Spicy Collards and Rice

I grew up southern, and well that often meant vegetables cooked in a pot with bacon grease, fatback, or a huge chunk of butter...ok let's be honest practically the whole stick of butter. I probably still have cholesterol floating around n my veins from childhood. Collards were no different, and as an adult I have shied away from cooking them because I had no idea what to do with them other than smother them in cholesterol. Well since my new health kick, the whole trying to eat a bigger variety of vegetables thing, I have broke down and bought a bag of frozen collards. They have been staring at me from my freezer every since...taunting me in my failure to use them. Well today I braved these baffling collards and quite frankly they turned out delicious. 

Cheaper Than A Therapist

School has started at full speed ahead for us, and I find myself trying to do multitude of things at one time. Mornings are the absolute worst it seems. Quirky made it through the first week getting up on time, having her breakfast, and so on...just like clockwork. I had time to make breakfast for myself, because despite school starting back I am still trying to stick to getting healthier. It was a dream, a honey moon, or maybe a grace period, but after that first week...forget it.

Picking Up Good Habits

Don't you just love it when your kids picks up one of your good habits for a change? I do. As you might have figured out from my previous posts that I have been trying to make my diet, which I thought was already pretty healthy, even healthier. We've been experimenting in the kitchen with new recipe ideas and even trying a few new vegetables. It's been great and lucky me I've even lost a little bit of weight. What I wasn't trying to do is convince Quirky that she needed to do this to, so I was a little surprised the other day when I noticed her making herself an early lunch. She had pulled out my giant tub of spinach, which made me stop to see where this was going. She ended up making what she called a Turkey, Spinach, and Cheese Tortilla Pizza. Now Quirky will eat spinach, if I put it on her plate, but normally voluntarily. I was a little surprised and proud. She really is a great kid.

Sixth Grade Math Notebook

As I was cleaning out our school room the other day I ran across Quirky's math notes from Sixth Grade. I had completely forgotten that we still had them.  I talk about it here only because of the unusual way that she took her math notes. It was just creative enough to keep her interest piqued for the school year.

Roasted Brussels Sprouts

I know that I have said before, but I'm going to say it again. Sometimes simple recipes are the best. This "recipe" is the perfect example. It's so simple that instruction really aren't needed but here is what we did anyway:

Getting Ready For The New School Year

The new school year is just around the corner and I have been busy...busy...busy trying to get everything ready for the first day. I finally got around to cleaning out our school room/ sun room, which I have been saying I was going to do since the last day of th school year last year. I may have procrastinated just a bit.

Sweet and Garlicky Greenbeans

I mentioned previously, in my post about a quick and easy corn on the cob recipe, that sometimes the simplest recipes are the best. You don't always need fifteen ingredients and every spice known to man to make something delicious. Besides, when you are making a quick lunch, who has time for long and complicated recipes. Not moi. Nor does Quirky always have the patience or the attention span for such recipes. So when lunch time rolled around, I decided that I would show Quirky a quick, simple, and delicious way to dress up fresh or frozen Greenbeans. Here is what we did: