Cooking For Two

The other day I was reading a post on a cooking blog I recently discovered. On her site Ari had a recipe for Marble Molasses Pound Cake from a cookbook she had. It sounded divine! And of course, me being me, I had to experiment with it. Unfortunately, or should I say, fortunately, it didn’t quite work out as planned. To begin with, I had no eggs… Read the rest of this entry »

I’m doing some remodeling around here. The old theme was too austere. This one is much better, I think! Unfortunately it’s missing some elements of the old theme I liked and some of the code I’d inserted on my own. Impressive as that sounds I know virtually nothing about programming at all. It’s a wonder I can figure out how to change the colors!

So this will be a work in progress over the next day or so. What do you think?

They look good, don’t they? Know what else thinks they look good? Your heart! These cookies have little sugar in them and lots of whole grains. This recipe makes 6 dozen, but don’t let that fool you, that’s for the two-bite version. If you make regular sized cookies you’ll probably get around half that. Either way it’s a lot of cookies, but it’s a lot of good stuff too. And they’re great with coffee! Read the rest of this entry »

If you haven’t noticed yet, we like our pasta around here. We try to choose healthy options when available. One of the great things about making your own lasagna is that you know exactly what you’re putting in it. This recipe uses a mixture of pre-shredded, low-fat cheeses available, whole wheat lasagna noodles, frozen spinach, sauteed onions and peppers and fresh herbs. About half an hour later you have a hot, healthy, ooey, gooey pile of excellent lasagna. This makes 4 generous servings (forget the sides, you won’t have room!) and reheats like a dream. The best part? It’s ready to eat in 30 minutes! Read the rest of this entry »

If you think pasty, gloppy, tasteless mess when you think oatmeal you are in for a huge surprise! This recipe uses hearty Irish oats, fresh blueberries (they’re in season now!) and a couple of deceptively simple additions to make a delicious, filling, exceptionally healthy dish! Read the rest of this entry »

Pressed for a quick dinner idea I decided on pasta. We had a package of my favorite veggie tortellini, but no sauce. I decided to try to whip some up. After studying a few recipes for pasta sauces, including one for vodka sauce (which is our favorite, but too fatty to have it often) I thought I could throw something together that wouldn’t be too awful with ingredients I had on hand. I had no milk or vodka, but I was sure successful and this has now become a staple in our house. Not only is it much better for us, but it’s cheaper to make and tastes much better than any sauce I’ve ever had from a jar. I’ll never buy vodka sauce again! Read the rest of this entry »

This dish makes a super quick, delicious, healthy dinner for the lacto-ovo vegetarians out there. With prepackaged and canned ingredients this dish comes together super fast. The tortellini takes the longest to cook at about 10 minutes and while that’s cooking the spinach is heating in the microwave, the sauce and chickpeas are heating on the stove and before you know it everything’s done and it’s time to eat. This made about 3 servings. Enough for my husband and I for dinner with enough left over that I could have it for lunch a few days later. It reheats very well, there’s a lot of protein, not too much fat and it tastes divine! Read the rest of this entry »

Scary stuff out there, folks. Pets dying, rat poison, plastic by-products, who knew this stuff was in our pet food? Who would’ve known if not for the pet food recalls?

I did. Or at least I did once I did the research on my own. This is what I found out. In our pet foods the following are regularly included and are, in many cases, the major components that make up the ‘nutrition’ in pet foods.

Dead cats and dogs that were euthanized and stored in freezers at the vet’s office until they could be picked up by the company that bought them. Including collars, flea collars, tags and other things left on the pets. Yes, your vet may be selling his patients’ remains to the very companies we rely on feeding our animals. The phenol barbital used to euthanize pets doesn’t break down either in the rendering process, so our pets are eating that too.

Trays upon trays of rotting meat from grocery stores. Maggot-infested rotten meat, styrofoam trays and plastic wrapping all get tossed in to be rendered down and used as ‘nourishment’ for our animal companions. Why are the trays and plastic included? Simply because it’s too expensive and slows production too much to have workers unwrap the rotting meat. In other words it’s less hassle to just toss the trash in with the ‘good meat’.

Feathers, rotting chickens from slaughter houses, rotting offal from slaughterhouses. Dead and rotting cattle, pigs and horses are included as well.

The grains used as filler for the majority of foods isn’t good for our pets either. The grains make our pets feel full but our dogs and cats don’t have the necessary digestive equipment to digest and metabolize cereals like we do. They don’t need them, get no benefit from them, and all it does is raise their blood glucose levels and make more poop as it passes through them.

I’m not worried about my animals because I make their food for them. In much the same spirit as cooking my own food instead of using convenience foods I make food for my pets. This way I know what’s going in the food exactly. I know how much, where it came from and how it was handled and prepared.

But the best part is that it’s not terribly expensive and it’s pretty easy to do. The benefits? Besides the obvious one of not having to worry about the next terrible discovery? No more dog smells, no more stinky breath, less shedding, healthy teeth and gums, less water consumption, smaller and less frequent poop that dissolves into the ground in a matter of days, less chance of bloat and less vet visits.

Those are just a few of the benefits and there are many to be had.

Before deciding to feed your dogs a raw diet you should certainly read all the available research, even that which denounces the benefits of feeding raw, and make your own decision about it. Do a Google search on ‘feeding raw’ or ‘BARF diet’ and read the material. Beware the zealots, there seem to be a lot of them in the BARF community. There’s no need to be militant, in my opinion.  For many people this may not be practical for whatever reason, and that’s fine, dogs and cats do (normally) ok on commercial diets.  But if you’re going to feed commercial food then you should do so with your eyes wide open and fully aware of what, exactly, you’re feeding your beloved pets.

A sample meal for my dogs consists of the following:

1-2 raw chicken backs for each of the bigger dogs

1 chicken wing for the chihuahua

1 broccoli crown

1 tomato

4 carrots

1000mg vitamin C

3000mg fish oil

2 eggs or equivalent piece of liver or other offal

Everything but the chicken is blended together in the food processor and divided among the dogs. The chicken is eaten raw, bones and all. Some days they don’t get veggies and other days that’s all they get (with eggs or offal, of course). While we need to make sure we’re providing our animals with complete nutrition we need to keep in mind that every meal doesn’t have to be a scientifically balanced diet. As long as you feed a variety of foods the nutritional needs are likely to be met.

Just remember, don’t rely only on what you read from one or two sources, do your own research. There is myriad information to study from all sorts of perspectives. You should figure out which perspective you assign the most veracity to.

This is a great recipe a friend of mine cooked up once while we were fishing.  An odd time to create a recipe, no?  The fish weren’t biting, and that’s all I’m going to say about that.  It turns out this is excellent on crackers (my friend prefers Ritz, I prefer Town House).  I call it ‘pate’ because it’s similar in appearance.  Give it a try, I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised! Read the rest of this entry »

This sounds strange and vaguely unpleasant to a lot of you, I know, but stick with me here. Despite the odd ingredient, these are really good. Hearty and filling with just a touch of spicy heat. You don’t really notice the sweet potato so much or the lack of meat. These were unanimously declared a winner around here; even the dogs got a bit of the action as I could only manage one and a half. Really, both of us were full after the first one, but they were so good we decided to eat another. Read the rest of this entry »