Yummy Food And A Light Snow In Richmond, Virginia

With the weathermen forecasting snow all up and down the east coast, I was excited when I awoke to find a light dusting of snow outside my windows. Knowing how people drive in Richmond, Virginia, on bright, sunny days, I was positively not going to venture out on a cloudy, snowy day. As I predicted, there were wrecks all over the place during the morning. Schools closed. Businesses opened late. People called off. Typical snow day for this city.

A few weeks ago I had the flu and it was accompanied by all the typical symptoms of flu Hell. I probably lost 100 pounds from vomiting so much. Well, not quite that much, but it was a lot and I HATE to throw up.

Anyway, because I was so sick, I didn’t cook anything. Before I got the flu, I had also gotten sick with the other kind of flu and it eventually turned into bronchitis, so during that time I didn’t cook either. Basically I haven’t really cooked for about a month. I either ate nothing or heated up a meal that I had previously frozen. Well, my freezer had become basically empty of all my pre-cooked meals and since the snow had me housebound, I decided it was the perfect day to create some yummy food.

I spent most of the day cleaning between cooking. Do you want to know what I cooked? Okay, I will tell you and remember, everything is from scratch…completely from scratch and I used organic produce.

Baked beans.

I started the baked beans first because the dry beans had to first soak, cook for awhile in a pot on the stove and then bake in the oven for six hours.

Two loaves of grain free bread.

Yeah, my secret recipe. I can’t wait to have toast and strawberry preserves in the morning with a couple eggs! I had the bread baked before it was time to start baking the bread. Between baking the bread and then the beans, I never had to turn my heat on today. Yet another good reason to bake a bunch of meals on a very cold day.

Veggie burgers.

Don’t even think about turning up your nose at these burgers. They were absolutely phenomenal and so filling. The veggie burgers were so juicy and yummy that I didn’t even miss the hamburger. Seriously. I may never eat a beef hamburger again.

Grain free chocolate pudding.

Are you scratching your head at the grain free part? Well, regular pudding is thickened with…here it comes…corn starch. Yeah, corn is a grain and it is one of the top two grains I’m most allergic to, so I had to thicken the pudding without corn starch. Yep, it’s possible! I still remember how awful my face looked and felt because of the allergic reaction to grain. Ugh.

Green lentil soup.

Sometimes I cook red lentils, but today I stuck with the original army green lentils.

Lemon chicken.

Moist, tender, lemony chicken. Seriously delicious.

Brown sugar.

I was out, so I whipped up a little more.

I washed every pot, pan, dish, plate, bowl, measuring cup, measuring spoon and utensil that I used. Then I scrubbed the sink, counters and stove top. My kitchen sparkles.

It’s now 3:00 a.m. and I just looked out the window. There’s still snow around all the bushes and trees, but it’s just about all gone. Maybe we will get more snow soon. All in all, it was a very productive, peaceful day and now it’s definitely time for me to go to sleep.