Cheese, Chocolate, and Friends

No doubt about it, I've experienced some discouraging times of late. I confess, I do run to Jesus, but I also have been running to some comfort foods. I find myself indulging in either cheese or chocolate, sometimes even in the same meal!

Saturday night, I was feeling particularly low and my only desire was to devour some sort of chocolate brownie ice cream creation. I was even dreaming of how I might accomplish this when I got off of work....at 12 midnight. Trust me, it was one of those days. Fortunately God led a friend to invite me out for a post-work dinner that included cheese :) Bless God for places that stay open until the wee hours of the morning! It was sweet to chat over chips, queso, and spicy salsa.

Sunday, I was still determined to find that chocolate creation, and was pleased as punch that my brother decided to join me. Friends don't let friends eat chocolate alone....especially if one is fully capable of inhaling the entire dish! As I sat there devouring the chocolate creation, I was encouraged by God's love for me. It would have been very easy for me to retreat into myself and have some food therapy. Instead God gave me a weekend filled with challenges, but also reminded me that He's placed people in my life to walk with me through those challenges. That my friends, is better than cheese and chocolate combined!

Let's Talk About Stress Ba-by....

Any former Bill Nye fans out there sing along to the remake of pop songs into science related songs? Or perhaps the title went way over everyone's head and I've just revealed what a great big nerd I am :)

Anywho, I've been muy stressed out lately. I tried to keep it under control and focus on positive thoughts, but I've just been lying to myself. I realized I needed to take a step back when I left some food on the stove yesterday and zoomed right out of the house without remembering it until I came back to the house an hour and a half later. I fully expected fire trucks, police cars, and smoke to be pouring from my home. All I can say is THANK YOU JESUS that there was none of the above. Oh how He loves me. So, that's my sign to slow down. Yes I've felt the pressure of some upcoming deadlines lately. And yes I can get focused one thing and absentminded to everything else. But the stress of having burned down my own house would be pretty major compared to any stress I think I'm feeling now!

Certifiable

I come from a family of extreme health nuts. I tried to deny it for a while, but I am coming to accept the truth that I am one of them :) Recently my brother decided to give up corn syrup. The idea of ingesting sugared corn water in everything he ate was too much for him. I had NO intentions of giving it up, I may have some healthy tendencies, but I like my sweets. Well, wouldn't you know that his eating habits have had some ripple effects. There's no point for me to get something for the house that I know he won't eat. And do you know how many things have corn syrup in them? Reading those food labels can be an eye opening experience friends. So here I am taking another step down the road to becoming a certifiable health nut. Watch out, soon I might be grinding my own wheat to make bread from scratch! Actually, that doesn't sound half bad.....

Cooking Therapy

There are several ways to deal with bad days, and this time my mode of therapy was quite productive. I cooked up some FABULOUS dishes, and although I don't have photos, I should not keep these great recipes to myself!

I got a yummy recipe for nutritous, easy, homemade sausage here. I've been thinking lately that perhaps healthy food can taste good too ( I know, who would've thought) and I've been making an effort to try more recipes in line with the "whole foods" concept. I've enjoyed checking out this blog, and perhaps I'll get some more recipes from there.


For the first time ever I bought a pumpkin and cooked a pie and some AMAZING pumpkin bread from scratch (even my incredibly healthy dad had to go for seconds, and he declared it a new addition to our Thanksgiving Day menu....high praise friends :). It took a bit of time to bake the pumpkin's insides, but it was worth it to get some nutritious pumpkin pulp and cheaper too!


I also struck pure gold with this delightful recipe for a chicken pumpkin stew/curry. I just knew that a vegetable as big and rich in color as the pumpkin had to be good for more than just it's seeds and pies. I wanted to make a non-sweet main dish as well, and all I have to say is sweet mother of pearl, this recipe will become a family staple.

I hope someone gives at least one of these recipes a try. If you do, let me know how it turns out!

Father forgive me, for I have sinned

I indulged in a warm nutty caramel brownie.

*Sigh* being a Pampered Chef consultant is hard but somebody has to try out the recipes :)

Yummmeee!

So here's another quick and tasty recipe that's just bursting with flavor!

Daal (red lentils)

Ingredients:
1 cup red lentils
1 slice ginger, 1 inch piece, peeled
1/4 teaspoon ground turmeric
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper, or to taste

1. Soak the lentils in water for at least one hour.

2. Rinse the lentils and place them in the pot with all the spices and the ginger. Cover with about one inch of water (up to your first knuckle, if you stick your finger in the pot, just until it touches the surface of the lentils).

3. Bring to a boil, skimming off any foam.

4. Reduce the heat and stir occaisionally until the beans are soft and soupy.

This is a DELIGHTFUL meal, that's tasty with flat bread (naan) or rice. It also packs an amazing 9 grams of protein per 1/2 cup serving....not bad at all! Best of all, lentils are so cheap. How can you go wrong?

FOOD!

I am a big fan of food :) Especially easy to make, cheap, healthy (okay, semi-healthy-a girl can't live without chocolate!), food. So from time to time I'll post newly acquired recipes here for your enjoyment.

I must give some mad props to my sister who came up with the simple but genius plan of rotating which sibling cooks every week. This has given me tremendous delight in enjoying my off weeks, and getting to have fun and explore new recipes during my on weeks.

Although soup season is over, there have been a few days chilly enough in the last month to enjoy this tasty simple delight. My friend Cheryl G. gave me the recipe. It's very much "a little of this, and a pinch of that" so feel free to doctor the ingredients to your taste.

Flavorful Veggie Soup
-Saute 1 onion
-Add 3 chopped carrots and 3 chopped potatoes
-Spice to taste with ginger, cinammon, nutmeg, curry, salt and pepper
-Add 1 chicken bullion cube and water to cover the ingredients and then some (the more water you add, the thinner your soup).
-Boil until the potatoes and carrots are tender
-If desired puree the soup or eat as is

Lunch for 3

So here I was enjoying lunch at a place close to my job.

I chose the restaurant for the yummy food, and the amazing view.


The sun was shining, I had a good book to read, a great view, and a good meal. Everything was perfect........except for some uninvited guests.




I am not a fan of stray animals, cats in particular. They are far too accustomed to being fed from the table by patrons at restaurants. I was annoyed by them especially since they seemed determined to interrupt my meal and were resistant to my "skat, psst, and shoo-ing" attempts. I decided to ignore them.

I was really into the chapter I was reading; eating without looking at my plate.....bad move. I glance up and one cat has JUMPED onto the table and is 2 inches away from my plate of food!!! I was incensed, and slightly amused that my tunnel vision almost cost me my meal. I ate in a hurry and left the table under the cats hungry eyes, but I couldn't resist a backwards glance. Here's what I saw:


Ummm, yeah I think I just enjoyed my last meal there.

Cooking from Scratch

I enjoy cooking. And it’s a good thing too, because coming from a Nigerian background if you want to have any hope of marriage; you better know how to throw down in the kitchen! I have to say though that my cooking knowledge base has expanded dramatically since moving overseas. Never one who likes monotony, I’d often try out new recipes on the family to spice up our hmmm, shall we say predictable food menu J However when you move overseas, depending on your location many things are no longer available to you. What? Betty Crocker and Duncan Hines don’t exist here??? And what do you mean you’ve never heard of break and bake cookies?

So rather slowly I began the process of learning how to do without staple spices and ingredients while discovering multiple ways to cook……an eggplant for example. At first I will admit it was a daunting task. Ever try to cook when you’re hungry? Not exactly the time to learn that it’ll take hours to cook ANYTHING because it’s all from scratch. No throwing together of frozen veggies and chicken breast here!

Then...........................I discovered online recipe websites.

Ohhh, the difference it made!

My favorite is allrecipes.com because it allows you to do an ingredient search. So say I want to make a dessert but I only have flour, sugar, eggs, and apples; then I can do a search for all the desserts containing those ingredients. To say it’s been a life saver would be an understatement. I can often be found in the kitchen with my computer whipping up a new dish……from scratch. There are of course some dishes that bomb (i.e. the charred chicken stock disaster that had our apartment smelling for a week). But overall, it’s been fun to learn new recipes. It also helps to have very supportive and non picky eaters as roommates!

Here are some of my favorite dishes I’ve made so far:

Peanut butter chicken (thanks Mentanna!)

Brownies (that could rival Ms. Crocker’s any day ;)

Peanut butter yogurt dip for apples

Chocolate mousse

Szechuan Spicy Eggplant

Garbanzo and Pinto bean salad

Chinese Roasted Chicken

Turkey sausage and white bean soup

Ginger veggie stir-fry

Chips and Salsa
Hummus