Coming to a Nursery Near You

Posts Tagged ‘cooking’

I love food. I ALWAYS have (have you seen my throwback pictures? LOL)  I’ve always loved to cook, too.  Today, I found this really neat site called www.foodconnect.com, a social networking site for those of us who love to cook. How cool is that? I signed up in less than 30 seconds. I edited my profile somewhat, but they have lots of different areas that you can talk about yourself and your interests, so I haven’t quite finished that yet. Then I went looking around the site. I just love the fact that I can submit recipes AND the nutritional information.  After you sign up, be sure to add me – my username is Dawniemom!

More info:

www.foodconnect.com is the ultimate tool for every foodie.

What makes foodconnect.com so great? These and many other features:

• Free nutritional analysis, for all recipes on the site and every recipe you submit.
• Share your recipes with your friends and other foodies.
• Discuss recipe ideas and techniques.
• Plan your meal and easily print off your shopping list.
• Create the perfect dinner party

All of this and much more and best of all its all free. Get to foodconnect.com to get started today.

How do I know this?

Because I had my special recipe today.  A recipe I only make during the holidays.  It’s my Turkey Mush, and it makes my mother GAG.  But I converted both brother & sister, and last year, my son, into my fanatical circle of Turkey Mush Fans.  It consists of:

• turkey
• mashed potatoes
• sweet potatoes
• squash
• stuffing
• cranberries
• gravy
• water

Mix it all in a pan together – yes, everything in one pan – you simmer it until everything is nice & mushy.  Voila!  Turkey Mush.

It’s FABULOUS.

And I had it today for lunch   Annnnnd there goes my mother’s face.  Making that “BLeCH” face.  but she doesn’t know what she’s missing!

So YESTERDAY was Zachary’s 1st Thanksgiving!

He woke up from his nap just in time to come down to this:

Anthony & Libby were very excited, as they LOVE Thanksgiving Dinner.

 geez, you never really notice just how cluttered your house is until you put pictures on the internet for the 10s of people to see.

Annnnyways, dinner was DELICIOUS.  I was truly pleased with the way everything came out, which is probably a first for me.  I’ve only been cooking Thanksgiving for a few years, but I’ve never been very HAPPY with it, because I have such high standards, being from the family that I am   My mom ROCKS at the turkey, people.  Rocks.  And mine always is SO not hers.  But this year – Oh yeah, it was close.  I was rather ambitious this year and even made a homemade coconut custard pie! The recipe I found was way too sugary, though, so I’ll have to try again before I post it.  It was good, but horrible if you’re a diabetic LOL

I also made a homemade pumpkin pie – so between the turkey, 2 stuffings, mashed potatoes, gravy, sweet potatoes, squash, rolls and 2 pies – yeah, we were in a coma last night.  Well, except for me – I literally scrubbed the pantry and kitchen floors with a scrub brush last night because I was so aggravated with how it looked – but no one else seemed to care.

This morning, BLACK FRIDAY, Anthony & I headed out at 5:45 to hit the stores.  He had a bit of a meltdown last night – he gets very emotional around the holidays, and I think he also is still worried about me – so he wanted to make sure I was ok     We went to Staples first and I got hubby a 500gb harddrive (that I’ve already given him because 1) he needed it and 2) he saw it cuz I left it out accidentally) and some dvds.  Then it was over to Walmart and that wasn’t too bad because they’d already been open for 90 minutes at that point.  I got the things I wanted and then we came home and that’s that!  Well, almost – I wound up going back out again, but blahblahblah, shoppppping!

So, how was YOUR Thanksgiving?

Quote of the Day:
Too many people miss the silver lining because they’re expecting gold.
–Maurice Setter

The Menu

• Roast Turkey, perhaps done like this or this
  
• Traditional mashed potatoes
• Traditional sausage dressing
• Gingered Cranberry and Almond Cornbread dressing
• baked, mashed sweet potatoes
• homemade cranberry sauce
• (canned) green beans
• (canned) biscuits
• Perhaps a homemade apple pie
• Can’t forget a bananner pudding for hubby

This really is just for my own benefit, but figured i’d share and make my sister hungry. *G*  This will be Zachary’s 1st Thanksgiving, and that lucky little boy will actually HAVE some yummy taters, and some yummy strained sweet potatoes!

Yes, we’ll be having dinner here, just the 5 of us.  But part of my heart will be in Rhode Island with the rest of my family,  where I’d stealing the skin off the turkey, being the first to taste the stuffing and reminding my mother to take the cranberries out of the fridge.

Thanksgiving is so much more than just a day for eating for me.  But that’s another post for another day

Oh and an update on my EEG – the neurologist’s office returned my call this afternoon to inform me that my doctor had been called out of the country on a family emergency (He’s from India) and would not be back until the 26th to interpret my results.  Soooooooo, I’m still left twiddling my thumbs. ARGH!

Quote of the day:
First there is a time when we believe everything, then for a little while we believe with discrimination, then we believe nothing whatever, and then we believe everything again – and, moreover, give reasons why we believe. – Georg Christoph Lichtenberg

First off, I made THE BEST apple pie today, so I posted the recipe over at My Recipe Blog.

Secondly, I meant to write this in my Throwback posting but forgot – but even though I like to post goofy pictures of my sister, I have to tell you that she’s just an amazing sister. She is kind, caring and compassionate. She truly celebrates me and my kids and our lives, and I am so very very lucky to have her. I’ve asked her to be a guest blogger next week as well so you guys are in for a treat with all these phenomenal women that’ll be poking around here. Thanks to each and every one of them who volunteered. I am humbled deeply.

So on with the whole “what are you trying to wrap your mind around, Dawn?” thing.

My MRI results came in and the dr. called me on Tuesday. It seems that I have THREE bulging discs in my neck, at/between C3 & 4, C5 & 6 and C6 & 7. One of them (I believe it’s only one) is “showing significant compromise laterally of midline” and to be honest, I only think I know what that means. I THINK it means my disc is moving towards my spinal column. She (the dr.) is sending me to see a neurosurgeon as soon as possible, she says, because of the risk of permanent paralysis or other injury.

Now, there are things that she doesn’t even know because they’ve become more apparent since mylast visit to her.

1) I am having alot more pain in my neck and down my arms than I had been.

2) I am having this sort of hmmm tic? where a hand, finger, arm, leg, will flex or move completely involuntarily. It happens most often when I’m laying down, and I never mentioned it before because it hadn’t been noticable since Feburary, when I first noticed it in the hospital. Think Michael J Fox kinds of movements. Not constantly, but enough that I have to take notice.

3) I am also having a ton of pain in my sciatic/sacral area, turning my leg numb after a while of being on it. I wasn’t in Walmart more than 10 minutes last night and it happened.

She didn’t order the MRI of my lower spine, and so I have no idea what’s happening down there.

I haven’t heard from her since Tuesday, and so I have no idea what to think, other than I’m scared I’m going to have to have surgery which will make me stop nursing Zachary, stop holding Zachary and go back to being practically bed-bound. I did call yesterday to ask what I should or shouldn’t be doing (i.e. laundry, carrying things, etc) and am still waiting for a call back.

The neurosurgeon and the hospital that I’d have to have the surgery in is an hour away.

I have no one here to help out with the kids. Oh, and the money.

So I’m trying to wrap myself around this stuff without being an alarmist. But it’s so hard. Let’s not even talk about the damned hernia, which seems to grow bigger day by day.

But the numbness/loss of sensation has taken over about 75% of my body. Do I want to live like that? Obviously not. soooo, there it is – mostly. I know, I know, don’t put the cart before the horse, etc.

But with a little more than 100 days before Christmas – my baby boy’s first christmas – and a month before my oldest’s birthday – with Thanksgiving in between – it’s really hard to just put on a smile and say “tra la la, things will be FINE”.  That’s just not me.

I just posted a recipe for something I made tonight and it was just so fabulous, I thought I’d give you a heads up over here, because I KNOW you’re not reading my recipe blog LOL

So go check out my newest recipe!  My son gave it 4,000 stars. LOL

Powered by ScribeFire.