CAREFREE

Oh to be this carefree and young again!

And to be able to jump a rope over and over again without calling 911 for assistance.

Stupid tumor!

I guess I can't blame it all on the tumor because I'm not sure how well I could jump a rope over and over again before the tumor grew.

I do know that jumping rope was one of my favorite things to do when I was my daughters age.

So I did something stupid.... I gave in to peer pressure...from an 8 year old.
"Come on mom, I bet you can't do THIS while jumping rope."
I bet I freaking CAN!

So I did.

I received some really fun electrical jolts to the brain while doing it, but boy was it worth every minute of showing my child that I wasn't THAT OLD and THAT disabled.

BOURBON CHICKEN

Okay, here is Saturday's Dinner



BOURBON CHICKEN (Serves 4)

2 lbs Boneless Skinless Chicken Breasts
1 T Olive Oil

1/2 Cup Water
1/3 Cup Soy Sauce
1/4 Cup Apple Juice
1/4 Cup Brown Sugar
1 T Cider Vinegar
2 T Ketchup
1 Clove of Garlic (Or 1/2 T minced Garlic- the bottled stuff)
1/4 tsp Ginger
1/4 tsp Crushed Red Pepper Flakes= mild (1/2 tsp= medium spicy & 3/4 tsp= hot)

3 Cups of Rice (Prepared as the box directs)

1. Heat oil into skillet. Cut chicken into small bite-sized pieces, add to oil and cook until they are a little browned.


2. While the chicken is cooking: Add the rest of the ingredients, in order, to a bowl and stir until they are well mixed. Pay attention to the crushed red peppers and decide if you like your chinese food mild, as we do, or if you like it with a bit more spice.


3. Add sauce mixture to the browned chicken.


4. Bring to boil and then reduce heat and simmer for 20 min or until most of the sauce has reduced.


5. Cook the rice while the chicken is simmering.


6. Try not to slobber on yourself while you plate your food.... BTW, the chicken goes on TOP of the rice.

AND HERE are the steps as I made it tonight!


If the chicken is in bite sized pieces it is much easier to chew and swallow them. I've found that my child inhales her food, even at age 9. I have also found that I really hate giving the Heimlich maneuver, thus the smaller the better at our house.


Here is the sauce all mixed up and waiting on the chicken.


After you add the sauce to the chicken your life gets really really boring for the next 20 minutes. I started cleaning the kitchen, which is another reason to add to my... reasons why dinner should be faster than 30 minutes... mentality.



And here is some rice. What more can I say?

When your chicken is done it should look like this. Not much sauce left. At this point my nut of a child walked in and said "Eeeew, what is that smell?"

She is soooooo ungrateful. But wouldn't you know it, she snarfed it down in 2 minutes flat.

And here is the end product. Yummy, yummy in my tummy!

DINNER TONIGHT

Oh look what we had for dinner.

Yogurt Chicken with a side of smashed potatoes.

Once again the idea was from Pioneer Woman's website.

It took much longer than my recommended 30 minute meal prep, but both Emmi and I loved it. Plus it was diet worthy.

Notice I used a lunch plate. It is the key to any diet. The smaller the plate the more food it looks like you have. We have banned dinner plates for a while.

Maybe forever!

I'm thinking I want Bourbon Chicken for dinner tomorrow, I'll see if I can post that as the recipe for this week. Emmi has a dance competition tomorrow so I may be spending 16 hours sitting in a H.S. auditorium...... grooooooaaaan. The things we do for our children.

I love you Emmi!

I even love you enough to sit in a H.S. auditorium for 16 hours.

DIETS STINK

If one more person asks me "What diet are you on?" I swear I'm going to loose it.

What happened to the days when you just freaking exercised and cut back on calories. Now there are all of these names to diets: The no carb diet, the drink liquid diet, the points system...eeeek

Oh and don't forget all of the clubs, ya know Jenny and the "watcher's" people.

I'm sorry but I can't see myself spending money to loose weight.

If only there were an Oreo diet.....

Oh crap, my mind just wandered again.

My minor is in nutrition and so the whole "cut this out of your diet, and restrict this from your diet.." mentality just kills me. If you are going to keep the weight off and you really love Oreo cookies...as I do, then you can't eliminate them or geez, 6 months from now you will be sitting in a closet somewhere with 12 boxes of cookies and 4 gallons of milk...just going to town on those things.

That is a scary image for anyone.

So I'm on day 24 of the ummm.... I'm just eating like I should.... diet. I need to find a name for this thing. Anyway, I started making changed back in January that would prepare me for this. Things like; buying whole wheat pasta, lots of fruit and the non-plastic margarine... the olive oil stuff is wonderful.

Then on April 1st (that fools day) I started the full fledged cutting calories and exercise thing. So far I have lost 5 lbs and have noticed that I'm loosing inches.

Having spinal cord damage really makes this all the harder to accomplish because I can't just get on an exercise program, I pretty much have to create one myself and find things that don't put me down with nerve pain for weeks. So far so good.

Have I told you how much I detest tumors...... well I do!

I digress.... So back to the diet.

Any ideas for my diet name?

QUOTE OF THE DAY

If thou wilt needs marry, marry a fool; for wise men know well enough what monsters you make of them. - Hamlet

Well, Mr Shakespeare, maybe that is why I have not married.

I will have to poder this quote for a bit longer.

EASY MEALS

My daughters eye rolls give me headaches.

Ya see, we started a new thing at our house this year. Every week or so we try a new recipe and decide whether or not it is worthy enough to be added to our meal list.

We have different tastes, so sometimes this isn't easy.

Some of the criteria are mine, some are hers.

Mine:
1). No peppers. I detest red, green, yellow and hot peppers and don't know why people have to add them to EVERYTHING!
2). It must be easy. I have this rule in my house. If it can't be started and in my mouth within 30 minutes then it doesn't get cooked during the week. I leave these meals for Sunday. It isn't because I'm lazy (well, maybe a little because). But come on, I'm a single mom who works two jobs to pay the bills. I'm exhausted by the time I get home and really don't want to spend too much time in the kitchen.

Hers:
1). No chunky tomatos, no peppers, no onions, no weird "fishy" things, no BBQ

She has lots and lots of NO's

I love to cook though. I mean I LUUUUUUUVVVV to cook. When I was like 8 or 9 I would bake cakes for my family and try and make my own frosting with water and lots and lots of powdered sugar (I don't recommend trying this). My parents, bless their hearts, put up with it when they didn't have two nickles to rub together. Somehow I never remember there not being cake mixes and cookie ingredients hanging around.

I think they put up with it because I made good cookies.

I still do!

But lets not talk about that, because cookies are my downfall....diet-wise.

Back to the cooking!

*sigh*

We have tried lots and lots of recipes. Some from my "critter friends". My favorite was a pulled pork that was made in my Christmas present... I bright shiny crockpot. Some we found off of the recipe zarr website. The bourbon chicken one was to die for. Others have been from family, friends and peeps at church. http://www.recipezaar.com/

Lately almost all have been from the Pioneer Woman. Her name is Ree, she is weird like me, and she loves to cook.
http://thepioneerwoman.com/

Sometimes my daughter even helps with this.

I say sometimes because she thinks she needs time to play outside with friends.

Playing outside is soooooo overrated.

So a miracle happened last week. My daughter saw the recipe of the week sitting on the kitchen island. It was BBQ (which my daughter hates) Meatballs (which my daughter would elope with if I let her). She groaned, rolled her eyes and then noticed where the recipe was printed from.

The Pioneer Woman.

My daughter paused, if I listened close enough I probably could have heard the thinking going on in there. Here is what it said:

"blech, my mom is going to do BBQ, but geez, look at that picture of those beautiful meatballs. Ick, BBQ, but geez, the last recipe from this Pioneer woman was yummy yummy."

And then she said. Those look good mom, but is it real BBQ sauce?

I almost rolled my eyes... but remember... headaches!

The miracle is that she helped cook them with me. My daughter who won't touch anything that remotely resembles BBQ sauce actually MADE the sauce for these meatballs.

And she loved it. As did I.

But more than loving the BBQ meatballs, I loved making them with my daughter. Over the past few months she has slowly joined me in the kitchen to make these new meals.

We have had a blast doing it too.

ANIMAL HOUSE

Today was a serious animal house around our place.

We took the rabbits outside and let them hop around for the first time this spring. They had a blast, as did my daughter. The bunnies are having some serious shedding problems, so I now look a bit fuzzy, but it was fun.

The cat joined us outside for a while. He got tired of being sniffed and chased by the rabbits, so he escaped back inside.

Smart cat!

IN OUR YARD

Spring has just begun at our house and we have a few fun things in bloom.

Our magnolia tree, that I planted last summer has busted out in pretty blooms.

Here is a close up.

We also have our forsythia bushes that are bright yellow with blooms and our daffodils are also blooming. We bought some daffodils and planted them last year only to have them come up really really small. When I looked on the package I noticed that they were mini daffodils. *smack head*

Oh well, they are still cute.

There is more blooming, and many more getting ready to bloom.

I love spring!

IT'S FINISHED

I'm totally exhausted, but it was so worth all of the frustration, aches and pains.

Our pantry cabinet has been refinished.

Today I was able to move the food out of my island and into the big beautiful thing.

It is beautiful, isn't it?

WHAT A CUTIE

Oh, just look at that face!

Hard to resist not reaching through your computer and kissing all over that, isn't it?

And this little girl, Daisy, is so soft.

So very soft!

Don't you wish you had a soft Easter Bunny for yourself?

(The writer of this blog does not promote purchasing a rabbit for you or your children for Easter. Rabbits, while cute, are not easy to take care of and they produce a dumpload of poop pellets a month...no lie....)

FRIDAY NIGHT DINNER

Okay, I've now started a separate blog where I can post recipes for those of you who are asking for them.
Here is the Friday recipe for today. With any hope I can post the pictures when I get home.
http://nuttycook.blogspot.com/