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Dec282014

Pescechickturktarian

For the new year, as with most of the population, I am going to strive to be more healthy.  My sister is going to try the Pescetarian Diet which is fish and healthy stuff that grows from the ground.  I am going to enlarge my choices to chicken and turkey – hence pescechikturktarian.  Yes, I realize the jest of that is I am not eating red meat, but I really like my new word.

I am not calling this a New Year’s Resolution because I always break those.  This is just a positive approach to eating for the new year.  Hopefully, I will be make a concerted effort to stay focused on the new way of eating.

One problem is my husband does not share my desire to cut out red meat, so I will have temptation in front of me any time I need to cook something red for him.  Also, I do really like a good bowl of chili in the winter, but ground turkey can be substituted for the red meat, and maybe my husband won’t know.

The other effort I plan to make is exercising more – well, I should probably leave off the word “more” since I have been rather lax in doing any exercise.  I go for a while and do great, and then I travel or something else distracting, and I get out of the routine and then take a long time to get back in the groove.

Walking is my exercise of choice along with yoga. I like both of those activities so I do not know what my problem is.  Oh, yes I do, it is actually participating in the movement.

This time next year, I will write with the report of my success. I will brag about how much better I feel and how I look so many years younger. I will talk about how I have the body of a much younger person, all a result of my 2015 new year approach to better health.

 

 

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Nov162014

An Evening with a Friend

So, it is about 20 degrees here and it has been snowing all day.  I have yet to get out of my pajamas.  I did finally get everything out of the dining room because a friend invited me to the “red carpet” opening of the a Denver Film Festival film and so I invited her to dinner here first.

I love a reason to finally get something accomplished that I have stalled and procrastinated with.  So today, I was forced to find a home for everything in the dining room that was put there when the kitchen was painted.  It felt good to get that room back.  I now have the table set for Cream of Asparagus soup, a great loaf of bread with garlic I am roasting and the Basil Infused Olive Oil that Laura and I bought during an olive oil tasting while in Napa, plus some of the Domaine Chandon bubbly we had shipped home.  Fortunately, I could spend the day cleaning and de-cluttering because I made the soup a week or so ago and froze it for a day like today.  My daughter does not like this particular soup, so this is the perfect night to use it.

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I am just very pleased with the clean house and the evening ahead.  It will be a nice, warm dinner with a good friend followed by The Imitation Game about the man who cracked the code used by the Germans in World War 2.  These kind of spontaneous get-togethers make me happy.  I love having my friends over and wish I did it more often, but sadly, my house is almost always in some sort of disarray and all of my friends’ houses always appear to be in perfect condition.

But for now, the kitchen is clean, a cool new sign hangs on the wall that I found just yesterday on Antique Row, dinner was made ahead of time, the dining room is clear of clutter and looks welcoming and I have a nice evening ahead.  I am going to need to bundle and layer up, but am still looking forward to it.

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Nov062014

The Advantage of Cooking with Dull Knives, There is no blood shed

Although my sister will disagree with me, I find cooking with dull knives much safer.  I am a good cook, and I cook a lot, and I cook for lots of people quite often.  So, today I am cutting the potatoes and carrots for my stew using my very favorite dull knife.  It is serrated (which helps the cutting a little bit) and it is a lovely orange color.  Well, that is a selling point for the knife right there because our college team’s colors are orange and black. While sawing away today I even sawed the tip of my finger, and it didn’t even bleed!  I’m thinking that is a plus.  My sister, however, cooks dangerously – she uses sharp knives. When she is at my house she gripes and complains the whole time about my knives, so for a gift she gave me what she thought was a really good gift – a sharp knife.  Well, I put it in the drawer and looked at it for months.  It is super big and really, really long.  Unfortunately, one day she asked the fatal question, “so how do you like your knife.” Hmmmm, how to tell her that so far I have only watched it. That thing scares me!! I mean I could lose a hand or something.  And, I think it weighs 12 pounds, But wanting to show her how much I appreciated the gift – NOT – I used it.  I cuts wonderfully and speeds up my preparation of food.  But where is the fun in that.  So I am back to watching the knife. It does look really good in my drawer.My favorite knife

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