6-month annibirthday

Monday August 6, 2012

This was supposed to be posted this last Monday. That didn't happen as you can see.

Hey all. I have finally taken time to make another blog post. Yeah, I'm running way behind on recipes. And I've got another series I haven't even got started yet. So much to do and so little time.

By the way, I hope you took note of the date up above as that is when I had planned on posting this. That date is a little special this year for me. It's been six monhs since my surgery. I had a visit with my cardiologist on Monday along with an Echo cardiogram of my heart.

My heart is healing, Praise the Lord! The Echo cardiogram shows that my heart is now pumping very well. There is a small area at the tip that is not pumping as vigorously as the rest of my heart but it will catch up in time.

The bypass has healed up nicely and I am no longer going to be taking Norvasc, which was a blood thinner that is used for a period of time after open heart surgery to allow the bypass to heal. It makes sure that the bypass arteries don't close up.

Dr. Robertson also reduced my Plavix from one pill a day to one pill every other day. All in all it was a good visit for me.


I thought I posted some pictures on Facebook of the storm damage we had a few weeks ago but now I don't see them. So I thought I'd post some here on the blog.

These first two were taken from the back door while the storm was going on. The table was blown over early during the storm. I kept expecting the grill to go over as well but it didn't.

These next two are some of the limbs that fell from the trees. In the top one, our cable line and clothes line have been knocked down.

Our very large Cottonwood suffered the most damage. The first picture shows the large limb that fell onto the shed. This is the limb that ended up falling on my head when Lisa and I were taking down. The middle and bottom picture show limbs from the Cottonwood in two other trees in the yard. The limbs from the Cottonwood were blown about 20 yards from the tree into these two other trees.

They said it was a "Land Hurricane". It was certainly something I'd never seen before and I'm not sure I'd want to see one again.

Well that's all I've got for now. See you next post :)

Day 101 - Recovery plus Cooking with Kristin - Black Bean Burger

May 20, 2012

Day 101 since I came home. Well shoot, I meant to post this on day 100 and missed it by a day. And even then I'm uploading on day 102.

I've been back to work for two weeks now, full time at least. It's going okay. We had a customer complaint a week ago that turned into a week-long customer visit by various quality people. Plus I had to work yesterday (Saturday). Blargh! So yeah, it's been an interesting couple of weeks already.

How about some food? That always makes things a little better. LOL

This week we've got some Black Bean burgers. Good stuff :)

Ingredients:
12 oz. drained black beans
1/2 diced green pepper
3/4 diced medium yellow onion
2 tsp crushed red pepper
1 tsp chili powder
1/2 tsp cummin
1 egg
2 cup bread crumbs
salt and pepper

Directions:
Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Spray baking sheet with non-stick spray. Mash beans in bowl. Mis in onions, pepper, and spices. Add egg and bread crumbs and mix. Form four patties and bake 10 minutes on each side.

Just a couple comments about this recipe. We all felt that the burgers were a little on the spicy side and that the red pepper and chili powder could be cut in half and there would still be plenty of heat in the burgers. The second thing is that this makes 4 really big burgers. You could easily make 6 burgers out of this recipe and they would still be large enough to be satisfying.

Next week: Hmm... more food but I'm not sure what. And I still have the other rehab to talk about :)

Day 93 - Recovery plus cooking healthy with Kristin

May 12, 2012

I got my first full week back at work under my belt. It was good to see my coworkers again, as I expected it would be. It wasn't a real bad week although we did have a customer complaint on Thursday that had most of us scrambling. Such is the life in the automotive industry.

Lisa, Kristin, and I have joined the Parkview Health and Fitness Center. They've got all the equipment I used at rehab and a whole lot more. I'll talk more about that in a future post along with some pictures of course.

I have discovered something bad for me during this whole recovery process. You end up with a lot of time where you can't do much. Most people would watch TV, which I did. Most people might not watch the stations I watch though. Scifi, Food Network, History, HGTV. It's that last one that got me in trouble. One of my future posts will be about rehab for something other than myself. That should be a fun one to write. And I have lots of pictures :)

I've also come up with at least one more topic I want to blog about. And that is the foods that Kristin has started making for us once a week. She started this a few weeks back and she's made some really good dishes so far. And the great this is that they are all really healthy.

For this first week of "Cooking healthy with Kristin" I decided to showcase her Shepherd's Pie. I don't know how many of you have had shepherd's pie before but I really enjoy it. The combination of meats, veggies, and potatoes is...yum. So Kristin made a shepherd's pie a few weeks ago. The unique thing about hers is that it has no meat.

Here is the recipe.

Super Easy Cheesy Shepherd's Pie

Ingredients:
24 oz. bag of frozen Green Giant broccoli, carrots, cauliflower, and cheese sauce

1 pouch Betty Crocker Cheddar and Sour Cream mashed potatoes

2 cups frozen ground beef style soy crumbles

Directions: Pre-heat oven to 400 degrees. Place Veggies and sauce bag in large microwaveable bowl. Cover and microwave for 8-10 minutes. In medium-large bowl combine potatoes with 2 cups hotwater and stir until thickened. Spray 8x8 pan with non-stick spray. Add soy crumbles. Spoon veggies over soy crumbles. Top with potato mixture. Bake for 20 minutes. Serve to taste with salt and pepper. Makes 6 servings.

Now doesn't that look yummy?

Next "Cooking healthy with Kristin": Black Bean Burgers