Cooking Experiments

First, a little health update.  This morning (Thursday) when I got up, as standard, I drew a drop of blood to see what my overnight fasting number would be.  Surprise!  It was 108.  That, folks, is in the normal range.  I'm ecstatic.  Of course, that means I have to watch my sugar a little closer today making sure I don't plunge too low.

The doctor put me on Victoza and I'm still working my way up to the full dosage. He told me to finish off my Januvia and he upgraded my metformin pills by 50% so I"m now at 850mg.  My Januvia will last through the end of the weekend... so, by the time you're reading this, I'll be off of it.

Now, about my cooking experiments.  I found a recipe somewhere and they made "hotdog" hamburgers.  I attempted them and now call them "Doggers" and they are amazing and yummy.

Prepping the "Doggers"

I took a pound of hamburger (should have used about 1.25 or 1.5 pounds, but...) and made 4 equal balls. Then I flattened the balls into rectangles. From a chunk of cheese (I used sharp cheddar) I sliced 4 equal size pieces.  I placed the cheese in the middle and very carefully rolled / wrapped the meat around the cheese. Note I have excess on the ends - that is to seal it good since the meat tends to contract when grilled.  Also, make sure to really seal the seams all around so the melting cheese doesn't ooze out.

Above is the finished product ready for all the yummy condiments to be added.

Okay, I'll be honest.  I've made this a 2nd time, didn't take pictures, but should have.  While still open, I added chopped onion, garlic and a little jalapeno with the cheese before wrapping it all up.  OMG!!

The mustard, mayonnaise, ketchup and relish were literally, just topping to an already fantastic burger... uh, er... dogger.

My next experiment was for a breakfast.  I love... no, LOVE... hashbrowns.  And I mean, I've made them with taco meat, baked beans, broccoli. cauliflower... I really have experimented.

BUT, potatoes are a high starch, carbohydrate food and my diabetic meals don't allow things like that. Okay, not in the quantities I enjoy eating.  I mean, who can be happy with about 2 or 3 tablespoons of hashbrowns?  For somebody like me, that's nothing but pure, unadulterated torture.  I  mean it.

Therefore, I decided to attempt sweet potato hashbrowns.  I've only done it once, so far, but I know I will be doing this again and again in the future.

I used one medium-small sweet potato.  Peeled it.  Then shredded it on a box grater using the largest opening.  I had maybe a cup+ of grated sweet potatoes.  I finely chopped a little onion into this.  Then I heated a skillet with olive oil and butter mixture - about 2 tablespoons and when the butter started to bubble, I placed a couple of heaps of the sweet potato/onion mixture on the skillet, tapped it down to make like a pancake and let it sizzle for about 3-5 mins on each side.  Unbelievable.  So scrumptious.

That is NOT burned but butter sizzled

I was able to get about 5 small patties from that one sweet potato.  Now, as you can see, they aren't large.  That is a pie plate and a normal-sized fork.

Next time, I plan to add cinnamon and maybe (not sure yet) some nutmeg to the mix.  It was suggested to add marshmallows and/or some brown sugar.  Hm?  I don't think that would work with my diabetes.  Now, I could consider a small amount of finely chopped pineapple or even some grated apple. This is a whole new playground for me to experiment in.  I mean, who would have thought left over taco meat, tomatoes, onions, cilantro and refried beans would work on regular hashbrowns?  Uh, that would be me!  Or bacon, broccoli, and cauliflower?  Yup, me, again. LOL.

On the garden front... harvest is starting for the peas.  Just look at those pods!!

Here's what my garden looks like right now, almost the end of June.  In the background, you can see the pole beans are starting their journeys up the fish line trellis. In front, 7 tomato plants are filling out their space. Hidden between are beets, a couple of pepper plants and in the extreme right (out of the picture) are my red, yellow and white onions and garlic.  The garlic, so far this year, has been coming along just grand.

Of course, veggies aren't my only thing I grow.  I have several flowers, both annual and perennial coming up.  Here's my yellow trumpet lily.  One of several, but, alas, a severe storm came through and beat the crap out of most of them and they are down on the ground.  Of course, winter wasn't nice, either.  I lost, I would estimate, over half of all my trumpet lilies.  I don't think I have any red ones left - at least, I haven't seen any bloom on the ground or in the air. 

My day lilies are coming into bloom.  Maybe I'll show them next week.

Until next I ramble on...

I'm Back.

I know I've been remiss in doing my weekly blog but I had to take care of a few things and to be quite honest, I just didn't feel I could be fair to my readership.  Here's a little of what has happened in the interim...

1) NaNoWriMo.  Yes, I attempted and succeeded once again with this program.  This year I couldn't decide if I wanted to slap-write my 2nd Amish novel or do the writing book that was buzzing around in my head.  A friend suggested both.  That's what I did.  I accomplished over 52k words by the end of the month, completing my writing book and actually accomplishing quite a bit on my Amish novel.  So, hang in there, I've got some books coming out soon.  More later...

2) Health.  Remember my New Year's resolutions to lose some weight - okay, at least 25 pounds?  I actually accomplished that back in June, losing almost 30.  I got so sick, I couldn't eat and basically was on a liquid diet.  Yeah, I lost weight.  But to be honest, it just lingered around the corner and when I wasn't looking, most of it jumped back on board.  Not good.  I went to my doctor back in November and well, he tried to sugar-coat the results of my latest blood test.  "Get your diabetes under control or die."  WOW!  He said he couldn't sugar coat it because I'm a diabetic, which is true for the last 15 years.  Seems my A1C went from a not-so-great 7.3 to a Holy Crap! 10.4.  For those not in the know, an A1C in the range of 4.5 to 5.9 is consider good.  My diabetes was totally out of control with high blood results averaging 243 for the past 6 months.  I have since taken active steps to correct the situation.  He had changed my meds - I had him put me back on the old meds which were working.  Since then, my sugar has dropped drastically into more acceptable numbers.  I'm watching my food intake and exercising more.  My doctor said if I can get my sugar under 130 on a regular basis, he will be happy (and surprised!)  Last night, before supper, my sugar was 126.  I'm eating my healthier right now and from what I could tell - I went to the Medical Center with my wife and stopped at my doctor to get weighed in - my weight is down 6 pounds in one week.  I will allow a little variance since it wasn't the same scale, but still, those scales are checked often throughout the year - so there shouldn't be too much change.  But, we'll keep tabs on it.

3) I mentioned publishing a book back in item #1.  That's right, hopefully, sometime this coming week, I will release "CRACKED! The Writing Mystique" which is a book to help a new writer understand some of the secrets of good writing and aide those seasoned writers with their writing.  I figure the e-book will be released at $.99 - at least for a few days.  There will be the paperback but I'm unsure exactly how much it will be since I need to have CreateSpace calculate all the expenses. My New Year's resolution goal was to publish 3 books - I got two books out with this one.  Hmm?  Last year I wanted to publish 4 books and only got out 3, so this year I decided on 3 and only got out 2 books.  Maybe next year I should consider 11 books and publish 10.  Whoo-hoo!!

4) On the home front, I was able to get a lot of landscaping done before the winter chills came in. We had this home built in 2006 and now, finally, after almost 10 years, I have a sidewalk to be somewhat proud of.  Prior, it was some mud, grass, a couple of rubber mats and a short length of carpet remnant.  Now it is an attractive angled walk of bricks with an edging of mulch.  In fact, there is matching mulch in front of the low brick wall and a large expanse of ground (heavy clay) that wouldn't even grow weeds. Oh, and the angled ground which had irises and day lilies, it is now a lovely stretch of mulch.  I will be guarding it against weeds with a self-made concoction of weed-killer including dish soap and vinegar plus some other stuff.  It's not as harsh as RoundUp and therefore will take quite a few hits to finally exhaust the plant's growth and kill it.  Still, if it gets on my good plants, it won't kill them and I can spray with water to rinse it off.  Not so with RoundUp.

5) Hoarding. We've all seen those shows were people hoard and hoard. My wife and I have started to hoard, too.  Slightly different.  The local grocery had 8 weeks of specials where you could get certain items at a very low price in limited quantities.  We also had a couple of friends who got those mailers and didn't want the items.  Guess who got them?  Then they decided to also have a 10 for $10 sale and other amounts.  Imagine - 10 1 pound packages of Butterball turkey bacon for $10.  Around here, that stuff usually sells for the cheap side at $3.99/pkg.  Need I say we bulked up?  They had 80/20 hamburger for $1.99/lb.  Yup!  We bought in 3+ lb packages and re-packaged into 1 lb bags and put it in the freezer.  They had all sorts of stuff on sale and we bought and bought to stock up.  Our big freezer is packed and the smaller one is also full.  We did a lot of canning and freezing of our garden goodies, too.  I kid you not, we can eat very well for the next 2 or 3 months and not leave the house except for milk which we don't drink that much of, anyway.  Oh, I forgot to mention, my grandson hunts and has gotten 2 deer so far this year.  He can only get one more.  The 2nd deer is still being processed and I have NO idea where we will put it.  What's nice, I can take a little venison and some of that 80/20 hamburger and get a very lean mixture which is even better for me.

6) Weather-wise - I'm not going to complain one bit.  I'm basically still running around outside in shorts and t-shirts in NW Ohio.  Okay, when I go into town, I put on bluejeans and sometimes a light jacket.  There has been only a couple of days that I've actually had to put on my leather jacket because it was so cold.  My wife, on the other hand, thinks it is chilly - but then again, I'm the guy who runs around in shorts all winter in the house, putting on a shirt when company comes. LOL.  I can handle extremes of heat and cold.  I'll be honest, I prefer 70 for a temperature year round but we keep our house a little warmer if we use air-conditioning - meaning it is too hot outside with no breeze and the windows can't be open.  In the winter, we keep it a little cooler, about 68.  Just had a thought!  Maybe that's why we don't get a lot of company. LOL.  Just kidding, this house should have a revolving door for the way people come and go here with 4 sons and 10 grandchildren, 4 of which are on their own, some with families.  It's a mob when the family gathers here.

Hopefully things will get better in my life.  I intend to get my blog out in a timely manner each week and, once again, I apologize for my absence.

Until next I ramble on...
















2.

Not So Good News

This past week has been one of ups and downs.  First an up --

I discovered this blooming in my daylily collection.  I'd totally forgotten about this one.  It was a pleasant surprise this morning as I backed out of the driveway on my way to church and noticed it.

It is the palest of pale lavender-white with a deep reddish-lavender center and a stunning yellow throat.  Seeing it today made me realize, I think I have one or two more multi-colored daylilies in the patch - if they didn't winter-freeze.  I'll keep an eye open.

In the meantime, the deep red daylilies from last week post have been blooming rampantly with 2, 3 and 4 blossoms each day.  They only bloom for one day which is a pity but they keep sending up new ones which makes for a stunning show.  The yellow, pink and lavender daylilies have been quite showy, too.  My wife is thrilled with the presentation and thinks I should see about getting a few more to add a little more diversity to the patch.  I want to get a white one and an orange one.  I'll check the catalogs to see what is available.

Now for a down moment...

I stepped on the scale this morning (Sunday) and it sky-rocketed to 245 pounds.  I almost fell off the scale.  I've gained eight pounds.  Very discouraged BUT also very determined.  A church member who is also a nurse smiled while I lamented about the weight.  She said that it is very common for those who lose weight like I did when ill to regain it back in the next 30 days.

Uh, not me!!  I am going to take an aggressive reaction and be working out on the treadmill and also doing some stomach muscle-tightening exercises to get the gut gone!!

Of course, I am watching how much I eat, trying to keep it minimal but at the same time, not go into a diabetic shock.  Then again, I don't think a stop at Long John Silver deep-fried seafood shop was a good thing.  Being realistic, the 2 fish, 3 chicken planks, French fries and coleslaw probably weren't the best choices for a meal.  Finishing the last 2 Hershey bars (1 a night) as a mindless TV snack ... wait a minute, I read somewhere that chocolate aides in weight loss.  I'll buy into the theory but I don't think it is true.

YES, I'm going to not only watch how much I eat, but also WHAT I eat and attempt better munching.

Another down moment, sort of.

Last Thursday was an Author's Fair at the Findlay Library in Findlay, OH.  That is about a ninety minute drive for me.  I took my books and set up my table and attempted to be as professional as possible.  Here's a picture of my table.

And this is my sale (I was one of the lucky ones to make a sale!)

This is Jennifer Shortridge who bought a copy of The Complete Guide to Writing Science Fiction. And the dashing dude in the blue shirt, that's me.

When I stated it was a "down, sort of" - let me explain. It could be an up. Yes, I only sold one book but I handed out several business cards, I spoke with many of the visitors (we had over 100 attendees, not counting the 21 authors) and I handed out a multitude of book reviews I had printed.  Hopefully it will help to make my name roll off the tongue just a little easier and have some potential sales down the road.  The one thing that struck me that night was the fact so many of those I spoke to didn't realize we, the authors, would have our books for sale.  I re-read the news article promoting the event and deduced the fact, the event was being held in a library and the article stated: come speak with the authors and see their works on display.  There was one line that said: Books will be available for sale.  I've read that article 3 times and only this last time did I see the comment about being for sale.  I'm sure many of the attendees missed it, too.  I mean, it's a library - who sells books at a library? They loan books!!

If you'd like to see more pictures of the event - Click Here

Another up!  My garden is coming along.  I think we're going to pull the peas as the last harvest. The green beans (pole beans) are starting to come, the wax beans have another crop to harvest.  The corn has tasseled and much to my relief, has finally started to silk.  That means, start creating ears.  I had tassels and the pollen was falling but I didn't see any silks coming.  With all the rain we've had of late, some things in the garden are really having a freaky time growing.  The pole beans have been growing but not really blossoming, that was also true of the peas but they finally, after over 60 days of growth, started to show little pods.  I planted the peas in April and they should have been gone by the end of June.  It will be more like the end of July.  We've had 2 days of sunshine - okay, a couple of quick storms (one of them really nasty) and things are blooming.  

It takes 4 things to grow a garden:  seeds (doh!), good dirt, water and sunshine.  I had the seeds. I have great garden soil.  And we've had a lot of rain - in fact, some of the fields and gardens around here are flooded and ruined.  When the sun shines, the garden grows.  There hasn't been enough sunshine to let the tomatoes turn red.  Got lotsa and lotsa of green tomatoes.  I just hope they don't burst with too much water and now a sudden sunshine growth stimulus.

I haven't had a lot of time to write but I have been able to do some outlining so when I do get the chance to sit down and write - I can.  LOL.  If you're a writer, you know why the "lol" since you can have a great outline and still have writer's block when you look at that digital blank sheet.

Until next I ramble on...

Gardening - My Green Thumb?

My garden is starting to finally produce so we can start harvesting. We've pulled radishes from the garden and they were so tasty.  I used them to mark the rows so I knew where the corn would be coming up.  Like my garden is a dinky 4 ft wide X 15 ft long X 1 ft high.  It is crammed full of stuff to grow.  Take a look at the picture.

I know, not what one would call a real corn field by any means.  The the right of the screen above is the peas.  It is a double row with a green plastic fence for them to grow on.  As you can see, they've completely taken over. Just look at all those hanging peas.  We harvested about 2 pints of peas the other day and will go out later today to harvest another batch.  My wife said "We didn't even make a dent in the peas."  I love peas and one of my mostest favorite recipes is Tater Tot Casserole which calls for frozen peas.  Yup!  We froze those peas on a cookie sheet then slid them into a plastic bag.

That tall tower to the back - that pole beans. The instructions said the beans would grow about 6 ft high.  The instructions lied.  They've grown waaaay beyond the 6 ft poles.  Between the corn and the beans (can't see them) I planted my wax beans. Yes, those yellow beans.  We harvested about a quart of them so far.

If you look real close, maybe you can see the 7 tomato plants growing between the peas and the beans.  I have Roma (2), Beefsteak (2), Mortgage Lifter (1) and Rutgers (2) and they are getting very laden with fruit.  Can't wait for the fresh tomatoes to come in for BLTs and salads.  

Also hidden from sight are carrots, beets and garlic.  I'm not sure about the garlic.  I planted 8 cloves last year and they disappeared.  I figured because of planting too thickly.  Well, this spring, they sprouted and I had like over 40 plants coming up.  I moved them and planted about 20 of the plants back down into a protected corner where they'd get plenty of light, etc.  Uh, they're gone.  Maybe I don't know how to grow garlic.  What I'll do is dig up that corner later in the fall and see if anything is there.

By the way, the corn is now starting to tassel and we all know what that means.  Harvest is just around the corner and I'm hoping to see about 4-5 dozen ears of corn from my little patch.

BUT, vegetables aren't the only thing I have growing.  Take a look at these beauties.

My triple (some say it is double) Orange daylily

My red daylily and look at all the blooms to come!

This is a reblooming yellow daylily (Stella de Ora)

And this is a pink daylily in the yard.

Since I took those pictures, the lavender, deep purple, striped red/yellow, white and peach daylilies have come into bloom.  Of course, it has been raining, they only bloom for ONE day.  Hopefully I'll get pics later when the sun decides to come out.

Added these just now...

A lavender daylily

This is the peach daylily blooming

I call this rusty red, it is an awkward color, not red, not purple, but pretty.

Until next I ramble on...