Author: offwhiteliving

snuggle

offwhiteliving

 

Fall weather.  Crisp apples.  Ceramic dishes.  Yep, it’s getting closer to the snuggle season, and that makes me a happy camper.  I’m so completely OVER summer, are you?  I love that feeling of being both slightly chilled and warmed by the sun all at the same time.  This feeling only happens during Autumn when I the sun is still shining, albeit lower in the sky.

Fall also means cooking season begins.  Double yay!  I kicked off this past week by prepping for my Davis Coop Cooking class called “Stuffed with Goodness”.    Between the stuffed sweet potatoes, stuffed zucchini boats, baked apples and stuffed peppers the eatin’ was good in the Tryon household this weekend.

I want to share the recipe for stuffed apples because it’s so easy and so delicious.  Sorry no pics.  My camera is apparently on strike and I’ve yet  to succomb to the world of the SmartPhone.  Yep, dumb phone city for me still.  I’m debating a smartphone but do I really need another way to stay dialed in?  Yes.  I do.  I know it.  You don’t need to remind me.  Just the ability alone to upload pics to the blog will be work it.

But, I digress.  Back to my point.  Before I share the recipe for baked apples, which by the way, are a great pre-snuggle dessert to enjoy before curling up with your honey to watch a movie, I want to share something else awesome I found.

For the first time I  went to check out the blog of the Pioneer Woman.  Finally, right?  I know!  She’s fantastic.  Talk about snuggle-fest.  Between the amazingly adorable kittens, children, and her  ‘to die for’ kitchen drawers for flours and sugars, I got all warm and tingly inside.  Yes, just like when I snuggle 😉  If you aren’t familiar with her, she’s endearing right from the very start.  She writes like she’s your best friend and she can cook like a  champ, which always means a solid thumbs up from my vantage point.

Okay, so first put these baked apples in the oven and then go visit Pioneer Woman.  You’ll melt, I promise.

Baked apples for 4
4 Braeburn apples, cored but not all the way to the bottom
1/3 cup honey
1/3 cup finely chopped walnuts
1 tsp each: cinnamon and nutmeg
1/2 tsp each: ginger and cloves
1/4 cup additional honey
1/2 cup thick lowfat Greek yogurt.

Mix the honey, nuts and spices together in a bowl.  Fill each apple with the mix and let it topple out a bit.  Drizzle a bit of honey across the top of each apple.  Bake covered fat 350 for 40 minutes.  Uncover and broil for 5 minutes, getting the tops carmalized.   Meanwhile mix the additional honey with the yogurt.  Chill.  Once apples are removed, add a generous dollop of yogurt mix to the apples and enjoy.

Did I mention that this dessert is Low-fat and gluten-free? Yeah!

Purge your words and avoid emotional eating

offwhiteliving

Well all know journaling is good for us, right?  Well if you don’t – hear this:  Journaling can help you to release stressors and emotions and be a safe place to vent.  IT can also be a place to work out ideas or dilemmas you’re experience.  As an emotional carb eater, journaling has helped me tremendously in the past ‘purge my words’ so I don’t try and stuff them down with sweets.

However, lately I don’t journal much.  Not sure why, I just don’t feel like it- that is, until I found this site: 750 words.  The premise is simple.  It’s based on a technique from the “Artist’s Way” which includes writing 3-pages daily called morning pages.  It just so happens that 750 words is about 3 pages.  This website is a virtual journal that challenges you in a fun way to write 750 words/day in an uncensored, private, daily fashion and it will help you keep track of how often you do it.  There is something charming about the approach to the site and I like the design.  It’s very simple.

All I’m sayin’ is that in the past few days I’ve journaled every day and feel a lot better.  I have been stressing about some upcoming decisions and been home alone a lot.  This is a recipe for eating in the absence of hunger, particularly for wanting refined carb goodies for me.  Writing it out and not worrying about perfection has helped me tremendously.  Maybe it will help you too.  Check it out!

On resiliancy

offwhiteliving

Last week I participated in the UC Davis Entrepreneur Academy.  In a word: FANTASTIC!  One of the many benefits it gave me was a clear awareness that I want to have a successful career in health coaching and create coaching-based solutions for health and wellness challenges.

But, that isn’t what this post is about.  However, reigniting my fire for coaching led me to peruse some of the coaching literature I’d been neglecting since starting grad school.
I was reminded of the many benefits of coaching and all the great techniques and tools.  One concept specifically stood out to me: RESILIANCY.

To be resilient, in my book, is to be able to weather the storms of life while still keeping your head and heart rooted in your values and your wellbeing.  Resiliency was not a skill I developed as a young child.  It just wasn’t a trait my parents exemplified, as they were not very resilient themselves.  I believe much of my emotional sugar eating was born out of this lack of resilience.  I grew up having fear of everything I couldn’t control (which is everything) and thus turned to easy distractions to soothe my discomfort.  Candy.  Ice Cream.  Homemade cookies.  I think it’s no coincidence that sweet baked goods were my go-to binge food, as they represented a home-like comfort that I was seeking within myself and  couldn’t find.

In the past year I’ve been working hard at becoming more resilient.  I had no idea what this would look like 1 year ago but here is what it looks like today.  It means that when something changes suddenly in my life, I don’t have to ‘react’.  I can evaluate what is going on and I can ask questions.  I don’t say ‘yes’ as much as I used to, and when I start saying yest right away to every request guess what….I start wanting and eating sugar.    When my husband and I have a fight I don’t immediately force a solution (which never worked).  I can let things settle.  I guess you can say that I’m getting more comfortable with being uncomfortable.  I can hang in the tough emotional spaces a bit longer than I could before.

It has been amazing to me to see what cultivating emotional resilience has done.  I’m not hardened and cold – quite the opposite.  I’m more loving, compassionate and easy going (ask my husband!).  I don’t try and manipulate the environment to create an outcome I’m comfortable with.  I find myself saying “hmm…we’ll see what happens” or ‘I don’t have an answer to that problem yet but I’m open to finding a solution’.  These are new phrases for me.

A lot of women I’ve worked with as a coach also struggle with resiliency.  It’s scary to feel uncomfortable, unloved, confused, stressed, dismissed, angry and all the other myriad of unpleasantries that live brings us.  Sugar is a very seductive yet ineffective coping tool.  It never works for more than 10 minutes, does it?  While I don’t have a magic answer as to how resiliency begins, I can say that two things helped me:  journaling, journaling, journaling!!  Professional help, professional help, professional help!!  You are worth the time and resources it takes for both if this is an area of life you struggle with.

By no means am I suddenly the most resilient well-adapted human around.  Ha!  Don’t I wish.  But the fact that I’m aware of what it feels like when I lose my center and want to break instead of bend to the pressures of life is a HUGE improvement…and my sugar consumption has improved along with it!

Caught eating too much sugar…and how to avoid it

offwhiteliving

Really, do we need to go over this again? Yes.  We do.  Added sugar is still sneaking in everywhere and it’s time to revisit (or visit for the first time) some of the sneaky places sugar hides out.  I’m just going to go with what I’ve noticed in my diet and my shopping adventures lately.

Applesauce
Recently I mindlessly grabbed the first applesauce I saw and thought it was the brand I usually use.  Well, it was but it’s wasn’t the “No added sugar” version.  The result: The version I bought had 100 calories/half cup serving (my normal one only has 50) and it had 19g of sugar per serving. YIKES!  You don’t need to add sugar to an already sweet fruit like apples.  I use applesauce to bake with, to top oatmeal and yogurt and in smoothies.  Since I hate throwing things away I’ve been using it sparingly to bake with or to replace any honey that I might add to oats/yogurt.

Frozen Entrees
Yes, I admit that from time to time I turn to frozen entrees to grab a bite.  Usually I’m satisfied by looking at the front label to get my nutrition needs met, thinking that I’m smart enough to know when I might see something high in sugar.  Nope.  Recently I purchased a Lean Cuisine that had 23GRAMS OF SUGAR!!!  I forget what it was, but I was so frustrated.  Why is there that much sugar in a savory chicken/veggie dish?  And no, it wasn’t sweet and sour chicken.  Yuck.

Organic Cereals, hot or cold
God bless “organic”, but unfortunately it is sometimes translated into “Free Pass” to assume it’s the superior choice.  ORGANIC SUGAR IS STILL SUGAR AND METABOLIZED AS SUCH!   The organic frosted-mini-wheat style cereal I saw the other day (cleverly packaged in it’s ‘low impact’ packaging) had 17g sugar per 3/4 cup serving.  I’ve seen some organic flavored oatmeals that follow the same vein.  Look on the back and be savvy!!

Flavored beverages, especially those that will ‘refuel or energize’ you
Expensive and gimmicky, these beverages (like Gluekoes (sp??)) are much higher in sugar than the average weekend warrior needs.  Just drink water.  Hansen’s natural soda is the same.  Sugar is natural, but not necessarily healthy.  There are tons of other drinks out there that I don’t even know about, but again – look at the container.  If it’s got more than 10g of sugar/serving that is A LOT.  By comparison water (also known as skinny water these days??) has ZERO GRAMS OF SUGAR!!

Trail Mix

Question: What is the difference bewteen a Reese’s PB cup and a chocolate  candy and peanut trail mix?  Answer – not much really.  So, don’t be fooled.  Look at the label and see how much sugar is in a tiny 1/4 cup serving (not to mention fat and overall calories).  Unless you’re backpacking the John Muir trail those mixes may not be a good idea unless you treat them like a dessert.

 

Okay, that is my two cents on the matter these days – I’d love to hear yours!

As prompted by WordPress: Family Dinners

offwhiteliving2 Comments

When I published the last post WordPress, in all of its cleverness, promoted me to think about posting on a few topics.  Family dinners was one of them, and being in a writing sort of mood I took the bait.

This may be of no interest to anybody but me, but oh well!  I think instead of posting about dinners at my house with Matt, I’ll post about the real ‘family dinners’, which involve nothing short of a 3-ring circus of events.

So here’s the low down.  I have dinner with my family of origin about every month or so, always at my Mom and Dad’s place in Grass Valley.  In summer these are eaten outdoors, and in the winter at the trusty kitchen table that my mom purchased from my 5th grade teacher oh so long ago (it’s an antique – about 150 yrs old, no kidding!).  No matter the venue and no matter how old I am they go a little something like this:

They are usually on a Sunday, about 5pm.  They start out intending to be about 4pm, so that is when I mentally plan to be ready, but like most things in the family, the don’t go off on time.
They almost always involved bbqing some kind of meat – I can’t remember a vegetarian dinner of this nature yet.  Tri-tip, Salmon, Chicken breasts and Tenderloin are favorites.
Given that my little sis lives just next door, her and my nephew are players at the table as well.  There is usually a lot of going back and forth between their two houses as we prep for the meal.  This is facilitated by my nephew who runs like the wind yelling about orders from one house to the other like the town crier.
I always seem to get roped into setting the table, and helping with clean up while my sister gets off scott-free from all these duties.  Of late she’s offered to help, which I think sent the universe off it’s axis (my sis is great, but not so much in the kitchen clean up arena).
We always have a large garden salad (if sis contributes anything it’s the salad, but typically I have to actually put it together, but not always).  There is usually 2 types of side dishes, which I am now allowed to contribute to.  I’ve yet to be allowed to provide the meat.  Once a parent, always a parent I suppose.
Once the food is set, and we are all seated in our typical configuration the circus begins.  It’s a mix of clanging glasses and forks, requests for passing this or that, and my mom harping on my dad about taking too big of bites or food on his moustache or chin (Dad had a stroke some years back and has trouble with fork-eye coordination at times).
Mom usually sits down last and is getting up constantly to get things for us, despite our pleas that we can, in fact, get up ourselves to get the mustard or whatever.
I often take seconds of everything but the meat.  Dad always takes seconds of the meat.   We are lucky if my nephew eats anything (it’s all ‘dirty’ if it’s not chicken nuggets, but that too is evolving), and my sister will eat anything she thinks has been cooked without added fats or sugars.  Matt and my sis’s boyfriend gratefully eat a balanced meal of all the options.
Conversation is usually light and centered a lot around getting my nephew to settle down and we NEVER bring up politics, for fear of sending dad into a tirade that goes off like a cannon if we are not careful.  There are awkward undertones to some extent, but in general its pleasant.  Matt is lucky to get a word in edgewise and it’s sometimes hard to keep up with the ever-shifting topics.

After dinner we clear plates and mom insists…really insists, on cleaning everything RIGHT THEN AND THERE – throwback from her days of serious cleaning OCD.  Dad asks for dessert about 3.2 seconds after his plate has left the table.  The reason is two fold: first, he knows she made something a-mazing like homemade lemon cheesecake or Magnolia pie.  Second, he (like me) really values the dessert portion of the meal far more than the meal itself.  Why eat at all if not to earn your dessert?
Reluctantly we bring out dessert and serve it up do Dad.  I nibble at it while I dish it out, constantly debating whether or not to actually have a formal piece of whatever it is or just nibble and pretend I didn’t have any.  The former usually wins out as my strategy.  Nobody else has dessert right then, but a few of us may linger at the table a little longer, helping ourselves to a second glass of wine, water, or maybe even some hot tea.
I help mom in the kitchen, Matt tries to help put things away to no avail because mom has her system and by God, you better not mess with it.  There is joking and banter about how we ‘break all the rules’ of clean up when we come over.
I usually walk away feeling like I’m 12 again, despite the fact that I’m celebrating my 35th birthday next month.
In short, it’s a full catastrophe and I wouldn’t miss any of them for the world!

Okay, your turn – what are your family dinners like?

Tomato pie

offwhiteliving

last week I was listening to this program on NPR on my way to a kayaking adventure with mom at Lake Natomas (FUN!).  What’s funny to me is that it wasn’t the easy homemade ice cream that made my mouth water, but the tomato pie recipe….really.  I swear.

Being as it’s finally freakin’ tomato season here (only about a month late), and tomatoes are just about my favorite pseudo-veggie (botanically a fruit), I decided to go for it.

Fast forward to Sunday’s family dinner and vioala: Rebecca’s impromptu tomato pie.  Even my sister and her boyfriend liked it, and that says A LOT!

For the  crust I had to make due with what mom had, but you can simply use whatever crust you’d prefer.Copy a Post

CRUST
1 cup cornmeal baking mix
1.5 cups oat flour
1 tsp kosher salt
1 tsp yeast
1/4 cup very warm water (not hot, but very warm)
1.5 tsp sugar
1 tbsp apple cider vinegar
2 tbsp grapeseed oil
1/4 – 1/2 cup additional water

In a small bowl, bloom the yeast by mixing it with the warm water and the sugar.  After a few minutes add the vinegar and oil and mix.  Set aside.  Meanwhile, mix the cornmeal mix and the oat flour and the salt in a large bowl.   Make a well in the flour mix.  Add the yeast mixture and fold in, adding the extra water as needed to for a dough.  Knead for 5 minutes.  Cover the dough with a  thin coat of oil and let it rise in an oiled bowl (covered with plastic wrap or a towel) for 2 hrs.  Go have some fun and come back later to make the pie.

This dough did not raise much at all, which was fine.  Take it out of the bowl and press into a large pie dish (10″ or so – you have plenty of dough).  Bake at 350 for 10 minutes.  Meanwhile make the filling:

FILLING:

1/2 cup marscopone cheese
1/3 cup grated Parmersean
1 tbsp herbs de Provance
2 tsp sea salt
4 large Roma tomatoes, finely sliced
1/3 cup Jarlsberg cheese
1/2 cup fresh basil leaves (small ones otherwise cut into 1/3″ pieces)

Mix the marscopone, Parmesan, salt and herbs together.  Spread evenly across the bottom of the pie crust.  Add a layer of tomatoes.  Sprinkle this layer with about 1/3 the basil leaves.  Add another layer.  Add about 1/2 the Jarlsberg cheese and 1/3 of the basil.  Add a third and final layer of tomatoes and the remaining basil and cheese.  Bake at 350 for about 20 minutes (10 min without covering and cover for 10 min), until tomatoes are slightly drying on the sides (they shrink inward a bit), the crust is golden brown and the cheese is melted.

This is divine, I promise you!

Life on an $80/week grocery budget: How we do it

offwhiteliving1 Comment

A long time ago I posted about buying groceries for $100.  Good stuff.  But since then out lives have changed.  Dramatically.  We are now both grad students with a very unforgiving grocery budget.  So, what does one do when the budget is tight and the expectations are high.  Here is how we eat well, mostly wheat-free, and very flavorfully for $82/week no matter what (and sometimes even less).

 

  • Look at the sale ads.  Before I even set foot in a grocery store I look at the sale ad for 3 stores:  Safeway, Nugget Market, and Savemart.   I usually choose 1-2 of these stores/week to go to based on what I need most and what has the most sale items of things we use.
  • Buy foods in bulk.  I do most of this at the Davis Food Coop and the foods I get include:
    • Oat bran
    • Oatmeal
    • Spelt, Oat, Rye and even Whole Wheat (sometimes) flour
    • Cocoa powder
    • All spices in bulk
    • Sea Salt
    • Unrefined sugar, as needed
    • Honey
    • Peanut Butter (sometimes)
    • Popcorn (unpopped, so I can cook it on the stove)
    • Gluten-free/Wheat-free pasta
  • Be willing to freeze things that are on sale for future use.  I do this mostly for:
    • Flaxmeal (recently got 1lb bags of organic Spectrum Flaxmeal for $.91/each – I bought 3 and freeze them)
    • All meats
    • Seasonal fruit like peaches and berries
    • Tomatoes (either frozen as puree or sauces)
    • Bread (when I buy it we freeze it and just take out 1-2 slices as needed, this is especially true of sprouted grain breads, which I only buy on sale)
  • Shop local fruit stands (I go to the Yolo Fruit stand bimonthly).   Seasonal, local and perhaps even organic produces is inexpensive there
  • CLip coupons.  It’s not always fun, but save 2-5$/week with coupons. Things I never buy without a coupon or on sale are;
    • Almond milk ( I refuse to pay more than $3/half gallon).  Coupons are plentiful in the paper or even at the store
    • Any boxed good like granola bars or FiberOne bars, which I buy when I have a coupon
    • Paper towels and TP (BTW this stuff fits into our $82/week budget)
    • Hair coloring (this is not from grocery budget but I buy it about every 6 weeks so it’s worth mentioning since the good stuff is spendy)
  • Don’t buy all the expensive stuff at once.  For instance I buy extra virgin olive oil about once/month or 6 weeks.  I even get Organic stuff for about $8-9/liter sometimes if I look at the ads or go to the Grocery Outlet.  Same goes for meats.  I buy organic beef about 1x/month because it’s expensive and then we have it for 2 meals/month.  Look at your most expensive items and see how you can spread the cost around.
    • On this note, don’t pass up a smokin’ deal of something you need but is pricey.  I don’t always wait until I really ‘need’ certain things to buy them.  Instead I buy when they are a really good deal so it’s already in stock
  • Avoid last minute ‘have to’ purchases.  THings like eggs, cheese, and even certain vegetables can be very expensive if you buy them last minute and they aren’t on sale.  I grocery shop 1 day/week so we don’t run out of things and have to make quick (and expensive) trips to the store.
  • Live without some things.  I don’t buy nearly as many Gluten-free products because of price.  I also buy my whole grains in bulk more often than in a package due to price.  Premade desserts, alcohol, and out of season/sale fruits and veggies aren’t an option any more.   Same goes for nuts, trail mixes, or frozen entrees (which I didn’t eat a lot of but sometimes for lunch at work).   We have a flexible list of the things we eat regularly  and sometimes we substitute our first preference for something else.  For instance, when mixed greens are on sale, we eat them as our bulk green for the week.  If next week it’s spinach and not mixed greens – we have spinach all week.  Same goes for the type of cheese and yogurt we consume (which we do in small quantities anyway) and even meats.
    • This means a lot more meal planning, using recipes, and thinking about how foods are going to pair together in meals when I’m shopping.  It’s like mixing and matching your wardrobe…only for your stomach!
  • Look at your beverage spending habits.  Coffee, flavored waters, teas, juice – all of that can add up.  Water should be the basis of your beverage diet.  Sometimes we buy flavored bubbly water and it can get pricey if we rely too much on them.  We also don’t go to the store mid-week and get more.  Whatever we have, that is what we eat.
  • Don’t be wasteful.  It should go without saying, but I used to throw away a lot more food than I do now.  I also don’t overbuy.  When I hit the stores every Sunday it’s because I need to go; we are running out of food!

I hope this may help some of you.  I love grocery shopping and figuring out how to get our needs/wants met without breaking the bank.  It’s like a puzzle for me.  I’d also love to hear any of your tips, faithful readers.

sexy meatloaf

offwhiteliving2 Comments

What?  Is that an oxymoron?  Nope, I don’t think so.  This recipe isn’t something you’d see in Grandma Betty’s cookbook and it doesn’t involve ketchup and whatever was left over from the weekly meal.  It’s a …hmm…more sophisticated meat loaf.  Plus, the fact that it’s cooked in the muffin tins to give each person their own little hand-held serving just makes it even more fun!  The Gorgonzola cheese is really what makes it, as it pops the flavor.  The quinoa is a nice way to add some texture and keep it Gluten-Free too.

This worked nicely to have as lunch treats for the week.  Matt and I each added 1-2 to our typical lunch salad and it took the thought out of how I was going to get protein into my lunch meal.

 

Quinoa Meatloaf

Serves 5 as a meal or 10 as a snack

 

This is the most recent addition to the cookbook and it’s fantastic.  I make it as a muffin topped with Gorgonzola cheese.  This somehow makes it feel more special and interesting than just meatloaf.  Like most meatloaf recipes, this one is pretty forgiving so play with it!

 

1/3 cup quinoa, rinsed
2/3 cup chicken broth
20 oz low fat ground turkey
1 cup finely chopped greens, such as collards or kale
1 egg, beaten
1 small onion, minced
1 tsp each; cumin, salt, pepper, paprika, garlic powder
2 tbsp Worchester sauce
4 oz gorgonzola cheese

 

Cook the quinoa with the broth by bringing to a boil and then simmering for about 20 minute.  Let it cool and set aside.  Once cool, mix with everything but the gorgonzola cheese.  Ideally, let it set in the fridge for a couple of hours to absorb the flavor.  Meanwhile grease about 10 muffin tins.  Evenly distribute the mix among the tins.  Top each with ½ oz of crumbled gorgonzola.  Bake at 350 for about 20 minutes, depending on your oven.  Muffins should be slightly browned and cheese will be semi-melted, as this cheese doesn’t melt like cheddar.

 

Visual cues

offwhiteliving
Look at all the pretty grains and flours.....

Let’s face it: for healthy cooking to have any sex appeal it’s got to compete in this highly visual, highly sensory world of food distractions.  Most of us are very visually aroused and intrigued.  I am no different, and thus my kitchen (and hence my cooking) are far better off when I capitalize on this human trait.  In other words, when I make things look pretty I’m more likely to cook with them.   My solution lately is to make the options I have as explicitely clear as possible, so as to encourage me to see what I do have instead of fixate on the question of ‘what is there to eat’ or ‘gosh, I have a hankering for X but it’s not in the kitchen…guess I’ll go out!”.  Besides, I really enjoy the color textures that come with looking at a variety of fruits, veggies, and whole grains.  Why it is that I can dig out the last cookie in the back of the freezer but will pass up the bunch of kale in the front of the fridge is beyond me, but instead of fight it, I just work with it.

My experience with taking the time to remodel your cupboards or fridge is that it will help you use those ingredients that you bought with good intentions that end up in the back of the line, such as whole grains or veggies that take preparation.  I’m also currently working on revamping the spice cupboard and that gave me an excuse to go to World Market to buy the cutest clear glass spice jars for just $.99!  Yeah baby!!!

PS: this explicit organization of your cupboards or fridge will help you and your spouse.  My husband suffers from “Male Refrigerator Blindness”, meaning that if it’s not on the top shelf with flashing lights he doesn’t see it, and therefore won’t eat it. …and somehow men have been ruling the modern world for centuries???!!!  Hmm….

 

 

 

 

Inspiration from a good friend and fantastic food

offwhiteliving
no white flour/sugar in this tasty meal!

What a delight my day was.  Sharing a delicious, Off-White friendly meal with a dear friend and her 7 month old baby.  It’s not that she necessarily tried to do Off-White per se, it’s just that she’s a healthy cook with a creative flair and look what I got to enjoy as a result.  Both recipes are insiprations from the Food Networks success Giadia, but with some lighter twists.  We had an artichoke dish with spices, Parmersan cheese and a little olive oil, and an amazing tomato soup with lemon zest.  Fantastico!

The palate pleasure did not stop there.  No Ma’am.  She topped it off with HOMEMADE berry frozen yogurt and grilled peaches.  And she had the nerve to say that she doesn’t know how busy mom’s have time to cook amazing food and blog about it. As far as I saw, she was 90% there (no blog..YET!)

divine on a hot day in Sacramento!

I guess what I loved the most about day with this dear friend was that she inspired me to get more creative with my cooking.  I’ve never made anything like what we had, and that was fantastic.  I loved the joy I felt when the soup hit my tongue and I sense sweet, sour, spicy and cool flavors all at the same time.  I loved the way the artichokes smelled coming out of the oven and the fact that she even pulled out the cloth place mats to complete our meal.  It was awesome to see her whip out a frozen tub of homemade berry yogurt.  It had that texture which brought me back to childhood when my mom used to make peach ice cream.  Nothing, I mean nothing, is like homemade creameries.
So, now I’m cooking up ideas.  What do I want to make?  There is a challenge going on at the Coop right now where we can enter pics of food made with local ingredients to win tix to a foodie event.  I’m SOO there.  But what to cook?  I tried some carrot muffins but…err…that didn’t turn out so well.  So it’s back to the drawing board but now I have some new inspiration.