Update

I’m afraid I don’t have the energy to make this sound eloquent or succinct, so I’ll just make it brief.  My mom isn’t doing well – at all.  She has suddenly taken a turn for the worst, and it seems our few week or months has likely turned into a few hours or days. 

Long hours in the hospital, lots and lots of tears and an overwhelming sadness abound.  How exactly do you do this? I don’t know.  Watch my mom die, get more and more confused and have trouble even breathing. 

I’ve had people tell me how lucky I am to have had 27 years with my mom, when so many people don’t get a chance to know their mothers.  I am lucky, and I know that, but all of the “silver lining” speeches in the world won’t make me feel better right now.  She’s my mom. 

Please bear with me for the next few days.  I will be back, that much I promise.

I’ve said it before, but I’ll say it again.  Tell the people you love that you love them.  Appreciate them and love them while you can.

Five Foods

 Today on Twitter someone asked the question “What food could you live without?” and it got me thinking.  I think I’ve never really looked at food that way.  Not “ What food couldn’t you live without?”  When so many years of my life have been spent obsessing about food, it’s an interesting concept to consider what I could live without. 

So here are five foods I could live without:

1. Cookies, cake and the like.  I don’t even like baked goods…but God knows if they’re here, I’ll eat them.
2. Potatoes.  I would rather eat a sweet potato any day of the week.  So why exactly do I buy and cook potatoes? Hmm…
3. Red meat.  I don’t eat beef, and every time I eat pork I think “huh, should have made chicken.”
4. Granola bars – any and all.  It doesn’t seem to matter to me what the ingredients are.  I have one bite, and it triggers something in my head to send me into full on binge mode.
5. Rice.  I don’t like it. Brown or white. I have never liked it.

So, what have these foods been contributing to my life?  Cravings, binges and unnecessary calories.  I’m going to do without them until July 1st, and if I miss them, I’ll add ‘em back (with the exception of the granola bars and baked goods.)  I find myself buying and cooking things out of habit, and I need to shake things up a bit. 

What foods could you live without?

Meal Plan Monday

Today I’m trying something new.  I’m always looking for new way to keep myself on track, and I think posting my menu plan every week might just help me do that!

I could belabour this, but hell, a meal plan’s a meal plan, so here it goes:

Meal Plan Week of June 7th

Monday: Orange Ginger Sesame Chicken Breasts, roasted red potatoes with salt and pepper, and green salad with butter lettuce, spinach, red pepper, gala apple, cucumber and celery.

Tuesday: Turkey smokies, sweet potato fries, and leftover salad

Wednesday: Sweet potato and black bean enchiladas

Thursday: Pork Curry with brown rice

Friday: Homemade pizza with whole wheat and flax crust, olives, spinach, red onion and red pepper

To make and freeze: Chowdy Doody and pumpkin spice muffins

*I always leave one night a week unplanned, this week it’s Saturday.  You just never know what kind of wrench can get thrown into your perfectly good plans.

**********

I bet you already know what’s coming next – if you guessed orange ginger sesame chicken, roasted red potatoes and salad – DING, DING, DING – we have a winner!

{I love butter lettuce, and let’s face it, it’s pretty!}

{Chopped up a red pepper, gala apple, cucumber and celery and threw in some iron rich baby spinach et voila}

{Marinating chicken}

Make It:

Orange Ginger Sesame Chicken

 

Ingredients:

• 4 chicken breasts
• 2 cloves of garlic - minced
• 2 tsp grated ginger
• 1/2 cup of orange juice
• 1/4 cup soy sauce
• 1 tbsp sesame oil
• 1 tbsp lime juice
• 2 tbsp sesame seed

Directions:

• Combine all ingredients except sesame seeds, marinate chicken breasts for at least 2 hours, or overnight.
• Sprinkle with sesame seeds before cooking
• Bake at 375 degrees for 25-35 minutes, or until cooked through
• Enjoy!

 {I wish there were leftovers…so good!}

I don’t work tomorrow, and could not be happier about that!  I promised Baby T. we would play with play dough, and take Georgie (the cat) for a walk.  Yes, I’m one of those crazy cat ladies who won’t let the cat out of the house.  In my defence, anyone who follows me on Twitter will attest to the fact that there’s a cougar VERY near our house right now, a bear that lives in the field next door, and a family of raccoons who often try to eat our garbage.  I’m just trying to keep the poor guy safe!

Time to hit the hay.  I am so tired I didn’t even have the energy to turn the channel when a Johnny Cash concert came on TV after Dexter was over.

Do you meal plan? What tips or tricks help make your weeknight meals hit the table on time?

Weekend Recap

For the first time in quite a while, my lack of blogging wasn’t because I was feeling bad, but because I had such a great weekend!  Saturday, the sun actually made an appearance which hasn’t happened much around here lately! 

A brief hiatus from my morning smoothie was needed, since I had no bananas, and I’m a banana in my smoothie kind of girl.  I did, however, have a few strawberries still kicking around from last week’s Costco trip. 

{Strawberries and Blueberry Special K – yum!}

We took advantage of the sunny weather and planted the rest of the planters, until I once again ran out of soil.  All that’s left now is my really gorgeous Japanese Weeping Maple that Mr.T. and the kids got me for Mother’s Day, and some sweet peas I started in the house to grow up my arbour.  Taking a page out of Lynn’s book, I’ll show you how the garden is all laid out once I get everything in and actually have a sunny day to photograph it!

I rediscovered my love for these bad boys…

{Peanut Butter & Jelly – my fave}

Half for a morning snack, and half for an afternoon snack.  Delicious as these are, and with very few ingredients, they are heavy on the calorie side of things, so I usually don’t eat a whole one unless I’m particularly hungry.

The sunshine was screaming for a barbecue, so who was I to deny it? 

 {Chicken, venison steak, sweet potatoes and spinach salad}

I don’t eat beef since it doesn’t…umm…agree with my tummy, so when I have the chance to enjoy venison steak, it’s always such a treat, even though it was a bit tough.

I went to bed fully expecting to get up and see the sun streaming in my bedroom window, but that just wasn’t meant to be.  If I’m being perfectly honest, I was up at 6:00 a.m. because I heard the stepson in the basement playing the Wii. Not even the sunshine could have saved him from my wrath at that point. 

It didn’t rain, but it threatened it all day, so I spent the morning inside making what felt like 20,000 Cosmic Cookies, whole wheat/flax pizza dough to freeze, and just generally enjoying the day with Baby T.

Every time we go away I stock up on Liberte Greek Yogurt, and last time I actually found this…

Some people have said they find it too sweet, but I actually like sweet yogurt, and absolutely L.O.V.E. this Vanilla!  Combine this with some hemp seed, slivered almonds and some more of that Blueberry Special K, and breakfast was served…

 

I roasted up my quickly deteriorating red peppers from the Costco trip… {Watch for these later this week with some feta cheese, and herbs from my garden!}

It was finally time to try the Europe Crofter’s Superfruit, so almond butter and toast seemed like a natural vehicle for it.  The ultimate in comfort food for me.

I loved my baked sweet potato so much last night that I decided to make another one tonight…

{Steamed veggies, turkey meatloaf, and salsa and Greek yogurt baked sweet potato}

{Nothing compares to homemade salsa}

Full tummy, productive weekend….True Blood Season 2 on DVD….it’s going to be a good night ;)

What’s your favourite comfort food?

I Scream, You Scream, We All Scream For….

How do you start the day when you wake up and would rather eat ice cream than breakfast?

{Banana Soft Serve}

{Seriously. Delicious.}

{In my favourite new mug!}

My tummy was questionable this morning, so I figured I wouldn’t overload it (I know, right? Me thinking about NOT overloading my tummy….who knew?).  So, the idea of cream of broccoli soup went flying out the window, and some more fruit was decided upon.  In the form of a smoothie, of course. He he.

{Smoothie countdown. 3-2-1…Ah, Blendtec, I heart you!}

Sat down to eat it with a spoon, and quickly remembered that I actually have a blender that doesn’t live chunks of frozen fruit in your glass.  I was pleasantly surprised.

 {Dug out my fun new straw…}

Jessica had a really cool Glass Dharma straw giveaway a few weeks ago, and my amazing new glass straws arrived on Friday!  They took some getting used to, as you can see, they’re not as small as regular straws. 

I haven’t been blogging lately, but that hasn’t stopped me from amassing glass, mugs, dishes, straws blenders and the like.  My new obsession: shopping for fun new dishes. 

What’s your favourite thing to shop for??

I had to work an awful evening shift tonight - love the job, hate the evening shift – so I made some (ridiculously named) Chowdy Doody for dinner tonight.  Love the recipes in this cookbook – hate the titles. Seriously.  I avoided their books forever because of the stupid titles, and ugly covers.  I’m one of those people who judges a book by its cover. 

{Simple ingredients}

{I firmly believe that soup tastes better in a mug…and this chowder was seriously…amazing}

I doubled the recipe so I have lunch for the rest of the week.  Sorry, folks.  You’ll be sick of looking at it, but I will NOT get sick of eating it!

Off to watch Glee.  It heart that show.