They cook up fast in the microwave (one minute on each side) and keep me from getting "hangry". I usually pair one omelette with half an avocado, topped with Trader Joe's Everything Bagel seasoning and a little Tabasco Sauce (my new favorite--cayenne garlic flavored!). This particular morning, I added some quartered cherry tomatoes on the side, which made for a great, healthy, balanced breakfast.
Of all the emotions we feel as human beings, I believe that Grief is the most personal. Each of deals with grief in our own way, because the impact that is felt after losing a loved one is rooted in the unique relationship you had with that person. There is no "right" or "wrong" way to work through grief, but it's important that as you cope with loss, you do not allow the sadness to overwhelm and consume you. Ultimately, you need keep moving forward with your own life, moving towards a positive state of mind where you can still cherish the memories that you have of that person, and eventually experience joy again.
It's not easy, but it is necessary and healthy to go through a healing process, and get to that positive place.
Some days are harder than others, but usually two in particular: the date the person died, and date that was their birthday. While it's inevitable that you'll be thinking of your loved one each year on the day they passed away, I've always felt it's preferable to focus on the day they were born. The memories associated with that day tend to be happier and easier to cope with, because they are typically filled with reminiscences of celebrations, family gatherings, and hope-filled wishes made when blowing out the candles on a birthday cake.
I think that's why I see so many people on social media post about their deceased loved ones, celebrating their milestones as if they were still accumulating them: "Today is my Grandmother's 101st Birthday!" or "Happy 87th Birthday to my aunt in Heaven!" (Inevitably, someone comments, "Wow, Happy Birthday to your Grandmother!" until the original poster clues them in: "She died 30 years ago, but thank you"...and awkward silence ensues.)
So, while I do understand why people do this, it still makes me cringe every time I see it happen.
I mention this, because today is my father's birthday, and if he were still alive, it would have been a big "milestone" celebration. Unfortunately, my Dad's been gone for almost 16 years now, and as such, he will be forever frozen in time at the age of 74.
Although I still mourn my father's loss deeply, I can't bring myself to herald the milestones of "what would have been" because it only reinforces what will never be.
So today, I will celebrate the date of his birth, but not the milestone. Instead, I do my best to honor his life every day of the year, and draw comfort from the cherished memories accrued during the 39 years of my life that I was so very lucky to have him in it.
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| Doily with crocheted "lace" and flowers |
...he has some great pastries named after him, too!
Fortunately, you do not need to be a believer in order to celebrate this day with the very best pastry there is: Zeppole di San Giuseppe.
I've never made this particular dessert, but it's on my list of ones to try someday.
Here are links to a couple of recipes I've got my eye on, bookmarked for later:
Zeppole di San Giuseppe from Christina's Cucina
Baked Zeppole from Mangia Bedda
And, if you live in the NY Metro Area, you can get the best authentic Italian St. Joseph's Pastries delivered from Veniero's Bakery, located in the heart of Little Italy. (If you live in the U.S. but outside of the NY Metro area, they do have many other things you can order, like their famous NY Cheesecake, Cannolis, and Rainbow Cookies.)
In addition to his must-have pastries, St. Joseph is also pretty popular with modern-day homeowners--but not because people like to put him on display inside their homes. In recent years, it's become a superstition that if you bury a small statue of St. Joseph in your yard when you're trying to sell your house, he will help it sell faster, thanks to his diligent carpenter's work ethic. (If you're trying to sell a condo or other residence where you don't have a yard, you can bury him in the soil of a houseplant instead.)
Celebrated St. Paddy’s Day with the traditional fare: corned beef, cabbage, potatoes, carrots, and plenty of Irish Soda Bread.
The Irish Soda Bread was a new recipe I found through TikTok. It was sweeter than other recipes, and used an entire box of raisins (!) but it was dang tasty!
Here’s the link from Soufflé Bombay if you’d like to give it a try: https://soufflebombay.com/wprm_print/recipe/8968
A couple of years ago, a friend of a friend was looking to make some extra money, so I hired him to do a few odd jobs around the house. One of the projects he worked on was going through my kitchen cabinets and throwing out all of the expired stuff. I don't recall what the most expired item was at the time, but I do remember being mortified at just how ancient some things were.
At some point, he got busy with a different project, and there were a couple of cabinets he didn't get to finish, including the one where I store coffee and tea.
This particular cabinet is one of the upper corner cabinets, so most of the shelves are way above my head, and out of my reach without the assistance of a step ladder. It's also a deep cabinet, which means things that get pushed to the back have a tendency to ... languish.
Here, I present to you the three most expired items I found in this cabinet:
Are you ready for their expiration dates? Prepare to be horrified.
The sealed, never-opened box of Wedgewood Tea has a Best Before date of April 30, 2008--nearly 14 years ago. I think we bought it as a souvenir when we did a British Isles cruise in the Summer of 2007.
The Maxwell House instant coffee says Best When Used By October 19, 2007. At that time, George W. Bush was still the President of the United States, the #1 song in the U.S. was "Crank That" by Soulja Boy, and a new gadget known as an "iPhone" had just hit the market 4 months prior.
But the winner of Oldest Pantry Item goes to the lovely can of Illy espresso coffee, which expired back in April, 2006. My youngest child, who recently graduated college and moved into her own apartment, was still in Kindergarten when this coffee went past its freshness date. Steve Irwin, aka The Crocodile Hunter, was still alive. On the music scene, Shakira's hips didn't lie, Kanye rapped about gold diggers, and Daniel Powter became famous for having a bad day.
Consider this a friendly reminder: clean out your cabinets, people. And when you do, let me know the oldest thing you find.
Today was one of those days when the weather was particularly nasty (freezing rain, followed by sleet, followed by snow) but we didn’t have much in the house in the way of food, so I had to get creative and start rummaging through the freezer.
I did have a few fresh vegetables--some carrots, a little celery, and a bunch of sliced mushrooms leftover from earlier in the week--and I always have frozen chopped onions and frozen peas on hand, so stew looked like a solid option. The only problem: all I could find in the way of protein was a bag of frozen cocktail meatballs from Trader Joe’s. Would those be a good substitute for the usual stew beef?
Yes. 1000 times yes.
I threw everything into a crockpot with a container of beef broth and an envelope of instant brown gravy mix. When it comes to making gravy, I always make my own from scratch, because it's so easy and tastes so much better than the powdered version or from a jar . However, I've learned that a packet of instant gravy mix is a great way to add depth and richness to stews with very little effort, so I usually keep some in the pantry. Another great ingredient to add an extra layer of flavor: dry mustard, which I also added to the stew. Whenver I feel like a dish needs just a little "sumthin sumthin", a teaspoon of dry mustard adds that savory, umami note that was missing.
I set the crockpot to high for a couple of hours, just to get everything up to temperature, since there was a mix of frozen and fresh ingredients, and then I bumped it down to low for a couple more hours. I like my stew on the thicker side, so I melted 1/4 cup of butter and 1/4 cup of flour in a sauce pan, whisked it up and added that to the stew a few minutes before we were ready to eat, which made it the perfect consistency for serving over noodles. I also made some sourdough biscuits for dipping, using discard from my starter. It ended up being a hearty, delicious meal, thrown together with ingredients we already had on hand. And just like that, I feel like I could win an episode of Chopped.
Me, every time I remember to water a neglected houseplant and it manages to spring back one more time:
On the back of the box was a recipe for Banana Caramel Cake, and I couldn't resist going for it, especially since I already had all of the necessary ingredients in the house. Now, before you start in with "but bananas are high in sugar/carbs", bananas get a bad rap, thanks to Dr. Atkins and his low-carb fad diet. Bananas are a good source of fiber, vitamins, antioxidants, and they're considered a "resistant starch" so they don't have as big an impact on blood sugar levels. (Still think bananas are bad for you? Take a minute to read this article from Healthline.)
Although I did have store-bought sugar-free caramel in the house, I opted to make my own from this amazing sugar-free caramel sauce recipe by Carolyn Ketchum at All Day I Dream About Food. If you're looking for some fantastic, sugar-free baking recipes, look no further--her recipes are THE BEST when it comes to taste and texture. She posts most of them on her website, but her book (linked below) is definitely worth buying.
The finished cake was delcious, even before the caramel drizzle, and my husband also gave it a big thumbs up. You can easily use this recipe with regular cake mix, too, if sugar-free isn't your thing.
Amazon Affiliate link to The Ultimate Guide to Keto Baking
So, less than 24 hours after deciding it is finally time to start downsizing the mountain of craft supplies I have hoarded amassed over the past 30 years, I...went to the fabric store and came home with MORE stuff.
What can I say? Addiction isn't pretty.
In my defense, I went to the fabric store with a very specific mission in mind, and I purchased items that will be use specifically for the project at the top of my list: updating the window treatments and color scheme in my youngest daughters now-vacant bedroom.
When she was about 10 years old, I made a window seat cushion, matching pillows, and a couple of valances for her room, and I let her pick all of the fabrics. She ended up choosing lime green for the window seat, fire engine red for the curtains, and a whimsical floral pattern with cats on it for the pillows--and lord help me, I went with it.
Now that she's all grown up and moved out into her own apartment, we painted her bedroom walls a neutral, light gray color, covering over the sunny lemon yellow walls that were chosen for her nursery 22 years ago.
That's the plan, anyway. First, I need to dust off the old Singer sewing machine and see if I still remember how to thread a bobbin and sew in a straight line.
This is one lesson it took me wayyyy too long to learn, but it's a mantra I repeat to myself often.
According to my daily calendar, today is Banana Cream Pie Day. For those looking to celebrate, here are some recipes to suit a variety of dietary requirements:
TRADITIONAL All Recipes has a recipe for those looking to make a classic Banana Cream Pie that's completely homemade from scratch. For a quick-and-simple version, grab some banana pudding mix and try this one from Taste of Home.
KETO Leave to the Low Carb Maven to figure out a low-sugar, low carb version.
CHOCOLATE Food Network star & talk show host Rachel Ray kicks things up a notch with a Chocolate Banana Cream Pie that comes together in just 22 minutes.
GLUTEN-FREE & DAIRY FREE What is this Vegan Banana Cream Pie witchcraft from Minimalist Baker? This one takes several hours to set, but if you're in need of a dairy-free, gluten-free option, it'll be worth the wait.
I've gone the route of "giving things up" for Lent, like chocolate or potato chips, but as I've gotten older, I've found it far more productive to focus on adding in a good behavior or two (or more!), rather than releasing a bad one. This year, I happen to have a list of several things I'd like to get back into, and blogging is one of them. This is the only writing that I do strictly for myself, and even though my career-based workload is busier than ever, I'm going to do my best to carve out time each day to slap up a few thoughts here on the blog.
This Lenten season also just happens to coincide with the New Moon in Pisces (tomorrow, March 2nd), a time that is perfect for setting goals and manifesting things that you desire. I'll be curious to see just how many of the things on my list I'm able to achieve over the next 40 days.
[A note about the photos: These are a couple of Carnevale di Venezia masks I purchased on my first and only trip to Venice, Italy, in 2006. They are both hand painted and Made in Italy. I love getting souvenirs that are original to the area I'm visiting, and even though I've never had occasion to wear these, I'm still happy I bought them.]
