Category Archives: food

The best-tasting healthy stuff I ever drank.

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nakedgreenmachine1

I love smoothies, but I’m too lazy to ever make them myself.   I’m not the home juicer type of person.  I hate cleaning up the mess.

Most grocery stores sell Naked brand smoothies, and they are delicious!   Bolthouse is good too, but a little too thick for my taste, and I have never tried Odwalla.

My favorite flavor is this one, called “Green Machine.”    It looks hella weird, kind of a muddy green color not unlike algae, but it tastes incredible.  It has spirulina and veggies in it, along with all kinds of fruits, and no added sugar or HFCS.    I feel healthier every time I drink it.  I’m not sure if that’s just some kind of placebo effect (because I believe it’s doing me good) or if I’m really feeling all those vitamins and minerals doing their work in my body.

Blue Machine, stuffed with blueberries and blackberries, is my second favorite, but sometimes it gives me heartburn.   Green Machine doesn’t do that.

I took photos of both the front and back of the bottle, so you can see exactly what’s in it!

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Deviled eggs for Easter? Why, yes please!

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I love deviled eggs, and there’s nothing more perfect for Easter.  They’re light but filling, and taste soooo good.

Here’s a classic recipe for deviled eggs.  Personally, I like using spicy brown mustard and regular mayo over the light type.  But that’s just me.  I think they taste better that way.  You can substitute these things if you like a richer taste or prefer your eggs a bit spicier.

Easy Classic Deviled Eggs

This recipe is based on the classic formulation for deviled eggs. Just a nice, quick recipe that is easy to make and tastes great.

This recipe is not spicy at all and as such is a good choice for family get-togethers where there are children and you’re catering to a wide variety of tastes.

 The filling of this recipe is on the firm side. Add a tad more mayo if you would like it a bit softer.

Ingredients:

6 hard-cooked eggs, peeled and cut lengthwise:

To boil eggs (I always have to look this up):  Cover 6 eggs in a saucepan and bring water to a full boil.   Turn off heat.  Cover pan; let eggs sit for about 12 minutes — they will continue to cook in the hot water.   Drain off the water then rinse with cold water (this makes the eggs easier to peel).   Slice eggs length-wise.

¼ cup Light Mayonnaise or Salad Dressing (I use regular mayo)
½ teaspoon dry ground mustard  (I use the spicy brown jarred type or even a little stone ground!)
½ teaspoon white vinegar
1/8 teaspoon salt
¼ teaspoon ground black pepper
Paprika for garnish

How to Prepare:

Pop out (remove) the egg yolks to a small bowl and mash with a fork. Add mayonnaise, mustard powder, vinegar, salt and pepper and mix thoroughly. Fill the empty egg white shells with the mixture and sprinkle lightly with paprika.

Cover lightly with plastic wrap and refrigerate for up to one day before serving.  (I never wait that long — I let them chill a little in the fridge, and then eat!)

My guiltiest guilty pleasure.

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I hate most commercial snack cakes.  But there’s just something about these I can’t resist.   The Twinkie-like cake filled with snow-white fluffy filling that tastes like chemicals and Crisco and could probably be used to embalm dead bodies.  The Fimo-like orange-flavored icing you can peel off and eat like candy.  The famous white Squiggle you can also peel off and eat by itself.    There’s probably no food that’s less healthy on earth, but who cares?  These are delicious.  The orange ones are much better than the chocolate ones, in my opinion.

hostess

Annoying people who take pictures of their food.

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pizza

They’re everywhere.  They’re all over Facebook, they’re all over Twitter, they’re all over Pinterest.  They’re texting their mushroom and goat cheese manicotti at the table next to yours, they’re trying to show you their Tabouli salad with ginger vinagrette in the passenger seat while you’re driving in heavy traffic on the Interstate, they’re waving their Samsung Galaxy smartphone with its Pokemon motif wallpaper in your face demanding you look at the Beef Wellington or curried chicken with beet juice they had last night whose remains are now now probably being further broken down into their elements in the septic system.

Food pictures.  They’re the new “this is me at a party with my cool friends” pictures.   The cooler looking the food, the cooler people who post food photos think they are.

It’s an insidious illness, this obsession with showing off the edible substance you put in your mouth so your body can survive.   Now I’m doing it.  At least tonight I am.  Because  tonight I had the best pizza I’ve ever had outside of New York City.     One slice is as big as an entire pizza, big and oozing with cheese and tomato and dripping amber colored grease down your chin and onto your new Gap T-shirt and down your wrists into your sleeves.  And it was effing delicious.   It’s from a pizzeria called Four Brothers and they really are four brothers who run the place and they’re from Brooklyn.   That explains why it’s so good–and totally justifies my being an obnoxious, annoying “look what I just ate” jackass.  That’s my photo of it up there.

Eating Blackberries.

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blackberries

I had a good day. It was a clear, sunny day, not a wisp of cloudiness. This was a welcome thing after two weeks straight of rainy, gloomy, humid, stormy weather. I went to church this morning and felt so energized when I left that I decided to finally mow the grass (after all the rain, it really needed it). It was very hot and the sweat poured off me so heavily that when I finished mowing I looked like I’d taken a swim (TMI: I sweat a lot)

I swept my porch, decorated now with green plastic lawn chairs covered with blue and green striped cushions and my newly painted green wooden table that I found at a yard sale about 8 years ago. I sat at the table, feeling the hot sun, listening to the summer birds, smelling my freshly mown grass, my bare feet propped on the table, and eating a tub of fresh blackberries from the fresh fruit stand down the road.

There’s nothing like the taste of fat, juicy blackberries on a hot lazy day. They taste like summer and happiness.

Birthday surprise.

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Yes, today is my birthday, and my DD baked this cake for me!   It’s a white cake with vanilla buttercream (no cream cheese for me, please!) and coconut.  I just ate a piece and it’s yummy.   Would anyone else like some?  It’s a piece of cake!

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Are you addicted to Girl Scout Thin Mints?

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It was time for a more lighthearted post. What better thing to write about than Girl Scout Cookies? Yum.

The GS Thin Mints have always been my favorites. They’re still great, but they used to be even better. I found these Back to Nature Fudge Mint cookies that look and taste EXACTLY like the original GS Thin Mint cookies. I couldn’t believe it–I’ve never tasted a better imitation. In fact, they might even be better, if that’s even possible.  If you love GS Thin Mints as much as I do, you MUST try these!

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I never tried durian.

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SONY DSC

SONY DSC

Plain Ol’ Vic says he hates durian, a fruit from Indonesia that’s illegal in many places due to its awful stink. There are people who love it though, and say it doesn’t taste nearly as bad as it smells. I think the custardy consistency would put me off, but I would still like to try it sometime to see if it’s really that bad.

Has anyone tried durian, and if so, what did you think of it?

Cauliflower.

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Cauliflower

Cauliflower. No thank you. I can’t eat a vegetable that’s just wrong on every level. A vegetable should not be snow white and look like a cancerous tumor and smell like garbage. I don’t know why cauliflower is so popular. It doesn’t even taste like anything. It’s horrible. Give me Brussels sprouts instead.   Everyone else seems to hate them (I saw the referred to once as “little balls of Hell”) but not me.  Even as a kid, I’d gobble them up as if they were cookies.  Smothered in butter, they’re yum.   They’re also cute as f*ck.

I’m stuffed, grateful and relieved it’s over.

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We had a really nice day. The temperatures were in the 70s today and there was on and off rain all day. I felt more like I should be saying “Happy Easter” than “Merry Christmas.” We had dinner at my daughter and husband-to-be’s house. Although I’m not Italian, for the past 6 years or so I’ve been making meat and spinach lasagna for Christmas dinner. It’s a wintery dish, and is red and green and everyone seems to like it. I assembled it at my place, then brought it over to bake in their oven.

I brought the gifts over and watched as everyone opened theirs. My daughter got me a new phone! The one I had was starting to act weird and has never gotten a good signal. I think she was just sick of hearing me complain about my crappy phone so she got me a better one. 🙂

Seriously though, it was a thoughful gift. I did find out some *slightly* disturbing news though: although the doctors are quite sure my daughter’s stomach problems are due to Crohn’s disease, they want to rule out anything more serious, so she has to go have both a colonoscopy and endoscopy this week. Yikes. I don’t envy her a bit, but it will be good to know with 100% certainly that it’s “just” Crohn’s disease.

The ex (her dad) stayed out of the way in the kitchen or out on the sun porch playing with the dog. No family drama this year at all!

All in all, it was a good day. I always dread Christmas but almost always wind up having a good time. That doesn’t keep me from being relieved when it’s over.

Here is the lasagna recipe. If you try this let me know how it turns out for you.

“Healthy” lasagna.

lasagna

Ingredients
1 lb. ground beef, drained.
1 32 oz. jar or can of tomato sauce
1 large can of tomato paste
1 box pot-ready lasagna (you can use the kind you have to boil too, but it’s more work and always falls apart for me)
green onions
16 oz. shredded mozzarella cheese
Parmesan or Romano cheese
1 container Ricotta cheese.
chopped frozen spinach (1 small box or 1/2 16 oz. bag)
Olive oil
Italian seasoning
garlic (optional–I can’t eat it)

Mix the sauce, tomato paste, a little olive oil and Italian seasoning in saucepan. In another pan, cook the ground beef until done. In another pan, steam the spinach and drain. In a separate bowl, mix the ricotta cheese in with the steamed spinach (wait until spinach cools some before doing this).

How to assemble.
Get the pan ready (use a lasagna-sized foil or glass pan) by pouring a little olive oil on the bottom and then a layer of sauce.
On top of that lay the lasagna sheets (if pot ready there is no need to boil them first), then spread half the ricotta-spinach mixture.
Sprinkle about a third of the shredded mozzarella on top of that.
Put half of the ground beef on top of that and spread out.
Pour another layer of sauce on top of that.
Put another layer of lasagna sheets on top.
Spread the other half of the ricotta-spinach mixture.
Put another third of the mozzarella cheese on top.
Sprinkle the other half of the ground beef.
Spread another layer of sauce.
Put another layer of lasagna sheets.
Pour the rest of the sauce on top.
Sprinkle the last third of the mozzarella cheese.
Put a layer of parmesan or romano cheese on top (this browns nicely).
Green onions (chopped) to garnish.

Bake at about 300 ° for about an hour. Serves about 10.