A visual feast.

I adore the website Tastespotting. You can put any food item you are looking for into the search engine, and then peruse the yummy pictures that come up. Click on said pictures and you'll be taken to the recipe. Yum Yum Yum!!!


A similar site I quite like is called Foodgawker.

Enjoy!

Headache...

Dear Gentle Readers,
I am writing to assure you that I have not gone "off the wagon" and am still in search of real food. However I am having a battle with a migraine, one that neither of us are winning, the kind where a level 4 headache just stays and stays not going, not coming. This does not endear me to writing or cooking, it endears me to my bedroom with the shades drawn.

We ate the "papertowel" soup, indeed Laura ate it. I don't think it was a hit, too spicy for me, but I shall try it again with a fractional amount of spice, or I shall try carrot in general because with an immersion blender it is easy enough to make, provided one can actually follow a recipe and doesn't add ingredients not called for. (towels to be exact)

I have eaten snack chips now, some number of days, over 13, I had Laura pick me up Dirty chips from the Co-op. 3 Bags of 5.5 oz to be exact. I am pleased to say that was last Friday and I have only eaten 1.5 of those bags over the last 7 days and in a controlled manner, ie, one measured bowl with a movie and so on. That said, I am truly becoming as happy to eat my celery with almond butter for a snack as the chips, and may even try Becca's childhood favorite, celery dipped in olive oil and vinegar. I like the crunch of celery.

I also had Laura pick me up three Dagoba bars. I have just now after 7 days finished one bar, (250 calorie bar) and I enjoyed it over about 4 different times of breaking off just a tiny bit and found it perfectly fine for taking away any sweet interest. I have not had any other "junk" except my homemade blondies, which take us a good while to eat the 9 bars it makes. If I have one, it is usually with coffee, eaten slowly and chewing lots. I'm thinking next time I make them I'll add more nuts, that's my favorite bit. I might also add some raisins. I've just learned dried fruit is higher in iron than some other things and anemia girl loves her iron.

I am finding it difficult this very moment when I cannot get to the store and when Glenn has been too busy to go for me, and when I have reached a brick wall of fatigue all the sudden (yes, I know I'm always fatigued, so you can imagine how much more this is!) and I need more to live on than almond butter on celery or rice cakes. I need protein as well as fresh foods. I have fallen back on something I hated my whole life but have learned to make peace with as an adult, EGGS. Oddly one egg I did like as a child is verboten now by health police, the soft boiled or poached egg.

The simple humble egg, does have going for it that it is fast to make, has protein in it, iron as well (yolk) and is somewhat able to be made with variety. This week breakfast has consisted of eggs with whole wheat toast one two occasions, farina on two occasions and cold cereal with milk on others. I've discovered that I get bored pretty quickly. I need to make Becca's granola recipe as well as one I want to make with pumpkin seeds and molasses (for iron) but again, no way to get the ingredients. I don't think Fred Meyers has delivery and even if they did, I'm guessing bulk bin purchases wouldn't be included.

It's 6 pm and I've only eaten farina and coffee, and 2 blondies cause I've not left my room. Glenn is bringing us home real burgers from kahootz, which are not light in calories but which I will enjoy given my painful state and lethargy. I'm hoping afterwards I can find it in me to do a little survey of what I have here I can eat and make quick and easy. Which reminds me, it's going to be hard for me when my friend Laura moves the 18th of September, as she was such a help to me in so many ways, but we are rejoicing with her in her new adventure amongst the Norwegians in Minnesota.

Please keep my efforts and better eating in prayer. So far I have been mercifully untempted even in my low moments, to just give in and eat junk, because junk just isn't appealing.

Well the food is here, I am hoping it revives me. Keep eating real my friends!

No. 1 Carrot Soup attempt.

Well, it started out looking ok. Here I am playing Jenga with carrots. Who needs real toys?

The recipe calls for baby carrots from the store. I recently found out that baby carrots are just adult carrots cut by a machine into uniform shapes and I am not going to pay extra to have them lie to me (-: I cut my own carrots thank you very much, and I didn't ask them how old they were. They are organic at least.

The recipe also calls for two to three cans of chicken broth (easily subbed with veggie broth for the vegetarians amongst us) Well silly me, who is still unwell and has no business operating sharp, hot, heavy or electronic machinery much less my brain, grabbed two Swanson cans off the shelf, noting to self I need to stock up on the pacific organic at Costco, and proceeded to pour right on in. To my horror one of them wasn't chicken but beef. Call me OCD but I don't like to mix my food/meat families. The Chinese make Happy family and the Cajuns make Jambalaya but seriously, I think it's something that might have been addressed in Leviticus, I've just not found it yet!!!

Oh and it DOES get worse my friends... at some point during the process of boiling said carrots in aforementioned perverse liquid, I went to lift the lid to check for doneness again and somehow, low and behold there was a paper towel boiling happily in the surface. Alls (sic) I can figure is that the hot steamy lid I set to the left of the stove somehow was set on a paper towel which clung surreptitiously to the inside of the lid and then fell in the pot. There was nothing in the recipe about adding a paper towel! And I don't think my mind is that lost yet. Now what to do. What was on said paper towel before it's immersion? It was likely the paper towel that Glenn uses over by the coffee grinder to wipe up grinds, but that he fails to throw away cause it still has some good wipes in it. (and it might make a tasty fiber addition to dinner?) Do I toss the whole effort, now done and ready to puree? I get on the phone to ask hubby what exactly the history of said towel is, he's in a pastoral meeting but I just can't go on without some type of towel provenance. He affirms that yes that's his coffee grinds towel, like that makes everything all better. I've had friends who have confessed to washing steaks that fell on the floor, so how bad could this be? It was boiled? Grant it the towel wasn't very attractive as it came out the saffrony color of curry, but I shall try to wipe this image from my mind if I decide to eat it. (The soup, not the towel.)

On a side note, I have spices in my Indian spice tin that I have failed to label. I am not sure if I have 1/4 tsp of cayenne or of chili powder in this soup. It also has 1.5 tablespoons of curry in it. See the big bottle of milk there? Well that is out because after tasting said powders with my finger on my tongue, I couldn't tell you what was what (I thought maybe I'd some how instinctually know which was which) what I can say it my tongue is still recovering.

Well, the soup is finished and I will tell you that if you are going to make a soup, regardless of the notoriety of the chef online, don't do as I do and just follow it without reading the comments. 9 out of 10 posters liked or loves this soup, but most all of them said too SPICY!!!! duh, there was part of me that did question 1.5 tablespoons of curry powder. So I have now added a scoop of brown sugar and I think as per the comments now read, I will add about a cup of half and half or cream to "cool it down" a bit. My missionary friend Laura (who I don't know in real life but like lots online!) told me she got a carrot soup in South Africa that was served with a scoop of vanilla ice cream in the center. I think that sounds just like what this soup needs!

So for now, as I hold a tissue to my dripping nose (from the SPICE) I can recommend this soup for it's ease IF you have an immersion blender, and with some changes. Do not spice it as it calls for, start with half and work up, you can always add more spice to taste after pureeing. I also recommend you check your can labels before you add anything, and check under your pot lid each time you pick it up, you never know what might be hiding there.