silent saturday

happy birthday randi

today is my sister-in-law's birthday! i won't tell you how old she is, but i will tell you that she is older than me. grin. to celebrate i made a big ol' lasagna dinner capped off with a white chocolate strawberry swirl cheesecake. i don't like cheesecake and besides i am dieting, so none for me. i am told it was delicious, creamy with flavors of both strawberry and lemon. i guess i will have to take their word for it. all i can add is that it was easy to make. oh, i did serve the extra fresh strawberry sauce on the side.

the recipe came from an issue of cusine at home and is really long, not hard, but long. i am feeling lazy tonight, so here is where another fellow blogger made the cheesecake, subbing oreos for the crust. oh yum. i like that idea. pretty cool how are cakes look so similar. enjoy.

what's the point?

i am still here, but busy. i have a little, but large project going on. it is loosing weight and getting healthy. i need help, so i have enlisted weight watchers, two girlfriends and a new blog. it is called what's the point? we, all three, will be posting recipes, gripes, updates, tips, you name it. i hope you will pop over and visit us. it is brand new and we need all extra support you can give. 

Beth

wordless wednesday

the dumpster bed

we recycle, a lot, not because we are necessarily environmentally conscience, but because we are cheap. we are a single income family with not a whole lot of extra to throw around, so we make do with what we already have. for example....



the chicken coop and run is about 80 percent scrap, mostly items jamie found lying around different locations including the chain link....

my chicken watching chairs, they are over fifty years old and formerly front porch chairs from both my grandmas' porches. i hit them with a steel brush and a few cans of $2 spray paint and i have some pretty cool lawn furniture....i think....

i have always wanted some type of shelving in my laundry room, so step in the hubster. we had some old 60's pine cabinets hanging in the front garage. he took them down and gave them a coat of paint, including the funky hardware and viola, new laundry room storage. now....

begins the dumpster bed. travis had a twin bed frame, that i hated. he would freely roll across his room hitting the walls or nicking our hardwood floors. i hated it it i tell you, hated it. so, the other day jamie noticed that someone had put the bottom half of a "this ends up" bunk bed on a stack of pallets to be trashed. wheels in his head started spinning, so he threw it into the back of his truck, came home and got to work on travis' new bed. he made a bottom frame to support a big storage drawer....

painted it all "bullseye" red and added some recycled handles, that i intend to change. they are too small and ugly. well in a two days time, he ended up with this....

travis couldn't be happier with his new dumpster bed. me too.

low carb flourless chocolate cupcake

i am still on my low carb diet and i am craving sweets something terrible. i have seen quite a few recipes for low carb desserts, but mostly crap involving ricotta or cream cheeses. forget that, i need chocolate, dark chocolate. when i hit phase two i will be able to have a tiny bit, but that is another whole week away. i want it know. i hit upon martha stewart's recipe for flourless chocolate cupcakes and attempted to make it low carb. there is no flour in the recipe, hence the word
"flourless" in the title, so that is easy enough. i subbed unsweetened chocolate for the bittersweet and xylitol for the sugar. xylitol, packaged under the name of ideal is a natural sweetner and sugar replacement. the cupcakes where pretty good, not great. you bake with ideal and sugar one to one, but since i started with unsweetened chocolate i should have used more than what the recipe alloted. i also may have baked them a tad too long. they were not soft and moist in the middle, but dense and fudgy. all in all, they are definitely good enough for a redo, like maybe tomorrow. enjoy.

the little squirt of whipped cream help cut the bitterness of the dark chocolate. i ate two.

wordless wednesday

cinnamon breakfast muffins, low carb

well here i go again, my attempt at a die-t. this go around it is the south beach version of low carbing. i am on phase one and completely over it already. thankfully, i have my foodie friend april of abby sweets to keep me company. we are both diabetics who adore food and all aspects of it, unfortunately, so we are constantly searching the net for new recipes to try and share. i made these tasty little muffins today and was surprised how good they are considering.....considering they are made out of beans! yep, beans, cannellini beans to be exact, no flour whatsoever. did you know that beans are a great source of fiber and low carb?

here is the recipe followed with a few tips from moi.

low carb cinnamon breakfast muffins

1 15oz can of cannellini beans, rinsed and drained
3 eggs
1 cup splenda
1/4 cup nonfat dry milk
2 t baking powder
2 T canola oil
1 t cinnamon
1 t imitation vanilla

whirl till smooth in your food processor. bake at 350 degrees in a greased muffin tin for about 25 minutes. cool five minutes. enjoy.

now, what i did-i used stevia instead of splenda, it is a natural not artificial sugar substitute, i used 1/2 cup, also i doubled the cinnamon and vanilla, gotta kill that bean taste. oh, grease your pan real goooood like, every one of my muffins stuck a bit. one more thing, i completely forgot the dry milk, so i bet they will taste even better next time! i think these are a great jumping off point for other add-ins like dark chocolate. tally-ho, on to phase two!

wordless wednesday

berry easy "ice cream"

in my case, strawberry and blueberry "ice cream" made without an ice cream freezer. oh my gosh this is soooooo delicious and easy. i had seen this creamy concoction over at our best bites the other day and knew instantly i just had to give it a whirl. you can find the recipe here and while you are there take a moment to peruse this delightful blog, it's one chock full of wonderful recipes and reviews.

now back to the "ice cream", you don't need an ice cream freezer, good thing 'cause i ain't got one. once mixed, you simply put in a container and pop into your refrigerator's freezer for a few hours. it doesn't seem to get completely firm, but more like a sorbet consistency, no matter, it works and it works deliciously. i used a combo of thawed frozen organic strawberries and blueberries from trader joe's, excellent choice on my behalf, not only for the amazing taste, but killer color. so now i am already thinking banana, coconut and pineapple combo for the next go around. whadda ya think?

i hope you will give this easy fruit freeze a try! enjoy.

first time pesto

oh my this stuff is awesome and so dang easy to make. in your food processor whirl three cups of fresh basil with a third cup of toasted walnuts, two cloves of fresh garlic, a half cup of good parmesan cheese and a pinch of kosher salt. you might need to scrape the sides down once or twice. now slowly stream in a third cup to one half of good olive oil, just till you get the consistency you want. that's it, you got homemade pesto! store in an airtight container with a extra drizzle of olive oil on top to help prevent oxidation. it should keep several days, but you can also freeze this in ice cube trays and pop the green cubes into ziplocs for fresh pesto all year around. that is my plan as soon as my basil plant pust out again.



i topped a few triscuits with this straight from the food processor and fell in love. so fresh and delicious. later, i made a light supper by gently mixing some pesto with farfalle pasta, canned, drained, rinsed cannellini beans topping it all with some creamy goat cheese. yeehaw! it was so "miss fancy pants". i hope you will give pesto a whirl when you get a chance. it is dang tasty. enjoy.