Well, I tried...

This is part one of my very healthy, completely soy-free, low calorie lunch on my lovely fiesta dinner plate. (Part two is in the oven)

Green beans soaked in chicken stock, grapefruit with one packet of stevia for sweetening, scrambled egg whites and iced tea sweetened with Stevia.


I have been craving those fried green beans that you can get at TGIFriday's that are absolutely delicious, and, well, to be perfectly honest, not all that healthy for you. So I took it upon myself to attempt to recreate these things using only ingredients I could have. This is the result...





It took me an hour to prepare and cook these.


They were awful. I think I can modify my recipe in the future and they will be good but I may just decide to follow the fried recipe (using canola oil) a great once-in-a-while so that I can have quality over frequency.

Please don't ask me for this recipe. You will not like it.

It's Not Dominos But It'll Do

Text from S4J to Hubby in the barn: Oven baked sandwich from Dominos?
Hubby's response as he walks in the door: No
Text from S4J to Hubby across the living room: So, no oven baked sandwich from Dominos?

I am starving! And I want an oven baked sandwich from Dominos. Greasy, melty, cheesy, bacony, crispy, clog your arteries but you can't care because you're so happy goodness.

What's a girl still in her pajamas to do when her Husband refuses to retrieve her heart's desire for her? Fend for herself I guess.

This horrible craving is relentless in its pursuit of my tastebuds. I must have garlicy flavor. NOW.
You may already know this, but I am not a cook. I am perfectly capable of cooking and can make a good meal, but I have no love of the art form. I don't enjoy the process or the clean up. In fact, food usually tastes better to me when someone else has cooked it. And when people talk of how they made this wonderful meal from scratch and it was such an enjoyable experience, I'm sure I look at them like they are aliens. Poor aliens.

Today, for lunch, in the grips of intense craving, yet unwilling to go out for myself to retrieve lunch(I'm in my pajamas) I had to do that very thing; provide myself a meal from scratch using only the ingredients we had on hand (pajamas, pajamas - stay with me here.)

I made myself a fantastic meal. I had wheat spaghetti noodles boiled in chicken broth, cajun seasoning and garlic salt. Slathered them with I Can't Believe It's Not butter and grated parmesan cheese. Like Jenster, I forgot to take a picture before I ate it. Well, okay Jenster just takes one bite and then remembers. I was just.so.hungry.

I pulled a loaf of some sort of fancy italian bread that I had gotten on the sale rack at W*mart out of the freezer. I thawed it, then sliced two chunks from it, applied ICBINB, garlic salt, and parmesan cheese which I cooked in a pan with roasted minced onion and finally melted some mozzarella string cheese on the top. Served that with my version of bruschetta with the first harvested tomato of the season from our garden.




That was a super delicious lunch! Made from scratch. By me. AND I have enough noodles left for lunch tomorrow. It wasn't Dominos, but it'll do.

Hubby redeemed himself by running down to the corner to get me a diet coke.

Then my daughter asked, "Why didn't you just have Dominos deliver?" She's grounded.

Irony Pie And Vestiges Of Christmas Music

As you may recall, irony visits me often. It is a regular companion to me. Here's an example:
Just the other day I said to my friend Jenn, "I don't read your recipe blog because I don't like to cook, but maybe you could publish it cookbook style for your kids."

And then, today, I went to 2 different stores about 30 miles apart to find whole Allspice and Kitchen Bouquet for a recipe I wanted to try. Open mouth, insert foot. The honest truth is that I DON'T like to cook. But I do have a family who needs to be fed, and we do have a need for healthier meals with fresher ingredients. Hence, I read my cookbooks(which were all gifts) and find recipes that require things that half the world has never even heard of. Whatever. It was a recipe for "Lip smackin' chicken", and it turned out fine. If you're really that interested - leave me a comment and I'll email you the recipe.

Anyway, when we try recipes out of a cookbook, we try to rate it in the cookbook so we know for next time whether to bother with it or not. And as I was thinking about that this evening, I thought - you know, my family is pretty particular about their likes and dislikes and it would be way easier for me if all the stuff WE like were in ONE book. That thought took me back to Jenn and the cookbook for posterity idea. SO - I decided that I would put together one for our family and when each kid moves out, I will give them one so that they can have the recipes for their favorite meals altogether in one place. Maybe I'll include lovey quotes and beautiful S4J photography as well. Who knows? Perhaps there will even be a recipe for Irony Pie in there. Don't go getting all 'crazy' thinking that I am endeavoring on this huge cookbook scheme or anything like that, and NO I am not starting a recipe blog. I had already downloaded the Blurb software for my New Year gift which STILL no one has gotten for me, and I just opened a file for the cookbook. As I care to pass the time with it, I will enter a recipe into it. Then, when it is time - I will have it printed.

Tomorrow I am singing a special at first service. Our first service Worship Leader requested that we get in the last vestiges of Christmas music, so I chose a truly lovely song that I heard for the first time about a month ago called Christmas Lullaby (Lead You Home) by Amy Grant which I have posted for you below. Imagine me as that skinny blond girl (minus the foreign choir, the duet partner, and the live musicians) and you pretty much know what I will sound like and look like in the morning.

I Quit Obstetrics School Halfway Through....

....having my hand inside a turkey tookus trying to convince the neck to come out through the opening and pondering whether I would have to enlist the tongs.

I have been extra absent lately and still super busy. I guess we all know it's that time of year. Today I am homebound, editing pictures and roasting a turkey for the squadron Thanksgiving party this evening.

It's gross. I know now that I could never deliver babies. Too bad all that medical school is going to go to waste.




Here are my efforts thus far. Perhaps you will get more updates throughout the day. Perhaps not.


and here it is all covered up in it's nice warm tent...