And Voila!

Tags

Baggage, Diary-type Entry, Herbs, Something New, Vegetables

Isn’t this better? Not perfect, but better. See the ^ Sago right up there?

Well, I’m exhausted, though I did very little physically in the yard clean-up department yesterday. I think it was the two grocery stops plus lugging the groceries through the garage up the stairs and into the house before D, M’s brother arrived that actually that did me in.

Of course when you top shopping with two hours of standing and directing in the sun from five to seven, it led to one pretty fried little chickie. “We” didn’t get as much done as I thought “we” would, but still it’s a major difference and all three cans (garbage, green waste and recyclables) are full.

So we had to stop since there was nowhere else to toss stuff, but I think you’ll agree it looks quite a bit better. Dead plants gone. Soil carted to side flower bed. The one that has no plants after the first annuals that were planted there died back. The landlord hasn’t replanted anything there for the last six years. I guess it was just to attract a tenant.

D still has to return to wash down the ugly but practical plastic chairs. I found a cover for the stack of six at Big Lots which should help eliminate cleaning them every time one wants to sit down. The grill has to be scrubbed down and I have to decide on which pots to use for planting herbs. I’m hoping I can still find a patio tomato or two at Home Depot at this late date. Luckily, living in Southern California, I can garden year round.

There’s also the arranging and placement of all of the above-mentioned items. The glass table also needs a bath as does the patio umbrella. Plus D needs to stop at Home Depot for fresh potting soil and a propane tank swap. So there’s still more to do but it feels so good to have gotten this much done.

I was hesitant at first about tossing the one gallon black plastic pots thinking I’d re-use them. But then realized, who am I kidding? Dump them. Less is more. It felt very good in the end. So all the pots are empty (except for the aloe vera and sago palm which I opted to keep). The sago is a major miracle of miracles, having risen from the dead this spring! I have no idea how, but just look at it.

Before. Acting as a trellis for another plant.

After! All nice new green growth.

Isn’t the Sago just mind-boggling? It was so very dead. All in all, it really was a great two hours and money well-spent even if I did get a bit sun-burned. Oh well, I got my vitamin D for the day.  Looking forward  to having my herb garden back and being able to sit out on the patio when it’s cooling down in the evening. That’s something I haven’t done for over a year.

Do you have a garden? How’s it doing this year? I know in a lot of the country the weather has been uncooperative. When I lived in the midwest, there was a saying “knee high by the fourth of July” as a gauge for knowing how your corn was doing. That may have to be revised this year.

Speaking of corn, it’s been available in the stores for quite a while now, but it really doesn’t look that great when you pull the husk open a bit. So sadly I haven’t bought any. I’m going to wait for local corn to arrive. The white corn from outlying areas of Riverside and Ventura is always so delicious. Can’t wait!

Good News and Watermelon

Tags

Food, Health, Herbs, Links, Recipes, Spices, Vegetables

So, last week I was back on the “Summer Salad Wagon”. Yes, still bought Trader Joe’s boxed Caesar salad without chicken, bags of romaine, Sorrento salads and their Just Chicken pre-cooked chicken since temps here have entered the 90′s so no oven for this chick-let till November.  Since I don’t have a volunteer tomato plant this year I also picked up a box of their Sugar Plum tomatoes . Have you tried these? So sweet and delicious. Anyways, the problem repeating salad summer this year is that after two years of this, I am really sick of romaine and other lettuce. I mean, every night?

I should segue here and let you in on a bit of info. I am no spring chicken which you may have surmised by now. As a result, which I have mentioned before, need a complete knee replacement (what fun) but am having trouble finding a surgeon since I have psoriasis on my legs and surgeons fear infections, etc. and etc. Sorry, is this too much info? Someday you may be in the same boat.

Oh and to veer off course in the middle of my segue, here is a site for anyone facing knee replacement surgery. It has a ton, seriously, of info on every aspect of it. It also has forums for support pre-op and post-op. So, back to what my first detour was talking about.

The back yard is a land mine of hummocks and bumps due to being a rental for almost 30 years. (The landlord never re-leveled the pits dug by assorted tenants’ dogs when they moved out.) In the past this was never a problem. Since the knee pooped out on me though, I’ve had to hire someone to pick up Blue’s pooh. I got sick of loosing my balance, falling over and so on. Anyhow, the woman who does it asked if I’d mind if she moved a few things around on the back patio where my dead container garden sits. Would I? Of course not!

Just to refresh your memory. The patio.

She further suggested that perhaps her brother could come over and clean things up a bit. Oh my…music to my ears. I’ve wanted to do this for so long but am limited by my knee and balance. Well, she gave me a quote yesterday and yay! it’s affordable. Guess what? He’s coming over tomorrow!

This means I can get the grill back up and running since she said he could make a trip to Home Depot for bags of potting soil and propane refills, saving me from having to deal with such a huge store. So I’ve spent the last few days on Pinterest (how did we ever live without it?) hunting down recipes for the grill.

So my hopes for a decent patio and container garden are resurrected. Didn’t mention it in the last post but the dirt in the pots is over ten years old and needs replacing. Can you see me schlepping all that dead dirt to a side bed or even the garbage can? Yeah, not so much. Plus all the chairs need a bath and the umbrella needs cleaning and fluffing. So there’s good news on the potted container herb and veggie garden front!

This will help immensely in the cooking department and cut back on the number of salads I have all summer. I’ve also decided that I’m going to get a cast iron Dutch oven that I can use on the grill vs. my nice Le Creuset which will never see the flames of my grill. For Christmas last December I “gifted” myself with a 10″ cast iron fry pan that has been seasoned on top of being pre-seasoned which I will enlist also.

This week I noticed Von’s has boneless, skinless chicken breasts on sale (the kind without salt, water, antibiotics, etc. added). So I’ve been looking for recipes that would work on the grill with those pans. I’m thinking, keep the chicken from drying out as it can easily do on the grill.

Photo Source.

Speaking of summer food, I bought a small but remarkably heavy watermelon the other day. Once home though, I was really dreading cutting it up. What was I thinking? I should just buy a bowl of cut up watermelon. Well, it’s been sitting on the counter staring at me as I’ve hemmed and hawed about cutting it up. Just in time Pinterest came to my rescue with this site and how to cut up a watermelon like a pro! Note: the author also has a video on this link and a recipe for a watemelon-lime slushy that I’ll be enjoying very soon.

P.S. After viewing the video, I checked out Joanne’s blog (no affiliation) and it’s one I’ll be bookmarking since all the recipes are from scratch and not overly long or heavy on ingredients. Just what my new eating habits need!

Gnudi, Gnocchi

Tags

Food, Happiness, Memories, Recipes, Weather

Well, it seems I’m on a foodie kick this week. Today, after toodling around the internet and assorted blogs I came across a post on gnudi. Now, I had never heard of gnudi till that very moment. How about you?

It made me think of my post “Tomato, Tomahto” back in November. As you know, I love finding new information on almost anything but especially food, dogs, art…okay, a lot of things. So, I googled it.

Photo Source.  From Lottie+Doof’s blog. Don’t you just want to dive right in?

Apparently it’s a pillowy dumpling, like gnocchi but made with ricotta not potatoes. Hmmm? I’ve heard of ricotta gnocchi before. In fact I have an ancient recipe from the time I lived in Rochester, NY (where I swear the sun does not shine for six or more months at a time).

Back then, I’d tried to make the potato version and met with failure after failure. So I was thrilled to see a ricotta version in the newspaper (sorry, can’t recall the paper’s name) and set out to make it immediately. It was a resounding and ridiculously simple success, it made me very happy.

Photo Source.  The Spotted Pig, Greenwich, NYC.

Fast forward to now and gnudi. Further research revealed that the ricotta version is actually gnudi and gnocchi is indeed the potato version. See what I mean when I said this reminded me of “tomato, tomahto”? I found a 2005 article at gothamist.com about the popularity of the “gnocchi type thing…called gnudi” at The Spotted Pig in NYC. (Note: it’s no longer on the menu at least online.) Anyhow, it made me feel like I’d been living under a bridge since I’d never heard of it.

The HuffPost Taste article noted “In Italian, gnudi roughly translates to ‘nude,’ which means you should think of gnudi as a naked ravioli — filling only. That’s why gnudi’s main ingredient is usually ricotta.” Like I said…tomato, tomahto.

I won’t go into further detail since you can read more about these little pillowy delights if you visit Lottie + Doof (post with recipe), or this article in The Huffington Post (recipes) or gothamist.com for an article on The Spotted Pig’s gnudi (recipe). Below is my version of the recipe for gnudi which I’m stubbornly still referring to as Gnocchi:

Rochester Gnocchi with Ricotta Cheese

1 lb. ricotta cheese
1 c. flour
1 egg
1 t. salt (I will be cutting this in half)

Mix in bowl and roll on floured board (adding more flour to prevent sticking). Roll into a cord 1/2” inch thick, cut cord into 1” inch lengths.  Roll with fork. Drop in salted boiling water.  They are done when they float to the top.  Drain and add spaghetti sauce and cheese, or pesto sauce.

If you want to try your hand at potato gnocchi please enjoy this video:

So, in the end, no matter what you call them, they’re wonderful little pillows of tasty goodness. I’m so glad this matter got all cleared up…lol

More on Vinaigrettes and Salt

Tags

Food, Herbs, Links, Recipe, Spices

Yesterday I made a salad very similar to the previous day’s but used black beans vs. garbanzos. These where rinsed of their salty liquid and drained before adding to the salad. In retrospect, I would say that fresh herbs shouldn’t be added to the vinaigrette if you’re going to store it in the fridge for a day or so. The tarragon really withered and I wound up fishing it out with a small strainer. Better to add fresh herbs to the assembled salad for visual appeal.

In my hunt to root out salt that’s hidden in plain sight, I looked at one of my go-to seasonings Lemon Pepper. I have the Lawry’s brand and love it. OMG, it’s loaded with salt! So I found several “recipes” for making my own with zero salt. That was this afternoon’s project. You will find a “recipe” for homemade lemon pepper without salt at the bottom of this post.

In the past when I’ve made fresh artichokes, I’ve made a dipping sauce that goes like this…add the following to one tub (16 oz.) of sour cream (I like Knudsen’s more than Daisy brand for some unknown reason). 1 to 1.5 t each of Beau Monde mix, Bon Appetit mix, Lemon Pepper mix. Stir, let sit for at least an hour so the flavors can bloom.

Actually it makes a delicious accompaniment to almost any cooked or raw veggie. Well, it should…it’s all salt! Amazing how we can miss what’s in plain sight. Here I thought I was being so good making my own dip all these years using herb and spice mixtures. Wrongo.

Even 2 T. Knudsen’s sour cream has 10 mg. of sodium. So the moral of the story is that sodium pervades the typical American diet. One can’t escape it. Yes, I know I sound like a person who just quit smoking or drinking or turning tricks and can’t stop evangelizing about it, but that’s sort of how it feels. Weird huh?

So here’s what I found in the category of salt free lemon pepper sources:  The Spice House, Fiesta Spices and Mrs. Dash’s all carry some form of it.

As far as a recipe I found several which are all pretty much the same. You start by preheating your oven to 225F  or toaster oven on its lowest setting. Zest three lemons (about 1 to 2 T). Can I presume you know to avoid the white pith? Mix the zest with 2 to 3 T. cracked black pepper. I put the pepper corns in a heavy plastic bag and using a hammer, cracked them on a bread board.

By drying the two together the oils from the zest will commingle more fully with the pepper. Spread in one layer on a foil covered cookie sheet or toaster oven tray (you may have to do two batches using a toaster oven). Bake, stirring once till the zest is completely dry, about 25 to 30 minutes.

Once the mix is dry to the touch, put it in a mortar and grind to desired consistency with the pestle (or use a sturdy bowl and back of a spoon). Note, you can adjust the amounts for a more lemony or peppery result. If desired, sea salt may be added to the grinding process.  Store in an air-tight container.

Tarragon Mustard Shrimp and More

Tags

Food, Links, Recipe

Before I comment on which vinaigrette I used, I want to share an incredibly delicious, recipe with you. Found it ages ago in a Wolfgang Puck cookbook. It’s an appetizer but if you throw dietary caution to the wind, it makes an unbelievable meal. The tarragon, mustard, cream and shrimp are a flawless combination. I, however, won’t be enjoying this dish any time soon.

Tarragon Mustard Shrimp

Photo Source. This is approximately what the end result looks like.

Ingredients:

6-8 medium peeled shrimp per person
Salt & pepper
4 T. mild-flavored oil, such as almond or safflower oil
2 medium shallots, minced
1 bunch fresh tarragon
1/2 c. dry sherry
1/2 c. heavy cream
2 oz. unsalted butter, cut into small pieces
2 T. Dijon mustard
1 T. minced chives

Season the shrimp with salt and pepper.  Using two large sauté pans, heat the oil until it begins to smoke.  Over very high heat, sauté the shrimp for 6-7 minutes.  Transfer to a warm plate, set aside, and keep warm.

To each sauté pan add one minced shallot and 1 T. minced tarragon.  Sauté for 2-3 minutes.  Deglaze each pan with the sherry and then combine the sauce in one pan.  Add the cream and reduce the sauce until it coats the back of a spoon, add butter 1 piece at a time and melt and then add mustard.  Whisk in the mustard, just at the last minute.  Do not let the sauce boil, or the mustard will become grainy.  Correct seasoning to taste.

Arrange shrimp on serving plates, nap with sauce, and sprinkle with chives.

And now on to my opinion of last night’s recipe… I didn’t use any of the recipes I posted instead I made up my own. Partly because I found the Good Seasons Salad Mixing bottle. Perfect for shaking up a dressing. This is what I dreamed up:

1/4 c. extra virgin olive oil
2 T. cider vinegar
1t. Dijon mustard
1-2 t. chopped fresh tarragon, bruised to release the oils
a grind of fresh pepper
3-4 rinsed and mashed capers for flavor

It’s sort of a mash up of all the recipes I looked at. The mashed capers seem incidental however they added just enough salt flavor without having to add salt. The final shaken dressing was light and fresh. For one chopped up heart of Romaine I used about 1.5 T., refrigerating the leftover vinaigrette.

The fact that it was room temperature when I drizzled it on made it seem to go further and coat more. So I would recommend letting any vinaigrette come to room temp before using. In fact, it reminds me to go take the bottle out of the fridge right now. Oh and I added all the other elements after coating the lettuce. It was quite nummy!

But this really makes me want to clean up my patio container garden so I can plant herbs. I think having those wonderful flavors at my fingertips, will aid in avoiding salt which is the whole goal here.

And So It Begins

Tags

Diary-type Entry, Food, Herbs, Links, Low Sodium, Recipes, Vegetables

Hi again! Well, tonight I’m making a salad from scratch. It will feature Romaine lettuce, Trader Joe’s precooked baby beets, yellow cherry tomatoes, thinly sliced red onion, garbanzos (well rinsed since this is a can with sodium) and I’m not sure what else.

Photo Source.

For the dressing I’m thinking of a tarragon vinaigrette. I picked up a pack of super fresh looking tarragon, couldn’t resist it! Seems vinaigrettes call for shallots quite often. Since I looked at them yesterday but didn’t think ahead and pick a few up, I have none. I do however have frozen chopped scallions which I’ll just chop even finer. Should work out in a pinch.

Oddly none of the recipes I bookmarked uses tarragon so off I Google. Here are a few that I found:

Lemon Tarragon Vinaigrette
Tarragon Vinaigrette
Tarragon Garlic Vinaigrette
And One More

For those of you not worried about sodium I’m adding a Caesar Salad with Vinaigrette that looks and sound delicious but at 505.1 mg./serving of the salad is not in my ballpark.

I’ll let you know in the next post which one I used and my opinion of it.

P.S. I’m still very salt sensitive apparently, the sandwich you saw in the previous post was indeed my lunch two days ago. Sure enough…balloon legs  Not at all happy about that.

You Say You Read Food Labels…

Tags

Diary-type Entry, Food, Inspiration, It's Always Something, Vegetables

Hello there, I’m so glad you stopped by. I’ve missed you. While away there were several little health dramas, all of which (I think) can be corrected by what one eats. After three weeks of that rotten cough and swollen ankles, calves and feet (I’ve never have swollen limbs), dizziness and exhaustion, I went to the expensive doctor, the one I’ve gone to forever until recently when she stopped taking insurance. My blood pressure was through the roof. Panic set in and unleashed my very vivid imagination. I’ll let you extrapolate where it went.

Anyhow, bottom line, I really need to ditch salt. That said, I already use little to no salt in my daily life, nor do I cook with it. The scary thing is discovering just how much hidden salt is stashed in processed, prepared foods. This is coming from someone who already reads labels! Well, read further because the average person ingests 3,400 mg. of salt (1.5 t.) per day. The current Dietary Guidelines for Americans suggests ages 14 to 50 limit intake to 2,300 mg. For those over 51 or with other health risks adjusting down to 1,500 mg. is prescribed. My doctor suggested 1500 to 1,800 till my blood pressure is reigned in.

Now that we have some numbers, we can realistically look at what we eat and it’s not good. Take for instance what passes on occasion for lunch at my desk. It seems healthy but is it?

Oven Roasted Turkey on 7 Grain Bread with Fresh Basil and a Teaspoon of Mayo

Turns out we’re looking at 920 mg. of sodium! Over half of my day’s allowance. Who knew? I already knew that when manufacturers lower fat and carbs they pump up the sodium in products to make them palatable, but you really have no idea just how much this affects one’s diet till you have some goal numbers. (This is one of the reasons I believe in eating “real” butter, mayo and so on but in moderation otherwise it’s just smoke and mirrors trying to use “fake” foods for a low carb, low fat diet…IMO at least.)

My Trader Joe’s pre-packed Caesar salad comes in at 600 mg. without the dressing. So if I was planning on having that for dinner, I’ve gone over my limit if I add the little plastic container of salad dressing.

As a result, I’m rethinking (once again) what I eat. This week I bought fresh berries, broccoli, green beans and a chicken. I’m freezing half the berries in snack bags for use in smoothies (yes, those can be calorie bombs waiting to go off) and just to nibble on frozen. The idea is to rely less on prepared foods even though I thought I was being “safe” in my choices. When you’re faced with a specific limit, it makes a huge difference.

The way I see it, I’m going to have to eat in a more vegetarian manner and cook my own food. While this is a pain in the neck vs. popping open a container or bag, it is something I’ll just have to get used to. My salads will have to be made from scratch as will the dressings. Luckily I have collected a nice little stash of vinaigrette recipes from various food blogs in the last few months.

It’s also fortunate that a lot of the blogs I read are food and vegetarian oriented. Hopefully I’ll get inspiration there. I’m also glad in a warped sort of way that red meat prices are sky-rocketing since that has virtually eliminated them quite painlessly from my diet in the last year. Mind you, I won’t refuse a filet mignon ever, but I no longer treat myself to them at Costco.

So we’ll see where this little odyssey takes me and whether I get bored and fall back into my old ways. I really can’t promise anything but to do the best I can and if I fail, to forgive myself and try to get back on board somehow. It’s not that I want to live forever, I just don’t want to be sick or in pain. Yeah, I’m a wuss that way. Besides, I can’t afford it given the healthcare system in this country. But that’s a whole ‘nother story.

Thank you

Tags

Craziness, Health, Holidays, It's Always Something, Life

A while back, I wrote about how the upcoming appointment with an infection specialist surgeon on May 9 for my trashed knee. I drove all over the place and retrieved all MRI reports and CDs. I was set and my friend was ready to drive me since it’s in an area of LA that neither of us has been to and her car has GPS.

Well, not so fast. Turned my phone on Tuesday morning, May 7 and there was a voicemail that the appointment I’d waited eight months for was canceled! Not cool.

I’ve tried to see only the positive but the cancellation is a blow. I called them and OMG the next appointment was in very late October into early November!!!!!!!!! You suck it up for so long and then the guy goes off to some conference? But they did have a 7/11/13 at 7:30 AM available. Sigh. I am not a morning person and so will have to get up at about 5 a.m. to get ready to leave by 6 or earlier.

Now add the nagging cough and other ailments I currently have (whine, whine, whine) and I was really getting very down about it all. But then ran across two videos on YouTube that really helped my mood. Since this was Memorial weekend, when we honor those who have given life, limb and sanity to keep this country and much of the world free, my worries seemed so insignificant. These videos drove that home, they’re about a very amazing man named Nick Vujicic. So I decided to share them with you. He’s not a veteran but knowing that some veterans face life altering changes in service to this country, I thought we would all benefit from them.

See what I mean? Kind of hard to wallow when I have two arms and two legs (even if one of them needs a new knee) right?

To all who have helped defend this country and keep liberty alive, thank you. Thank you! Thank you!!!

still…

Tags

Baggage, Blue, Diary-type Entry, Memories, Weather

Well, you could have knocked me over with a feather “as they say”…where the heck have I been for the last few weeks? This is Memorial Day Weekend? Holy cow! Play the Rolling Stones “out of touch my baby”…and so on.

Regarding my last post and my little not so little hiatus due to illness…I’m still on hold, not much better. Coughing my lungs up…still. Saw my doctor of many years last Friday. Oh goodie, tests, x-rays and new meds. She doesn’t have any idea where this relentless cough is coming from. There’s more but I’m not in the mood to talk about it.

Other than that pooh, the weather (knock on wood) has been heavenly. It’s actually “spring”! I love it!

Photo Source. No, not Mr. Blue, but you get the idea.

On another front and not very positive, Blue (Mr. BunnyPants) has been having health issues too. Not going to talk about that right now either…still… in the phases of denial.

So the other bookend to this time of year is my Mom’s death thirteen years ago today. The month of May used to be such a happy time. Now, I recall the person I was married to being so kind (where did he ever go?) and whisking me off on a ten day vacation in Wales at an exquisite B & B after my Dad left us on April 28 of that year. We even had a few days with my dear friend in The Netherlands.

To this day I swear my Mom was holding on till I was safely “home”. She died one and a half days after I called her to let her know I returned and would see her in three days. She died in her sleep like Gram, my Great Grandmother, the woman who raised her when her Mom died in 1919.

Like I said, this month is marked with bookends, starting with my Dad’s death, then my birthday, followed by their anniversary, then ending with her death. Maybe that’s why I always get sick at this time of year.

Who knows? Still…I just wish I could hug each of them one more time. Maybe that would make it all better.

It Began So Innocently

Tags

Health, It's Always Something

Sorry to be AWOL here but my allergies went through the roof after the rain last week on Tuesday (I think that’s when it rained, with my fog ridden brain I could be wrong). Regardless, all the usual symptoms appeared…sneezing, coughing, my nose turning into a faucet and so on. It was “just” allergies. It started so benignly.

The Live Oak and Pecan trees spread their mist of lime pollen over everything. You could write “wash me” in the pollen coating on my car. I didn’t. And now all the tassels that held the nasty stuff are falling. What a mess.

After this weekend however, it appears I’ve succumbed to the usual spring malady where my allergies somehow morph into bronchitis or pneumonia. I’d love to know how that happens since I’m so careful not to touch my hands to my face and so on when out and wash them thoroughly when returning home. I avoid anyone coughing, sneezing and all that when in public.

Photo Source.

How simple allergies do this I have no idea, but it’s been a pattern over the last nine or ten years. Hopefully tomorrow, I’ll snag an appointment with my doctor of many years. She can spot pneumonia and so on better than anyone I’ve come across even though I’ll pay through the nose (yeah, hah hah…pun intended) since she’s not with Blue Cross. It’s so weird how allergies can balloon into an illness.

From experience I know when the allergies/illness have “upped the ante” and I finally am feeling sick. So I’ll be taking a break from this blog for about a week. I have several posts written but can’t finalize them since my brain is in a complete addled haze from all the hacking and by now a lung should have come up. Okay, too much info, sorry. But it is what it is.

Does anyone else’s body out there have this rather odd ability to go from something simple to a totally compromising situation? I just don’t get it even after all these years.

Photo Source. Whimper, whimper.

And yes I should be resting but am up very late since laying down leads to ceaseless hacking in spite the assorted drugs. So, as I said, I’m taking a small break, please check in with me in a few days or so…and I hope YOU are well and happy.