A wonderful dairy-free, soy-free treat for you and the kids! Make sure that you purée the mixture until very fine. We don’t want any bits to get through and be too icy for small teeth! Here is the recipe!

These treats contain fresh pineapple and banana (thus the name Pineanna Pops!) coconut milk and some agave nectar. A lot of people have things to say about agave nectar, but I love it. As with any thing else, you just have to do your due diligence in discovering the best one, and weed out the imitators. I have also found that it has little effect on my blood sugar. I use the Madhava Pure Organic Agave Nectar, Light or the Madhava Pure Organic Agave Nectar, Dark. I have spoken to “Chris” from Madhava and he has assured me that this is truly an organic, pure, raw agave nectar. This is the only one I use. Coconut milk has many wonderful properties; here is just one, coconut milk is rich in lauric acid, also found in human milk. Lauric acid is known to contain antimicrobial properties.

In the next few days, I will put up more ideas like this. Again, these are wonderful, little treats your kids will enjoy, but not only your kids, you will too!

Ken will put up a picture soon!

Happy, Healthy Eating,

JackieV

I have felt so overwhelmed since Kenny changed the way I have to do things on here that I have been very resistant to posting…but, I decided I was going to do the best I can, and I’m going to post a recipe on here for a Zesty Zucchini Salad. I don’t have any pictures of it yet, but I wanted to get the recipe out to you so you can try it at this time of year. You’re going to love it!

Full of crisp, garden vegetables, this salad is a healthful way to satisfy your appetite and experience fresh, raw zucchini. It is a salad blended with beautiful colors, tastes and textures. It can be served as an appetizer, or as a full meal when served with your favorite, whole-grain bread.

This is truly delicious and would be good with any other vegetable you would like to add to it. My friends, Dan and Rebecca, would serve this salad without the lettuce and call it a “Goody” salad. You know, all the goodies you put on top of the salad!

I will make this again soon and have Ken take pictures of it and put it on here.

As always,

Happy, Healthful Eating to you,

JackieV

I think part of it is that I have been so caught up in trying to figure out how I am going to eat that I’ve actually lost track of how I am going to eat.

A restaurant we go to occasionally for breakfast has a sign that says “To eat is a necessity, but to eat intelligently, is an art.” Yes it is and most often I do not eat intelligently. I am guilty of loving food, all food. Oh, I can think of a few things I do not like, but for the most part, I will eat anything. Now it comes to the time for me to learn to do it intelligently.

My dad has been in the hospital since Tuesday of last week, and it has given me great pause to think about how I view food as I know a lot of his problems stem from foods. I am my father’s daughter. Daddy, of course, is from the old school. He is still from that generation where you raised what you ate, you worked hard every day and burned off everything you ate, and nothing you ate was artificial or super processed. He has not realized that it is not that way any longer and now he is struggling, just like I am, with food, with diabetes out of control, feeling starved even though we are not. You get the picture.

I don’t know that I will have a specific way of eating, except to say that I will begin to not eat overly processed foods and do a better job at not doing it. I will include more raw foods in my diet, and constantly work to include more organics. I will work on my portion control (this is my biggie). I think that because I am eating something that is good for me I can eat as much as I want. Doesn’t work that way does it? I have become my top priority because I am too young to feel so old. That’s also the title of a book I just found…and am going to read.

Here’s some pictures of some of the food we have created lately. I say we because Ken has just as much a hand in the stuff I do as I do.

Enjoy

Well, today is Thursday, February 5th and it is the first time I have sat down to blog. WOW, time does fly. I truly intended to post on here at least weekly with some new recipes and pictures, but you know what? Life happens!

As most of you know, Ken and I were, once again, without power for 5 days last week. Snow storm, followed quickly by an ice storm. Looked beautiful but wreaked havoc on the electrical lines.

We were American Red Cross shelter residents/workers for 5 days. What an adventure. I am always amazed by the work that the American Red Cross does. In a large chapter there are many people who help, (I’m not saying they’re not busy) but in our area, a very small office covering 3 counties, I am amazed at the work my boss, Karen Cook does, mostly on her own. Thank you, Karen. Our new administrative assistant, Becky, got thrown in and learned very quickly. She was a great asset to our team during this time.

So, I do have some pictures of some food we have fixed lately. I’m going to post some here and let you know what they are in the captions.

Cheeseburger Salad recipe is here.

Cheeseburger Salad

Delicious

Vegetable Pizza

The Vegetable Pizza recipe is here.

Happy, Healthy Eating,

JackieV

Over the years Jackie and I have become more interested in celebrating the New Year and the possibilities it brings, than celebrating the past. Combine that with the importance we feel about family and friends, Jackie’s love for cooking, and it just makes the idea of a January 01 Brunch with family and friends to help us welcome the new year, just seem like the perfect thing to do. . .

I thank everyone who took the time to share the first day of 2009 with us. Happy New Year!

My New Year Resolution is to get back to writing on this blog more. To put more new recipes up again and to create more new recipes!

Here is the latest creation:

Peruvian Stew

1/2 lb. Goya dry Canary Beans
1 Tbsp. Olive Oil
1/2 lb. beef, chicken or pork cubed (or use all three)
1 small onion, chopped
1 small can “Goya” tomato sauce
1 clove garlic, minced
1 Tablespoon Cumin
1 Chipotle pepper in Adobo sauce with 1 teaspoon adobo sauce added.

Soak beans overnight, rinse and drain. Combine 4 cups water and beans in a large saucepan. Cover and bring to a boil. Meanwhile, in a large skillet, heat oil and add remaining ingredients (except tomato sauce and chipotle pepper and adobo sauce) and cook until meat is browned. Stir into beans in saucepan. Cover and simmer. Add tomato sauce and chipotle pepper and adobo sauce after 20 minutes. Continue to simmer until beans are tender. Serve over rice. (I like brown rice because of it’s nutty flavor).

It was delicious! I’ll put it over in the recipe section too!

I think I have some pictures to upload here, but I can’t find them, and Ken is working right now, doing a massage, so when I find them I’ll put them on here.

I love all of you and I do sincerely wish you a Very Merry Christmas!

Ken and I are having Open House on New Years Day, so if you are local and want to come over for brunch, call us and RSVP!

Eat Wonderfully this holiday season

JackieV

Our holiday was most excellent. My Mom and Dad, my sister, Beth her husband, Jeff, their daughter, Brianna, and their son, Taylor; my brother, Rusty, his wife, Penny, their daughter Whitney, their son, Casey and his wife, Kendra; my adopted sister, Kay and her husband, Stanley and her son, Brandon and his wife, Denise and daughter, Brooklyn were all here. It was a house full, but a blessed time.

Here are a few pictures:

Of course i'm making coffee! This is the Watson clan!

The Table Before

Kendra setting out appetizers, Rusty eating them

Sitting down to a feast

Penny and Denise with the BIG kids

Can't forget to get Jeff in the picture!

A wonderful time. I made the stuffing from the show on Food Network “Cooking Loft”. It was so good and had pepperoni and mozzarella cheese in it! Unexpected, but so delightful!

I also put a new recipe under the recipe tag above for a leftover turkey soup. It is called Cabbage, Broccoli & Turkey soup. Ken said I needed to make sure to write it down because it was a keeper. It’s a great dish for any day on Crack The Fat Loss Code!

That’s it for now.

Eat Wonderfully,

JackieV

Wendy, one of the members on the CTFLC, Wendy Chant WOE forum, has started a water challenge between now and Thanksgiving. I joined it. You can join us too. What I am doing is taking my weight, divide it by 2, then drink that number in ounces of water every day. So, I challenge you to join us.

I made a recipe from my good friend, Heidi, over at 101 Cookbooks. Heidi has such delicious recipes, and there is a link in the left column for her book “Super Natural Cooking”. There are so many great recipes in this book with beautiful pictures.

So, I made this Baby Lima Soup with Chipotle Broth and changed it up just a little since I needed to have this meal be mostly carbohydrates, but I still needed a little protein. I baked some chicken tenders with salt and pepper only, then cut them up and added them to this soup. It was so delicious. I also made some cornbread muffins with Hogsdon Mills organic, stoneground cornmeal, just simply delicious. Our friend, Beverly, was over about dinner time, so she stayed and ate with us. I made sure she had some to take home with her.

Sorry there are no pictures, but you can check out what it looks like at Heidi’s food blog.

Please try it. You will be so pleasantly surprised with the flavor. You don’t have to add meat to it. You could have chicken or a steak on the side, or even a hard shell taco would be wonderful with it.

Wonderful, wonderful food and so many beautiful people out there making it!

Eat wonderfully.

JackieV

Still doing very well. I lost a full pound last week in week 3, so that’s a great thing!

I am still posting in the forum for the Wendy Chant “Crack the Fat Loss Code”™ WOE (way of eating) and would like to invite you to go there and meet all my new friends. They are such a supportive group of people. You will be amazed at how wonderful they all are. Just go here and you will see all the many posts. They are a chatty group of people! The thread changes each week, so on Sunday afternoon, look for the post sending you to the new thread.

My recipe for this week can be made either for carb up or baseline days or a carb down day. It is a Thai Turkey Stew. If you are going to make it for a carb down day, just leave out the pasta. Here’s the recipe and here are the pictures:

Thai Turkey Stew

Thai Turkey Stew

Eat wonderfully,

JackieV

We had company for dinner tonight and it was a Baseline day for me, so I made wild rice for them to have with their chicken, but I didn’t have any. I had Andalusian Chicken Tarragon, green beans and a nice salad for dinner. Very filling. I had sugar free strawberry jello for dessert with homemade whipped cream! YUM OH

I forgot to take a picture of the chicken. It was very pretty though. The recipe is above under the recipe link in the “Crack The Fat Loss Code®”. Try it, I think you’ll love it!

Here are a few pictures of a dish we had earlier today. It was chicken also! Guess today was chicken day!

Chicken, Potato and Broccoli Oven-Baked Stir-Fry

Our Lunch Table

Eat wonderfully,

JackieV