Category: Cooking Page 1 of 6

Last week at HEB, we saw a kind of fruit we had never seen before called dragon fruit. A nice guy working in the department took the time to tell us when (you need to let them get a little bit soft) to eat them and how to peel them. We did not really know what to expect, but boy we were happy we tried it. Today, because it is Friday, we decided to take a special trip to Granbury to eat Kung Pao Chicken with Super Greens (only 290 calories and really good), then see if there was any dragon fruit left at HEB–it is on sale. We loaded up and even have one that is ripe enough that we are going to eat it tonight. We bought one red dragon fruit that was a good bit more expensive, but we thought we would try it anyway.

Lorena makes me a big salad (in the spirit of the Big Salad from Seinfeld) every night we eat at home. Lorena makes an olive oil and vinegar dressing for it that is fabulous. I LOVE my big salads. Two days ago, we ran out of the olive oil Lorena buys from Costco, but she found a gift package of several different oils and vinegars Kelly had purchased as a gift for someone, but forgot about so we stole it, tried it, and it changed my entire perspective on big salads! The first one we tried was absolutely fabulous so we are going through them to figure out what we like best. We LOVE them. Hope Kelly does not remember.

Lorena and I cooked a turkey on New Year’s Day because we had one in the freezer that we bought over a year ago. We were a little worried about how it would turn out, but boy howdy, it turned out great. It was about a 15 pound turkey, smaller by a lot than the one we cooked for Thanksgiving. We are amazed at how much better the smaller turkey cooked. We have been eating on it now for a couple days and we still have not gotten it out of our heads that this might be the best we have ever done. The added benefit is the tryptophan for the excellent post-turkey nap.

I got up early this morning to get everything done in a somewhat relaxed manner before I got our 25 lb. turkey into the oven. I really enjoy the whole process a lot. I am even getting pretty good at carving the turkey. I get to do one more this year at Christmas time, but next year, I would like to start roasting some chickens. The problem is that it is almost as cheap to buy them already roasted at the grocery store as to do the roasting at home. Still, it would be fun to do some experimenting.

Last night, Lorena made me beef stir fry, but replaced the rice (or sometimes noodles) with sauteed cabbage and onions. It was nothing short of spectacular. We are planning to try something similar tonight, but this time with chicken. It makes great sense for my current nutrition goals, too, with not so many carbohydrates and a good bit of protein.