Lily's Health Pad

Thank you all for the wonderful comments regarding my goals.  I would like to clarify that these are not necessarily my goals for 2010.  Many are goals that I hope to accomplish at some point in the next five years (for example, I doubt that a house is in my 2010 future).  I simply wanted to share some of my life’s aspirations with you all, since now is the time of resolutions for many people.

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On to food.  I’ve had some delicious eats since I last food blogged, so I think I shall utilize this opportunity to share.

What I’ve been eating these days:

 1) I made shrimp red curry for the first time in my life.

I somewhat followed this recipe from a very old Cooking Light.

If you’re interested in making red curry, and you want it to taste similar to what is served in a Thai restaurant,  I would not recommend following this recipe!  Too much fish sauce, and hardly any red curry paste or coconut milk.  Bleck! 

In order to drown out the overwhelming fish taste, I added carrots and bamboo shoots to the original recipe.  I also significantly upped the red curry paste and the coconut milk.

My version was tasty. 

For a red curry side item, I also made snow peas with red pepper flakes.

2) Dessert was cake.  During a recent trip to Amazing Savings, I picked this up on a whim.

I wanted to get this gingerbread flavored cake baked while it was still relatively close to the holidays.

My first cake made with whole wheat pastry flour!

Bob’s Red Mill, you know how to make some delicious stuff!

I realize that this cake is not particularly healthy, but I do like that it contains some nutrients.  It has 2 grams of fiber and 5 grams of protein per serving.  Not too shabby for a cake.  It also contains 10% of one’s daily intake of iron and 6% of one’s daily intake for calcium.

(Aside- I dislike how nutrition info tends to only include percentages of RDA.  I’d rather see the exact amount.)

3) I added some nonnutritive vanilla icing.

The cake may have been from a mix, but its icing wasn’t!  I’ll put the icing recipe in a post tomorrow.

4) The past couple of days, I’ve been able to create some green monsters with my gifted Ninja.

The infomercial may be tacky.  But this thing works.  I have my smoothie in less than a minute.  It beats 15 minutes wrestling with the blender any day!

5) For tonight’s dinner, I wanted to try out another Amazing Savings purchase…soba noodles.

Using some random leftover ingredients, I created an accompanying sauce on the fly.  Let’s just say, I don’t think you’ll be wanting the recipe for it!

I did like the soba noodles though.  It was my first time trying them.  They really didn’t taste much different than whole wheat pasta.  I made the entire box, so I will be using the noodles as a base for my lunches and dinners this week.

6) As per usual, I’ve also been drinking lots of tea.

In a new mug.

How cute is this coffee cup that my brother-in-law (an avid reader of Lily’s Health Pad!) got me for Christmas?

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Switching gears…

Anna at Newlywed, Newly Veg!  and Nicole at Prevention RD passed the beautiful blogger award on to me.  Thanks ladies!  I enjoy reading both of your blogs daily.

Being the recipient of this award means that I am to share 7 random things about myself with the blog community.

1) I love cats! (Maybe you already knew that). I don’t have any of my own right now, because I can’t really afford to take care of it, but my family has two: Beatrice and Irvin. Hopefully one day Beattie and Irv will come and live with me, rather than my parents.

I know, I know.  You’re getting tired of seeing pictures of my less than attractive cats. Too bad.

2) I have an obsession with documentaries. I get really into them. It’s like reality tv, but more real, although obviously not totally real. Unfortunately, even documentaries are usually quite biased. My favorite documentaries are Paradise Lost, So Much So Fast, My Flesh and Blood, The Farmer’s Wife, and The Staircase.

3) I extremely dislike football and football season, and I rejoice when it is over. Football hatred is not looked upon favorably if you have an undergraduate degree from Clemson.

4) My sister, mother of Clara and Max, lives in Missouri. She was lucky enough to receive a nice surprise named Lily when she was 12! In fact, my parents took her out to dinner and told her she was about to get something that she had always wanted. Jodi was insistent that she was going finally get a chimpanzee. Sorry, Jodi! Instead, you got me!

5) I love music, and I tend to prefer hard rock or indie tunes. I rarely enjoy pop, rap, or r&b. Sometimes I wish I could learn to like Beyonce, The Black Eyed Peas, or whatever it is that everyone else is listening to these days because it’s always being played at the gym or during group exercise classes.

6) I’m rather passionate about freeing the West Memphis Three, and I will inform anyone that will listen about their story. www.wm3.org

7) I got Stephen a stuffed golden retriever as a joke last Christmas. We have since named him Pookie, and we somewhat treat him as if he is real.

Pookie may have dressed up as Indiana Jones for Halloween this year.

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Have a good night, everyone!  I’m off to relax and watch some episodes of Rescue Me.  I love Netflix!

Help!: Why is it that when I attempt to respond to comments that my reply never appears underneath the comment of the person that I’m responding to?  This is driving me batty!

Question of the Day: What are your favorite kinds of movies?

Tags: Beatrice, Bob's Red Mill, documentaries, Green Monster, Irvin, pookie, red curry, soba noodles, tea, vanilla icing, west memphis 3