread. but, it tastes good and that's what matters, right? RIGHT?

I won't be the girl with the can of frosting

ok, I made this tonight because I will not be the girl with a solitary can of frosting in the checkout at the store on a weekend night.

I'm craving frosting like something else tonight! I do have all the fixins to make some...but it takes so long...and I had a bit of peanut butter so I squished this together real fast.

What's in it?

A couple spoons of sugar, a couple spoons of cocoa powder, about 2 Tbs of peanut butter, a dash of vanilla and a dash of salt. In the micro for about a minute, stir and smash on a rice cake or eat it with a spoon.

I think I'm going to finish up with about about a bottle of wine!

BTW, a couple spoons each of sugar and cocoa powder is Hot Cocoa mix - Swiss Miss has nothing over that! Don't forget a dash of salt ;)

Cocoa is outtie! Night night kids.

Book: A Course In Weight Loss, 21 lessons

As you know, I'm a big fan of "Add More ~ing to your life" and it's probably saved my life, almost literally. I have a feeling that if I wouldn't have been Divinely guided to Gabby, I probably would have been guided to something similar - but I also believe that everything is part of a plan, so there you go.

Anyway, Gabby recommended this book by her mentor, Marianne Williamson, so I checked it out and I'm so glad I did! It has changed my life profoundly in the 21 days I dedicated to do the lessons. Now, I'm recommending it to you. No matter if you're overweight or not, everyone needs to learn the lessons in this book - about your relationship with God.

If you want to know more, message me somehow and I'll link you up to my other blog - where I wrote about each day's lesson and what it brought up for me.

I was curious about it initially because since being diagnosed with Celiac and going on the gluten free diet, among other things, I've actually gained quite a bit of weight. I chalked it up to my long-time starving body holding on to every calorie and medication notorious for making women hold an extra 15 pounds or so. But, I believe in miracles and Marianne says in this book - ask for a miracle! But, you have to believe it too - you don't want to reject your miracle, so there's a lot of work to do too.

So, the premise of this book is that being overweight is a manifestation of your mind. It is the emotional baggage that you have not worked through appropriately, being housed in your body until you do deal with it. That baggage can range from abuse to trying to please others to just needing to be closer to God. I found I was closer to the needing a stronger relationship with God mixed in with a little of the hiding my greatness to be accepted by others.

My baggage started with: I'm so afraid that I will be somewhere without safe food that I'm constantly preparing for that. Also, that I don't put enough trust in God and I'm rejecting love from my life.

It was an amazing process to go through and like I said, profound changes! For instance, every morning I get up and ask God to guide me where he wants me to be and promise to show up for my assignments. In a way, I've always known this was my job, as a Christian. I've been taught this all my life yet somehow I also picked up that what I want is what God wants. Now I know that might be true, or he might want something better and by grasping and fighting for things I may be limiting my life's greatness.

Another great ritual I've developed is praying before meals. I've never really done that before, we pray before holiday meals and I have a dear, beautiful friend who prays before meals and I appreciate it so much. Personally, I've felt awkward about it. Now, I just do it. It's a nice reminder that God has provided for me and to remember those who aren't as fortunate. It brings me back to consciously appreciating food instead of always fearing that it will make me sick, fat, tired or not satisfy me at all.

These might sound like simple things, but they are really huge, for me. Giving up my (false) control over my day and asking God to take control, every day, is alien to me. I've always thought I was supposed to do all the work, now I know that some of that work isn't mine to do. I can't control other people and I can't hold the stars in the sky.

So, if you notice a change in me - like I'm not so controlling or bossy or even if it seems like I'm careless, you know why now. I'm letting God hold those stars and I'm listening intently to his directions. I'm working really hard every day to act from a place of love and to think like I'm God's hands and feet, eyes and ears. One of the lessons says to think about your body this way, because God lives in us. So, once in a while I stop and I think WWJD? For real!

Spaghetti or not spaghetti?

Don't let anyone tell you that spaghetti squash is a fair sub for real spaghetti...but it is really good!! So, you should definitely try it. I do put marinara on it, and the leftovers will no doubt get some butter, SP instead though, cuz that's good too ;0)

So, if you want to make this squash all you need is a baking dish and a microwave! Cut the squash in half, scoop the seeds out and put it cut sides down on the dish and put a little water in in it. Don't worry if it gets the squash wet. Then cook it for as long as it takes to get soft, mine takes about 10 minutes.

Then, use a fork to scrape out the insides, it will be stringy like spaghetti, but not stringy to eat, kind of crisp actually. Top it with whatever makes you happy, like cheese or sauce or just some salt and pepper.
This week, after not having to work for a whole week, was busy! I really didn't have a lot of time to cook ;0( and to tell the truth, yesterday I got the last of the Thanksgiving dishes done...I'm usually pretty good about getting the dishes done.

Anywhoo...sandwiches have been big - as in having one every day. I've alternated between Buddig Beef (it's gluten free!!!) and fried egg. The one above is corned beef with spinach and some grape tomatoes that my parents had growing - it's been really warm here still!

I was also really blessed to have T-day leftovers well into Tuesday, at which time I tossed the last of it for fear of food poisoning (how long do leftovers really last?!?)