Do you need some reading for the weekend?  Perhaps something else to mull over while you do laundry?  Over the past few days I’ve gotten completely lost in cancertutor.com.  I found it on a Google search after our friend Joy, who is battling breast cancer now, was talking the other night about how much diet affects/causes cancer. 

The site’s purpose seems to claim many alternative cures to cancer, AIDS and other diseases for which I can make no claims.  They seem legit but it’s a tough call to make a leap of faith on the kind of processes they are suggesting.  Many are quick to label it quackery.  On the other hand, I think all of us could agree there are natural solutions for our bodies’ health issues.

A small part of the site which I’ve been fascinated with though are the articles on how to Prevent Cancer and The Cancer Diet, which isn’t required for me but I think includes some interesting facts about how food and cancer are related.  Most of the the stuff we know…lots of fruits, veggies (heavy on the green ones, including grass), nuts, beans and little to no meat are best.  But there are many other nuggets (no McDonald’s pun intended) that I’ve found like how bad peanuts are for you.  As I’ve heard before, sugar feeds cancer cells.  Food like margarine, french fries and aspartame cause cancer. 

I don’t know what to think of the site but I do know at minimum it was a good reminder to eat a healthy diet which I have STUNK at the last few months.  Ugh!  Why is it so hard?  Why can’t blackberries taste like a banana split??  And many apologies for posting this on Super Bowl weekend!  How about a side of guilt with those wings?

I’m very curious if anyone is familiar with any of these treatments or is pretty smart about a cancer prevention diet.  Would love any information, stories and particularly any healthy recipes you have!

This is a super quick post tonight but I just have to share.  We had our small group over for our White Elephant Exchange.  At the last minute, I decided to make a Caramel Apple Cider recipe I saw in a blog post.  Well, it called for whipped cream and caramel on top. The problem was it was 30 minutes until go-time and I had neither whipped cream or caramel. Since the title is Caramel Apple Cider I figured it was pretty important to include.  Google to the rescue!  I made both the whipped cream and caramel sauce while the the cider was simmering and the whole deal was a huge success.  Everyone agreed it tasted like apple pie in drink form.  Seriously best cider I’ve ever had.  I thought I’d link to all three posts since I’m not responsible for any of them.

Caramel Apple Cider

Caramel Apple Cider Recipe from LeAnn at She Cooks.  You’ll know her as the Executive Director of Operations of Lysa TerKeurst’s Proverbs 31 Ministries.

Whipped Cream

I’ve actually made whipped cream several times.  The last time was a dud but this recipe was a winner.

Caramel Sauce

The caramel sauce was SUPER easy.  And I’m so proud I have a jar of it left in the fridge.

So there you go.  If you’re entertaining this year, this is a MUST . Thanks to LeAnn!

There’s nothing much healthy about this but it’s one of those meals that is super easy to make and feeds a huge crowd. For father’s day, it fed 6 adults, 2 kids and we had at least 5 servings left over. If you can make spaghetti you can certainly make this!

1 – Brown 2 lbs of hamburger and cook 1 lb of noodles. There are no noodles in this picture but, you know, I’m not Pioneer Woman!

2 – When the meat is done, mix in 2 jars of Prego Traditional spaghetti sauce. So ok, you could use a different kind. Or not. It really is the best.

3 – While the noodles finish, let the sauce simmer and put in two cans of Cream of Mushroom into a 9×13 baking dish. And if you don’t have a Pampered Chef stone one, find one RIGHT NOW.

4 – Drain the noodles. Yes, I really took a picture of that.

5 – Dump the noodles on top of the cream of mushroom in the baking dish

6 – Stir the noodles and soup and flatten out a tad.

7 – Pour the meat sauce that’s been simmering on top. No need to stir a thing.

8 – Sprinkle about 2 cups of shredded cheese on top. Freshly graded!

9 – Cook on 350 for about 25 minutes or until the cheese is melted and the sauce begins to bubble on the side.

10 – Stick some garlic toast in the oven!

Be sure to give each serving a little stir and you’ll have some creamy spaghetti goodness! Throw it on top a piece of garlic toast for a few bites. Mmmm….

Find more Top 10 posts over at ohamanda.com

However, those days are gone and I have been really good at trying to eat something of value.  Most of the time, this ends up looking like a kids’ lunch box, usually 3 or 4 snacks rolled into a lunch.  There’s nothing profound here but I feel so much better when I’ve eaten off this list!  And I guess it’s working because I’ve kept off the 6 pounds I lost during the fast!  I have to give a shout-out to Jo-Lynne and Kristi for always inspiring to eat better!

1. Carrots with ranch (admittedly the ranch should go)
2. Cottage cheese (full fat!)
3. Strawberry yogurt with granola (I’ve also heard rave reviews over greek yogurt with honey)
4. Mixed nuts (don’t expect any pecans or cashews to be left after my turn!)
5. Garlic hummus with pita chips
6. Fruit – whatever I have: strawberries, grapes, etc
7. Baked potato (with only butter and salt. ok and maybe a little sour cream sometimes)
8. Salad with balsamic vinegar and oil
9. Tuna salad plain (with Nayonnaise (vegan mayonnaise) instead of Miracle Whip)
10. Egg salad plain (with Nayonnaise(vegan mayonnaise) instead of Miracle Whip)

Pretty sure I should have a ton more veggies on there but that is what I’m able to conjure up for now.

What else would you recommend?

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What is it?

OK first off, what IS the Daniel Fast?  Well, let’s be clear first that this is a fast, not a diet.  I’m sure you’re familiar with fasting from the Bible.  You take a set time to quit eating and use that time for prayer.  There are many instances when people fasted and prayed.  The first that popped into my mind was Esther telling the Jews to fast and pray before she went to talk to the King.  Daniel’s seemed to be a bit different.  It two cases, he ate but only a limited type of food.  In Daniel 1:

“Please test your servants for ten days: Give us nothing but vegetables to eat and water to drink.  Then compare our appearance with that of the young men who eat the royal food, and treat your servants in accordance with what you see.” So he agreed to this and tested them for ten days. At the end of the ten days they looked healthier and better nourished than any of the young men who ate the royal food.  To these four young men God gave knowledge and understanding of all kinds of literature and learning. And Daniel could understand visions and dreams of all kinds.

Now as you noticed it does not specifically mention that it was a fast, only that they restricted their diet.  In Daniel 10, he mentions restricting his food again as he mourned:

At that time I, Daniel, mourned for three weeks.  I ate no choice food; no meat or wine touched my lips; and I used no lotions at all until the three weeks were over.

OK first off, there is a lot of interpretation from this if you ask me.  From what I can tell, neither of these were specifically a set time of fasting and praying for Daniel (unless the mourning means a time of spiritual fasting?).  However, these are the verses from which the Daniel Fast comes from, which is specifically a time of fasting and praying.

What can you eat?

From what I have found (and I have not read books on this), this is left up to great interpretation.  If you take this at face value, you can only have vegetables and drink water.  However, from what I’ve read by vegetables, it would also mean fruits.  By “no choice food”, that would mean no sweeteners or breads.  They also conclude after all this that no artificial or processed foods are allowed.  This is not a case of natural vs. processed.  Coffee and tea are natural but you can only drink water.  Honey is natural but it’s a sweetener.  As far as I’m concerned, a cow is natural but it says no meat.  So basically the guidelines are you eat vegetables, nuts, and fruit and drink water.  Many people make their own interpretation and allow honey.  I would suggest reading and then letting the Holy Spirit guide on what is best for you.  God continually said to me, “I’m not a dictator, it will be ok.”  I chose not to eat honey but a lot of my issues are with sugar so I chose to avoid it.

So what did you eat?

This was a huge change for me.   Surprisingly, I really could care less about the meat, but I never realized how much I relied on sugar and dairy products (cheese! milk! sour cream! cream cheese!).  In all honesty, it was really hard but I found as with many things, once you find your groove, you’re fine.  I found in most cases, I was eating 5 small meals instead of 3 big meals and 2-3 snacks.

Here are some things I ate:

Breakfast

• Banana
• Grits made with water, sprinkled with garlic powder, salt and pepper. (Wow, super dry if but filling.)
• Oatmeal made with water, with strawberries. (YUCK.  I hate oatmeal anyway so I don’t know why I tried this.)

Lunch

• Homemade hummus with carrots
• Sweet potato fries
• Oven roasted potatoes with homemade ketchup
• Salad with balsamic vinegar/oil dressing
• Baked potato sprinkled with salt, pepper and seasoned salt
• Mixed nuts

Fruit with one of the above

Dinner

• Grace’s Golden Carrot soup made with tomato juice instead of broth and pureed into marina over whole wheat pasta
• Vegetarian Chili
• Havana beans and brown rice
• Sautéed squash
• Salad

Snacks

• Popcorn (not packaged).
• Plain raisins.  These tasted like nectar compared to what I was eating!
• Mixed nuts.
• Fruit
• Rice cakes with natural peanut butter spread on it

For dinner, I also ate some of the lunch items I mentioned.  Like a salad and potato fries for example.  Basically I just mix and matched whatever I felt like eating.

Since I chose to only do 10 tens (many do 3 weeks or even 40 days), you can see I just recycled most of this.  I tried to not make this about the food, but more about the praying.

I bought the Version 2 cookbook found here.  In general, I wasn’t impressed with the recipes but I did use the following recipes: sugar-free ketchup, balsamic, garlic and herb dressing, oven roasted potatoes.

What about the family?

This was actually one of my biggest concerns going in and to be honest, the kids didn’t eat so great.  The first few days I got some chicken from the store and spread that over a few days and let them eat that with a veggie and fruit.  They ate the oven roasted potatoes one night, the sweet potato fries one night and Emma LOVED the sautéed squash.  Other nights, they got pizza or ate breakfast for dinner and I made myself something different.

Scott actually ate what I ate for dinner when he wanted and other times, made himself a salad or sandwich.  He is working nights right now too, so many nights he wasn’t even home for me to cook for.

How was it?

Spiritually

It was unlike anything I’ve done.  I don’t know how to describe it, but I felt very connected to God.  I know He answered my prayers and gave me a word.  I would expound but it’s not really my story to tell.  Let’s be clear though that I did this for spiritual reasons and that is the real motivation I had to stay on top of what I ate.

Physically

I needed to do this from a physical aspect.  I had gotten so lax in what I was eating.  I’d been watching my friend Kristi go through a 3 week sugar detox and all the reasons she did it was why I needed to do it too.  Bottom line, I think my body was addicted to sugar.  I preach to my kids about not having too much sugar.  It shuts your immune system down, it messes up your blood sugar, it even feeds cancer cells.  I just needed to say no.  At one point this winter, I was 10 pounds more than I had been a few years ago when I was eating healthy and exercising.  I knew it was all the sugar and carbs I was eating.

Well, it’s now been 12 days since I did this and I am down 6 pounds.  I feel clean.   I don’t get tired in the afternoon.  I’m not craving food all day.  In fact, after dinner, I rarely eat any snack.  And I am SURE my body is rejoicing from the break!  Who knows what kind of good it is doing!

What about now?

Here’s the thing.  When the 10 days were over, I didn’t gulp down a Mountain Dew and eat the box of Girl Scout cookies that had arrived during my fast.  I got up Sunday morning and ate a banana like I had been.  The bagel and coffee at church didn’t appeal to me.  When we went to Jason’s Deli for lunch, I didn’t use Ranch on my salad, didn’t eat the bread and didn’t have the ice cream.  For dinner, I ate the leftover Vegetarian Chili from Saturday.  I LIKED how I felt and what my body was doing and was so motivated to keep it going.  Yes, I have added some things back in slowly.  I ate corn chips with the chili, had tuna for lunch yesterday and even splurged on ONE Girl Scout cookie last night.  I’m planning to add back in meat and would like to enjoy coffee again.  I don’t know how long this will last or how I will find the balance in what I eat.  But I can say I’ve done food both ways…eat the basics and eat what I want and I 100% feel better eating the basics.

And if you read all that, congratulations, you win the P2P reader award today LOL.  I’d be happy to answer any questions you might have after that if it’s possible.  If you’ve done the fast, I’m very curious as to the recipes you used and would love if you shared!

And in closing, I just want to thank God for sustaining me through this, being close to me and answering my prayers in a very real way.  He’s awesome!

Who knew making hummus was so easy?  I guess I didn’t.  And with an ingredient like Tahini, it scared me off a bit!  I had NO CLUE what it was and in fact, when I was at the store this morning I had to Google a picture just so I would have a clue where to look.  When I read it was ground sesame seeds, I headed for the spice/baking aisle.  No dice.  A clerk pointed me to where they have the almond butter and Nutella with the peanut butter.  And ouch, at $8.95 for a bottle, I was really doubting whether it would be worth it.

I picked out this recipe from The Barefoot Contessa.  As the comments suggest, it’s strong on the garlic, but it’s just what I love.  I haven’t done a side by side cost comparison but I’m guessing it’s a pretty big savings as you could actually get 8 batches from the one jar of Tahini.  And there are NO chemicals in this one!  It made quite a bit and with a few carrot sticks, it made for a nice snack or even quick lunch.

I’m looking forward to trying different spices.  Have you ever made hummus?  Have any recipes I should try?

So I finally set down my ruler and pencil and have given the floor plans a break.  No floor plan pictures today! I think we’ve done all we can and we’re just going to have to wait until the snow melts enough for someone to get over and look at the house.

We had a low key weekend this weekend.  I had to work on and off through the weekend on a conversion we’ve been working on for six months.  It went smoothly and it feels good to have it out of the way.  Other than getting out to the mall, the grocery store, church and Sunday dinner, we were at home doing stuff like laundry, cleaning, cooking and exercising.  Yes!  Exercising!  I bought a few new workout DVDs with my Swagbucks and Opinion Output rewards at Amazon.  I’m not committing to any exercise goals but I have been trying to do some type of something in the evenings.  How’s that for noncommittal?

Snow Day

As for today, I’m sure you’ve heard that we are getting 4-6” of snow dumped on us as we speak.  It’s beautiful, but really, a pain.  The kids are home basically going back and forth between 2 rooms.  Scott is sleeping from working this weekend so they’re having to be quiet.  I work from home so snow is not stopping me from having to work today.  And to top it off, Scott has been called in for two additional 12 hour shifts this week, totaling 7 days straight working.  So now he actually has to be out in this mess working all the wrecks out there.    Yay us!  So, besides the snow cream, I’m really not jumping for joy over this snow.  If I didn’t have to work then it might be a different story.  But no.  I hate to be a buzzkill but keeping it real!

On a high note, I did make some very yummy French toast this morning.  I’ve never been good at French toast but I think it’s because I never used French bread.  I took a note from my mom’s friend that cooks it when we visit in Pennsylvania and bought a loaf at the store yesterday and then followed these instructions.  Enjoy!

I’ll leave you with a sure-to-be-famous “Amy story”.  I have many in my past. 

Last night the girls and I were trying to switch from Wii Sports to the Wii Fit DVD.  I put the Wii Fit DVD in the Wii but it wasn’t recognizing it so I tried to eject it so I could clean it. Nothing!  I went online and then followed all the online recommendations for ejecting one.  I put out a complaint/plea on Twitter about what to do.  Best I could tell, I was going to have to get it sent back to Nintendo to get fixed.  It was REALLY stuck though.  I could even get another DVD in the Wii and get it to eject that but the Wii Fit was lodged somewhere that couldn’t get out.  Well.  This morning I told Scott about it hoping that he would have some magic fix.  Turns out he did.  He hit the eject on the PS3…right where I had put in the Wii Fit DVD.  Fail, Amy, fail.

Oh wait, in other big news today, Lexi lost her front tooth.  She now looks like a legit kindergartner.

OK, now my blog has been down so long that I have a few snow pictures.  Girls eating snow and then jumping on the trampoline with 4” of snow:

I need to tell you about this salad.  It doesn’t really have a name, I just made that up for the purpose of this post. In fact it was my mother’s creation on a whim.  She’s good at salads like that.  I LOVE a salad but I’m extremely picky about the dressings.  I can tell you every restaurant in a 10 mile radius that has the “right” kind of ranch.  I’ve tried so many recipes but have never found one I like.  Anyway, I’m digressing from THIS dressing and salad. 

We had lasagna for Lexi’s party on Wednesday so Mom put together this oil and vinegar dressing she had served a few weeks ago and took note of the proportions. 

Italian Dressing

1/3 cup of oil (I used olive)
1/3 cup of vinegar
1/3 cup of sugar
1 tbl of Pampered Chef’s Italian Seasoning Mix

Now, there may be a right way to make this dressing but here’s what I did. 

1. Pour the vinegar, seasoning and sugar in a jar
2. Shake. 
3. Add the oil. 
4. Shake. 

Voila!  I poured about 1 tablespoon on my salad right away.  You can also use a blender. In that case, you can pour the oil in as the other is mixing with the blender on.  It’s best to let it sit to get all the flavors, but mine tasted just fine right away.  You can store in the fridge for 2 weeks.  (According to a quick google search.  Please don’t sue me if you get a tummy ache).

Anyone that likes their dressing a little sweet will LOVE it.  But the dressing is not all that makes this salad wonderful.  The other secret is to take just a few pieces of Candied Walnuts, chop them up and spread on the salad.  YUM. MO.  Now, if you not only have a sweet tooth but ALSO like a lot of crunch to your salad, this is PERFECT. 

The rest of the salad can come and go.  Cheese, mushrooms, broccoli, carrots, whatever you please.  But don’t skip the dressing or walnuts!  I’m sure Mom would jump in here and mention that she likes cut up pieces of apple and sometimes raisins when she makes it like this.

Enjoy!

And this is what we came up with:

It’s not as professional as the inspiration and Lexi REALLY wanted blue flowers instead of the pretty pink but overall, I’m super proud of it and Lexi LOVES it.

And I’m happy to say we took some pictures along the way so you could see how it’s done!

First, Lexi wanted yellow cake.  Sorry to all my chocolate-loving family including myself that will be eating yellow cake tonight.

Next, Daddy got involved a cut some board to 20×30” and wrapped it in tinfoil. 

After the cupcakes cooled, I arranged them how I wanted them.  I put the puffier ones in the middle with the smaller ones would fit better.

Then I made some of my mom’s icing.  I separated them into 4 bowls, the largest going to the blue that is not pictured.  We used this really cool NEON food coloring I got from Harris Teeter.

Then, I got to decorating.  This is approximately 9pm at night so sorry for the bad lighting and hair. 

Then, dear goodness, I actually broke out my cake decorating set.  I have to say, I had fond memories of my mom doing this very same thing the night before my birthdays.  Mom, thanks for all the hard work you always put into our birthday cakes!  I put 3 purple dots at the edge of each flower near the middle.  And then outlined each flower so it made it look more like one cake.

And I just have to include this bad picture because it catches me going, “Oh my, is this going well?  I’m really not sure!”

I used the rest of the purple to write “Happy Birthday Lexi” on the side.  Given my bad handwriting skills, I felt like it went well.

And then, I used my spatula to “paint” a stem with the green.

And that’s it!

Oh, until we get to the end and go, oh my, how are we going to keep this covered until tomorrow?  And then Scott’s resourcefulness and OCD took over.

I think it’s safely covered until the party tonight.

Here is my mom’s icing recipe I used:

1 cup of Crisco
4 cups powdered sugar
1/4 cup + 2 tablespoons of milk
1 tsp vanilla
1/2 tsp almond extract

Dump all of this in a bowl and blend with a mixer.  If it’s too thick, add a little more milk. 

Good luck on not eating it before it makes it to the cake!

This is a long-standing recipe of mine. Probably the first edible one I did after we were married besides Hamburger Helper.  Not. even. joking.

I made this Monday night and was able to get 3 small casseroles from it.  We ate one that fed 4 and then two smaller ones I froze that will be great just for me and the girls one night Scott is working.  Usually I make 2 medium sized casseroles.  OR, just make one big 9×13 casserole dish of this if you have a crowd or like leftovers.  I’m going to do the recipe as it is one big casserole but you can divide between however many dishes you want.

1 pkg of jumbo shells (I prefer these over actual manicotti shells)
2 jars spaghetti sauce
32 oz ricotta cheese (or 2 15 oz containers)
3 cups shredded mozzarella cheese
2 teaspoons parsley
2 eggs
Parmesan cheese

Cook the jumbo shells according to package.  While you’re waiting, make the filling in a big bowl by mixing the ricotta cheese, 3 cups mozzarella cheese, parsley and eggs.  It will come together like a  big ball when you’re done.

Put 1/2 of one jar of spaghetti sauce in the bottom of the dish.

When the shells are done, run them under cold water and when they’re cool enough to touch, spoon 1-2 tablespoons of the filling into each shell. I like my filling where it makes the openings just touch or the filling puffing out just a bit.  Put the stuffed shell in the casserole dish.  There is no rhyme or reason here.  Continue until you can’t fit anymore shells in the dish.  I cram them in but usually have lots of shells left.

Top with the rest of the spaghetti sauce.  Cover with the remaining 1 cup of mozzarella and sprinkle parmesan cheese on top.

Bake in the oven at 350 for 20-25 minutes or whenever the cheese is melted and everything is bubbly.

Optional: Brown 1 lb of meat and mix with the spaghetti sauce before using.

Enjoy!