Some Christmas Crochet for Mildred

With the amazing Texas Christmas snow, this little cap might come in handy. Such a pretty girl we have.

Lana's Special Order

Amid the hustle and bustle of Anna-Jane's birthday and wrapping up school for the holidays, I got Lana's special order finished. WooHoo! This one for Dana is my favorite. The inside quote is "For He so loved the world..." I have 2 more in mind that I want to get made before the big day. Certainly would be good to have a few elves to help out with the nasty little zippers.

Just Drooling

Back in the Clutch Business

Just finished this one and got an order for 4 more. Fun.

October 14 Week in Pictures

October 8 Week in Pictures

 

My new haircut was supposed to look like this but it's not even really close... Hmmmm.... Too hair obsessed, I know. Got a new product to try so tomorrow I'm sure I will look exactly like this picture.

 

I am so crazy about these journal book covers. Adorable.

Thursday night Mexican fix at Lupe's

She could have stayed at the pumpkin patch all day re-arranging those pumpkins. That's right up her ally for sure.

Songs in my head this week - Maroon 5's Payphone and One More Night, Matchbox 20's She's So Mean, that old Iggy Pop song with the girl from the B52s Candy (Weird).

Week in Pictures October 1

 

Campsite #92 at The Vineyards Campground

 

The 1st night was gorgeous - 80 degrees and no wind. We got set up, grilled turkey sausage, onions and bell peppers. Anna-Jane ran all around and had a great time roasting marshmellows for smores. The weather was perfect. A day later it would be a chilly 50 degrees. That's Texas, right?

All this summer I was obsessing about getting a kayak. Thought it was probably time to try it out in real life before actually hitting Craigslist. It's exactly what I thought - total fun.

 

Feeding the ducks. And, just look at those long shapely legs. Where did those come from?

 

Big Tex and Deep Fried Red Velvet Cupcake

 

Boo!

Practiced 5 times and got to pick out of Miss April's treasure chest. Good work! Check out the dance leotard.



Summer Fun!

If I played the lottery, maybe I'd win and we could do this all year!

It's a Family Affair

My 6 year old niece Amelia better known as Mildred spent the week with us. She was such a nut for her "heirloom" that I re-nicknamed her Lupe Loop. I picked up loops all week, but she created some beautiful masterpieces. I love her so much. Can't wait until she is crocheting and quilting. It won't be long.

Kale Orange Avocado Salad Heaven Awesomeness

Are you noticing a theme here? Since our real-life brush with what felt like a House episode, I'm working to get as many vitamins and super foods in Wendy Dee as possible. This recipe came from http://www.eatliverun.com/kale-salad-with-oranges-almonds-and-avocado-the-detox-salad/ and it is the most delicious salad yet in this odyssey of green unprocessed stuff that we are taking. The author of the blog is a Cordon Bleu chef and freelance food writer who focuses on food from community supported agriculture. Dear Higher Power of the Universe: in my next life, in addition to being taller and having thicker hair, may I please be paid to eat food? Anyway, she writes that the secret to kale is to massage in that dressing and then let it sit and soak in for awhile. It's so thick with chewy green goodness that it doesn't get soaked or wilty. Delish! The beautiful picture is from her website. Tomorrow's menu: heirloom tomatoes and black-eyed peas.

The Juice Blast

Between the sweet bday check from Donna D and part of the awesome Target gift card from the super sweet and generous BTW workout girls, I got the Juiceman. Our first juicing excursion was 8 carrots, 3 celery stalks, 2 apples, and a beet. We diluted it a little bit with water and poured over ice. Delish!

Green Smoothie

From the Chronicles of Chicken Fried Veggie - Food Babe and Rabbit Food for my Bunny Teeth both have versions of the green smoothie. After watching Food Inc, it's clear we could all use a little more green in our lives, right? So I tried my own version of a green smoothie and much to my surprise, it's the best chicken-friedness ever. Here's the recipe:
1/2 can of coconut milk
Small cup of pre packaged peaches
2 big bunches of mixed spring salad mix (the kind with the radicchio)
Put both in blender and mix until well blended. You have to stop the blender a few times and push down the greens and add more.
1 frozen banana
1 cup (I don't measure) frozen mango
1 cup frozen pineapple
Put on smoothie setting and let it roll until its creamy and frothy.
Tastiness: definitely an 8 or 9. I love the contrast of flavors. The peppery bitterness of the greens and the super sweetness of the fruit. Easiness: 8. - all it requires is throwing a bunch of stuff in the blender. While it's mixing, I throw away the peach container and put the frozen stuff back up. Throw the other half of the coconut milk in a container. Accessibility of ingredients: 5 - I don't keep coconut milk on hand but will for now. You also have to have a frozen banana so that requires some planning. Clean-up: 6 - just wash out the blender. Not too bad all things considered. Definitely worth the effort for the payoff on this one. It makes 2 big servings. Wendy and I drank one around 11 am and didn't have anything else until around 4pm. I was hungry but not dying. Here's to going green!

Mixed Spinach Salad with Tahini Dressing

From the Chronicles of Chicken Fried Veggie Food Babe one of my favorite new blogs writes about Tahini Dressing as if it were the second coming. For me, the jury is still out on this one. Maybe it's my crude taste buds or my lack of cooking skills, but I just wasn't that into it. Wendy on the other hand loved it and asked for seconds, so we'll give it another go before scratching it off the list. If you've read my other posts, you know that you're more likely to find me frantically trying to empty my email inbox than spending any real quality time cooking in the kitchen, so I have several criteria for rating recipes in this little social/culinary experiment Tastiness, Easiness, Accessiblity of ingredients, and Clean up time. For the tahini dressing, here are my ratings with a 10 being chicken-fried deliciousness and a 1 being total bleh. Tastiness: 3 - it was just kinda bland for me. It needed some spice or some red chili paste to jazz it up. Wendy gives it a 6. She says she enjoyed the fresh tanginess of it. Easiness: 6 - it just required throwing a bunch of stuff in the blender, not much chopping or prepping. Accessibility of Ingredients: 6 everything was already in the pantry or fridge except the tahini but I found it in the organic section of Kroger so not too much of a biggie there. It cost like $5.99 or something so kinda pricey for me. Clean-up: 3- had to clean a blender and a whole bunch of muxing cups and measuring spoons, so that's always going to get a fairly low score. Overall, we will make this again and add some spice and I will just eyeba the measurements.

Welcome to Southern Fried Veggie

Reposted from new blog -- Southern Fried Veggie. I'm a southern woman in a long line of southern women who are delicious cooks. I grew up on biscuits and gravy, eggs over easy, cornbread dressing, fried chicken and mashed potatoes, macaroni and cheese with ranch beans, fried catfish and hush puppies. My Granny was a good southern cook. We called her Big Bill. My favorites were strawberry cake with about a pound of confectioner's powered sugar as the icing and pineapple upside down cake. I'd stay with her during the summer and every day at lunch, we'd enjoy a bowl of Campbell's chicken noodle soup, peanut butter mixed with Welch's grape jelly on 2 slices of white wonder bread. Of course, that was after the fried eggs and bacon breakfast we had earlier. Hmmm, that was some good eating. Now, Granny was a good cook, but my Momma is a phenomenal southern cook. Chocolate pie with mile-high meringue, coconut cream pie with crust made from scratch, banana pudding eaten straight from the bowl while standing with the refrigerator door open. (What? You know you've done that too). Where I come from food is love, comfort, and hospitality, and warm wishes. Food is everything. For a southern woman like me, food is life and I'm a true foodie. I wake up thinking about what I'm going to eat and rate if my day was decent or not by the tastiness of what I ate. Of course, along with all of this is a scale that goes up and up and up and feelings of having no energy or that good 'ol hidy-ho zeal for life. I wake up tired and fall in bed exhausted. Cranky, grouchy, sleepy, hungry.., don't mistake these as members of the 7 dwarfs, it is me on a typical day. Harrumph. There's got to be a better way, right? If there is, I'm determined to figure it out. This blog is to document the journey I am taking to capture the same southern fried deliciousness that is engrained in my DNA and eat a more plant-strong, whole-food, non-processed, environmentally conscious diet. Is that even possible? Who knows. Here I will try out recipes, read and review books and documentaries, etc. You get the idea. In addition to my "would you like fries with that? Oh hell, yeah" outlook, I'm a workaholic with a 1.5 hour round trip (on a good day) commute, and mom of Miss Anna-Jane my 5 year old so there's not a lot of time to fool around shopping for odd ingredients and slaving the day away in a kitchen. So basically this social experiment boils down to this: is it possible for a 40 year old southern woman to make real health differences with food quickly, efficiently, cheaply and still taste as good as coconut cream pie? Well, let's get started and find out.

R V there yet?

Fun family summer vacay at Daingerfield State Park. Here's the run down: rode scooters, went swimming in scary 3rd world like country swimming hole (I wore shoes and couldn't convince Anna-Jane of the virtues of such until the last day). Bleh. Anna-Jane swam all the way from the shore to the diving dock about 100 yards away. Brave, determined girl. Cooked out--fried chicken with grilled corn, fresh tomatoes, coleslaw, hamburgers and hotdogs. Visited Jefferson, TX and rode the carriage and took the Bayou boat ride. Drove around and fantasized about owning a B&B in town (but thinking about cleaning up after other people kinda icks me out so will have to continue to develop that daydream.) Ate at the Hamburger store (if you ever go there, hope you are not in a big hurry), Catfish Village in Ore City, made pancakes, ate lots of ice cream, went fishing and hiking, took a nap, and picked blueberries at Greer's Farm, a u-pick CSA. Just thinking about it all wears me out. Mark your calendar and let's do it all again next year. Wahoo!