Tabbouleh Salad
May 29th, 2010 | 
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If you’ve never had tabbouleh salad, you’re in for a treat. This is a great summer dish, perfect as an appetizer with pita or wrap bread and amazing spooned over some grilled chicken. Healthy, light and easy, make a big batch and eat it through the week.
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Lets Try This Again
Alright, alright. I have to admit I have felt immensely guilty about abandoning my blog so hastily. I really enjoy keeping track of my cooking endeavors and sharing my wins with anyone out there who is interested in listening. I’ve been struggling with feeling like my plate runeth over with priorities, like working full-time, school, homework, walking the pesky dog, and the newest priority – house hunting. All of these are exciting endeavors, true. But what’s all that without being able to share.
So, I’m going to make an effort to post at least once a week. Even though I haven’t been posting of late, I have still been cooking. I’m experimenting a lot with new healthy foods as I learn about them in my nutrition classes. Exotic sounding things like “quinoa” and “dulse” and “gomasio”. Ooh la la! I’ve learned that I like greens when chopped small and cooked into soups or mixed in with other ingredients. I have also mastered the art of the green smoothie and I now know that flax oil and agave nectar combine with vinegar and a dab of mustard to make the perfect easy and healthy salad dressing. See all of these things I’m learning and not sharing? It’s a shame, a crime against humanity.
So, if you are out there my loyal reader, I will aspire to blog again (insert cheesy valiant music here). I may not hit every week but I will try. You will also see me merging my blog with my budding/future health counseling business. My school has set me up with a website that is in it’s infancy but something I plan to build on and make more my own. I’ll discuss that more later in an upcoming post but here is a sneak peek:
I hope you check it out. I’m not currently health counseling anyone, just not sure that I’m quite ready. But I will, hopefully soon, be taking on a few clients at a time. If you’re interested in eventually working with me, send me an email and we’ll chat. In the meantime, I’ll share all I can and hope that it sparks something in you just like it does for me.
In good health,
Suzanne
Where has the time gone…
I get this look from my dog a lot these days. This is the look, emphasized with extra sad eyes, that says “why don’t you have time for me?”. I know this look well.
To this look, I respond with a nose kiss and a cuddle, pleading with Sasha to forgive me for being so busy these days. But she can barely stand to look at me.
I then ply her with treats, which she scarfs down. But soon enough, we’re right back to this.
If you’re feeling like I’ve forgotten about my website, just know that I’ve not forgotten about it anymore than I’ve forgotten about my best girl there. I actually have a folder full of pictures and post ideas that I just don’t have time to get to. Why not, you say? Well, I’m working full-time plus going to school to become a certified holistic health counselor at a school called the Institute for Integrative Nutrition. I love love love the program I am in and am thoroughly enjoying where this journey is taking me. However, school and work suck up most of my blogging time. Any spare time I have goes to walking Sasha.
Did I tell you she knows the word “walk”?
I promise I’ll be back as soon as my life eases up and/or I have bits of time to post interesting things!
Vegetable Garden, Part Duex
My first round of vegetable gardening was a moderate success filled with good lessons learned. For example, I will never again plant more than one zucchini at a time, due to their insane production of zucchinis and ability to grow to bohemoth stature. I finally pulled everything from my first garden up, conditioned the soil, and started again with a few new tricks up my sleeve.
Yellow Cake with Lemon Frosting
These are actually lemon cake cupcakes with lemon cream cheese frosting but I used my basic yellow cake recipe and just added lemon juice and rind to the batter for lemony goodness. The cake is what they call a basic “1234 cake” recipe but I’ll give you some additional tips for how to get a fluffy, moist cake. You can use this cake batter as a base for other flavors of cake, like lemon!
Girls Night – August 26; Becky’s Birthday!
We have had a string of birthdays lately and this time it was my big sis’s turn. I won’t throw out how old she just turned, but I will say that I’m happy to report she’s older than me! Woohoo! Sophia made some yummy porkchops along with…wait for it….mashed potato bar!! Basically, that’s mashed potatoes with every topping you can think of. The excitement surrounding the mashed potato bar may have even overshadowed the pumpkin cheesecake we had for dessert! That says a lot. Few things generally overshadow dessert.
Tater Tot Casserole
My friend and former roommate Adrienne used to make me this midwest classic for me when we lived together. Ingredients consisted of canned cream of mushroom soup, some faux meat (she’s not much of a meat eater) and some tots on top. Brian, being a midwest-born guy, happens to LOVE Tater Tot Casserole. It’s one of the few meals he requests. And I loved it because I could keep the ingredients in the pantry and make this when I didn’t have anything planned. But when I moved us away from processed foods, we were both sad to think Tater Tot Casserole didn’t have much of a place in our life anymore. So I set on a mini-quest to make a homemade, slightly healthed-up version the old TTC . While this isn’t perfect and certainly isn’t health food, it’s a good compromise. TTC is back in our meal plan and that is something to be excited about.
Girls Night – August 19; Korean Invasion!
This post is more story and less recipe. Tara just returned from a super cool trip to Korea for work and inspired Suzi to whip up some tasty Korean delicacies as hostess of Girls Night. Unfortunately, no one (including Suzi or Tara) remembered what said delicacies were called so all we know is we ate lots of “tasty spicy noodle thing” and “yummy pickled kimchee thing”.
Happy 9 Years!
This is the crazy crew that calls themselves Girls Night. We are going on 9 years of weekly Wednesday dinners together. The faces have changed a little but the majority of the original members remain (minus Steph, who we miss dearly). Girls Night is a sacred event that none of us take lightly. We have been together and supported each other through good times and bad; births and deaths, marriages and breakups, new jobs and lost jobs. We leave our husbands, boyfriends, kids, pets and work behind each and every week to share each other’s company over food, wine and chatter. The rules of membership are simple but resolute: 1 ) show up and don’t flake; 2 ) hostess must cook good food, including a dessert; 3 ) always have wine; 4 ) always have dessert; 5 ) keep the wine coming; 6 ) keep the dessert coming; 7 ) no boys allowed (except Nate, who we’ve made exceptions for since birth due to his cuteness and charm); and 8 ) don’t ever forget to have wine and dessert. Simple.
Thanks for 9 amazing years, to some of the best friends I could ask for. We miss you, Steph!
Grasshopper Cake
This is Beth’s mom’s cake recipe. It’s a minty, chocolatey slice of greatness. If you like grasshopper cookies and/or Andes mints, you’ll like this cake.
