A weekend of entertaining-success!

Whew! It was a great weekend with lots of entertaining. Between cooking for the children and friends, I got a lot of practice learning how to do all my fun cooking, while staying focused on my goals. Right now, that's largely just eating the right foods.

Friday night, was the only tough night. Tim made his fantastic homemade pizza. The crust is what usually does me in. But this time it was extra thin. I did have a few pieces, but not as many as I usually do. Probably equal to 2 regular slices. His pizza has a lot of vegetables on it and not too much cheese, so I think it was alright. Friday nights are my free night anyway. Before bed, I had a little gelatin dissolved in juice, which we are trying to help me sleep through the night. I'm having a lot of sleeplessness.

Saturday I did great. I had made some orange juice and gelatin "jello," with some sugar-free (meaning no sugar added) whipping cream. I have a small scoop on top of the jello for a perfect carb, fat, protein snack. The jello squares are about 2 inches square. Very yummy and the gelatin is supposed to be healing to the system. I had a potato and vegetables for lunch with some turkey and then went to Tori and Denny's house for dinner. Tim grilled venison and I made crab legs, roasted potatoes, roasted cherry tomatoes and green beans for dinner. For dessert we had Colin's favorite, which is fruit with lime curd and whipped cream. It was delicious! It was the kids' first time for crab and they ended up eating all of mine. We didn't even add butter to it.

On Sunday, I had gelatin for breakfast. Then we went Bowlin' for Colons -- fun exercise. For lunch I had chicken Italian sausage and tomato soup. Then we had our friends Lee and Ann and their darling son Ray over for dinner. I was going to make lamb, but Millers didn't have any. So I substituted salmon. We also had roasted sweet potatoes, steamed asparagus, Ann's delicious fruit salad and a organic succotash. The kids had ribs and succotash with a little sweet potatoe and fruit as well. It was delicious. My challenge was not to have seconds of anything that is high calorie. The trick I used was not to have any succotash on the first go round and to take a really little serving of fruit. Then for "seconds" I had the succotash and another small spoon of fruit. I felt satisfied. Then we had the delicious lime curd dessert again. It's almost perfect because it has eggs, lime, butter in it, but it also has about a cup and a half of sugar. Not great. I'm going to experiment on cutting down the sugar, but it is so delicious!

Here's the salmon recipe. I took a side of salmon and put it in a very shallow oval oven baker. Sprinkle salt and pepper on then place it in a bath of water in a large, straight-sided fry pan. The water should not come up over the side of the baker. Put a lid on it and turn the heat on high. I usually wait until I hear the rattle of the baker on the bottom of the pan, which means the water is boiling. Don't remove the lid. Let perk for 7 minutes. The outside will be light pink and the very inside should be a brighter pink. It will be super moist.

The sweet potatoes are peeled (3 big ones are enough for about 6 people) and cut into 1-inch chunks. I toss them in a tablespoon of melted butter and add pepper and salt and a little bit of Italian seasoning (I use Penzey's Tuscan Sunset blend). Put it in the oven at 400° for about 45 minutes to an hour -- it should be pretty soft, but still hold it's form. I usually take it out and stir it around to redistribute the juices 1 to 2 times during the baking. Otherwise, the butter drips off into the bottom and they don't stay moist.

Looking forward to a great week! I started out with a little bone broth this morning and about 1 cup of strawberry smoothie. Yum.