kale chips

At the request of my fans last night I made kale chips and documented the entire journey! Luckily for all of us it's superbly easy and sssooo delicious! Kale chips are one of those things that everyone should know how to make. They are becoming really popular on the food channels and depending on how you flavor them (and if there are any kids around what you call them) they are a true treat to anyone.

Before you start preheat the oven to around 400. Temperature isn't terribly important but you want it hot enough to crisp everything up pretty quick.

Now what you want to do is chop up your kale, just a rough chop. I would make them pretty small, easier to deal with, but it's really up to you. You want it small enough to spread evenly on your baking sheet without any overlapping but big enough that you don't get any tiny pieces that will just burn away.

Now we want to season your chips. You need oil, salt, and pepper for basic kale chips. Last night I used coconut oil because it's the only oil I have in a spray bottle, and that makes it really fun. I use a cheap spray bottle I bought at KMart but I've heard they make bottles for spraying olive oil, I would definitely use that if I had one. Do not over oil your kale or they will never get crispy! Once you're seasoned toss the kale around and make sure it's evenly spread over the baking pan. Then pop it in the oven!

Keep an eye on these, they can burn pretty easily as soon as you stop paying attention. After about 10 minutes I would open the oven and give them a good shake, maybe even a toss. If I find that they're not crisping like I want them to I will turn the broiler on for a minute or two but you definitely don't want to walk away from that! When you're done you'll have amazingly crispy and delicious kale chips that will melt in your mouth and disappear in seconds!

Enjoy!

totally clueless!

Alright everyone, after my overwhelmingly moderate success with my first food blog entry I am ready for more! But I don't know what to write about so I am leaving it up to all (4) of you to tell me what to do. What have I cooked for you, or promised to cook for you, that you want a full write-up on? Let me know and I'll start cooking!

EDIT!!!!!!!!


According to the wishes of my Facebook fans I will be doing Kale Chips next, I just need to get to the grocery store and see if anyone has kale!

Maybe now I'm a food blog?

Welcome to the newest resurrection of sometimes i feel! This time around I'm going to try food blogging. I've had people ask me for my recipes and I'm sure everyone wants to know what I'm eating, what I'm cooking, and what I want to eat and cook!

So today, for my first food entry I'm going with something simple that Jason convinced me to cook. I'm sure many of my "hundreds" of fans have seen the move V is for Vendetta and you may have noticed the breakfast he cooks. After researching on Wikipedia we found that one of its names is Egg in a Basket and it is delicious!

Here's my version on how to make an egg in a basket...

1. Get a small frying pan (I've tried doing more than one in bigger pans but the spacing just isn't right and you don't get a good seal) and put it on low heat.

2. Take a stick of butter and rub the pan. I suppose you could cut some off and put it in the pan to melt but I'm not a huge butter user so I've found if you just rub it around a bit you get enough for the taste and non-stickiness but not so much that you get a call from Paula Deen for a spot on the show.

3. Put your piece of bread in the pan, soak up some butter, get it warm, then flip it over. After flipped take something round, little glass or something, and poke a hole in the middle of your bread and put that in the pan.

4. Turn the heat up a little, medium/highish and crack an egg into the center of your bread. At this point I like to shake some salt and pepper on, sometimes I even throw some shredded cheese on there. Turn the heat down and put a cover on your pan.

5. Now you just wait depending on how well done you like your egg. I like a little runniness so I can soak it up with the rest of the bread so a minute or two is fine, but it's up to you. When it gets where you want it put its hat on and put it on your plate. SO SIMPLE!

So there it is, my first food entry in the newest life of sometimes i feel. I hope you enjoy it and please leave comments for different recipes you'd like to see!

like gardening

It's been a while since I've written in the blog, and I know everyone is very upset, but I've been busy. 

Quick update since my last post approximately 7 months ago...

Last I talked to everyone I was on the herbalife diet and it was going quite well. My initial goal was to stick to it for a month and possibly lose a few pounds and feel better. That was a success! I stayed strong for over 4 months but eventually grew tired of fruit. I still have a shake every now and again if I don't feel like cooking but I'm not on the strict one meal a day diet.

I also posted about my haikus. Well, I have probably written dozens of haikus since my last post but most of them are on Christmas cards and napkins so none have survived in my possession.

So what's going on now, you ask? I started a garden! 

  

I am very proud of this accomplishment! My plants have been alive for almost an entire week! I started on April 29th, a good planting day. Inside I have two cilantro plants, three pineapples, a sweet basil, and a purple basil. On the deck facing east I have my passion fruit vines. Right now they look like little plantlings but they are already starting to grow their first little tendrils! I'm hoping they will grab onto the railing and create a wonderfully romantic deck scene decorated with beautiful little fruits :) 

On the main part of our deck underneath the ac drain from upstairs I have a new rosemary. My last rosemary plant had a terrible end to it's life with the help of hyena bitch, the neighbor's dog. This one will be better protected and hopefully give years of fragrant bounty. Finishing the new family on the southwest facing deck I have a bay rum bush (YUM!) and a cherry tomato plant. Fingers crossed on that guy!

So, that concludes the contents of my garden. If I make it to the next optimal planting day without losing anything I hope to add more herbs and possible more tomatoes or hot peppers. I also want lettuce but I fear it's too windy up here for their tender little leaves. Maybe I can find a way for them to live inside too...

been a bit blustery around here!

Trying to photograph the hurricane!

So, it has been a very long time since my last entry. There have been ups and downs but here I am, sitting at AYH, alive. First order of business, according to this morning's measurements I have lost 8.8 inches from various parts of my body. So, YAY! I believe most of those are from the chesty region, but whatever, inches are inches.

Preparing my shakes has been a bit of challenge given the whole hurricane situation. Luckily we have a generator so every morning and evening I got a little bit of power with which to use the blender. Jacks is my savior for lunch. That signature salad is delicious, I'm also a huge fan of the rastaman wrap. It's a veggie burger cut up with squash and zucchini in a wrap. YUM!

Hurricane Earl was entertaining, he happens to be a fantastic gardener. Our trees are perfectly pruned and we, like most of the island, were lucky not to have any real damage. I still don't have internet, but we've been running on a generator and when I left the house this afternoon it looked like we might actually have power! That would be fantastic, with all the diesel fumes around I can just feel my dna evolving...

So here I leave you, until we meet again. May the Shwartz be with you, and just a touch of the Force.

first week is OOOOVVVAA!

So, today ends week one. I have officially been eating one meal a day for seven days. How do I feel? I'm going to go with good. I feel good. According to my measurements I'm losing random 1/4 inches but I think that might just be normal fluctuations. I haven't weighed myself since I don't own a scale. I'm not discouraged at all though, because I really do feel good.

Sunday was the chili cookoff, that was probably a bit of a setback. I wouldn't exactly call random ramekins of chili a "balanced meal" but that was my meal for the day... I did learn something fun this week. These products are doing a wonderful job of boosting my metabolism, and apparently that affects alcohol consumption. I would definitely not call myself a drinker. A glass of wine with dinner and an occasional cocktail while out is about as far as I go. But the other night I went crazy and had a beer, and my energy booster pill. I woke up the next morning feeling like I had been binge drinking for days and was suffering the hangover of the century. Luckily it was just a headache, but to a non-drinker that's pretty upsetting! I didn't make the connection but Jason said that it must be the boosted metabolism...

Unfortunately success is pretty boring, and I'm feeling pretty successful thus far. But you know what's not boring? Today I wrote two verses of a song, 8 haikus, and 2 limericks. If you've read older posts you know I love to write, so I am going to share with you some of the poems I wrote today. I'm keeping the song a secret in hopes that a real musician is going to read it, put it to music, and make it good.

girl in hula skirt.
yeah, i'm totally jealous.
evil thoughts ensue...

my lyrics are dumb
linguistically challenged
genius to the core.

how much is out there
to scribe with pen and paper
document the world.

feeling fantastic
supercharged and flying free
feels good to be me.

i just wrote a song
called i'm a weeble wobble.
i hope you like it.

i wrote five haikus.
wait, now i'm on number six.
will it never end?!

saucy limericks
bubble through my lingual lips
onto your deaf ears.

so this is what 3AM looks like...

Blueberry spritzer shake! YUM!

I have to apologize to all of my adoring followers who have been gazing longingly at their computer screens waiting to see a glimmer of life from my blog or facebook account. I haven't had internet since Thursday night and have been completely out of the technological loop. I don't know how we survived before Facebook, I'm lucky I found anybody! (Odd side note that Jason brought up the other day, how boring would "Dazed and Confused" have been if they had Facebook?!)

So... Days 3 and 4 have brought some entertaining challenges and victories. Lessons 1-5, don't take energizing pills late in the day. Or do, I guess, If you have always wondered what 3AM looks like through the eyes of a tired body and crazed mind... Last night I took all of my vitamins (including the don't take after 3pm one) with dinner because I was going to see a band. BAD NEWS BEARS! It was entertaining up until about 11PM, but after that my body decided it didn't agree with my mind about the whole being awake situation.

Also, if a bottle says to take it with food, don't take it while you're thinking about food, wait until you're actually eating it. I knew that we were going to eat lunch at Molly Malones, so I took my lunch pills before we left the house so I wouldn't have to carry them with me. Oops... By the time we got to the restaurant I realized that I had made a mistake and had to beg Penny (favorite waitress, ever) to bring me some crackers so I could get some life back. But then the crackers started to fill me up so when my lunch came all I barely ate any of it!

I have to say I have been making some D LISH ISH smoothies. I'm not sure if I've mentioned this before, but I love frozen blueberries! I just figured out that my blender likes it much better if I don't use ice, so for lunch today I am enjoying frozen pineapple, frozen blueberries, apple juice, and a splash of cranberry juice. YUM! I accidentally fell asleep for a few hours today so I'm just getting to lunch, but I am most definitely enjoying it! I did a frozen blueberry spritzer for breakfast so I get to eat a full dinner tonight :)

That reminds me, I was so good yesterday. Since we ate lunch at Molly's I knew I had a shake in my future for dinner, but Jason and Erica decided to grill. What did I do? I made my shake at home and brought it with me. It was the first time I'd had my shake meal while I could smell the other food, but it was fine. I didn't steal a single bite. And the dogs didn't bother me because I wasn't eating grilled chicken.

I haven't quite decided what to do about my 3rd energizer pill since I took my lunch one at 3... I don't really want to see 3AM again. Last night was entertaining, but sleeping all day today has been pretty boring. So, here's hoping the rest of today goes smoothly.