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Archive for the ‘Family’ Category

New Tricks — Am I the only one who has discovered this BBC weekly series?

Photo from TV Page.com

Look for it on Monday nights. In my area, PBS airs back to back one-hour episodes starting at 8:00 p.m. (no commercials – hooray!)

TV.com writes a short summary.

New Tricks centres around Sandra Pullman who out of desperation to put her flagging police career back on track recruits three old veterans to lend a helping hand.

The show proves, conclusively, that you can’t teach old dogs new tricks!

1 lb. ground beef, lean
1/4 cup chopped onion
1 or 2 cans of your favorite vegetable (or leftover veggies)
Instant Mashed Potatoes, you choose the amount of servings
OPTIONALS: Shredded Cheddar Cheese
1 can Creamed Corn

Cook beef and onions in skillet until the meat is browned. Spoon into a baking casserole dish.

Prepare instant mashed potatoes. Add Shredded Cheddar, if you like. ** Place the prepared potatoes around the edges of the casserole dish on top of the beef.

Fill the center with vegetables (If using canned veggies, remember to drain beforehand.)

Bake in 425 oven for 15 minutes.   Serves 3 or 4 people.

**FOR A CHANGE OF PACE – Pour the can of creamed corn, straight from the can, over the beef, BEFORE adding the potatoes and veggies. Great!

I’ve already demonstrated how to cook perfect hard-boiled eggs in my previous post, and they are the first items on my snack list, as well as on Heidi Klum’s.

1. 2 Hard-boiled Eggs (only 150 calories)
2. Eat your favorite cereal straight from the box. No milk? More cereal!
3. Look for The Laughing Cow light cheese spread triangles in the dairy case. 1 triangle = 35 calories. (I can vouch for the Swiss flavor–it doesn’t taste like artificial muck!) 1 triangle easily covers 6 or 7 saltine crackers.
4. Rice Cake smeared with 1/2 tablespoon peanut butter and 1/2  sliced banana
5. Low-fat Cottage Cheese with plenty of fresh blueberries mixed in
6. Listen up! There are 15 calories in a tablespoon of ReddiWip. Think about that. You can add some really good zippitydoodah to that blah jello. Live a little. Spritz on two whole tablespoons. I’m not talking about that fat free stuff, either. This is the real deal. Jello with fruit with a large dollop of whipped cream. Heaven help us!

Helpful Hints You Probably Already Know:

• Don’t drink your calories.
• Stay away from sweets.
• Eat every morsel of food s-l-o-w-l-y.
• Be realistic. If you lose one pound in a week, that’s “great.” If you lose 1/2 pound in a week, that’s “very, very good.”
• Homemade vegetable soup is your friend. It’s easy to make. Empty a large can of chicken broth into a pot. Put every imaginable vegetable you have handy (fresh or frozen) into the broth. Cook over medium heat for at least an hour. Separate into 2-cup containers (or larger, if you want – there’s no limit to the amount you can eat). Then keep the containers handy in the frig and freezer.
• I’m not even going to mention exercise, because that’s such a pain in the butt. But remember, if you walk down every aisle in the supermarket, or you shop at the mall. Hey, you’re walking–Excellent!
• Most Important – Don’t beat yourself up. If you hate broiled scallops, but love fried scallops, what the heck. Order them, but fill the rest of your plate with veggies. Also start you meal with a salad. And stick with the cocktail sauce, not the tartar sauce. There you are–no guilty conscience at all.

This is my second Top Ten List–the Recap. Have fun planning your vacation.

1. Washington, DC
2. Cape May, New Jersey
3. Outer Banks, North Carolina
4. Key West, Florida
5. Macon, Georgia
6. Cape Cod, Massachusetts
7. Natural Bridge, Virginia
8. Salem, Massachusetts
9. Atlanta, Georgia
10. The State of Maine, including Acadia National Park

I have written at length about all of the above places in my previous posts. Enjoy!

If you’d like to see my first Top Ten List, go to 10 Great U.S. Cities to Visit

I’ve never been to Maine, but I’d like to go someday. Here are some of the places I’ll be looking for:

Presque Isle is the starting point for the world’s largest scale model of the solar system, which runs along U.S. Rt. 1 to the town of Houlton, 40 miles away. The center of the solar system is the University of Maine at Presque Isle. The town rests on the eastern edge of the great North Woods, so it is the ideal home base for those who come to Maine to snowmobile, hunt, fish, hike, or mountain bike.

Bar Harbor is adjacent to Acadia National Park, home to 1,532-foot Mount Cadillac. Its summit is the first spot in the United States where the sunrise can be seen.

Other things you’ll find in Bar Harbor: 125 miles of hiking trails, brewery tours, rock climbing, sailing, boat excursions and golf.

Portland, located on Casco Bay, is Maine’s largest city as well as its creative hub. Many craftspeople, artists, and other creative types have chosen to live and work here.

I’m going to take the ferry over to Nova Scotia, and go up in a hot air balloon. And if you like deep-sea fishing, this is the place to go.

Naples is packed with antique shops, restaurants, art galleries, gift shops and two miniature golf courses. It is also the place to rent boats, kayaks or jet skis, buy a ticket for a sea plane ride, or catch a ride on a 300-passenger replica of a Mississippi River stern paddle wheeler. For evening entertainment, establishments on the Causeway offer live music, and the nearby Bridgton Drive-In shows first-run movies on two screens under the stars.

This is only a small sampling. There’s Bangor, Kennebunk, Bath, Rockport, Cape Elizabeth, and Stonington.

Oh, did I mention the food? Zowee!

A friend of mine had a temporary position in Virginia, a few years ago. She wanted some visitors because she was lonely. So, I told her to find some places in and around where she was staying and we’d go exploring. That idea culminated in a visit to Natural Bridge. We stayed two nights at the Natural Bridge Hotel. What I remember most about the hotel was their restaurant. The food was good and so was the music. Don’t go expecting a high-end resort, though. The hotel is historic, but quite charming.

There’s a lot of history connected to the Bridge.

The Natural Bridge was a sacred site of the Native American Monacan tribe, who believed it to be the site of a major victory over pursuing Powhatans centuries before the arrival of whites in Virginia.

Thomas Jefferson purchased 157 acres (635,000 m²) of land including the Natural Bridge from King George III of England for 20 shillings in 1774. He called it “the most Sublime of nature’s works”.

At nighttime, the Bridge is lit up with a rainbow of colors. It’s lovely. And while you’re there, visit the Wax Museum and the Toy Museum across from the hotel. There are also caverns there to visit. The kids will love it.

What I remember most about this trip, though, was the view out my window. In the morning, I watched the clouds in the valley slowly rise to the top of the Blue Ridge Mountains. I never saw anything like that before. Awesome!