July 29, 2007

Today started out as a regular Sunday morning. For breakfast I had my normal “green” smoothie that actually turned out to be greenish/red! Breakfast Smoothie

½ cup Rice Dream
½ cup distilled water
1 frozen banana
1 cup frozen strawberries
2 cups frozen raw spinach (I buy the raw spinach in a 2# bag from our co-op and freeze it myself without blanching)

Put the Rice Dream in blender, add banana and puree, add strawberries and puree, add distilled water blend and then add spinach. Blend on highest setting to completely liquefy the spinach leaves.

This is so delicious and feels so good drinking it. You just know that you are getting a very nutrient-dense drink for breakfast! I know, Rebecca, you’re saying, “Is this the Jackie I know and love?” Right?

Lunch was a “Clean out the refrigerator” lunch:

I had made a pasta dish that I took to my adopted sister’s birthday party:

1 bag Ditalini Pasta (a very small tubular pasta)
1 – 15 ounce can black beans (drained, rinsed)
1 – 15 ounce can Fire Roasted Tomatoes (placed in blender and pureed)
pinch coarse salt

Cook pasta tubes for 12 minutes and drain. Return to pan, add beans, tomatoes, salt and toss. Add Parmesan or Soy Parmesan cheese to top. Serve. Re-warm for leftovers as I did and top with the following:

I also had about ½ bag of kale that was going to go bad if I didn’t use it soon, so I sautéed it with 1 tablespoon olive oil and when it started sautéing really well, I added ¼ cup water to the skillet and steam sautéed it. I added salt and powdered garlic to the skillet and mixed it well.

I placed a serving (about 1 cup) of the re-warmed pasta on a plate and topped it with the kale mixture, then sprinkled just a little Parmesan cheese on top. Ken had seconds.

I have spent a lot of time online today looking for new recipes, reading other blogs, becoming impatient for mine to be ready to go. Can you tell food is a love of mine?

My mind began to wander, and I thought about next Friday being my brother’s birthday. Sorry, Rusty, but I’m not going to tell here what I am fixing for your birthday lunch, but it will be on my blog when it is done! You will be thrilled! Rusty lives about 40 miles from us, but comes up every Friday to get a massage from Ken and I cook lunch for him. I love to spend time with my brother, I have a great gift for him this year…sentimental, and I especially love for Fridays to come so I can cook for him. I wish his wife, Penny, didn’t have to work and could come with him. As you can probably tell, Rusty is spoiled rotten, even though he is almost 50 years old! Well, he has one year to go! He has 3 sisters, a mother, a daughter, a soon-to-be daughter-in-law and wife who continue to spoil him. He has really surrounded himself with nurturing women!

Anyhow, pondering his birthday reminded me that 34 years ago this evening, I was getting ready to go to the hospital to have a baby. My first! Rosemary Elise Vetter was born at 4:30 a.m. on July 30, 1973, a Monday morning. She weighed 7 lbs 3 ozs. Her daddy and I were so young, but so happy about her. Daddy pressed his nose to the nursery window and the nurse said, “Is that your baby sister?” When he replied, “No that’s my baby!” I think she about fainted! So, for tomorrow, Happy Birthday, Baby…I love you tremendously.

Dinner
Dinner was just an easy fix, a relaxing evening in the kitchen. I have to teach a CPR for the Professional Rescuer class in the morning, so I was reviewing the DVD and book while dinner was cooking.

Again, I had some vegetables that were going to spoil if I didn’t use them, so I did tonight. (Picture follows) Pair with a beautiful green salad and a piece of black bread and you have a wonderful dinner.

3 medium sized red-skinned potatoes
½ head cauliflower
½ head broccoli
1 large red pepper
1-cup mini carrots

I washed and cubed the potatoes (skin on) and put them in a saucepan and covered them with salted water. I boiled them for about 8 minutes.
In the meantime, I cleaned and cut up the cauliflower and broccoli into florets, washed the carrots, and washed and cut up the red pepper into ¼” pieces.

I sprayed an olive oil spray on the baking tray and placed the vegetables on it. I drained the potatoes and placed them on the tray also. I then sprayed the vegetables with the olive oil spray, and then seasoned them with some salt (just a little), pepper, Italian seasoning, cumin and Mexican chili powder. I placed them in a 425° oven for 30 minutes. When I took them out I sprinkled them with a Nori seasoning I had made.

Nori Seasoning recipe follows.

Nori Seasoning

2 sheets of Nori
2 teaspoons of coarse sea salt
2 tablespoons of black sesame seeds

Tear Nori sheets into many pieces and place into a magic bullet type blender along with sea salt and blend together. Place in a glass jar and add sesame seeds (do not put these in the blender) and toss together. Store in a glass jar with a sealing lid. Use on top of vegetables, baked breads, soups…use your imagination!

You may ask, “What is Nori?” From Wikipedia: Nori is the Japanese name for various edible seaweed species of the red alga Porphyra. The term nori is also commonly used to refer to the food products created from these so-called “sea vegetables”. A shredding and rack-drying process that resembles papermaking makes the finished product.

Nori is said to have the highest protein content and is the most easily digested of all the seaweeds. It is said to decrease cholesterol and to be particularly helpful in digesting fried foods. Taken from a post at http://greenteaforum.o-cha.com/about158.html

Well, I hope you have enjoyed my first day of blogging. You are part of history here! I love to cook and I love to share what I cook, so enjoy!

Jackie V.

From “The Seat Of The Soul”: “We believe that what we can see and smell and touch and feel and taste is all there is to the world.” There is much more.