vegetables

Live Longer

My Grandma inside the igloo for her 89th birthday!

My Grandma will be 92 tomorrow. She lives on her own, cooks for herself, loves the movies, and is interesting to talk to. She has moments of forgetfulness and relays a lot of stories from the past and her youth. Now and then my mom will call me to tell me she is worried my Grandma might be losing it a little. Sometimes my mom seems right and other times I say, “I do the same thing. If Grandma has dementia then I must too.”

A week after Christmas my Grandma called me to thank me for the beautiful amaryllis I’d given her for Christmas. She left a message and as I listened, I grew a little sad. I had not given her an amaryllis. Perhaps my mom was more right than I realized. Someone else deserved this thank you. Not me. It signaled that my Grandma seemed to be losing it.

Later that night when Matt arrived home, I told him about my Grandma’s message and how my mom might be onto something. “I didn’t get her an amaryllis,” I told him. “Yes, […]

Live LongerMaggie Downie2018-02-14T15:54:22-05:00

Smoothie Challenge: Do It With Friends

Though I didn’t set myself a deadline, I’m falling behind on my smoothie challenge. I set a goal of making all 30 smoothies from a new cookbook I got. Right now I doubt I’ll have tried 30 by the end of the year, which was definitely my intent at the beginning. I’m only on number five. I thought I’d try three a week. I’m lucky when I make two.

I’ve started recruiting my friends to make it more fun. This week I made one for me and Matt’s sister and then I made a group of friends try one on our regular Survivor night get together.

The one I had with Cindy was my favorite so far. Survivor night’s was bland, but refreshing. It takes a real trooper to try the smoothies. I like to play a game where you guess what’s in it, so there is a bit of trust […]

Smoothie Challenge: Do It With FriendsMaggie Downie2017-09-12T19:34:31-04:00

Vilifying Food

My boyfriend, Matt, often laughs at me when I tell him what I’m eating is unhealthy. He thinks I’m a healthy eater. I think he is wrong. His perspective is skewed. He would happily eat pizza for every meal, every day. Granted, I almost never go for fast food and I don’t really like fried food, but carbs like pasta with sauce and cheese, pizza and chocolate are some of my favorite foods.

I’ll admit I’m pretty critical of what is healthy. If I make roast vegetables and put some shredded cheese on them I don’t think they are that healthy anymore. I tend to think only vegetables and grilled white meat is good for us. And even then there is a scale in my mind of which vegetables are the healthiest. For […]

Vilifying FoodMaggie Downie2017-09-12T19:31:30-04:00

Ratatouille

I made my first ratatouille this week. As far as I could tell if, when you are buying all the ingredients, if you don’t purchase a bouquet garni because you don’t know what it is than ratatouille is basically sautéed vegetables—not the end of the world, but really nothing special.

Although such a colorful array of veggies, seems like it has to be good, especially during the winter.

When I realized I was lacking what turned out the be the most important ingredient, I looked online and found that it’s really just a bundle of spices you cook the veggies with and then remove at the end. So I just added Wikipedia’s recommended spices for a bouquet garni and never removed them. My spices weren’t fresh, but I figured it was better than nothing.

My cookbook had a photograph of the veggies still looking quite firm at the end, but called for them to simmer for 50-plus minutes. I don’t know how you cook anything that long and not have it turn to mush, which my veggies […]

RatatouilleMaggie Downie2017-09-12T19:32:00-04:00

Green Juice

I rather exercise more so that I can eat as much as I want. That being said, I notice that when I eat better, I feel better. Load me up with vegetables, limit my sugar intake, provide me with ample sleep and I feel like I can rule the world. I definitely feel the difference when I’ve over eaten or munched on too many carbs or desserts.

So once in a rare while I feel an urge to juice vegetables and drink them–not because it tastes good, but because it is good for me. While I like veggies, I often have a difficult time drinking them. My sister Kate could live on various green juices, but I need to add some fruit to my juices in order to get it past my delicate palate. Kate can drink anything that looks and smells like grass with a smile. I do it begrudgingly, make all sort of noises and tease my sister for smelling like dirt. (It’s fair. She said I smelled like soggy cereal when I was born.)

So last […]

Green JuiceMaggie Downie2017-09-12T19:32:03-04:00