Author: Norma

A Paleolithic Diet – Day 1

So … I guess you’re wondering what a paleolithic diet is, eh? Here’s what Wiki has to say about it:

“The Paleolithic diet consists of foods that can be hunted and fished, such as meat, and seafood, and can be gathered, such as eggs, insects, fruit, nuts, seeds, vegetables, mushrooms, herbs and spices.”

No grains, legumes (e.g. beans and peanuts), dairy products (eggs are okay though), salt, nor refined sugar or processed oils are allowed.

Now the “why” of this sudden diet. Well, our son recently came to visit and he’s always playing around with different recipes and researched this particular diet and offered to cook for us. And guess what we said?  “Why not?”  So, he’ll be cooking for us every day and I’ll be posting pictures (and hopefully links to the recipes) of what we’ll be eating.

This diet will be quite different for me. I grew up eating a Puerto Rican diet which pretty much consisted of chicken, rice, beans and corn. That was the “poor” Puerto Rican diet. We did eat other things but that was our staple.

Then, when I became a Seventh-day Adventist as a young adult, I became vegetarian for 20 years or so. Later, when the children were grown, it came a little more difficult to be a vegetarian since my husband prefers some meat so I became a semi-vegetarian (I know, I know there’s no such thing but it’s a point of reference, i.e. some days we’d eat meat and other days we wouldn’t).

My son has tweaked some of the recipes a little so use your own creativity. Not being able to eat gluten means no bread, cereal, farina, etc. And no sugar … well, there goes my hot chocolate for a little while.

I’ll let you know how things go. The first day’s meal was dinner since we had to shop for the ingredients earlier in the day. And here it is …

Tuna Steak
Paleolithic Meal/Dinner

The meal consisted of grilled tuna steak with olive relish, carrot and squash stir fry and asparagus with ginger. (Click on the links to see the recipes.)

This meal was great! The tuna didn’t taste like tuna to me but more like an actual steak (not as chewy though). The olive relish was also delicious as this diet is supposed to be low in sodium and the olives gave it some salt flavor. The carrot and squash stir fry and the asparagus with ginger were equally good.

First meal on a paleolithic diet was a success!

Have any of you ever been on this diet? If so, I’d be interested in how you liked it.

 

 

 

 

Gluten Free Pasta

I tried — I really did try (okay okay, I only tried once) — to use gluten free pasta.

Why, you ask? Well, the chiropractor I go to told me that there are a lot of people who have problems with gluten and he thought I should try a gluten free diet for awhile. So the first thing I did when I left his office was head to a natural food store and buy myself some gluten free pasta.

The pasta I chose was made by Bionaturae.

Bionaturae Gluten Free Penne Rigate
Bionaturae Gluten Free Penne Rigate

It looks friendly enough, right?

I boiled it per the directions on the package but before I strained it, I tasted it. Ugh! It tasted quite hard still so I allowed it to boil 2 extra minutes. Uh, no … still tasted gritty and “funny.” So I let it boil 2 more minutes and tasted it again. (I had a gut feeling that dinner was going to be late …) Nope! So I boiled it two more minutes. And ya know what? It still didn’t taste good so I did what any normal gray haired Puerto Rican would do … I threw it out and grabbed a bag of “regular” pasta, boiled it and served it instead.

Whew! I’m glad I had some real stuff in my cupboard. The gluten free pasta looks harmless enough, it just didn’t taste very good … to me.

Gluten free pasta
Gluten free pasta

I’m not saying I won’t try it again but am wondering if there’s anyone who knows of a better gluten free pasta I can try. Or, is it just a matter of getting used to the taste and texture?

[amazon_link id=”B001E5E0YW” target=”_blank” container=”” container_class=”” ]bionaturae Organic Penne Rigate, Gluten Free, 12-Ounce Bags (Pack of 6)[/amazon_link]

 

Turkey Pot Pie

Before the end of 2012, I made a homemade turkey pot pie that came out really good (even if the crust didn’t come out “pretty).” You’ll see what I mean when I post the pictures. The crust seemed a little too wet for me and I’m wondering if that’s why it fell apart (I did add extra flour while rolling.) Any ideas fellow bloggers?

I think you’ll enjoy this recipe.

Ingredients

  • 1 pie crust (1/2 of a Perfect Pie crust recipe – click to see the instructions)
  • 1/2 stick butter
  • 1/2 cup finely diced onion
  • 1/2 cup finely diced carrot
  • 1/2 cup finely diced celery
  • 2 cups turkey, light or dark, diced or shredded
  • 1/4 cup flour
  • 2 to 3 cups low-sodium chicken or turkey broth (more if needed!)
  • 3/4 cup heavy cream
  • Frozen peas (optional)
  • Fresh thyme, chopped
  • salt and pepper to taste

Directions

  1. Preheat oven to 400° Fahrenheit.
  2. Melt butter in a skillet then add the onion, carrots, and celery. Cook until the onion is translucent (maybe a couple of minutes).
  3. Add the turkey and stir.
  4. Sprinkle flour over the mixture and stir then cook over medium heat for a couple of minutes, stirring constantly.
  5. Pour the chicken or turkey broth and continue stirring constantly.
  6. Pour in the cream.
  7. Add the frozen peas.
  8. Bring to a slow boil and allow mixture to cook and thicken for a few minutes.
  9. Add the salt and pepper to taste.
  10. Add the fresh or dried thyme to taste.
  11. Pour mixture into a casserole dish or deep pie pan.
  12. Roll out the crust so that it’s about 1 inch larger than the pan you’re using.
  13. Place the crust on top of the pot pie mixture, and press crust into the sides of the dish.
  14. Cut vents in the top of the crust.
  15. Bake for 30-40 minutes or until golden and bubbly and the crust is done.
    Allow to cool for a little before serving.
Ingredients
Ingredients (less turkey and thyme)
Cook onion, celery and carrot in butter
Cook onion, celery and carrot in butter until onion is clear
Add bite-size pieces of turkey
Add bite-size pieces of turkey and stir
Add flour and stir
Add flour and stir
Add the cream
Add the broth, cream and frozen peas then stir
Pour mixture into casserole dish
Pour mixture into casserole dish

Now, you can use whatever crust you like to cover the mixture. I used the Pioneer Woman’s crust which is what I link to in my recipe. The crust came out a little moist and came apart on me when I tried to lift it from the floured cutting board but it tasted fine just the same. Because of this, I did not have to vent the crust (it had enough holes in it – hahahaha).

Turkey Pot Pie
Turkey Pot Pie

And here’s what a slice of this wonderful pie looked like …

Slice of Turkey Pot Pie
Slice of Turkey Pot Pie

Yum, yum and triple yum!

I found the recipe for both the crust and the turkey pot pie at a fellow bloggers site – The Pioneer Woman.

 

The New Year

Well, the old year went out with quite a bang in our family. A medical emergency caused me to take stock in what life is all about — people not things.

I pray all of you will have a wonderful new year filled with blessings overflowing (they are there you just have to open your eyes to notice them).

This year I’m hoping to spend more time learning how to eat healthier both physically and spiritually.

Right now, I’m still a tad bit tired from the three days spent at the hospital so I’m sharing a post about the new year that a friend of mine wrote. I hope you enjoy it and will be posting more soon. Blessings to you all!

(Click here to read the post)

 

 

 

Christmas

I haven’t been posting lately as the holidays not only crept up on me but overtook me completely. As such, yesterday was Christmas for my immediate family. Yes, I know it was the 27th and typically Christmas is celebrated on the 25th of December but we were visiting the extended family and put ours on hold (if there’s such a thing as putting Christmas on hold).

Next year I want to stay home and celebrate our own traditions. It’s nice to see extended family over the holidays but it feels like we are always the ones sacrificing our time to run hither and thither to some family event that takes us hours away from home.

What did I have under the tree this year? Well, I got a new Brothers sewing machine. This is an experiment on my part as I did not grow up sewing much. However, there are curtains that need hemming and “simple” new curtains that I hear can be made easily so I put the sewing machine on my list. We’ll see how that project goes.

I also received a nice purple sweater, a faux fur vest that’s reversible, a new cookbook called “The New Way to Cook Light” (yeah!), a Hamilton Beach hand blender and a  Timex heart rate monitor (more on this another day but think healthy!). In addition, one of my son’s gave my husband and I a 3 night stay at a resort in northern Minnesota. Ooooo ….  (lol)  I figure we can use that closer to March when it’s not as nippy outside.

I won’t have much time to check out all of my gifts until the new year starts as I have end of year paperwork to work on. You know the kind — moving old files to the basement and starting new files …

Then I have to put away all the Christmas ornaments and take down the tree.

One thing I like to do is go through the cards that I received during the holidays and reply to the people who shared their joys and sorrows with me in letters. I also cut out the front of most cards and use them as labels for next year’s gifts — an elderly friend of mine taught me that “trick” many years ago. “Why buy labels when you have these pretty cards to use?” she told me. (Funny thing is, I think she was my age when she shared that with me … so why use the word elderly? hehe)

Today will be a ho hum day of laundry, snow shoveling (we received a couple more inches of snow), cleaning the fireplace and regular cleaning. Ho hum.

Next year I hope to have some new recipes to share from my new cookbook. But I have to get to work now … duty calls!

[amazon_link id=”B005GXPOAM” target=”_blank” container=”” container_class=”” ]Brother XR9500PRW Limited Edition Project Runway Sewing Machine with 100 Built-in Stitches, Quilting Table[/amazon_link]

[amazon_link id=”B007V8PYFU” target=”_blank” container=”” container_class=”” ]Hamilton Beach Hand Blender[/amazon_link]

[amazon_link id=”0848734688″ target=”_blank” container=”” container_class=”” ]Cooking Light The New Way to Cook Light: Fresh Food & Bold Flavors for Today's Home Cook[/amazon_link]

[amazon_link id=”B005CP8Z3C” target=”_blank” container=”” container_class=”” ]Timex Full-Size T5K541 Personal Trainer Heart Rate Monitor Watch[/amazon_link]

The First Opened Christmas Gift

Our family from Fargo recently came to visit for a belated Thanksgiving dinner that our son was preparing and they arrived bearing Christmas gifts.

A quick glimpse at an unwrapped box showed a bird on the side.  Hmmm … The box was whisked away to the basement though. Ah well, guess I have to wait to see what the surprise is.

When I woke up the next morning, the box was sitting on the kitchen counter. For those who don’t know, when I wrap gifts I wrap them in boxes that are much larger than the gift inside or in a shoe box with something other than shoes inside. I like surprising people although it seems like most people know I try to trick them so it’s not as much fun anymore.

This box actually had — a bird feeder! My mother-in-law bought it for me and my husband. She always picks out appropriate gifts. Here’s a picture of it under our Christmas tree …

Bird Feeder
Wingscapes Bird Feeder

Oh, what’s that you say? You can’t see it very well? Well, here’s a closer view …

Bird Feeder
Wingscapes Bird Feeder

It sure is purr-ty, no? Besides the beauty it has, it also has a timer so you can train your birds to feed when you are around to see them. AND it’s squirrel proof. Yeah!

Here’s a picture of the box it came in … See the birds on the bottom of the box? That’s what I saw when the box was whisked in.

Wingscapes Bird Feeder
Wingscapes Bird Feeder

In addition to the Wingscapes Bird Feeder, she also gifted us a Birds of Minnesota handbook.

Birds of Minnesota, 2nd edition
Birds of Minnesota, 2nd edition

We haven’t set the bird feeder out yet as we’ll probably wait until the first of the year.

If more people learned to give useful gifts we might not have as many un-needed “things” thrown out so quickly.

Have you ever received a really useful gift?

[amazon_link id=”B0083H9HBU” target=”_blank” container=”” container_class=”” ]Wingscapes WSBF02-00132 Automatic Bird Feeder[/amazon_link]

[amazon_link id=”B006Z2B02E” target=”_blank” container=”” container_class=”” ]Birds Minnesota FG 2nd Edition (Books)[/amazon_link]

 

Mary’s Perspective in Song

Here’s a really neat Christmas song by Francesca Battestelli. I enjoyed it the first time I heard it and continue to enjoy it every time I hear it. I’ve posted the lyrics below so you can follow along. The song is sung from the perspective of a mother (Mary, the mother of Jesus).

You’re Here

Hold on now, got to take a deep breath.
I don’t know what to say when I look in your eyes.
You made the world before I was born, 
And here I am holding you in my arms tonight.

Noel, Noel
Jesus our Emmanuel.

(Chorus)
You’re here.
I’m holding you so near.
I’m staring into the face of my Savior, 
King and Creator.
You could of left us on our own.
But you’re here.

I don’t know how long I’m going to have you for, 
But I’ll be watching when you change the world.
Look at your hands, they’re still so small.
Someday you’re going to stretch them out and save us all.

Noel, Noel
God with us, Emmanuel.

(Chorus)

Someday I’m going to look back on this, 
The night that God became my baby boy.
Someday you’re going to go home again, 
But you’ll leave your spirit, 
And flood the world with joy

(Chorus)
You’ll be here.
I’m holding you so near. Oh, oh.
I’m staring into the face of my Savior, 
King and Creator.
You could of left me on my own.
But you’re here.
You’re here.
Hallelujah, you’re here.
Hallelujah, you’re here.

Did you like it?

[amazon_link id=”B009KB6FJ0″ target=”_blank” container=”” container_class=”” ]You're Here[/amazon_link]

The End of the World Will Be …

Well, we’re all still here and the Mayan calendar expired. There was so much hoopla around the “end of the world” being at hand and it wasn’t even a “religious” event.

As a Christian, it confused me when I heard other Christians asking “could this be ‘it?'”

No Christians — l refer you to the texts in the Bible that point to the time of the end but specifically to Matthew 24:36-42 where it says:

“But about that day or hour no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father.  As it was in the days of Noah, so it will be at the coming of the Son of Man. For in the days before the flood, people were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, up to the day Noah entered the ark; and they knew nothing about what would happen until the flood came and took them all away. That is how it will be at the coming of the Son of Man. Two men will be in the field; one will be taken and the other left. Two women will be grinding with a hand mill; one will be taken and the other left.

Therefore keep watch, because you do not know on what day your Lord will come.”

(Emphasis in black is mine.)

Things seem to be falling apart in our world and we keep rushing around trying to fix everything that is going wrong. But things happen much too quickly and there is just no way we can make provision to prevent every evil thing from happening.

So, we wait. Tears will be shed and hearts will be heavy with sorrow, but we still wait. We wait for the return of Christ so that we can leave this world and go to a place called heaven.

 

Winding Down the Christmas Season

Yes, I know Christmas isn’t here yet but I like to enjoy the last week before Christmas without all the hustle and bustle that the rest of the days seem to embrace.

This year we purchased a different kind of Christmas tree — a white pine. It’s needles are longer and the color of the tree is a deep deep green. Very pretty. When we bought our tree a couple of weeks ago we were told that it is more “delicate” than the fir trees as the branches are a lot thinner. Sure enough, I had to use my smaller ornaments on this tree but did manage to place a few larger ornaments towards the middle of the tree where the branches were just a tad thicker.

White Pine Christmas Tree
White Pine Christmas Tree

The tree drinks a LOT of water. Every morning I pour three 16 ounce glasses of water in the tree stand. I had asked a friend of mine if this is normal (he’s 80 years old and has been around the block a few times) and he told me I was worrying about it too much. He said that he and his wife used to buy live trees 3 weeks before Christmas and they never watered them.

Oh — well, I guess I am worrying about nothing. It’s time to put my feet up, sit back and just enjoy the season, eh?

 

 

 

 

Gingersnap Cookies

It’s not too late in the Christmas season to post another cookie recipe, is it? This recipe is one my son made last year and recently I decided to make it myself because I remember the smell and taste of the cookies. It was a very sweet memory.

With these cookies, the dough is frozen so you can make as few or as little as you want at a time. Hey, make them all at once and … no, no, no temperance is key here.

Ingredients

  • 8 ounces unsalted butter (that would be 2 sticks)
  • 1 1/4 cup + 2 tablespoons sugar
  • 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
  • 2 smalls eggs (at room temperature)
  • 1/3 cup molasses
  • 3 cups all purpose flour
  • 2 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
  • 1/2 teaspoon salt
  • 2 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
  • 2 1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
  • 1/8 teaspoon black pepper

Directions

  1. Allow the butter to warm at room temperature (or soften in microwave)
  2. In an electric mixer, cream the butter until soft
  3. Add the sugar and beat until the mixture is light and fluffy
  4. Add the vanilla and the eggs then beat until fluffy (fluffy seems to be the theme here)
  5. Add the molasses (making sure you get every bit of it out of the measuring cup) and beat until everything is well combined
  6. Combine the dry ingredients together, sift them,  then add them to the mixture
  7. On low speed, mix everything together until it is just combined
  8. LIne a 9″x5″ loaf pan with plastic so that some of the plastic hangs over all 4 sides
  9. Transfer the dough into the bottom of this pan and pack it down into the bottom of the pan (I used wax paper on the top then pressed my hand down on it)
  10. Try to make the dough as level as possible
  11. Cover the dough with the plastic overhangs
  12. Freeze the dough until its very firm, preferably overnight
  13. When ready to use, unwrap and remove the dough from the pan
  14. Slice the dough into thin slices, no more than 1/8″ thick (just eyeball it)
  15. Line a cookie sheet with parchment paper and place the slices of dough on it being careful not to place them too close to each other
  16. Bake at 350 degrees until the edges turn dark brown, about 12 minutes. For softer cookies, bake for approximately 10 minutes. Keep in mind that every oven is different, eh?

That’s it! So simple, so good, so yummy, so … well, you get the point.

Ingredients
Ingredients
Add dry ingredients together
Add dry ingredients together then sift
Combine dry and wet ingredients
Combine dry and wet ingredients
Line a pan with plastic wrap
Line a pan with plastic wrap
Add dough to pan and press it firmly down
Add mixture to pan and press it firmly down
Bake at 350 degrees
Bake at 350 degrees for 10-12 minutes

(Notice that some slices came out a wee bit thicker than others. Aim for perfection when slicing but don’t stress if you miss the mark. They’re only cookies, after all.

Gingersnaps
Gingersnaps

Fresh out of the oven, small glass of milk in hand … delicious!

Enjoy! Enjoy! Enjoy!

(Note: Not sure exactly where this recipe came from as many “stories” abound. I do know that they were served at the Chez Panisse restaurant at one time.)