Book Update: This week in Positive Psychology is about religion and spirituality. If you go to church, you increase your life expectancy by 7 years. There are 6 types of prayers that were identified: adoration, thanksgiving, petitionary/supplication, confession, reception and obligatory. Interestingly, college students today that were studied have 40% less empathy than college students from 20-30 years ago. I found this alarming… but they never went into further detail. Further in the chapter, Lawrence Kohlberg is noted in reference to morality developing in stages. This makes sense. Compassion and admiration are towards the top, however, these take time to process and in a rapid-fire instant-everything society some may be worried that society is losing this moral and inspirational information. You know the saying, “cleanliness is next to godliness”? Well, one study found that people were more charitable and fair when they were in a cleaner environment. We also watched a TED talk by Rick Warren (that guy who wrote “The Purpose Driven Life”. It was 20 minutes long, but worth listening.
Recipe Update: Costco sells a huge bag of fresh spinach for $5, so I have been trying new spinach recipes. This one was a total hit. I have tried and made the reduced calorie version of course and it was awesome. This is definitely a worthy of people coming over recipe. I have included the full-fat version as well.
I tried a recipe from Bobby Deen’s recipe book I mentioned before. Just a simple BBQ pork chop recipe, but I didn’t like it a whole lot. William thought it was okay, so I won’t put it on here because I wasn’t dying for it again.
Calories of lighter version: 150, 9 grams of fat and 3 grams of saturated fat
Full fat version: 260 calories, 20 grams of fat and 7 grams of saturated fat
Spinach Salad with Warm Bacon Dressing (Light version)
serves 4
8 oz. (8 cups) baby spinach
3 Tb cider vinegar
1/2 tsp. sugar
salt and pepper
4 slices of bacon, cut into 1/2″ pieces (easy to do with kitchen scissors)
1/2 red onion, diced
1/4 cup low sodium chicken broth
1 garlic clove, minced
2 hard-cooked eggs, peeled and sliced
1. First put your spinach in a large salad bowl.
2. In a small bowl: mix your cider vinegar, sugar, salt and pepper to taste.
3. In a skillet, cook your bacon until done and crispy. Now, put the bacon on some paper towels and drain your pan BUT keep 1 Tb. of bacon fat in there!!!
4. Keep the skillet over medium heat and add your onion and broth. Stir that around until soft – a minute or two. The mixture should get a little bit thicker. Add your garlic and stir a few seconds.
5. Take the vinegar mixture you made in the small bowl and throw that on top of the onion and garlic. (It might get stinky for a few seconds and that is okay!) Warm this mixture up and toss into the spinach. Top your salad with bacon and eggs.
Recipe from “Comfort Food Makeovers” by America’s Test Kitchen
Spinach Salad with Warm Bacon Dressing (not light version)
serves 4
6 oz. (6 cups) baby spinach
3 Tb. cider vinegar
1/2 tsp. sugar
1/4 tsp. pepper
pinch salt
8 slices of thick-cut bacon, cut into 1/2″ pieces
1/2 red onion, chopped medium
1 garlic clove, minced
3 Hardcooked eggs
Follow directions as above.
Recipe from “Cook’s Illustrated” by America’s Test Kitchen
