Mr. Potato Head...or "my tummy has a mind of its own"

Yeah yeah yeah...I am a bad blogger that disappears for...ummmmm 9 months between posts :-) In my defense, I worked pretty much nonstop during that time (including a killer summer stock that involved 16-18 hour days, 7 days a week) and I wasn't doing a whole lot of cooking or healthy eating during that time.  And honestly, I don't know that my goal is really to be a regular blogger anyway.  But I have been working with a wellness coach, doing a lot of cooking, and I love to share that stuff when I can, so.........I'M BACK!!!

So as I said a moment ago, I have been working with a holistic wellness coach.  Although I have been studying nutrition for the majority of my adult life (thanks to my never ending and usually futile attempts at weight loss) I decided to go ahead and spend 6 months working with someone to see 1) if I could pick up some new ideas 2) to keep me focused on my health 3) to see if working with someone could help heal my long troubled digestive system 4) just to have someone to bounce ideas off of without boring my friends to tears.

So how is it going 2 months in?  My stomach definitely has been feeling better (off and on)...so while I haven't nailed down exactly what it is that is troubling my poor system, I am getting there.  What I have learned, since I turned 30 in September my body basically doesn't accept chemicals or artificial ingredients anymore - which means, no fast food, no diet foods, no sodas, none of that crap without even worse suffering than in years previous.  In other words, my body is having an early mid-life crisis and it didn't consult me first!!!  What a jerk!!!  But hey, no fast food, daily green veggies, more pastured and organic foods - these aren't bad things to get back to, and I feel a million times better for it.

What I am excited about tonight - making cream of chicken soup with homemade turkey stock from Thanksgiving (which simmered for 24 hours...seriously, I want to bathe in this stuff!) and greek yogurt and chicken and garlic and greens and............still not sure yet, but a bunch of tasty stuff.  Need to put together a batch of bread dough so I can bake some bread (because oh yeah...have you looked at the ingredients list on the store bought bread packages?  Evidently more stuff my 30 year old body has decided to launch a nuclear war on) and put some dried chickpeas in the crockpot so I can make hummus tomorrow.  Then I guess I should get back to studying and such since we are in the last 2 weeks of the semester and I really would like to graduate in May :-)

Question - If anyone is reading this blog anymore, I have 10 lbs of potatoes that I don't know what to do with them all...any ideas please comment with them!!  Besides the obvious mashed, scalloped, baked, stuffed...I do all that and still can't seem to go through them all...any new ideas would be great :-)

This kind of potato........

..............not this kind of Potato :-)