Sylvia's Scenario

Now that I’m back from my latest travels, I’ve been slowly getting back into my normal routine.  I am trying to eat 30 grams of protein per meal as recommended by the dietitian I was working with, Hannah Freese, RD.  She has discontinued her business but she helped me so much with controlling my weight and to follow an anti-inflammatory diet after my joint replacement surgeries.  I now only eat two meals daily and these little turkey sausages have really helped me start my day out right.  Quite frankly, it is hard to eat 30 grams of protein at breakfast but this recipe helps a lot. I've noticed that when I stick to her guidelines, I am not as hungry during the day plus I have no urge to snack.  Each of these patties are 2 oz. of ground turkey meat or 14 grams of protein; the egg is 7 grams of protein, I'll have a slice of toast (Ezekiel bread) with 1 Tbsp. peanut butter which is another 9 grams of protein and then I've met my goal of 30 grams.  Another brea...

Soup season seems to last longer than we'd like to admit.  But, yes, it's still soup season.  We're having spring fever around here and, yes, the weather is getting warmer, sunnier, and overall just very nice and pleasant outside.  But I'm still craving the warmth of a hot soup.  We had this minestrone soup recently and everyone loved it.  My sister made it at her house but she's not sure where she got the recipe so I'll just give her all the credit. Her preparation of this dinner was a job well done! She and her husband live in Washington D.C. and they were also having spring-like weather but a dinner of hot soup still tasted really good to all of us.  We planned this trip to see Nick who spent a week there for work.  We jumped at the opportunity to go see him since it's a lot closer than going to Spain.   Plus, my sister lives there and she and her husband are a lot of fun and it's so nice to get caught up with each other's lives.  We saw N...

We've been eating this recipe a lot lately because the cauliflower has been looking so good in the stores. Even Trader Joe's, who usually only has pre-packaged produce, had whole, fresh, cauliflower so I grabbed one.  I have a bunch of recipes piled up to post and now that we're snowed in,  I'm getting caught up.  It snowed again last night so here we go again! But I did have to go out today for my morning Pilates class that I usually walk to but the the sidewalks were too slushy so I drove the one mile.  I walk to Pilates 3X/week and walk to  Barre 3  2X/week.  There is a Barre 3 class everyday that I can go to but I usually just go 2X week because I also go to Pilates.  I feel so lucky that I can walk to everything in our neighborhood.  We even started walking to church on Sundays.  The furthest anything is around here is less than two miles.  We really wanted a neighborhood with a high walk score when we moved back to S...

We are still having soup weather around here as we just got a couple more inches of snow last night.  Winter is not over.  We feel fortunate our weather is not as bad as some parts of the country but we are still getting antsy for spring to arrive.  But not quite yet, I'm afraid.  I made this soup a couple of weeks ago and put some in the freezer to save for a day like today when we just feel like staying home all hunkered down waiting for the snow to melt.  It's no fun trying to drive around here with all our hills.  This soup warms you up real fast because it's a Mexican soup with just the right amount of spices and the best broth I think I've ever made.  After I made it, I gave some to a couple of friends and I got the seal of approval.  It's a recipe from a local chef named Charlie Midencey who works at Ovelake Golf and Country Club and this is his grandmother's recipe.  He was featured in the Sunday paper and I thought the recipe looked ...

Last night, we had this interesting beef stew that we both loved so much that I am doubling the recipe for my blog.  I'm not sure why Hannah Freese, RD only made it for two people but we both definitely ate 100% (minus the amount that Bruce dribbled down his shirt when he tried to tip the bowl up to his mouth to get every last little drop)!   It would have been nice to have some leftover so we could experience this lovely dish again today.  I'm sure the flavors would have been enhanced as it sat overnight making it a great leftover meal.  It has turmeric and dried pitted prunes, a persian-inspired mixture of ingredients.  We loved it.  It is from my collection of Hannah Freese, RD's recipes that I never got around to making.  She is no longer doing her online diet program but I joined her program during my joint replacement saga of 2019-2021 and it made a big difference in lowering my inflammation.  She basically substituted healthy fats and carbs...

Happy New Year and here I go again with my first post being a salad. We’ve had a lot of over-indulging during  the holidays, as most people have,  so I am definitely focusing on salads now.  Our first over-indulgent event was my neighbor’s holiday party that I wrote about  here .  And then at the last minute, we decided to go to Boise for Bruce's office party there.  It's been awhile since we've traveled for Christmas parties because of the pandemic plus last year we were in Spain so I was a little eager to go this year. We stayed at my brother's house and had good visits with he and his wife.  Two of my other siblings were also in town so it was really nice for all of us and our spouses to be together.  We also had great visits with so many of the  Bratney Company  employees who I hadn't seen in years and various friends from when we lived in Idaho from 1998-2015. It was a very festive time to be in town and the weather was gorgeous u...