Truvia

I saw Truvia at my grocery store, and after seeing a commercial for it, decided to try it. It is made from the stevia plant and is a natural calorie free sweetener. I use it in my tea, and it's great. It doesn't have that chemical taste that you get from other sweeteners, and it leaves a sweet, sugary aftertaste on your tongue for a while, that really satisfies your sweet tooth. I tried a little licked off my finger, and it doesn't taste that good on it's own, so I probably wouldn't use it on strawberries (as advertised), but it's really good in my tea. It is quite pricey, so I think I'm going to look into the possibility of growing a stevia plant and brewing a few leaves with my tea. Not sure if it works that way or not, but I'm going to check into it.

Finally, a new recipe!

Shelli's Island Chicken

6-8 chicken boneless/skinless chicken breasts
3 cups uncooked rice (I used jasmine rice)
2 garlic cloves, minced
1/2 tsp cayenne pepper
zest and juice from 2 limes
2 cups chicken broth
1 14oz can coconut milk (lite)
1/4 cup fresh cilantro
1 tsp salt 1/2 cup flaked sweetened coconut

Heat oven to 425. Put rice in 13x9 baking dish. Prep your zest and set aside. In a bowl, combine broth, coconut milk, cilantro, salt and lime juice. Pour over rice. Arrange chicken across the top sprinkle with garlic, cayenne pepper and zest. Cover tightly with foil and bake for 45 min or until rice is cooked. (This actually took an hour.) Remove foil, sprinkle coconut over the top and bake uncovered for about 5 min until coconut browns.

This was a great recipe and made a lot, we had it for dinner twice! I think it would be even tastier with jerk seasoning on the chicken instead of the cayenne. If your making it for kids, don't put the cayenne on a couple of the pieces of chicken!

I steamed green beans in a skillet with olive oil, salt, Italian seasoning, then added some pecans till they were toasted up, added a few squirts of lime juice, and served them with the above recipe.

Country-style Ribs and Rice

I bought country-style ribs at Sam's because they were relatively cheap, but I didn't know what to do with them. I went on foodnetwork.com and found a recipe from Paula Dean, and read the reviews, which were mixed, and decided to try it, implementing the suggestions in the reviews. It turned out ok, not very flavorful though. Scott didn't like it at all, and neither did the kids. I liked it alright, but I think for nastalgic reasons. It reminded me of an old South meal my grandma would have made; warm, filling, and cheap, comfort-type food.
So, needless to say I had alot of left over meat and rice. I dumped the rice down the garbage disposal, cleaned the fat off the meat, and made a great soup. Here's my concoction:

1 onion chopped
2 cloves garlic pressed
2 cans crushed tomatoes
1 can white cannelini beans, drained
1 large carrot shredded
1/2 cup spinach puree
1 cup squash and zuchini chopped that I found in the freezer, we had grilled them back in the summer, so they added great flavor.
pepper
italian seasoning
salt
2 bayleaves
leftover meat, to desired meatiness

Simmer for a little while and enjoy.

Soups are a great quick and easy go to if you have some pantry staples and leftovers on hand. I think soup is one of the few redeeming things of winter. That and snowboarding!

Trick-r-treat

Here's Reece and Alli all ready to go trick-r-treating. Reece is Lego Indiana Jones, and Alli is Lego Asoka (from StarWars the CloneWars). I've found I can make anything with Duct Tape, boxes, a paper sack, and spray paint! You can go to Scott's site for more pictures.

Las Vegas

I went to Las Vegas with Scott in July. His company was having a trade show there. We stayed at the Paris. The whole experience was surreal. You get off the plane and are immediately bombarded with slot machines, right there at the gate! And then as you move through the concourse, the ads for all the nudey shows! We got to the Paris, and it's all fake like Disney World for grown ups. It's hot as hades there in July, kind of ironic considering all the sinning going on there! And it's so dry, I was in chronic thirst, also hades-like. All I did for the few days we were there is lay by the pool and read. This pic is the view from my chair at the pool.
The view from the window in our room. Looks majestic and relaxing! HA! Not! I have a hard time putting into words the spiritual oppression I felt there. On the flight in I was taking in the Grand Canyon and seeing all the glorious colors of the desert, and there are small mountains all around the city, really an artwork of God out there. But the city is designed to make you forget about God. All you can see from the street is man-made buildings, fountains and lights, all designed to distract you away from God and lure you in to the temptations beyond thier doors.
To top it all off, the food wasn't even that great. Except for the dinner we had at the hotel convention center. We had steak, some kind of potato gratin, and asparagus, a great salad, and creme brulee for dessert. It was all cooked to perfection, I could cut my steak with a fork!

HFCS Rant

Have you seen the recent commercials promoting high fructose corn syrup?



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EEbRxTOyGf0



I am offended that they make those of us concerned about the health of our family diets and the ingredients in our foods look like idiots. They say that HFCS is "all natural, made from corn, nutritional as sugar and just fine consumed in moderation."



Here's the problems with these adds. They're funded/made by the Corn Refiners Association, which suffered an historical loss this year, so it's in their best interest, not ours or our kids. The only thing I do agree with is the "moderation" part, the problem with that is that most people get this in excess through the consumption of processed foods, sodas, and juice drinks. Natural would be the actual corn kernel. MODERATION! Kids, and many adults for that matter, don't naturally do moderation, they have to be taught this by mom throughout childhood in order to establish healthy eating habits.


Many researchers have found harmful effects on the body linked to HFCS compared to natural sweeteners such as honey. Here's a link to one such study.



http://www.westonaprice.org/modernfood/highfructose.html



I'm not an extreme "t-totaller" on this, but I do avoid HFCS when possible. I'm a proud label reader, and try to avoid the "middle aisles" of the grocery store. As mom, I take protecting the health of my family quite seriously.



By the way, 2 of these commercials have aired on the channel I'm watching in the time it's taken me to write this. It's almost like they're saying "How dare you deny your kids sugar!" I personally don't care for sugar'd up kids. It affects them negatively. I'm done.

Roast Chicken

Okay, so I finally tried a new recipe! I did Tyler's Ultimate Roast Chicken. It was incredibly good, I made the gravy and everything! I served it with mashed potatoes and greenbeans.
Go to foodtv.com and get the recipe. It was really easy. I bought a frozen whole chicken at Aldi and thawed it in the fridge a couple days prior to cooking. The only variation I did was I put half the orange and half the onion and the little bits of garlic cloves out of the top I cut off the head into the pan beside the chicken. One other tip I learned on TV is if you don't have string to tie the legs together, cut a small slit in the skin by the opening and cross the leg and insert the joint bone into the slits(both sides). This holds them nicely.

http://www.foodnetwork.com/food/recipes/recipe/0,,FOOD_9936_21965,00.html