Apple crisp cookies?

I love apple crisp, but I find it hard to portion control (I stand and eat out of the dish). Plus, I think it would make awesome cookies. I'm pondering how to do this. Even a more stable bar form would be ok. What do you think? Should I make double the topping, press it into the dish, line it with even slices of apple from my apple corer/peeler, and then cover that with more topping? Or chop the apple into really tiny bits and mix it into the topping, then either press it into the dish or make it into cookie shapes? Or should I make an oatmeal cookie recipe and put chopped apple in it? I only found on recipe on recipezaar, but she used dried apples, and I just don' t have them. I need something with fresh apples. I am in a quandry.

another recipe success? Unheard of!

Correction: I meant to say that I like to make something Alann says he categorically doesn't like, but ends up liking in this dish. He read it as "I like to torture him by making food he doesn't like" which isn't true.

I love when I make something that Alann says he categorically doesn't like. He does not like hot tuna. He likes tuna steaks, but I am forbidden from making tuna casserole and vary rarely will he eat a tuna melt. Usually, I make him grilled cheese and I have a tuna melt. Not that I am complaining. That means more for me. But last night, I made a hot tuna dish that he liked. They are called Tuna Croquettes, courtesy of Alton Brown. It is fairly easy, and they were really tasty.

Ingredients

• 1 (7-ounce) pouch albacore tuna, drained well and shredded by hand (I used two well drained cans of chunk light to equal 7 ounces. The pouches usually have very little liquid)
  
• 2 green onions, chopped fine (white onion would probably work too. I harvested one of the volunteers from the garden)
  
• 2 teaspoons Dijon mustard
  
• 2 large eggs, beaten
• 1 teaspoon freshly squeezed lemon juice
• 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
• 1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
• 3/4 cup panko bread crumbs, divided (This is one of Alton's things. He loves kosher salt and he loves panko bread crumbs. I used plain ol' homemade bread crumbs and it worked just fine)
  
• Olive oil, for sauteing

Directions

Place the tuna, onions, mustard, eggs, lemon juice, salt, pepper and 1/4 cup of the bread crumbs into a medium mixing bowl and stir to combine. Divide the mixture into 8 rounds (I used a round cookie cutter to shape them. Press firmly with a fork to stick them together) and set aside on a parchment (or wax paper) lined half sheet pan. (You really don't need the sheet pan, it just makes them easier to move around if you need the counter space for something else.) Allow to rest for 15 minutes. Place the remaining bread crumbs into a pie plate. One at a time, coat each round in the bread crumbs on all sides.(Be very careful moving the croquettes. They may fall apart a little bit. Just squish them back together.)

Heat enough olive oil to cover the bottom of a 12-inch saute pan over medium heat until shimmering. Add the croquettes and cook 2 to 3 minutes on each side or until golden brown. Remove to a cooling rack set over a half sheet pan lined with paper towels. Allow to cool for 2 to 3 minutes before serving.

Yummy yummy yummy. I served ours with a lovely salad- iceberg, cabbage, a few baby swiss chard leaves and baby kale leaves from the garden, carrots, and radishes. I liked mine with Italian dressing, but you know Alann. It's all about the ranch. They also make good sandwich fillings.

Recipe failure and success

I am always intrigued by "roasted garlic". I've tried roasting a head of garlic. Meh. I've tried "roasted garlic mashed potatoes". Meh. The other night I made 40 clove chicken. It smelled absolutely delicious. It was great. The whole house smelled amazing. Unfortunately, the chicken was rather bland. I tried putting one of the roasted cloves on a piece of bread, but that wasn't that great either. Apparently, I just don't like roasted garlic. I prefer the bite of the fresh stuff I guess. Oh well. It was a success in one way- I did find a new way to cook chicken- I browned it on the stove top, then put the whole pan in the oven (because it is oven safe. Very important to remember!). Roast covered at 350 degrees for an hour and a half. The chicken was very moist and delicious and perfectly cooked, just not perfectly seasoned. Next time, I'll know better. I decided to do 40 clove chicken because I had a whole cut up fryer, which was, unfortunately, frozen when I bought it. (Otherwise, I would have separated it out into better portion sizes. The three of us definitely can't eat a whole chicken in one meal.) So I had to cook all of it at once. At least the leftover chicken will make good salad or pot pies.
In other news, there is a show on channel 5 here called Studio 5. I don't know what you would classify it as. I guess talk show meets variety show meets Rachel Ray? They do a little bit of everything- crafts, cooking, relationship help. You name it, they do it. (It's obviously meant for stay at home moms.) Since it's the only thing on at 11, and baby usually eats then, we watch it occasionally. Yesterday, they were talking about a blogger that is using her crock pot every day for a year. I got excited, because I miss Stephanie the crock pot wonder. Her site was great. She still posts every now and then, and if I have a crock pot need I still go there first. But I was hoping for a new crock pot site so I could get some new ideas. So I went to this lady's blog (and trust me, it was hard to remember to get there- baby ate, pooped, and peed on me all while I was trying to get to this website). Once I was there, I was disappointed. Unlike Stephanie, who very rarely used cream of soups, this lady was all about the cream of soups. Sure, a cream of soup casserole or crock pot dish is nice once in a while, but not everyday! So I was saddened. I guess I will have to keep looking.

After the failure of 40 clove chicken, I was a little anxious to make the other new recipe on the menu this period. (I never know how to refer to my menu making time period. I do it every other week, so I can't say "the menu this week". I usually end up saying "this time" but that doesn't always work.) Anyway, the recipe is called Gallo Pinto. I got it from Serious Eats, by way of Cheap Healthy Good (another of my fave cooking sites). Go read the CHG link, and look at the link to Serious Eats. Once you look at the picture on Serious Eats, tell me, why are there tomatoes in the picture? There were no tomatoes in the recipe, though some pico de galo would have been great with the dish. Actually, now that I think about it, and study the picture on CHG, those red things were probably the bell pepper. Oh well. I used green, because red is too expensive. Some pico would still be good. This recipe was great. Most "beans and rice" recipes I have tried have gone over not so well. This was awesome. I tried it without Alann, since he tends to not appreciate my beans and rice overtures. (I just got a "pretty good" on the leftovers.) But we are poor, so beans and rice will probably become staples and he will have to deal. A few words about the recipe- don't be afraid of the W sauce. Use what it says to use. Also, to cut down on salt, buy low sodium beans, or make your own. Or rinse the beans partly or mostly and use some water, maybe 1/2 c to start? I tossed in the "bean juice" despite my usual misgivings about that practice. I usually rinse and replace the water, because the bean juice just looks funky to me. But this was ok. Maybe next time I will rinse. Or use freshly cooked beans. Also, use the cilantro. It makes the whole thing that much better. CHG says no need for a salad, but I disagree. I like to round out my veggies as much as possible. I try not to count onions and bell peppers as veggies, because even though they are, they are also in almost every meal I make. I ate mine with some yummy crunchy iceberg, and it was delish. I also wished I hadn't cut the iceberg so small, so I could make some lettuce wraps with it. The iceberg went really well with the rice in the same bite. I'll see if Alann wants to take some of this for lunch tomorrow. It's pretty good cold too. (Of course, I don't mind cold leftovers on occasion. Alann doesn't care for them.)
Here's another trick for sneaking more healthful beans and rice into your meals: make a big pot of beans ahead of time, and freeze them in 1 1/4 cup portions. Then you can add them instead of canned beans. For rice, I prefer brown rice. It has more fiber and nutrients and I really enjoy the chewy texture. You can cook lots of brown rice (on the stove, in the oven, or in the rice cooker) and again, freeze the leftovers. You don't even have to portion it out. It breaks apart pretty easily. Just smack the bag around to loosen the grains. Since my rice cooker won't let me cook less than 4 cooked cups of rice, and that is way more than we will eat right away, I am trying to get in the habit of freezing the leftovers, rather than refrigerating. I lose rice in the fridge, and I've read that it breeds bacteria super fast. I don't know why. It's just one of those things. I've trying (in vain it seems, I try this often) to institute a more rigid plan to our menu. Some people do Mexican Mondays, beef Tuesdays, etc. I can't do that. But, I am trying to be more conscious about what kinds of things we are eating, and I am trying to cut down on the meat centered foods. I'm not saying I don't love a good steak (because boy do I), but we eat a lot more meat than we need to. And one meatless meal a week can be good for the pocketbook and waistline, as long as meatless doesn't mean "five cheese macaroni and cheese from scratch". I wouldn't ever go vegetarian, I like meat too much, but I would go halfway, if Alann would go with me. But it's difficult finding things that he likes that grew in the ground, instead of on legs.

Anyway, moral of the story- no more 40 clove chicken, but yes more Gallo Pinto.

Biscuits!

I believe I've mentioned it before, but I am an utter failure when it comes to brownies. And actually, as Alann pointed out, most desserts kind of fail. Sure, I can make yummy bread, but brownies end up awful. Cookies I am ok at, but they aren't grand. Pie crust comes out good one time and bad the next. And fudge- don't get me started on fudge. See, look at my poor brownies:

Because of these baking downfalls, I've always tended to look at certain things as out of my reach- pie crust for example. I just started trying to find a good recipe for that. And biscuits. I believe I tried them once, and it just made a big sticky mess. We both love those "southern style" crumbly biscuits, like the kind you get on a McDonald's breakfast sandwich (except fresh and not all weird and rubbery). I've been afraid to make them myself, so we buy the frozen kind when they are on sale (and then we ration them, because otherwise, we would eat them every time we make a hot breakfast). I would love to make my own biscuits. I know that pretty much any premade bread product is cheaper and tastier if you make it yourself. $2 for a package of 12 is what I usually pay. Not awful, but they also have preservatives and strange words in them. On Saturday, I cleaned the kitchen, which always makes me want to cook something elaborate. So I got brave and looked for an easy recipe. And look at what happened:

Isn't it gorgeous? It tasted good too. In case you can't tell just from looking at it, it's half whole wheat flour too. (I've got Alann trained to where he can tell just by looking if I used whole flour or not.) I froze half the batch to make later, to see how they turn out. These were surprisingly easy though. The recipe is from All-Recipes. It's called Fluffy whole wheat biscuits in case it doesn't come up. I followed the recipe exactly (I actually do that when baking, since I don't want to screw it up). The only thing I did differently was mix in about 3/4 of the milk at first, and then added the rest, since some of the reviews said it was soupy, and I hate kneading really soft doughs. I didn't find that to be the case at all, but better safe than sorry right? I got 15 biscuits out of about 15 minutes of work. The dough came together nicely. Be gentle when kneading. Over-mixing the dough leads to tough biscuits (I sound like an expert. But I did see Alton Brown make biscuits once, and that's what he said.) My plan is, if the freezing thing works out well, than every once in a while, I will make a double or triple batch, bake what I want, and freeze the rest. We usually eat all the ones I bake. I baked 8 for dinner Saturday (leftover ham and bean soup), and we ate 6. Six is the most I will bake for just us, especially when we buy the premade ones, because they are so seemingly expensive. But no more! From now on, I will not be afraid of biscuits! Next time, I might even try garlic-cheese...

Recipe and some other stuff

There are some funny articles out there.

Steph: Make sure Danny reads this one.
The Newborn Ultimatum gives my new favorite phrase: my baby "has about as much common sense as a bag of Britneys"

Here is my FAVORITE meat loaf recipe. This was our Christmas Eve meal for many years, despite Amy's protests. Alann really likes this recipe too, which makes me happy. We got this recipe I think in the mail or maybe attached to a can of soup when I was young, as in less than 10 years old. This is one of the first recipes that I was allowed to cook by myself, at least that I remember. (Of course, this doesn't count the "soup" that Amy and I used to "cook" in the backyard- made of random bits of vegetables we could steal, leaves, dirt, and the rare find- a duck egg. I don't think our parents appreciated our soup, especially after it had cooked for a couple of weeks with a duck egg in it.) I don't think I have ever been a fan of ketchup on meatloaf, and especially not since I learned that there is another way to make it. I will first present the original recipe, followed by my variations.

"Classic Meat Loaf"
1 can Cream of Mushroom Soup
1 1/2 pounds ground beef (though since I have never been good at reading or following recipes, we usually used 1 pound and it turned out fine.)
1/2 cup dry bread crumbs (used to use the kind you buy at the store. These days I just toast some bread and make crumbs in my mini food processor.)
1 small onion, finely chopped (don't use too much onion, the finer the chop the better the meatloaf holds together later)
1 T worchestershire sauce
1 egg, beaten (I never pre-beat it.)
1/8 tsp pepper (who measures pepper anyway?)
3/4 cup water

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. (This is listed as step two, after mixing the ingredients, which has caught me off guard more times that I care to relate.)
2. Mix 1/2 cup of the soup (I have always used half the can. See, I can't follow recipes), beef, bread crumbs, onion, worchestershire sauce, egg, and pepper. In 13" x 9" pan, firmly shape meat into 8"x 4" loaf. (I use my hands for the mixing through shaping part. They work better than a spoon.)
3. Bake at 350 degrees for 1 1/4 hour (this always throws me. It's an hour and 15 minutes.) Spoon off fat, reserving 1-2 T of the drippings. (Let the meat sit for 5-10 minutes so it can firm up a little. You can also poke it with a meat thermometer and just cook it until it reaches the right temp- 160 for beef I believe.)
4. In 1 qt saucepan over medium heat, combine remaining soup, water, and reserved drippings. Heat to boiling, stirring occasionally. Serve sauce with meat loaf. Makes 6 servings (that is 6 4 oz servings. Alann and I have been known to eat at least half of this, with 4 people easily finishing it off.)

That's the basic recipe. You know me though, I can't ever leave well enough alone.
The recipe is from Campbell's, so they say to use Campbell's cream of mushroom. I use whatever brand is on sale with no problems.

For the meat- We buy 80-20 ground beef, unless there is a good sale on the leaner stuff. I wish we could afford the leaner stuff, but I wouldn't go any leaner than 90-10 or this will probably not stay together. We usually freeze our meat in 1 pound portions, so that is what I usually use. I have made this with half ground turkey and half ground beef, but our favorite variation is 1 pound of ground beef and 1/3 pound of hot (spicy) breakfast type sausage (we buy Jimmy Dean). (Again, these measurements are convenient to us because this is the portion we freeze our meat in. I usually buy a 1 pound log of sausage and cut it into thirds. If you cut off the metal bands before you freeze it, you can just pop the whole thing in the mic to thaw. Why didn't I think of this earlier?)

Sometimes I add 1/2 C or so (I am making that measurement up. I never measure) of frozen chopped spinach. You can thaw it first or not. This makes me feel a little better about the health quotient of the meatloaf, but isn't necessary.

I also like to put in some garlic powder and maybe some chili powder. Not too much, just enough for a little more flavor. With the sausage, fennel seed is also a nice addition.

As far as the baking vessel is concerned- I have made the meatloaf according to the recipe (smaller loaf shaped in bigger pan). All the fat runs out of it, which is good if you are watching your fat intake, but sometimes the meatloaf ends up a little dry. It is also easy to cut and serve portions. I have also cooked it in the crockpot on a bed of sliced onions for 8 hours on low. The onions lend flavor and allow the meat to stay out of the fat. Omit the onions from the recipe if you do this. Usually though, I throw it in the oven in a loaf pan. The fat mostly comes to the top, where you can pour it off for use in the gravy or just to get rid of it. This allows some of the fat to stay in the meat, while still getting rid of most of it.

I very rarely add the drippings into the gravy anymore. I'm getting health conscious in my old age. I'm not sure what they add to the flavor of the gravy, and don't notice a difference between when I use it and when I don't.

If you are feeling really fancy, you can top the meatloaf with more breadcrumbs for a more defined crust. I have also used saltines in place of the breadcrumbs, but that was before I was making my own bread, and bread supplies were at a premium.

So there you go. This is my meatloaf recipe. I know Teene wanted it, and so I figured I would just put it here.

I had a doctor's appointment yesterday. He said "have fun" when I reminded him I am going to Phoenix next week. My sugar is high, but he said it was probably the pasta I had for lunch. If it's high again in two weeks then he is going to make me do the blood sugar test again. Otherwise, all is well. Alann was trying to hear Claire's heartbeat by putting his ear to my belly, which some sources say is possible at this point. She promptly kicked him in the ear. When she is really active, you can watch my belly move around like there is an alien about to pop out or something. It's funny. She has a favorite spot to kick- right above my belly button. I have a perma-bruise there. It is always sore from the constant kicking.

So much to talk about, so little time

I've been on a roll with new recipes lately. I've made two things that Alann "doesn't like" that he has asked me to keep the recipe for. Yay expanding our horizons! The first was a stuffed acorn squash. I think I mentioned it before. The second was a Sweet potato side dish that had bacon and onions and breadcrumbs. The sweet potatoes were boiled until mostly cooked, then breaded with flour and fried. The flour gave it a weird texture, next time I will just toss them in with the bacon etc and let them fry that way. But it was still very tasty, and right now, they are in season, so it is worth looking into. I couldn't resist the little pie pumpkins the other day. We will be having roasted pumpkin and shallot and some pumpkin chicken chowder in the coming weeks. I'm working on getting a menu list going, so that we can remember what we like, and choose a larger variety of meals. We get kind of stuck on the same things over and over. Plus by the time the new season rolls around, I have forgotten what it was we ate last year that I wanted to do again.

We had a very productive weekend. I returned the belt that I bought for my car two months ago that still hasn't been installed, and the guy at Checker told me that it wouldn't fit anyway because the other store sold me the wrong part. Whatever. I finally broke down and ordered the belt from the dealer, which cost more than twice as much, but at least it will fit. So guess what Mark will be doing for us as payment for room and board during the deer hunt? (JK, we don't charge. He does it out of the goodness of his heart.) I needed a new rear windshield wiper blade anyway, and couldn't find them in the auto stores, so got that as well. Yay for spending $100 on car parts. At least we have the money saved, so it doesn't kill us financially. (I get reimbursed for miles at work, and 99% of the time, it goes to my "car maintenance fund" for car maintenance and registration and the like. Aren't I a genius? Before I thought of that, I was just using the money for whatever, which wasn't helpful when I needed to register my car last year.) And now Alann has a credit at AutoZone for next time he needs to change his oil. I lost the receipt for one of the three belts I have purchased for this stupid car, but they gave me store credit for it, so it worked out.

We also got supplies for Christmas cards, at the world's busiest Joann store EVER! The line was ridiculously long, but they had 10 cashiers, so it wasn't too bad actually. They were having a pattern sale. I really wanted to get a skirt pattern, but I had Alann with me, and he is patient about going to the craft store, but not THAT patient. There is only so much to keep him occupied there. But I did get a fabric remnant for an upcoming baby-related project that I will not bore the few men-folk with. Suffice it to say, we will not need to buy disposable nursing pads. I love my sewing machine. I finally finished recreating a pair of pajama pants I received um, August 2007. Our neighbor made them for me, and they are really cute. Pink pajamas penguins on the bottom (yes, it's a camp thing. don't ask.) Anyway, the crotch was down to my knees, the waist was WAY too small (flattering, but small) and Alann could have worn them they were so long. So I decided to hem them up, then take out the elastic and make it a drawstring pant instead. Obviously in retrospect, I should have done this in the opposite order. I cut off the bottom 6 inches of pants, hemmed it, then ripped out the waist and cut off about 2 inches to make a drawstring and then realized that um, when you adjust the rise (waist to crotch) of pants, you also adjust their length. I'm not a seamstress. I have no formal training. I can sew, and sometimes do it well, but I make it up as I go along. I'm getting better, but I learn the hard way, a lot. Someday, I want to take a clothing construction class, but for now, I make it up. I got stuck when I tried to make a button hole for the drawstring to exit from. My machine says it does it, but I couldn't make it work and got frustrated. Thus, they languished for 10 months. So the other day, I got motivated and finished them. I said "screw the button hole. I'll just sew a zig-zag box" and that worked. Then I sewed a new waistband, sewed the cut-off portion of pant legs back on (always save your scraps!), and they were magically the right length. Now it just looks like I have a special design on the bottom from the cut and sew. I have one more minor adjustment I want to make. The drawstring is a little short, and as my belly gets bigger, will probably get shorter. Plus I hate having to untie them to take them off, so I tied them loose, which means I have to adjust them every time I get out of bed. So I want to pull out the drawstring, cut it in half, and sew in about 6 inches of the original waistband elastic, so that it will be longer, and elasticy, so I can tie them tight enough to stay on my hips, and still be able to get them off. Plus they are so warm! I looked at them, and they look so easy. I am now tempted to go get some cute flannel fabric and make myself some pjs. I think the Christmas flannels are on sale......Guess what ya'll are getting for Christmas!

Um, so back to the weekend. We also traded out our DTV box for one with an analog pass-through, since the DTV stations suck most of the time. We visited with Alann's Aunt Julie and Uncle Laird. They are the ones I lived with, and they live nearby, and Julie had surgery, so we went to see them. That was fun. We need to visit more often, but it seems like there is always something else, huh?

Alann bought me a rice cooker and a waffle maker for my birthday. I scored on kitchen things this year. My sis bought me one of those crock pots with the three different inserts. It's awesome. Yes, I already had two crock pots, but I wanted a smaller one. The small ones are hard to find, but this works because it has a 2 qt, a 4 qt, and a 6 qt. Anyway, Saturday morning we had waffles for breakfast! I love Alton Brown (from Food Network, Good Eats). His waffle recipe is already half whole wheat flour! How awesome is that? (I usually try to find whole wheat or half whole wheat recipes, because it is better for us, and I don't like to buy a lot of AP flour. I grind my own whole wheat.) Alann doesn't like leftover pancakes, so I assumed the leftover waffles would be safe as well. I was wrong. I didn't get a single wedge. =( Oh well. I'll just have to start doubling the recipe.

I think that is about the excitement of our weekend. We went to Macaroni Grill on Friday night, and there was a hair in my chicken Parmesan, so we got my meal and dessert for free. That was not really exciting, but since I wasn't really digging the food anyway, it made it better. It seemed to be an off-night for them. I usually like their food, but it wasn't that great. Alann really liked his. Maybe I just picked the wrong dish. I don't like ordering something at a restaurant that I could make at home. It makes me feel like I should have stayed home and made it. So something like spaghetti and meatballs, I don't usually order in an Italian restaurant, since I can and do on occasion make it at home. And they have taken the sausage peppers rustica dish off the menu, which is one of my faves. Oh well. It was still a decent night.

The cat has been driving us crazy lately. She has been climbing under the bed and scratching at the boxspring in the middle of the night, so we have been locking her out of the bedroom. Unfortunately, then we have to decide what to do with the dogs. They usually roam back and forth. So last night, they went to bed with us (Tanner refused to get off the bed at first, bum.) and then at about 2 we all went potty. The dogs were thirsty, so I didn't wait and left them in the rest of the house with the cat. I haven't slept that well in ages! I woke up when the alarm went off and not at some dog-determined time. I wasn't sleepy or tired. It was great. Can you guess where the mutts will be sleeping from now on, at least after the midnight potty break? The other morning, they had been shut out for a while, and when we got up all three animals were sleeping together on the couch. It was a kodak moment. Tanner was on one end, Nicki on the other, and the cat in the middle, snuggled in a blanket. I am toying with getting her a warming kitty bed to see if that is her problem, but she moves around so much. She never really sleeps in the same place for very long. Maybe she just doesn't have "her" place. I don't know.

It snowed this weekend for the first time this season. We got maybe an inch or less, mostly on the grass. It all burned off before noon. Actually it was gone before Alann got out of bed. Anyway, I bought a bag of spring clamps at Lowes for $10 to help keep the plastic covering on the tomatoes. Best $10 I ever spent on the garden. The clamps don't rip the plastic, and there was an assortment, so I could use the big ones and little ones. The plastic has never been so impermeable to the wind and cold. I'll post a pic tomorrow I think. It looks like a little tent in our garden. It's funny. Since then it has been frosting every morning, so I am hoping that the beets make it. They like cold. I think they will be fine, they just need to get a move on with the growth. It is going to warm up again, so I am hoping my little "greenhouse" on the tomatoes will allow them to ripen.

I guess I'll end now. I know it's long.

Battle of the...mind

There is a battle waging inside of me. It concerns food. I love food. I love super processed nasty food and I love candy. I love dark chocolate more than anything else. I could quite possibly live on Dove dark chocolate promises. Let’s see, at 210 calories for 5 pieces, I could eat 50 pieces of chocolate per day and be well within my “recommended calories”. Of course, then I would be sick, both mentally and physically. Because no matter how much I like these items, I also know that they are not inherently good for me. I don’t like the thought of eating monodihydri-whatevers. I like to know what I am eating. We don’t buy a lot of the processed stuff. And Alann worries me because he knows that he is at risk of high blood pressure and diabetes, but he doesn’t eat green things willingly, without being slathered in ranch. So I do the best I can for myself and hope he notices and cares enough not to make me a widow too early. We were doing good for a while, with salads two times a week and I was trying to incorporate more veggies into our other meals. This week we totally fell apart. We gave up the salad thing and veggies are few and far between in our meal plan. I hit a wall in a lot of ways. I don’t know much about cooking veggies outside of corn, peas, carrots, broccoli, cauliflower, and a selection of lettuces. Even when I do decide I want to try something, like this week I wanted swiss chard, I couldn’t find any. When I try something new, it usually fails. Which I know, I should try again, but it is disheartening. I don’t take to veggies and fruits like I wish I did. My fruits need to be a certain temperature. My veggies need to be practically perfect or I get turned off. Maybe I’ll start doing salads for lunch again. That can’t hurt me any. I did that for 9 months or so last year. But even those have limitations. I don’t like wet lettuce. I like cabbage in my salad, but that basically means about a quarter of a head a week and you can’t really buy red cabbage shreds or half a head too often (unless you are lucky and find someone to cut it for you). I don’t like my fixings to mix too much with the lettuce because then the lettuce gets soggy or all the good stuff is at the bottom all together. So you can see my dilemma. I guess since I have a fridge here I could just buy the stuff I want, prep it at home when I buy it and bring it in to build here. That might work. I know that we need to eat more closely to the Word of Wisdom and it would do us some good in many areas. I just don’t know where to start. Anyway, the point of all this ruminating is this: If you are like me and love dark chocolate but want something with less sugar, try the sugar-free Dove Dark chocolate promises with chocolate crème. They are awesome. For a while, I went sugar-free in an effort to release the hold that sugar has on my moods (and most significantly the serious crash I experience) and these saw me through. I inadvertently bought them for work and had forgotten how good they were. They are not low cal, but they are lower than the regular kind. And they taste good. No, this is not a paid advertisement.