Weekly Low Carb Wrap Up!

     I thought I would start doing a weekly low carb wrap up on Sundays to showcase some of the delicious things I've been able to eat during the week on a low-carb diet. I have two reasons for doing this:

     1. I want to push myself to try new things, foods and recipes. If every single week I am just posting the same old tired pictures of fried eggs and taco salad then feel free to call me out on it and tell me to get more creative!

     2. I just like to show off and I love blogs with pictures. I could tell you I ate a taco salad, but wouldn't you love to see just what it looked like? No? Yes? Well doesn't matter because I'm posting pictures anyway!

     And since I'm linking up to Mosaic Monday I've created a sweet little mosaic of a few of the more unique (at least to me) low carb foods I've tried this week.

     I eat a lot of turkey taco salads, but this week I switched it up and tried a tuna salad (pictured bottom right). 

     I love Romaine lettuce and I slice up about three of them each week, I wash it and put it in a lettuce spinner then put it into a plastic container like the one shown below. Then I seal them all well and place them in the crisper section of my fridge and they hold up pretty well. This one I ate on a Friday and see, the lettuce still looks fresh and green. There's also a few radishes and celery chopped finely in there.

     It's a super simple tuna salad, one you all probably make quite often. Just tuna, mayo, Lawry's Seasoning Salt and pepper, oh and my favorite, sweet pickle relish. I know that sweet pickle relish adds about 2 carbs but I just love it and it wouldn't be tuna salad to me without it. I topped it with some slivered almonds for some crunch and slices of avocado for decadence and creaminess. I didn't even need dressing!

     I had a few of my cheesy crackers (pictured bottom center) left that I made on Tuesday and I chomped on those at the same time. It made for a delicious lunch!

     Then the other night my mom said my daughter April had bought some asparagus and asked her to cook it. Mom said she had boiled it in the past and should she make it like that again. I told her I would look up a recipe on youtube (mom loves to watch recipes on youtube). I found this great one from ChefEvelyn TV. She simply places the asparagus on a foil lined cookie sheet, sprinkles extra virgin olive oil, kosher salt and pepper and tosses the whole thing with her hands, places in a 400 degree oven for 10 minutes and Voila! Roasted cauliflower that was to die for!

     Mom had planned to make fried ham sandwiches and chips for dinner, so I asked her to just fry two pieces of ham for me and I had a boiled egg that I cut in half and added a spoonful of mayo, salt, pepper and paprika to and added some of the roasted asparagus and I had a delicious, easy meal without a lot of drama! It just takes imagination! The asparagus was nutty and delicious!

     A new recipe I tried this week was an Orange Creamsicle Mousse. Remember eating Orange Creamsicles? I used to love them!

     But they have 20 grams of carbs and 12 grams of sugar, so it's not something that I can fit into my carb count...unless I were to just eat one bar the whole day and nothing else, but who am I kidding, if there is a box of these puppies in the house I'm eating them all!!!

     So I got lucky and found a great recipe at genaw.com. Linda has a ton of great recipes on her website and I plan to try a lot of them in the coming year. She had this one listed under desserts/Butter Mint Mousse. While the Butter Mint Mousse seemed intriguing I only had lemon, vanilla and orange extract in the house and so I tried the orange. It looks pretty light in this picture but it's actually a pretty orange color. 

Orange Creamsicle Mousse
1 cup heavy whipping cream
1/4 granular Splenda or equivalent liquid Splenda
1 tsp orange extract
3 drops yellow food color
2 drops red food color (I used 3 and it still seemed a little light to me.
1 tbsp sugar free instant vanilla pudding mix

You simply pour the cream into a mixing bowl, add the rest of the ingredients and using your mixer beat it on low speed until blended then beat on high until thick and fluffy. This is 4 servings with 5 net carbs if you use the granular Splenda and 3 net carbs is you use the liquid Splenda. It's a creamy, delicious treat!

     And last, but not least I tried something that I've been thinking of trying since forever! I riced a cauliflower and made Asian Pork Fried Rice......oh my gosh was it ever yummy!

     First..ricing a cauliflower? Yeah, I had no idea how to do that but I found this great video on youtube. There are other ways of doing it, like with a food processor, but since I don't have one and I do have a blender, this was the next best thing. It's a short video so please watch it. It was made by Robin Sue at Big Red Kitchen.

     Pretty cool huh? I love that there are so many low-carb, gluten-free, paleo, vegetarian blogs out there with cooks that love to experiment and share these wonderful tips, videos, ideas and recipes. I am so grateful for them!

     So I riced my Cauliflower and then followed the basic simple instructions on another video by another awesome low-carb chef, Kent Altena at Atkins Diet Geek Blog. He's made hundreds of videos and I've not had the chance yet to watch more than 10 or so and can't wait to see all of them. He also has an inspiring weight loss story to tell! Here's his video on making "Faux Fried Rice" using riced cauliflower. 

     I did basically the same thing, except I had no bacon, so I fried about a cup of my riced cauliflower for about 4 minutes with some olive oil and butter and salt and pepper, then added diced ham and some left over chicken kabob from dinner with my dad and sister the other night.

     Then after another two or three minutes of frying that up, I moved it all to the side and added one scrambled egg, fried the egg a bit then incorporated the rice, ham, chicken mixture in, added a shot of soy sauce and a small shot of sesame see oil and about a tablespoon of Sriracha Sauce (I love this sauce, it is my favorite seasoning of all time!). Stirred it a little longer and ended up with this little beauty.

    

     Every week I post a zillion low-carb recipes on Pinterest, and I definitely think it's time to start trying some of them, otherwise this will be true of me!

    
     Have a great week everyone and please feel free to head over to Mosaic Monday at Little Red House to see what everyone else is sharing. 

Sciatica Update and a Recipe and a Mosaic!

Photo Credit - Carmen Beecher

When last we got together I was one big throbbing ball of pain due to Sciatica! That was Wednesday and today is Saturday. Thursday and Friday actually got worse, the pain radiating and moving at times to my knees, then to the shin area of my leg, then to the top of my foot. I had a very difficult time sleeping and had to take a Vicodin...and I hate taking any kind of medicine, especially those that alter your mood and character!

Thursday night I went on an Internet hunt to try to find something, some exercise or food or medicine...that would give me some relief! I found this website, treatsciaticanow.com and reviewed it, searched online for reviews from others that have tried it. I contemplated it because you have to purchase an online e-book for $37.00! Anyone that knows me knows that I don't pay more than 80cents for a book because I buy them all at the Goodwill Store! But I was desperate and my pain-filled brain said, "Do IT!" So I ordered it and quickly reviewed it and went to bed, exhausted from the pain.
Sciatica Treatment

Friday I told my sister about it and sent her an email with the part of the book that tells you what you need to do in order to start relieving the pain in as little as 7 days if not sooner. She said she would come over that evening and help me as it requires some massaging in an area I can't reach. Friday evening I told her it would be better to wait until Saturday morning as I didn't know if having her massage me on Friday night might make the pain worse and I would be unable to sleep.

This morning she came over and we opened up the ebook and looked at the drawings and read the directions and she went to work. The book says you need to do the process for 8 minutes, it was tiring work and hard and painful on me so we did it for a little bit less. (It was also tiring for my sister, just try massaging someone for 8 minutes...8 minutes is a long time!) When I got up I told her I felt better, but it was really hard to gauge it as the massage itself causes pain.

She left and I sat for a while with the heating pad on my leg, which I had been doing all week and then I started watching low-carb videos on YouTube and that made me hungry. I debated just eating some cereal because it's very difficult for me to stand and walk with Sciatica, the pain is excruciating (and I have a high tolerance for pain). 

As I went into the kitchen to get the cereal, I noticed that the pain was not quite as bad. I walked around for a bit and thought, "hmmm, maybe I should try making those breakfast muffins I just watched a video on."

Amazingly I was able to stand and walk long enough to put these together.

I kid you not! After just one treatment! I did have to sit down while I chopped the veggies and the ham and usually I stand at the counter to do it, but I did it! I am amazed and SO happy because as I mentioned in the previous post I am supposed to go to Arizona in February for a huge family reunion and I was really looking forward to it but knew that with the Sciatica this bad I would not be able to attend!

My sister will be coming back tonight to do another massaging treatment and hopefully within 7 days I should be cured from Sciatica forever! (At least that is what they say on the website) Sciatica Treatment

So, I am going to continue to take it easy today and do the normal Sciatica stretches and continue to use the heating pad, but I can't wait for my sister to come back tonight to do another treatment! Maybe tomorrow, if I feel well enough I can take my mom to some Goodwill Stores and hit the supermarket to do some grocery shopping as our cupboards are bare.

For those of you that don't have Sciatica, or don't know anyone who has Sciatica and just want the recipe for those yummy breakfast muffins pictured on the mosaic above, here we go...

I got the idea from Pinterest and watched this video



As I mentioned...my cupboards are bare and so is my refrigerator. I didn't have any sausage or bacon, but what I did have was ham and veggies and the eggs of course. So I diced up my red bell peppers and diced up the ham. I sprayed the muffin pan with non stick spray and then filled them with the ham and some with ham and veggies. Because I love me some spiciness...I also chopped up some pickled jalapenos and even added some of my mom's Chile Macho (diced up roasted Ortega peppers with tomato and seasonings).

Then I mixed up 6 eggs, I figured one per muffin, but as you will see in the photos to follow, maybe 5 eggs would have been enough. I poured the egg into each muffin cup. 

That looked great already but then I remembered the cheddar cheese! BAM! as Chef Emeril Lagasse would say! That kicked it up a notch right?

Now it was time to put them into a pre-heated, 350 degree oven and bake for 15 to 20 minutes. DO NOT do what I did and overfill the cups...you can see what happened! See they rise up almost like a souffle but then start shrinking back almost as soon as you take them out of the oven.

Aren't they gorgeous???? Even with the horrible quality of my cell phone camera you can still see how lovely and puffy they are!

In the video you can see that she takes them out of the pan immediately  but mine seemed to be stuck, so I waited a little while but still had to use a butter knife to pry them out. They didn't break apart or anything but they did leave me a messy pan I have to clean up...later.

But regardless of them spilling over and sticking to the pan, they were so pretty! And the best part is you can freeze them or just put them in a plastic container in the fridge and grab one and nuke it and go in the morning, or take them to work with you for a delicious filling snack!

I let my mom be the guinea pig and she tried one and proclaimed it to be very good (she ate the whole thing so she was either starving or it really was good.) Now it's my turn, here's my breakfast muffin!

Mmmm, it is very good! It's got a great texture, you can pick it up with your hands and eat it like a cupcake, or you can be refined like me and use a fork! Either way it was yummy. I was going to eat a slice of avocado with it, but it was so good alone I didn't even think about the avocado. 

I found this great tool online where you can type in your ingredients and it will give you nutrition info, including how many carbs per serving. You can find this at Calorie Count. As you can see from the info below, these muffins have 1.5 grams of carbs and only 0.9 grams of sugars. You could probably add flax seed to add some fiber to it. But that's awesome! This site is great because it gives you grades for each ingredient and then gives you pros and cons of the recipe  As you can see it is high in cholesterol and sodium, so you might want to use Egg Beaters which would help.

So anyway...I hope my healing progresses and I'll keep you all updated. For now I'm going to go take a little walk and maybe clean that muffin pan and then I'm going to watch a movie and perhaps nap a little. I am recuperating you know.

Hey! Thanks to all of you that have emailed me suggestions and ideas on how to help my Sciatica pain or just emailed me to send me get well wishes...it is so appreciated!



Joining the gang at Little Red House for Mosaic Monday. It's been a long time since I've played along with them and it feels good to be getting back into the swing of blogging!




 

Halloween for the Dogs

It was a busy weekend! Yesterday I spent the day with my mom. She loves to go thrift store shopping but yesterday was definitely a bad day to go as EVERYONE was there trying to find last minute Halloween costumes. So we just had a nice lunch and picked up some groceries and came home.

Then today I went back into Bakersfield with my sister and we hit the Goodwill Bookstore and I found five interesting books! We had our favorite salad at Cocos Restaurant, the Asian Chicken Salad. It was so good! Then we did some grocery shopping again...well she did, I had gone the day before so I just went along to keep her company.

When I got back home my daughter reminded me that I had told her I would go with her to the Self Serve Pet Spa Halloween Event. So there I went...back to Bakersfield. But we had a good time. I hope you all remember her little Shih Poo puppy, Chorizo. She was a banana for Halloween.

She loves being around other dogs, and there were so many! It was a nice event and I hope they raised a lot of money and that some of the dogs that were up for adoption found good homes!

We then went to Banducci's Family Pumpkin Patch. In the mosaic above, the photo of Chorizo in the wagon was taken there. She loved being there because there were so many smells. They had pumpkins, other dogs, sheep, pigs, chickens and pony's. Her nose was working overtime. Plus I don't know if she had ever been around hay before but she loved the smell and the taste of it.

 

 

Here I am with Chorizo. I love the photo in the top right corner where I'm trying to take some hay out of her mouth and she's not at all happy with me!

 

 

She was one tired little puppy on the drive home and I was pretty tired too. So April and I took Chorizo home and then we went to our local Mexican food place and had dinner. It was a busy but fun weekend. Hope you all had a good weekend as well!

 

 

Linking up to Little Red House for Mosaic Monday. 

Mother's Day Mosaic

I've been meaning to get a mosaic put together of the pictures I took on Mother's Day this year and I finally had a chance today. Good thing too cause it's Mosaic Monday over at the Little Red House.

In this first mosaic I present our littlest Princess, little Melissa, the youngest grandchild in our family. I can't believe she's going to start school in the fall!! It seems like just yesterday that she was born. They grow up so fast.

This little lady loves, loves, loves the camera and the camera loves her as well. But she definitely has inherited her photogenic qualities from her Nana, my mom in the bottom right photo. What a beautiful moment captured on film! Melissa loves to come to my house and spend time with her Nana and they go out into the backyard and gather roses. My mom has worked wonders with my roses as you can tell by the bouquet Melissa is holding. Melissa loves roses!

In this next one Melissa's brother joins the photo. This is little Fred, or Fred Jr or as we call him Piquito. Their dad, my brother and my mom's eldest son is pictured with our mom in the bottom right of this mosaic. We had a great Mother's Day and I know my mom felt very blessed to be surrounded by her family.

And my giveaway is only a couple of days away, so please head over there and enter. Follow this link or click on the image of Abby Rike's book in the sidebar over there on the right. Have a great week!

Mosaic Monday, A Book Review and a Giveaway!

In January I was approached by Sarah Reck, a Web Publicist with Faith Words at Hachette Book Group. She came across my post of a list of books read in 2009 in which I had read two books by one of their authors, Michael Phillips. She asked if I would be interested in receiving a free copy of his latest book, Angel Harp to review on my blog. Would I mind? Not only would I not mind, I was honored! So I immediately sent her an email saying, "Heck yeah!" Actually I was a little more professional but eventually I received this in the mail.

I've finished the book and want to share my thoughts with you.

I loved this book. The main character in the book is Angel Dawn Marie Buchan, a 34 year old widow who could be you or me. Like many of us she had dreams of meeting a wonderful man and being loved and loving him in return, of growing old with this man and watching their children and grandchildren grow. Unfortunately her husband dies before they had time to have children.

Now Marie is on her own just getting through life, working half-days as a teacher's aide, taking harp lessons once a week,  and teaching the harp. She realizes that she's alone and lonely and she brings another dream to life. A dream she and her husband had of someday visiting Scotland. Her husband would write the great American novel (even though they were both Canadian) and she would play the harp and write songs. She realizes this is one dream she can still fulfill and finds herself settling in a Port Scarnose, Scotland.

This mosaic portrays what I saw in my mind of the different people and places written about in the book.

Marie finds more in Port Scarnose than she could ever have imagined. She finds that perfect place she's always imagined to play her harp. She finds a lovely little child that grows to love her. She finds two love interests, the dashing curate of the local church, Iain Barclay and quiet, reserved and troubled Duke Alasdair Reidhaven. She makes many friends in the small community and also ends up finding her faith again.

The book is a wonderful story about not giving up on life. There are so many other adventures, friends and loves if we just have the courage to seek them. I so enjoyed this book that I feel it should become a part of the Sisterhood of the Traveling Book and I would love to give it away to one of you. Please leave me a comment letting me know that you would like to be entered to win this book and another letting me know if you are a follower. If you would like to follow me, please do so and leave another comment letting me know you're a new follower...and welcome! I'll  choose a winner on Friday evening, so stay tuned! Oh and leave me your email if it's not readily available on your blog. Thanks!

Sarah, thanks so much for choosing my humble blog to review your book. It was an honor and a pleasure!

Also please be sure to visit Mary at Little Red House for Mosaic Monday and have a wonderful week!

Only God can make a Tree

We wait a long, long time for the changing of the leaves on our trees here in Kern County. But it's well worth the wait. Here's a mosaic of the tree in my backyard. I took these photos just a couple of weeks ago. Click on the photo to enlarge.

I think that I shall never see

A poem lovely as a tree.

A tree whose hungry mouth is prest

Against the earth's sweet flowing breast;

A tree that looks at God all day

And lifts her leafy arms to pray;

A tree that may in Summer wear

A nest of robins in her hair;

Upon whose bosom snow has lain;

Who intimately lives with rain.

Poems are made by fools like me,

But only God can make a tree.

~Joyce Kilmer, "Trees", 1914

Linking up to Mosaic Monday hosted by Mary at Little Red House.

Mosaic Monday - Puppy Love

It was one year ago at Thanksgiving that I fell in love with a little bundle of fur named Chorizo. I first blogged about Chorizo in a Mosaic Monday post so I figured how better to celebrate the One Year Anniversary of having this beautiful puppy be a part of our lives than to do a post of all the Mosaic's I've done through the year with Chorizo as the main character and Star!

First the original mosaics; the first pictures I ever took of that sweet little puppy that stole my heart and turned me into an animal lover. Chorizo belongs to my daughter April and she surprised me by bringing her to Thanksgiving Day Dinner. That night she left Chorizo with me since she was going to Black Friday and the puppy and I bonded.

After those first pictures followed Christmas with Chorizo and her first Christmas Tree. She's always been such a good puppy; she never even tried to play with the Ornaments and various displays in my home.

Chorizo is such a well-behaved, sweet natured little puppy that loved to travel with us, so we took her to the beach and seal as well as whale watching.

Chorizo was also fun to dress up, check out her itsy-bitsy, teeny-weenie little bikini! Through out the year she also had a Santa Claus suit and for Halloween she was a Sundae...a Chorizo Sundae.

She made it so much fun for me to create Mosaics!! She doesn't love the camera, which makes it hard to get good photos of her, but the camera definitely loves her!

She's the most photogenic member of our family! That's why she had her own puppy photo shoot!

I really look forward to another year of sharing my life with this little piece of Heaven on Earth and to doing many more mosaics.

Thanks for stopping by and be sure to go visit Mary at Little Red House...the host of Mosaic Monday!

Better Late than Never - Sweet and Salty! Yum!

I am so behind in EVERY THING this holiday season. I'm barely getting around to roasting the pumpkin seeds that we saved the day we carved our Halloween Pumpkins. But I did want to share them because I'd never roasted them before and the are so delicious!

(By the way, I carved the normal looking one on the left. My daughter April carved the pumpkinavore that's eating the baby pumpkin)

I made one batch using a recipe that my daughter found at the Crepes of Wrath site. The recipe calls for EVOO (Extra Virgin Olive Oil), brown sugar, cinnamon and kosher sale. They came out great but I still had a lot of pumpkin seeds left so I took the rest and just did all the same ingredients without the cinnamon. Those are the ones pictured in the mosaic. I love sweet and salty together. These were delicious!

I tried to get pics of the ones with cinnamon but the battery in my camera decided not to cooperate!

They were a bit of work because once you carve your pumpkins you have to rescue the wet, slippery seeds. And then you have to dry them. Mine dried for about a week on a cookie sheet and I kept turning them over and over so they dried evenly, then I placed them in a plastic bag and put them in the veggie crisper of my refrigerator.

It was fun to make them and I'm going to try again next year with different flavors. Sydney from Crepes of Wrath places them in little cellophane bags and gives them as gifts. I think that would be a great idea.

Here's the recipe I used:

Sweet n' Salty Pumpkin Seeds

1/2 cup pumpkin seeds (about the amount I got from 2 sugar pumpkins, adjust as needed)
1 teaspoon olive oil (plus another teaspoon or so, if needed)
1 tablespoon brown sugar
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon kosher salt or fleur de sel (I just like the flakiness of fleur de sel)

1. You can buy pumpkin seeds at the store, or you can use the ones you get from your Halloween pumpkins! If you're using fresh ones from pumpkins, rinse them thoroughly in a colander and remove as much of the pumpkin flesh that you can (if you can't get every little piece, it's not a big deal - it's edible). Line a baking sheet with foil or parchment paper, and spread the seeds out on it. Let it sit out for at least 5-6 hours or, preferably, overnight. They should be bone dry, or nearly bone dry, when you bake them.

2. When the seeds are dry, mix them together with the olive oil (just enough to coat, I used about a teaspoon), 1 tablespoon brown sugar, 1 teaspoon cinnamon, and 1/4 teaspoon kosher salt or fleur de sel (I highly recommend fleur de sel for its flakiness - you can obviously use more salt, if you like). Bake at 300 degrees F for 8 minutes or so, until the brown sugar is just beginning to set into the seeds. They won't change color that much (see above), so don't worry if they seem the same as when you put them in the oven. You can always pop them back in the oven if you need to, but once they're burned, there's nothing you can do! Just be mindful of how long they are in there.

3. Allow to cool completely (this should only take a few minutes) and enjoy! I wrapped mine up in cute cellophane baggies and tied them for a pretty holiday present! 

Linking up to Mosaic Monday with Mary at Little Red House.

 

Mosaic Monday - Giveaway Treasures

Back at the end of September I entered a giveaway hosted by Paula at Sweet Pea.

Paula has a great blog on which she shares decorating ideas, recipes and her life in general. She enjoys cooking and experimenting with new recipes. She loves to garden, read, and sew. Her very favorite thing to do is to sweat, either running, biking, playing tennis, or hitting the weight room. In fact...just this weekend she ran in a 13 mile marathon! Wow! Please head over and tell her hi and enjoy her blog.

So in September she held a giveaway to say thanks to her many readers. She was giving away some cute towels, napkins and a spreader she picked up at a local shop. I entered and I won! So today I want to share photos and I put together some mosaics for you. These things are so darn cute!

Aren't they perfect for both the Halloween and Thanksgiving Season? She included a very sweet note as well. I bet she made the card too! That little wooden spreader that's shown in the top photo, isn't that pretty?

There's a red towel that my niece Clarissa said would look pretty on my kitchen table. So we put that one down and took some pictures of a necklace and earrings I won from another giveaway. You can see those pictures here. I've since changed it out and put the one that's all pumpkins on the table. The green one has a pumpkin border and I've hung that one on my kitchen stove. They make everything so much more cheerful!

I especially love the paper napkins with all the owls. Perfect colors for fall! Thank you so much Paula and congratulations of finishing that marathon!

I'm linking up to Mary from Little Red House for Mosaic Monday. Please head over there and see what else everyone is sharing today.

Also!!! Remember that today is the last day to enter my First Ever Giveaway for a $65 Gift Certificate to CSN stores. A great jump start for your Holiday Shopping. Just click HERE for details on how to enter and Good Luck! Have a great week everyone!