I love to cook, especially when I get the chance to try new recipes. I recently got a great article to share with some tasty recipes. Not only do they sound great, but they are comfort foods that are also good for you! I hope you enjoy:
Recipes That Make You Feel Better
By Judith J. Wurtman, PhD and Nina T. Frusztajer, MD,
Authors of The Serotonin Power Diet: Eat Carbs — Nature’s Own Appetite Suppressant — to Stop Emotional Overeating and Halt Antidepressant-Associated Weight Gain
There are some evenings when we all wish our Moms were in the kitchen cooking a meal that would make us feel better. We are too old to be fretting over a bad test grade or nasty remark from someone on the playground but being grown up doesn’t mean we don’t need comfort when we return home.
Fortunately, it is really easy to prepare a dinner yourself that will calm you down, soothe away your stress and turn down that chatter in your brain about what went wrong with your day.
Comfort dinners work because if they have the right components, your brain will make the calming , feel-good chemical, serotonin as soon as the food is digested. And that means that by the time you put the dishes in the dishwasher, the troubles of the day will be forgotten.
Serotonin is made when you eat any sweet or starchy carbohydrate (except the carbs in fruit). Carbohydrates set in motion a process that brings an amino acid called tryptophan into the brain. When tryptophan arrives, it is immediately converted to serotonin. And serotonin immediately makes you feel better.
Only two rules must be followed if your comfort dinner is really going to comfort:
- Keep the protein portion of the dinner to a minimum. No more than 1-2 ounces. This is because protein interferes with tryptophan getting into the brain.
- Keep the fat portion of the dinner to a minimum. No more than two tablespoons of olive oil, butter, high fat cheese or cream. This is because fat slows down digestion and will make you wait too long to feel comforted.
Here are some easy to prepare, tasty and comforting dinner recipes. Enjoy! Read the rest of this entry »
One thing that you might know about us is that we are in love with gadgets. In fact, one day we hope to have almost everything in our home running from a central spot, accessible through other various touch pads and other space age awesomeness. We aren’t there yet. But we do have a lot of nifty things going on that we added to our house. Things that were easy upgrades, but that we would hate to live without now that we have them.
- Remote controlled fan. Now, I know that ceiling fans are considered a design no-no by many folks on HGTV, but I disagree wholeheartedly. Not only can you find one that looks good, but in many parts of the country, having one makes life much more bearable. The fan in our master bedroom has a remote control, which can dim the lights and turn the fan on, off, and change the speed and direction. It was here when we bought the house, so it’s not exactly our style, but now that we have had one with a remote, we will never go back.
- Door lock with keypad. I never thought this would become a must have (it too was here when we moved in), but it is so handy. I love being able to go out through my garage door without taking my keys. It also comes in real handy when coming home from shopping, no fumbling with keys with arms full of food. Just a quick push of some buttons and the door is open.
- Remote control dimmers. We installed new lights and light switches in our family room, which is used as our theater room. When we did so we choose a dimmer switch with a remote control. The even cooler part? We programed our TV remote to control the lights as well.
- Garage door opener. These are commonplace, but if you have ever had yours break, you know that they are one of the best things ever.
- Light timers. Not just for going on vacation! We got one for when we went away, but have left it set up ever since. Being that I was always the one to turn on a light when it got dark, not having to think about it, has been really nice. I love that it just turns on and off without me doing a single thing.
- Digital photo frame with program. The digital photo frame is an awesome little gadget, and it becomes even cooler when it can run a program. Like a light timer, we can set our frame to come on and off and certain times of the day. We set it to come on when we are at home, and not to run when we are busy in the day. I love being able to add photos at any time, and it sure beats having loads of frames cluttering things up.
Of course I have gadgets on my wish list too! I really want a Roomba, light control windows, and a self cleaning toilet. What are your must have gadgets?
If this ad from Sherwin-Williams doesn’t inspire you to get painting, I don’t know what will. Of course right now, it’s inspiring me to eat some ice cream! I love the creative use of the paint chip in their current ad campaign, the other ad that I have seen makes paint chips into flowers.
*Sherwin-Williams didn’t provide me with this ad, or ask me to post it, I just thought it was very clever.*
Every time we have a big wind storm, which is often lately, we get reminded of a huge to do item. The roof.
After the wind stops, we usually have a lot of debris in the yard, including a shingle now and then. We have been up on the roof, and we know that we have several spots that need to be redone. Ideally we would redo the whole roof, since our current roof is obviously a bit older. Since we probably don’t have the budget for that, we will just patch it up ourselves. Luckily, that’s not too hard of a DIY project.
For those of you lucky enough to get new roofs, there is a contest called That’s My Roof, which is sponsored by Owens Corning, that you could enter. From now until October 31, 2010 if you buy a roof from them, you can upload a photo and possibly win monthly $500 prizes or the grand prize: a refund for the cost of the new roof! Even though we aren’t going to replace just yet, I took their roofing color personality quiz for fun. My results?
While not a favorite color combo in real life (though I do like yellow), the personality description actually fit pretty well. Then they offer a few color combo choices for roofing, all of which were very nice and would probably look great on our house too.
We would love to add solar shingles to our roof in addition to new regular shingles, but first, we have to patch those holes! It’s so much more fun to spend time doing other projects, it’s easy to forget about bigger, more important ones like the roof. Thank goodness for little reminders now and then.
*Speaking of roofs, have you seen the one over on DIY Diva?*
What about your roof? What kind of roof do you have? Do you like what you have, or would you change it if you could?
We just wanted to wish everyone a very happy July 4th. Hopefully you are doing something to celebrate your freedoms. Baby is all decked out in her red, white, and blue:
We don’t have big plans, just spending time at our local Freedom Festival, hopefully catching sight of the bigger fireworks shows, and of course, lighting fireworks of our own. I had high hopes of making something tasty, but I think we will call it good with our annual Tigers Blood shaved ice. There might be a little home improvement project thrown in, with a big emphasis on the word might. It is a holiday after all!
Also, I wanted to send a special shout out to all of you readers who have sewing skills. My friend Kelli has started a project that I think is just wonderful and I hope that you will visit her blog and read all about it. It’s called Babies for Brazil, and she is helping to collect handmade dolls for children in Brazil who really don’t have much. If you have the skills, I hope you will consider contributing.
Enjoy your holiday!
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