Celiac's Silver Lining...

Is that I lost 26 pounds in about 2 1/2 months.

Yes, dear friends, I found out in June that I have Celiac's Disease and am gluten intolerant. All that Daring Baking and Tuesdays with Dorie was making me feel even more miserable than usual. Once I figured it out and started eating gluten free it made a world of difference. I feel 1000% percent better. I have energy and my moods are more level and I'm just... well, happy. I've been eating almost no carbs at all (for fear of cross contamination) and have had to buy all new clothes. (The Pants of Shame went to Goodwill about a month ago.)

So, this is why I've dropped off the face of the blog. I've been trying to get my new lifestyle into the groove and just haven't had the time or inclination to document and photograph everything I put in my mouth. In the beginning I was thinking about food ALL THE TIME and just didn't want to feel compelled to write about it too. I've found tons and tons of great resources and blogs from other people, so I'm grateful for that, but I'm not ready to jump in there also.

I may pop in and out here, but I'm still in my coocoon stage and taking baby steps in the learning process. I still follow your blogs, but not as regularly as I'd like. I am so proud of you for continuing onward!

Be sweet, take care and allez cuisine!

Lisa

Dr. Teeth and the Origami Mayhem

The Tooth Fairy is putting in overtime these days, and going broke. We've had several years with nary a tooth being lost and now it's a veritable tooth avalanche. Here at Chez Hatch, the Tooth Fairy brings GOLDEN DOLLARS. ooooooooooh. It used to be the one with Sacagawea on them, now the Presidents are out and about. The Messy One actually turned up his nose at Martin Van Buren, saying that he had one of those already. Excuse me? The Tooth Fairy isn't keeping track of what you have and what you need for your collection, kid. Suck it up and take the money.

It also turns out that the Tooth Fairy recently lost her mind and decided to surprise the kids with origami money holders. It takes her a really long time to make each creation. She told me that it took her almost 45 minutes to make a dog basket for No Thank You Boy which held his loot. Unfortunately, since she started something (and didn't realize that so many teeth would be coming out in such short order), she can't stop. Rumor has it that tonight she'll be making a panda for the Messy One as that's his favorite animal. (Edit: Holy cow! The Tooth Fairy just showed me the diagram for the panda. No way, Jose. Each kid gets one paper creation and she calls it a day.)

We have at least 8 more loose teeth over here between all 3 boys. It's going to be interesting...

The Hatchlings read this blog occasionally, so please post any comments with care. :D

Messy One - Tooth #9

April 26, 2009

Origami basket

No Thank You Boy - Tooth #9
April 27, 2009
(Yes, the very next day, because he can't be outdone by his brother and have him get money, fame and origami and he not. It "just fell out" at school. Riiiiight.)
Origami dog basket thingy

The Little One - HIS FIRST TOOTH! awww

May 3, 2009
Origami dog (he thinks it's a cat though)

The Messy One - Tooth #10
May 5, 2009
Origami Panda - maybe. We need to see what turns out.

Happy Easter!

Happy Easter, one and all!

Sheer Heart Attack (alas, no Daring Bakers)

(part of my new cookbook collection...)

Yes, my internet friends, I haven't fallen off the face of the earth and there is no Daring Bakers March Challenge to be found in this post. Why? Well, things have been quite interesting here at Chéz Hatch of late....

My 49 year old DH was driving to work and he felt like he had indigestion, so he stopped for a Chick-fil-A chicken biscuit. That didn't help. He then felt like he was wearing about 4 or 5 layers of shirts and that they were all bunchy at the elbows and about 10 sizes too small (aka: squeezing in the chest and arms). He got to work and tried to lay down to see if that would help his "indigestion" which by now in his head had morphed into "The Flu" since he was now also nauseous and sweating. When his flu and indigestion didn't improve, one of his co-workers asked him if he needed to go to the hospital. He said he was ok and to give it a minute. After a minute and when he refused to take a call from one of his important clients, the co-worker told him "That's it. You're going to the hospital. Now."

So, my DH gets to the emergency room. One of the nurses came out of the back, took one look at him and hustled him back to the triage area at which point he was relieved of his shirt, hooked up to a bunch of monitors, had an EKG, and IV with blood thinners pumped in.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, I get a call from one of the company's owners telling me that my DH has been taken to the hospital with chest pain and she thought I needed to go there now. I called school, arranged for the hatchlings, tried to call other people to no avail, resolved to cancel T-Mobile as soon as the contract is up in May (no bars my damn a**) and waited for the calm to wash over me. It did.

I met with the doctors in the triage room and they told me that they were going to take him to the Cath Lab and take a look to see what was going on. The main doctor came out after about 45 minutes and told me that he was all done. Huh? How is he? What did you find? Will he have to have surgery? When will you operate??? Um, Mrs. Hatch, it's all done. Really all done.

Modern medicine is so amazing. They fixed him up completely in that 45 minutes. They ran a cathater (cath) up through the artery which runs from your groin to your heart and took x-rays. They found that the main artery which runs down the front of his heart and one of it's tributaries was completely blocked at the junction point. If he had gotten to the hospital 15 to 30 minutes later there would have been a completely different outcome. {shudder} Via the catheter, the doctor took "a balloon with little knives on it" and roto-rootered out the tributary and put a stent in the other. I saw my DH shortly afterwards and he was awake for the procedure (thanks to the chicken biscuit they couldn't knock him out since he had food in his stomach). They officially admitted him and took him upstairs to the heartcare floor. The nurses all thought he was going home the next day and kept trying to convince us of that opinion, but the doctor kept him for an extra day. There were probably more tests and monitoring to be done, but secretly, I think that the doctor wanted to make a real impression on my DH and kept him the extra day so that it wouldn't feel like a drive-through lifesaving. (I'll have a medicated stent please, and hold the onion.)

Bottom line is that he is fine and that he knows that he has some serious lifestyle changes to make including dates with the nutritionist, physical therapist, sleep apnea/sleep center people and maybe a yogi. Unfortunately nagging wives don't have the same impact as a cosmic 2x4 wakeup call up-side the head. A nagging wife with a real 2x4 might be a different story though.

Please learn the warning signs for heart attack and stroke. Heart attack symptoms are different between men and women. Please learn what the different risk factors are for heart disease and resolve to make better choices, especially if you have more than one risk factor. Listen to your nagging wife, husband, partner, friend or child. Please. You matter.

I may be MIA for a little while longer, but we're all doing well here and taking baby steps on the road to a new heart-healthy life. For those of you who knew about this and who have been supporting us, who brought us dinner, offered childcare, kept us in your prayers and more, thank you. Thank you from the bottom of MY heart.

TWD: Time Off for Bad Behavior

This is not me.

Hello my TWD friends! I've pleaded insanity and gotten a TWD hall pass for the next couple of months. My hips, cholesterol and wallet all need a little time off, but rest assured that I'll come back to worshiping at Ms. Greenspan's feet when things are under control. I WILL keep posting items, just not TWD's. I hope to live vicariously through you and will continue to cheer you on! Allez cuisine!

(This is NOT me either, but I sure feel this way!)

YIKES!!! Recipe Analyzer

Quantity (3) Barefoot Blogger Banana Sour Cream Pancakes

OK, so this is good AND bad. I found a free recipe analyzer online and started plugging in some of the recent things I've made and some of the upcoming Barefoot Blogger recipes....

I tested it out using a few online Cooking Light recipes where I could match up what they had listed versus the analyzer. Most things were quite close. If there is an unusual or specific ingredient, the analyzer gets a little confused. I'm not saying it's perfect, but at least it will give you a ballpark figure if you have nothing else to compare to.

Try it for yourself and see what you think. Tuesday's With Dorie might blow its mind.

http://caloriecount.about.com/cc/recipe_analysis.php

Here is (1) one TWD Buttery Jam Cookie (assuming a yield of 40 cookies)

Happy New Year!!!

May the coming year bring you happiness, health and properity.

(and the occasional cheesecake)

Merry Christmas to All

 

and to all a good night!

I hope that your Christmas was everything you wished it would be and more.
Sending all of you special hugs on this magical day,
Lisa

Random Image

I have NO earthly idea why this vignette of white and silver has been composed in my bathroom sink or where the bow came from. I just walked in the room and this stopped me in my tracks. There's nothing under the bowl. And why the spoon? Mysteries abound.

The Electric Mixer

(Click to enlarge)

My classic symbol of comfort and home is flaming cherry red. ;D

How NOT to Roast Garlic...

This is what NOT to do:
1) prepare 2 perfectly innocent heads of garlic by peeling the skins off, leaving the root intact, then cutting off the tops of the cloves and rubbing the entire thing with olive oil, especially into the cut areas.
2) put said garlic heads into 2 cute little mini-Pyrex ramekins that you love and are the only 2 you have left from a set of 6.
3) put the above assembly into the microwave for 5 minutes.
4) get distracted doing something else in another room
5) come back into the kitchen trying to find the source of that horrible burning smell.
6) open the door to the microwave and have massive clouds of thick, choking gray smoke billow out.
7) set off the fire alarms and fill the whole house top to bottom with smoke and that sickening burnt stuff smell that will take about a week (or more) to fully disappear. Open all the doors and windows in the interim, letting all the heat (and smoke) out.
8) try to clean the inside of the microwave out using spray cleaner and Barkeepers Friend.
9) set your favorite 4 cup Pyrex measuring cup in the microwave with 1 cup of water and a splash of lemon juice and bring to a boil so that the water vapor helps steam off the goop and clean out the smell that is now permeating the guts of the microwave.
10) open the door to the microwave and remove the favorite measuring cup and have the bloody thing start reboiling, overflowing onto your hand.

Things TO do:
11) scream obscenities at the top of your lungs that would make a sailor blush and fling the cup and liquid across the room in the general direction of your porcelain sink and have it shatter in there into a million pieces. Try to get it all in the sink and not have it splash all over the floor and cabinets. Avoiding hurling it through the window is also a good idea.
12) run your now scalded hand under cool water for several minutes until you realize that your state is in a drought and that they changed the billing /water tier consumption rate charges on your house and that it will cost a small fortune to keep running the water. Yell for your 9 year old to bring you a bowl (NOW!) and plunge your hand into the bowl of cool (not cold) water. Add a few ice cubes when the water becomes bearable.
13) sit there for, oh, about 1 1/2 hours, swishing your hand gently back and forth. While you're doing this, it's a good time to make your kindergartener sit and write out 10 times "I follow class rules". This will take the whole 1 1/2 hours, so it is a constructive use of your otherwise free time.
14) call every urgent care center within a 20 mile radius and discover that they all close at 8:00 pm and that unless you want to go camp out in the ER until morning with all the really sick people, you're SOL.
15) call Walgreens to see if they have anything and learn that the answer is no, not really.
16) send your husband to dig around in the medicine closet and find the jar of Silvadene burn cream that expired back in 2005, but that you kept "just in case".
17) realize that this is one of those moments and apply the cream. Have pain ebb and flow between excruciating and tolerable for about an hour.
18) breathe a deep sigh of relief and gratitude that the old cream still works and that the pain is abating.
19) do not take a picture of your hand to document the experience.
20) be extremely grateful that the cream and cold water worked and that the burn is not near as bad as it could have been.
21) tell the internet and the Barefoot Bloggers that you were going to make the coq au vin but got sidetracked by all this and you'll do it in the next few days. Beg forgiveness and plead insanity. Type the post with the one good hand and two fingers from the other because you are not 100%, but can't be separated from your computer and the internet for any length of time without going loco.
22) the next time you boil water in the microwave for a longish period of time, put a bamboo skewer in the water to give the bubbles an escape route and not explode on you.
23) buy a jar of roasted garlic at Trader Joe's or Harry's/Whole Foods. You'll have it on hand (ow!) when you need it in a pinch and don't have time to roast it properly.

Leaves

Saving Documents: an EASY Way

(Today's TWD is next/below this post)

This makes my life so much easier, I thought I’d share.

Instead of physically printing out important documents you get online, like receipts from online purchases, invoices, order acknowledgements, coupons :D (when legal or moral), use this FREE program to create pdfs of them instead.

http://www.exp-systems.com/

If you're a couponer and have a scanner, you can also print/pdf and save copies of your original cash register receipts, rebate forms , UPC’s or other proofs of purchase before you mail off your originals.

To use this program, instead of clicking on “print” and then selecting your regular ink printer, you select the “pdf redirect printer” in the print drop-down box and it creates a pdf file you can then save. Save everything to a folder called “receipts” or something like that and you’ll have all those things in one place, and not reams of paper to keep track of.

If for some reason you need the documentation, all you do is then print the file on your regular printer or you can forward it directly as is to the company as evidence.

Think outside the box!
You can also use this method to keep copies of recipes (hallelujah!) , directions, instruction manuals or ANYTHING you want to print and keep for posterity, but not have paper clutter.

If you scan them in, you can also save Legal documents like your will, insurance papers, picture of your passport, driver’s license, credit cards – anything you’d REALLY need if things were stolen or if your house burned down or if your computer crashed.

You can save these files from catastrophe by emailing these pdfs to yourself at an online email service (like hotmail, gmail, etc. or similar site that you can check from another computer anywhere on the planet) and then save the documents in your inbox or saved items box. If you’re traveling and need this info, you can just get online and print the files in whatever country you’re in.

The possibilities are endless.

Salud! with Shirley

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EDIT: Ohhh! Sorry to keep you hanging! I promise to try and write about this tomorrow! Messy One has a swim meet all this weekend, and I'm still up (now at midnight Friday) cooking for the hospitality suite. TWO different egg casseroles (one of which needs to be there at about 6:30 am; same bat time/channel Sunday for the other) and TWO marbled sour cream cakes - w/two new flavor riffs previously untried but the batter is to die for! I need to split these up and share the love with the pool staff - they have been very helpful, and meets can be stressful.

Also (don't hate me) we're supposed to go to Tom Colicchio's brand spankin' new Craft Atlanta tomorrow night. Taking pics will most probably be tacky, so I'll need to use my imagination to document it all for you! Oh the excitement!

Wired

Wired. Hard wired. Homerun wired. Wired direct from my computer out to the Bellsouth box in the street. Happy girl. Do not stop, do not pass go, do not collect 200 dollars. Do yank out yards and yards of old yucky mid 1960's cabling and replace it with shiny new 2008 cabling. (Not that there's anything wrong with the mid 1960's - only cabling from that era is old and yucky. People from the mid 1960's are quite lovely, youthful, fresh and beautiful.)

Low Voltage Guy: Ah, ma’am, do you have a trashcan for these wires and cables?
Me: Sure, why don’t you just use this big, huge, blue tub.
LVG: Well ma’am, that’s sort of a nice bucket. Don’t you have a trashcan somewhere?
Me: A trash can?! Oh, no! I want to keep all this mess.
LVG: (looking wary) Ma’am?
Me: (nodding head) Oh yes, I definitely want to keep it. Definitely. Please put in all in here. Thank you. I want to take a picture of it.
LVG: You what?
Me: (smiling slightly) I want to take a picture of it.
LVG: Ah, well, um, yes Ma’am. Here you go.
Me: Thanks so much. This is perfect.

Me: (in my head, singing/dancing- Yes! A picture! A picture to show my friends why I’ve been gone for so long. A picture to show all my INVISIBLE friends that the problem has been dealt with and that these new cables should shake with fear while transmitting the pictures of their sad, old and now very dead precursors and that they should be warned that I can flick my magic wand and make this happen to them and they will end up in a bucket if they do not obey my bidding! Bwah hahahahaha) (Ok, so I’ve missed you guys a lot).

Thank you for hanging in there with me! I’ve got some catching up to do. Hugs, hugs and more hugs for all the well wishes you sent and I’ll be seeing you soon! Online!

I Heart...

I heart all of you who left lovely things to say about my last post.
I heart the public library because they have free internet access.
I heart my DH for putting up with my tremendous, childish, embarrasing rant about my losing my DSL connection yet again.
I heart the people who are coming to my rescue and fixing my DSL connection / ripping out the old wires / running all new cabling which will hopefully fix the problem once and for all as I am done with this nonsense.
I heart the people I work with for helping me work around these computer issues I'm having.
I heart my neighbor who has an albuterol nebulizer and answered the phone at 3:30am and let us come down to use it on the Messy one who couldn't breathe.
I heart modern medicine and the doctor who gave us a boatload of free breathing treatment samples.
I heart my DS who sent me a lovely book on King Tut and some cute Jessie Steele aprons.
I heart all the moms who came today and helped with the kindergarten Thanksgiving Harvest Feast.
I heart Publix for having an awesome in-store Feast on Tuesday and where we basically ate dinner on all the yummy food they had out.
I heart the Good Samaritan who found my Coach silk scarf that I lost at the Publix Feast and turned it in.
I heart MT who gave me a discount card for Coach as I think I need an early Christmas present for dealing with all this without losing my mind.

I will be back soon-
Heart,
Lisa

The Tao of Pudding

For your consideration: Arborio Rice Pudding: White, Black (or Both) from Baking: From My Home to Yours by Dorie Greenspan, pages 412-413 featured this week on Tuesdays with Dorie.

Repress the gag reflex and don't yack, it's just a really crappy picture. When I first saw this recipe I was skeptical – I even halved the recipe. I was in agreement with some of the other TWDers who commented that rice pudding doesn’t exactly bring whoops of excitement into their lives. One of the news flashes was a post from Herself, stating that there was a typo regarding the cooking time: “50” minutes, not 30. Glad I read that before I started.

I followed the directions faithfully, halved the recipe and increased the cooking time and ya know what? I LIKE rice pudding. I do. The spoonful I ate convinced me that I definitely like it “plain” without the extra vanilla or chocolate that the recipe calls for. Not black, not white or both. Neither. No yin, no yang, just plain. The Tao of Pudding and my life of late or so it seems.

A bloggy friend just demanded of me “Where the hell have you been?” Sorry I’ve been absent for a while. In addition to recovering from that cold, I’ve been seriously down in the dumps and it all revolves around food, glorious food. I went MIA, only made a half batch of pudding, didn’t experiment, only ate one spoonful, and barely stirred up enough enthusiasm to take a questionably passable picture – what’s up with that, Lisa? Well, you see my lab tests came back as definitely reflecting my participation in TWD and my love of food in general. My cholesterol and triglyceride levels seem to indicate that molten butter is starting to course through my veins while expanding my waistline at the same time. Which explains the tone of this pudding post and also my conundrum. Metaphorically speaking, since I can’t eat it, my DH shouldn’t, and my kids won’t (well, except for the Messy One)…. What’s a girl to do? Needless to say this little kick in the pants has taken me a while to process offline and figure out what I want and how to get there.

I've decided that I’m gonna shake, shake, shake it off because where I’ve landed is that I’m going to re-explore the Cooking Light/Light Cooking side of the food fence. I did Weight Watchers for a few years and I know how to dance that dance. The other weight loss program that really (really) works is Take Shape for Life/Medifast. Yes, it’s true. Just like the infomercials, I dropped over 13 pounds in 2 months: after that I was feeling so great that I dove head first into a pound of unsalted butter and wallowed around in it. I'm still down 8 pounds, so that's reason to celebrate, but I want to go all the way to my dream weight. So, an actual diet and eating mindfully: those two things should help with the diet part of the "diet and exercise" mantra (yin, yang, ok so I get it already). Doing T-Tapp at home and going to classes and meeting my friend at the gym (does it HAVE to be 5:00 AM though?) are the exercise part. Yin, yang, rhymes with Tang and I love orange Tang and oranges with chocolate and those orange chocolate wham things and (I need help.)

Before I cross over to the dark side, I’ll be posting some recipes I’ve already made and photographed, but haven’t uploaded yet. Some of these are oh so bad but OH so good. If I can bring myself to revisit those pictures and stop from salivating ( just the thought of this one particular recipe is making me drool and causing tears of joy to spring to my eyes, and yes it involves browned butter sauce, and is quite possibly The Best Thing I’ve put in my mouth EVER!) (and probably the big reason for those abysmal test results), I will share those with you so you can steer clear of my wicked ways. Yin. Yang.

As for the Rice Pudding? It was good. Really good. Thanks to Isabelle of Les gourmandises d’Isa for choosing this recipe. To see what all the other TWDers did with it, check out the blogroll here. If you'd like to try making Dorie’s version of Arborio Rice Pudding for yourself, you can find the recipe on our hostess’s blog, or in Dorie Greenspan's Baking: From My Home to Yours.

Guess Whooooo We Saw Tonight???

Wooo HOOOOOOO!
Tulip is back!

Thanks for all your wishes!

New Apron and a Question for You

I've got a new apron! I love it! It's so girly and cute. I love the scalloped edges and that it's made of oil cloth. I can wipe up the inevitable splatters really easily and it has a really nice feeling about it. I got it on Ebay so there was no touchy-feely before I bought it, but I was surprised that it was much higher quality than I expected. Happy girl, happy dance!

Question: Do you wear one, and if so what does YOUR apron look like? Do tell!

My Little Town

Recipes and food to come tomorrow. We were away at a swim meet all weekend, so in the interim, I thought you'd enjoy savoring a couple of quick snaps of my little hometown in upstate New York. We visited last weeked during our whirlwind tour, and yes, the sky and trees really were that brilliantly colored.
Enjoy the eye candy~