Situation Normal...

We went birding at Brooklyn Bridge Park. Some newbie birder posted sightings of a Nelson's Sparrow and a Seaside Sparrow there. :-) We didn't even see House Sparrows there today.

This crow was staking out his territory.

I thought that this was a really Edgar Allen Poe sort of moment as I looked up.

The Statue of Liberty as seen from Brooklyn Bridge Park.

Tonight I made dinner in my *OWN* kitchen. Skillets that conduct heat, cast iron pans that can go from the stove top into the oven, and knives that actually cut!!!!

I was so happy that I tried a new recipe

I wasn't crazy about it though. I didn't I like the way the whole grain mustard tasted. The recipe was beer braised cabbage. Next time, I will try another mustard. Maybe deli mustard and I will leave out the cider vinegar.

That's Tabla's Tikka Marinated chicken thighs from Fresh Direct along with the beer braised cabbage.

What do you get when you cross the Cat in the Hat with a Jack-in-the-box.

A Cat in the Box

brandishing her

"what can I do to get back at you for disturbing me" evil eye look.

She was kind of pissed off at me.

Wait till they finally pick up the garbage in NYC and we can throw out the box.

My Clean Plate Rangers

I have been spending the past few days helping out over at my in-laws house.

My mother-in-law just got home from the hospital. Larry and I went over there to stay with them until things got settled. I did what I do best, shop and cook.

Here are my clean plate rangers busy working on dinner

I think the happiest of my rangers was Mom.

She didn't have to cook or clean up after the boys!

Larry is used to my cooking, and I am used to him eating everything on his plate.

There he is, just about ready to take the last bite.

Dad's appetite is legendary. He ate heartily and had seconds.

Here's Mom again.

Here are the meals that made my family so happy.

Tues, Jan 25th

Grilled Chicken Breasts with Rice mixed with onion, celery, raisins and nuts, and Cheesy Mashed Cauliflower

Wed Jan 26th

Broiled Lime and Cumin Skirt Steak with Steamed Broccoli, carrots and baked potatoes.

Thurs. Jan 27th

Ziti with fresh pasta sauce, meat balls and zuchinni in pasta sauce.

and finally

Fri Jan 28

Beef stew with steamed broccoli and baked Japanese sweet potato.

Beef Stew

3 pound cubed beef

2 onions diced

3 carrots sliced

3 stalks of celery

bottle of beer

can of diced tomatoes

can of tomato paste

1 cup of frozen peas, thawed

2 or 3 large potatoes, cut up and boiled until tender

2 or 3 bay leaves

parsley

oregano

salt/pepper

Liquid browning/seasoning sauce

In a large pot, add a little oil and brown beef with the liquid browning sauce. Remove from pot and add onions, celery and carrots. Add salt and pepper and cook until a little brown and tender, about 10 minutes. Add beer, tomato paste, can of diced tomatoes, seasoning. Bring to a gentle boil on low heat and let simmer for about 10 minutes after boiling. Add meat and cook a really low flame (heat) for a few hours. Add cooked potatoes and peas, about 10 minutes before serving.

I like making beef stew with beer. I make oxtail almost the same way. The difference is I add allspice, pickapepper sauce and hot pepper.

Larry looks pretty crazed after spending so much time back in his old bedroom.

He thinks I am nuts...

But then again, this is not a self portrait.

Who will it be? Bachelorette number 1, number 2 or me!

This is my second night as a bachelorette. Larry says that I eat like a typical single girl, standing in the kitchen. He doesn't know-what all dieters know-that the food you eat while standing, doesn't count.

Oy! Sylvia! Enough with the bubbe maisses!

Today I was really upset about my mother-in-law being in the hospital. I do three things when I get upset. Cook, clean and eat. Cooking and cleaning, not so bad/eating, bad. Somehow I think food is going to make things better. When Larry told me that his father is eating hot dogs and he is having a bologna sandwich- I cringe.

Enter Super Sheff Shari! to their rescue.

I made them a nice fruit salad, and tomato sauce. I bought a beautiful rye bread, lox and low fat cream cheese. I have some chicken breasts and I bought cauliflower. If I can do one thing for them in their time of need, it's to feed them well. Hot dogs and bologna, they're killing me!

Tonight I made broiled scallops over sauteed kale with Japanese Sweet Potato.

Easy-peezy-lemon-squeezey.

The key to not drying out the scallops is cooking on the stove and then finishing them in the broiler. My message board pals turned me on to Japanese Sweet Potatoes. They are incredibly delicious. I never want to eat a tasteless yam again.

Can you toss me some cookies?

Last night I stayed over at my friend's house and he prepared dinner. He made pasta with tomato sauce and green beans.

Tonight I had some really bad news. Instead of coming home to a home cooked meal, I had to find stuff in the house that I could reheat for myself.

Left over city.

That's Trader Joe's curried rice-don't bother with it. I picked out the peas and the raisins and threw the rest away. It was yucky. And here you will see the last of the chickpeas and kasha, broccoli and acorn squash. There ain't no more.

It was a very bitterly cold day out on the ocean today. I know, I was on a fishing boat bird watching. We left Freeport, LI form Nautical Mile at 8am as scheduled. On the way out the ocean was so calm, but I know better. I ate very light this morning. Two vitamuffins, and a couple of crackers. I was out on deck most of the morning snapping photos, trying to find and ID the birds.

Sitting on the beach were lots of happy Brant,

until we passed them by.

The best shots I got today were of Gannets. Some came really close to the boat.

Being out in the cold all day, is very tiring. Tonight is supposed to be the coldest night in 6 years. Five degrees. I am happy I won't be on that fishing boat, as chum wasn't the only thing hurled off the side of the ship today. Glad you didn't catch my drift!

Fungi Parmigiano

I skipped going to the gym tonight, only because I didn't feel like walking a mile and a half in 24 degrees. The upside of me not going to the gym, is it gives me time to cook dinner tonight instead of just microwaving the Weight Watchers Lasagna that's sitting in the freezer.

I had lots of vegetables in the house that I needed to cook. Mushrooms, Brussel Sprouts, Fresh Direct Asian Coleslaw, Trader Joe's Caponata, Baby Spinach, and Kale.

What was I going to concoct tonight?

Kale and Baby Spinach Pie

*10 oz of kale, washed and cut into small pieces

*5oz of Baby Spinach

about 3 or so ounces of feta crumbled (your choice, I like French feta, it's not as salty as Greek-

but make sure that it's not cow's milk feta-blecch!)

1 onion diced

2 eggs

salt and pepper

Pre-heat oven to 350 and spray a small baking dish with Pan. I like Emile Henry 16oz lasagna dish for this, the stoneware browns the bottom and sides so there's lots of crispy parts.

Sautee the kale with a little oil and salt until fully wilted and then some, mix in the baby spinach and fully wilt. Transfer to a colander and let cool. Squeeze out as much water from the greens as you can. Mix greens with eggs, feta, diced onions, salt and pepper. Bake in oven for about 45mins.

*you can use frozen chopped spinach instead, let thaw and squeeze out all the water you can.

I like using the left overs as a filling in an egg white omelette.

Fungi Parmigiano

I love this recipe, it is so simple.

Wash mushrooms and remove the stems.

Take equal parts of grated cheese and bread crumbs,

flavor with salt, pepper, oregano, and a little bit of crushed red pepper, if you want. Combine well. Fill the cavity of each mushroom with the mixture and make a small indent. Fill the indent with a little bit of olive oil, bake in oven until the mushrooms are cooked and then place in the broiler to brown the tops to finish.

yum!

Next I had to figure out what to do with the Brussel Sprouts. I roasted them with a little salt and then transfered to my favorite Emile Henry small lasagna dish. I put a little Trader Joe's Fat Free Balsamic Vinaigrette dressing on them and topped with toasted almonds slices. I put that in the oven for a few minutes just to heat up the dressing.

I also had some Fresh Direct Asian coleslaw, which was what inspired me cooking the hamburger. Tonight's dinner was a little like Thanksgiving dinner, with all the tasting great side dishes, who really wants to fill up on turkey. So to jazz up that hamburger, I topped it with Trader Joe's Caponata.

Did I leave anything out? Oh yeah, no meal would be complete with out diet pepsi.

Wow! I thought she looked great, but now!

Today I went for a scalp treatment and facial at Paul Lebrecque Salon in Manhattan. I really love spa treatments. It was my Christmas present from Larry. I had a very relaxing scalp massage and hair treatment, and then had a facial with a glycolic acid peel. This treatment is supposed to remove the layers of dead skin cells that build and make you look older. Removal of the cells is also supposed to stimulate collagen production. Sounds good to me. My skin does glow and it does look healthier.

Because I got home late from the salon, I prepared dinner before I left, I fried chickpeas with Canadian bacon and then mixed it up with the left over kasha and onions from the other night. I also had already cooked an acorn squash and roasted beets, they just needed to be heated up.

Tonight's dinner.

Getting ready for more snow. Got word that no matter what the weather is on Sunday, the pelagic is going out. The only thing they cancel for is dangerous ocean conditions.

Ahoy Mate!

It's not easy being green...

Tonight's dinner was really easy. Kale, sausage and white bean soup. The hardest part of dinner was cleaning the kale.

After I finished working I spent the day in the kitchen cleaning greens, roasting beets, roasting an acorn squash and there is a yam in the oven still cooking. I have another pound of kale in the house. The chard from the beets looked really good. Usually they look awful and belong in the garbage. These I cleaned and will cook something with them. I also have baby spinach. It's going to be a leafy green sort of week cooking.

Kale, sausage and white bean soup.

1 lb Kale, cleaned and roughly chopped.

2 onions, sliced

6 Italian sausages (hot or sweet)

1 can white beans drained and rinsed

2 quarts chicken stock.

salt, pepper, grated cheese

Heat a little oil in a dutch oven and add onions with a little salt. Cook for a couple of minutes and then add sausage. Cook sausage, remove from pot and slice. Add the stock. When stock boils, add the greens, stir and cover. Let the greens soften and wilt. About 10 minutes. Add back in the sausage and also the beans. Let cook for about 5 minutes. Adjust seasonings, sprinkle on grated cheese when serving.

Pumpkin Mousse recipe

As promised,

Diet Pumpkin Mousse

1 28-30oz can of Pumpkin (not pumpkin pie mix)

1 14oz can of low fat or fat free evaporated milk

2 large eggs

vanilla

splenda

pumpkin pie spices

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Spray a brownie pan with (8x8 or 9x9) with Pam.

Beat pumpkin, milk and eggs with whisk or an immersion blender until very well blended, add vanilla, splenda and pumpkin pie spices to taste. Mix until incorporated.

Pour into prepared baking pan and bake for about 60 minutes or until a toothpick comes out dry when insterted into the center.

Today I had lots of energy, must have been my Go-lite daylight simulator working. I worked all day and then cleaned out the closets in our back room. I made dinner from a recipe in an old Weight Watchers cookbook. Braised chicken with peanut sauce. Larry thought it was very good.

I also made kasha with onions and steamed broccoli. As usual with a Weight Watchers recipe, I need to turn up the heat and I added hot sauce to the dish.

The peanut sauce is tomato based. It has a cup of chicken soup and 1/4 cup of peanut butter in it.

Every night, just about when Larry is finished eating Sammy goes over to him, looks up and meows. Tonight he didn't disappoint us. It's so cute, the first few meows are loud, but then he seems to give up and just opens his mouth and goes through the motions of meowing.

Larry then is supposed to pet him.

Tomorrow is Zumba and Spin, still working on the menu.

Continuation of the Red bird weekend

When I heard that it was 20 degrees out this morning and the wind chill factor made it feel like 11, I went right back under the covers. Larry managed to convince me to go outside and I am glad that he did. We went to Central Park in search of the juvenile Red Headed Woodpecker. It was seen by the edge of Sheep Meadow not far from Tavern on the Green. We started walking on the path along side the meadow, when a flock of House Sparrows flew by. One bird landed a branch, when I saw the bill I knew that it wasn't a sparrow. When I pointed out the bird to Larry, he said he didn't believe it, it was the woodpecker.

Juvenile Red Headed Woodpecker.

The woodpecker hung around for a few minutes until this Red Tailed Hawk flew by and perched on a branch. He spooked the young woodpecker.

Because I found the target bird of the day, I went to check out the new Tavern on the Green Visitors Center. They had some pretty neat Central Park gifts.

We walked over to the feeders at the Rambles. We wanted to see the Varied Thrush that had been hanging around, but again another Red tailed Hawk spooked the birds.

We figured that this hawk had just eaten because he was hanging out and not hunting. We were told that he likes squirrels. No shortage of them in the park.

At the feeders, there were Tufted Titmice, Chickadees, Goldfinches, White Thoated Sparrows, a Fox Sparrow and a Brown Creeper. The most entertaining birds of the day were the Nuthatches.

Red Breasted Nuthatch

White Breasted Nuthatch.

We also saw a couple more woodpeckers by the feeders. They've been hiding suet in the hole in this tree.

Female Downy Woodpecker.

Red Bellied Woodpecker

We decided to take the long way back to 72nd St. Where our favorite Indian restaurant is located. I wanted to avoid walking on the icy paths and try again for the Varied Thrush. No luck with the thrush, we just missed him. I think those are the four words that every birder hates hearing the most. YOU JUST MISSED HIM.

We were lucky because on another cold morning we ventured to Central Park to see the thrush and we did. He wasn't a life bird for us, but I really wanted good pictures of him with my new camera.

We saw more Fox Sparrows by the maintenance building. While looking for the thrush, when this really tame, photogenic

Rufous-sided Towhee showed up.

He posed right front in of us and we just snapped happily away.

This is the field guide shot.

We walked over to Earthen Oven, our favorite Indian restaurant for their really good buffet lunch. That is our tradition.

I went to the gym, did 10 minutes on the rowing machine, which has been helping my knee more than any other exercise I have found. I also like rowing because my arms, neck and shoulders get a good work out also. Then I did an hour Zumba class, and a half hour Ab class.

When I got home my goal was to replace the potassium that lost sweating.

I should say perspiring, because women don't sweat, we glow.

Banana, cool whip and diet pumpkin moose.

I know it's mousse, but that looks too much like mouse and I have better memories of moose than mice. I am not called Miss Mousey Toes for nothing.

Mr. Moose and Peeve.

Birding this weekend-so far

It's been a busy weekend birding. We drove to Seven Presidents Park in Long Branch, NJ and I had my first life bird of the year-Red Crossbills

We drove around the northern Jersey shore area in search of the Pacific Loon that was being seen at the Shark River Inlet in Belmar, NJ. We had no luck finding the loon. We then drove over to the Belmar Marina. There were thousands of ducks, geese and gulls in the water which sort of saved the rest of the day for us. The one bird that really caught our eye was this Turkey Vulture enjoying his lunch. Which reminded us, we were pretty hungry also.

The Turkey Vulture had better luck finding a meal in Belmar than we did. The lunch counter in the marina building was closed and we couldn't find a place on Main Street. We hopped back into the car...

and drove down to Sandy Hook. On the road we found a Perkins. It was food and that was about all. It served it's purpose to provide calories so I wouldn't pass out. Sandy Hook wasn't very productive and it was getting dark-we called it a day.

This morning Larry was one of the volunteers participating in the Official NYS Waterfowl Count. His mission was to count all the waterfowl in Prospect Park. I tagged along for the birding.

Lucky for Larry it wasn't the official gull count. He would of had a much more difficult time.

Those aren't snowballs on the frozen lake at Prospect Park, those are gulls. The ducks, geese and swans were much easier to find.

They weren't even disturbed when we walked up to them.

Even the nasty Swans cooperated.

Check out the toes on the American Coot.

The entire count took 45 minutes, because there were only 3 places where the water wasn't frozen. We stopped by the feeders on the way to the Brooklyn Botanical Gardens where we were going to have lunch.

There was a beautiful House Finch at one of the feeders along with a Chickadee.

On the path to the Audubon Center, we checked out the tree that a pair of Racoons have been using as a den.

At the Audubon Center, there were 3 or 4 Cardinals, one posed for me.

Every birding weekend has it's theme color, this weekend's was red.

We went to the Botanical Gardens, had lunch and coffee, walked around and went home. We walked almost 6 miles in the cold and I was exhausted. I couldn't keep my eyes open and napped the afternoon away.

Dinner tonight was really easy. The sweet and sour cabbage was already prepared all I added was chopped meat to it.

Super duper lazy golumpki.

Tomorrow if it's not windy, we are going to go to Central Park, which means Indian food for lunch and next to no dinner.

Thrown together at the last minute

Tonight's dinner consisted of what was in the house.

Pasta

Arugula

Tomato

Mozzarella Cheese

Turkey pepperoni.

I should have cooked the arugula and tomatoes, but I was sort of tired after a long day of birding.

Luckily I didn't have any bread today, so I was able to have pasta.