Sylvia's Scenario

    Bruce's birthday this year was more of a low key birthday  than  last year  when he had four different celebrations for turning 70.   Another year has gone by already and here we are celebrating again.  This year, we went to Seaside, Oregon; one of our favorite spots to go to for the past 35 years.  We have lots of wonderful memories here and still love going to Seaside whenever we get the chance.  This year, Lauren was able to join us since she now lives in Portland which is only an hour and a half away from Seaside vs. the three and a half hours away for us.  We spent the weekend in Portland and then drove out to the beach for Bruce's birthday on Monday.  She was a great host in Portland and we had a wonderful barbecue at her house similar to what we've been doing all summer.  I guess she inherited my genes... She and her boyfriend, Dustin, took us out to many of Portland's finest eating scenes and there are many.   ...

Now that summer is coming to a close, all our guests have departed and our celebrations are winding down,  I decided to get back to my healthy eating kick again.  So, wouldn't you know it that I got a craving for chocolate chip cookies.  But I solved that problem real fast by making these "healthy" chocolate chip cookies.  This is a Hannah Freese, RD recipe so, of course, it's a healthy one.  It's one of those no-cook type of cookie that tastes like a cross between a granola bar and a Reese's Peanut Butter Cup.  It immediately satisfied my chcolate chip cookie craving and I made them in about 15 minutes.  They are made with oatmeal, pecans, hemp seeds, peanut butter, milk of your choice, and dark chocolate chips.  I had all the ingredients in my kitchen since I started following her eating plan five years ago.  I can't believe it's been that long.  It was September 2020 when I joined her 12-week program to fix my broken metabolism. ...

I mentioned before about a new cookbook I received from our guests who came this summer from Chicago called   Cheers to the Publican, Repast and Present .   I'm still making recipes out of it and this is one of them.  Although, I've changed it a lot and now I'm only using the salad dressing recipe with my own version of the salad.  The original recipe was for an asparagus salad but it was too large with too many unusual ingredients that got lost in the final product.  Bruce and Nick both said they couldn't taste the this or couldn't taste the that so I knew I needed to make some adjustments.  But it looked  gorgeous. I thought it would be a great spring recipe for Easter with the asparagus and I don't have many asparagus recipes so I do plan to keep it and play around with it.  In the meantime, the dressing is FABULOUS.  I kept it in a jar and used it up immediately.   I made this Asian-themed green salad twice with the dressing a...

I've been making peach pies a long time but now I think I finally found my best recipe. We had a dinner with a couple of Nick's friends last night so once again, I was thinking of something special to make.   Nick requested we do Korean barbecue so we bought the ribs already marinated which made it very easy for me and super tasty.  He also requested his favorite  macaroni salad  which was also a favorite of his friends.  I can't believe I haven't made that all summer...anyway, it turned out to be a great dinner with a few other sides of green salad, fruit salad, and rice.    But the peach pie was the star.  The recipe was in the Seattle Times the day before so that's how I thought of it, plus it's peak peach season right now. The author is  Danie Baker  who regularly writes for the Times and has lots of good recipes.  This peach pie has a secret ingredient; cayenne pepper.  The cayenne pepper added some zing to the peach pie ...