Happy Times in 2019
GIVE Your Time as a GIFT This Holiday season 2019
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It is the Holiday Season of 2019, despite many heart-breaking days in 2019, we are Hopefully, Joyfully getting ready for the festivities as always Loving each other. Throughout the year a daily routine of working family resembles a race track. Mom gets up first; she has to be ready for work because once kids are up, the house is a war zone. Dad follows next hardly fixing his tie while pulling the kids out of their beds. A super rushed breakfast follows after a fast bathroom round of tooth brushes half washed, toothpaste almost half squeezed out, PJ’s’ tossed on the floor, finally pants, shirts and socks put on. “Oh! Don’t forget your sweatshirts kids! “yells mother from the kitchen. If school packs were not ready from the night before, work sheets fly into the air before they land in the folder and stuffed into the backpack. Shoes, boots, gloves and hats all find their places as Father runs out first, followed by kids running to catch the school bus! Mother looking at the mirror one last time, ready for her professional life, zooms out of the house! The House is silent now! This is only the morning! I am sure anybody who reads this out there knows how a regular and actually blessed day ends during school season. Not to mention summer with kids is also another challenge for working families. With months passing by and all Halloween stars moving away from Trick or Treat fun, People’s hearts warm up with the coming of Thanksgiving and Holiday Season, Tired buddies need to slow down from a year of working life haste, and concentrate on meeting families, friends or their loved ones. We start seeing people talking about Thanksgiving dinner plans, looking for travel tickets or spending more time on shopping for gifts. Respectively, we all know that, the best gift to give to our loved ones is our Time! A real valuable time that we don’t have “time” to think about during the year. Let’s have fun being a family, carve the pumpkins, make pumpkin cakes, stir squash soup, slice up the almost dried roasted turkey, enjoy the tartness of cranberry sauce, or just dive in to the macaroni N cheese and tomato meatball spaghetti. Let’s spend a weekend bringing Christmas Boxes out and digging in lights, bulbs, ornaments which are waiting to become alive and lit up your house! It is uplifting to spend our times to play together, to read together, to build dreams together, to eat together, to share our happiness or sorrows and to visit elderlies! “Let’s Enjoy the Season’s spirit as a Family together!” Happy Thanksgiving to everyone out there, Merry Christmas 2019 and a very Happy New Year ahead! Back to happy living |
Chocolate-cranberry pie 11/28/2019
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Amazing Mediterranean August 2019
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Turkish cuisine has a great variety compared to the many other cuisines around the world. In a brief definition I can see some important reasons for this richness.
From west to east and north to south there is a significant cultural diversity, difference in climate, soil variations for cultivation, and historical relationship with neighboring countries play big role in culinary background. Sometime even same recipe ends up having a different name and taste in different regions. Broadly you may experience unique gastronomy depend on the region. I certainly can not say one region’s cuisine better than then the other’s because they all are very delicious especially when the local women add their own creativity and years of experience in their cooking. This year it was extra fun picking up produce from the vegetable farm, picking up eggs from the chicken coop, and enjoying the fresh fig directly from the tree. I tried to cook local’s favorite dishes “ Stuffed zucchini flowers” “Eggplant rice”, “Okra and Sea Bean Salad” As a main course lamb is favorite meat of Turkish people and I couldn’t resist cooking a very simple but also as much delicious dish “Lamb Rice Pilaf ” Enjoy! Back to Happy Living |
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Fresh, Clean and Crispy June 2019
I decided to post this reminder note due to my growing concern about pesticides in use of produce we consume everyday.
Pesticide usage increased notably all around the globe because of ever growing population and demand on fresh produce. The farmers seem to have no choice but use pesticides to minimize their loss and meet the demand. Also it seems like recent years pesticides stuck on produce deeper than what it used to be in the old days.
Like regular rinsing doesn’t seem to remove the waxy sticky chemical.
Therefore over the last few decades more and more consumers are looking for organic produce. However not everyone can afford the high cost. Some people started home gardening which is always fun and for sure the healthiest way to go but again not convenient for many people. As a result, for most of us, consuming the regular produce is inevitable.
Peeling can address the concern for certain produce with thick skin such as cucumber, eggplant, carrot, apple, pear, etc.
For the thin skin produce such as strawberry, cherries, plums, tomatoes, all types of green produces; pepper, fresh green beans, leafy produce such as lettuce, kale, spinach, broccoli, herbs; following cleaning technics help to get pesticide off your produce greatly.
Basic ingredients are, baking soda, apple cider vinegar and water.
Be careful to adjust your time soaking leafy vegetables and herbs because leaves may be ruined during long time soaking.
All you need to do following,
1 Tbsp. baking soda in 1/4 Gal. (1 Liter) of water and soak your produce for 15 minutes followed by rinsing thoroughly.
Leafy vegetables needed to be rinsed gently after five minutes soaking and using right away.
Or make a 1/5 dilution of apple cider vinegar with water. And follow the same procedure above.
Happy eating everyone!
June 2019
Back to Happy Living
Pesticide usage increased notably all around the globe because of ever growing population and demand on fresh produce. The farmers seem to have no choice but use pesticides to minimize their loss and meet the demand. Also it seems like recent years pesticides stuck on produce deeper than what it used to be in the old days.
Like regular rinsing doesn’t seem to remove the waxy sticky chemical.
Therefore over the last few decades more and more consumers are looking for organic produce. However not everyone can afford the high cost. Some people started home gardening which is always fun and for sure the healthiest way to go but again not convenient for many people. As a result, for most of us, consuming the regular produce is inevitable.
Peeling can address the concern for certain produce with thick skin such as cucumber, eggplant, carrot, apple, pear, etc.
For the thin skin produce such as strawberry, cherries, plums, tomatoes, all types of green produces; pepper, fresh green beans, leafy produce such as lettuce, kale, spinach, broccoli, herbs; following cleaning technics help to get pesticide off your produce greatly.
Basic ingredients are, baking soda, apple cider vinegar and water.
Be careful to adjust your time soaking leafy vegetables and herbs because leaves may be ruined during long time soaking.
All you need to do following,
1 Tbsp. baking soda in 1/4 Gal. (1 Liter) of water and soak your produce for 15 minutes followed by rinsing thoroughly.
Leafy vegetables needed to be rinsed gently after five minutes soaking and using right away.
Or make a 1/5 dilution of apple cider vinegar with water. And follow the same procedure above.
Happy eating everyone!
June 2019
Back to Happy Living
Simple and Healthy for Children, April 2019
Cream Puff Cake
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We Continue Simple-Delicious-Healthy cooking series summer long of 2019,
I see many young mothers, (especially working mothers) are challenged with providing homemade food on a daily basis. The main problem is to find the healthy food kids would like to eat as they are being surrounded with attractive but not so healthy food options. Indeed this is a deep subject, which is being addressed by many experts. I will not go into that and I will not create kid friendly recipes that are not healthy. But I believe most of the time kid’s misbehavior about eating comes from household habits and sugar-based products. What I have observed is that if the adults are picky on their food choices so are the kids. I know a household that mother don’t eat meat or dairy so kid doesn’t eat either. I know another group of parents who eat regular healthy food so the kids are also enjoying what ever is served for dinner or breakfast/lunch. Of course, there are exceptions such as certain health conditions forcing adults or kids to be selective. But in general, variety of food in healthy limits must be blessed and consumed with positive perception. My kindly advise about good eating habits for your kids are as follows “ Please limit sugar based products (especially with artificial additives) as much as possible and no sweet before three main eating time during the day, and also before bed time. No soft drinks but plenty of water! “ Happy eating Children! April 23 2019 Back to Happy Living |
Thinking Simple , Eating Simple, March 2019
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Eating is one of the most vital parts of our lives, and then food is available in many forms in the necessity.
More of it, every body has different habits about eating and acquiring food. Utterly when we quest about food we find out that there is no right diet, but there are many wrong ones out there. Our purpose is to build a healthy diet for ourselves. And it is for sure different for each person. In our busy lives, spending time to find healthy combination for breakfast, lunch and dinner is really challenging no mention for shopping or even for home cooking. Hence I suggest a real simple start. “Starting Simple” isn’t meaning not shopping or cooking. It is thinking simple about eating, drinking lots of water, eliminating sugar and eating handful for each meal what ever suits for the time of the day. |
Simple, Healthy, Delicious Cook2b can help you for your home cooking, healthy and worry free eating without craving.
Remember good things come always in small chocolate covered packages! March 12 2019 Back to Happy Living |
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Happy New Year to the world, with wishes of hope, joy and peace in everyone’s heart!
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Starting with Thanksgiving preparations and continue during the month of December we spent more time in the kitchen trying to find different recipes for Christmas and New Year.
I enjoy cooking in general indeed cooking something unique for a special occasion is always fun. After our daughter in law (jill) cooked Beef Wellington during their visit to Michigan for Christmas 2017; this delicious beef became one of our favorite entrées. I have no idea what recipe she followed, but since I watched her took photos and notes while she is cooking, I called the recipe “ Jill’s Wellington”. This Year I was debating whether to roast prime rib or beef Wellington, indeed “Jill’s Wellington” was everybody’s choice for New year eve dinner. Beef Wellington is baked center cut part of the tenderloin that wrapped in mushroom paste (duxelles), prosciutto and puff pastry. It is quite easy to make if you give time to yourself and enjoy through the steps. And final taste is heavenly with wine sauce, butter potato puree and steamed broccoli. Enjoy, January 2019 Back to Happy Living |