Sunday, August 20

Good movie!

I highly recommend Little Miss Sunshine. Samina and I went to a free screening last week and I feel like I cheated the movie by seeing it for free. It was so good I want to give the creators money. It was the funniest movie since Napoleon Dynamite.

4 more sleeps until Winnipeg.

Thursday, August 17

HA!

This is funny.

*sigh*

Oooo...

The surest sign that intelligent life exists elsewhere in the universe is that it has never tried to contact us.

Bill Watterson (Calvin & Hobbes creator)

This quote becomes especially true when the JonBenet Ramsey case gets more print/media coverage than new planets in the solar system! My opinion of course, but isn't the possibility of further understanding the universe just slightly more important than a 10 year old murder case?

Detoxin' in the summertime

I'm currently on day 7 of the Wild Rose Detox . It's a lot easier than it was last summer. Last summer all I could think about was bread and pizza, but this year there's very little cravings, but a lot of emotional issues. I'm a bit moody..ok, a LOT moody. Not sure what's worse, cravings or mood swings. Well, I'm sure the mood swings are more difficult on others around me, whereas the cravings are just me. Mu-hahah...guess I'll take mood swings.

Anyway, I thought I'd post a couple of recipes that worked for me this time.

Spanish Rice
1 pound lean ground beef
1/2 cup finely chopped onion
1/4 cup chopped green bell pepper
1 (14.5 ounce) can canned tomatoes
1 cup water
3/4 cup uncooked long grain rice
1/2 cup tomato sauce
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon ground cumin
1 pinch ground black pepper

Brown beef. Add onion and green pepper, cook 5 min, or until soft. Add remaining ingredients and let simmer 30 minutes, or until rice is cooked. (remember this uses ingredients that are only 20% of your diet, so eat sparingly, but it does make a lot)


Roasted Sweet Potatoes
2-3 Sweet potatoes or yams, cut into wedges/strips
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp chili powder
(I also used Morton's Hot Salt instead of salt/chili powder...way more punch, mmm)
2 tbs olive oil

Mix in a bowl salt, chili powder and oil. Add sweet potatoes and stir until coated. Grease cookie sheet and spread potatoes in a single layer. Bake in an oven at 400F for 35-40 minutes. Turn potatoes after 20 min. Baking time depends on how thick your slices are.

Black Bean and Corn Loaf (From the cookbook)
3 1/2 c cooked rice (1 cup raw)
2 c black beans (19oz.)
1 c corn
2 tsp olive oil
1/2 onion, chopped
1c celery, chopped
1 garlic clove, minced
1 tbs basil
2 tsp oregano
1/2 tsp cumin
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp pepper
2 eggs beaten
2 c tomato sauce (posted below

Mix rice, beans and corn in large bowl. Saute onions, celery, garlic and oil for 5 min or until soft, allow to cool then add to bean mixture. Stir remaining ingredients. Pour into greased loaf pan, cover and bake for 30-40 minutes at 350F. Serve with tomato sauce.

Tomato Sauce
2 tbs olive oil
1 onion, chopped
2 cloves garlic, minced
2 cans whole tomatoes
1 can tomato sauce (14oz)
2 tsp basil
1 tsp oregano
(I also added some fresh tomatoes)

Saute onions and garlic in oil until soft in a large pot. Add remaining ingredients and simmer until desired consistancy. Chop up tomatoes using spoon.
(I'm sure there are lots of other ways to make a better sauce while only using Wild Rose ingredients, but this was ok and I used what I had lying around)

Non-Soy Stir Fried Rice
1 tbs. olive oil
2 tbs. sesame oil
1 small onion, chopped
1 small green bell pepper, chopped
1 tsp minced garlic
1/4 tsp red pepper flakes (essential to making this edible, IMO, I even added more)
1 can chinese vegetables (water chestnuts, bamboo shoots, sprouts)
1 can baby peas
1 c cooked broccoli
1 c cooked brown rice (I used a rice cooker, but you can try to cook the rice IN the stir fry)

Add olive oil and 1 tbs of sesame oil to wok or large frying pan. Add onion, peppers cook til soft. Add remaining ingredients and sesame oil and stir fry for 5-10 min. (this was totally made up and ok...but at least it was stir fry that had flavor even without soy sauce, the sesame oil and pepper flakes made a huge difference)

At the local farmer's market I was able to find organic, homemade turkey sausages (20% of diet) and other meats to add some spice to this fairly bland diet.

Let me know if anyone else has done this and found any other recipes to work!