Time for a little comfort

It's that time of year ... Soup Time.

When the weather turns colder, is there anything more comforting than a nice, hot bowl of soup. (Don't answer right now) A few years ago, I made my very first turkey vegetable soup. It wasn't very good. But I made a huge vat so I had a LOT of servings, which I froze. Then I discovered that eating soup for lunch made it possible to lose a couple of pounds. Yes, soup is good food.

So I started making soup on a regular basis. I'd save the chicken carcasses and make chicken soup, but some of the bones on a chicken are really small and no matter how much I sieved it, and picked through the remains, a few little bones got through. Mr. L will NOT eat my chicken soup, so I quit saving the carcasses and, after a reader's suggestion, started buying turkey parts to make soup. Turkey's have much bigger bones, and seldom does one get through. (But Mr. L still won't eat my turkey soup. Go figure! Ah, well. More for me!)

I also make a lot of 16 (or 15--depending on the package) bean soup. Before the end of summer, I visit my favorite Mennonite grocery store and stock up on ham hocks. The ones in my regular store are not only overly smoked, but virtually have no meat on them. The ones from the Mennonite store are a little more money, but man--what a great bean soup they make. (I have 6 hocks in the freezer. That's about enough for 60 bowls of soup! Yum-Yum!)

The other day I made one of my favorite soups: Cabbage Soup. This soup has virtually NO calories, and there's a reason it's got a reputation as a weight-loss diet in and of itself. The thing is, it tastes pretty darn good, too.

Cabbage Soup

Ingredients

3 tablespoons olive oil

½ onion, chopped

2 cloves garlic, chopped

2 quarts water  

4 teaspoons chicken bouillon granules

1 teaspoon salt, or to taste

½ teaspoon black pepper, or to taste

½ head cabbage, cored and coarsely chopped Cabbage

1 (14.5 ounce) can Italian-style stewed tomatoes, drained and diced

4 tablespoons seasoned rice vinegar (optional)

In a large stockpot, heat olive oil over medium heat. Stir in onion and garlic; cook until onion is transparent, about 5 minutes. Stir in water, bouillon, salt, and pepper. Bring to a boil, then stir in cabbage. Simmer until cabbage wilts, about 10 minutes. Stir in tomatoes and the vinegar. Return to a boil, then simmer 15 to 30 minutes, stirring often.

Yield: 6-8 servings

Okay, now spill it. What's your favorite comfort food?

I may have a few too many cookbooks

I'm a fiction writer. And when I'm working on a book, I find it hard to read fiction so I rely on non-fiction or tried- and-true novels that I've read half a million times. (I can practically recite some of them.)

I love yard sales. During the summer, I go to them every week, and it's kind of rare that during those weekly forays that I don't buy a cookbook.  Only ... that can end up being a LOT of cookbooks. In fact, my office is literally littered with them. As I type this, there are 19 cookbooks surrounding my desk, but I've got more sitting in my porch. I've done through every one of them at least once and ALL of them have tabs sticking out of them to mark recipes I'd like to try.

I don't think there are enough days in the year for me to attempt making all these recipes. Betty Crocker's Best of Baking has 9 tabs sticking out of it. It's such a great comprehensive baking book (especially their section on making bread, which fascinates and terrifies me (I had a bad yeast experience with a homemade pizza some years back)), that I know that one's a keeper.

I have good intentions and I do sometimes give them away (Hi Amy and Pam!). I also collect vintage cookbooklets and this summer was a bumper year for them. Today I'm starting a giveaway on my Facebook group and it'll continue until their gone (although there may be a hiatus for the holidays).

Body Building Dishes for Children. Now there's a title. They're talking food, but I keep picturing little kids lifting weights.

I usually pick cookbooks that have beautiful photography (and those vintage cookbooklets don't come under that category. They were made in an age when food styling was in its infancy, and color photos were muddy and unappealing.

I'm going to have to part with some of these cookbooks. If my readers don't want them, then it'll be the library sale. But parting with them is going to be hard. I still have a pile of about 15 of my mothers cookbooks that I haven't gone through yet. (Although I did start to read one on bread and soup. I love to make soup, so that one might have to stay.)

I buy cookbooks on all topics. Here are a few of the titles

The Classic 1000 Vegetarian Recipes. If I didn't like pork and chicken so much, I would be a vegetarian. (If I had to kill animals to eat them, I would definitely be a vegetarian)./What a great comprehensive cookbook. (Another keeper.) It's a shame there are only used copies available because anyone who truly loves vegetables would love this book.

Treasury of Christmas. I'm a sucker for holiday books, and have at least 20+ of them that I drag out during November and December--just to get in the holiday spirit. I haven't decided if this is a keeper, but it's a very nice book.

Betty Crocker's NEW Good and Easy Cookbook is definitely not new, because the very week after I bought this edition, I found an even NEWER (like 20 years newer) edition. The new one is very nice and is pretty much up-to-date with beautiful photography and the kinds of recipes you see today, but there's a lot more charm in the old one. If I had to keep one of them, it would definitely be the one pictured above.

Great American Cooking Schools Omelettes & Souffles This is a charming little cookbook and I love omelettes, but souffles...not so much. I'm thinking it deserves a home where it will be cherished and used.

I must have at least 10 or more books on Hors d'Oeuvres & Appetizers. Do I really need another one, even if it is from Williams-Sonoma and have gorgeous photography?  Hmmm.

I could go on and on ...
Slow Cooker Recipe Collection
The Taste of Home New Potluck
Better Homes and Gardens Annual Recipes 2013
Christmas with Southern Living Cookbook Volume 2
Crazy About Cookies
Simple, Fresh & Healthy
Party Food ... and on and on and on ...

Those are just a few. Do any of these titles make you want to read them?

P.S. If you want to see what I got the entire summer, check out my Yard Sale Pinterest page!

Violets on my teacup

Happy Teacup Tuesday! My cup is filled with English Breakfast tea. What's in your cup?

Big is better

I stopped at a roadside stand selling tomatoes and picked the one that looked the prettiest and dumped them in a bag. I didn't notice until I got home that there was Mr. Gigunda tomato in there.

The little one weighs 5 ounces. The big boy is more than a pound. (And that's a full size (10") dinner plate they're sitting on.) I bet I could make tomato soup for four out of that big boy.

What would you make with it?

Cut-out Cookie Season begins!

It's getting to be cut-out cookie season. Think about it. Halloween, Thanksgiving, and all the events that happen in December (Hanukkah, Christmas, Kwanzaa). 

LET THERE BE COOKIES!

Don't be SAD

A few years ago, a friend of mine told me she suffered from SAD. That's Seasonal Affective Disorder. My first reaction was ... Yeah, right.

Honestly, how can someone become light deprived?

Well, I thought it was totally ridiculous ... until it happened to me. As the days began getting shorter, I started becoming really depressed. This had never happened before. I asked my doctor (who has a SAD light in her office) about it, and she suggested I get a lamp. She told me to get one that has 10,000 Lux therapy lamp. She didn't promise a miracle cure, but said it would help.

She was right.

I've had my lamp for about 10 days now and I sit in front of it (while working on the computer) for about an hour a day. Half hour first thing in the morning, and half an hour after lunch. It's bright. Holy smoke is it bright. But the lamp I chose has two settings.  White light (that's the 10,000 Lux setting) and blue light (5,000 Lux). I must admit, the blue light is easier on the eyes if you're sensitive, but the white light gives you more ... whatever it is it's supposed to be doing for you. (Vitamin D?)

The results: I'm not quite as depressed. (The fact that I was in deadline hell might have been a BIG part of that. I finished the book and am feeling pretty happy about it.)  But the best thing that happened? I'm actually sleeping better.

I've been averaging 4 hours of sleep a night, which is not enough. (It gives me lots of time to read during the night, but doesn't make Lorraine a happy girl.) Since I've been using my lamp, I've been getting at least 6 hours of sleep a night. Still not where I'd like to be, but better.

I bought a PureGuardian 10,000 LUX Full Spectrum Energy Light with Customizable Blue or White Light Therapy Intensity, Timer, Pure Guardian SPA50CA (directly copied from Amazon). Besides the white and blue light, it has different timer settings for 5, 20, and 30 minutes and then switches off. I like that. Sometimes I can't sit for a full 30 minutes.  (I gotta get my tea refills, you know.) So I like to be able to add a 5 minute pop of extra light if I need it.

It's going to be a long dark winter here in Western NY. As the days get shorter, I'll be able to tell if this things has more benefits than what I've already seen.

Any other tips for SAD?

A vast improvement

Back in May, I wrote about how my thumb had stopped working. My GP (or whatever they're called these days) said (without looking at it) that I had arthritis. My gut feeling told me she was wrong. (And she was.)  A couple of readers suggested my sore thumb might be suffering from something called De Quervain's disease, but that didn't seem quite right (as I looked up the symptoms), either.

All I know is that my hand was in total agony for about 12-13 hours a day. I'm pretty sure it became inflamed because I'm on the computer most of the day and use the mouse a lot, especially when I do graphics. My thumb would get stuck in one position and I would literally scream when moving it back into a more comfortable place. (Mr. L's hair would stand on end when that happened.)

I finally went back to the GP a few weeks back and she referred me to a hand surgeon. (After telling me for a SECOND TIME that it was "only arthritis." HA!)

SURGEON??????? Holy crap.

But I was desperate, so I booked an appointment.

And then a funny thing happened.  Ten days before the appointment, my thumb started working again. Not all the time, but I could bend it back-and-forth for as long as half an hour every few hours and it didn't get stuck in the painful position anymore. YAY.  I could cancel my appointment with the hand surgeon.

Except I didn't. I wondered, what if it gets bad again?  I'd better go.

And I did.  He barely looked at my hand before saying, "Trigger Thumb." Next thing I know, I'm getting a cortisone shot and out the door I go.

He told me that if you have to have something bad happen to your hand, trigger thumb (and I assume finger) is the easiest thing to fix. Even if the cortisone shot doesn't work, out-patient (as in his office) surgery can fix it with a few snips--good as new and it would never happen again.

According to him, the cortisone shot would take 5-7 days to work, and that it may or may not be a long-term fix. But I'm telling you, even if it was only the placebo effect, my thumb was already back to 90% after only two days. Holy crap! It's like a miracle! Okay, a week later it's still not 100% -- but I'll take 90% better.

Of course, my health insurance has a high deductible, so it cost me $202 to get my thumb fixed. The best $200 I ever spent. I sure wish I'd insisted on having someone (with actual hand knowledge) look at it sooner. I could have saved myself an entire summer of pain. But it's working now and I'm a happy camper.

Have you ever had an experience like that?

Celebrate National Gumbo Day!

Tommy at Booked for Lunch is famous for his soups. Guess what they're serving today?

A Public Service Announcement

So what if the Stoneham, NH Chamber of Commerce decided to do a public service announcement to entice you to the village?

Take a look.

 

So, would you like to visit Booktown?