Today In My Life

Today I am completely exhausted.
Jaxon was given steroids yesterday to treat his croup which was brought on by the flu.
The steroids caused him to have dreams which made him freak out all night long. That makes about 5 nights in a row of very little sleep for him and for me.
But he's not barking anymore and his fever seems to be gone now too.
Emily's fever has been gone for over 48 hours now.
Roger and I never got any worse than a little achy and feeling not quite right.
In spite of a very long and exhausting week with sick kids I was excited to go to the doctor today for my "Fit by 40" physical.
A+ That was the grade he gave me on my physical exam. He applauded my weight loss and even told me that the first thing he noticed was that I look so much younger. Ahh...I like him. :)
He did some blood work and I'll get those results along with some other routine tests in a week or two.
I do have to go back in for two things.
1~A mammogram. Happy 40th Birthday to me. :)
2~I have had a sore spot on my scalp for a few months now. I know. That's a really long time to let something like that go on. At first I thought it was just a pimple or something and brushed it off. Then a couple of months ago I realized that it sure had been there a long time for a pimple. So I started kind of worrying over it a little. Mindlessly touching it throughout the day. Then getting busy and distracted with sick kids and other minutiae of daily life. So last week I realized it probably wasn't a pimple. Which meant I should have it checked. My doc looked at it then and said that it looked like a benign sebaceous cyst and definitely not skin cancer. I have to admit I was a little worried about that since the sun has been shining on my head for 40 years now. I'm not a hat person and it's safe to say I never put sunscreen on my scalp. I rarely remember to put it on my skin. But I am working on that!
He told me to stop touching it and we'd talk about it at my physical today.
So I managed to pretty much stop touching it. And now it hurts worse than ever. So he took another look at it and decided that we need to cut it out and have it biopsied. He's going to do that on Friday. He'll cut out an area about the size of a dime, in the shape of a football. And then stitch it up. I guess this will impact whether or not I ever seriously do shave off all my hair as I occasionally threaten to do.
I asked him if he could just go ahead and make an incision all the way across the top of my head and kind of pull everything up nice and tight before stitching me up. He didn't think that would be necessary. Dang it! Anyway, I'll let you know how that test goes too. I expect it to be nothing.

I came home from my appointment to the sound of silence. Well, silent compared to the relentless whining, coughing and crying that has been going on here for 5 days and nights. Upon investigation Emily discovered this...

I guess he got mad at his sister, locked himself in his room and finally crashed. If he wasn't still sleeping in a crib he might have laid down on his bed and gone to sleep. He improvised and made himself cozy on the window seat.

Maintenance - Week 5

Today is weigh in day!
140.4

I've been between 139.4 and 140.4 every day this week.
So far so good!

Our house has been hit with the flu. Emily has it the worst. Then Jaxon.
Roger and I started feeling it yesterday. Kenzie is at her Dad's for the weekend so she probably won't join the club till next week.
The doctor's office says that they are just assuming it's swine for everyone since the regular flu season supposedly hasn't really started yet.
So, the good news is, we won't need to go stand in a line, in the cold, for several hours with hundreds or thousands of strangers, to try to get a H1N1 vaccine. We'll just make our own immunity.
I can't say that having the flu is fun but so far it's no worse than any other time we've been sick.

The second best thing I've ever done to a green tomato.

I was raised for the first 11 years of my life in North Carolina. "The South". I'm not gonna lie to you. I developed a serious love for fried...well...EVERYTHING. And Fried Green Tomatoes pretty much top that list.
But I would like to enjoy my good health for what's left of my life. Which means limiting fried...well...EVERYTHING. So I was intrigued when my friend, Angel, posted a recipe for green tomato enchilada sauce on a message board we both belong to.
Goodness knows, we have plenty of green tomatoes to experiment with!
So, I tried it. I broke one of my rules about trying new recipes and made some substitutions right off. And it went badly. Which is why I try to never do that.

But I figured out how to fix it and ended up with about a gallon of yummy enchilada sauce. woohooo!! Angel's recipe is for canning but I just don't feel like it. So the sauce is going in the freezer and will show up in a meal plan very soon!

Green Tomato Enchilada Sauce
(my way!)
Makes about a gallon.

10 cups chopped green tomatoes
8 Anaheim chiles, seeded and chopped
2 Tablespoons canned chopped jalapenos
(This would be too hot for many people. If you don't like it to hurt a little you might want to use less. Or none. We like it to hurt a little.)
8 cups chopped onions
1 cup lime juice (maybe even a little less if you don't really want to taste the lime)
12 cloves garlic, chopped
4 teaspoons ground cumin
2 Tablespoons ground Mexican oregano
2 Tablespoons salt
2 teaspoons black pepper

Combine all ingredients in a large stock pot. Cook over high heat, stirring frequently, until it comes to a boil. Reduce heat. Simmer 40 minutes. Puree mixture till smooth. Freeze in 2 cup portions.

Angel says you can ladle the hot sauce into pint jars and leave 1/2 inch headspace. Then process in boiling water bath canner for 40 minutes.

But she's way more ambitious than me. So I just froze mine.

More Co Op Goodness!

Today was pick up day for the Crossroads Urban Center Co-op. I just LOVE doing this!
Once again, we ordered the "Harvest Share" for $14

This month that included:
2 eggplant
2 organic Utah spaghetti squash
4 avocados
3 lbs organic Utah yellow onions
2 lbs carrots
1 head of cabbage
10 Utah golden delicious apples
9 pears
8 bananas
1 lb lentils
1 loaf of Artisan Wheat bread

And we ordered the "Farmer's Market Share" again for $13.50.

This month that included (all local and organic):
5 Acorn Squash
2 Spaghetti squash
1 other squash (I don't know what it is. Do you?)
about 5 lbs potatoes
about 3 lbs onions
and a basil plant.
YAY!! I'm going to try to keep this alive in the kitchen window. LOVE fresh basil!

I heard so many people say that they wouldn't be using the eggplant because they didn't know what to do with it. Sad!
One of the things I love about doing these co-ops is that you never really know what you're going to get. So it gives me a chance to stretch my cooking muscles a little and try new things that I might not have chosen to do on my own. It's a little adventure for me sometimes.
Hey, I gotta take it where I can get it, ya know?

Meal Plan and grocery shopping warm fuzzies

I'm ahead of schedule with the meal plan for the coming week.
I'll do the shopping tomorrow or Sunday. We already did some of it at the new Winco last night. I'm going to really like that store.
I had instant flashbacks as soon as I walked in the door. I felt like I had been transported back in time. Back to shopping for our family of 7 at Food 4 Less about 11 years ago. I used to go grocery shopping every two weeks, on payday. Kenzie would come with me and I was pregnant with Emily. I would push one cart and pull another, both overflowing by the time I was done. I spent about $400 every two weeks on groceries. YIKES! That was before PYP obviously. We would go in the morning after the big kids went to school. I'd be at the store for a couple of hours. Kenzie always got a package of popcorn shrimp to have for lunch that day while I put away all the groceries.
And even farther back than that! I had memories of going grocery shopping at Food 4 Less with my friend and neighbor, Paula in the late 1980's. With our miniscule budgets and rattle trap cars we would look forward to that one little escape every two weeks. A chance to leave our babies with our husbands and go grocery shopping! Woohoo!!! LOL That was where my lifelong appreciation for pumpkin chocolate chip cookies started. You could get a cookie the size of your head at Food 4 Less for about a dollar. And I did. Often. It was my not so little indulgence to be enjoyed on the way home from the grocery store.
Even Roger had a sweet F4L memory. He mentioned that the first time he ever saw Kenzie was at Food 4 Less when he and I ran into each other there one day. She was a tiny little "tow head" back then. Not even 3 years old yet.
Ahhh....good memories. Thanks Winco.
Anyway...the meal plan:

~Aromatic Noodles with Lime Peanut Sauce
~Green Chile Pork Stew
~Red Lentil Coconut Curry
~Chicken Stir Fry
~Pumpkin Black Bean Soup
~Eggplant Parmesan, Spaghetti Squash
~Date night for us, Frozen dinner for the kids

Not neccesarily in that order.
No family dinner this week. I'm enforcing a quarantine since Emily and Jaxon have been sick.
But we'll all get together on Halloween for chili, corn bread and hot cocoa. Of course! :)

A little off-track-and-not-feeling-too-well fun

Emily and Jaxon are both battling the flu this week.
Emily has it the worst. If it had to happen, at least it happened while she's off track so she won't be missing school.
When the Tylenol is on board she feels well enough to be bored so I made them some salt dough to play with this morning. I colored it with Paprika and Cocoa Powder for some Fall color. We got the idea from Family Fun magazine.

Jaxon hasn't left his seat for over an hour.

Emily's Tylenol wore off and she retreated to the couch shortly after I took this picture.

Spiced Pumpkin Bagels

This morning it was cold and wet and rainy out. My kind of weather! I LOVE it!
I knew I had to bake something.
The kids love bagels for breakfast but they're a little expensive. Especially since the 3 of them could easily eat a whole package in one day.
I've never made them at home before so I thought I'd give it a shot. I found lots of recipes for plain bagels online but I had this crazy idea that PUMPKIN bagels would be good. Maybe it's the weather.
All the recipes I could find for pumpkin bagels were to be made in a bread machine. I don't own one. And most of them called for ingredients I don't have on hand.
So I improvised. And, for my first time, I'd say I did exceptionally well!

I want to call them Spiced Pumpkin Bagels because pumpkin spice bagels just sounds like plain bagels with pumpkin spice in them. No! These actually have pumpkin puree in the dough. And spices too. See my logic? LOL

Spiced Pumpkin Bagels
Makes 8
WW points per bagel: 4

2/3 cups warm water
3 Tablespoons lightly packed brown sugar
1 package dry (2 1/4 teaspoon) active yeast
3/4 cup pumpkin puree
3 cups bread flour
1 Tablespoon pumpkin pie spice
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 Tablespoons honey

In the bowl of a stand mixer fittd with a dough hook, combine 1/4 cup warm water, 2 Tablespoons of the brown sugar and the yeast. Let stand 10 minutes.

Stir in remaining water and sugar and then pumpkin puree.

In separate bowl, whisk together flour, salt and spice. With mixer running, begin adding flour mixture into the yeast mixture.

Mix until dough forms a ball and then for another 10 minutes.

Except my mixer started making tired noises. So I gave it a break and kneaded the dough by hand after about 5 minutes. I hope I won't be asking for a new mixer for Christmas. :(

Place dough in a clean, oiled bowl. Cover and allow to rise 1 1/2 hours or until doubled in size.

Punch dough down. Divide into 8 equal pieces. Let rest 10 minutes.

Shape each piece into a ball, flatten slightly and use your fingers to poke a hole in the center, stretching the hole to about 1 1/2 inches wide. Rest bagels, covered, for 30 minutes longer.

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Lightly grease a large baking sheet.

Bring a large pot of water to boil and add the honey.

Place two bagels at a time into the water. Boil for one minute, flipping after 30 seconds.

Scoop out with a slotted spoon and place on prepared baking sheet.

Bake 25 minutes.

Cool on a rack.

SOOOO good! Chewy on the outside, softer inside. YUM!
I wanna try adding chopped craisins. Maybe dried apricots, raisins, pumpkin seeds, what else?
I see a lot of homemade bagels in our future.
And I figure it cost about 50 cents to make 8 bagels.
WHY didn't I try this sooner?