The Baker’s Rack
Today I did it! With hammer and nails, I entered The Baker’s Rack in downtown Jackson and displayed some of my art. A total of 8 of my pieces are on display for sale there. (A recently purchased piece is on display for sale, so if you see the guitar painting that previously sold, I’m making that customer a new one due to the fact he lost his job and is going to have to wait an indefinite amount of time before he’s ready to purchase it.)
The pieces range in price from $18 to $80. I did forget my camera for the photos so I had to improvise with my cell phone. Bear that in mind when looking at the pictures…
Please go by and have a meal at this great restaurant and view the art from local artists. The hours there are 7:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. and I believe that’s Monday through Friday. The address is: 205 E Lafayette, Jackson, TN 38301
Lettuce Broccoli Carrots Oh My!
Lately, my life has been a whirlwind of work, gardening, spending time with Charles and then we run out of time. Where does it all go so quickly? Especially the weekends – they are gone in the blink of an eye and then good ole Monday rolls around again.
This weekend, Charles and I worked in our garden, doing some much needed weeding and a little bit of harvesting. We had a large strawberry ready on our one strawberry plant. I should say the reason we only have one plant is that we bought it at a little country seed store here where we live and when we went back for more, they were sold out. We couldn’t find more of this same variety so we are going to be patient and hold out until next year and purchase more of this same variety so we know we love them! That one strawberry we did have was better than having a dozen so-so strawberries though. It was the best flavor and texture! Soooooo good!
We have also harvested an onion and a carrot just to see if they were ready. Lettuce and greens are ready like crazy and we’ve even shared some of our harvest with friends and family. That’s always nice when someone does that for us and now that we are gardening, we are happy to return the favor.
Back to the carrot for a sec…I had read online they are ready to harvest after 60-80 days. Realizing it had been 80 days, we harvested one which ended up being really small, so they have more time to go before they are ready. Still, we are definitely having it on our salads tonight. Here’s the carrot in the middle of our harvest:
And a close up of our Bibb Lettuce, really dark in color and so tasty:
And here’s some of the Black Seeded Simpson lettuce:
Our broccoli that we started indoors from seed is really starting to show some excitement. Check this out:
How exciting is all this? We weren’t sure how things would grow here since this is our first attempt. So far, so good. This year is sort of a work in progress and hopefully we’ll learn some things that will help us in our next garden next year 
All I know is this…I love love love eating lettuce from our garden. I really want to do whatever it takes to have it year round. There are ways to grow lettuce indoors during cold months. We just have to figure out a good place as well as what we’ll need and we just might do it…
Garden Harvest
Hey Everyone! I couldn’t wait to show you a couple things!
Charles and I have been working so hard on our garden and it’s been paying off greatly. We have been harvesting lettuce for over a week now – almost daily! Not only that but we were able to share some with our next door neighbors as well as my parents who came by to visit us yesterday afternoon. It’s such a great feeling to be able to give people things we’ve grown ourselves!
It dawned on me that I should definitely take a picture of this gorgeous salad for you to see:
That’s Charles’ salad as he loves tomatoes and I have never developed a taste for them. This is what he had instead of the what I had, which leads me to this…
Here’s a photo of the mustard greens from our garden that I ate this evening:
Charles hasn’t ever liked mustard greens and bless his heart, he tried a bite and just could not like them even though he wanted to. On the other hand, I love them because I grew up having them every gardening season. I guess it’s an acquired taste? At any rate, they were sooooo good!
I hope you are trying some gardening this year. It’s such a great feeling to be eating something you grew yourself. Not only is it healthy, but it’s also a money saver!
D-Freakin’-Licious
As Charles sleeps lots later than me on the weekends, I generally cook breakfast while he’s still sleeping and wake him when it’s ready. Sundays tend to be a larger breakfast and where I guess I’ve recouped a little from the week’s work and feel like experimenting. Today, I realized we had some frozen hashbrowns in the freezer and I really wanted to make something cheesy and tasty with them.
So, I looked up some recipes and made some changes, based on ingredients from another recipe (this one). Here goes:
- 1/3 cup sour cream
- 1/3 cup condensed chicken soup
- 2 1/2 cups frozen hash browns
- 1 1/2 cups shredded cheddar cheese
- 1/4 tsp onion powder
- 1/4 tsp pepper
- 1 1/2 tablespoons butter, melted
- 4 tablespoons bacon crumbles
Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Spray a baking dish with cooking spray. (I used a 2.2 quart glass pyrex dish.) In a large bowl, mix the soup and sour cream together. Add the hash browns and stir to coat them very well. Add 3/4 cup of the cheddar cheese, butter, onion, salt, pepper, and bacon. Stir well to distribute. Spoon into dish and sprinkle remaining 3/4 cup of cheddar cheese on the top of the mixture. Cover with aluminum foil and bake for 30 minutes. Remove the foil and cook an additional 10 minutes. Place on broil until cheese is lightly browned. Serve.
I hope you try this – it’s an ultimate comfort food, too! With the outside looking so dreary and rainy this morning, comfort food definitely hit the spot! As Charles said, this is vacation quality!
P.S. Charles gave me the title for this post – LOL! It’s perfect!!
Bananas – Yes and No
When I was growing up, my parents owned a country grocery store. It was a larger one than most in that area and my brother and I spent many of our early years there. With vendors and delivery men coming in all the time, they would grow fond of my brother and me and would give us little cakes or candies upon their visit. How sweet of them to do that for a couple of little children.
One of the delivery men for one of the bread companies was especially sweet and would give me a little banana cake. I don’t remember seeing them anymore but they had a light layer of banana frosting over a banana cake. To this day, I don’t like bananas. I never have. But give me some banana bread or those cakes the bread man would bring and I loved it! Strange isn’t it? How you like something that contains something you don’t like. I’ve tried to like bananas and tried to eat them, but I think it’s the texture of them I don’t like. At any rate, that brings me to what I wanted to share with you…a lovely and simple personal recipe for Banana Nut Bread. This recipe makes one loaf, but you can just double it if you want to make two.
Banana Nut Bread
- 1/2 c. sugar
- 1 stick butter
- 1 egg
- 1/2 tsp vanilla
- 2 bananas
- 1 c. all-purpose flour
- 1/2 tsp baking powder
- pinch salt
- 1/2 c. chopped nuts
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease/spray loaf pan. Cream sugar and butter together. Add egg and vanilla. Stir well. In another bowl, mash the bananas and add flour, salt, baking powder and nuts. Stir banana mixture with sugar mixture and pour into loaf pan. Cook for 1 hour.
This recipe reminds me of that little cake I was given as a child. Thank you, sir, for your kindness. It has not been forgotten.
Chocolate Granola and I Won??
Ok…how yummy does that chocolate granola look??? I made that lovely concoction of coconut, almonds, oats and chocolate chips (a few other goodies) thanks to a super lady and her oh so wonderful blog called “Food Loves Writing”. Click here to see it for yourself. And, click here to go directly to the oh-so-tasty recipe for the granola you see above. Soooo good!
I entered a little contest Shannalee had on her most wonderful blog and guess what?? I won!!! I was so shocked and just wait til you see! Check it out:
There’s a great book entitled “The Ungarnished Truth” by Ellie Matthews. I can hardly wait to read it! In the prize pack was also a RuMe bag that’s so deceptive in size. While it looks tiny, it opens to be quite sizeable. Love it! And, sweetheart that she is, Shannalee also included the cutest card that I thought fit her blog and her so well. Perfection!
Just be sure to bookmark her blog because it’s definitely worth checking out over and over. Plus with cool giveaways like this, you know you want to be “in the know!” Shannalee ROCKS!! Thanks Shannalee!
A Change of Heart
I guess it had been a couple years since Charles and I ate at a Quizno’s restaurant. Honestly I hated it! I think I ordered a Ham Sammy and had some sort of soup - maybe potato or broccoli? Charles felt the same way. I remember thinking I had no reason to ever eat there again. And, we wouldn’t have. Except…Charles is wonderful about finding great things for us to try and he was lucky enough to get us each signed up for a free sub in a million sub giveaway with Quizno’s. (I guess we broke our challenge today of eating out only once in month unless it doesn’t count if it was free?) I never thought of getting a free lunch, but needless to say, we jumped on it!
I’m sorry to say that the 1 million Quizno’s subway giveaway is over and all million sub coupons were given out within a matter of like 3 days, I think? I wish I would have come here to announce that to all my friends but it really didn’t even enter my mind. Mainly because I had such a bad experience with them in the past. Now, I regret that decision.
When we went there today (Store number 4231 on Vann Drive in Jackson, TN, which incidentally is NOT the one we ate at in the past), I ordered the small ham and swiss sub on wheat. I need to get on another subject for just a second here to explain something: I don’t think I’ve ever mentioned my odd eating habits publicly on this blog but I have never liked the following things: mayo, mustard, ketchup, salad dressing, white milk (chocolate, yes), lasagna, chili, vegetable soup with a tomato base, raw onions, pickles, olives, tomatoes, coffee, and I’m sure there’s more. You are probably thinking, right….so you surely have milk with cereal? Nope. I eat it dry. Always. You are probably also thinking that I have some sort of dressing on my salad? Nope. I eat it dry too. Sandwiches? Plain. The looks I have gotten in restaurants ordering a dry salad or a plain burger…not pretty. The meals I have barely squeaked through so as not to hurt the host/hostess’ feelings. Oh my. It’s a horrible way to be. I WISH I liked all those things. I have tried, honestly tried. Lasagna looks interesting to me. I love the smell of Chili. The only exception to my oddities is pizza. I L-O-V-E pizza, but ALWAYS order it lite sauce, and have to say “light sauce, almost no sauce” to them and sometimes they get it right. Ok…now you think I’m so strange that you’ll never come back to my blog again, but hopefully I haven’t lost you…
Back to Quizno’s…So, I ordered my sandwich with no mayo or tomatoes (it comes with tomatoes, lettuce and mayo). Let me tell you, either they have changed their sandwiches or my tastes have significantly changed in a couple years. This sandwich was AWESOME!! I love the herbs they use – my mouth was having a party today while munching my oh-so-delicious free sandwich!!
Quizno’s – you have some new faithful customers thanks to your million sub giveaway…and we’re telling everyone we know about you! We heart you and will most definitely be back! 
Country Southern Cooking
Living in the South, I grew up with lots of Southern cooking. There’s no other comfort foods in the world like Southern food. Or at least not that I’ve found!
I had a recipe for country gravy from (I think) my mother-in-law, but I have altered it to be lower in sodium because of my husband’s health concerns. I did want to share it, though, because it’s a really great recipe for anyone who wants that comfort without all the sodium. (If you want to make this and you want to use the normal recipe, you can add salt and about 1/2 pound of cooked sausage, crumbled into the gravy.)
*I’m sorry I don’t have a picture of this delectable dish for you to see. When it was ready, a camera slipped my mind!! Silly me!!*
Country Gravy
- 4 tablespoons all-purpose flour
- 2 tbsp butter
- 2 tbsp oil
- 1 cup milk
- 1 1/2 cups water
- 1 tsp pepper
- dash of salt
In a skillet over medium heat, melt butter and oil together. When melted, add the flour, one tablespoon at a time, stirring constantly. Continue cooking on medium, stirring constantly for 2 minutes. Begin adding milk about 1/2 cup at a time, still stirring constantly. Continue cooking until desired consistancy has been reached, usually about 2 more minutes. Add pepper and salt. Stir well and serve over homemade biscuits.
Soooo good, especially if you have it like we do…at dinnertime. Around here, breakfast foods are not always restricted to breakfast hours!!
Valentine’s Day
I just realized I hadn’t shared our Valentine’s Day with my dear blog friends! For the special love day, I made some cupcakes for me and my honey. Yellow cupcakes with made from scratch buttercream icing. Here’s one of them that I had ready for Charles when he came in from work on Friday, complete with a little print of one of my original paintings:
He brought me some lovely Chocolates and we shared a nice meal at my favorite local Chinese restaurant. It was such a lovely day. Thank you Charles!
So far, so good with our dining out challenge for this month. Remember the challenge to eat out only once for the entire month? Click here if you need a refresher. It’s working so far! We’ve only been out once and that was Valentine’s Day. Wonder if we can keep it up for the rest of the month? It’s only about 8 more days – I think we can make it!!
Don’t forget! It’s the last day to get an entry in for the Girl’s Guide to Absolutely Everything book that I’ll be giving away!! Click here to leave a comment and enter. I’ll give you until 8:30 pm Central time to enter!! Hurry Hurry!
Popeye’s + Chili’s ??
I’ve attempted a clone of Popeye’s Red Beans and Rice recently. It still needs a little more work. To be able to make that at home and cut down on the sodium in the process would be ideal. I’m hoping I’ll have something for you here soon…and I will be sure to post the final results here as soon as it’s complete.
With that side dish, I also made a clone of Chili’s Chicken Crispers (image above from Chili’s). Yep and they were delicious! Since hubby has some high blood pressure issues, I am doing all I can to help ensure he doesn’t have to sacrifice some of his favorite things. It might not be salty and full of sodium like the real thing, but hopefully it will be so good we don’t even miss it!!
The Chicken Crispers turned out so good! I followed this recipe and actually followed it exactly except I only added 1/4 teaspoon of salt and used a no sodium chicken bullion. So yummy plus we had some left over to put on a salad the following day for lunch. They are so good on salads, too!
Starting a Garden
In light of our newly adopted cottage style of living, you may remember (if you have been reading my blog for several months) that we reinstalled our clothesline this past summer. We used it a little bit until the line broke and just had not restrung the line until last summer. I’m thrilled at how that has turned out though we haven’t been able to use it through the winter. (I can hardly wait until spring!)
We are doing something else, as well. The past couple years, we have attempted to have a garden. I say attempted because we had very little out there and what we did have was not properly cared for. While we did harvest a few tomatoes, that was pretty much it.
This year, we’ve gone all out. Or, at least in our plans we have! We have bought several packets of seeds. Some have been 20 cents, some $1 and some $2. The last day of January, I planted some chives. Guess what? They are starting to come up already!! I’m so excited!
Then, on 2/3 we planted onions and carrots and on 2/9 we planted a couple tomato plants. We have little onions and carrots coming up already, also!!
Ok, now those of you who have been gardening longer than us please don’t laugh at our attempts. I hope we aren’t being too terribly silly but we are so excited. I imagine I have looked in those little pots at least a dozen times today!! Seriously!
Now, you will probably really laugh because here’s some little photos I thought I’d share…
The carrots:
Onions:
Chives (I think this is 3 plants, though it could be 2….):
All we did was purchase a bag of potting soil and a few packages of seeds. By the way, we do have more seeds but it is too early to start them right now. We have been saving 2 liter coke bottles, plastic bowls and containers. This makes me happier still because that means they just don’t get tossed…they actually are being used and we aren’t paying additional money to purchase pots. It’s definitely a win-win situation!
Anyone else gardening this year? If so, have you started yet?
Cooking More + Refried Beans
I’m really not sure why I’m doing so many “cooking” and “food” posts lately other than:
- We have our newly remodeled kitchen that has more counterspace than ever and I love being in there. It’s beautiful and uplifting.
- I often wonder what other people are putting in the food we actually eat from restaurants. Okay I am not meaning anything gross here, but I’m talking about sodium. We recently discovered that one of Charles’ favorite meals from Chili’s (Chicken Crispers) had 100% of a person’s daily recommendation of sodium…in the chicken alone. That didn’t include the fries and corn…
- I always obsess over costs of everything. Eating out is such a waste of money for the most part. I do love to eat out, though, but maybe more of a treat than a weekly occurrence.
- With the simplifying of our lives we’ve been doing, I love that I am cooking from scratch so much more. It makes me happy. We actually eat our leftovers now. I actually cook more so that we have leftovers so it’s easier to warm up and eat rather than cook each and every meal just before mealtime. This makes me look into what else I can do with that particular dish or side dish before I cook. For example, pinto beans can be used for different side dishes, which leads me to the refried beans part of this post…
Refried Beans – My Personal Recipe – Serves 2
- 1 cup cooked pinto beans (made from dry, leftovers for at least a day)
- 1/4 c. canola oil, scant
- 1/2 tsp chili powder
- 1/2 tsp cumin
- 1/8 tsp pepper
- 1/4 tsp onion powder
- 1/8 tsp garlic salt
Mash beans with masher or fork and mix with all ingredients. Don’t over-mash, though. You don’t want it to be just like those pureed ones that come out of a can. Cook in a skillet over medium heat for about 5 minutes or until you see small signs of boiling. Lower heat and continue cooking until desired consistency, approximately 5 minutes, stirring constantly.
Sprinkle a small amount of shredded sharp cheddar immediately. Serve and Enjoy!
Roasted Pork Loin
While at the grocery store, I noticed boneless Pork Loin Filet was on sale. There was a really small sized one, just perfect for the two of us. So, I decided to try my hand at a new dish. I used a recipe from allrecipies and altered it to add onion powder and omit the white wine. I basted it every 20 minutes for a little over an hour.
Let me tell you…the aromas this dish had circulating through this house?? Absolutely mouthwatering! Plus the meal itself wasn’t lacking one iota! I can see where the white wine would have come in handy, though, so I’ll use that next time.
This is the final product carved and on the plate:
We had this with green beans and steamed white rice. I hope you try this and it’s as good for you as it was for us! We will definitely be having this again.
Cinnamon Rolls
I have made my first attempt ever at making cinnamon rolls. The “from scratch” kind. I found this most wonderful recipe with nice reviews at this lovely blog called “Food Loves Writing” and let me tell you, there are many more recipes on there I plan to try!
Back to the cinnamon rolls, though. Everything was going great until I realize I read the instructions a little too hurriedly and somehow ended up adding a cup and a half too much flour!! It had just begun mixing at the time I realized the earlier instruction said “divided”. Oops! It all worked out though because I was able to work fast and not let all the flour get into the dough during mixing. Whew!
While I was working away, Charles was my photographer and was actually shooting pictures during each stage of this prep. I was amazed when I was going through all of them! How sweet he is!
In progress (not sure why my fingertips are so red, unless its my obsessive washing of my hands anytime I’m cooking):
The roll being cut:
Going into the dish:
Just out of the oven (see my kitty cat potholder peeking through the clear glass dish LOL):
And, the finished product:
My personal review of these – delicious! I don’t care for the icing and next time I might just use a glaze instead of the cream cheese icing. Or maybe the recipe just made too much for the amount of cinnamon rolls there were. At at rate, they were still very, very good. Well worth the trouble!!
Space Saving Must Have
So, I was flipping through the Woman’s Day magazine last month (the January 2009 issue) and discovered something on page 86 in their “Solutions” section. A Flat Fold Colander from Bed, Bath and Beyond.
I mentioned this little beauty to my hubby and lo and behold, it was under the Christmas tree, just for me! It really does fold up to the size of a magazine and has corners that double as handy dandy pour spouts! This is incredibly cool and works like a charm! Click here to go straight to the colander.
And, guess what? They are on clearance now for a cool $4.99! If you are like me, you may also have some Bed, Bath and Beyond coupons around the house, too. So you can even get a little more off the already super steal of a price!
Happy Shopping and Happy Cooking!!
Something Delicious to Warm You Up :)
One of my favorite things about cold weather…
Hot Chocolate with Whipped Cream….mmmmmm!
Thanksgiving Baking
Happy Thanksgiving Eve!! I’ve been doing some baking today and have sausage balls ready and two pecan pies. I’ll cook some macaroni and cheese first thing in the morning (the made from scratch baked kind) and then we’ll be ready. We always go other places on Thanksgiving, so we take a few dishes and cokes usually. Lots of fun and really good times with the family!
Here’s my countertop right now:
We’ll be keeping one of those pecan pies here at the house and some of the sausage balls, too… Yummy Yummy!!
I hope you all have a wonderfully warm and Happy Thanksgiving and Happy Baking! May you have a day full of love and family ((((hugs))))
Our Halloween Treats
Happy Halloween Eve My Dear Friends!!
Charles and I worked on our yard getting as many leaves up as possible for any spooks who might come our way tomorrow night. Seems no matter how much I try to have trick or treaters, we always seem to have anywhere from 0 to 5. We live just inside the city limit on a dead-end street, making it a quiet place. Our little town does so many things for Halloween that I think everyone is just out doing group activities. But who knows – maybe this year will be different. I always have hope!
In the meantime, I like to make Halloween special for the two of us, so I made some lemon cupcakes with some buttercream icing…put in a cute little Halloween cupcake liner and topped with some orange sugar sprinkles!! Sooooooo cute!
Some of these went to our little neighbors along with an adorable little Halloween card – we are having so much fun!! I even included Charles and asked him to put the sprinkles on – we are such kids sometimes!!
The only bad thing in my day? I burned myself getting the cupcakes out of the oven. It’s a little over 3/4 inch long and looks much worse than it feels right now. I’m certain it will hurt more later. I couldn’t tell you the last time I burned myself – anyone have any quick healing tips by some chance?
Tomorrow (or maybe even later tonight if there’s time), we’ll carve our pumpkin. I’ll be sure to show pictures of it tomorrow. Until then, I hope you are enjoying your Halloween Eve!!
The Apple Tree
Remember a little while back I blogged about our apple tree? Here’s the link if you want to see a photo of the apple tree then. Lately, we’ve been harvesting apples like crazy. Though we realize we are going to have to do some serious pruning to the tree this winter, it still yielded some delicious and beautiful fruit.
In honor of our apples, I made our first apple pie using a recipe (with a few alterations) from allrecipes.com (such a wonderful recipe website!!) Click here to go to the page on the allrecipe site or just follow this recipe from Amy:
INGREDIENTS (Nutrition)
- 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
- 1/2 cup vegetable oil
- 2 tablespoons cold milk
- 1 1/2 teaspoons white sugar
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 6 Fuji apples, cored and sliced (I only used 4 medium apples and I boiled them for 20 minutes)
- 3/4 cup white sugar
- 3 tablespoons all-purpose flour
- 3/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
- 1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
- 1/2 cup all-purpose flour
- 1/2 cup white sugar
- 1/2 cup butter
DIRECTIONS
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C).
- To Make Crust: In a large bowl, mix together 1 1/2 cups flour, oil, milk, 1 1/2 teaspoons sugar and salt until evenly blended. Pat mixture into a 9 inch pie pan, spreading the dough evenly over the bottom and up sides. Crimp edges of the dough around the perimeter.
- To Make Filling: Mix together 3/4 cup sugar, 3 tablespoons flour, cinnamon, and nutmeg. Sprinkle over apples and toss to coat. Spread evenly in unbaked pie shell.
- To Make Topping: Using a pastry cutter, mix together 1/2 cup flour, 1/2 cup sugar and butter until evenly distributed and crumbly in texture. Sprinkle over apples.
- Put pie in the oven on a cookie sheet to catch the juices that may spill over. Bake 45 minutes. (I cooked this for an hour.)
And here is the lovely concoction:
This was easy to make – no rolling out pie crust – and it was very tasty. The crust was very flaky and tasty. WARNING!! This is a rich dessert…only one piece was all we could handle at a time!!
The coolest thing? These apples came from our land. They had no pesticides and were taken care of and watched over since they were just little blooms and had dreams of growing up and becoming a big red apple. How very lovely!
Etsy Spotlight – dandyapple + Yummy Pizza
A Milan etsy seller recently found me on etsy using the shop local feature and I couldn’t be happier that she sent me a convo.
She has the most adorable shop called dandyapple with some of the CUTEST pendants you’ve ever laid eyes upon!! Here’s a little sampling of her GORGEOUS work:
I was reading her blog a few days ago and she had blogged about cooking pizza and she has a nice little step-by-step recipe on there. Now, I didn’t use it yet, as I was more lazy and used a mix for the crust, but here’s my little pizza:
I made a pepperoni pizza with lite sauce and it was sooooo good!! Now, it wasn’t as good looking as Miss dandyapple’s, but she sure did inspire me to make this one and I’m thrilled that she did!!
Cheesy Comfort Foods
I guess one of my all time comfort foods has to be cheese. Or at least cheesy things. Macaroni and Cheese. Potatoes and Cheese. Salad with Cheese. Baked Potato with Cheese. Burger with Cheese. Ok, I guess you get the picture!!
A week or so ago I made this lovely and delicious casserole called Chicken Spaghetti , though I altered it a bit to make it more heart healthy and to only serve two people. Oh, and I took the pimentos out, too, because neither Charles nor I care for them. This was really, really great and despite the fact I made it for two people, I still had enough left from my meal to have lunch a couple days later. And, guess what? It heats up marvelously as leftovers! Mind you, I’m terribly picky about leftovers. I wish I weren’t and I wish I could say I use everything up and there is never any waste. Alas, that is not the case. But with this dish, not a speck went to waste!! When you click the link above for the recipe, you will read a very delightful lady’s step-by-step words and hopefully will find her as fun as I did!! Enjoy!
Lower Sodium Taco/Mexican Meal
Recently, Charles’ blood pressure has been high and a doctor’s visit has put him in the “cutting back on sodium and seeing how it goes” stage. If his blood pressure continues to be high, he’ll have to start medication. Needless to say, we are being pretty careful. Since we are now reading every label, I thought I’d pass some healthier suggestions on to you and maybe you would be a step ahead, too. If this post just helps one person, I’ll be sooooo excited!!
Charles and I have discovered something very tasty and lots better for us!!
In the past, we’ve always ate the Old El Paso brand taco seasoning and taco shells. The Old El Paso is okay to eat, but the Taco Bell brand is even better. The Taco Bell taco shells actually have 0 sodium in them!! This was wonderful news and they taste really good too. We aren’t giving up any taste at all by having the Taco Bell variety. The 0 sodium in the shells and the lower sodium in the seasoning allows him to have cheese on them, too. So, we’ve been purchasing the Kraft crumbles which is also a great alternative to some other higher sodium choices. Check it out:
The little bowls have the cheese crumbles in one and lettuce in the other. (I’m not sure why the lettuce looks really light in color because it was really green – maybe the night lighting?) Then, our newly found and dearly loved taco seasoning and taco shells. If you haven’t already tried this, please do and let me know what you think. You won’t miss any flavor (or at least we didn’t) and you’ll be making things a little healthier for your family. My guess? They won’t even notice they are eating healthier!! :D
Let’s Celebrate with Cupcakes!
We are so excited as we have heard for sure that our countertops will be here tomorrow. This is wonderful!! By the weekend, that particular portion of the room will be done, then we can do the backsplash. A little later, we’ll do the floor and baseboards. The only reason we are waiting on the floor is that we are going to get new flooring in our two bathrooms too. It’s much lest costly to do it all at one time, we have learned.
So, to celebrate, I baked some lovely lemon cupcakes for us this afternoon. Instead of using lemon icing, I used a nice homemade buttercream icing which was a nice contrast with the lemon in the cupcakes. They are so delicious and we even took a few to our neighbors. Here’s a peek at them:
Peanut Butter Cookies
The kitchen remodel is on hold still (for the most part) until the countertops arrive, but that’s not stopping me from doing a little baking! So yesterday, I made some peanut butter cookies – one of Charles’ favorites and I really like them too. Here’s a pic of one cooling on the cooling rack:
These are sooooo good. I’m not sure where this recipe came from, which is very unusual, as I always try to write those things down. For some reason, I didn’t so I can’t credit anyone. But, whoever you are, thank you! Here’s the recipe:
