Thankful Thursdays #53: my top ten

Posted on December 1, 2011 by Veronica

I started this feature over a year ago, and now that I’ve fulfilled my resolution to find something to be thankful for every day of the year (you can see all my past Thankful Thursdays here), I’m going to do something a little different this week and list my current top ten thanksgivings.

I remember when I was a little girl, I’d often consider my biggest priorities in life and it always went like this:

1. Food.

2. God.

Food was always the biggest thing in my life, even over God, and I never even considered my family or anything else. The mind of a child! While I’m still thankful for both those things, my priorities seem to have changed with the progression of time.

My top ten thanksgivings:

1. God and his son, Jesus the Christ. I’m thankful for and to God for creating this beautiful world we live in, and for my life. For His immense love for His children, and for the salvation He provided to us through the sacrifice of His son. And I’m so thankful for and to Jesus who suffered so greatly and died for my sins so that I might have the hope of a heavenly afterlife. Before I was a Christian, John 3:16-17 was meaningless words to me, but now every one of them fills my soul with love and gratitude.

For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved.

Hallelujah, praise Jehovah!

2. My wonderful, most perfect husband. I always tell him he is perfect to me, because although he’s obviously not literally perfect, he is everything I need him to be and honestly, I don’t think there is anyone in the world I could love as much. I feel that I have been blessed far beyond what I deserve, and I’m so thankful for it. He completes me.

3. Here is where I would likely list my children if I had them, but my Jessie girl takes the number three spot because she is my only child. A dog-hater my entire life, it’s hard to believe how quickly she turned me around with those puppy grunts and her tiny tongue and tiny, dime-sized paws. Now, it is such a joyful thing to come home to her enthusiastic greeting every day. The big smile, the wagging tail, the soft panting as I pet her. I now fully comprehend the saying “dogs are a man’s best friend” because I have experienced firsthand how well-suited they are as human companions. Their devotion and unconditional love is something that we’d do well to learn from and apply to our own relationships!

4. My friends. I had a hard time deciding if I was more thankful for my friends or my family and in the end, I think it’s about equal but for different reasons. I’m thankful for my friends because I had the freedom to choose them (as opposed to being born into a family), and/or we share a common faith which gives us a very deep bond. A single sentence or smile from any of these friends is enough to brighten my day, and that’s pretty fantastic.

5. My family. We have our differences, but family is always there for you and no matter how bad we hurt each other, we always forgive and forget. I don’t know how well that works in relationships, but somehow it seems to work with families. Or at least in mine! I’m thankful to have a family that doesn’t hold grudges because I’d probably be disowned by now. ;)

With my Dad and sisters, Lacey (back) and Danielle (front)

6. For the country I live in. I usually live in self-inflicted ignorance of the horrible things going on in other parts of the world, but some have come across my radar lately and it makes me even more grateful to live in this land of freedom and opportunity.

Two happy American girls: Danielle & her friend Margo in their high school days. Danielle really dressed like this every day! Only in America? lol

7. Jobs. My job, my husband’s job, and for the job of everyone I know. Not all of us may love what we do, but what a blessing to have a way to support our families! I’m especially thankful for mine because I am one of the lucky ones who love what I do…or at least I love that I can listen to audiobooks while I do it. :)

Pardon the ugly. And the crazy. :)

8. My health! My husband’s health! Jessie’s health! Everyone’s health! For the most part, everyone close to me is doing great health-wise, and it’s such a blessing not to have the stress of an illness in our lives right now. Well, other than my diabetes, but I’m also thankful I have a manageable disease! (I’m so singing “I’ve still got my health, so what do I care?” in my head right now.)

At one point my doctor marked “uncontrolled” on my chart, so this is a good sign! :)

9. Clean water and plentiful food. These basic things we need to survive and get so much enjoyment from, but not everyone has them.

10. My humble home. Small and in need of work it may be, but it shelters us through the storms, keeps us warm in the winter, and cool in the summer. It provides us constant access to running water, has conveniences like a toilet (remember outhouses?) and a refrigerator to preserve our food. It not only is everything we need in a shelter to survive, but more, and I’m so thankful for it.

Enter his gates with thanksgiving, and his courts with praise; give thanks to him and praise his name. For the Lord is good and his love endures forever; his faithfulness continues through all generations. Psalms 100:4

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You might be a redneck…

Posted on November 30, 2011 by Veronica

Rednecks are the butt of many jokes (gotta love Jeff Foxworthy!), but I think they deserve some credit. I laugh at the jokes because they can strike pretty close to home for me, and I love laughing at myself, but truly, us rednecks are some crazy geniuses. We find the easiest and cheapest ways to fix and recreate things, and while the result is often comical, it’s also, well, easy and cheap! And I’m all about easy and cheap. At least when it comes to fixing & recreating things. :) So hey, if that makes me a redneck, then I wear the name with pride!

Our back door is on the landing leading to the basement, and flush to the ground with our yard. Due to poor landscaping, when it rains the water pools close to our door and comes in right under it, making a waterfall down the stairs. Although we plan to level the yard and dig a trench some day (it’s always some day), in the mean time we did a redneck fix on it and nailed a board at the base of the doorway, caulked it, and now the rain no longer comes in under the door. Feel free to applaud.

The sunrooof on my car has leaked since the day I bought it. The car company I bought it from fixed the seal for a discount (yeah, they refused to do it for free, even though I took it in the same week I bought it!), but it started leaking again a few years later. Paying only half (if they weren’t lying to me) cost me over $200, and I wasn’t about to fork over $400 every time the seal needed fixed again. So we bought a tube of waterproof clear caulking gel and apply a new coat around the roof every summer. Works like a charm and it kinda goes well with all the hail dents.

There happen to be a few creative rednecks living in our neighborhood as well, so we’re in good company. Check out this flower bed we came across on one of our walks.

Notice anything strange?

Apparently this lady got fed up with watering flowers and decided to plant artificial ones, the kind that never die!

And how about this sun shade made out of cardboard? Why waste $10 when you can finally use some of those big boxes you’ve been collecting for the last decade and make your own, right? Right!

Notice how it’s dark outside? I’m hoping this person was just on a really loooong grocery shopping trip, because otherwise this photographic evidence throws my “rednecks are geniuses” theory out the window.

OK, now this is a creation that I’m sure many non-rednecks have used. Greenies makes a wonderful product called Pill Pockets that are dog or cat treats with a hole in the middle so you can pop the pill in, mold it back over the pill, and delight as your dog or cat happily swallows the pill without a big fuss. Jessie just loves them.

The only downside is that they cost $7-$9 a bag and don’t last long when you have to give your pet more than one dose a day. Jessie has skin allergies in the summer and has to take 6 pills a day at times to keep her from licking all her fur off. My solution?

Turkey hot dogs are considerably lower in fat and calories than regular, and Jessie certainly doesn’t need any extra fat on her chunky little frame. These cost $1.50 at my Aldi store and last two or more weeks. Cheap and easy–a redneck’s dream!

To make my own pill pockets, I slice the hot dog into pieces wide enough to fit her pills.

Then I make a space for the pills by cutting a slit into each one. (On a totally unrelated note, the brown scar is from my exploding boiling honey incident, if you’re wondering. The old thick scar starting on my lower forefinger and running down to my palm is the result of my first in a long line of burn incidents. My Dad always called me “the burn victim” growing up, because I burned myself so often. I also used to be a quasi-pyromaniac, even starting a fire in our attic once. Probably not the best obsession for a burn victim, right?)

Insert the pill.

And Jessie happily gobbles her pills down. (It also works well to fold the pills into American cheese, which is soft and pliable and easily molds to the shape of a pill.) I just store the remaining slices in a Ziploc bag so that I can just pull them out and use them immediately for her next several doses. Oh, and that blue Rubbermaid storage tub on the floor in the photo above? That’s her food container. I wasn’t going to pay $40 for a food storage bin when I could make my own for less than $10, thank you!

And then there are the things that just don’t need fixing. Like my water bottle. I left it on the floor of my car on a hot day and melted one side flat. Then I got it stuck in the revolving door at work and crushed the other side. Hey, it still holds water and the straw still works. Why do I need a new one?

Redneck pride!

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Our Weight Loss Contract

Posted on November 29, 2011 by Veronica

Last month, Dennis and I took a contract out on ourselves.

Dennis, with plenty of help from me, had reached his highest weight ever, and I’d packed on 17 pounds since quitting Weight Watchers in May (a whopping 27 pounds since this time last year!). I know that’s impressive, but I’d prefer to impress with weight loss rather than gain, thankyouverymuch!

For months we had been talking about an idea we’d been brewing, an incentive plan to help us lose the weight together that didn’t include paying someone else for their help. So when we finally got completely disgusted with ourselves to the point that even fries and cheesecake couldn’t soothe our nutrition-deprived souls, we put everything down in writing and signed it.

With this contract, we are paying ourselves to lose weight! The money that we would have spent on Weight Watchers (it’s about $50 a month per person), is going into an online savings account each month, automatically deposited just like the WW payment would have been automatically withdrawn. We will continue these monthly deposits until we both reach our goal weights, and at that point, we are going to use it to buy a new television! (The one we have is the first thing we ever bought together, thirteen years ago, and the screen has been displaying a discolored the picture for the last eight. So a new one would be nice!) If one of us makes their goal first, then the $50 will go to them each month instead of the savings account, and they can use it to splurge on whatever they wish as long as they maintain their weight.

We each agreed to count our calories, exercise five times a week, and get 7 1/2-8 hours of sleep each night.

So far, we’ve each lost about 10 pounds. Mine was all lost the first two weeks and then I got lazy with counting calories but I’m back on it this week so hopefully I’ll show a loss again. Dennis has been keeping his end of the bargain with exercise, but I just now for the first time did a strength routine last night (I feel gloriously sore today) and other than that, have only been walking the dog the few nights a week that I’m home early enough to do so.

I’m also a bit sketchy on the 8 hours of sleep, and so is Dennis. This has been a struggle for us, especially once my schedule shifted to later in the day which caused him to stay up so we could have time together when I get home, and me to stay up even later trying to get things done like I used to after work when I got off at a decent hour. But a bedtime of 6 AM is just not OK with me! I hate waking up in the afternoon and feeling like I’ve already wasted the day, and I usually get up after 6 hours of sleep simply because I can’t stand to sleep in daylight. So I’ve got to work on going to bed after work and doing things in the morning, after sleeping, instead of in the morning because I just stayed up that late.

So we’ve got things in motion! I’d totally recommend our plan for couples, because you automatically have someone for support, which I find essential during the journey, but I think it would also be a good plan to do on your own as long as you can find some motivation and encouragement outside of yourself. There is a good health & fitness blogging community out there and if you’re looking for some help, here are a few suggestions:

Skinny Emmy
This is my favorite weight loss blog because Emmy has a really long journey ahead of her and behind her: she started at 455 pounds, is now at 342, and has another 142 to go! She is such an inspiration, and her posts are always interesting.

Former Fat Guy
Rob also had a long weight loss journey, once weighing 475 pounds, but finished it and now maintains a muscular and healthy physique. Check his blog for interesting posts on health, nutrition, recipes, muscle building, and weight loss.

Waisting Time
Karen is a reforming yo-yo dieter that blogs her triumphs and failures along the way. I love her writing style! Plus, she’s from Kansas too so maybe I’m a little biased for that reason as well. :)

3 Fat Chicks on a Diet!
This site has tons of helpful articles on diets, fitness, food, lifestyle & being plus sized. A great resource for anybody trying to lose weight.

If you read a weight loss or healthy lifestyle blog, I’d love for you to leave a link to your favorite one in the comments!

And can I just say, I’m so proud of myself for putting a goal weight of 140 pounds? For some reason I have this idea that 130 is the magic number, despite not having seen it in my entire adult life except when I got type 1 diabetes without knowing it and dropped fifty pounds in three months. I feel pretty good when I’m 150 and really great when I’m 140 and I know that to get down to 130 would require the kind of life-long deprivation and exercise I could never commit to. I’ve been to 140 and I think it is do-able for long term if I take it slow and get used to eating less on a gradient. So, yay me for being realistic this time! :)

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Thanksgiving 2011 and No Recipes For You!

Posted on November 28, 2011 by Veronica

As an homage to the soup Nazi, there will be “no recipes for you!” this week. That’s right, I’m going to do an entire week of non-recipe posts. I love posting recipes and usually give them first priority, but I have several non-recipe posts to share and I thought I’d get through them before I get to all the December goodies I want to share with you. (Oh goodness, now I’m wondering if I can really handle this. I might have to cop out but I’m going to try!)

Let’s start with the Miller family Thanksgiving!

As we have every year since we started dating, Dennis and I headed north to spend the holiday with his family in Abilene, Kansas (Eisenhower’s birth place, the end of the Oregon trail, and the original “sin city” back in cowboy days*). Usually we stay over the night before so I’m there to help Phyllis, my mother-in-law, with all the cooking, but I couldn’t this year due to my work schedule. She still pulled off an amazing dinner, with some side-dishes and desserts help from everyone who came!

*You know, a long time ago, when the original cowboys freely roamed the Earth.

When I first started coming to Thanksgiving in Abilene, all of the extended family came to the Miller house for lunch, but the count has now dwindled as each family has decided to have their own separate celebration. What used to be utter insanity in the Miller house is now manageable thanks to smaller numbers. See our happy hostess below? That’s my MIL, Phyllis.

Dennis got his sense of humor from her. Here’s what I found when I went to reach for a plate. Bob is her brother, our Uncle.

Only a candy mouse for you!

The Thanksgiving ritual at the Miller home is to wait until everyone arrives, doing the final food preparations (cutting the pies, putting servings spoons in all the dishes, etc.) & chatting with one another while trying to pretend we’re not starving and ready to eat the person’s head off that we’re talking to. When everyone is present, including those that told us not to wait, Uncle Robert, of the mouse plate fame, leads us in a prayer of thanksgiving. This is Robert and his wife, Becky (they are parents to the four beautiful young women throughout my photos, three of them in the background of this one):

We then let the elderly and the youngest go through the kitchen first to fill their plates. The rest of us continue to play nice and pretend we’re not eying the forearms of our family members and envisioning them as turkey legs.

And then the glorious moment arrives when we all sit down and eat!

That's Dennis' Dad, Al, who had to be censored! LOL!

This year I brought praline sweet potato pie and pumpkin pie…

pumpkin pie truffles…

corn pudding…

and broccoli-cauliflower bake, which I didn’t photograph separately, but there’s a bit of it on the back center-left of my loaded plate.

I forgot to take a picture of my dessert plate, but I was overjoyed that cousin Jessica (the one helping her two little boys with their plates above) brought pecan pie. It’s my favorite but I never make it for that reason, so I always hope to find it at Thanksgiving, the one time a year I allow myself to eat this evil, but delicious, pie. I also didn’t photograph the Thanksgiving staples (turkey, ham, stuffing, mashed potatoes and gravy, rolls, green bean casserole, sweet potato casserole, creamed corn) except the ones that made it to my plate, but I did get the other side dishes:

Jessica brought this rad turkey vegetable tray!

After we eat, the men continue watching their football game…

the children divide and conquer playing fields of their own creating…

and the adults continue to chat. Katerina amused us for a while with her Smartphone as we looked up music videos on it.

Loved this photo of Katerina, Tessa, and their nephew Greyson! He’s such a cutie!

While most of the young adults eventually moved outside to do sports-like activities, I followed them outdoors and exercised my forefinger taking pictures instead. I’m pretty sure if I had tried to join them in volleying balls and whatever other sports-like nonsense they were up to, I would have broken my eyebrow or something, and I’m kind of fond of my eyebrows.

Here’s a photo I shot outside of Robert and Becky’s girls while they weren’t busy flinging balls or Frisbees or other various and sundry things in the air. Left to right: Andrea, Tessa, Katerina, and Jessica. Andrea and Jessica are responsible for all the kiddos at our gathering.

I loved this photo so much I had a little Thanksgiving-themed fun with it!

I managed to pass the camera off to get a photo with my TALL and handsome nephews, Carson (left) and Lance:

and with their Mom, the best sister-in-law in the world, Joan:

You can tell how much fun she is by her smile! :) Oh, and if you’re wondering about my shirt, the front says “How do you mail a turkey?”

“Bird” class mail, of course! Hardy har har! :) Working for the postal service, I couldn’t resist, even if it is super lame.

I took this photo right inside the door at an Abilene restaurant called Joe Snuffy’s the day after Thanksgiving. I thought it quite fitting for this holiday, which is mainly spent with family around a table.

I know that we love to use Thanksgiving as an excuse to pig out, but when it comes down to it, most of us aren’t thinking about food when we think of what we’re truly thankful for. Usually it’s the people surrounding us during this holiday that we’re most thankful for.

I happened to catch the Thanksgiving episode of “The Middle” where the wife was flipping because everyone was cancelling their travel plans to join hers on Thanksgiving. “Thanksgiving without family is just overeating!” she exclaimed, and I had to laugh. It’s so true. We love Thanksgiving because of the plentiful food, but we love it even more because it gives us a reason to gather together with the ones we love.

Thank God for so many reasons to be thankful. :)

Dennis with 92-year-old Grandma Joy. She truly is a joy and I’m so glad she has passed her sense of humor down through her daughter to my husband. :)

I hope your Thanksgivings were wonderful, and that whether you celebrate the holiday or not, you have many things to be thankful for!

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Thanksful Thursdays #52: Happy Thanksgiving!

Posted on November 24, 2011 by Veronica

Making scalloped potatoes with my Mother-in-law last Thanksgiving, the activity that inspired this weekly "thanksgivings" feature.

How perfect to end this year-long resolution of finding something to be thankful for every day on Thanksgiving!

It’s hard to believe that I have been doing Thankful Thursdays for a year now. That I have found something to be thankful for every single day of the year. I have done this before in a journal, writing something down every day that I’m thankful for, and it’s something that has been very beneficial to me, and something I plan to continue. I tend to be more of a “glass is half empty” & “negative Nancy” type of person, but slowly this is helping me to become a more positive “silver lining” type of person, which I very much prefer.

Although I plan to feature “Thankful Thursdays” indefinitely, the format will likely be changing, though I’m not certain enough about the change to announce it fully just yet. I do know that instead of listing what I’m thankful for every week, I think I would like to be able to focus on one thanksgiving per post, because some thanksgivings deserve more than the few sentences I’m limited to when I have seven of them to share.

Well, for the final week of this resolution, I wish I had something profound for you, but since my resolution was to find something to be thankful for every day and report them on my blog, that is how I’m going to finish the year. And the things I’m thankful for, while they may have been profound at times, aren’t so this week. Sorry. :)

Or…maybe they are profound in that I have found gratitude and thankfulness in my heart for all things, including the bad, the smallest advantages, and the mundane. I have taken the little things for granted so often in my life (clean water, for instance–not everyone has it), but this resolution has helped me to become more aware of how richly God has blessed me. I guess that is pretty profound. :)

Thursday: The deadline for my cookie swap was today and I was pleased with the results. There were a total of 66 people that signed up, which exceeded my goal of 50. Not all could participate, as some were in countries where no one else signed up, but there are still 141 dozen cookies being mailed across the US (and 21 dozen outside the US) because of the swap. It’s not earth-shattering, but 162 dozen cookies going around the world is a lot of love being shared, and it does help the Postal Service. Also, I’m thankful to Lindsay and Julie for hosting The Great Blogger Cookie Swap because with their 622 participants, they are responsible for 1,866 dozen cookies being mailed, and that is a huge perk for not only our postal service, but those worldwide!

Friday: {Warning, TMI is about to follow, but I’m just keepin’ it real.} I purchased a box of Threelac on Amazon and have been taking it for about two weeks now and it’s amazing how much better I feel. It is a candida cleansing system (a candida overgrowth can cause many physical problems, including yeast infections, acne, & fatigue–all things I suffer from), something I have been battling ever since I OD’ed on Mexican antibiotics seven years ago (that story is here). Although I balked at the price, I finally purchased it after reading many reading positive reviews. I have been yeast-infection free for 6 months, ever since starting on a powerful priobotic, but once I started watching my calories again (I’m down ten pounds, btw!), I was having little skin yeast infection flare-ups (something that always happens when I diet, perhaps because the yeast in my fat cells is being released into my system). The Threelac has not only nipped those in the bud, but my overall spirits and energy have increased dramatically. I’m a pretty bubbly person usually, but am prone to days where I feel very low. Not exactly depressed, but feeling like I don’t want to do anything. I’ve only been taking Threelac two weeks, but I feel so much more positive about life, and am much more motivated and able to get things accomplished more easily. It’s very nice to know that something I thought was wrong with me as a person was likely a symptom of a candida overgrowth. Viva la Threelac!

Saturday: I have been thankful for Pinterest before, but now for a different reason. It’s starting to give me my pretty back. (I’m bringing pretty back, yeah! Them other boys don’t know how to act, yeah! lol) Once upon a time, I used to wear a little makeup, fix my hair every day, tried to pick out clothes that flattered me and I was fairly put-together. After my Dad had a stroke, my looks went down hill, at first because I didn’t have time to care about my appearance because I was too busy worrying & taking care of him, and then it became a habit. (And now I’m really thinking that the candida in my system had something to do with my indifference as well, since it is dissipating only after I started taking the Threelac.) I wear baggy t-shirts most days & wear makeup only on special occasions now. But Pinterest has so many ideas for makeup and hair (style is still beyond me, but there are plenty of those pins too) that it finally motivated me to try to look presentable again. I’m starting with the basics, actually using the forgotten tube of wrinkle cream at night, shaving & plucking regularly (Dennis is thankful for Pinterest too, lol), putting lotion on after I get out of the shower. I even managed to paint my nails and wear some eyeliner and mascara and lip color to work once this week! Hey, that’s kinda huge for me. I really don’t want to become vain, but it does make me feel happier and more self-confident to make my physical appearance more appealing. Thanks, Pinterest! :)

Sunday: I may have had to ask for the day off and use some of my annual leave to do it, but it was just so very nice to have it to spend with my bretheren in Christ on the Lord’s day. I look forward to a day when my work schedule doesn’t interfere with this!

Monday: That my husband found a decent guy through Craigslist to make songs with. Dennis is a very musical person (plays guitar, drums, bass, is learning harmonica and the recorder of all things, and has been taking singing lessons for over a year) and has been trying out for bands for a while but the kind of people he was encountering were fairly unsavory. (One kept hitting on me, for instance, despite knowing I was Dennis’ wife and being married himself.) He found a winner this time, though, a young, intelligent boxer that loves to write poetry. I didn’t have to cringe at all while they made music together in the living room. Glad to know there are still some musicians out there that don’t feel the need to use vulgar language to express themselves. And that even boxers have a sensitive side. :)

Tuesday: Wendy’s chili. Seriously. It’s so good and so healthy and so cheap. And it so comforting in these chilly temps. Oh, Wendy’s chili, how I love you! (How was that for profound? :) )

Wednesday: That Dennis was still up when I got home. Since we’re working opposite shifts right now (my schedule changes weekly), lately I only see him on days off and when he wakes me up in the morning to kiss me good bye. But that makes me all the more appreciative of the time we do spend together. Tonight while I dipped pumpkin pie truffles in preparation for the holiday, he cut up some cheese slices for a snack for me and told me about his walk with Jessie and how he was chasing her (she loves to run in the winter–she’s part husky) and fell, hurting his shoulder. While he was laying there, she ran up to him, and he thought she was going to give him sympathy, but instead she got down into her play position, with her head down and butt in the air, grabbed her leash from him, and took off! I could not stop laughing at the picture he was painting of Jessie taking advantage of the situation while he was laying in the dirt in pain. He always can make me laugh! (And don’t worry, they’re both OK.)

In honor of the holiday, I’ll leave you with two cards. You know how I like cards!

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Gołąbki {Polish Cabbage Rolls}

Posted on November 21, 2011 by Veronica

It’s Secret Recipe Club time again! I have to say, this month has been my favorite recipe of all I’ve made with the club so far. I was assigned to Allie’s Clean Plate Club, and I bookmarked a million recipes before I decided on the Gołąbki (pronounced “go-womb-key”), because it’s something I always wanted to make but never have. In fact, I’ve never eaten Polish cabbage rolls before! Up until now, I’ve always had the Middle Eastern Cabbage Rolls, which are similar but don’t have the tomato sauce over the top and don’t necessarily include meat. I have to say, I really prefer these Polish ones!

One of my ultimate comfort foods is meatloaf with mashed potatoes and gravy. For some reason, I rarely make or eat it, but it warms my soul when I have a plate of it in front of me. Well, maybe that’s why I love these cabbage rolls so much. With the sweet and tangy tomato sauce, they really remind me of little meatloaves! And I had no idea they would taste anything like meatloaf, but ended up serving them with mashed potatoes on a whim, and I found myself in a state of bliss with my plate of Polish comfort.

Obviously these have a foreign taste to them, not exactly like American meatloaf. It’s the cinnamon and nutmeg, which isn’t used very often in savory American dishes. The spices find their way into many foreign ones, however, and the flavor works surprisingly well here in these cabbage rolls.

I know nothing of Polish food except for these rolls, and according to Allie they are very similar to her Polish Grandmother-in-laws authentic gołąbki (although I did change them a bit), but based on them alone I think I like Polish food and am ready to try more!

Gołąbki {Polish Cabbage Rolls}

Printable recipe
Printable recipe with picture

1 head of cabbage, cored
1 tablespoon vegetable oil
1 medium onion, chopped
2 garlic cloves, minced
1 teaspoon cinnamon
¼ teaspoon nutmeg
16 oz. tomato sauce
2 tablespoons brown sugar
2 tablespoons red wine vinegar
1 lb. lean ground beef
1 cup cooked rice (I used brown)
1 egg, beaten
1 teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon black pepper

Directions:

Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil. Boil the entire head of cabbage for 12 to 15 minutes or until tender enough for the leaves to be pulled off and rolled. Drain the cabbage and allow to cool while you prepare the filling and sauce.

Heat the oil in a skillet over medium heat. Cook the onions about 5 minutes, or until tender and translucent. Add the garlic, cinnamon and nutmeg and cook for 1 minute more. Remove half of the onion mixture to a large bowl. Stir the tomato sauce, brown sugar and vinegar into the skillet with the remaining onion mixture stir together. Simmer over low heat while you prepare the filling and the rolls, stirring occasionally.

Add the ground beef, rice, egg, salt, and pepper to the onion in the bowl and mix with a fork or your hands. On a cutting board, peel off 12 or more cabbage leaves and cut out the hard stem from each leaf in such a way that you end up with two long leafs for rolling. Place about 2 tablespoons of the beef mixture in the middle of each cabbage leaf half and roll up. As you roll them, place them seam side down in a 9×13 baking dish sprayed with oil. Pour sauce on top, cover with foil, and bake at 350 degrees F for 45 minutes or until cooked through.

Makes 20 gołąbki.

Per gołąbek (cabbage roll): 100 calories; 6 g fat; 7 g carbohydrates; 1 g fiber; 5 g protein; 3 Points Plus

Recipe source: adapted from Allie’s Clean Plate Club

Be sure to check out the other Secret Recipe Club members in Group C this month (there are so many members, we’re divided into four groups and I’m in Group C) by clicking on Mr. Linky below. A big thanks to Angie, our fearless leader! :)

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Posted in Meats, My Favorites, Secret Recipe Club and tagged baked, cabbage rolls, Gołąbki, Polish, recipe. Bookmark the permalink.

What I Eat When You’re Not Looking

Posted on November 18, 2011 by Veronica

I started this blog to share my favorite recipes with everyone and to archive them all in one spot for myself, and I refer to it to print out recipes for my binder when I make something for a second time and know there will be a third. But I don’t share everything I eat with you guys on here. Most meals I eat, especially lately, are quick & easy and aren’t really “recipes” or anything impressive enough to share with you.

But, being a food blogger, I often snap pictures of my non-blog-worthy food as a matter of habit and have decided to share some of them here for those like me that enjoy a sneak peek into the dietary lives of others. I hope you find some entertainment value in seeing what it’s really like in my kitchen on the days when I’m not making pizza or cake.

Let’s start with the most important meal of the day: breakfast. The breakfast I eat most often is some form of yogurt (preferably non-fat Greek) with thawed frozen mixed berries, usually mixed with some honey.

Lately I’ve been getting into oat bran and have made three kinds just in the last week:

Apple Cinnamon

Pumpkin Pie

Unchunky Monkey (banana & peanut butter, no chocolate)

I eat one of these chicken salad kits for lunch almost every work day because they are convenient, cheap ($1 each at Aldi), tasty, and low-calorie. I never get sick of them. I either have baby carrots or Italian Green Beans with it.

This is my “happy dinner.” Tilapia fillets seasoned with Tony Chachere’s, cooked in a skillet for 5 minutes and served with whatever veggies I can find. The most delish & nutrish 5-minute dinner ever. It makes me happy.

Here’s another (overcooked) version of it over stir-fry veggies and red rice. Sometimes I eat this fish three times a week. I love it.

I used those same stir-fry veggies (from a frozen bag) to make a 5-minute vegan dinner by adding black rice (I cook rice in batches and use throughout the week), white beans, and bottled peanut sauce. Yum!

Another easy favorite: the BLT. I have to have Miracle Whip on mine (I use light), but I used to think that “BLT” implied you used ONLY bacon, lettuce, and tomato with nothing else so it’s only recently I started adding a condiment. Much better with.

And sometimes I just start with a can of something and add other something’s to it. This was a can of Aldi limited edition jalapeño black beans that I added peppers & kabocha squash to, served over rice and garnished with cheese.

After I realized how good sweet squash can be with spicy beans, I came up with what I’ll call Black Bean Fiesta. I started with a can of Bush’s Black Bean Fiesta Grillin’ Beans and cooked it with some red, green, and yellow peppers, some cubed butternut squash, diced onion, pickled jalapeños, a bit of the jalapeño juice, and added a tablespoon of sugar. I served it over brown rice with cheddar on top and garnished with cilantro. So good.

I love pimiento cheese and one day wanted to eat a lot of it in one sitting so I decided to plop it all over a big plate of broccoli and call it dinner. Kind of a new take on broccoli with cheese sauce?

I share most of the desserts I make with you because, unlike my meals, most of them are blog-worthy. I really am a better baker than cook. But there is the rare dessert that needs some tweaking and I never get around to it. This crazy pound cake tiramisu is totally blog-worthy (i.e. delicious), if I ever make it again the way I would blog it. The way I made it was really weird (for starters, I only had half a pound cake) but I don’t feel right telling you what you should do without trying it first myself.

And then there’s the meals that I can’t share because they are just not good enough, like these brown sugar beer brats. They were kind of OK, but kind of OK doesn’t cut it! I give you guys only my best stuff. You’re welcome. :)

And this beautiful vegan curried quinoa salad that looks like a plate of jewels! How could it betray me and dare to taste anything less than steller? I should try it again and buck the Healthy Cooking mag’s directions and try adding salt this time! Duh.

And then there’s the meals that I can’t share because they are just plain awful. Have you ever had someone immediately barf up a dinner you made them? Yeah, that happened with this one.

I was trying to find ways to use up my vodka that I bought to make Kahlua (thankfully it finally occurred to me to make vanilla with it) and got a recipe for vodka cream sauce from a friend. I don’t blame her for the results–I didn’t have the ingredients I needed but tried to make it with substitutions and we ate a dinner so gag-worthy that Dennis literally went running for the toilet as he finished (but, bless him, he did finish, even if it didn’t stay down!). I don’t think I’ll dare to attempt vodka cream sauce again for a long, long time.

***

GIVEAWAY WINNER

I loved the feedback I got on my anniversary post and many of you gave me some good ideas for future posts. I especially was encouraged to hear how many of you most look forward to Thankful Thursdays because when I first changed my blog title and started including that feature, along with other more personal posts, my readers started unsubscribing right and left. I was disheartened for a while, but was determined to keep doing what I loved, knowing that the ones that stayed with me were the ones I wanted anyway. Now I feel like I have a group of people here that are not only hungry for recipes, but care about or are interested in me as a person (or at least don’t mind me getting personal once in a while). And I find that I care about my readers more now too, because in return, you are sharing more of yourselves with me in comments and emails and I’m getting to know you! Thank you for supporting me through that transition. And for those of you who really only are here for the recipes, thanks for ignoring all the other stuff and sticking with me in spite of it! :)

OK, I drew for the Amazon gift certificate from the comments on that post, and I’m so totally stoked by the against-all-odds winner: Rani! She was the very first commenter and this has to be the first time in the history of blog giveaways that the first commenter was drawn (I used random.org to generate a number)! I’m also stoked because she’s a cancer survivor and Mom of four, so I’m glad the gift certificate is going to someone who deserves a little gift for herself! Congrats, Rani, I sent the certificate to your inbox.

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Posted in Life, Lighter Fare. Bookmark the permalink.

Thankful Thursdays #51: a precious soul is saved

Posted on November 17, 2011 by Veronica

Thursday: I have mad love for my oven. I know not everyone has one, but I don’t know what I’d do without mine. Baking is cathartic for me and life wouldn’t be as wonderful without it.

Friday: I finally received all 30 dozen cupcake orders necessary to get Danielle her money back from the robbery last week. Now I just gotta fill them! Eeps! *Must keep in mind how much I love to bake! :)

Saturday: That this was the only day in five I had to work!

Sunday: Dennis’ oldest friend (as in the friend he’s had the longest) moved to Wichita (they’re both from Abilene) with his family a couple months ago and started coming to church with us. After Dennis, our preacher, and his wife started a personal Bible study with him (unfortunately I work the nights they meet), he started thinking about getting baptized and on Sunday, he confessed Jesus and had his sins washed away! We are so happy to have him as a brother in Christ. Like, this happy: :D :D :D :D :D …times a million.

Monday: You know when your jeans are so tight that you’re afraid to wash them for fear they won’t fit after coming out of the dryer? Maybe you don’t. But I do. In fact, I even went so far as to wash them and hang them to dry to keep them from shrinking. But I didn’t have time for that this time and went ahead and put them in the dryer. And they still fit! And I don’t have a muffin top spilling out any more. So nice to fit into my jeans again, even if they are my “fat jeans.” :)

Tuesday: Today I want to rant about how my entire house smells like skunk because my husband couldn’t tell Jessie had been sprayed by one (seriously?!) during their walk and let her curl up in our bed for hours before I got home. (Seriously?!) But that’s the beauty of this thankful Thursdays feature, it makes me focus on the good stuff. Soooooo, today I’m thankful that I have a dog and a husband and a house, even if they are all really smelly today. ;)

Wednesday: You’d think that with all the books I listen to at work (2-3 per week), I would be thankful for good reads a lot more often. Well, I’ve been listening to The Hunger Games trilogy and this is the first time in at least six months that I’ve been this captivated by a book. (I think only Room and The Host have been on equal ground with this one in the last couple years. I’ve listened to great books like The Help, but this kind of book with an extreme & creative situation really gets me caught up in the characters & story the way a literary novel usually can’t.) Since I listen to so many, it takes a really good book to capture my full attention the way this series has done. It really has made work fly by for the last couple weeks! I’m almost done with the third book, and although I stopped it on a cliffhanger before leaving work tonight, and am dying to know what happens next, I have promised myself not to start listening again until I go back to work because I want to prolong the suspense and make the last book last as long as possible because I’m already sad that it’s over and it’s not even over yet!

Have you read anything great lately?

*If you haven’t entered my giveaway for the $50 Amazon gift certificate, you can click here to do so. It ends tonight! Also, today is the last day to sign up for the cookie swap, and you can click here for that. I have over 60 participants right now but the more, the merrier! :)

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Dixie Pie

Posted on November 16, 2011 by Veronica

This is one of the pies my friend, Teri, and I made during our pie-palooza, which is why the pie pictured is so small. We made each recipe into two small pies so each of us could have one to keep.

This pie was the most popular of the four we served before a Bible study at her house that night. It was gone in a flash! It’s similar to a pecan pie, but it has chocolate chips (or raisins, if you prefer) and coconut in it too, so it’s even richer.

Which brings me to the reason I’m sharing it with you now instead of back in July, when we made it. Something this rich is what I deem a winter holiday dessert, and it certainly fits the bill! It would be a great addition to your Thanksgiving and Christmas spreads.

*Note: I cut this pie when it was still warm, hence the gooey runniness. It will set up nicely if you give it time!

Dixie Pie

Printable recipe
Printable recipe with picture

1 9-inch pie crust
3/4 cup chocolate chips or raisins
1/2 cup (1 stick) butter
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup packed brown sugar
3 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla
1-2 teaspoons cinnamon
1/2 cup chopped nuts
1/4 cup flaked coconut
Whipped cream, for serving

Bake pie crust at 450 degrees F for 10 minutes; remove to cool on a wire rack and reduce oven temperature to 350.

If using raisins, place in a saucepan, cover with water, and bring to a boil. Remove from heat and set aside. In a mixing bowl, cream butter and sugar. Beat in eggs, vanilla, and cinnamon until smooth. Drain raisins. Stir Raisins, coconut, and nuts into creamed mixture ( mixture will appear curdled). Pour mixture into crust, and bake for 30-35 minutes or until set. Cool completely, ideally 6-8 hours to allow it to completely set up, before serving. Serve with whipped cream.

Recipe Source: adapted from Desserts In My Kitchen

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Posted in Pie and tagged celebration, chocolate chips, coconut, dessert, dixie pie, holiday, pecans, raisins, walnuts, winter. Bookmark the permalink.

Buttery-Soft Beer Bread

Posted on November 15, 2011 by Veronica

One of my all-time favorite recipes on this blog is for Buttery Beer Bread, which is slightly sweet with a delicious yeasty flavor, and a thick, crunchy, and buttery crust. The only downside to it is that it is best fresh from the oven and does not store well, so it’s a little hard to fit into a diet plan because we usually end up splitting the whole loaf between us and polishing it off in one sitting. (Avoiding dry leftover bread is perfection justification for the overindulgence, no?) If you’ve made this bread, you know that eating half a loaf of it is a lot easier to manage than one would imagine. In the interest of trying to shrink our midsections, however, we try not to pull that stunt too often.

Deciding I needed a soft beer bread that stored well so that we could enjoy it for several days versus five minutes, I instinctively knew (well, hoped may be the better word) all I had to do was add an egg and blend the butter in with everything else instead of pouring it over the top. And voilà! I was right. I love being right. Especially when it results in something so delicious!

This bread has the same flavor I fell in love with in the original beer bread, the beer giving it a nice yeasty flavor despite this being a quick bread containing no yeast (another bonus-fresh bread in under an hour!). But it is a million times prettier (smooth top versus major bumpiness), the texture is velvety soft when fresh from the oven, and the crust still has just a bit of that buttery crunch to it. And it fulfills the reason for the modification: it stores well and stays soft and moist!

While I might still make the original if we have company over since there would be less risk of leftovers, and I adore that thick, crunchy & buttery crust, this is the one I’ll be making most often because the texture is so wonderful and its ability to stay that way upon storage robs me of the justification for polishing off an entire loaf in one sitting. Which I may not be so thankful for, but my hips surely are.

*Despite this loaf storing well, we still ate half of it as soon as it was out of the oven, so I only had half a loaf (OK, maybe a little less than half, truth be told) to photograph the next day. Sorry. Our stomachs got in the way of the interests of my blog! At least we didn’t eat the whole thing this time. At least not all at once. :)

Buttery-Soft Beer Bread

Printable recipe
Printable recipe with picture

3 cups self-rising flour*
1/4 cup sugar
1 (12-oz) can beer
1 stick (1/2 cup) salted butter, melted
1 egg, beaten

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Spray a loaf pan with cooking spray and set aside.

Whisk the flour and sugar together in a large bowl. Add beer, butter, and the egg, and whisk well to combine. Pour into the prepared pan and bake for 45-50 minutes or until golden brown. Remove from pan and cool on a wire rack for at least 15 minutes before slicing.

*I know it’s weird, but I really feel I get the best results using self-rising flour for this bread. However, if you do not have it, you can replace it with 3 cups all-purpose flour, 1 Tablespoon baking powder and 1 teaspoon salt instead. I recommend using a baking powder without aluminum, such as Rumford, particularly in this recipe since you need so much of it. The aluminum has an aftertaste and can foul up baked goods which call for quantities in excess of 1 teaspoon.

Update 2/18/15: I’ve discovered you can substitute honey for the sugar with delicious results as well, lending a light honey-sweet taste to the bread. Just look at how tender it is!