Sylvia's Scenario

Halloween is one of those holidays that changes over the years when the kids grow up but it's always my second favorite holiday after Christmas. Christmas doesn't really change; family still gets together, we still give presents to each other, I still cook a big feast, we still do all our traditional foods like almond roca and various Christmas cookies to give away to friends and family, we watch all our favorite movies like It's a Wonderful Life, (and Christmas Vacation), I still always do a photo Christmas card even though it's getting harder and harder to get photos of Nick & Lauren with their busy lives, we still always hang our Christmas socks and fill them for Christmas morning, etc. It has changed a little with Nick & Sachiyo going to Japan now so they won't be here and we don't do as many presents to everyone anymore. But Halloween has changed a lot because my little trick or treater are all grown up! When Nick and Lauren were little Hallo...

We finally canned all our pears so now we have ten quarts to enjoy this winter if we can wait that long.  We've already eaten a couple quarts of our  plums  so I hope we still have some by winter. Our last night of canning is always a big relief knowing that we are done for another year.  The first batch of jam or jelly is always exciting, then everything begins to ripen at once and it gets a little stressful to preserve everything before it spoils and when the final canning is over, it's always such a relief.  So, we are done for another year!  Yeah!!! This recipe does not qualify for  October Unprocessed , that's for sure!  These pears are totally processed and use lots of sugar, too.  But I have a philosophy about this.  If you eat "junk" food or in this case "processed" food, it's O.K. as long as it's homemade and these canned pears are definitely homemade. I mentioned in a previous  post  that I like many veg...

We had our final barbecue last weekend and since I knew it would be our last of the summer, I choose to have my favorite marinated meat - teriyaki flank steak.   This was always Nick and Lauren's birthday dinner request (both have birthdays in July - right in the middle of barbecue season!)  When Lauren was around 6 years old, she requested teriyaki flank steak for her birthday but I was so busy getting ready for her big day and preparing all the festivities that I decided to buy a bottled teriyaki marinade to save me time and use that instead of this recipe.  When Lauren took her first bite of her dinner she yelled out "This isn't what I wanted for my birthday!!"    I felt so bad and after that I never tried another teriyaki marinade.  This is the tried and true one. Where did this recipe come from?  Well, that's another story. It's actually from the cookbook A Taste of Terrace Hill .  Where is Terrace Hill, you ask?  It is wh...

We are still eating the pears from our tree and they are as sweet as sugar.  We've picked a nice bucket full and have been enjoying having fresh pears to munch on. Tonight, I added some in our salad and it was delicious. The salad didn't need hardly any dressing because the pears made it so sweet. So, if you have some pears laying around, make this recipe for your next salad. Serves 2 5 cups of baby greens 2 cups arugula 1/4 cup dried currants 1/2 cup walnuts, chopped 2 pears, cored and grated 2 Tbsp. rice vinegar 2 tsp. olive oil 2 pears, cored and sliced 1. Combine the baby greens and arugula. 2. Add the currants and walnuts. 3.  Add the grated pears. 4.  Toss with the vinegar and olive oil.  Top with sliced pears and more walnuts.  

I finally found a kale recipe I like! I've been trying to like kale because of all it's health benefits but I've just never really liked it.  I like it when it's in  soup ,  it's O.K. prepared that way.   I like spinach and chard but just have never develped a taste for kale, but I think that may be changing now.  Kale has even more nutrition than spinach and is one of the healthiest vegetables on the planet!  It's the "queen of green"!  Why?  One cup will give you 15% of the daily requirement of calcium and vitamin B6 (pyridoxine), 40% of magnesium, 180% of vitamin A, 200% of vitamin C, and 1,020% of vitamin K (watch out if you are taking an anticoagulant such as warfarin) It's also a good source of minerals of copper, potassium, iron, manganese, and phosphorus.  It's high concentrations of antioxidants- carotenoids and flavonoids - and phytonutrients are all cancer fighting nutrients.  Kale is also rich in the eye-health promoting l...

Now that the weather has gotten cooler I have switched from my overnight oats  to a nice hot breakfast cereal. I adapted this recipe from the book  Eat to Live which promotes a vegan diet for weight loss, improve diabetes, heart disease, etc. A vegan diet is a diet of no animal products and is totally plant-based. You basically get your protein from nuts and beans and then meat substitutes like tofu and soy products. You can find lots of good recipes from vegan concoctions. That's how I came up with my green smoothie  - a very vegan drink. And now this breakfast cereal recipe is another vegan dish. It's been really hitting the spot for me in the morning.  I'm not vegan but I do like a lot of vegan recipes. And since this is October Unprocessed, it's a good time to try some! Try this breakfast cereal for starters, you'll like it. Make 2 servings 1-2/3 cups water 1/4 tsp. cinnamon 1/4 cup old fashioned rolled oats 2 Tbsp. dried currant...

It's that time of year again, are you ready?  Are you ready to eliminate all processed food from your diet?  Last year there was quite a discussion about what is "processed".  Basically, unprocessed food is whatever you can make in your own kitchen using a whole food.   You can check out all the  rules  and see if you can do this for a month.  Honestly, I've already broken the rules because I ate my  zucchini bread  today and sugar is not an unprocessed food.  Too bad and it's only October 1!  I'm not starting off very well!  How well will you do this month?

I don't know why but I felt like a fall meal tonight even though it was 8o degrees today. I had errands to do all day, including a stop at Costco. I always go with my LIST so I don't stray like so many people who shop at Costco. I still can't get over how much money people spend at Costco and not necessarily people with big families. Their whole marketing strategy is really genius, but that's a completely different topic… Anyway, our Costco carries some organic produce and meats so I always check them out and realized I haven't had one of their whole, organic chickens in awhile. I bought a package that contains two whole chicken and we had one for our dinner tonight. So, I sweated in the kitchen as the oven was a cookin' my organic roasted chicken. Apparently, I wasn't the only one feeling like roasted chicken tonight because when I checked my e-mails, the Daily Food Buzz  was featuring the top 9 Roasted Chicken recipes. Somebody wants roasted chicken! ...