Cooking Healthy for Two....

It's a daunting task when you take on a new eating plan with the goal of eating healthier and changing your lifestyle. What makes it even more daunting is the other people in the house you have to cook for.... your spouse. He or she may not be seeking the same goals, and that can be particularly problematic. The evening meal I believe should be a melding of the partnership in the home. Just because David works outside the home does not excuse him from not being an active participant in meal planning and or cooking dinner. Yes, my  'job' may be household manager aka home maker, but I do more than just that. Being the home maker I research and plan the meals, then David and I shop together for our weekly groceries. That's what we hope to happen, in reality meetings happen, we go out to eat, I get stressed and order pizza.... then the whole thing just goes to Hell in a hen basket. David usually cooks on the weekends when his work and activity schedule is less chaotic. We both belong to community service organizations that has week night meetings, and are both active in our church, and I have my weekly women's group that I go to. Yet I always strive to have a consistent meal time, and it usually happens. Being 'just us' has it's advantages, we don't have to deal with the chaos of a child's activity schedule of sports and other 'lessons'.

One of the ways we are eating healthy is cutting out the 'box meals'... the prepackaged bombs of sodium and Monsanto chemicals. Yeah they taste good, but the end result for me is pain from aspartame and sucralose, and elevated blood pressure from all the salt. The average amount of sodium per serving of a box meal is about 750-800 mg. Mmmmm salt lick. I'm a human being, not a deer out in the woods. The frozen convenience meals are no better, healthy food 'glazed' with preservatives to keep them fresh... most of them sodium based and very bad for your cardiovascular system. So David and I are eating fresh, fresh from the butcher for our meats and seafood, and fresh from the local farms for our vegetables. This way we keep our local farmer's economy going, which is currently suffering due the drought, and we feel safe in knowing that there are no nasty pesticides and hormones in our food.

I have found Pinterest to be a valuable source for planning meals, and finding healthy recipes. I've even got David on Pinterest and as I find meals to my liking I 'share' them with him by sending a pin.... well, you know how that works. We also have a great program on our iPhone that allows us to share a grocery list called Any List... I have mentioned this one before. The new updates with the iPhone 6 and IOS 8 now have meal planning and nutritional information, and as you meal plan, the ingredients go straight to your grocery list. I haven't done the upgrade yet.... I'm still a penny pincher when it comes to that.

Well, it's almost midnight and I've got a weeks worth of meals to plan. Nighty night....

My Chicken Tortilla Soup...

Chicken Tortilla soup....

1 can of Rotel (diced tomatoes with chilis)
1 can of corn
3 medium chicken breasts
4 cups of chicken broth
1 can of black beans (drained)

2 tbsp of cumin
1 tsp of chipotle powder
1 tbsp of garlic powder or granules
1 tbsp of onion powder

The night before....
add chicken breasts to slow cooker with water and cook on low until morning.

Morning:
Drain and shred chicken then put shredded chicken in crock.
Add beans, Rotel, and corn and spices to taste (I used the measurements based on my taste)
Add chicken broth.
Stir
Set crock on low and cook for 8 hours or more...

When finished add crumbled tortilla chips.

Great Brunch....

One of the finer things in life, Sunday Brunch with friends. This week brought David and I and our friends Tammy and Richard to one of our favorite spots up the hill at Selland's Cafe in El Dorado Hills. You order cafeteria style and pay for it in line, but they bring it to you... the hitch, you have to pass by all of their baked goods....the fresh baked snickerdoodles, red velvet cupcakes...just to name a few. It is very busy on Sundays, but the line is quick and the service is always top notch, I don't think I've ever had to wait long at all. They feature both indoor and outdoor seating. 

Pictured above is one of my favorite dishes, the French Toast Casserole with bacon. The French Toast is a work of art, a melee of cinnamon, sugar, and an added treat of candied pecans. To balance the sweet they have four pieces of perfectly cooked and peppered bacon. Not burnt to a crisp, and not an underdone stretchy mess... perfection. I tried something new today, Vanilla Lemonade. Yum! So my Sacramento Valley friends, this is well worth a ride up the hill.... 

DINK and other ramblings...

DINK, it's been a while since you've heard that acronym. This refers to those of us who are married with no kids. When you say the acronym out loud, as in 'Dink', to me it sounds rather demeaning and derogatory. In the Navy this term means to be behind in work and qualifications. My husband and I do not have any children, we tried, I had faulty plumbing thus no children. It is my observation that society expects married couples to have children...why else would you get married? Um, love, companionship, commitment... What happens when you aren't able to have children? For my husband and I it was a period of pain and disappointment, we wanted a family. Lately it seems in society's definition that we're 'dink'... behind because we don't have any children. Seriously, who determines this definition of what a modern family should be like. We've come a long way in the definition of marriage and family.... mixed families, blended families, same sex families, yet they all seem to have the addition of children when represented in mainstream media. But what if you can't? What if you don't want to have children?

Mother's Day has come and gone. It's a double edged sword that day is. We want to honor our own mothers, and we also feel the pang of loss of not being able to be mother's ourselves. I was blessed to have lots of 'Mom's' in my life,  and for the longest time I yearned to be a mother. Yet my body had other ideas and it just wasn't going to happen. For those of us, for whatever reason, who cannot be mothers this is a rough day for us. I used to feel inferior, less of a woman because I couldn't be a mother. I was blessed to not have one of those mothers who was constantly asking me when I was going to produce a grandchild. Thank GOD for feminist mothers. Yet inside I carried the pain of infertility and the empty womb deep inside of me for a long time. I felt like I had let my husband down as well. Sounds a little old fashioned, a little 1950's, but that's what I felt. I also felt like a square peg in a round hole when it came to what group I fit into... I was no longer a single, I was married, but I didn't fit in with the majority of married women because they all had children and I just couldn't 'relate' to them. Along with the pain of infertility I was having an identity crisis. I was very fortunate to have a wonderful family who supported me emotionally, and a mother who didn't lay a load of guilt on me for not giving her grandchildren.

Yet I do have a child... he's about 14 lbs, orange fur, four legs and lots of 'catitude'... my boy Tybalt. Even though we didn't spend hours pushing a child out of our hoo-ha physically, we can be 'mothers' in many other ways, so don't despair. And not being a mother physically does NOT make you any less of a woman.

Late night ramblings...

Once again asthma is kicking my butt. No fun.

Camping and other things...

Yes, I have been seriously dink in posting here. Something I intend on remedying in the weeks to come. This past week David and I went camping out at Pfieffer Big Sur park to celebrate the 20th anniversary of our first date. We had been here before almost 18 years ago on our honeymoon. That trip we spent less time in camp and out in Monterey and Carmel doing the touristy things. This trip was a nice peaceful retreat for us both. David has been swamped at work and I have been stressed, depressed and pretty much a mess since the beginning of the year. I'll spare you the dramatic details, but I had enough and needed to get away.

It's amazing how clear your head is without the interference of everyday life (phones, texting, Facebook, TV, the Xbox, committee meetings, and the schedule of chores...).... Out at our campsite we had NO internet or data on our phones, hardly any cell phone service for that matter, so for the few texts that got to me, it was a pretty quiet week. This trip allowed me to think about a lot of things, and one of them was the idea for starting an informational camping blog. On that note, Camping the Cole Way was born....I'm pretty excited about this. We spent a couple of days driving up and down the Big Sur Coast. Big Sur isn't just one place, it's a 90 mile stretch on the CA coast from the Monterey peninsula all the way down to where Hearst Castle is. Our first day out we went north and found a small artist's colony of shops and a great pub called the Maiden Publick House. All I can say is great food and great hospitality! We went back twice! I highly recommend the roast beef and brie sandwich and the macaroni and cheese poppers. On the down side the night David and I etched out to have our anniversary dinner well, I think this says it all.

On April 21st around 7PM  my husband and I stopped in to have dinner to celebrate our 20th anniversary. We didn't get through the door, evidently the waiter who spoke in a very Monty Python French (we apparently were those dirty English k-niggits) accent said we needed a reservation, and was rude beyond belief. Wish I had taken his picture because his expression said it all. Nowhere on your sign outside on HWY 1 does it say needing a reservation. As a restaurant on a prominent coastal highway the thought did not even enter our mind that we would need one. With a name like Roadhouse and the vintage truck on display out front we were expecting BBQ/Bar fare, peanut shells on the floor and a very laid back atmosphere. NOT this place. To the road worn and hungry traveler this restaurant is very deceiving in name and appearance. We will not return. EVER. I have no tolerance for rudeness or snobbery. You might want to change who you have welcoming people at the front, as well as your reservations policy. 

This was an e-mail I sent to the owners of the Roadhouse on HWY 1 in Big Sur. We ended up back at the Big Sur Lodge in the park we were camping at and had a great dinner with friendly service. As a Southern gal I know the value of hospitality and as a formal retail associate I know the value of customer service, it can make or break you. As a lifestyle blogger and writer I acknowledge the greats (Maiden Public House) and not so greats (The Roadhouse). As a reader, you let the chips fall where they may. I'm not one to complain, but I will correct you for your own good.

When people ask me what we did on this trip, I will answer, nothing. That's exactly what we wanted to do. Rest. David, being the fabulous cook that he is, made two loaves of quick bread and pull apart (Monkey Bread) bread in the Dutch oven using coals. Turned out fabulous. We mainly read, napped, took a few trips up and down the coast visiting the Hermitage Chapel, the Henry Miller Library, and a few vista points along with way to take pictures. 

Pardon me... but it's none of your business you pretentious twit....

That's really what's on the tip of my tongue lately when upon meeting a new female and their first question is 'How old are your children ?'...Why do other women assume that if you're married and stay at home that you have children? Then you get the 'pity' look when you say no. Since when did my ability to procreate be the basis of friendship? It's a lonely world out there for us married with no kids.