What I'm eating now

I won a giveaway at the beginning of March and *just* remembered that I never got the package.  I'm so sad--I was looking forward to getting all those gluten-free goodies from Jules by way of Gluten-free Frenzy.

Several ladies were in the kitchen today when I ate my late lunch and one of them commented on how well I eat.  She didn't mean it in the "diet" way but in the "that looks and smells great, and it's healthy, too" way.  It was leftovers of the sausage, tomato, pumpkin, garbanzo bean "stew" I made the other night, with a little salad from my garden.  I'm still not starving to death!

One of them told me about how she has changed her habits for better health and she is cutting sugar, although she isn't telling anyone so she doesn't have to deal with the grief.  What an awesome thing she is doing, and how terrible that "we" can't be more supportive of people when they make positive changes in their lives.  She also reminded me that some people live in their own reality, and we should accept that and move on to find our own place of gratitude.  Bless her heart, I think she's right and I appreciated her sharing that she struggles with that too.  I might have some raw cookie recipes for her with no sugar--I should totally try them too.  A guy in the office asked me about my Larabar too, which is essentially nuts and dates, no sugar.

I got artichokes in my produce box this week--it was ordered right before I saw that I have one artichoke in my garden, almost ready.  Okay, maybe it is ready.  It's the same size as the ones I got, but I thought they were supposed to be bigger when they are ready.  So I cooked the 2 that I got by steaming them with some herbs and then finishing with some lemon juice.  I ate one and saved one; the one I ate was pretty good, as good as it can be without a remoulade.

While I was cooking my chicken, I went to the garden to get some lettuce and decided on the Bibb lettuce.  I planted the rosemary I bought over a week ago; I don't expect it to make it but thought I'd try anyway.  When I was digging the hole for it, I ran into a very long red earthworm.  Yay--those are good for the garden, right?  Mick had put one in each of the tree wells when they were planted but he assumed they were all long gone, so I don't know if it was one of those.

When my whole chicken was done boiling (with some celery tops, onions, and herbs), I cut a couple large breast pieces off and chopped them up.  I added that to a pot of pinto beans and a container of salsa.  I served mine over a sweet potato.  Pretty good stuff.  I have some leftover and another sweet potato, and some additional leftovers for my leftover mashed potatoes.  I think this would have been very good over rice, too, but didn't think about it in time.

I finished with some Cherry Amaretto coconut milk ice cream.  I really need to learn to make some myself.  Or stop eating it.  Yeah, I need to make it myself.