Monday, March 29, 2010

My Easter Dinner Menu with Recipes Weight Watchers' Friendly


Click Here For

 My New for 2012 Updated Easter Menu With Revamped Recipes That Include Weight Watchers' Points Plus



(This was my 2010 Menu)
Easter Dinner Menu

Easter Salad 1 WWpt
Peppery Popovers 2 WWpts
Baked Asparagus 1 WWpt
Sweet Peas with Mint 1WWpt
Greek-style Leg of Lamb with Yogurt Sauce 7 WWpts
Yogurt Pie Strawberry Flavor 3 WWpts
Carrot Cake and Cream Cheese Frosting
(So I can use my cross shaped cake pan
Carrot Cake not so WW friendly)


Click here for Recipes.

Sunday, March 28, 2010

My Backyard Vegetable Garden Endeavor: Part 4

My Backyard Vegetable Garden Endeavor: Part 4

We had a ridiculously cold winter that I wasn't expecting, and I planted my little seedlings probably too soon outside. We didn't have any "real" freezes but many nights in February it hovered around the freezing mark. Seems my garden overall did not grow much in February. Now Finally in March some things are doing well, some mediocre and a few things just didn't make it and I am going to have to start over.

Sad tomato plants- Slowly growing. Maybe they'll take off now that it has warmed up.
Carrots, green bean plants, lettuce, and broccoli are doing very well.


Zucchini on the right doing mediocre and to the right of that two very tiny cucumber plants barely still hanging on.
Romaine lettuce and spinach doing well. Wish I had planted some more. Parsley and sage doing well. Other herbs slow growing and the basil didn't make it at all. I'll have to try again with the basil.
Here is an old earth box I had from an older gardening endeavor. I took the plastic cover off and with just the rain we had (and no effort on my part) Garlic Chives and Parsley have emerged all on their own.

Wednesday, March 24, 2010

Deana's Recipe Collection now with WW points: formatted for MacGourmet

Presenting My New and Improved Online Recipe Collection

Deana's Recipe Collection

I am updating many of my tried and true recipes with nutrition info and WW points.
New Category which will be updated daily as my diet progresses Nutrition Calculated Recipes


The program that I use is MacGourmet and it lets me publish my recipe collection online. If you have MacGourmet recipe program, then at the bottom of each recipe you can drag the icon directly into your program to input the recipe into your MacGourmet program. However copy and pasting still works for other programs.


Hi friends (Waving at you )
I know many of you are watching your weight or are doing Weight Watchers like me- Well I love to cook and to create my own recipes, so that leaves me with the daunting task of figuring out what WW points my recipes have and taking the time to nutrition analyze them. That is what I am slowly trying to do now.

Many of my tried and true recipes have Weight Watcher's points calculated and some have nutrition info but it is haphazard. I have just started going back to Weight Watchers and I have a new nutrition analyzer on my MacGourmet program that I am using to calculate the nutrition and WW points for many of my tried and true recipes. I am also tweaking my recipes to be healthier. As I try the recipes and calculate the new nutrition and WW points (cause every little change or brand of ingredient changes that) I am adding them to a new folder that I added in the contents called "Nutrition Calculated Recipes"- I know real original. When brands are important to the nutrtion info I have treid to list the specific brand. Sometimes it doesn't matter though. Eventually this file should grow daily as each day I'll be adding to the file.

Also note this is a recipe collection -- Yes I have snagged recipes from all over the internet from individuals and commercial sites- In most cases I have tried to document the original source but also most of the recipes I have tweaked or modified in some way to accommodate my family's likes and specific ingredients that I buy. My understanding is that recipe collections don't exactly follow standard copyright laws and as long as I don't copy any thing in it's entirety or verbatim then it is ok to have in my personal collection. I have not stolen or plagiarized for profit or with any malintent so I think I am ok -- if you know otherwise let me know.

Also please comment or contact me if you want to share any recipes, have any ideas or like any of my recipes. Comment here on the post or email me at deenyflowers@gmail.com.

And please share your favorite or special Weight Watcher's recipes that you have with points.
I love to try new recipes. Any Easter recipes? I think I am going to make leg of lamb for Easter- hopefully I can make that Weight Watcher friendly.

Wednesday, March 17, 2010

Should we Celebrate Easter or Resurrection Day?

Back when I was a fundamentalist Christian and young, I thought how awful it was to celebrate a Christian holiday of remembrance with a pagan name and pagan symbols. However upon further study this is what I discovered. Which came first the pagan goddess Oestre or Easter? I have read conflicting accounts. "Easter", in old English, was a word that meant spring or springtime. It was not a specific day. Several accounts say the goddess was named after the word for spring, but even if the season was named after the goddess so what? Yes the word became associated with the Christian Resurrection because Christians remember Christ's Death and Resurrection in the springtime. The word "Easter" is only used in English speaking countries. In most of the rest of the Christian world they use the word Paschal derived from the Hebrew word Pesach for the Jewish passover.


So Easter is a word with pagan roots. Well England was pagan before it was Christian and many English words have pagan roots.


Look at it this way:

Most Christian go to church on Sunday and have Sunday School. No one sees a problem with that, but "Sunday" is a word with pagan roots. It is the Sun's day not Son's day. "Thursday", is Thor's day. "Friday" is Frie's day. "Saturday" is Saturn's day. They are named after pagan gods. Should Christians rename all the days of the week? Should they not have Sunday service or Sunday school? They are only words.


Now onto bunnies, and spring eggs etc. God made the spring. Spring is a time of renewal after winter. Plants bloom, animals are born. Yes little bunnies, flowers, chicks are all signs of spring. Can we as Christians not marvel at God's creation and abundance and renewal in the season of spring? Can a Christian not have any of these symbols around because at one time, long ago, or even now some pagan religion also used these as symbols? I love God's creation giving him the wonderful credit he is due.

Gen 1:31. God saw all that he had made, and it was very good. And there was evening, and there was morning—the sixth day.


I can enjoy the spring that God made and all the wonderful symbols of spring.

Acts 11:9 "The voice spoke from heaven a second time, 'Do not call anything impure that God has made clean.


So I no longer struggle with Easter. I see no conflict.