Yet another way to get hubs to eat veggies!

Yahoo.

I like Kalyn's Kitchen blog. It has some healthy type recipes.

I also like the idea of a recipe that has some "hey, here's some choices, you pick which ones you want, combine them, and there, that's your recipe." Well, not for baking, but hey, cooking's an art, and baking's a science, right?

Here's another lovely winter type recipe: Kalyn's Crunchy Cruciferous Salad.

I just took a bag of Mann's Vegetable Medley which is by those Broccoli Wokly people. Was just a buck at K-roger last week.

Cut it up into smaller pieces with my one lovely knife--Wustof Santoku Emeril--I wuv that knife, mixed with lowfat ranch dressing (only enough to sort of cover it) and lower fat cheese. No reason not to use shredded soy cheese for this, and another type dressing. I like Annie's Green Goddess and that would be nice too. Only enough cheese to add a little flavor/color. Chopped up extra raw baby carrots and a green pepper, and mixed it all up. Freshly ground pepper rounded out the stuff, although I think a little dill or etc. would be lovely too.

When hubs goes back for ample seconds on veggies, I know I've got something. Just so darned easy.

Obviously Kalyn has lots of options here, so go for it and have fun! All these extra veggies in my diet can't help but help me feel better, and so I'm doing all I can to help myself greet the day with more cheer. Seven servings of veggies/fruits a day can't hurt...

Crochet Potholders

This is the time of year that many of us are trying to lose weight, stop smoking, etc. I'm not saying that crocheting will do this for you, but why not do something else with your hands while watching TV, waiting in the school pickup line, sitting in a waiting room, or wherever else you may find yourself?

Personally, I use these for some stress control/relief. If you know me, and you see me making a lot of these, you automatically can know that I am probably really stressed out. :-)

Many potholders are not thick enough for me, so I usually use two thicknesses of a cotton type yarn like "Sugar n Cream" or "Peaches n Creme". The former is available at Michael's, Hobby Lobby, etc., and the latter is available at Wally World, etc.

To make a couple of double strand potholders I would probably get a couple of balls of single color cotton type yarn, and possibly a ball or two of an ombre or striping version of the same type yarn. In that case, you could crochet a couple rows of one color, then pick up the ombre/striping for a couple rows, then go back to the main color, etc. I did that with a neon/lime green set for a friend, which I should have snapped a photo of before I sent her way to grace her neon/lime green kitchen.

Of course, two different colors are in no way necessary. Do whatever is cool for your design idea!

One of these potholders was made out of the "homespun" lion brand type yarn interspersed with a cream/aran type red heart super saver. These are not expensive yarns, as you well know. I am kind of attached to the cotton rather than the poly ones, having used both.

The original pattern that I took from the Peaches n creme label said to chain 22 with an H hook, and then and hdc in the second chain from the hook and hdc across. If you don't know what an HDC is, it's a half double crochet. In height that is partway between a single and a double crochet. Wrap your yarn around the hook as in a double crochet, but instead of only going through two loops at a time, go through all three loops at once. If this leads to aggravation or pulling out your hair because of the persnickety loops, remember to keep your thumb on the thumb indentation on the hook and that twisting motion as you remove the hook will, in my experience, help you get through all three loops speedily and reduce your stress...because isn't crochet supposed to reduce your stress instead of add to it? :-)

In my case I chained three for my turning chains instead of two, and used two thicknesses of the cotton yarn at a time. This results in pretty speedy completion. Keep going until you have a shape that is twice as long as it is wide. Then fold it wrong sides together, and chain one, and start crocheting both halves together with sc's all around the square. Then when you get to the final corner, ss, chain 9 loosely, and slip stitch to the other side of that corner for a loop. Then I personally go back and slip stitch all the nine chain stitches of the loop to reinforce them, slip stitch once back at the corner where I started the loop, and weave in ends/finish off.

If you like your potholders thinner, I'm sure a single strand will work well too. I would start around a size H for single strand, and maybe J for the double strand.

My decorative stitches on the cream colored ones are done by doing one stitch in the top loops of the last row as usual, then doing the next one into the next row down, and so on and so forth, alternating. If this is as clear as mud, let me know and I'll get some examples up here for you fellow crochet peeps.

This is also a nice way to use up small amounts of peaches n creme or sugar n cream you have left over from other projects. I assume potholders will be primarily made to protect our hard working cooks hands, so I personally could care less if some of them are multi colored. You can always make a nice "dress" set in your kitchen's colors to hang up or display prominently, and have the "bits n pieces" ones in a drawer where you actually use them.

These are thick enough with the double yarn version to make decent trivet-hotpad type usages, too.

enjoy...

Not feeling well

Haven't felt well for a few weeks, which is very discouraging, but trying to deal with it by exercising, eating as well as possible, and dealing with the stress and not just stuffing it.

Another strange and not exciting missive below; might want to ignore this one. It's heavy and weird, but heartfelt. :-)

I've been crocheting a ton, which usually means I am very stressed out. Yep, that's accurate about now.

There are good things happening; I just need to remember that. Three new interested parties in the stuff I sell, a loving husband who seems to finally be feeling a bit better, three cats who seem to know just when to apply lots of cuddles and purrs, health insurance (thank the Lord), reasonably decently working old cars, a handful of positive days with kiddo that have been strikingly good but also replete with the same old rage and anger outbursts interspersed, a warm home.

Last summer, I didn't really care about life many times. Now I do care, but it does hurt. Now I want to work on things being better and getting healed. That is a vast improvement. Feeling things instead of stuffing them is something neither hubs nor I were allowed to do growing up, and so we haven't done well with it even as adults. Now we are both learning and growing in an understanding of why things are the way they are.

My prayer is that God will show us more and more of what to do about it so we can be reasonably healthy, joy filled people. We deal with several rage filled individuals on a near constant basis. This would make even the most strong people crumble, and so we acknowledge the rough times as very understandable. Without God and the people who care about us, I honestly don't know what we would do. I am grateful, and also really feeling the pain, hurt, and anger for potentially the first time. I guess it's a good thing to feel, and deal with the feelings. In our culture we are perpetually surrounded by ways to avoid our feelings, and avoid dealing with them. No wonder there are so many addictions and so much brokenness out there. God is even now helping us deal with the pain and without God I have no idea how we would do it.

I'm working on a letter or two that I will no doubt never send, but will allow me to write about the pain and hurt as well as my strong desire for healing and the things I am doing to gain healing, with God's help. In my heart I know that a lot, if not most, of the stressors are on us because of others' unwillingness or inability to deal with their own hurts and addictions/sadness/pain. That gives me even more motivation to take God's hand, wade though the pain for seemingly the first time, and have confidence that I will make it to the other side.

So sad, hurting, angry, and also hopeful and confident. More of the former than the latter, but even a small bit, tiny, miniscule amount of hope and confidence in God can go a long way. Surely I have had to endure this in order to know God better and to have true peace and healing. I can sense these things coming to pass, even in my despair. I'm still grateful.

Easy-Peasy Broccoli and Cauliflower Gratin

My hubby avoids vegetables quite often, unless I do a few things to help. Like for example, I will hand him a plate or bowl of a few raw veggies when he gets home, sometimes with dip, and tell him that dinner will be ready soon. That gets a few in him before the meat and etc. is ready. Well, a girl's gotta try something! *L*

So now with winter veggies being available in abundance in the stores, I have made this broccoli and cauliflower gratin a couple of times. To me, several changes make this a better situation.

*Salt and pepper should be added, I think.
*I've used nonfat yogurt instead of the sour cream and hubs still ate it happily. Or light sour cream works too.
*Haven't gone all the way to nonfat cream cheese, but neufachel (reduced fat) works just fine.
*This is a good recipe when your veggies aren't photo worthy. I had a head of cauliflower that needed to be used up pronto, and a bag of chopped broccoli when I made it last night. Neither was that exciting to look at, but with the sauce and cheese, no worries, mate!
*2% cheddar would be just fine, and I'll bet soy or rice cheese would be otay too.
*Ritz crackers on top? That didn't seem that exciting to me. Around here, I make bread in the bread machine and when it's getting a little dry, I just whirl the leftover bread in the food processor till I get bread crumbs. Let them dry out in a slow, low oven and you can use them in meat loaf, as a casserole topping, and I've even seen a recipe for using them in stuffing which is probably good too. A better use for dried out bread, I'm thinking...
*Didn't try finishing it in the microwave. I used the microwave to cook the veggies, but finished the dish in the oven. Don't know about you, but I'm a sucker for the crunchy cheesy/breadcrumb topping and that just isn't going to happen in the microwave, IMHO. I just did an hour at 350 degrees.

Kraft sends out a monthly magazine of recipes for free, so you may want to sign up for it. The magazine is usually quite useful and can be adapted to your tastes.

Hope and Lighthouse Joint Service 1-13-08

Bumper Sticker

Haven't done one of these in a long while...so here's one I actually saw a couple days ago...

"I (heart) my cat. My cat does not care."

Thankful stuff...

*The mysterious "bed elf" who makes the bed each morning. Mandy the kitten encourages the bed elf while he makes the bed, meowing loudly and jumping on the bed while the elf does his stuff, moving to a new section of the bed as it is made. Hilarious.

*Friends who can't really help, but who are going through tough stuff too, so they understand.

*Some peace and quiet every now and then.

Thanks, God.

Banana French Toast

Kiddo announced that they were eating low carb for the next couple of weeks in an attempt to get rid of the last few pounds they wanted to lose (kiddo has lost around fifty pounds by controlling their eating and doing a lot of running and walking). Of course, kiddo made this announcement just after I had bought a bunch of oranges, bananas, and other stuff kiddo will now not eat. I imagine teenagers do this kind of thing often...so I needed to find something to do with the bananas.

You know me, I like to surreptitiously sneak good food into hubs' diet. So I made this french toast the other night. Yep, it's vegan but he didn't even realize that, just told me how yummy he thought it was and that he really liked it. Then I said "oh?" and he said "why, what's in it?" The bananas work really well.

A quick spray of Pam in the skillet was plenty to cook this french toast, IMHO. No need to add all that butter, I didn't figure.

There's no need to have bananas sitting on your kitchen counter at the premiere state of ripeness to have this french toast, either. When your bananas are getting brown, just peel 'em and freeze them to use whenever you want in a recipe like this or banana bread, or a banana smoothie, etc.

The bread was "Banana Oatmeal Bread" that I made in the bread machine. This is from a great series of cookbooks for bread machines called the Nitty Gritty Cookbooks...cheap, easy to find, and full of actually useful recipes. You can open up nearly any page and say "yeah, I'd actually make this." Compare this to many cookbooks (at least in my opinion) that have a lot of "theoretical" recipes: "yeah, that's interesting, but I would NEVER make that."

There are also scads of recipes for banana oatmeal bread on the 'net, I had no idea. It's the kind of bread that would be nice for a peanut butter sandwich, for toast for breakfast, or this french toast recipe. Not as sweet as regular banana bread.

We ate this for dinner the other night. Somehow that does seem to make more sense, eh? Eat a bunch of carbs at night, when you're just fine with getting sleepy and then going to bed, instead of for breakfast.... *L*

Sneaky nutrition and really good. With homemade bread, even if it IS bread machine bread (somehow that's cheating, eh?), it is super yummy.

Crochet Bath Rug

Just finished something we really needed around here...a crocheted bath rug. It is very thick and absorbent and feels good on your tootsies. Here's what I did in case you are interested...

*Move things along faster and thicker/more cushy by using two strands of nice absorbent yarn.

*I recommend you get a bunch of that cotton type yarn...I used a couple of cones of Sugar N Cream, Peaches N Creme, that kind of stuff.

*If you've seen this type of stuff in the stores, you know already that you don't have to have a creme colored rug if you would rather have something else. Sugar n Cream, for one, has many different colors and ombres, and has new self-striping colors too. Do check the yarn labels, though, for colorfastness.

*For two thicknesses of this yarn, a "J" sized crochet hook should be about right.

*Crochet a shape out of double crochets. Whatever shape you desire will work. A rectangle or square is the easiest, of course. I crocheted around fourty or fifty chains and then crocheted on both sides of the chain to start an oval.

*Whatever you do, CROCHET THE DOUBLE CROCHET PART FIRST, THEN ADD THE LOOPS (below). I found an example of this on a blog somewhere (darn if I can't find it now, but I'll keep looking to give this person their props) of double crocheting a row, then going back and doing the loops on that row. I would not recommend that if you are doing a shape like mine...you could end up with something misshapen and have to pull some stitches out (ask me how I know! *L*).

*When you have the shape done that you want, I'd recommend a single crochet border all around to prevent stretching, etc.

*Then go back (hopefully without even cutting the yarn, the less cuts the better, of course!) and do the loops by doing a single crochet in the post of each double crochet stitch, then five chain stitches, then a single crochet in the post of the adjacent double crochet stitch, and so on and so forth.

*Put a non-slip rug backing on the rug so you're save and sound when you get out of the tub. I got mine at Target in the rug section. Not only will you be safe and sound, I know you'll have nice cushy stuff for your toes to enjoy, tooo...

*If this is all clear as mud, let me know and I'll put some more stuff on the web to explain things.

Stuff to be thankful for

End of day cuddling with hubs and grey kitten a-purring.
Friends.
A camera for christmas...a cheap one but nice anyway. Allowed me to give my other camera to kiddo, who should have a camera if anyone should...as I told them, "you're math-y and art-y all at the same time...a remarkable combination."

Three things I'm thankful for

Nice enough weather to walk outside the last few days (other than yesterday).
Three crazed and lovely felines.
Cars that work even if they're ancient.

The project that ate my head. ;-)

'Signed up for a mini apron swap...sounded like fun. Grew to 23 minis. My hubby thought I was nuts, and I assured him that I would not be decking the house out in country charm (I'm more of a modern girl, if anything, design wise). The kittens wanted to pose with them, evidently... *L*