Home Sweet Home

We went to bed around 11:30 last night and guess what time I woke up this morning?  TEN O’CLOCK!  Ha, I love that I can still sleep like I am a teenager.  But I have to tell you I was tired.  After driving all day Thursday I actually thought Friday would be an easy day at work, but nope – super busy all day.

I ended up making a breakfast panini at work.  Egg whites, baby spinach and Cabot extra sharp cheddar on whole grain bread.  I actually don’t use butter on my bread – I just spray it with Pam and it works perfectly without any extra fat.  Don’t worry – lots of hot sauce was added after this picture was taken.

I was able to sneak out at lunch and got my walk in – a gorgeous 45 minute walk in 80 degree breezy weather.  I take that road down to a subdivision behind our office complex – not a lot of traffic, which is nice.

Lunch was leftover ragu with whole wheat pasta.  Shitty picture, but it tasted good!

Remember a few weeks ago on our first trip to Mayo and we ordered pizza at the recommendation of the desk clerk?  And this was how the pizza looked when I opened the box from the delivery driver.  This was a $16 pizza and I tipped the driver $4 for an even $20.

Tony wrote an email to the store owners, who apologized profusely and will use this picture as an example of what not to do when you are a pizza driver!  You can read his apology here.  Well yesterday in the mail we received this:

He paid us our money back and had this note:

So Keith, thank you for refunding us our money.  But hopefully we are done with Mayo for a while! 

One of Tony’s main complains about the hospital, well, really the only complaint was the food.  They had mentioned that they were overhauling the kitchen, and in the meantime, the selection would be limited.  Because he was in the cardiac care unit, he was on a low sodium diet.  One morning he ordered a cottage cheese and fresh fruit plate.  The cottage cheese?  Probably about 2 tablespoons and the fruit wasn’t very ripe.  Most evenings he would just order a plain burger, and that was it.  After 9 days of the same menu and nothing remotely sounding appealing, Tony would think of things that he would eat if he were at home.

One of his jones?  A grilled cheese sandwich of all things!  But with bacon and American cheese and sliced tomato.  Well, Tony is on a less than 2000 mg diet, so I had to make some adjustments, but he loved it.  Two pieces of reduced sodium bacon was 160 mg, an ounce of reduced sodium American cheese was 260, and the two slices of bread were 270 mg.  Considering he had frozen fruit for breakfast and stopped at McDonald’s on the way back and got a strawberry banana smoothie (50 mg of sodium), we were well under his target for the day.

Mine was bacon and pepper jack cheese.  It was quick, simple, delicious and I didn’t mind not spending time in the kitchen last night.  We watched part of the Bears pre-season game, and watched Hard Knocks – I love that show about behind the scenes of a football team.  It was just nice to be home with each other – it’s amazing what you can take something as simple as being home for granted.  But after the last few weeks we’ve had, there was nothing sweeter.

I managed to get all my steps in too!

And now I am making up a batch of blueberry vanilla pancakes using flax milk – Tony has a dairy and soy intolerance, so hopefully these will be okay – he said they were delicious!  I’ll post pictures and the recipe next week.

I have a Sunday post tomorrow too – I am thrilled to be a part of Can it Forward.   I’ve been around canning my whole life – watching my Mom and grandma can grape jelly.  My Mom canning tomatoes and green beans.  They always used a pressure cooker.  I use the old school method of water canning – a giant pot that takes forever to come to a boil, then cooking my salsa for 30 minutes.  But it’s worth it when you open up a jar of my Baja Fresh Salsa in December!

I can’t wait to show you the newest technology in canning equipment!

Alright, time to go eat some pancakes, even though its after 12 and lunch time!

Enjoy your weekend!

p.s.  Click here to vote for my Away From Home Pan Seared Pork Chop recipe – only 13 reminders to go!  Thanks Gail for the reminder!