Please Pray for me

My blood pressure has been on a roller coaster since my ex passed on. I am doing my best to try to get it down thru exercise and food. My Aunt recommended some vitamins and it seemed to be helping at first. She said Wonmen's One a day, fish oil, vitamin e, a calcium supplement. I ran out of the womens one a day and then bought the new Centrum cholesterol with the phytosterols. This last week I have had trouble feeling lightheaded. I am scared. Hubby read up on phytosterols and how they may not be good at all. I quit taking them two days ago. In 4 days I have lost 3.5 pounds. I know you have to burn 3500 cals to lose 1 pound of fat. SO it had to of been water retention.

Okay good, got rid of that. Now I just need to get this blood pressure down and get rid of this lightheadedness. I had thought about going back to the Womens One a DAy that I had been using for a few weeks and seemed fine with but I noticed that one has phytosterols too. Just not as much. 100 instead of 400. Oh and by the way, that new centrum has 3333% of your daily Vitamin b-12!!!! WHy on earth would we need that much???

I am taking my hubby's centrum right now, the old formula.

I would rather not have to have any vitamins what so ever. I do not want to go on meds though. And I was really hoping this would help. I don't even want to go to the doctor. I have come along way these last few years on my weight loss journey, healthy eating, lots of exercise, and don't understand why now that I am at a much MUCH lower weight I am having difficulty. STRESS?

I really don't know what to do. Go to the doctor? Have him try to slam a bunch of pills down my throat? That may or may not help. That may or may not hurt me? Keep doing what I am doing and pray everything is okay soon?

I am tempted to go to the doc next week if I am not better by then. Please pray for me. :(

Newest Pizza Adventure

Okay so this other site is where I got the new dough recipe from that I made on Monday for Tuesday. It was supposed to sit for 24 hours.

White Whole Wheat Pizza Dough Recipe


Okay so it was really great! Even better than the last. Isn't that what I always say? each recipe is better than the last. lol His recipe calls for 3 cups of flour for one big dough ball. I wasn't sure how much it would make because we like to make 3 and freeze 3. So I made 4 big dough balls. I took two out and figured I would split them in half.


Here is one dough ball:


Now we have the pizza machine, but it can only cook one pizza at a time. So I took one dough ball and cut that in half. Made that pizza(Kass helped with toppings).


I dusted the dough with a little flour and lots of corn meal on the stone.



Here is how that turned out. Yeah I know dd#1 was dropping toppings all over the table.




Then I split the next half in half again cause I just bought 4 new round cake pans. I took two out, melted butter and brushed 2 round pans. That half dough was enough for two of the round pans.




I also have a huge rectangular shaped cookie sheet. I melted butter and brushed that pan as well. I took the last dough and we put that on this pan. I am thinking maybe there would of been enough dough from this for one more cake pan. Cause that pizza came out thicker than the deep dish rounds even! The first dough was enough for one big round and two cake pans.



Look at that crust on the deep dish round!




The brown meat is turkey sausage




This is the side view.


The two round deep dish ones were really good. I am going to use this recipe again next time. The brushed butter was just enough for a crispy crust but not greasy. I liked that crust better than all the other past crust. Isn't this what I always say? lol I didn't try the pizza on the pizza maker and the rectangle one looked good too but I already had 3 small slices of the deep dish and was full. That is one thing about the whole wheat. It fills you up faster than white flour.


This is a pic of the pizza from the huge cookie sheet.


Basically we wound up with ALOT of pizza! Like twice as much as we needed and there is still 2 dough balls in the fridge. haha Maybe one dough is enough for one night.

Have you ever made deep dish pizza? What is your favorite kind of crust?

Dirty Dozen/Cleanest 12

A picture of some veggies after I cleaned them. This is a good list to stick to. Are yellow and red bell peppers considered sweet?
Dirty Dozen/Cleanest 12 The Best and Worst in pesticides on produce. If you missed my post on make your own veggie wash at home here is a link to it:

Veggie/fruit wash

Worst

Peaches
Apples
Sweet Bell Peppers
Celery
Nectarines
Strawberries
Cherries
Lettuce
Grapes
Pears
Spinach
Potatoes

Best

Onions
Avocado
Sweet Corn(frozen)
Pineapples
Mango
Sweet Peas(frozen)
Asparagus
Kiwi
Bananas
Cabbage
Broccoli
Eggplant

Cheesy Lasagna & Garlic Stix!

Well I just finished adding up what I spent on the lasagna. $40.53 for 4 pans! Ouch!! You see now I remember why people just grab what is packaged at the store. Time and convenience and sometimes it isn't much cheaper making your own! lol I never look down at others who don't cook from scratch or make their own food cause I used to be in their shoes. Work, home, kids, husband. When you work out of the home, your attention is seriously divided. Those fast food lights are looking brighter and brighter and if you pick up a box of Stouffer's come home and toss it in the oven with a salad and rolls, that is MAKING dinner. haha You are a Queen.

I am blessed now to be able to stay home and take care of my family. I do feel our health has improved with cooking from scratch more often and all the fresher foods. But jee wizz I spent like 6 hours in the kitchen yesterday! Now this is no new feat for me. There are quite a few days a week I am in there for 4-5 hours or so. What I generally try to do is to make up food all at once so that I can have it later. You know, later, when I don't want to be in the kitchen at all. ;)

Here is what I spent.

4 pans of lasagna

2 20 oz packs of sweet italian sausage= $8.00
2 20 oz packs of ground turkey = $4.20
3 lb ricotta cheese = $3.99
2.33 lbs of lasagna noodles = $2.60
5 lbs of mozzarella cheese = $13.99
6 lbs, 6 oz of whole tomatoes = $3.00
10 6 oz cans of tomato paste = $3.33
4 eggs = .40 cents
1 can of Hunts spaghetti sauce = 1.00 = $40.53/ so $10.13 each.

I think next time I need to use 4 lbs of cheese and maybe half the meat! lol Oh well.
It was really good. It fed two adults, two teenagers and 3 other kids and enough for lunch for Joe today.

SO that is what I do. I will take a day when I feel like being in the kitchen, cooking, cleaning, chopping, baking, soaking veggies, etc. I will have a bunch of things I am trying to do at once. I get them done and guess what? If I did a good job I won't have to be in the kitchen the next day except to do the basics like dishes, counter, stove.

So yesterday I decided it was time to make up 4 lasagna's and some garlix stix. I went in at 10:00. I think we ate about 4:00 Now of course I didn't spend the whole time with the lasagna and stix, cause I have 5 kids underfoot and dh. Of course the first thing that happened was the 3 male late breakfast stragglers. I guess they didn't get the memo to eat some cereal and as soon as I hit the kitchen the boys were running in, I am hungry, what are you making? Etc. To their credit they were busy that a.m. cleaning the garage.

So I cut them some h.m. bread, made some eggs and sausage. My girls were supposed to be cleaning their rooms. My eldest dd lied and said her cat box was clean and in the dumpster and when i went to check it was not even done! I threatened to get rid of the cats if her box wasn't cleaned in 15 minutes and she had two days to get her room completely clean. It was awful. It was clean this a.m. :)

Anyways so little interruptions here and there and she eventually came in and grated cheese and chopped up cantaloupe and watermelon and strawberries and apples. Middle dd did not get much done in her room but read alot of good books! I will have to see if I can get a handle on that today. She did come help me with the lasagna & bread stix though.

Now I normally don't use eggs for lasagna but I seen a recipe online where they added eggs to cottage cheese and a little parmesan. It also called for whole tomatoes and tomato paste. I ran low on sauce so that is why i opened a can of hunts sauce. I really liked using the whole tomatoes and tomato paste. I think I need to cut them up a little next time. lol I had a recipe earlier in the year from someone how to make the sauce but I can't find the book I put it in. :( So I did try that. It tasted the same. We ate one and wrapped the other 3 in freezer paper. We also made 3 extra batches of bread stix to freeze as well. I am going to look for another reecipe for those too. They are good. I do like them. But finding that new bread recipe that was even better than the last one makes me think maybe I can find a great recipe for garlic bread. We'll see.

Here are some pictures. I think everyone knows how to make lasagna so I will skip any instructions. ;)Here is my blog about bread stix: Bread Stix

Do you make your own lasagna? Do you buy it from the store? What do you like to do to help with oamc? For pictures of the finished product check out the blog below.

Home Made

Okay so I still have those 3 home made pizza's in the freezer. Last week we went out for Little Caesar's as a treat. I think on Wed. What I like most about those pizza's is not the thought of having pizza in the freezer. It is having something that is done a bit healthier, made from scratch. I control all the ingredients. So there is not a long list of ingredients made in a laboratory somewhere.

Same thing with lasagna. Yeah it would be easier to just spend $11.00 and pick up a Stouffer's 96 ozer from the store. But it is nice knowing exactly what you are eating.

Stouffer's lasagna ingredient list:


Ingredients
WATER, COOKED LASAGNA (WATER, SEMOLINA WHEAT FLOUR), COTTAGE, PART SKIM MOZZARELLA AND PARMESAN CHEESES (MILK INGREDIENTS, BACTERIAL CULTURES, SALT, MICROBIAL ENZYMES, LIPASE, CELLULOSE), TOMATO PASTE, COOKED GROUND BEEF, TEXTURED SOY PROTEIN CONCENTRATE, MODIFIED CORN STARCH, SALT, WHEAT FLOUR, DEHYDRATED ONIONS, SUGAR, SPICES, AUTOLYZED YEAST EXTRACT, MILK INGREDIENTS, GARLIC POWDER, COLOUR, FLAVOURS (SOY SAUCE [WATER, SOYBEANS, WHEAT, SALT], AUTOLYZED YEAST EXTRACT, SOY OIL, FLAVOUR).

Okay so not as bad as some food list' I see, but still. I italicized some of the more questionable ingredients. Like, why do we need soy sauce in an Italian dish? Milk ingredients? Is that in addition to the mozzarella? If so, then what? I don't see ricotta or cottage cheese even listed. We also need colour? Really. I thought lasagna had enough color on it's own. AUTOLYZED YEAST EXTRACT, MODIFIED CORN STARCH.

I don't see yeast listed on anything I put in yesterday. Now I do see modified food starch listed on the container of ricotta I bought. I will have to check the other brands of ricotta at the store but I think they all have something. Grr....

Okay but you get the picture. There is not as many questionable ingredients when you make it yourself. I couldn't google frozen pizza ingredients quick enough but just take my word for it. There is alot of extra stuff in there and most of them have transfat to boot! I will be back right back with my adventure in home made lasagna.

Beef: It's what's for dinner

That is not my picture. I found it on the web somewhere and thought it would be fitting. It's been hectic the past few days. Tuesday night we went grocery shopping and the ads change on Wed. so we went again. We spent $250.00 Tuesday and $100.00 Wed. and guess what? I still need to go to Smart N Final! Usually I like to go get a bunch of stuff at the beginning of the month , than go back each week and shop for special sales and produce/milk/fresh veggies.

My months usually overlap though. Like some times I buy alot of something but it is enough for 2-3 months though. I remember back in January or February when whole chickens went on sale for .49 cents a lb, I bought 18 of them! I kind of got sick of them and haven't bought one since. lol

We eat alot of chicken here. What I aim for is red meat twice a week and when we do spaghetti, usually it is meatless(since we are trying to cut back on eating meat). That usually happens about once every two weeks. Sunday is usually roast or steak or grilled burgers. I get the 4% fat patty's for my eldest and I. Sometimes if we do burritos, no meat. We tried for a while doing ground turkey but it just tasted so fatty. This month I decided to try something new mainly for dh.

We don't eat pork. I found some turkey sausages/links and some sweet Italian turkey sausages. His eyes glazed over with glee when he seen them.

Last month I bought up a bunch of boneless skinless chicken breast, Tyson flash frozen. Those seem to work the best for me, just pull some out and cook. Or sometimes I will cook all 5 lbs at once and have enough for 2 meals and a lunch, or some to throw on pizza etc. I also bought a bunch of ch. breast on the bone when they went on sale for .99 cents a lb.

It was towards the end of the month when it finally dawned on me that we hadn't eaten any red meat at home that month! (dh and I and whoever is with us at the time usually eat out once a week at In & Out Burger). No wonder I was thinking about buying part of a cow! lol I kept looking for sales last month for steak or roast and didn't see any. It was all $4.00 a lb which is rediculous!

So this month between the back to back sales at Stater Bros. I bought a bunch of red meat. It might even take us 3 months to eat it all. lol

I bought:

4 big packs boneless chuck roast at $1.99 a lb
2 lbs cube steak $3.99 a lb
2.5 lbs flap meat $3.99 a lb(for carne asada)
1.5 T bone steak $4.77 a lb
2 packs of tri tip roast $1.99 a lb
a few family packs of top sirloin steak $1.99 a lb

I know the cube steak was pricey but I really want to try this recipe I found online for steak sandwiches this month. SO now that we are not in any danger of running out of inexpensive red meat....It can all stay in there. lol The top sirloin says it is normally $4.90 a lb!!!!

We also found organic Wild Alaskan Sockeye Salmon. I think it is org. it is marketed by the Co. that all the other organics in the store are under. lol It was $9.32 a lb. I am not sure on all the different cuts of salmon but every time I see salmon in the Albertsons ad it is like $18.00. $6.00 for farmed which we won't buy. Anyhow I bought 4.5 lbs.

I might go buy another 5 lb pack or two of Tyson Breast. I really don't want to run out. I am waiting for Butterball Turkeys to go on sale. Albertsons regular turkeys are .39 cents a lb right now and this week they are selling butterball BOG1F. But they don't say how much per lb. I shop there rarely as they are pretty out of the way. I was hoping butterball would go on sale soon at Stater Bros for .50 cents a lb.

S.B. had a bunch of frozen veggies on sale this week too so I stocked up on those as well.

So what are your grocery plans for the month? Do you shop weekly or monthly or every few days?

Grass fed beef

Mooo!!!


Okay so I am thinking more about buying some grass fed beef.

For a quick list of reasons read this:

100% GRASS FED

Most places I have seen online are very expensive.
Price is a big factor. On eat wild.org I found a ranch that is grass fed and it is angus beef. (4th website down) It is not qualified for the organic label yet, but it is free of antibiotics, growth hormones and no pesticides used on the pastures.

Chileno Valley Natural Beef

It looks like a split quarter cost $250.00 plus butcher cost of $70.00- $80.00.

Purchase info

Which comes out to about $330.00. It says it is 100 pounds of meat.

I googled them as well and found this cbs clip:

Raising Cows The Old-Fashioned Way

I think I will email them and find out if their prices have changed any and how much shipping would be.

Good idea? Bad idea? What are your thoughts on this?


A review or two.

Reviews # 1
Reviews # 2
Reviews # 3

Edit:

They have another website which says the meat is $380.00 after butchering. I am not surprised it went up. I think I found their old website last year and was surprised the price hadn't changed.

Chileno Natural Grass-Fed Beef

Hot rolls with dinner!

I made Tammy's bread again. The first double batch of dough I am freezing. An online friend recommended freezing after the first rise and punch down. We'll see how that winds up later in the week. The next batch I made one round loaf of bread in my ceramic kitchenaid pie pan. Another loaf in my ceramic loaf pan. Then the next double batch I made rolls!!

Brown n serve rolls have nothing on these! I used muffin liners to avoid having them stick to the pan. I sprayed the liners but then some of the muffin stuck to the liners. haha Oh well. Just a little bit. They were very, very tasty and every bit as good as the last time I made this bread. Melt n your mouth!! Very soft and tender and not wheaty at all.

Dh called and said he wants some more of my home made buttermilk biscuits! I told him we are all out of buttermilk. (Yes I know the trick with the vinegar and the reg. milk ;) ) And can he wait for a few days? Sure thing. :D I was already in the middle of the 3rd double batch of bread/rolls so hunting down that recipe and whipping up MORE bread just didn't seem like a good idea at the time. lol

Well on Tuesday I am going big shopping for the month. I am usually at the store 1-2 times a week but at the beginning of the month I like to take and get a bunch of stuff at once. I need to make up a list tomorrow. I found a new cooking blog with really yummy recipes. When I seen she added about 3 lbs of butter for her chocolate cake recipe I instantly gained a size! haha

There are alot of new recipes I want to try this month so pull up a chair and stick around. These are on my list of new things to try:

Pico de Gallo

The Best Chocolate Sheet Cake

Roasted Beef Tenderloin

Cinnamon Rolls

Steak sandwiches

What new recipes are you going to try this month?

What am I doing?

Well we don't celebrate Halloween, so bobbing for apples is out. haha



Oh wait, there is tomatoes, a cucumber and even some romaine! I am soaking my fruits and veggies in a 15 minute home made veggie wash, courtesy of Jester.


Now we all know organic is supposed to be best. But it isn't always cheap or available. I think the bell peppers are $5.00 a lb at the health store! That is alot. I should make a trip over to the farmers market next Thursday. Last time I was disappointed though. We bought a 25 lb bag of oranges and most of them were dried up! That was a few months ago and we haven't gone since.

Anyhow this doesn't get rid of the pesticides that have gotten inside the fruit, but it does clean them. Think of all the yucky stuff that happens to them en route to your store. Or even while at the store. I try to buy organic at my regular grocery store, but their organic section is very limited and the produce doesn't move fast enough so invariably it is already turning bad.

Jester gave me her permission to post this here. Hope this is THE recipe cause this is how I remember it. haha

1 gallon of water
1/4 cup apple cider vinegar
1/4 cup hydrogen peroxide

Mix it all together. Let fruits/veggies soak for 15 minutes. Scrub them with a veggie brush and I place mine on a paper towel in huge bowls til they dry. Water tends to stay some in the bottom of bowl so make sure produce is dry and transfer it to another dry container.

Do you eat organic only? Or just when you are able?

EDIT. I just wanted to add that Jester has a friend who is a biochemist and said this recipe is a good one. :)

Tammy's Easy Pizza

My family loves pizza. Generally over the summer that translated to us making h.m. once or twice and the rest of the time, like once a week, it was Little Caesar's. haha Making your own is much healthier though than pizza from your local fast food place. On Oct 26 we made 6 pizzas, 3 to eat, 3 to freeze. So we actually didn't need to make any this week but I seen Tammy's recipe and I just had to give it a try. (While I actually felt like making it.)

The recipe I usually stick with is Jay's Signature Pizza Crust I think I tried one other one once and it was a complete flop. It is pretty good but tends to break easily, probably cause of the whole wheat.

Anyhow so I tried this recipe and it was pretty similiar. It is a very good recipe. A few things I did notice especially since we had this Wed. night and that was only a few days difference.

Generally, I LOVE crust. That is white flour crust. I think I enjoy crazy bread and crust more than the pizza. I loved it when L.C. used to do their "pan" pizza. They discontinued that. Now I get the cheesy bread when we order pizza and that is pretty similiar.

Anyhow ww is different though. It taste good while eating the pizza but it is not something I want to chow down on KWIM? I would be more apt to toss the crust if there were too much of it on the ww pizza. That being said, with Tammy's recipe, this crust actually was pretty good. No not white flour good. But good. I did like it better than Jay's. It was still wheaty but not as wheaty. I am wondering if the difference is in the time when you add the yeast. Her pizza and her bread recipe you add it at the end and mix with everything else. Most recipes tell you to mix the yeast with water, then add everything else.

I am wondering if that helps it not be so "wheaty" tasting. I don't know. Another thing I noticed was generally Jay's recipe I HAVE to eat it with a fork cause it breaks easily. This one I didn't have too. It was pretty sturdy.

Next time I am going to use EVOL instead of butter. I greased the pan with evol spray, not butter like it recommends. I omitted the salt to add to the top.

All in all it is a very yummy recipe and we are going to use it again. :)

Tammy's Easy Pizza

Description:

A soft pizza dough recipe, topped with your favorite pizza toppings and baked
Yield: 12-16 slices
Ingredients:

Crust Ingredients:

3/4 cup water (110-115 degrees, preferably)
1 teaspoon sugar
2 Tablesppoons butter, melted or very softened
2 1/2 cups flour
1 Tablespoon yeast

Other Ingredients:

1Â Tablespoon cornmeal (optional)
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup pizza sauce
12 ounces shredded mozzarella cheese
sliced onions, optional
chopped bell peppers, optional
turkey pepperoni, fried turkey bacon, or fried hamburger, optional
1/4 teaspoon oregano
1/8 teaspoon basil
2 Tablespoons parmesan cheese
Instructions:

1. If using a bread machine to make pizza dough, put ingredients in bread machine in order listed and set to dough setting.

If making dough by hand, mix water, butter, and sugar in mixing bowl. Add part of the flour and stir. Add the rest of the flour and the yeast, and stir into a dough. Knead for 6-8 minutes, or until dough is smooth and elastic. Set dough in bowl and grease the top. Cover with a towel and set in a warm place to rise for about 45 minutes.*

2. After dough has risen the first time, punch down and knead until air bubbles are removed.

3. Liberally butter a 16-inch round pizza pan, and press dough onto pan. Carefully lift one-half of the crust and fold over (to expose half of the pizza pan). Sprinkle 1/2 Tablespoon cornmeal over pan. Lay crust back in place and repeat on other half, so that there is cornmeal sprinkled between entire layer of crust and pan.

4. Sprinkle 1/2 teaspoon salt over top of crust and then spread with 1 cup pizza sauce. Sprinkle on cheese and any optional toppings desired. Sprinkle on oregano, basil, and parmesan cheese last.

5.** Place pizza in oven and turn heat to 400 degrees. Bake for 10 minutes; rotate crust and bake for an additional 5-10 minutes or until top is browned. (Be sure to watch so it doesn't burn; every oven is different!)

6. When pizza is browned, turn off heat and open oven door. Leave pizza in oven until ready to serve. Then remove from oven, cut, and serve. If there is leftover pizza, we often put the pieces directly on a cooling rack to cool, which prevents condensation forming between the crust and pan.

Here are some pictures.


The dough. That is the other thing I noticed, it never really did rise. I let them sit for a few hours too. *shrugs*



Here are some pictures. My dd #1 was in charge of spreading out the dough and adding the toppings. Onion, olives, bell pepper, pineapple, cheese, chicken.



We have a pizza oven/turner. But it can only make one at a time.



This is a cookie sheet. I think I want some pizza stones.



It's not as easy to try to get them into the square pans I guess. lol



This one filled out pretty nice.



The best part, sliced and on my plate! Thank you to Tammy for another wonderful recipe! What kind of pizza do you like to make?

Broke Means Broke!

I got this in my email this a.m.

A little old lady answered a knock on the door
one day, only to be confronted by a
well-dressed young man carrying a vacuum
cleaner.

"Good morning," said the young man. "If I
could take a couple of minutes of your time,
I would like to demonstrate the very latest in
high-powered vacuum cleaners."

"Go away!" said the old lady. "I haven't got
any money! I'm BROKE!" and she proceeded
to close the door.

Quick as a flash, the young man wedged his
foot in the door and pushed wide open.

"Don't be too hasty!" he said. "Not until you
have at least seen my demonstration."

And with that, he emptied a bucket of horse
manure onto her hallway carpet.

"If this vacuum cleaner does not remove all
traces of this horse manure from your carpet,
Madam, I will personally eat the remainder."

The old lady stepped back and said, "Well I
hope you've got a good appetite,
because they cut off my electricity this
morning."

"What part of broke do you not understand!"