Saturday, May 24, 2008

A "Magic Pill"

I saw a sign on my doctor's office wall. It said something like this:

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What if you could reduce your chances of all these just by taking a pill every day?

Premature death by 30-50%

Heart disease by 40-50%

Stroke by 30-40%

Diabetes by 30-40%

Breast cancer by 20-30%

Colon cancer by 30-50%

Osteoporosis by 40-50%

Also reduces kidney stones, and depression!

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Of course the "Magic Pill" is 30 minutes of exercise every day.

Sunday, May 18, 2008

My Beautiful Day.


I haven't posted much lately. You guys know how it is. There is just not enough time in a day. This morning I woke to the such a beautiful sound. It was the sound of a Mourning Dove cooing it's song. I love listening to that. I could have listened to it all morning long. But my husband wasn't so excited by it waking him up. So he got up and shut the window, and turned on the fan so we couldn't hear it. I guess the poor guy really needed his sleep. He ended up sleeping in fairly late, and that is just not like him. I thought it was kind of funny that something so beautiful and relaxing to me was bothering him enough to keep him awake.

I hear that mourning doves are native to our area, but I had never seen one in my neighborhood before. I have heard many meadowlarks, and I do love those too! They are one of the benefits of living right by a big field. I hope the mourning dove comes around more often. Then I can hear both of their beautiful songs. If you don't know what they sound like, here are a couple of links so you can hear them.
Western Meadowlark
Mourning Dove Song


There is a very sweet lady that lives in my neighborhood. I think she is just beautiful inside and out. She is a very talented artist. The picture above is one she did. This afternoon she had an open house at her studio. I went in for a little while before I had to go to work. It was very cool. Her paintings are so pretty. I love the style she paints with. I don't know a lot about art. But I do know I love Vincent VanGogh's paintings. And I love Renoir's and Monet's paintings. There are others too, but I don't know their names. I do think my favorite so far is VanGough. I don't know what style they are, weather they are Impressionist or Expressionist or what. But I like the colors and the visible brush strokes, all put together to give the feeling or idea of what they are rather than a realistic picture that is more like a photograph.

Marla has so many pretty paintings. I have seen some of Marla's paintings in her home, but it was so impressive to see her beautiful collection all on display in her clean, bright and cozy little shop in an art studio. Here is her website, although it doesn't do her paintings real justice compared to seeing them in person. And some of my favorite ones are not on her website.

Marla Duggins Fine Art

Saturday, May 3, 2008

Ceviche


Have you ever heard of Ceviche? Traditionally it is a Seafood dish where fresh raw seafood is marinated in lime juice to “cook” it. Usually it also has peppers, tomatoes and other things added to it so it is almost like a seafood salsa. It is delicious!

We don’t actually use raw seafood in our family. The thought is just a bit hard for me to get by. Although I did have it that way once and it was good too. We used precooked imitation crab, and precooked shrimp. My family likes to eat it by scooping it up with tortilla chips. That is really good. Since chips are not very healthy, I like to eat it out of a bowl with a spoon, kind of like a cold soup. Mmmmm. It is so good, and healthy.

It is a fairly new dish for our family. Kayla learned how to make Ceviche from watching her boyfriend’s mother make it. Actually, she didn’t learn directly from her. Kayla said she couldn’t get the recipe out of her. So Kayla did a little searching on the internet until she came by a ceviche recipe that was similar to what she had seen made. She then tweaked the recipe just a bit so it was pretty close to her boyfriend’s mother’s recipe. Kayla makes fabulous ceviche.

I tried making my own version of ceviche a few days ago, since Kayla wasn't home. I have to admit it was really good too. Although Kayla thought I messed up a few things. Apparently I am not supposed to put onions in it, and I cut the avocados too small, I cut the seafood too big, and I used the wrong kind of peppers. But it was really good anyway. I’m sure there is more than one way to make ceviche.

I’ll share the recipe with you. But I don’t have an actual recipe. I’ll just tell you how I made it. And then if you want to do internet searches to get an actual recipe you can. Remember this is kind of my way I did it. Kayla might disagree with some of it.

This will make a large bowl of it. Start with a whole bunch of tomatoes, about 8-12. Dice them up pretty small. Use about 5 serrano chilies, deseeded. Dice them up really small. (I used an Anaheim pepper and a jalappeno pepper, Kayla said that was wrong.) Be careful when working with the chilies. You might want to protect your hands with plastic gloves or sandwich baggies. Every time I skip this, my fingers really hurt a while after I am done. I can’t tell I am burning my skin when I am cutting them, but they really hurt later. Use a lot of cilantro, chopped up. I used about ½ of a bunch. But more might have been good. I love cilantro! Squeeze about 3 limes into the mix. I put a fair amount of onion in, cut small. Red or green would be good, unless you are like Kayla, and would rather skip the onion altogether. Dice up some avocado, maybe two. Kayla prefers larger chunks of this. I did mine small. Either way is good. Then put in corn. Kayla uses canned, I used frozen. Put in cooked shrimp and imitation crab, cut into chunks. Kayla says they should be kind of small. Pour on some Clamato juice. Don’t make it too juicy. Add salt, pepper, and oregano. I hope I am not forgetting anything. I think celery or cucumber would be good in it, but I haven’t tried it yet.
This is good right away, and even better then next day!