Clean Eating

Sparky, the love of my life, spring in my step, kick in my julep, and best friend in the whole world, is home. He also wants more meat in his life. As bringer of the paycheck, he certainly has every right to request that. He understands my objections to the meat for food industry, and is looking forward to assisting me in my search for responsibly, locally raised meat. We also want to eat better.

So, we are trying the concept of clean eating.

That is achieved thusly: We will try very hard to consume food that is as close to its original state as possible, avoiding processed food like semolina pasta, bread and or crackers made with anything but whole wheat, and non-hydrogenated fats. Refined sugar is on the no-no list, too. So, goodbye donuts, spaghetti, TVP patties (probably better off without those, anyway), and many other fat and sugar-laden treats we love so dearly.

But that's OK.

The recipes I have been using for our experiment have come from a magazine called Clean Eating. This magazine has a section of inexpensive meal recipes, as well as simple, one skillet meals that take less than 30 minutes to prepare.

Here's a brief run-down of our suppers for the last few nights:

Monday: Pan seared sirloin with stir fried squash and onions, with tomato reduction.

It was delicious. The sirloin had a tasty crust made of spices, the veggies were wonderful just plain and tasty, and the tomato reduction was a dream. As Rachel Ray would say, "YUM-O"!!

Tuesday: Salmon-Oat Hash.

So simple!! Steel cut oats, apples, celery, fresh dill, and cooked salmon. It was fabulous, and filling!! The Irish use steel cut oats for so much more than breakfast, and this savory application did not disappoint.

Wednesday: Chicken Tetrezzini Casserole.

This one was a bit more labor-intensive than the rest of what I've made so far, but everybody seemed to enjoy it. I found the color of the sauce (made up of part of the cooked veggies in the dish, and some broth) off-putting, but it tasted very good.

Thursday: We were supposed to have a friend of Sparky's over for dinner, but he couldn't make it. I still managed to keep our meal clean. I bought two beautiful packages of tenderloin,, intending to make them in the oven with a garlic-herb crust, but we decided instead to grill tham. We gave the meat the same treatment we give our steaks: We sprinkle them lightly with kosher salt, and push the flakes into the meat. We let the meat sit for a while, then grilled it. After it was cooked, I made grilled peppers, mushrooms, sweet spanish onions, and zucchini. I tossed them in olive oil and Spike brand seasoning. It was fabulous, and clean, too! Kylie ate three helpings, and all of her vegetables!

I've lost a few pounds, which is good. I think that eating clean is good for us. Processed foods are so full of chemicals, and strange things that replace the original ingredients, things we are all better off without!!

Tmorrow, I'll continue my commentary on processed foods, as well as present afew new ideas about the food we eat.

Until then, -urp-...yum.

Spoke too soon...

*sigh*

So, our church turned out not be what we thought it was. It's hard to listen to "Give till it hurts" sermons while the pastor and his wife are driving BMW's. They are also having bankruptcy issues. The list goes on. We've been there for almost six months, but we hardly know anybody. We are looking a different church now. I don't think I'm going to blog about that any more, because it has caused our family a great deal of heartache. Our faith has not been shaken; we're just sad that we have to start over again.

Instead, I'll focus on other things for a time. Gods has blessed me with a gift; that of making tasty things to eat. I'm going to talk about that for a while, as well as continue to blog about my many goofy, inane musings.

Busy, I guess......

I looked back today, and realize that I haven't had very much to say, not much at all. Very little, really.

OK, zip, zilch, nada, nyet, nothing.

As I move throughout my day, little ideas present themselves, and I think to myself "oh, yeah, that would make a good blog post, I need to rememebr that." Do I write it down? No. Do I sit down and blog it? *sigh* Nope. My friend Lissa says not to worry about posting things right away, just get them wrotten first, then play with it till it's ready to be digested and processed by anybody bored enough to read this.

I shall now attempt to write something.

We now live in Jacksonville, FL., in a very upscale neighborhood. My husband has a good job, and the Lord has blessed us with a nice home in a neighborhhod of nice people, except maybe that young NFL player who just bought a house around the corner. Jury's still out on him......

The kids go to a terriffic public school. We went to a Science Fair dinner a few months ago, and were VERY pleasantly surprised to see a framed plaque on the wall in the Cafetorium (that's what they call them here) which read "In GOD We Trust"....Wow. Cool. It's in all of the kids' classrooms, too. The frank and unabashed conservatism here is so refreshing, a lovely change after living in that overcast, overpriced liberal hell known as Washington State. When neighbor kids come over to play with my kids, and I tell their parents that we have guns in our house, I am never met with shock and revulsion. The usual reply is, "Oh yeah? What you got? Can I see it? Do y'all hunt?" I love it!! It seems like most of my neighbors go to a church of some type, even if it may bot be the best church to go to.

We found a great, traditional, Bible-Believing, Independent Baptist church. Berean Baptist has been here for a very long time. The pastor has been here for 30 years, and every Sunday, we attend Services in the Jack Hyles Auditorium. When we walked in for hte first time, and I saw that sign, i knew we'd be right at home, and we are. Each church has its foibles, and this one is no different, but it's such a blessing to go every Sunday and hear the Lord's word read from the right Bible, and preached in the right way.

We attended another church at the invitation of one of navyman's co-workers. This church can be described as a "mega church". We went to services in a brand new auditorium, saw two people baptized, heard their videotaped salvation testimonies via a huge screen, and saw what seemed to me to be the equivalent of a hollywood show on the stage. The music was appealing in a wordly sense, the people who did specials surely belonged with a major record label, but where in all of this spectacle were the hymnals? Where was the sound preaching? Why did some of the girls look tlike they were going clubbing, and not to church? I'm not saying that we should all look like FLDS ladies, in ankle-length dresses and long johns; in fact my ieas about appropriate dress are considered rebellious by some, I'm sure. (LOL)

We have laughingly dubbed this church "Baptist Light". I'm sure those people are saved, and serving, and doing what they should, but I also know that there's better out there.

In a world hurtling toward Armageddon, I think that maybe the time has come to be thankful that people are saved, and that even though these people may not be attending a church that uses the "right" Bible, and plays the "right" music, they are still saved from a life apart from Christ. By saying this, I am not advocating any church that doesn't preach from the KJV, and I still know that the only way to Heaven is the the shed blood of Jesus Christ, and that a one-world-religion is wrong. But I am still thankful that people are still going up at altar call, still getting right with God, and still going to Heaven.

There, I'm off to a good start. I shall now exit my soap box. Hopefully, I've brought my devoted readers up to speed, and maybe even got some angst off my chest.

See you soon.

Ode To My Knives

Of all the toys in my kitchen so fair,

Eight bits of steel, honed well with care.

A flash of silver to dispatch a rind,

Serrated tips, a steak to find.

My love doth pare

Beyond compare.

A weighted handle calls me softly,

To ply my trade,with goals so lofty.

Twelve years are passed, with nary a day,

That I haven't loved them in some small way.

They nestle so happily in a block of oak,

They're calling me, I hear them, this is no joke!

A twist of fate, a deed unkind,

Out of my house, in a terrible bind.

My household goods, in a warehouse await,

Jacksonville, Florida, their ultimate fate.

Somewhere in those crates, made of stout wood,

My knives await, as good knives should.

My mom has a rack of tools that cut,

Noble, old, sharp enough, but what?

No comfortable handle, no fencing-foil steel

I shouldn't complain, but I miss their feel.

I'm sure I am spoiled, and so I whine,

"I miss you so dearly, you knives of mine."

Mommy Van Winkle....

Generally speaking, I'm not a weepy person. I never have been. My propensity for waterworks increased with the birth of my daughter, but I blame that on hormones.

Even in the sixteen months that my best friend and better half has been away, serving our country and doing meaningful work in Afghanistan, I haven't cried much. That doesn't mean that I haven't missed him. In fact, I don't think I've been a whole person since he left. I guess that part of me shut down; on hold, in a way. Sometimes, when I am alone (if one can ever really be alone with two kids) I look at pictures of Sparky, and the keening ache in my chest is so acute, so sharp, but oh, such a precious hurt!!

Like I said, I've been doing pretty well. Until this morning, when we were stopped by the police at the intersection where we turn to get on the highway that takes us to Fort Carson's Gate One. We walk our dogs there almost every day.

Right in front of us, eight buses, full of America's sons and daughters returned their precious cargo to its home base. The kids and I immediately began to hoot and holler, celebrating the return of a few hundred strangers with clapping and shouting, until the last bus passed, and the police escort turned to follow them. We weren't alone: all of the other cars at the intersection were clapping or honking their horns. Strangers, just like us, just as happy to see those soldiers return as we were.

We proceeded behind the happy caravan, and that's when it hit: to my credit, I didn't completely fall apart, but i made enough noise that the boy had to ask me if I was crying, and why. Nosy little stinker, isn't he?

When the police reached the intersection that led to the gate, they once again stopped traffic on the road, and lined up across that intersection in the oncoming lane, lights flashing, sirens a-wailing as the procession passed.

After the buses went through the gate, there were fire trucks waiting in the roundabout that's right after that gate, its hoses shooting an arch where the buses were to pass through. They were also at full lights and sirens. I thought to myself, "those men and women deserve every damn bit of that fanfare, and more." I love that Colorado Springs is so supportive of the military, and I look forward to settling here after Sparky retires, whenever that is.

I was still bawling as we drove through the base to the park where my grandparents and brother were waiting with their dogs. I guess the missing my husband part caught up with me a little bit. If all goes as planned, he will be home around the 4th of July. That's a little more than a month away. It seems like it gets harder to wait with each passing day. I have never wished my life ahead of where I am now; I don't want to miss a minute of my kids' precious childhood. But now, sometimes, I do. Why can't I just fall asleep, and wake up a few days before he comes home? I just need enough time to decorate the house, get all his clothes put away in the closet (which I have already done), and make some of his favorite food. ( still planning that one)

Part of me was picturing our own family's reunion: The sign I've ordered, the balloons I'll bring, the camcorder, and our brave daddy, running to his screaming, joyfully weeping family, the embraces, the kisses, the death grip my daughter will have on his neck, the boy clinging to his waist, and me, somewhere in all that, my arms around him, too. I'm not sure how we'll make it to the car, much less drive home from the airport.....The joy will be overwhelming, and is so much anticipated! When I made our deployment chain, it stretched nearly all the way around the ceiling on the bottom floor of our house in Washington. Now it's six weeks long, and that's it. I think we'll even have a few days left over. I made the chain long enough to last until the 15th of July.......nothing but smart, that. You never know what's going to happen when it comes to military transportation.

As lonely as I've been, and as difficult as it has been at times, I have never once begrudged my husband this voluntary deployment. He has been waiting to do his part for so many years; now it's his turn. Sparky is honorable, brave, intelligent, kind, compassionate, and my best friend on earth. The things that make him want to put himself in harm's way (and believe me, this is no cake assignment, sitting somewhere in a big, safe base for a year) for a bunch of ungrateful stranger,and do what he's trained for so long to do is as much a part of him as the things that make me love him. I wouldn't have him any other way.

And I can't wait for him to come home. So please, Lord, continue to watch over my husband as you have so faithfully for the past year, and please bring him safely home to us, if it is your will. Amen.

Touch

My husband has been gone for almost a year. It's just the kids, and me. I get to see Sparky in about two weeks, for two weeks. Of course, I'm excited. Nervous, too. It will feel strange, i think, to be touched by somebody other than my kids. My daughter is constantly crawling all over me, cuddling on the sofa, curling herself into the curve of my body when she has a bad dream and comes to sleep with me, hugs from the boy, nudges from the dog when I have something in my hand that she wants. That's about it. I am and always have been, a touchy-feely person. I'm sure it annoys some people, even if all I do is put my hand on their upper arm to emphasize what I'm saying, or to reinforce my sincerity. That's just me.

I've always understood the importance of touch, and valued it, incorrectly sometimes, even. And it's not all about sex. It's about a mental connection that extends into some kind of subconscious understanding. I miss holding his hand, the way he runs his hand down my arm, the soft brush across the back of my neck when he puts his arm around me in church. Touch is a very personal thing. In my relationship, it's many things: acceptance, understanding, as I stated earlier, love, compassion, joy, and of course, desire. I feel bad that I've forgotten what he feels like. How soft his face is right after he shaves, the rough hair on his arm, the warmth of his hands on my shoulders when I'm working at my desk, resting against the solid security of him, while we listen to the Lord's word preached and proclaimed every Sunday, all of it. When I met my husband, he wasn't a "touch" person. His family just wasn't that way. Somehow, after 12 years of marriage, he misses me touching him, and misses touching me, too. Don't get me wrong: The Afghan People are big huggers, and I mean BIG. But it's always men, and it makes him uncomfortable, and besides, I smell way better then they do.

The way I touch my daughter has caught my attention, too. I stroke her long hair as she sits on my lap, I feel her soft cheek against my own , and tell her how much I love her, holding her tiny hand when we cross the street or parking lot, gently examining ber "boo-boo" when she comes to me after she has hurt herself, brushing her hair, trying not to pull to hard when I find a tangle, rubbing her with lotion after her bath, to keep her skin from becoming itchy.

It's trickier with the boy. He still likes his hugs, but not in front of people. And he usually pulls away when I ruffle his hair or give his shoulder a gentle squeeze. Stinker..... :)

I try to touch with love, even when I am meting out deserved discipline. And to some degree, I know that I am successful: I see it mirrored in the way my daughter plays with her own dolly, pretending to be its mommy, or watching the boy with her, when he is teaching her how to do something. I also feel it in the way my kids touch me. My daughter cups my face in her little hand, mimicking me, and the boy pats me on the back every now and then.

All of this tells me how much touch means to me, and to my family. It's funny how something so simple can be so complicated at times, but also how fulfilling it can be.

I miss that from my husband the most. I don't know how I'm going to let go of him long enough to drive to the time share we are staying in for those two weeks, and how I'm going to put him on a plane at the end of those two weeks, knowing that he will be home four months after that.
After all of that, I can hardly wait......

The politics of shopping

Politics and shopping...ne'er the twain shall meet, at least you'd think so.

I happen to disagree, and here's why:

OK, a flat screen TV at Costco is from $2-5,000. A pair of Prada heels goes for more than $850 at Saks' Fifth Avenue. You can buy $200 tee-shirts, $400 pairs of jeans, $3,000 dresses, $200 iPhones, the list goes on and on.

So, why do we balk at a $300 grocery bill? A family of four can eat at Applebee's for about $50. You can eat at home for almost a week with that much money, if you break down the cost of each ingredient at an incremental level. All of civilized America and Europe pays an endless amount of money for clothes, shoes, jewelry, makeup: material possessions, all. But we don't like to pay for groceries. And organic? Who can afford it?

But how can we afford not to? If you ever wonder how your dinner gets to your plate, watch Food, inc., or read any number of expose books on the subject. One of the things you'll learn is there is very little regulation, and that labeling is a joke. USDA Certified Organic means about as much as "The check's in the mail". A handful of companies have complete control over what we eat, how it's processed, and what we pay for it. What you don't see behind the smiling artifice of TV and print commercials should be enough to scare all of us into buying everything we eat at the local co-op. The brutality of the meat for food business (and not just the animals are needlessly brutalized) This is the main reason I am a vegetarian. I really can't walk past the chicken case at the grocery store and not wonder if that poor animal was still alive when it was dumped into the scalding tank, to make its feathers come out easier. I know God gave us meat to eat, but He couldn't have meant for it to happen this way. We have a responsibility to treat lesser creatures than us in a humane manner, or we risk our very own morality and humanity.

So, yes, you can make a political statement by your choice of store. If enough people forsake their local Safeway or Albertson's for the store that sells organic and safely produced foods, that tells the politicians in DC that we as a people don't care for their relationship with the owners of "big food". (Tyson, Monsanto, etc.)

The catch is that we have to work a bit harder at keeping our food, and buy more often. Organic fruits and vegetables have not been sprayed with nasty chemicals, nor has the soil been treated with anything that was made in a factory by a chemist. The apples aren't as pretty, the oranges spoil a bit faster, as does everything else that hasn't been inundated within an inch of its life with chemicals. If we can make that adjustment, our bodies will feel better, and mass producers will have to figure out a safer way to sell their wares. This will also mean eating food that's actually in season, not imported from Chile or Argentina, where food standards will never be as demanding as America's admittedly flawed regulations. Is that so bad?

I'll never understand why we spend thousands on what we put on our bodies, but complain about what we have to spend to put in them. If we don't keep the inside working and fed properly, then eventually it will find its way to the outside, something we are all so concerned with.

Think about. Join your local Co-op. Find a CSA, and pay into it. Grow you own food, if you can. The things we harvest from our own soil tastes 100 times better than anything we can buy n the store.

Try it and see! ;)