My Bizzy Kitchen Turns Six!

If my blog were a child, it would be starting first grade this year!  Think of all the things a child does from infancy until first grade.  That’s what I think about my blog when I look back on it.  I had no idea what I was doing back in September of 2008.  And I still don’t know a lot, but all I know is that I have met some amazing people along the way, some that I have been fortunate enough to meet in real life, and others I hope to eventually meet in real life.

My longest loyal blog reader though is hands down Maggie of Say Yes to Salad.  She first commented on my blog on September 30, 2008.  I did a recipe of oven baked breaded chicken.  Here is the mouth watering picture I took of it:  Doesn’t’ that look appetizing – ha!

And here was Maggie’s response:

maggie

Great idea for the breading – I really like your blog, by the way

Since she’s been reading my blog she moved in with her boyfriend, they moved, did tons of renovations, got married, had a baby (his name is Kurt and he’s so fricken cute) and sadly, she’s lost her Mom recently.  Lots of life events in six years!

And then I think back to all the other blogs I’ve found and followed:  Shelley’s boys have now both graduated college and have started careers and lives of their own.   Helen has been on some amazing vacations – of course to her beloved St. Martin and a wonderful trip given to her by her daughter to the Grand Canyon.  She and I both struggle with the whole dieting concept, can’t we just live, etc.  She’s continued to amaze me with her running and ability to get up at 4:30 in the morning to get the exercise done before work.   And we both would love to eat at the dining room table every.single.night.

Roz cracks me up with how much sushi she can eat – I believe given the chance, she would have it for lunch every single day.  Sending big hugs to her since her Dad had a birthday this summer and then was diagnosed with an advances stage of cancer and passed away less than 30 days later.  He loved leaving comments on her blog.  She wrote a blog post back in 2012 about Roz-isms – sayings that she didn’t know she even was saying.   He left this comment:  “It must be something in the family. Do you remember when they gave me a coffee mug with a dozen Martinisms on it? I think it was what I retired. When I was leaving for the day I’d be “Off like a dirty shirt!” However, I must go. “I have dirt to scratch and eggs to lay!”

I could go on and on – Christina, you know you make me laugh every time I see your Instagram pics – and love all the sunset pics you take of the Outerbanks.  Mara, so proud of you and how you have turned your life around this past year.  Ladies – she’s lost nearly 90 pounds this last year and looks amazeballs.  We still need to get together soon for a walk!  Lori, I envy your rehab skills and am so happy that you and your husband finally closed on Radiance Manor!  And Louise, so happy that I found you too – I love that you have embraced the lasagna soup as much as I have, and now that we are coming into the fall/winter season, you know I’ll probably be making it once a week.

Alright, I do need to eventually get to work this morning so I will move on.  Money is still tight, but I did want to do a little giveaway.  Nothing big, but if you could just leave a comment with a guestimate of how long you’ve been reading, you will be entered to win FOUR pint jars of my Baja Fresh Salsa.

Yesterday on my way to work, I grabbed a couple small pieces of granola and ate them in the car on the way to work.  I make a batch of granola bars for one of the nurses at the coumadin clinic that Tony goes to about every other week.  Her husband loves it and will it a bar for breakfast, lunch and dinner before it’s all gone.  He likes a crunchy bar like me – but Erin likes a chewy bar, so this batch I cut the cooking time by 5 minutes and they stayed together AND were chewy.  #winning  So I wasn’t really hungry for the breakfast burrito I brought and ended up eating a Chobani around 10.  I may have spilled some coffee on the top of the yogurt – I am klassy like that.

But when it came time to work out, my blood sugar was only 150, so my only choice was to walk.

Lunch was my leftover red thai chili dish leftover from my dinner the night before – I only added a cup of chopped broccoli to it, and some more stir fry sauce.

I’ve told it before, but over the weekends I usually bake at least two potatoes to have on hand later in the week.  They just sit in the fridge – I can dice it up and pan fry it, make twice baked potatoes, or my favorite – french fries!  I ended up making burgers last night – ranch burgers actually – where you add the ranch seasoning to the burger mix, but I didn’t taste any ranch at all.  Just the salt and pepper.  I added the Cabot Cheese’s white oak cheddar cheese to mine with Dijon mustard and lettuce and dill pickles.  I love the crispy part of the cheese on the right side of the burger.  It’s all about the cheese!  And then Tony and I split a potato – we each got four spears.  Although Tony does prefer crinkle cut fries, I think these are amazing.  Just slice potato in half, cut each half into four wedges and deep fry at 350 degrees for 4-5 minutes.  The outside is super crunchy, but the inside is so tender.  Oh, and I dipped my fries in my sriracha whiskey bbq ketchup.

Time to put my food together – it looks like its going to be a rainy day today.  I did remember my fitbit yesterday and got all my steps in and then some though!

So thank you old blog readers and new ones.  For taking time out of your day to stop by our neck of the woods.  To watch both our kids graduate, my step-son moving out with his girlfriend, moving to Texas and getting married.  Hannah moving out to Chicago and watching her grow from a freshman in high school to know a woman of 22, watching Tony battle colon cancer, hernias, wound vacs, knee replacement, and now this latest battle with heart disease.  Your words of encouragement mean more to us than you’ll ever know – we thank you for that!

Hugs – make it a great day!