For the Love of Food

This has been a very long month for me.  I was very very sick.  Every time I thought I was just starting to get better, I would take a turn for the worse or come down with something else.  I am still fighting off the nasty remnants of a flu in my lungs, but I seem to be over my 4-week long run with stomach flus.

I lived off of dry toast, dry pretzel sticks, homemade Gatorade, and bland potatoes for 4 weeks.  I have lost quite a lot of weight – 11.22 lbs to be exact.  And, my poor family has been living off of sandwiches and frozen pizzas for those 4 weeks and their tummies are rumbling for some real food.  So is mine, but I am taking baby steps.  We even had to go ahead and get someone to help clean our home once a week since I was too weak to get out of bed.

It is terrible for a food-lover to be sick to her stomach!  I spent so many days dreaming of food.  You know you are not getting enough nutrients when you are sick to your stomach and you wish you could down a plate of sushi.  Right now I could go for some chicken wings.

So, since I haven’t cooked anything in 4 weeks, there is not much to share with you other than I am still alive and getting better.  I hope this weekend I can break my 4 weeks of no cooking and be able to post for you all on Monday.

Thanks to all of those who emailed me your well-wishes.  I was able to read them, but didn’t always have the energy to answer.

I am sorry to say that I haven’t cooked anything for 3 weeks!! We have all been sick with either the stomach flu or a cold. In my case I got the stomach flu twice with a cold in between.  Today I have a massive headache like I haven’t had in 2 years….

Because of that I have no recipes to share with you from the past weeks, but for those of you suffering from a nasty stomach bug, I have just the drink for you! Homemade Gatorade.  This is a re-post from June 2008 from my blog.  The recipe is bellow.

It’s not possible for me to buy Gatorade where I live in Germany. I can find Powerade, but it’s expensive. So, we make our own with some flavor packets that we picked up when we were in the US. They are very inexpensive and take up very little storage space. They also come in a wide assortment of flavors. My favorite is grape because it reminds me of the grape soda I used to get to drink, although rarely, as a child.

Anyways, we’ve been living off of our homemade Gatorade, crackers, pretzel sticks, and bland potatoes for the last three weeks.

I am still not feeling 100%, so I may be posting sporadically for the next few weeks. And, thank you in advance for understanding!

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I have come down with a bit of a cold after being sick with something else last week.   I will be back in a few days.

Update (Jan 14): It looks like I have the stomach flu too…  it looks like it will be a few days longer.

This is a favorite recipe of mine that I came across on Love and Olive Oil! Previously, I had not made it with the cilantro sauce that she recommends making the the burger until now.

And, WOW, that sauce is fantastic!

I like serving my walnut-lentil burger over rice with a side of salad. But, you can serve it on a bun as well!

I also accidentally changed up the recipe this time around by adding more olive oil to the recipe that called for and leaving out the egg. I definitely like the flavor minus the egg, and the extra olive oil makes the patties hold together better.

This makes a great vegetarian recipe as well as a great vegan recipe if you use a soy-based yogurt substitute. Continue Reading »

I know it’s a bit past Christmas, but I am just getting around to blogging what has happened in the past few weeks.

For Christmas we had a very simple meal. We had steamed broccoli, rice with mushrooms, and a savory ham.

I went ahead and used the recipe that my friends had shown me with the pork roast and it came out fantastically delicious!

You can find the recipe here, just substitute with a cooked and smoked ham.

I just wanted to share something really cool with you guys.

The other day when my mom was in town we decided to take a day trip to see Regensburg – a city in central Bavaria. We basically just had lunch there – at a brewery – and walked around a bit.

In the brewery where we ate there was a sort of locker called a Bierkrugtressor which translates exactly to Beer Krug Treasury. It’s for the “regulars” who have their own beer mugs at the brewery. They keep them locked up for them so that their mugs are always there to use when they come for a drink.

Cool huh?

This month(s)* I was paired with Val from More Than Burnt Toast for for the monthly Taste&Create event that I hold.

I really had a hard time decided what to make. There were so many delicious choices. But, when I came across her recipe for Bifteki Yemista, I knew I had found the one.

This was a very very hearty meal for 6, but with the small amounts of meat we eat, this could have easily been a meal for 12 for us. Needless to say the flavors were really fantastic. My mother was visiting us for the holidays and we all agreed that this was definitely worth making again.

My son, who is 22 months old loved it so much that he asked me to take a picture (see picture bellow) of it and couldn’t stop saying “mm yum” the whole way through his meal! Oh, and when my son asks me to take a picture of something, that means a lot. He only asks me to take pictures of toys he likes so that he can look at them on the computer at a later time. This was the first time he has asked me to take a picture of his food.

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Happy 2009 everyone!

I decided to analyze my blog from January 2008 – December 2008 to see what you like.

Why?
I want to see more of you around my blog more often. And, that means finding out what you like.

How?
I looked at all my posts and saw what you commented most on and I learned quite a lot.

What? Continue Reading »