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You are here: Home / Archives for Recreation / Dining and Restaurants

Trying to eat healthier meals

February 13, 2009 by Tricia

I’ve always tried to cook healthy meals for Chris and I, but over the last few months and especially the last two weeks since Chris got out of the hospital I’ve really stepped it up.

We’d occasionally have a pre-made frozen dinner such as Loblaws Blue Menu grilled vegetable lasagna, but after re-reading the ingredients list and cholesterol listings on the package we’ve even cut that out of our “occasional easy food menu”. Chris has really high bad and good cholesterol levels as well as very low triglycerides. He’s on medication now to control his cholesterol and given the way we normally eat we don’t think our diet has much to do with his high cholesterol levels even the docs say it’s probably genetic, but it sure can’t hurt either him or I to eat even better.

Lately we’ve been eating a lot of skinless boneless chicken breasts. I bake them in the oven in a casserole dish and they are very tender and moist. I also steam up to three different veggies in the microwave – usually carrots, broccoli and cauliflower. Last night we had Teriyaki chicken and tonight we’re going to have chicken breasts marinated in a honey Dijon marinade. Yummy.

Sometime in the future when we have a little extra cash I’d love to get a fruit and vegetable juice extractor. We used to have a juicer but we found that we didn’t use it as much as we should have and gave it to Chris’ aunt. Of course now that it’s gone, and now that we are really trying to eat healthy, I’d love to have a fruit and veggie juicer again. Store bought juices contain far too many sugars and well, buying veggie juices in a health food store is pretty expensive. I don’t see why I can’t make our own carrot juice and other juices right at home.

Each year we grow strawberries, raspberries, carrots and tomatoes in our “flower” garden so I could even save money by using the fruit and veggies that we grow to make juice too.

As I said we don’t have any extra money right now so I’ll have to wait until we have some spare cash and wait for a juicer to go on sale before we get one, but I think that’s definitely on our want list. In the mean time we’ll just eat as many fruit and veggies as we can – they certainly help fill you up and they’re healthy.

Do you read the ingredient labels on the items you buy in the grocery store? Have you been trying to eat healthier lately too?





Filed Under: Dining and Restaurants, Health Fitness and Beauty, Home and Garden, Home and Lifestyle, Items to Try, Nutrition, Shopping Tagged With: chicken, cholesterol, diet, dijon, eat_healthy, extractor, foods, fruit, healthy, healthy_diet, heart, husband, juicer, sale, Shopping, sick, skinless_breasts, teriyaki, vegetables

Earl Grey Tea, Beebalm and finally … a belated Christmas dinner

January 4, 2009 by Tricia

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I’m finally getting around to having my true Christmas dinner. Yeah, I know, I said we went to my in-laws for Christmas dinner on Xmas day, but she cooked pressed chicken breasts and I guess Christmas isn’t Christmas to me without having some turkey.

So we are just about ready to sit down and have some turkey. I bought a large double turkey breast and it’s almost done. I also made roast potatoes, peas, stuffing, and a broccoli carrot mix to go with dinner. Oh and we can’t forget the cranberry jelly and a slice of apple pie for desert (couldn’t find any pumpkin pie < sob > ).  I honestly don’t know if I’ll have room for desert, but I’ll try!

As I’m waiting for dinner to finish cooking (yes I know it’s a bit late) I’m sitting here having a cup of Earl Grey Tea. I haven’t had Earl Grey in ages! I love Bergamot.

Did you know that a plant that many commonly grow in their gardens, BeeBalm, is also known as Bergamot or Oswego Tea?

I grow Beebalm in my garden. It’s a hybrid variety called Aquarius. It’s a lovely plant with hot pink flowers.

Bee Balm Monardo aquarius

When I’m in the garden in the summer I love brushing by it’s leaves so that I can smell that lovely Bergamot scent. I really must remember to dry some of it’s leaves next year and try to make a tea with it. Hey it’s worth a try.

I’m glad we’re indoors this evening. We were supposed to have freezing rain all evening and through the night. We did have some rain in the afternoon and I think it left a slick on the roads and sidewalks, but it looks like the worst might have already passed us by. Still … it’s better to stay inside and have our belated Christmas/ New years dinner I think!

How are things in your part of the world?

Filed Under: Dining and Restaurants, Green Thumb Sunday, Home and Lifestyle, Photography, Toronto Tagged With: Beebalm, belated_Christmas_dinner, bergamot, desert, dinner, earl_grey_tea, flower, freezing_rain, full, garden, Green_Thumb_Sunday, GTS, indoors, leaves, oswego_tea, scent, turkey, wild_bergamot

Happy Turkey Day!

October 13, 2008 by Tricia

I’m sure that most of my fellow Canadians are feeling more than a little full right now! Well I am anyway since today is Thanks Giving.

I think that I mentioned in a post a few weeks ago that we were supposed to have a big family get together, this year it would have been with my husbands family. Unfortunately that didn’t happen. My sister in law moved to a new house on Friday (a little earlier than planned) and being busy all weekend to complete the move kind of put a dent in the family get together. So this year Chris and I had Thanks Giving at home on our own.

This year I made Rosemary Honey Dijon Turkey breasts, accompanied by mashed potatoes, stuffing and sweet peas. In a little while we’ll have a slice of pumpkin pie … well if my stomach ever empties enough to make room for a piece of pie, that is!

The turkey was really easy to prepare. I used:

  • 2 cloves garlic, cut in slivers
  • Tiny sprigs fresh rosemary OR 1/2 tsp (2 mL) dried
  • 3 tbsp (45 ml) honey
  • 1 tbsp (15 mL) Dijon mustard
  • 1 tbsp (15 mL) olive oil
  • 1 tbsp (15 mL) lemon juice
  • 1/2 tsp (2 mL) pepper
  • 1/4 tsp (1 mL) salt

I mixed the honey, Dijon mustard, olive oil, lemon juice, pepper, salt, rosemary and slivered garlic in a bowl and then I drizzled the mixture onto two boneless turkey breasts that were about 350 grams each. I then baked the turkey breasts at 350 F covered for about 20 minutes, and then after basting them I cooked them uncovered for another 20 minutes.

Can you say … Tasty? Yum!

I usually roast my whole turkey or turkey breasts, however I couldn’t find my small roasting pan when I looked for it earlier today. I have no idea what happened to it .. maybe I lent it to someone and they didn’t return it.

I loved that small roasting pan. It was great for doing a whole small chicken or two large turkey breasts in the oven. I’m going to have to keep an eye out for a sale on Roasters. I’ll bet as the American Thanks Giving and or Christmas approaches I’ll find some deals online!

Can you tell I love turkey dinners? – that’s just another reason why I have to get another small roasting pan … we should have turkey more often.

Fellow Canadians – did you have a big Turkey dinner this weekend? Which day did you eat your big meal … or did you have more than one big meal? LOL

I’ll bet that my American readers and looking forward to celebrating Thanks Giving too.  I know it’s one of your biggest holidays.  I’d love to hear what you’re planning for your holiday celebration and what you plan to eat.

Filed Under: Appliances and Accessories, Dining and Restaurants, Family, Home and Lifestyle, Items to Try, Recipes, Recreation Tagged With: cooking, Family, garlic, home, honey, honey_dijon, lemon_juice, mashed_potatoes, missing, peas, pumpkin_pie, recipe, roaster, roasting, roasting_pan, rosemary, small_roaster, stuffing, sweet_peas, Thanksgiving, Thanks_giving, turkey, Turkey_breasts, turkey_dinner

Tomorrow night is FEAST night

September 19, 2008 by Tricia

Tomorrow evening we’re going to be going out of town to celebrate our brother-in-laws birthday. We’ll be going to an old friends of ours’ home to have a feast.

Our friend, J, loves to cook. Whenever she has these parties (and believe me, she’ll use any excuse to have a dinner party) the meals are always HUGE. Like 8 to 10 courses and three to five desserts! If she invites 10 people to her dinner party there’s enough food to serve 50!

Oh and it’s not light fair. It’s full of fats, sugars and all the bad stuff. It’s usually delicious, but I’m sure if we were to attend her dinner parties regularly we’d soon have clogged arteries!

We have one major problem though. Since this dinner party is out of town we normally stay over at Chris’ parents whenever J has a party. Too much food and too much drink isn’t a good mix for a two hour drive home!

We can’t bring our dog! J hates, hates, hates … did I say hate? Yeah, she hates dogs. So there’s no way we could bring Midnight with us. Plus … Chris’ parents have been invited to the dinner party as well, so they won’t be able to take care of our puppy either. Midnight’s so hyperactive anyway, I wouldn’t saddle them with her, she’d probably end up knocking one of them over or dragging them own the street. She certainly drags me around!

On top of all of that, Chris’ sister and our brother-in-law will be moving in October, so they’ve asked if Chris could come over and help with a few things around their house to help prepare them for the big move. So … Chris is going to drive to Waterloo this evening, help our brother-in-law with a few things and then drive back to Toronto tomorrow morning … well, I know him … he probably won’t get back until early afternoon.

I’ll stay home and take care of the dog while Chris is gone.

Then, sometime late tomorrow afternoon we’ll drive to Paris for the dinner party … but we can’t party too hard as we’ll be leaving Midnight at home alone (in her crate) and we’ll have to drive home sometime after the big FEAST is over.

Don’t count on any new posts on Sunday … There’s a good chance I might be a little hung over and or my tummy might be upset by all that food. Most of J’s dinner menus usually don’t go well with my Crohn’s and she’s the type of person that doesn’t seem to understand if you beg off eating something she’s cooked (simply because you can’t digest it!). LOL So I guess I’ll be eating a variety of tasty food, but probably paying for what I ate on Sunday and who knows … maybe well into next week if it irritates my already irritated Crohn’s affected system. Ugh …. (don’t worry I won’t be too stupid about what I eat.)

So I guess I’m going to try to do a day or two’s worth of posts this evening! Hope my fingers don’t cramp up with all the typing!

What are your plans for the weekend? Any dinner parties or family trips planned?

BTW I haven’t been to one of J’s parties for a while (Chris has, but I haven’t). The last one I went to was in the summer of 2006. Long time readers of this blog might remember that that’s when I tripped and fell on a weirdly shaped curb and tore a tendon in my knee (took 8 or more months to heal and hasn’t been the same since). Luckily for me that was my last most spectacular klutzy move. I haven’t done anything nearly as self-injury causing since that time. Let’s hope that if I go tomorrow night I don’t trip and fall or klutz out in any way!

Filed Under: Dining and Restaurants, Entertainment, Family, Health Fitness and Beauty, Home and Lifestyle, Inflammatory bowel disease, Life with Chris, Our Puppy, Recreation Tagged With: 10_course_meal, Birthday, blog, blogs, brother_in_law, celebrate, clogged_arteries, cook, cooking, crohns, desserts, dinner, dinner_party, dog, dogsit, drinking, drive, driving, eating, evening, fats, feast, Food, Friday, hates_dogs, hung_over, in_laws, menus, moving, out_of_town, parents, Party, partying, posts, Saturday, sister, stuffed, sugars, tasty, tummy, upset

Mmmm homemade spaghetti sauce

September 16, 2008 by Tricia

My home is filled with the wonderful smell of homemade spaghetti sauce. Mmmm it smells so good! The dog is going nuts – between watching me prepare it and smelling the sauce at is simmers on the stove she won’t stop pacing around with excitement. I don’t know what makes her think she’s going to get any? LOL

Chris is working until 8 pm tonight so we’ll be having a late dinner, but it will be a good one. Spaghetti with my homemade sauce, and a salad filled with our own home grown lettuce, cucumbers and tomatoes. Chris will probably want to have some garlic bread with the meal, but I don’t think we really need it. He might win out though.

We don’t have spaghetti for dinner very often, but when we do I almost always make a homemade sauce. Well ok, it’s not totally homemade – canned whole tomatoes, a basic canned or bottled tomato sauce, tomato paste, garlic powered, Italian seasoning, freshly chopped chives from the garden, chopped onion, diced green pepper and a tablespoon of brown sugar (my secret ingredient to give the sauce a slightly sweeter taste) and of course about a pound of cooked lean hamburger. I don’t follow a recipe – I just throw in a little of this and a little of that until it all blends together to make a fabulous sauce. Of course this means that each sauce is different and some are better than the others. Oh well- that’s life. Most are pretty tasty.

It’s usually only during the cooler months of the year that we have meals like spaghetti dinners, roasts, stews or homemade chili. I find these meals too filling and too “hot” to cook during the summer. We stick to lighter fair in the summer.

Do you make your own sauce when you make spaghetti?

Filed Under: Dining and Restaurants, Home and Lifestyle, Recipes, Recreation Tagged With: bottled, bread, brownsugar, canned, chili, chives, chopped, cucumber, dog, excited, fabulous, garden, garlic, hamburger, homegrown, homemade, lettuce, light, mmmm taste, onion, paste, peppers, recipe, roast, salad, sauce, scent, smell, spaghetti, stew, Summer, tasty, tomatoes, winter

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