this little life of mine

This week's clean and healthy recipe comes from the March/April 2009 issue of Clean Eating magazine. Like last week's Salmon Corn Chowder, this is the first time I've tried this recipe and I'm wondering why?. It was super easy - just five ingredients! - and was a delicious vegetarian meal!

 
I've never had black-eyed peas or collard greens before and found both of them to be pretty darn tasty! The stew coulda used a little sprinklng of sea salt and fresh ground pepper - I totally forgot both of those things, and had used salt-free organic vegetable broth and diced tomatoes so there wasn't any salt in there at all! It was still pretty good, though and and the leftovers will make a yummy lunch tomorrow afternoon!

I'm really glad that one picture came out because right after that I tried to get a shot of the rest of the stew in the pot and totally dropped my camera in the stew! The camera still takes pictures, but the screen in the back is dead so I can't tell if I've turned off my flash or not, and can't tell if I'm on macro or not until I plug the card into a computer and check out the pics! Gah! I guess I'll be getting a shiny new toy for Christmas this year. Any suggestions on what my next camera should be? 

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For dinner tonight I made the Salmon Corn Chowder and Corn Bread from the 2009 September/October issue of Clean Eating magazine.

I don't know why I didn't make this a year ago, because it is delicious! And really quite easy, too! I was lucky that I had many of the ingredients on hand, so I just had to pick up the salmon and veggies. I believe it says it's 45 minutes total to make both items, but it actually took me an hour and a half. Still, that's not too bad for cooking and since it turned out so yummy, it was well worth it!

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:

1. Grab your current read

2. Open to a random page

3. Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page

4. BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)

5. Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers:

This week I'm reading Sacred Scars by Kathleen Duey, the second book in her series A Resurrection of Magic. Although I have dozens of books to read, and had even started a couple, since I finished the first book, Skin Hunger, I just haven't been able to wait to read the second one and grabbed it from the library as soon as I was able to! So far it's really awesome, just like the first book!

My father had never beaten me. But when he was angry about my school marks or my daydreaming, or anything else, he often argued with my mother. And a few times, when her dressing gown had gapped the next morning at breakfast, or her wide sleeves had fallen when she reached for a top shelf, I'd seen the bruises.
                                                                                                                             

Tonight's dinner was the Linguine with Orange Saffron Salmon from the September/October 2010 issue of Clean Eating magazine. I've never used saffron before, mostly because it's very expensive, but I have been feeling very much in a rut lately and just needed to do something different. And I found some saffron on sale for around $15.00!

 
This was a very easy dinner to make - I was able to work on the Simple Saffron Broth while preparing the linguine and salmon for the rest of the dinner. I added some baguette slices and a side salad to make a very satisfying and delicious. Definitely a WIN, which made me very happy after last night's disaster!

Tonight I tried a new vegetarian recipe from the latest Clean Eating magazine: butternut squash ravioli with mushroom sauce.I've never made my own raviolis before, but I had a coupon for wonton wrappers, so thought I'd give it a shot. The recipe itself is pretty simple (especially if you get the squash already peeled and chopped!) though filling 30 or so raviolis is quite a chore, and the mushroom sauce is super fast and easy, too (again when you get the onions already chopped and the mushrooms already sliced!).

 I wish I could say this was a delicious succesful meal, but, alas, it was not. The whole thing was bland and just not very good. I added a side salad with the dish, and that was about the only tasty part of the whole thing. Maybe if I'd done one of the other two suaces (a tomato and a ginger soy) there might've been more flavour. I don't know. All I know is it was a FAIL and I will likely not make this one again.