Eating Healthy... and Enchiladas

My husband announced this weekend that he intends to go on a diet.  He then bought chocolate milk from the store so I'm not entirely sure how serious he is, but I did start thinking about eating healthier.  In my opinion, we don't typically eat unhealthy food.  We rarely go out to eat and we usually cook rather than eat pre-packaged dinners.  However, we probably add too much salt and sugar to our food, we drink a lot of our calories, and we may not incorporate as many fruits and vegetables as we should.  I suppose there is always room for improvement.

I stopped by the grocery store this morning and spent much more time in the produce section than I normally do.  I figure that eating healthier begins with eating more foods that come straight from the earth.  With that in mind, I picked up spinach, brussel spouts, scallions, a turnip, peas, carrots, beets, lemons, and bananas.  We already had red and yellow onions, potatoes, apples, pears, limes, avocado, celery, lettuce, and cabbage at home.  I have no idea what I am going to do with all of this produce, but I'm looking forward to playing around with some new recipes this week.  I've already decided that we will be having "neeps and tatties" at some point this weekend.  For those who are not Scottish, "neeps and tatties" is basically just mashed turnips and mashed potatoes mixed together.  I had the dish while I was in Scotland 7 years ago, and I have been wanting more ever since.  It never occurred to me that I could just make some until I saw the turnips in the store today.  I can be really slow sometimes.   

Speaking of recipes, I was craving enchiladas yesterday so I made some with whatever I could find in our fridge.  They turned out so tasty and lovely that I wanted to share the loveliness with you.  Unfortunately, fluorescent light doesn't make for good pictures.  This is the best picture that I managed to take:

I used traditional corn tortillas and canned enchilada sauce to make these.  My cupboards were pretty bare so these two ingredients were the only "proper" enchilada fixings that I had on hand.  I pulled together whatever I could find for the filling.  I ended up using 1 pound of ground beef, one small yellow onion, 3/4 of one tomato, fresh cilantro, a couple of tablespoons of sour cream, 3/4 cup of enchilada sauce, and 1/2 cup of mozzarella cheese.  I also sprinkled in some red pepper flakes, cumin, and garlic powder.  After I put together the enchiladas, I poured the rest of the enchilada sauce over them (I used a 20 oz can) and I sprinkled 1/2 cup of mozzarella cheese on top.  I popped the enchiladas in the oven for 20 minutes at 375 degrees and sprinkled some additional fresh cilantro on top once they came out of the oven.  Although I should have used more sour cream, a couple more cups of cheese, and used cheddar instead of mozzarella, they still tasted really great.  In fact, I had enchiladas for dinner last night, breakfast this morning, and for dinner again tonight.  Yum!

If I stumble across some good recipes while I munch my way through my fridge full of produce this week, I'll be sure to share them here.  Cooking and subsequently blogging will be more work than I am used to doing, but I'll try not to be lazy like someone I know:

(We call this Domi's "superman" pose.  His back legs don't really show in this picture, but he has his back paws sticking straight up in the air just like his front paws.  He loves to sleep on his back like this.  Heh!)

Spring is Here!

I might be slightly optimistic, but I do believe that spring is just around the corner.  The air smells like damp earth and awakening plants, the cold 30 degree winds nip rather than bite, the birds are chirping louder than they have for months, the sun is rising before I do, and check out what I discovered yesterday:

The daffodils are coming up!  My heart did a little happy dance when I spotted them.

In just a few weeks, stark, bare branches will soften with a green haze, the daffodils will turn their cheery little faces up to the sun, and the famous Washington, DC cherry trees will be drenched in showy blossoms.

**happy sigh**

I have been perfectly content to stay inside the past few months, but I'm slowly starting to feel like a caged animal.  I'm also starting to feel an inexplicable need to sink my fingers into dirt and plant something.  I might temporarily satisfy my need to plant by re-potting my dwarf pomegranate tree.  Look how nice it currently looks:

We bought the pomegranate tree from the colonial nursery in Williamsburg, VA last June as a souvenir.  Pomegranate trees need warm temperatures and plenty of sunlight in order to survive - the tree received plenty of both over the summer while sitting on the edge of our balcony.  I unfortunately had to bring the tree inside during the winter months and I thought the tree wouldn't survive for several reasons.  Our condo faces east, so the tree only received a few hours of direct sunlight every morning.  In order to maximize the amount of sunlight received, I had to set the tree right against the cold window.  In addition, Domi chews mercilessly on plants and many of the branches started to die due to an insect infestation. 

The tree more than doubled in size from June to September, but I had to cut back some of the growth over the past few months due to the dying branches.  However, now that the days are getting longer and the insects are finally dead, the tree is looking happy and healthy again.  I can't tell you how proud I am of myself and the plant for making it through the winter!

On a side note, the quilt project has stalled.  I can't decide on a pattern and size.  I'm going to think about it while I do some much-needed spring cleaning this week, and I'll hopefully have a decision by Friday.  In the meantime, I updated my previous post with a couple of more details about the fabric.