fresh strawberries with balsamic vinegar and sugar

1 large pack of strawberries
3-4 tbls balsamic vinegar
3-4 tbls sugar

Wash berries, cut off tops, place in glass bowl, sprinkle with sugar & balsamic vinegar and toss gently. Store covered in fridge a few hours or overnight.

Also, another definition of “fresh”

Skelly giggles while Desmond gets fresh with Sakura!

Of all your favorite foods, which one would you find the most difficult to give up for the rest of your life? I would’ve said potato chips, since I have all but given them up since starting WW…but it’s not really a big deal! Ditto mac & cheese. So I’m thinking that I wouldn’t find it difficult to give up anything I love…

Which month of the year do you thing best describes your personality? April, but only in the northeast. Ready to give up the cold for some warmth, but not quite sure how to go about it. Blossoms peeking out…but not quite ready to burst forth. Yeah…that’s me What month do YOU think I’m most like?

If you could be a contestant on any game show, past or present, which show would you pick? Eek! Me, on a game show? On CAMERA??! No thanks The very thought gives me the heebie jeebies!

I made this last night…in the crockpot!!! You can see the recipe here. I used a very thick piece of frozen coho salmon from Trader Joe’s and it was perfectly done in 2 hours. The only thing I’d change is to use less salt (those of you that know my addiction to salt will gasp); it was a tad salty for me (although I did only use 1 pound of salmon). Oh, and I didn’t use dill, because it smells gross to me; I used herbes de Provence, and I’d use only a teaspoon of that…two was one too many.

Dawn’s Honey Lime Chicken:

Oooh boy, was this good! I used some chestnut honey, but really any kind would work.

Ingredients

1/3 cup all purpose flour
1/4 tsp cayenne pepper
10 oz boneless skinless chicken breast, cut into strips
1 tbsp butter
2 tbsp lime juice
2 tbsp honey
1 tbsp brown sugar
1 tsp Worcestershire sauce

Instructions

In a large resealable plastic bag, combine flour & cayenne. Add chicken, a few strips at a time, and shake to coat. In a skillet, brown chicken in butter on all sides. Combine the lime juice, honey, brown sugar and Worcestershire sauce; pour over chicken. Cook for 1-2 minutes or until juices run clear and sauce is thickened.

Serves 2.

Friday:

- Saw the movie, “Forgetting Sarah Marshall” (yes, instead of The Ruins…that’ll teach me to check the theater the DAY I’m going to see something instead of the day before, as The Ruins was no longer playing there)
- yummy crepe dinner
- new scent: AngelMen Pure Coffee…not sure if I like it only for the reason that it fades VERY quickly on me!

Saturday:

- beached it with the dogs; Wolf made a friend:

- made dinner for Dad (the honey lime chicken)
- big yucks at K’s adult toy party, afterwards Megan and I went to Cobbie’s for a extra dirty martini with olives and cocktail onions…MMM!!!
- Also, today was the 109th anniversary of my Grandmother’s birth…here’s a shot of her with her son, my Dad when he was about 13 or so:

Sunday:

- had to cancel photo shoot as I had a flat and trying to get a flat fixed on a Sunday is a long and tedious process. The good thing was while I was at Barnes & Noble waiting, Michelle came and hung out with me; also, I might’ve found a photography mentor…more on that later.
- hung out in the yard reading and soaking up the sun
- made Korean beef stew for dinner

- going to take Wolf for a walk!

Did you all have fun this weekend?

Just wanted to pop in and say if I haven’t visited you, I will be soon! My back is killing me, and it hurts to sit. Strangely, it feels better if I’m upright, so I took Wolf for a long walk today, just before it started to hail sleet rain.

Made Dad a pot roast for dinner, recipe from my lovely cousin (I made a few changes to the original recipe). She was also going to make it, and as good cooks run in our family, I’m sure it was delish

Yankee Pot Roast:

* 2 1/2 pound lean beef round (use boneless bottom round rump roast)
* 1/2 tsp black pepper
* 1/4 tsp table salt
* 1 large onion, sliced
* 1 3/4 cup water
* 1 packet onion soup mix
* 1 1/2 Tbsp balsamic vinegar, or red wine vinegar
* 1 tsp dried thyme
* 8 medium uncooked red potato(es), scrubbed and quartered (about 1 3/4 pounds)
* 1 pound baby carrots
* 1 Tbsp parsley, fresh, chopped (for garnish)

Instructions

* Place oven rack in lowest possible position; preheat oven to 350ºF. Put a tsp of olive oil in the Dutch oven; heat over medium-high heat, then cook the onions for about 8 minutes.

* Sprinkle roast with pepper and salt; remove onions from pot and place roast in pot, browning all sides. Pour water into pot; stir in onions, soup mix, vinegar and thyme and bring to a boil.

* Cover pot and bake in oven for 1 1/2 hours. Place potatoes and carrots around roast; cover and bake until roast and vegetables are tender, about 2 hours more.

* Transfer roast to a cutting board and slice against grain into 16 slices. Serve with vegetables.

Got my hair cut & colored Saturday and let Q blow dry it afterwards…damn, she does a fantastic job! Picture’s on flickr, if you want to see.

Friday I got to see the lovely Megan…it’d been about a month (I’ve been sick) and of course we got our meeting place mixed up (I thought I was picking her up at her home and then we were going to Cobblestones, SHE was waiting for me at Cobblestones…sigh. Started reading The Kite Runner when I got home, and finished it today…WOW! What an amazing book. Almost ended up going to B&N today to get A Thousand Splendid Suns!

Oh, and my ex-boyfriend from high school called tonight…yes, we’ve kept in touch all these years, no, it’s not romance, pure friendship. Anyway, he takes care of a vacation home off Marathon Key in Florida. He keeps telling me to come down and he’ll put me up, either in the caretaker apartment in the island house or in his own house in Marathon. I’m always like yeah, yeah, I will…but today he gave me the link to the house. OMGG!!! Here, take a look. Don’t you wish you were there? He says, yeah, I’m sitting out on the porch, having a beer, looking at the moon, oh and did I mention it’s about 80 degrees (it’s 36 here, brrrr). Bastid!!!

This was how I made it:

- caramelized one chopped onion in a bit of olive oil
- added 4 chopped carrots and a cup of chicken broth
- covered and let cook, oh, about 5 minutes or so, then added 1 tsp lemon juice (more or less), 1 tsp balsamic vinegar (more or less) and 1 tsp garam masala and let cook til carrots were somewhat softened, maybe about 5 minutes more
- added Great White Northern Beans and let simmer til broth was just about gone.
- added crumbled pepper bacon and voila! Delicious meal.

Cause I’m a pig, this ended up making 3 servings. I had one for dinner last night, one for lunch today…and who knows, I may have the other for dinner tonight. It was that good!

I didn’t add hot sauce or salt cause I forgot, and I didn’t want to wait for rice to cook, altho I’m SURE it would be yummy with some nutty brown rice, too

I’m feeling a bit dizzy this morning; woke up and the room was spinning. This could be because the phone rang three separate times in the middle of the night, and I finally went to answer it cause I was afraid it would wake up Dad. It was someone who couldn’t speak english…tough to get the point across that he had the wrong number. Then he called back this morning. I’m like…DUDE! C’mon now. Argggghhhh. I needs mah sleep, yanno, or I gets all bitchy-like.

Just so you know!

I cut the onion in half, then sliced each half thin, cutting it in half again when done. Tossed that into a pan with a bit of olive oil and let it soften and brown just a bit. Then I added the carrots & green pepper and cooked til softened. I cut the beef into small pieces and browned it in a separate pan. When all the redness was gone, I added the drained pineapple (save the juice!) and let that cook for a bit. I added a bit of the pineapple juice to the veggies and steamed them for a bit. Then I added the meat mixture to the veggie mixture, along with some teriyaki sauce, and voila! Twas done, and delicious! Thanks, Faith, for the idea!

You might have noticed I haven’t posted anything about what I’ve been eating for a few days. Well…um…things haven’t been going so well. In fact, I feel a bit like an alcoholic.

When I took the dogs to the beach Saturday, I stopped at Stop & Shop on the way home to pick up some things for dinner. While there, fully knowing I shouldn’t be doing it, I bought a package of chocolate covered pretzels, and proceeded to eat about 14 of them before I stopped. When I got home, I emptied the package under the bird feeder … hopefully it won’t make the squirrels sick!

So…I’ve decided to join Weight Watchers. Maybe I need to be accountable to people I’ll have to look in the face each week. Maybe…

Ironically, I weighed myself this morning (each Wednesday since the initial weigh-in) and I was down 2 pounds. I put on a pair of jeans this morning that I haven’t been able to fit into for awhile. Maybe all this walking (at least once a day for 25 minutes) is helping…

The bad: I had the SUCKIEST day food-wise yesterday! I ate a salty chocolate bar I bought the other night, which I intended to have one square of when I had a craving. I ate another of the See’s chocolate covered marshmallow things (that’s 600 calories between the two) (not that I’m counting calories…just saying), one peppermint oreo and … those effin’ potato chips attacked me again. This time, I just threw them in the trash, dumped ‘em out, smashed ‘em up and made sure there was no rescue available. Oh, and I had a piece of the worst kind of white bread with some peanut butter. So obviously, I cannot have these things in the house.

Breakfast: Barley Hash, coffee
snack: 14 almonds
Lunch: one cup of last night’s dinner (one pound of ground turkey sauteed in a bit of olive oil with an onion, 6 carrots and a pound of mushrooms, spiced with a bit of rosemary salt and maple pepper and served over quinoa), coffee

The Delicious:

Bombay fish curry with brown rice & quinoa…YUM!

followed by:

a tangerine!

Breakfast: Barley hash with quinoa, coffee
Snack: raw almonds,
bad thing: one piece of chocolate
Lunch: See above, plus mango green tea
Dinner will be ground turkey sauteed with mushrooms, carrots, onion and served over the brown rice/quinoa combination. Or maybe Cincinnati Chili. I can’t decide!

I was up til 1230 or thereabouts reading the new book…combine New Orleans, France, recipes and a lost soul and it’s quite hard to put down!

Oh…and I lost three pounds since last Wednesday. I’d be VERY happy with 6 pounds a month for the next 9 months. Doesn’t seem unrealistic…