Turkey Day is coming

Now why do some people call Thanksgiving "Turkey Day"? I guess that's all the day is for them...a day to eat turkey. Makes me wonder is Thanksgiving the only day of the year that some people eat turkey? I don't know, but it seems strange to me. Sure as a kid, I loved the dark meat on the turkey. In fact 1/2 my plate was full of dark meat. The other 1/2 of my plate was Dad's homemade stuffing & yams. As long as I got those 3 things followed by pumpkin pie...it was a good day. Course it took me forever to finish the plate too.

Today I got an email from a friend who asked me when I was going to the employee cafe for thanksgiving dinner. Seeing as I have to work thanksgiving night, I told her that I could meet her around noon that day. Now its not a meal to really look forward to...dry turkey, sweet potatoes with brown sugar or marshmallows or some other sweetener dumped on top, overcooked soggy veggies, hard stale dinner rolls, and the most disgusting pumpkin pie ever. And its the same menu that is served here for Christmas.

Last year, I went to Colorado and spent Thanksgiving with my brother and his family. My sister-in-law cooks GREAT!!!!! You know how criminals on death row can usually pick what they want for a last meal....I pick my sis-in-law to be the cook.

Yes I admit I'm pretty picky about my food. I love sweet potatoes/yams...but not loaded down with all the sweetener crap. I usually buy yams about once a month and just eat them plain with canned crushed pineapple or applesauce.

But yesterday I found a new recipe for them & simple enough to make in a dorm room without a kitchen:

African Sweet Potato & Peanut Soup
Ingredients: Best to use organic and local ingredients:
Soup Base:1 sweet potato
3 medium sized ripe heirloom tomatoes
2 small handfuls sprouted peanuts (I'm just using crushed peanuts)
1x1 inch chunk sweet onion
2 pinches of cumin
1 pinch cinnamon
1 pinch cayenne or chili powder
1/2 cup water - varies depending on desired consistency
Note: I recommend you use filtered water and not extra tomato to water the soup down.
Too much tomato will dominate the taste of the precious sweet potato.

---Garnish:
2 inch chunk of red bell pepper finely chopped
1/4 cup chopped cilantro
few chopped/crushed sprouted peanuts
sea salt/black pepper to taste
and if you are feeling spicy add a pinch of cayenneon top
- remember a little goes a long way!

Play around with your spices, add more or lessor other ones as well. These 3 went well together.Your spice influences should be those found in curry.

Optional ingredients based on original recipe: add garlic,fresh ginger, green or spring onions and/or red bellpepper to soup base.

Preparation: Place all non-garnish ingredients into high speed blender. Blend until desired consistency. Remember that the longer you run it the more it will heat up... Add more water if soup is too thick. When I poured it into the boil it formed a slightly oil ring around the edgesmaking it the perfect medium soup based consistency... just enough to coat your spoon but soothe and melt in your mouth.

Pour into bowl. Artistically arrange garnish on top!

Salty Lunch

Today I went with Brenda to Tusayan during her lunchbreak. She needed to fill her car up with gas. Then we decided to go to McDonald's which is just down the road past the gas station, seeing neither of us has been there for quite awhile.



After getting our order and finding a booth to sit at, we both agreed the fries were to salty. Well according to the nutrition facts on the trayliner a medium sized order of fries has 270mg of sodium...then of course the workers dump on more salt after they are cooked.

Now Brenda takes a water pill & potassium pill everyday and her doctors have told her to watch out for sodium in foods and to use less salt. Well I guess we both blew that salt rule away today.



My lunch had about 1900mg of sodium and Brenda had about 1650mg of sodium in her lunch.
After skimming through the nutrition list I noticed that the deluxe breakfast has 2150mg of sodium and that's without any syrup & butter.....wow, thats alot of salt for 1 meal.

My lunch also had 1,250 calories. Figured that was also alot seeing as some people try to eat that in a whole day. Guess I shouldn't go back to McDonald's anytime soon.



*tonight*
just sitting home snacking~ had yogurt and Sliced red bell peppers with thousand Island dressing (yes there is to much sodium in the dressing too), but not really hungry for much else.
And I'm not sure how "Tazo Tea" became my new bed-time drink, but I'm having it again tonight. (I don't think there is sodium in tea...but wouldn't be surprised in manufactors added some in just like everything else)