Dumplings!

I’m trying a new recipe tonight. That’s not unusual for me, but I am experimenting with grains. I do a lot with vegetables, but have always stuck with wheat and rice. Every once in a while I feel bold and will put barley in my vegetable soup. Tonight I am making barley with broccoli and white beans. Sounds a little bland, but I’m hoping when it all cooks up we’ll have a new dish to add to our menus. I seem to go through phases where I cook the same 20 things over and over and over again. It’s hard to set aside some of our all time favorites to try something new. I do pretty good picking out recipes that end up tasting good, but I still have failures. It’s nice to have a sense of humor when sitting down at the table. I’ll never forget my first attempt at no-chicken and dumplings. (We use soy curls in place of the chicken and McKay’s seasoning for the “chicken” broth.) I should have paid more attention to the dumpling recipe. It looked a lot like my biscuit recipe, but with a lot more liquid. It was a REAL mess trying to form dumplings out of really wet dough. We ended up with little “matza ball” looking dumplings. The dumplings were….well, they just weren’t quite dumplings. My children were so gracious, telling me how great it was. Perhaps they were just trying to get an extra helping of dessert that night. We’re trying that dish again this Sunday night, and I plan to have an extra special dessert on hand just in case!

Rainy days!

It's raining again this afternoon! In Florida, we relish these afternoon storms which really help cool things off. Once the storms pass through, we are often left with a wonderful evening. It’s even possible to sit out back after dinner and enjoy the fresh air. Often it’s a time we go fishing or play tag or simply chat about our day. It’s nice not to be tied to a full schedule. Don’t get me wrong, our days are full – very full. But our days are not overly scheduled. We love to own our days rather than be slaves to them. In the past, we may have been tempted to say yes to every opportunity that came our way. There are always so many good opportunities for field trips, visits, team sports, classes and hobbies that we often struggle with which to choose. But good opportunities aren’t always the BEST opportunities for us. We have found that through prayer and self control, we are often doing more by doing less. God has called us to serve Him in a variety of ways and the most important way we serve Him is by training and disciplining our children. That’s pretty hard to do when we are too busy running them from one activity to another, where other people train them instead of us. So, we’ve learned to say no to many things in order to say yes to a few things – which are the most important things in our life. Perhaps it’s not pure coincidence that often our first words in life are NO! Perhaps we need to remember how to say that word again – and use it to our and our children’s eternal benefit.

Easy and healthy recipes - without expensive cookbooks!

Why do so many people make eating healthy so much work? I checked out a few new cookbooks from the library and sat down to peruse them. I was pretty disappointed by what I saw – a lot of work and a lot of special ingredients that not only do I not have in my house, I can’t even pronounce them. It didn’t take long to sort through the books and decide that there weren’t many items in them that I would be enjoying! Often times I do better taking simple, unhealthy recipes and modifying them for health. Soy milk, soy cheese and/or tofu work just as well as cholesterol laden animal products. Water sautéing works better than sautéing in oil – without having to be concerned about overheating the oil and making it rancid. Soy curls, TVP, seitain, mushrooms, tofu or Tempeh are fine substitutes for animal meats. Eating healthy doesn’t have to be hard. Take your old favorite recipes, make some minor modifications and you’re left with a wonderful new dish. But perhaps that doesn’t sell cookbooks as well as complicated and exotic recipes do.

If you need some help modifying a recipe, feel free to email me at nancy@veg4health.com.

Okay, perhaps I am a little weird and perhaps I am a little too attached to my cooking – but I am so excited because I made bread today and the loaf turned out BEAUTIFUL! The loaf didn’t have one blemish on it. It wasn’t too dark or overcooked and the top hadn’t even begun to split because I had let it rise in an oven that was too warm. My husband came home talking about a gorgeous sunset and I keep talking about my perfect loaf of bread! But oh – it is beautiful and perfect. It’s so nice when that happens. When all of my effort not only tastes good, but looks good too! If you have ever made bread from scratch, you know what I am talking about. There is no sense of accomplishment which can replace the feel of a perfectly done loaf!

Water Basketball - Beating the Heat!

It’s really hot in Florida right now! Unbearably hot in the middle of the day!. But I guess that is the price we pay for such mild winters. It’s normally not the heat in July that gets to me, but the heat in October. Although I have always lived in Florida, October seems to be a month when long sleeves and sweaters should start coming out of storage and the night air get crisp. October in Florida is never that way. It’s still 90 degrees and uncomfortably warm. However, I expect July to be hot. We just spend a lot of our late afternoons at Nana’s house, enjoying the pool and the shade. Today the four of us had a game of water basketball. Trying to arrange the rules so that the kids don’t get too rough with each other was a real challenge. We had a great time though swimming and tossing and dunking the ball. What a way to work up an appetite. It was a glorious day – enjoying the time we take on Sundays to slow down and truly enjoy our blessings!

Back from Vacation!

Well, it seems it has been a while since I’ve taken the time to sit down and write. We’ve been a little busy – preparing and enjoying a wonderful vacation in the absolutely beautiful mountains of West Virginia. We went for the first family reunion in over 40 years. We had never thought about vacationing in West Virginia, although we do love to vacation in the mountains. (With all of the flat land and ocean around us, the mountains always seem like the perfect place to get away from the ordinary!) The scenery and the wildlife was especially beautiful and we truly had loads of fun! Of course, in our family, salamanders seem to be especially high on the must-do list and we were overwhelmed by the great number and variety of salamanders we found on this trip. (I often wonder if when my 6 y/o son grows up a little more, just what will we do on vacation to fill our time!) My husband and I have always loved to go hiking and our children have been full of whines whenever we attempt hiking! On this trip though, there were absolutely no whines! We took a 3 mile hike with a naturalist DOWN the mountain and across the Bluestone River. When we were finished, we took an aerial tram back up. Along the way, we found over 52 salamanders, 1 box turtle, 5 millipedes, 2 snails and numerous bids and deer. When we reached the Bluestone River and had to walk across, boy were we surprised! I had assured the children that the water would only be ankle deep or so. Boy, was I wrong. It was mid-thigh on the adults, which meant over the waist on our two children. It was a blast, and after the initial shock of the cold we had great fun trying to walk through the swift moving river without losing our balance on the rocky bottom and ending up swimming our way across. By the end of the day, both children told us that they were beginning to really like walking in the woods! There couldn’t be better music to our ears and there was never another complaint all week long. Of course, when your favorite past time is salamander hunting, it can take hours to hike even 1 mile through the mountains! So much for speed hiking! I am sure as the children get older and their legs get longer and their interest change, we can gradually increase speed and distance. For now, I am just thrilled that hikes in the woods are no longer a burden but a source of joy to all of us!