Blueberry Compote

This is so yummy on the cheesecake. It makes 11 servings at 0 pts. It also would be great mixed into Fat Free Greek yogurt or on pancakes I put it into little cups and put half into a Rubbermaid container in the freezer.

Update:

Tried raspberry too and made another blueberry - so delicious. Used frozen raspberries and a pint of fresh at the end. Also skimmed the foam off the top before adding cornstarch.

Yummy Polenta

I was starving when we got home from the gym. So I made polenta.... Not from scratch... I use the tube. Slice it up. Saute with a little olive oil. Sprinkle with salt, pepper, garlic powder, oregano, and Mrs. Dash. Turn slices over.

Rinse a can of black beans. Add to pan. Add a can of diced tomatoes. Top with 1/2 cup fat free mozzarella and 1/2 cup reduced Mexican blend. Cover pan.

Yum.

There are 5 servings in the skillet. 3 Freestyle points for each serving.

Finally, porch time

 Opossum who didn't have a care in the world.

 A flock of geese. They kept following the lead goose just like if they were flying in the sky.

First one deer, then another who stopped at the trees and kept looking back. Then ran back to the other end of the condos and waited. Two more came and they ran back to the trees and followed the first.

Meat Pie Makeover

Meat Pie Makeover - yum. My husband's family has a delicious French Canadian Meat Pie traditional recipe. They all love it. Potatoes, ground beef, beef fat.... Not Weight Watcher friendly. So I decided to give it a try for our dinner tonight. It was so delicious. It's not the original but we both liked it.

4 servings - 4 Freestyle points each 

I started with the 2-ingredient dough. Lessened the yogurt and added an egg. It was very sticky but workable. Add a little more flour on your hands as you make the ropes.

I always have ground turkey cooked and frozen in sandwich bags. I used one of those and added onions, celery and shredded zucchini. The spices are Mrs. Dash, salt, pepper, garlic, sage, celery seeds. Cook in pan until onions are translucent.

I added 2 Laughing Cow cheese wedges to add creaminess missing from not using fat.

I cooked the filling. Put it in a small casserole and put most of the crust on top. I used my fingers to pat it all over the filling. Then I made ropes out of leftover dough and put it around the pie to form the edge of the crust.

Bake 350 for 40 minutes.

1/2 cup self rising flour

1/3 cup Fage FF Greek yogurt

1 egg

Mix together. Knead in bowl. Will be sticky.

Cover 2 cups baby potatoes with water and microwave until tender. 

8 ounces cooked 99% FF ground turkey

1/4 cup onion, chopped

1/4 cup celery, chopped

1 cup shredded zucchini, drained

2 wedges Laughing Cow cheese

The potatoes that you microwaved.

Seasoning: Salt, Pepper, Mrs. Dash, sage, garlic, celery seeds.

Bake 40 minutes at 350

Thank you for this mrscooby1!

How did we ever work?

My goodness! We are so busy right now I don't know how we ever had full time jobs.

Several of the commitments include meals - it's a minefield of points waiting to sabotage my plan.

All I gotta say is don't be offended if I say no thank you to offers of food. I'm done eating points that make you feel better!

Love ya...

Cousins

I can't imagine my life without aunts and uncles and cousins. My aunt's and uncle's enriched my life while they were alive.  Family means so much to me.

My cousin Mary Lynn is more a sister than a cousin. If I need to ask a family history question Mary Lynn knows the answer. She was the first person to encourage me to write and offered to edit my first book. Twelve books later she still is the first person to read and edit each book.

The times I spent in Owosso with Elise, Roger and Rick or when they were staying with us we're the best of times. When we were little and my Dad was sick my little sister, Jane, and I sometimes stayed with Rob, Nancy, Sue, Mike and Ed. As we got older we had our family reunions at there house on the 4th of July and our children found out how wonderful extended families can be.

A few times our cousins came from California and it was such a celebration. It was the only time I remember seeing Grandma Brandi making the Palm Sunday spaghetti with ground walnuts sprinkled on top. I remember John, Maria and Jim visits would mean lots of family time which I loved.

My Dad was an only child so you would think that would mean no cousins. Wrong. We had Maureen and Kevin and Kerry. Their Dad was my Dad's cousin. I can't say how much it meant when their parents stepped in after my Dad died and included my sister Jane and me in so many good times. We also went to school together and the shenanigans Kerry and I caused still make me laugh.

Ed, Kevin, Elise, Maureen and Mike have passed away, even though they are still in my heart, I still miss each of them so much. 

New Phone Angst

It took me several times trying to get into this account. I would hate to lose all of my blogs! But I'm back.

My Samsung Galaxy7 started acting up for the third time. I had enough when I plugged it in to charge and the battery percentage started going down.

The person who always goes with me to buy a phone is in Ireland so Pat dropped me off and I was on my own.

After looking at a few Samsungs I told the clerk I love to take pictures and he said I should look at Google's Pixel XL. It was on sale so cheaper than a Samsung. The photos go right to Google photos. It is a bit bigger, but not too big. So I decided to get it. I double checked by calling my friend Amy who has one. She loves hers and said the added benefit is it doesn't have a ton of preloaded apps you can't get rid of - that was the best news.

So after buying it I had to wait for Pat to get back. I started setting it up and ran into trouble with only 7 of my contacts transferring. One of the Verizon employees waiting for someone to come in took the phone and within 20 seconds my contacts were there! Then for the first time ever my calendar was transferred too. I love the Verizon cloud.

Using it for the first day I already like it. The keyboard letters are not as close together, the screen is sharp and clear and it does take great pictures.

Cheesecake

This is really good cheesecake.

Preheat oven to 350°
Spray pie dish with Pam

3 cups FF Greek Yogurt  (I use Fage because it is so thick and creamy)
3 eggs
1 TBS Vanilla
1 TBS Truvia or other sweetener
1  small pkg  (3.4 oz) Jello Pudding Cheesecake flavor
Optional 1/4 cup PB2

Note: For chocolate cheesecake change PB2 to chocolate PB2, 1/2 chocolate pudding and 1/2 cheesecake pudding mix, and add 1/4 c Hershey cocoa.

Mix all Ingredients. Pour into pie dish. Smooth out the top to be even. Bake 30 minutes. Turn off oven and let cool in unopened oven. Cover with plastic or press and seal and refrigerate several hours or overnight. We like it with fresh blueberries.

• 6-12 servings - 1 Freestyle SP

Added Cranberry Smash - still 0 Freestyle Smartpoints

In a saucepan combine:
1 bag fresh cranberries
1/2 cup water
1 small box orange sugar free Jello

Bring to boil, turn down heat and simmer 7 minutes. Cool.

Drain and rinse 15 oz crushed pineapple. Add to cooled cranberry sauce.

Fill small glass 3/4 full of cooled cheesecake, top with Cranberry Smash. Mix loosely. Top with fat free Reddi Whip.

Shrimp Scampi

Someone posted on Facebook that she missed having shrimp scampi so I revised a recipe for her. This recipe serves six and I got it down to 6 points. Instead of putting the reduced amount of butter into the sauce I think drizzling it over the dish at the end will keep the buttery flavor more present.

Full Circle

Today I had such a great moment in culinary memories. I love cooking shows and thankfully, Pat does too. We started watching Julia Child on PBS in the early 80's. On Friday nights after the kids went to bed we would sit next to each other on the sofa and soak in the cooking. The joy of learning different techniques from Julia was magical for me.

In 1997 I was still watching Julia in "Baking with Julia," but now she had guests on the show. Nancy Silverton was the guest and this was what was reported by the Los Angeles Times:

"Silverton, who appeared in "In Julia's Kitchen With Master Chefs" and "Baking With Julia," remembers one particular taping including a moment of sheer terror, followed immediately by total bliss.

"Before the show, Julia took me aside and explained that she was not big on editing and that when I needed to wrap up my segment, she would tap me on my hip with her hand.

"Well, I am making this brioche tart with stone fruits and a hot wine syrup. I'm sauteing the fruits and putting the tart together when I get the tap. So, I quickly finish it off and cut a forkful and hand it to Julia who tastes it. There is silence.

"Then I see tears in her eyes and then she starts crying. I am thinking 'Oh my, I've burned Julia Child.' But, then Julia says, 'That is the most delicious dessert I have ever had.' "

When I saw that episode I cried too. I couldn't imagine being that baker. It has always been my favorite show.

Today I was watching my new favorite cooking show on Netflix, Chef's Table. Half way through, it shows the featured baker as a young woman on "Baking with Julia." It was my favorite episode! It was Nancy Silverton!

This made me inordinately happy this morning. 

Lunch with Great Friends

BACK: Kay Conklin, Kate Cole, Mary Ellen Shea Clifford
Middle: Suzy Schwark, Jackie Medema, Meg Kennedy Shaw, Bethany Cronk
Seated: Dorothy Komarmy, Marj Kunz

In the early 80's I was on the Michigan Council of Cooperative Nursery Board. For three of the years I was Chairperson of the Spring Conference held at Michigan State University for over 1,000 parents and teachers of preschoolers.  I learned so much from these women.

Even though I was brand new and didn't know much about running a conference, they gave me the opportunity to get speakers to fill 40 workshops, find a keynote speaker (The three while I was chair were:

Fredelle Maynard

Author of Raising Creative Children; Raisins and Almonds; and The Child Care Crisis Also a Canadian television show, Parenting 

Louise Bates Ames

Psychologist and co-founder of the Geselle Institute of Human Development at Yale. Author of many books about developmental books by age (and hosted one of the first television shows on child development. 

David Elkind

Child Psychiatrist and professor at Tufts University and author of The Hurried Child and The Power of Play and Miseducation. His research and books were about the importance of play in development). 

With this group I learned how to run a meeting each month overseeing volunteers from all over Michigan who put on a bazaar, brought in vendors, ran a raffle, put on an annual meeting, found hostesses for each workshop, registration, welcoming, and made everything run smoothly.

No one hovered over me, the Board and our mentors were there to help if we asked. It was the most amazing group of people.

I always told the volunteers that the work we did should be on their resumes. After I left the Board to go to my paying job I became one of the speakers at Spring Conference presenting a workshop called, "It Will Look Good on Your Resume."

For the first time since I left the Board to go to work for the City of Saginaw in 1986, nine of us got together for lunch at the Kellogg State Room at MSU. It was a wonderful afternoon filled with memories and friendship.

April 16th

April is half gone. We've only been on the porch two times. Now the river is flooding. But.... We left the condo to go exercise this morning and the roads are okay.

Inspiration

What to do the second day of ice and sleet? Make inspirational posts!

Oprah reported on 60 minutes that Bryan Stevenson, a lawyer and professor at NYU, founded the Equal Justice Initiative in Montgomery, Alabama. 

This month the EJI will open a Lynching Museum. While watching the segment I got goosebumps on my arms and my stomach turned. The last time that happened I was at the Holocaust Memorial in Boston.

This was the most important lesson in American history I've seen on 60 Minutes. 

Aunt Janie Eggs

One time when we went to visit the Noble Family, my sister made the most delicious scrambled eggs. She added cream cheese and dill.  Over the years they came to be known as "Aunt Janie Eggs."

Many years later my sister had breakfast at our house and I told her we were going to have "Aunt Janie Eggs." She didn't remember making them. What? All those years she was famous at our favorite breakfasts and she didn't even remember them!

Here is an updated Weight Watcher version.

Eggs, Dill, Salt, Pepper, Mrs. Dash and 

1 wedge of Laughing Cow Cheese

for each person.

         I always end up adding more dill

Cook the eggs smashing and smushing the wedges of cheese to incorporate it into the eggs. When the eggs are still very wet, but mostly set, turn off the flame. Continue stirring the eggs and plate them while they are still creamy.

Eggs - 1 pt

Joseph's Pita Bread - 1 pt

4 slices Al Fresco Chicken Bacon - 1 pt

3 Freestyle Smart Points 

Yum!

Mom

Thanks Barb Sharma for sharing this on Facebook. I miss my Mom, but she's always with me.

Live Production Jesus Christ Superstar

This was such a great television show on Easter Sunday. I love the music and was surprised I still knew all the words. The set was fabulous. The casting wonderful. Well done!

Lentil Coconut Soup

This was delicious. Will make again. Makes 4 - 5 Freestyle Point servings (2 ladles each).

1 Tbsp olive oil 

1/2 yellow onion

Garlic 

Ginger

2 tsp turmeric 

1 TBS Mrs. Dash

1/2 tsp salt

red pepper flakes

12 baby  carrots

Cook over medium heat until onions are soft and translucent. 

Add:

1/2 pkg Trader Joe's cooked Lentils

2-3 cups FF chicken broth

13.5 oz can Trader Joe's RF coconut milk

1 container cooked Minute Rice

Cook over low heat for 5 minutes. Add 1 container of Minute Rice. Take off heat and cover for 5 minutes.

Thankful for Friends

My friend, Jimmy E. Greene, posted something this Easter morning that touched my soul. Thank you Jimmy.

On this Easter Sunday there is much unrest and anger at the scandals surrounding our diocese, priests and leader.  Critics outside the Church will ask how we adhere to an institution that has so many deep flaws and now this. My first response is that the Catholic tradition of thought and practice is that faith and the physical church are as separate as faith and mortal man.  My faith isn’t shaken anymore by the flaws of a mortal man who is but a conduit then it would be if an earthquake made rubble out of the church building.  Our faith is an inside of us thing and not a flesh and blood or bricks and mortar thing.

I’ll never forget the William James phrase that faith is a “live option” inside of us.   How true.  For me, The Catholic Church is the only religious place that I feel at home in and to renounce it based on the misdeeds of failed priests is to question what and who I had faith in to begin with.  I hope that my community of Catholics uses this to remember that crucial reminder; faith is and always has been the message and not in the messenger.   One does not need a conduit to receive it since there’s a direct line for each us of 24/7/365✝️✝️✝️

That “live option” in each of us is just that...alive.