We got a ton of snow yesterday - about 20 inches. So I spent some time trying new recipes. I made really easy low-carb peanut butter cookies. These were very good.

1 cup crunchy peanut butter - I used natural PB
1/2 cup granular Splenda
1 egg

Preheat oven to 325 degrees
Mix all ingredients in a bowl
Roll dough into 24 balls. Place balls on cookie sheet covered with parchment paper and flatten with fork.
Bake for 12 minutes. Cool before removing from pan.

Makes 24 cookies
Carb 2.54g/cookie

I made 12 larger cookies instead of 24. I don't know where I got the recipe, looks like I copied it out of a book.

For supper I made a dish called Joe from Hold the Toast blog.

1 lb ground beef - I used grass fed
1/2 onion, chopped
3 cloves garlic, crushed
a couple handfuls chopped spinach
1 4 oz can mushrooms
5 eggs
salt and pepper

In a big skillet, over medium heat, start browning the meat. Add onions, garlic and mushrooms and continue until meat is fully cooked. Throw in the spinach and let wilt. Now scramble the eggs together and pour over the whole thing and stir until they're set. Salt and pepper and serve.

I liked this for a good low-carb one-dish meal. I think next time I might add a can of tomato sauce and see how that tastes.

I ordered some more gift cards from Card Pool yesterday. For dad I got a $200.93 Home Depot card at a 9.2% discount for $182.44, and a $161.05 JC Penney gift card at a 17% discount for $133.67. He'll pay me back when they get here.

For me I got 3 Walmart gift cards at a 2% discount. I made another 1% back using my credit card to make the purchase. It's not a big discount on the Walmart cards, but I'm going to shop their anyways, might as well save a couple bucks.

I finished reading my book The Eye of Horus by Carol Thurston. Mystery - very good.

I made this a couple days ago and have been eating it for lunch with a hearty grain roll and an apple. It was pretty good. Some soups don't make it so well on day 2 or 3, but this one was still good. It's pretty simple.

1 small onion diced
2 large carrots small diced
2 stalks celery small diced
3 cloves garlic - garlic press
1 15 oz can diced tomatoes
1 15 oz can white beans
1 10 oz can chicken broth
1 tablespoon white vinegar
1 ½ teaspoons salt
1 teaspoon dried oregano
1 teaspoon dried basil
1 teaspoon pepper
½ teaspoon dried thyme
Olive oil

Directions:

1. Saute the vegetables in the olive oil until soft. Season w/salt and pepper while sautéing
2. Add all ingredients to large pot and bring to boil
3. Reduce to simmer for at least 1 hour.

I finished reading 2 more of my Patricia Briggs books Steal the Dragon and Masques. Sci/Fi - pretty good. These are some of her early attempts and while good, not as good as her later stories.

Last night I fixed a big pan of Stouffer's individual meatloaves, 6 of them. I ate one and refroze 3 and kept 2 for other meals this week. For sides I fixed scalloped tomatoes and mashed butternut squash. The mashed butternut squash is fixed the same way you fix mashed potatoes - boil in salted water, drain, mash with butter, milk, salt and pepper. They were pretty good - not as good as mashed potatoes, but good, and it was a vegetable :P

I love the scalloped tomatoes. This is a takeoff on one of Ina Garten's recipes only I changed it to just make 2 servings and use stuff from my pantry and freezer.

Scalloped Tomatoes

Ingredients

2 sliced frozen Texas Toast garlic bread
1 15 oz can diced tomatoes with Basil and garlic
2 cloves garlic
1 package Splenda
1 tsp basil
1 tsp salt
½ tsp pepper
1 tbls olive oil
2 tbls parmesan cheese

Directions

Preheat oven to 350
Add olive oil to large skillet and heat
Mince garlic
Grate parmesan
Drain tomatoes
Cut Texas Toast into 1 inch chunks while still frozen
Add toast to skillet and toast - approx 5 min
Add can of tomatoes, Splenda, garlic, salt, pepper and basil to skillet.
Heat tomatoes and other ingredients - approx 5 min
Put mixture in small ramekin and sprinkle parmesan over the top.
Bake in oven at 350 degrees for 35 min
Serves 2

I planted basil, parsley, radishes and green onions this weekend. It's finally time here - I hope. Now if I can just get thru the hail season.

I finished reading the library book The Endless Forest by Sara Donati. Historical - excellent. I love this series. I gave it to my niece a while back and she fell in love too and has been forcing all her friends to read it.

I also read my book Lyon's Pride by Anne McCaffrey. Sci/Fi - ok

well it's snowing again and mom and I decided not to walk at Walmart today, so another day where I don't have to get out and do anything. But I'm not being lazy today. I cleaned out the cabinets under the sinks in the bathroom and restocked them, ran a load of dishes and cleaned up my coupons.

I took out some of my chunky spaghetti sauce from the freezer for dinner. I blogged about this recipe, which I love, here

http://retireat50.savingadvice.com/2008/08/09/chunky-spaghet...

As I side I will make garlic green beans, another recipe I use all the time.

In a small skillet, melt some butter.
Add a handful of walnuts and cook for a couple of minutes until toasted.
Remove from heat and salt.

In another skillet heat some olive oil
Add about 4 cloves of minced garlic and cook for a couple minutes
Drain a can of cut green beans and add to skillet
Season with garlic salt and pepper
Stir so green beans are coated with oil and cook for about 5 minutes until warmed thru
Add walnuts and butter sauce to green beans
Serve - this makes about 2 servings for me.

I finished reading the library book Darksong Rising by L.E. Modesitt Jr. Sci/fi - very good

Ihate mornings. I always have. When I used to work I would always chant the "I hate mornings" mantra in the shower I rarely do that anymore since I wake up when I want to. However I'm still not prepared to do any thinking first thing in the morning. So breakfast is always something very simple, usually cheerios and a piece of fruit. Sometimes celery and peanut butter and fruit, assuming the celery has already been cut up for another meal. Or sometimes I fix a batch of oatmeal for 6 meals and nuke it - this is always good.

Anyways in my quest for eating more veggies I came up with the following recipe which I really like. Tastes great nuked. It's a combination of two other recipes I saw online.

Pumpkin Spiced Oatmeal

Serves 6

Ingredients:

4 cups cooked oatmeal
1 16 oz can pumpkin
6 individual packages of Splenda
1 tablespoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon nutmeg
1 teaspoon ginger
1 teaspoon vanilla
¼ cup chopped walnuts

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350

Cook the oatmeal as the package directs.

Add the pumpkin and spices to the oatmeal and stir together.

Pour into baking dish

Top with chopped walnuts

Bake for 30 min

If you are reheating this I put it in the microwave for 3 min and add milk.

The only problem is I want to make some more when this batch is done and I used my last can of pumpkin from before xmas. I have been looking for canned pumpkin for awhile and Walmart hasn't had any for 3 months. I checked King Soopers yesterday and they didn't have any either. Next time I go to Safeway I will have to check there.

I got several samples in the mail today from P&G sampling. 3 diapers (which will go to the food pantry), a sample of Tide with Febreeze and 2 samples of Metamucil.

My brother lives in a more rural area than I do and took some food to the food pantry down there. The guy inside told him, "See all those cars lined up outside, those are people who just sit there waiting for someone to come in and leave anything. They will take anything you bring in." That's so sad, that people are in that situation. I know when I go in to ours on Monday it's a zoo, people lined up for food and I live in a small town.

I finished reading my book Seven Deadly Wonders by Matthew Reilly. Action/Adventure - very good.

I've printed off several frittata recipes and that will be my next experiments in adding veggies to breakfast

yes, yes, yes, yes - I can't tell you how much I love being retired. I haven't blogged in a long time now, but I plan to start up again. I retired August 2008. The other day I met an old office friend in the grocery store and she asked me if I was still happy with my decision. Absolutely, love it, love it, love it.

However, if you asked me what I'm doing it would be lame stuff like reading, jigsaw puzzles, walking, cooking, shopping for bargains. I can't really understand where all the time goes. It doesn't fell like I have tons of time to do nothing. There is always something, but the great part is you rarely have to do anything right this minute. There seems to be enough time to do everything and if you don't get something done today - eh there's always tomorrow. Most of the really important things are automated like paying bills.

Occassionally things come up that have to be worked on, like taxes or I recently had to find replacement health care when my COBRA coverage ended. And while there is some stress involved, mostly it's worked on a little at a time until it's done.

I've spent a lot of time in the last couple of months testing recipes that have more vegetables in them. I'm trying to find good tasting, easy recipes so I will eat more veggies. I've found I really like the taste of roasted veggies. I've tried several that I never had before like parsnips, turnips, fennel, butternut squash and zuchini. I really like the parsnips and can live with the others.

Last night I made Roasted vegetables and sausage with a mustard sauce. So good. I got the recipe from a magazine but don't remember which one. You can use a variety of veggies for this, I've done it with parsnips and fennel and last night I added zucchini since I had some left over.

Ingredients:

1 med onion
3 med Yukon gold potatoes
3 large carrots
2 large ribs celery
½ lb beef sausage or polish kielbasa

Sauce:

2 tblsp lemon juice
¼ cup olive oil
1 tsp mustard
1 tsp minced garlic
½ tsp thyme
Salt and pepper

Preheat oven to 450 degrees

Cut vegetables and meat into 1 inch chunks

Put carrots and potatoes on one baking pan.

Cover with olive oil, salt and pepper and mix.

Put in oven for 15 minutes

In a big bowl make the sauce

Put onions and celery in sauce and coat.

Use a slotted spoon and put onions and celery on separate baking pan.

After the carrots and potatoes have cooked for 15 minutes add the sausage to their baking pan.

Put both baking pans back in the oven for another 15 minutes.

Put all the vegetables and meat in the bowl with the leftover sauce and mix thoroughly.

This makes 2 big meals for me.

I made some cornbread to go with it and since I had some leftover grated Gruyere cheese I sprinkled it on top. This turned out really well. I think I might try it with a Mexican blend next time, since I have some in the freezer.

I finished reading the library book The Soprano Sorceress by L. E. Modesitt Jr. Sci/Fi - pretty good.

My spaghetti sauce turned out wonderful. Just the way I like it. Very chunky and lots of flavor.

Here's the recipe. I started with one from Recipezaar, but made several changes and I made a huge double batch to freeze.

Chunky Spaghetti sauce - serves 20

Ingredients
3 (14 ounce) cans crushed tomatoes
2 (15 ounce) cans tomato sauce
2 (6 ounce) cans tomato paste
1 lbs ground beef
1 lbs Italian Sausage
1 medium onion, chopped
1 (8 ounce) can mushrooms, chopped
1 cup celery, chopped
5 cloves garlic, minced
4 teaspoons oregano
4 teaspoons basil
2 teaspoons salt
1 tsp pepper
grated parmesan cheese


Directions

1 Pour crushed tomatoes, tomato sauce, mushrooms and tomato paste into large crock pot and put on low.

2 While sauce simmers, brown meat and drain fat. Season meat with salt, pepper and garlic powder.

3 Add meat to sauce.

4 Chop onion, celery, garlic and add to pot.

5 Add oregano, basil, salt, and pepper.

6 Simmer all ingredients at least 2 hours before serving over favorite pasta and topped with parmesan.

Finished reading the library book With Every Breath by Lynn Kurland. Time travel romance. Very good.