Usually, I sit and watch the Superbowl by myself. I buy a big fat steak and sit in front of the TV, and I’m snoring by halftime. Why, you ask? Well, that’s because my team, the Dolphins, are never in it. Also my wife usually works the weekend. There were no exceptions to this this year. The Dolphins again not in it and my wife was working. But the good news was I wasn’t snoring by halftime. And I made it a point to invite family over to enjoy the game. My brother and his wife, my nephews and brother and sister-in-law and friends came to hang out. It was a warm welcome from the previous Superbowl nights I’ve had and I’m truly thankful for it.
Since finding out I have cancer I’ve been on a mission to eat right and it hasn’t been easy. My brother-in-law and sister-in-law are vegan so I wanted to focus on making something we can all eat and that’s healthy. I decided to make a Superbowl Superfood Salad as well as a Loaded Sweet Potato Skins recipe. For everyone else, I also planned on cooking chicken wings in my “Amazon Prime Days” bought air fryer. The chicken wings I’ve made several times before and it’s become an easy meal to prepare.
The salad recipe I’m attaching was easy enough to make. After discussing with my sister-in-law and her apprehension that others would not like the kale because of it’s bitterness, I did some research and I ended up incorporating a dressing to “massage” into the kale to ensure it was more palatable. I used the ingredients of this recipe, 12-Ingredient Superfood Salad Bowl, with the dressing and prep of this recipe, Raw kale salad with citrus dressing and came up with the salad. For the kale rub I only used 2 tablespoons of the dressing and rubbed it into the kale and set the rest aside for those to add as they liked. I enjoyed it and I believe others did too. I’m definitely intending to make this again.
The sweet potato skins no one had a chance to eat except for my wife and I the next day. Although the end result was good, cooking it took forever. The “Healthy Loaded Sweet Potato Skins” recipe called for three potatoes, I made five. Roasting them in the oven took an hour and a half to get them cooked and I still had to nuke them for another 20 min to completely cook the flesh. Then it called on crisping the skins which took another 30 min and then finally re-baking them with the fillings for another 30 minutes. By the time I was done everyone had already finished dessert and I started baking them an hour before people started to arrive. The good news is my wife and I have been eating them ever since and we’ve enjoyed them as left overs.
A couple things have been different this year as well and it hasn’t been a great start to the new year.
First, my cousins lost their father. After going into the hospital in November of 2022 with various failing organs, he finally succumbed. I believe his 80th birthday would’ve been this year. Unfortunately I don’t recollect much of him because the times I met him I was too young to remember. Their parents divorced when I was young, and my mother and aunt are sisters, so we no longer saw him after the divorce. And although he was in the hospital for several months and he seemed to be coming around, in the end his body just went the other way.
Second, I found out my brother has colon cancer. My brother is 11 months older than me. He is 55 years old. So last year when I was lamenting on my situation my brother had been sitting on the couch listening and little did I know he was dealing with his own health concerns. By January he had a colonoscopy to find out what was going on and the unfortunate diagnosis was colon cancer. Since then he’s also found out there’s a spot on his liver. So we’re not too excited about what he’s going through either.
For me I’m onto my next hurdle #4. I have my three month blood test tomorrow. They say bad news comes in threes…. I’m hoping and praying the bad news comes elsewhere or that this time bad news only happens twice.
