Developing a New Talent

For Christmas '07 (yes, nearly a year and a half ago) "Santa Claus" gave me crochet needles. Rather than visions of sugar plums dancing in my head, I entertained visions of scarves, hats and bags. I was ready to take the world of crochet by storm. In a very matter-of-fact tone I informed Mr X that he would be sporting a fantastic new scarf in no time at all. About 3 or 4 months later, after spring had sprung, Mr X became the proud new owner of this work of art:


Maybe you'd like a closer look so you can appreciate all of the intricate details. Surely you're as wildly impressed with the color scheme and design as Mr X was...

As you can imagine, the making of the scarf pictured above took a lot out of me so I had a much needed hiatus of a year. Then I was back and feeling more talented than ever so I took on the challenge of making a pot holder-ish thing. I finished it a couple of nights ago. It's a pretty sorry looking thing, but it does the job for which it was intended so I'm just going to call it a smashing success.

I've already begun my next project: a beanie. Mr X casts dubious looks in my direction as I'm working on it - no doubt because I've already informed him that it will be the most wonderful beanie he has ever owned.

My weekend

This weekend Mr X and I (along with the Nye family) headed downtown to a farmer's market held in the Little Italy portion of San Diego. I love farmer's markets. They are so interesting and fun - infinitely more satisfying than shopping in a supermarket. At this particular market they were even selling sea urchins for our culinary delight. I've never tasted one, but I know they love them in parts of France. I was curious and would have tried them out but I never came across the 'sample' girls that the lady running the booth assured me were out and about providing sea urchin nibbles for those interested. Interestingly enough the only part of the sea urchin that is edible are the 'gonads' which are often referred to as roe.

I also purchased the following eggs to try out:

The speckled ones are turkey eggs and the creamy ones are duck eggs. So yesterday morning, rather than having my usual [chicken] egg and egg white omelet, I treated myself to a turkey egg omelet. The woman from whom I purchased these eggs assured me that the turkey eggs tasted nearly the same as chicken eggs but the duck eggs possess a much more rich flavor. I have yet to try the duck eggs, but the turkey eggs did NOT taste just like chicken eggs. I don't know how to describe the difference in flavor but it was definitely different. Since I'm very accustomed to eating chicken eggs most mornings of the week, I have to say I wasn't prepared for the change in taste and I didn't quite enjoy turkey eggs. I'm kind of nervous to try out the duck eggs now.

The picture above is of the turkey egg laying next to a chicken egg.

I also scored some lovely FREE flowers this weekend. As Mr X and I were driving back from who knows where, we saw a sign indicating there were flowers for the taking, free of charge. So we stopped and a man handed me a bouquet. He said they were free because they were from a wholesale place where they were 'past their prime.' I'm happy to report that 4 days later they are still looking fresh and lush.

I purchased a half flat of strawberries at the farmer's market and since they were perfectly ripe when I purchased them I knew they wouldn't last long so I made a sugar-free strawberry rhubarb pie with the rest of them. I'm not a big fan of strawberry rhubarb pie but Mr X seemed to really enjoy it.

Uhggg!

I'm so sick of seeing all those awful pictures of me in the different hairstyles every time I check or update my blog. Blech, already. So I'm posting this pathetic excuse of a post in a desperate attempt to hurry the process of getting that post in particular to fall of this blog. I think a couple more posts and they'll finally be gone! Hooray!

Healthy recipes

Since you already know that as of late there's nothing much going on for us except our ongoing battle with our bulging bellies, I thought I'd post some recipes I recently tried. I'm trying to eat healthy things with no process sugar so here are a few recipes that are actually incredibly delicious. (And, coincidentally, both gluten and dairy free.)

Spiced Nut Clusters

Ingredients:

1 large egg white
1 T honey
1 cup slivered almonds
1/2 cup raw pumpkin seeds (pepitas)
1/3 cup dried cranberries
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1 tsp ground ginger (optional)
1/4 tsp ground cardamom

Directions:

1) Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
2) Whisk the egg white and honey together. Add the nuts, seeds and cranberries. Sprinkle with the spices and toss to coat well.
3) Drop by 1/8 cup measures on the prepared baking sheet. Bake for 18-20 minutes or until browned.
4) Let stand for about 30 minutes or until completely cooled. (If you touch them too soon they will fall apart.)

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Tomato Stuffed Peppers

Ingredients:

(Cooking spray)
4 large red bell peppers
2 cloves garlic, thinly sliced
3 T chopped calamata olives
4 medium sized ripe tomatoes
2 T olive oil
Freshly ground black pepper

Directions:

1) Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Coat a large baking dish with cooking spray.
2) Cut the peppers in half lengthwise and remove seeds but leave the stems (it helps the pepper retain it's shape during the cooking process). Place the peppers cut side up in the baking dish.
3) Divide the sliced garlic and olives evenly among the peppers.
4) Cut each tomato into 8 wedges and put 4 wedges into each pepper half.
5) Drizzle each stuffed pepper with a little oil and season with a few grinds of pepper.
6) Roast the peppers until they are tender and beginning to brown around the edges, about 50 minutes and serve immediately.

My new favorite show

You know how Netflix 'recommends' movies and such to you based on your viewing history and your personal ratings? Well Mr X was browsing around in my account, trying to find something new to put in our queue. He saw that according to Netflix I appear to be a fan of television series (more so than movies - and BBC shows in particular), foreign films, documentaries and food programs. So Netflix was recommending this for a girl like me: Two Fat Ladies. It's a show that follows two overweight, very old ladies as they run around England in their motorcycle & sidecar cooking various dishes for various people. Mr X put it at the top of our queue as a joke. But we got it and I LOVE it - very funny. I highly recommend this show. (Mrs Nye might especially be interested.)

Nothing much going here

Since there's nothing exciting happening at the X household, I guess I'll just post about some of the boring things we've been up to. Last weekend we did some gardening, sort of. Because we rent, we can't really tear out our landlord's yard and put in a garden - I'm guessing he'd be a bit upset about that. So we are gardening out of mostly pots I guess.

There's a small strip of seemingly unused dirt on one side of our garage. Whether it's decent for growing anything remains to be seen. We're going to try though. We've got some wildflowers planted in the first third of it and the rest will be corn. I wonder what our neighbor will think when he sees we've planted corn along our garage.

This pot is full of various type of onions: red onions, sweet onions and yellow onions.

This is my basil pot which I love.

This pot has a couple hot pepper plants (I've forgotten which variety) and one red bell pepper plant. Maybe eventually the flavors will mingle and I'll have spicy bell peppers. I hope not.

I have no idea what types of flowers these are but I swear they are like weeds because I originally planted the blue ones in NM and they died so I tore them out and planted something else instead. I think the second we got to CA they started miraculously growing back and have now nearly taken over the pot. They're pretty anyhow so I'm happy about it.

This is my pot of rosemary which I also love.

This is Mr X's pot of melons. 2 different types of honeydews and 2 different types of watermelon. We're not entirely sure what we'll do if they actually take off. I suppose we'll have to set the melons down into the yard onto the grass and threaten the gardeners if they even think about mowing over them. In my imagination it will be like the Little Shop of Horrors and they'll just take over the entire yard.

So we'll see how this all plays out over the next several months. I'm hoping for a bounteous crop from our little make-shift garden.

Day Eight

If you’ve read a few of my recent blog posts, you are fully aware that I’ve been having trouble lately controlling my portion sizes and choosing healthy items to nosh on in general. I am always quick to push the blame onto sugar rather than my own weak will-power. But now, this article lends a little more weight (no pun intended) to my justification:

“Neuroscientists increasingly report that fat-and-sugar combinations in particular light up the brain's dopamine pathway — its pleasure-sensing spot — the same pathway that conditions people to alcohol or drugs.”

It turns out that I have a ‘condition’ called “hypereating” and it’s not so much my faulty will-power at all!

“Kessler's research suggests millions share what he calls "conditioned hypereating" — a willpower-sapping drive to eat high-fat, high-sugar foods even when they're not hungry.”

Ha! I can’t really blame it all on the fact that I’m addicted to food because like most addictions, I have the power to fight it and control it (which the article also points out). But along those lines and as a result of my Easter free-for-all and the 10 extra pounds I’ve been hefting around these days, I decided to declare war on my enemy: Sugar. It seems to me that every time I allow myself to indulge in some sort of sugary treat, I not only crave more and more of it but I also begin to crave other equally horrible food items. I also find that once I’m on the sugar train I have a harder time keeping my portion sizes reasonable. In an effort to get off that delightful train, I’m going cold turkey. (I’ve always been an all-or-nothing kind of girl.) So today is Day 8 of No Processed Sugars.