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My blog will be about trying to balance my families life, homeschooling my child, being disabled and trying to start a catering business while taking classes.
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I honestly feel like I have cause for celebration. I have
finally received all of my course material from Penn Foster Career School. I
realize that I’m not ready to go through the material yet, but I’m happy just
the same. In fact, I have been enjoying my studies so much that I suggested to
my oldest son, Tyler that he should try it and to my surprise, he agreed.
My husband and I have been hoping that Tyler would pursue
some sort of education past his high school one, but he just didn’t want to
hear it…until this past weekend. I told Ty that I really loved catering and I
think he might enjoy the cooking aspect of the course. I know my son loves to
cook, but he’s been afraid of taking the plunge into a full time culinary
career, mostly because it would require him to go to culinary school. I guess
that’s why I thought this catering course would be perfect for him. It’s not
like a traditional school. He could do it on his own time, and he’d get to
cook. These things, (plus the fact that my husband is willing to pay for the
course) lured my oldest boy in and the next time he graces us with his presence,
we’ll be signing him up for the Penn Foster course.
Ultimately I’m hoping that Tyler will join me in the kitchen
and that we can start doing some catering together. He’d be easy to work with
as the boy is a fierce employee and an incredibly hard worker. The only problem
I can foresee is that he just might eat up all of the food before we serve it. What can I say, he loves his mother’s cooking.
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It's
a known fact that the darker veggies are better for you. Lettuce is great, but
a dark green leaf such spinach or arugula mixed into your salad can make a
world of difference in the health department. As a matter of fact I've even
seen dark purple tomatoes that are supposed to be loaded with vitamins and
nutrients. I'm not quite sure how a purple tomato would look on a salad, but I
bet it's cool.
As
I've delved hot and heavy into my fruits and veggies course I find myself
learning so much about produce, things I've never known, and I have to say that
I'm truly enjoying it.
Tomorrow
as I go on my grocery shopping trip I'm going to work on my first
assignment which is to identify as many produce items as I can without
looking at my book and to try and find items that aren't in my book. This
should be fairly easy at the Hispanic based grocery store that I go to. They've
always got something unique in the vegetable bins. I will also be adding
healthier fruits and vegetables to our meals by following some tips provided by
Dr. Heber from his book What Color Is Your Diet. Here are just a
few of the things he suggests.
Here's the basic rundown of Heber's "Color Code"
system:
- Red.
These foods are rich in lycopene, which reduces cancer risk. Examples:
tomatoes, watermelons, and pink grapefruit.
- Red/Purple.
Grapes, red wine, blueberries, strawberries, and red apples
- Orange.
These foods contain alpha- and beta-carotenes, thought to improve
cell-to-cell communication and slow cancer. Examples: carrots, mangoes,
winter squash, and sweet potatoes.
- Orange/Yellow.
These foods contain vitamin C, which protects cells, and
beta-cryptoxanthin, one of the many carotenoid compounds that Heber
recommends. Examples: oranges, tangerines, papayas, and nectarines.
- Yellow/Green.
These foods are rich sources of the carotenoids lutein and zeaxanthin,
which contribute to eye
health.
Examples: spinach and other greens, yellow corn, green peas, and avocados.
- Green.
These foods contain sulforaphane, isothiocyanate, and indoles, which Heber
says stimulate liver genes to make compounds that break down
cancer-causing chemicals. Examples: broccoli, brussels sprouts, cabbage,
bok choy, and kale.
- White/Green.
These foods contain flavonoids that protect cell membranes. Examples:
onions, garlic, celery, pears, white wine, endive, and chives.
Keep these things in mind the next time you're picking up a
few fresh items for dinner and you'll have a healthier happier meal.
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I’m not sure what the temperature is “in your neck of the
woods,” but it was over 100° out here. I really didn’t have the energy to do
much of anything today and I certainly didn’t want to spend my day over a hot
stove. The solution to my laziness was quite simple. I read lots of my text
book and since it was based on fruits and veggies, I decided to use those as
the base of our family meal tonight. It was a light an easy meal of Quiche and
tossed salad. Light, tasty and easy as pie…or quiche.
I thought I’d share my recipe for my veggie quiche and give
you the opportunity to have a quick and easy meal. If you have one of those mini choppers that Walmart sells for five bucks, then you can chop all of your ingredients, except the green onions, in less than one minute.
Vegetable and Bacon Quiche
Store bought Pie Crust
6 slices of cooked bacon – finely chopped (throw a few extra in the pan when you're making breakfast and store in the fridge and use for dinner)
3 eggs
½ cup of milk
½ cup of shredded cheese (I used sharp cheddar, but Colby or
Jack or even a mixture would work)
½ cup of finely diced fresh mushrooms
½ cup of finely diced zucchini
2 thinly sliced green onions
Salt and Pepper to taste
Place pie crust in lightly greased deep dish pie pan. Mix 3
eggs and milk together in a large bowl, add chopped bacon, cheese, mushrooms,
zucchini, green onions and salt and pepper. Mix well. Pour mixture into pie
crust and bake for 30 – 40 minutes, depending on your oven, pie pan, climate….
Quiche is done when crust is golden brown and a knife inserted into the center
of the quiche comes out clean. Let sit for five minutes then serve. Bake at 375°
Serve with a tossed salad of crisp lettuce, shredded
carrots, cucumbers, cherry tomatoes, olives and anything else you want to add
to it.
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Genetically modified foods or GM was introduced in 1997.
Within two years 60% of processed foods were genetically modified in the United
States.
There are many different stands on GM foods which raise a
lot of good questions: Can having GM foods help reduce world hunger? Will GM
foods cause “superbugs” thus starting a new strain of viruses?
According to Penn Foster’s study guides, most European
countries have banned Genetically Modified foods, but my question is why the US
hasn’t? This got me to start a web
search and the results of that search blew my mind. Not because of what I read,
but because of the massive amount of information there is about it.
There’s no question that we live in a technological age. In
the past twenty years we’ve seen music go from 12” round vinyl discs and
cassette tapes to CD’s, Mini CD’s and now MP3’s. As I was watching the movie Apollo
13 the other night Tom Hanks had a line in which he commented on a “computer
that could fit into a single room.” This of course made me laugh as now all you
have to do is walk into your office, or flip open a cell phone for that matter,
just to get access to the web. But do we want our foods to be in that same
classification?
How does genetically engineering a plant work? Well I can tell
you it takes a long time to develop a GM type of plant. They have to
continually grow the same plant until they come up with one that is not harmed
by herbicides. For instance, there is a Roundup Ready plant. The plant is
sprayed with Roundup weed killer, but the plant has no harm done to it, yet the
weeds die. These
enhanced foods also provide proper nutrition. Imagine a genetically modified
tomato that gives you all of the vitamins and nutrients you need. In the past
this wasn’t the case. To give you all of the information on GM foods would be
impossible.
If using GM foods are bothersome to you, than I would definitely
search the web and do a little research on your own. I’ll be honest with you,
the more I read about GM foods, the more questions I have and I have yet to
make my own determination as to whether I’m for or against them. Thus by not
making a choice, I guess I’ve made one, because I’ll obviously wind up buying
GM foods at the market.
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There are very few things that I can honestly say I am
passionate about. My family is, of course, at the top of the list, and this
weekend I realized that cooking is right up there. As I catered the baby shower this weekend I
found myself excited about the food. Not so much about the actual event, but
creating a beautiful platter of colorful foods.
This event was done to help out a neighbor, but I learned
something in the process. If you don’t love it, then it’s nothing but hard
work. Fortunately for me I adored making each and every little thing. Most
people would find it monotonous cutting out 50 little circles of pie crust,
then placing them strategically over a mini muffin tin and pushing in the
center so that the crust was even all the way around, but I quite enjoyed it.
Filling each little cup with the right amount of filling, watching it bake to a
golden brown then wrapping and storing them for the event, was sheer joy. The
ultimate experience was watching the guests enjoy the food. Two of them pulled
up a chair to the serving table and as the hostess put it, “they grazed.” To me
there was no higher compliment.
In the future I will charge accordingly as I know this is
something I could make a very good living at. I may not have made a fortune on Saturday,
but I certainly enjoyed myself. For the first time in a very long time, I felt
like I was earning my keep, and for a woman that’s been on the disabled list
for several years, that means a lot. Note: I forgot to take a picture of the Mini Quiche, but these were some of the other items I served. The cake is white with fresh strawberry filling and a buttercream frosting with fondant decorations.
  
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