Feelin´Sorry For Myself....

I´m not feeling well....thus I have time to finally update my blog and feel a little sorry for myself at the same time. I´ve been a really good girl exercising and keeping busy so I haven´t done a lot of blogging and it´s ok. Dare I say it, life is more then a blog! I have missed writing here though..even though I don´t have a lot of people who comment, it´s fun to know I maybe touched someone´s life in some way with something I wrote...even though I will never know it. I fantasize that yáll are trying out my recipes and thinking of this little American here in Norway....whatever will she come up with next???

This wretched cold came upon me by total surprise. Little did I have any clue I was getting sick until suddenly one day after work I noticed my throat was scratchy...then the next day it was a little worse and my nose seemed to be constantly running when I was in the upright position...in a lying position I can´t breathe at all through my nose. Now I notice my ear is starting to ache...and I´m sneezing....will the fun never end??? In all this agony I´ve decided to pity myself. Hey, it´s the one time I feel it´s ok to stop up and comfort myself...usually I am the one comforting others...but when I´m sick...it´s my turn and I´ll take it...even if I have to comfort myself!

I tried to cheer myself up the other day by making these...

Oatmeal Chocolate Chunk Cookies

1 Cup Margarine or Butter

1 Cup Sugar

1 Cup Brown Sugar

2 Eggs

2 Cups Flour

1 tsp Baking Soda

1 tsp Salt

2 Cup Quick Oats

2 tsp Vanilla

About 400 grams semi sweet chocolate and about 200 grams White chocolate

1 tsp Cinnamon.

Mix everything together- bake at 350F (180C) for about 8-10 minutes.

This didn´t make me feel good though. Oh yeah...they were awesome...very possibly one of the best cookies I´ve eaten...but I´ve been such a good girl exercising and watching what I´ve been eating and when I felt sorry for myself what did I do? I went and shoved crap down my throat and ruined all my efforts that I have made lately!!! Why am I so cruel to myself like that?

Well, nothing to do about failures like that except to learn from them and move forward- no regrets. Can´t go back and get those cookies back so I just have to move forward and try to think of other ways to comfort myself when I´m not feeling well then making junk food...

Soup is always a great comfort food and perfect when the weather starts to get chilly and autumn like as it has been doing here lately.

The first soup I made was my Roasted Garlic and Red Pepper, Tomato Soup which I have mentioned before on this blog. If someone knows how I can get an index of my posts so that one could find things easier on here let me know...or those key words you can click on and it will pull up posts with those words in it- how does one do such a thing, anyone care to enlighten me??

There is no set amounts on this soup recipe..I usually wing stuff like this...just see what I have. About 2-3 whole garlics, 1 yellow onion roughly chopped, 2-3 red peppers de-seeded and roughly chopped and whatever tomatoes you have on hand- big ones, little ones, yellow ones...whatever...you can mix them if you like too- put all these things in a baking dish, drizzle olive oil over and let roast in the oven at about 360F (180C) to 400F (200C) until the red peppers start to get a blackened look to them...stir often so everything gets roasted...

In the meanwhile you´ll be warming up some chicken broth. If you can get the real thing that is always best, but if you can´t some broth cubes will work just fine. I use about 1.5 liters of water and 3 cubes which are intended for 0.5 liter each. Add a can of crushed tomatoes (I get the kind with basil and oregano flavoring) and let this cook up. After it boils turn the heat down, add your roasted veggies and let it cook up again. Add either some cream or cremè fraiche or both until you get a milder color, then I run everything in the kitchen mixer to get a smoother texture to my soup. I then let everything marinate together for as long as possible- the longer the better the flavor. Then before serving, I drain the soup into another pan and take away all the chunks so my darling children will eat the soup...they aren´t big on chunks of veggies...

Serve this soup with a yummy grilled cheese sandwich with garlic flavored bread and you have a very yummy comfort food when you need one..

Another soup I find comfort in when I´m not feeling well is chicken noodle. However, I wanted to try something new and after looking up several recipes I decided I´d just wing this one too and see what we get...

I had a couple boxes of Tom Yum in my cupboard which I decided to use. Now, in these boxes there is a bunch of chunky veggies...so I strained those and only use the broth...

I put this broth together with about 1.5 liters of chicken broth (same combination as I did above) and let this cook up.

In another pan I roughly chopped one small yellow onion, about a cup of cantarell mushrooms, and 1 giant carrot and let these simmer in coconut oil in a frying pan until the onion got see through looking. Then I dumped them up in the broth pan and let everything cook together. While that was all cooking, I cooked three chicken breasts, which once they were done I ground them in the kitchen mixer along with the carrots, onions, and mushrooms from the broth pan. Then I added everything to the broth pan again and let everything cook together- as long as possible. In the meantime I cooked up another chicken breast but this time when it was done I shredded it instead of pulverizing it and added it to the soup so you got some bigger chicken pieces...I added a little bit of cream to the soup and 1 tbsp of Cremé fraiche and mixed well. This looked really good and smelled really good but the soup wasn´t very thick. I decided to cook up about 2 big potatoes and 3 little ones and then I pulverized them as well and added them to the soup to give me a little thicker soup. Now everything is simmering on the oven together and as soon as the kids get home we will be eating this wonderful soup for dinner along with some yummy french baguettes. I can already recommend this soup as I´ve been "testing" it all day long and it just gets better and better the longer it sits there warming itself. There is a slight kick to the soup which comes from the Tom Yum broth..but not so much kick that my kids will complain......I think, I hope....??

This past weekend the first of two Bichon Havanais litters, that we have to choose our new family member from, was born. 2 girls and 2 boys. A brown female (the biggest brown pup in the photo) and a black female (the tiniest black pup in the photo).

At the moment I´m kinda feeling something for the brown female...maybe it´s her leonberger colors that attract me? I don´t know...but of course it´s crazy to try and pick a favourite from 2 day old pup photos and there is still another litter going to be born in about ten days from now...so our little "Cookie" could be in that litter for all we know? Time will tell, but be prepared to catch a bit of puppy fever over the next weeks as I share with you some of the photos we are sent and some I take once we are allowed to visit!

Might be a good idea to try some of these comfort foods if you find yourself with a case of Puppy fever...or just a regular cold like me ;-) Either way you´ll be feeling better in no time!

Until next time my friends...