And my quest is complete! I’m the proud owner of the last mini bowls in the country. 3 arrived broken, 12 survived transit.
So, my local store is out of stock on these beautiful bowls. And not sure if they’ll be receiving more. I’m crushed as they were one of the only purchases I could afford at their store!
I’m not so good at getting dinner ready. While I have learned to cook since graduating college, having chronic fatigue and pain issues generally makes cooking difficult.
The extra steps that a dish needs while cooking can be more easily managed if I use my Cuisinart food processor or food chopper. Planning ahead for chopping vegetables or washing fruit or potatoes, etc. can mean the difference to a successful homemade meal or exhaustion and frustration.
It is attractive but not very affordable to purchase the pre-chopped, packaged produce, that’s so readily available. So I’ve come up with a few more affordable alternatives.
Salad Mix
One way to reduce my costs & maximize my effort (aka workload), I purchase some romaine, plus a head of green, red or other lettuce varieties. After washing, lay the lettuce on its side. By cutting down the middle of each head of lettuce, it’s easier to chop! Cut to bite-sized with a special lettuce knife, and put it in a plastic bag. My very own salad mix, for a week, completed in a matter of a few minutes.
Almost Anything?
I use a food processor to slice cucumber, to shred cheese, potatoes or carrots. I love it to slice chicken for salads or to create crisp bacon bits! It can be used to cut up almost anything, so check out your manual for ideas! I’ve barely scratched the surface.
Onions
My favorite is to cut up an onion that has been frozen about 15 minutes. Peel & trim as usual & place into the processor! The onion juice fumes do not bother me because they are slightly frozen. Cheese, also slightly frozen, truly is so much easier to shred.
Additionally, I keep celery ready sliced in a container of water, as a quick way to have a French Mirepoix to start any dish of that cuisine. Any excess celery, onion and carrot can all be stored in the freezer in small plastic containers for later use.
Finally and perhaps most importantly, I give myself permission to walk away. If I don’t get all the prep work done in one session, it’s okay. It’s okay to go take a break and get back to it in a little while. It’s okay to start again tomorrow.
Letting go of how it used to be allows me to more fully live my life now.
As we live off of a limited income of my federal disability check, I have had several experiences buying less expensive electric small appliances. Some of these items have been fantastic and others not so much.
Appliances I cannot imagine life without
Slow cooker
food processor, or at a minimum,
food chopper
I have learned to rely heavily on my beloved Cuisinart slow cooker. This allows me the freedom to not have the burden of cooking later in the day. Nine out of 10 dishes made are tasty & requested! When buying electric kitchen appliances, I have learned that a few dollars spent for a longer warranty on a name-brand item is well worth it.
Over the years, I have learned what to put in the ceramic crock to create a hot meal with memorable tastes. To that aim, I am sharing my few dependable approaches to get the grub on the table! This time, I am sharing four variations to serve frozen chicken breasts.
Chicken
Frozen to start is ok in my opinion. The temperature at time of serving needs to be 165° for food safety.
Use salt, pepper, and an all-purpose seasoning blend with onion powder and garlic powder. My preference is to use Webers roasted garlic and herb seasoning.
Three quick solutions:
Frozen chicken plus…
Salsa chicken
Use for tacos, burritos, enchiladas, nachos
Method
A jar of salsa, a can of diced tomatoes with chilies, a teaspoon of cumin, chili powder, coriander. Cook on low for at least eight hours. Serve with tortillas, beans, rice, and all the fixings like a fresh pico the dial salsa, sour cream, cheese, cilantro. Enjoy!
Italian chicken
Chicken Parmesan substitute, serve shredded over pasta, or Italian warm sandwiches.
Method
A jar of spaghetti sauce, a can of diced tomatoes with Italian herbs, garlic, onion, a teaspoon of basil, oregano, thyme, or rosemary. Cook on low for at least eight hours. If serving as chicken Parmesan, melt mozzarella slices under the broiler on the pieces of chicken. Enjoy!
Creamy gravy chicken
Method
Two cans of cream of chicken soup, a half cup of chopped celery, a teaspoon garlic, one half finely chopped onion, two teaspoons Herbs the Provence plus generous shakes of salt and pepper. Substitutions can be made with any all-purpose herbal seasoning. Cook on low for at least eight hours. Serve with mashed potatoes & steamed carrots. Enjoy!
My final offering is what I have begun to call my ‘save me chicken’.
Equipment
Baking sheet
aluminum foil
cooking oil
Method
Heat oven to 400°
Cover baking sheet completely with a fee layers of foil. This will ease clean up.
Remove frozen chicken from bag.
Place chicken onto baking sheet.
Pour a small amount of cooking oil onto the top of each piece of chicken.
Generously cover chicken with salt and pepper.
Add additional spices or spice blends. I prefer Weber roasted garlic and herb, Jane’s crazy salt, or any variety of herbal seasoning mix that appeals.
Bake chicken for 40 minutes.
Baking from frozen creates baked chicken that is not dry. The temperature at time of serving needs to be 165° for food safety.
Enjoy!
This luau pork recipe calls for four major ingredients. A pork roast weighing at least 3 pounds, a few tablespoons liquid from bottle of liquid smoke, a teaspoon ground ginger, and salt. Optional things I like to add to this recipe are honey, pepper, and any overripe pears or apples on hand, if I have them.
The salt can be Hawaiian or kosher, but avoid table salt. In my experience, table salt is stronger or saltier in flavor compared to kosher salt.
Using honey or overripe pears or apples creates a hint of natural sweetness that has an attractive, mild flavor on the palate. This idea came to me after recognizing that my husband loves apple sauce with pork. I have not used canned pears for this recipe nor tried applesauce. I might in the future.
Okay, gather your ingredients! Plan to make this at least 10 hours in advance. After you walk away from the few minutes of putting ingredients in the slow cooker, you’ll have dinner ready for the evening!
Equipment
Slow cooker
Measuring spoons
Aluminum foil, if available
Time to prepare: 10 minutes
Time till prepared: 10 or more hours; more hours needed if the roast is placed into the crockpot frozen.
There are lots of warnings and opinions on using frozen meat as the protein of a crockpot meal. I do not find pre-thawing a necessary factor in my recipes. That’s what works for me. Please do what works for you! I am concerned with proper food temperature at time of serving. For pork, that is at least 145°. For chicken, that is at least 165°.
Ingredients
3 pound or more pork roast, preferably boneless
3 tablespoons liquid smoke (or 1 tablespoon per pound)
2 teaspoons dried ground ginger
1+1/2 tablespoon kosher or hawaiian salt (1/2 tablespoon salt for each pound of meat)
Optional
Two or more overripe and peeled pears or apples, chopped or diced Honey
Pepper
Process
Place pork in slow-cooker fat side up. (Note: plan to remove & not eat fat later.)
If using, drizzle honey around all sides of pork.
Liberally sprinkle salt, pepper, & ginger all over the pork.
Place any fruit around the sides of the pork roast.
Using foil, cover the top of the slow cooker where the lid meets the grooves on the top. Ideally, the goal is to create a complete moisture seal. The pork will continue to braise in its own juices and seasonings without losing any condensation.
A key point: Do not peek! Every time the lid is open, the moist heat escapes. That adds time to the cooking progress. After eight hours, you can peek.
You’re making this recipe with only 10 hours, I suggest using the high setting for the first two hours. This is the same as four hours on low heat. Then reduce the heat to low and continue cooking until eight hours have passed. Now you can peek!
After eight hours, remove the pork and test it’s tenderness. It should begin to be very easy to pull apart with a fork. This is when you want to remove as much fat as possible. Separate the pork into chunks. Return the pork to the pot. Mash the pork, fruit, and juices together. Cover with the foil and continue to cook for another two hours. It will be ready to eat when it falls apart to the touch.
When serving, mix the juices and pork together. Again, the pork should be falling apart at the touch of a serving utensil.
It is delicious with rice, served with a light side – such as a salad or fruit. Some of the strained cooking juices can be served as well. The pork is safe to eat when it has reached a internal temperature of 145°.
This recipe attempts to copy the conditions found in underground cooking. An example would be found in Hawaiian cuisine. The elements that are crucial: a complete seal allowing for moisture retention and a undisturbed cooking vessel for a long time.
My personal preference is to start this recipe before 10 PM the previous night before serving. I cook this pork for 16 hours generally. If it is possible for you to do the same, I recommend it.
This one takes time. I hope that you find it completely worth every minute waiting, so please enjoy!
My testimony
I finally had a bit of time tonight to sit down and think about what I wanted to tell you about my testimony. Frankly, as I have always been long worded (or long-winded), this will be a bit of a story. During high school, my aunt Bev (who was my foster mom) believed in a new age form of faith. I attended her services, but always maintained my inner private faith in Christ. So the best I could say was that agnostic principles best fit me throughout my 20s. This does not mean I was not searching, as I did study religion in college. I would seek out different types of churches to attend. Upon being diagnosed with lupus in 2006, and almost dying, I realized that I had God to thank and only God to thank for my life being restored to me. So I gladly began attending born-again Christian services. I do not regret this in anyway at all. It brought me back to my beloved Jesus. However, it’s seemed like something was missing. I could never quite tell what it was, but something wasn’t quite right. So about 2 years ago, when Elders knocked on my door, I let them in to speak with me. I also let the Jehovah Witnesses in teach me. I spoke to the Catholic priest. I spoke to the Christian pastor. I was searching everywhere. And while some did seem to fit, I did feel best that the Christian faith was the most accurate to what I needed. Finally, over months of meeting with the same missionaries, one mentioned the concept of pre-life. This stunned me, as in the Christian faith pre-life is a concept that is neither well-developed nor is it discussed. Frankly his mention of pre-life caused me to give him my entire attention. I asked him, “how do you know about that? No one in the Christian faith talks about pre-life. I have always known that it was true, that God was there, though.” The Elder replied that it was a tenant of the LDS faith. It was a very important piece of how we are to direct our lives on this plane. He also showed me the Bible and BOM scriptures to back up this idea. To say the least, I was floored and at that point, I knew that there was something to this. A few weeks later, as usual, the Elders asked me if I had been praying for the truth regarding the Book of Mormon. “Of course”, I replied, not mentioning my prayers had been sarcastic and my reading of the BOM had been rather dismissive. One evening I began to feel very guilty. I was wasting these poor boys time, if I wasn’t going to decide how much further I would take this study and questioning. When I went to bed that night, my head was full of the ridiculous and little thoughts that fill up our minds. I bowed my head, and I asked God to quiet my mind. I told him my dilemma. I didn’t want to waste these boys’ time. I wanted to know if the Book of Mormon was true. I asked God if the Book of Mormon was a document I needed to learn from, if it was something that could teach me more, bring me spiritual enlightenment. So, God knowing I am a mind based person, he gave me a very unique answer. In my chest, under my ribs and in my heart, I heard the word YES! And then, in tandem, I felt as if I had been slapped at the bottom of my heart. This didn’t just happen once, it happened three times in a row. Yes! Slap. Yes! Slap. Yes! Slap. God knew that I couldn’t ignore that. If he’d answered me in my mind, I might’ve been able to write it off & explain it away. but he answered me in a way that I’ve never felt before or even thought possible. Did you know your heart can speak to you? I didn’t. I knew my heart could feel a wide and wonderful and terrible range of emotion, but not give us answers. I spent several of the following weeks considering what had happened. My husband was recovering from back surgery. He had no interest in my ongoing spiritual quest. He, as a devout Catholic, simply assured me that I would be going to hell. When I finally called the Elders, the original Elder who taught me about pre-life had been reassigned. So I spoke to the newbie. And I did not really feel that he deserved to know the story of my BOM answer. But as I would not be able to get in touch with the senior Elder, I went ahead and told the newbie Elder anyway. I think that young man actually might’ve stopped to dance in the street. He was so excited and so supportive. I had no idea what I was going to do with this information, other than I was not going to deny it. So I began the baptismal preparation lessons. I was scared, as all I could think about was the instruction in the Bible that if you believe other pieces of supposedly Christian faith you would go to hell. So I went back and forth in my mind about this, only allowing the truth of what happened to me to be my guide. We had set a baptism date for late 2013 November.
Sadly, I received a phone call Thanksgiving week from an Orange County CA hospital that my father was under their care. He was very ill, refusing treatment, and asking for palliative care. The social worker then explained to me that my father has been diagnosed with cancer. The cancer was in his brain, his lungs, and his kidneys. The most pressing issue was to have him allow treatment to remove the cancer in his brain. I spent the three days before Thanksgiving alternatively attempting to convince my father that I could make decisions for him if he couldn’t. This was very difficult as I was dealing with my father’s hallucinations and personality changes. Wednesday before Thanksgiving I was finally approving the brain surgery. It was necessary because otherwise my father would’ve had a terribly painful death. It was also simply to give us more time with my father. Brain surgery was not going to be an easy way to get rid of stage four cancer in three places. We respected his want to go into hospice care, even after confusion with oncologists and problems with the pathology identification of the tumors. It seemed the best thing to allow him to make his own final life choice. This became a turning point for me, the crucible if I may. I was not able to communicate with my father the gospel principles of the LDS faith. I was not sure if he had been baptized. I was not sure if he felt that he had followed Christ in his life. His attitude was good will beget good. He had always seemed very admiring of the LDS missionaries I met. He even once had told me that he thought Mormons were very good people, if I decided to join their faith. But with his left frontal lobe seriously affected by this circumstance, there was not an opportunity for me to speak with him about it. I was very interested in baptism by proxy. I knew that this would be the only way I could see my father again, if he accepted the teachings in the spirit world. So I was very eager to begin the process of finalizing a baptism date soon. I explained to my father that I would be unable to visit him on Saturday, December 13. He had asked why and I said I was getting baptized. His single response was the word “Good.”
So, thus began my life in the LDS church. My life has been remarkably and positively changed. It was through this very serious traumatic time that I saw that I needed Christ in everything I did and everything I do. I tend to be like Abraham’s Sarah. I come up with my own solutions when God already has it figured out. I tend to feel like I’m doing okay, and then it all (Life decisions or situations) falls apart on me. I remind myself when I screw up that God already knew I was going to do that. Makes me feel better somehow, even when I repent and try to do better the next time. We all have agency, free choice right? I don’t think that having ability to make choices means we inevitably make bad ones. But I do like to help God make choices, rather than allow him to make his guidance known.
I was with my father as he died. And although I cry as I say this, I have the comfort of knowing I will see him again. I am grateful.
I post this after a year of being in the church. The blessing of my lifetime has been in the conversion to LDS.
For years, the solution to satisfy my wanderlust hasn’t had a satisfactory resolution. My longing to return to the California Bay Area is quite tangible. How could I travel days in a row while also responding to my urgent and unavoidable need to rest after any exertion? The fact that I have to rest does not equate well when attempting to plan or finance a short vacation. Rather than paying for a hotel, forcing myself into a daily itinerary of multiple activities, I accepted that travel might be out of our reach. My husband and I both have significant health concerns and impediments that we must consider seriously when making any daily plans.
The opportunity to house and dog sit was the perfect answer. This opportunity gave us the perfect way to prioritize family plus explore and rest. My husband hasn’t been home for a long time in 10 years. His trips home during that time have been rushed where everything gets squished into a 72 hour bonanza. He didn’t want to repeat that experience. Neither of us want to over extend our reserves of energy or push our physical limits.
One of my most frequent impediments is chronic fatigue syndrome. This is caused by both lupus and fibromyalgia. The fatigue I experience is extreme. It feels like someone has removed a sink plug in the bottom of my foot and all of my energy drains out of me. Or that a vampire has attached itself to my jugular and has sucked all of my energy and drive completely dry. This emptying happens quicker than I could ever describe it. After the fatigue sets in, I feel listless, droopy, and almost half asleep. I want to lay down immediately. Ideally, I need to sleep.
The fact is that the fatigue is caused by the lackluster performance of my cells. The cells do not recuperate on the same time frame from exertion as healthier people rejuvenate from their rest. My best estimate on how much rest I need after exertion is one to three. For every one hour of my exertion, I will need three hours to rest and recover. I can accommodate this urgent need for rest while housesitting. Can traveling actually now be possible?
Day trips became the perfect answer because we were empowered to resolve our own physical needs. During the last five weeks, we enjoyed several memorable visits to his grandmother each Tuesday. We also enjoyed being tourists for a few hours in the lovely towns of Monterey and Santa Cruz, California. We found our favorite new restaurant; too bad it is several hundred miles away from home. We ate delicious food at his favorite taqueria before a grand theater production of Sweeney Todd for a surprise date night. These are the best examples of what we have been able to do within a radius of a 45 to 60 minute driving time to where we have been staying.
Now that my parents-in-law have returned from their trip, we have a few more days to go to the other places that were too far for a day trip. We have itinerary freedom. Yesterday was our much anticipated last hurrah! We visited San Francisco and Oakland. So, a few hours exploring each of these much anticipated locations was exactly what we needed.
This is been an unusual way to leave our everyday life behind for a few weeks. We will be explorers to the San Diego area more often at home. We’re going to enjoy more local evening events, like theatre, in the future. I’m looking forward to going home next week. The next installment of house sitting is next year. I’m looking forward to that too!
A picture of my right hand with Jaccoud’s arthropathy. This is aka swan neck deformity.
Sweetie Designs 