I See Monsters

I Know You Have a Lot of Strength Left

So, everyone? I learned an important fitness lesson today. Taking a month off from strength training is a terrible, terrible idea. Even though my coworker and I "took it easy" this morning in order to ease back into the routine, it was HARD. And all day I was TIRED and CRANKY and SORE. Seriously, I was a straight-up grouch all day. Sorry, coworkers! My muscles were screaming at me! I know it will get easier very quickly, but for right now I am in a bad mood. Harumph.

Now, on to my eats:

Today I was so hungry at both breakfast and lunch I ate almost all of my meal before realizing I hadn't taken a picture. Whoops. Luckily, the meals themselves weren't very exciting. Breakfast was one of my typical yogurt bowls and lunch was leftovers from last night and half an apple.

My snacks, however, were quite exciting. One of my coworkers brought in some goodies for our department as a Christmas present. As soon as I spotted the mini loaves of pumpkin bread, I knew what I was having for my morning snack.

This was a super tiny loaf, and it was DELICIOUS. I may or may not have snagged two more of these and brought them home with me. Shh...don't tell.

My coworker also brought two different kinds of bar cookies.

 

This is some sort of seven layer cookie, and it was also very good. I love how she cut them in super small pieces so I could enjoy one without feeling guilty.

For dinner I decided to make some soup to replenish my freezer supply. Since I had all of the ingredients on hand, I decided to make the same soup from this post, which I am now dubbing Southwestern Vegetable and Grain Soup. Unless someone else can come up with a better name. The only changes I made this time were to add some fresh tomatoes, a can of black beans for protein and some chili powder. It turned out really well, after an early mishap. I decided to add some water because there wasn't enough liquid to properly cook the grains. Well, I added too much water and the soup lost its flavor, so I had to add some additional vegetable stock in order to get the flavor back. This was all and good, but it left me with a lot of soup. Witness:

 

Aye, aye, aye. Good thing I like soup, since I have two leftover servings in my fridge and four in the freezer!

 

I made some cornbread muffins to go with my soup. Yum! While I ate, I watched How I Met Your Mother. I have to say, I'm kind of bummed they wasted Joanna Garcia on a one-off love interest for Ted. I really like her and think she'd be a great mother!

Dudes, I'm going to bed. I'm beat. Hopefully I can still walk tomorrow.

Post title from "This Woman's Work" by Kate Bush

09 This Woman's Work

Lazy Butterfly Napping On Me

So...remember how earlier I was all "I'm going to get up off my lazy butt and finish my Christmas shopping?" Yeah. That didn't happen. What did happen? Some napping. Some football watching. Some sappy romantic comedy watching. I guess my lazy Saturday turned into a lazy Sunday after all.

Breakfast was Baked Banana Bread Oatmeal again, this time with less brown sugar. Perfect! Next time I'm trying Baked Apple Oatmeal. (For a picture, just look at yesterday's entry as I forgot to take one. Oops.)

Lunch was my typical Greek-style salad and the rest of last night's calzone.

And two Candy Cane Joe Joe's. I am trying to only buy one box of these bad boys this year, so I froze all of the cookies to deter mindless snacking. If I have to wait for them to thaw out (I don't like them cold, and I have no microwave) I'm hoping it will take much longer to go through the box.

For dinner, I had a huge container of really tasty leftover marinara sauce from the calzone and decided to throw together a quick -- and cheap! -- batch of baked pasta. Baked pasta is pretty much the easiest meal ever because you can add any type of pasta, sauce, cheese and veggies/meat and it always tastes good. You know why? The cheese. Melted cheese makes everything better.

For my version, I just used what I had on hand. I first cooked some whole wheat penne to less than al dente, since it was going to continue cooking while in the oven. While the pasta was boiling, I sauteed some onion, garlic, sliced red and yellow peppers, banana peppers and roasted red peppers. Once those were soft I added the marinara sauce, some of the pasta water and the drained pasta. I then layered the pasta/sauce mixture with cheese in a greased baking dish and baked for about 20-25 minutes.

 

Cheesy and delicious. I normally don't care too much about pasta, but this was fantastic. I must be craving carbs and cheese lately, between this and all of the pizza I've consumed in the past seven days. For more veggies in my meal, I made some easy baked "carrot fries" on the side. (Just carrots thinly sliced, tossed in extra virgin olive oil, salt, pepper and baked.)

Mmm...carrot fries. For all of you looking for delicious vegetable side dishes on a budget, look no further. A bag of organic carrots is 80 cents at Trader Joe's. I only used half a bag and have three servings of these beauties. That's basically free.

I'm feeling kind of snacky so I might munch on some trail mix, and then I'm off to bed early. Tomorrow morning I'm getting back on track with my strength training routine, which I've been neglecting in the past few weeks. I'm ready to pump some iron!!!

Post title from "Lazy Butterfly" by Devendra Banhart

05 Lazy Butterfly

Just a Happy Kid

Can we talk about Glee for a minute? I finally caught up with the last few episodes and have come to the conclusion that, although I like the show very much, I have no idea why. It is a mess. The tone is completely uneven. Many of the characters are inconsistent or downright unlikeable. Several of the storylines are so downright maddening I yell at my screen frequently. Yet, I still watch. I laugh. I cry. I root. And I sing along. 

I know one of the things I am not sold on yet is their use of multiple narrators. I know it's a narrative choice, but most of the time I feel they use it in a "tell, don't show" nature with regards to the characters inner feelings. Yes, sometimes it is funny or clever, but most of the time when watching a show I'd rather learn about a character's motivations from their actions and interactions with other people than from narration. (I'm trying to think of another show that's successfully used this device and I'm coming up blank. Help!)

My theory so far as to why the show works? The music. Whenever things get too dark, too absurd, too flimsy, or too unbelievable, they just stick a great song in and I'm on board again. This device should not work, but somehow it does. I just hope in the future they can make the whole show work despite the musical numbers, not because of them.

(For a much more intelligent analysis of the last episode and the series tone as a whole, check out my friend Todd's excellent recap of the last episode at the A.V. Club.)

Now, on to the rest of yesterday's eats:

After my lovely morning oatmeal, I was full for HOURS. Around 2:30 I knew I needed to eat something so I didn't wait too long and spoil my dinner, so I went for something light, quick and easy.

 

The last serving of my Roasted Squash Soup with Corn from the freezer, 1/2 a Fuji apple and the last serving of my Triscuits and Laughing Cow. Perfect! This was the last serving of any kind of soup in my freezer, so it looks like I'll be making some soup this week to restock my supply. If I don't have some kind of soup in my freezer or pantry I get a little panicky. Is that weird? Probably. Oh well.

For dinner, I went out to a local pizza place called Italia with Nea and Pablo. When I mentioned to them how I had eaten pizza every day this week for dinner they felt bad for selecting that restaurant, but I assured them I was in NO WAY sick of pizza. I am on a serious pizza bender right now. The restaurant ambiance left a lot to be desired (it was freezing and kind of smoky in there from the kitchen) but the food was pretty tasty.

 

I started out with a simple house salad with Greek dressing. Basic, but I was craving vegetables and it did the trick.

 

For my meal, I got a delicious (and HUGE) spinach calzone with pepperoni and mushrooms. I ate this x2 and still brought a chunk home. This was a great calzone, different than most in that it didn't include any ricotta. It had plenty of mozzarella to make up for it, though!

After the meal, we all agreed that we might not want to dine in at Italia again, but we would definitely order delivery pizza. Also, I perused their menu and saw falafel. I LOVE FALAFEL. I will be ordering some in the coming weeks for sure.

Today I am going to watch some football (Go Titans!) and then attempt to do some Christmas shopping. Wish me luck!

Post title from "Happy Kid" by Nada Surf

02 Happy Kid

I'll See You in the Morning Time

Good morning, everyone!

What's that you say? It's 11:45am and only morning by a technicality because most responsible people have been up for hours and have exercised, showered, and are currently out of their house and ready to take on a (COLD) Saturday? To that I say: freaking overachievers, trying to make the rest of us look bad. It's Saturday! Isn't it supposed to be lazy? (Wait - that's Sunday.)

In case you couldn't tell, I'm currently in the middle of a glorious, lazy Saturday morning. I purposely didn't set my alarm because my body has been deprived of sleep all week and I knew I needed to catch up a bit. I awoke naturally at 9am, which is way longer than I normally sleep. It felt fabulous. As soon as I woke up I new exactly what I wanted for breakfast.

 

Baked Banana Bread Oatmeal! I saw this on Healthy Tipping Point a few days ago and have been dreaming about it ever since. Of course, I didn't have all of the ingredients (do I ever?) so I decided to interpret the recipe a bit.

Ingredients:

• 1/2 cup old-fashioned oatmeal
• 1/2 cup water, plus 2 tablespoons
• 1 banana, thinly sliced
• 1 tablespoon wheat bran
• 1 tablespoon sliced raw almonds
• 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1/4 teaspoon vanilla
• pinch of salt
• 1 tablespoon dark brown sugar

I preheated the oven to 350 degrees and then mixed the above together (minus the dark brown sugar) and put in a greased oven safe baking dish and baked for 25 minutes. At this point, I added the brown sugar and let it cook for an additional five minutes.

This was absolutely incredible. I've never had baked oatmeal before, and it has a fantastic doughy texture. The only thing I will change next time is to only add 1 teaspoon of brown sugar instead of one tablespoon, as it was a little too sweet for me.

Since I haven't been good about updating my eats the past few days, here is a quick recap. I am posting this mainly to get rid of the pictures piling up in my photo gallery, mocking me about being a bad food blogger. Evil buggers.

Thursday's eats:

 

Breakfast: 2 slices of wholegrain toast with honey.

 

Lunch: Vegetarian fajita burrito bowl (sans rice and dairy) from Chipotle.

 

Chips and salsa (and a huge Diet Crack) on the side. I ate this entire huge serving of chips and salsa throughout the afternoon. I cannot be trusted around this combination.

 

Dinner: Whole wheat pizza topped with marinara, tomatoes, red and yellow peppers, red onion, olives and a really good quattro fromaggio blend from Trader Joe's.

I can't remember if I had dessert or not, because I didn't take a picture. I'm going to go with...yes. I just can't recall exactly what.

Friday's eats:

 

Breakfast: 2 slices of wholegrain toast topped with almond butter, banana slices and honey. I am on a toast kick, apparently.

 

Lunch, part one: I was waiting on a colleague to bring me part of my lunch, but I got starving and started early on these apple slices with almond butter. Almost immediately after I dove in, she arrived with this beauty.

A cheeseburger from Five Guys! Delicious. However, I really think their burgers would be better if I could get a cheese that wasn't this processed pasteurized non-cheese product. Swiss or cheddar would be so much better.

 

One of my bosses brought in her leftover birthday cake for us to share, so of course I had to have a slice to help her celebrate. ;) It was actually really, really delicious so I'm glad I decided to partake.

For dinner I had an identical pizza to Thursday night's. While it was baking I realized I'd had pizza for dinner every night this week. I'm still not sick of it, but thankfully for my waistline I'm out of pizza dough.

That's all for now, folks! I have no plans for the rest of the day, but I'm sure I will eat something lovely and perhaps watch the Florida/Alabama football game. I love lazy Saturdays.

Post title from "I And Love And You" by The Avett Brothers (SO GOOD!)

01 I And Love And You

I Feel Like Going Home

Today has been a pretty boring day, both eats-wise and life-wise. I started to write my regular daily blog and realized my heart just wasn't in it, so I decided to do something a little bit more fun: show pictures of my apartment!

As soon as I got a job in Nashville I immediately started hunting for the "perfect" apartment. I knew a few things: I wanted to stay in East Nashville, I wanted to live either in a house, a duplex or similar property with a small number of tenants (no giant apartment complexes) and I wanted something with character. There were also a lot of little requirements, like hardwood floors, a washer and dryer in unit, central heat and air and some sort of outdoor living area, but those were more flexible. After looking at a lot of dumps and things that just weren't right, I answered a random craigslist ad and found "the one."

My unit is the upstairs of a house built in the 1930's that was recently completely renovated. My downstairs neighbors and I are actually the first tenants to live here post-renovation (and they weren't even done with the apartment when I signed the lease -- there was a giant hole in the kitchen floor). It's tiny and has no storage, but I absolutely love it. I've never had a place all of my own, so I think most of my love is of the "first apartment that's all MINE" variety. Still, the place is cute, despite my lack of decorating know-how and money to complete the task. (You'll notice a distinct lack of "extras" like pictures on the wall and knick-knacks.)

Check it out!

This is my living room/study area, which is what you see when you first walk in the door. I took this picture from my front doorway. (I apologize for the grainy pictures. I took them a few weeks ago and none came out very well.)

This is my couch, a.k.a. where I spend 80% of my time at home. This is also taken from my doorway. You can see the hallway that leads to my room/the rest of the apartment.

This is my study/office area.

 

The view from the study into the living room. My tiny couch looks funny from this angle. 

Reverse view of my front door.

 

My kitchen! It's very long and narrow. Taking this picture I am standing where the giant hole used to be, where a staircase led up from the first floor. Sometimes when you step on it the floor is a bit "bouncy" and it freaks me out.

 
  

At least 50% of the photos I post here are taken on that butcher block island. ;)

And now, my bathroom. One of the weird quirks about this apartment is you have to go into my bedroom in order to get to the bathroom. This is fine, until you have overnight company and then it gets awkward. When my Dad was visiting he was sleeping in my room (and me on an air mattress in the living room) and I waited at least an hour one morning before I could go to the bathroom! It was torture.

Tiny, but it does the trick. The shower is surprisingly roomy for such a small space.

Note the too-short shower curtain. I decided to wash the curtain and it shrunk a good three inches. Very annoying, considering it was fairly expensive.

My shower also features the only north-facing (and biggest and nicest) window in the house.

 

Too bad I can't ever really keep the blinds open!

My bedroom:

 

Please don't mind the giant pile of clothing on the dresser. I'm out of hangers.

The bedroom area also features another one of the "quirks" of my place. You see, technically my apartment is listed as a two bedroom. The second bedroom? Is directly connected to the main bedroom, has no separate entrance and NO DOOR. A doorway, but no door. Currently, this room is serving as my nothing room. Witness the nothing!

Eventually I want to get a pull-out couch or futon guests can sleep on when they visit. I still haven't figured out if that is going to be weird considering the strange bathroom situation, but hopefully the only people who visit will be family and very, very close friends. ;)

One nuisance of my apartment is the storage situation. There is only one closet in the entire place, and it's TINY.

Um, please don't mind the ugly bras hanging on the door. Oops.

Since the space is so tiny, I got myself one of these.

I've been looking for one of those old-fashioned armoires with a hanging bar, but every armoire nowadays is an entertainment center or only has shelves. Annoying.

The only other room in my apartment is the utility room.

Notice how I have a ton of stuff stored in here. It will not fit anywhere else!

Wait, I forgot! There is another closet.

It's in the study and is so small, the only thing I can fit in there is a very small DVD shelf. And a giant framed poster of Britney Spears I can't decide if I want to hang or not.

Well, that's the tour of my place! It's small and quirky, but it's all mine and I love it!

Post title from "I Feel Like Going Home" by Yo La Tengo

03 I Feel Like Going Home

Take This Old and Tired Skin

Well, you guys, I'm pooped. Wiped, tired, worn out, sleepy, exhausted. Work has been very busy the past few days. I honestly forgot how mentally and physically tired work can make you when it's non-stop for three days straight. It makes me appreciate how important a few minutes a day of downtime can be for your stamina. And for your ability to read your favorite food blogs at work. ;)

Anywho, I'm obviously droning on about my pathetic life in order to make an excuse as to why I haven't posted in three days. Truth? I was tired, but I was also LAZY. I warned you of my inherent laziness, and it reared it's ugly head the past few days. I didn't even take pictures of my food, save this beauty from Monday's breakfast:

Good grief, I love these muffins. Wait, here's another pic!

I wanted to demonstrate how to cut the muffin to get maximum cream cheese goodness in each bite. I tried a few different ways before settling on this one as the best. I know, it's a tough job but someone has to do it. ;)

Today, however, I brought my camera to work and I was determined to use it. I had a happy breakfast:

Two slices of whole grain toast with honey and a satsuma on the side. This breakfast was FABULOUS and kept me full for hours. Also, apparently I like satsumas. I really don't like oranges very much so I've always avoided "orange" citrus fruit. Well, this week I tried my first clementine (amazing!) and my first satsuma (doubly amazing!), and discovered I'd done myself a disservice by resisting the orange varieties all these years. I will be making up for this mistake by consuming many, many orange-like fruits in the coming weeks.

I didn't have anything to pack for lunch today (my house has no leftovers, as I was so tired last night I ordered a pizza for dinner) so I planned to go out and get a salad. Well, it was a horribly ugly and rainy cold day in Nashville today so I decided to order in instead. Jimmy John's to the rescue!

Aw, thanks, Jimmy!

 

I ordered a turkey sandwich with lettuce, tomato, cucumber, alfalfa sprouts, hot peppers and avocado spread (instead of mayo). Yes, I got white bread. Have you ever had the wheat bread at JJ's? It is TERRIBLE. On the side, an apple I brought from home and 20 oz. of crack.

I was very excited to get home and make dinner tonight. My company is having a healthy recipe contest over the next few weeks and each person can enter up to three recipes, and I wanted to get home and test one of my favorites out for submission. Now...you guys know I don't ever measure anything, so the goal of this test run was to get the exact measurements down.

What did I make you ask? Greek Salad Pizza!

Although this looks pretty yummy (and tasted good), I totally messed up pretty much everything in the process. The caramelized onions? Burned 'em, so they aren't even included. The pizza crust? Cooked it so long it was more like a cracker. I'm not sure recipe contests are my thing. When I cook, I sort of "feel" what I am doing rather than analyze or think about it too much. Having to cook while thinking is stressful! Ha. (But I love baking, which is all about measuring. I don't usually make up my own baking recipes, though.)

Now that I have the measurements down, I'm going to give this one more shot tomorrow. I really would like to be a "recipe contest" sort of person. If it comes out as delicious as it did the first time, it's going to be my first submission!

You have to know what I had for dessert tonight, right?

Yum, yum, yum, yum. I froze the rest of these cookies because they are dangerous. Having this ice cream/cookie combination in my house at all is dangerous, period.

Daily TV Dish
I am watching So You Think You Can Dance right now. My mind was just BLOWN by the Legion of Extraordinary Dancers. They are incredible!!! Someone needs to put that performance on YouTube immediately.

As for the regular cast, I haven't been into them as much this year as in years past. I quite like Jakob, Russell and Katherine, but overall I don't have the passion for the show this season (same with The Biggest Loser, now that I think about it). I think maybe it's just SYTYCD overload from having the new season start so soon after the summer one ended. Hell, maybe I just miss Mia Michaels.

Do any of you watch So You Think You Can Dance? Are you finding anything "off" about this season or am I just a big old curmudgeon?

Post title from "Tired Skin" by Alejandro Escovedo

10 Tired Skin

Just a Nobody Girl

[Warning New Moon fans: HUGE rant ahead! ;)]

Well, my lovely four day weekend has almost officially come to an end. I have to say, staying in town and taking it easy was not my first choice (I couldn't take time off of work for both Thanksgiving and Christmas, so I chose Christmas) but it was pretty freaking great.

I celebrated the last day of my vacation by having a vacation-worthy breakfast: Cinnamon French Toast! You might remember the pancake debacle of mid-November. This time I had eggs on hand so I made what I was really craving: delicious, eggy French toast.

This is two slices of Trader Joe's Mulitgrain Flax & Fiber bread dipped in a mixture of 1 egg, 1/4 cup milk, a load of cinnamon, and a dash of both nutmeg and vanilla. After cooking I topped it with a tiny amount of maple syrup and some powdered sugar for fun and presentation (and taste). On the side, a Jonagold apple, which I was not very fond of. I just don't like the texture of Golden Delicious-style apples as I get older. The French toast, on the other hand, was delightful!

After breakfast I caught up on all of the food blogs I missed while out of internet range and also on some TV shows at the same time. In the past I never multi-tasked television with ANYTHING, but I do it now with shows I don't care to pay too close attention to but still want to keep up with out of curiosity. (Examples: Monk, Smallville, Brothers & Sisters, Desperate Housewives, Gossip Girl.) If a show starts to pick up it gets promoted from "multitask" status to "solo" status. If it gets worse, sometimes it gets dropped altogether. Sometimes. It takes a LOT for me to give up a show completely. (Heroes, I'm looking at you.)

I got bored after a bit and decided to go out and see a movie. I have to be honest, all I wanted to see was New Moon but I have a moral problem with paying money to see that movie considering how much I hated the Twilight book (the movie was a lot better than the book, in my opinion, because I didn't have to read the author's horrible prose). I decided to go see Precious and then do a "double feature" with New Moon. Since it was around lunchtime, I packed a lunch to take with me so I didn't partake in the nachos or popcorn.

 

1/2 turkey, cranberry sauce and mayo sandwich. Leftover turkey sandwiches are the best! On the side, another apple (I might turn into an apple this winter) and some of this chocolate:

 

I did splurge and buy myself a small Diet Coke at the theater. This is what they consider a "small" (sorry for the bad pic):

 

There is something wrong with America. Anywho, I couldn't even finish this whole thing. I should have just gotten a bottle of water.

As for the movies, well...Precious was quite good. It was very tough subject matter and hard to watch, but I thought the cast and writing was pretty strong. It definitely touched me. 

Now let's talk about New Moon. As I mentioned before, I HATED the book Twilight because it was so poorly written and also because I thought the story was a little weak and Bella was a twit and Edward was a stalker creep. On screen, however, I enjoyed the chemistry between Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson (and I truly do love vampire stories) so I was sort of looking forward to see how that relationship evolved in this second installment. Let me just say, there are so many things wrong with their relationship I don't even know where to begin. Here's my theory, though: the reason the story as a whole does not work is because of Bella.

Let me explain. (BEWARE: SPOILERS AHEAD!) Bella Swan is perhaps the most passive and inconsequential character in the entire story, which completely doesn't work because everything in the story revolves around her! Yet, she is hardly even a character, she's just a walking prop. Quick -- name one thing about Bella that doesn't involve her relationship with Edward or Jacob. You can't! Because there is NOTHING about Bella that doesn't have to do with her relationship with a member of the opposite sex. In the film, not only Edward, but Jacob, AND that other regular guy (can't remember his name) are all in love with this girl! And she has NO PERSONALITY! Now, before you say "oh, you haven't read the book so you can't understand," yes I have read the first book, and Bella had no personality there either.

Besides having no personality, Bella also is completely passive in the way she lives her life. In the first book it annoyed me when Edward would constantly tell Bella how she felt. Condescending much, Edward? In this film, though, Bella makes absolutely no moves of her own so maybe Edward was right to tell her what to do all of the time. Otherwise she might forget to tie her shoes or something. Her only two actions in the entire film are to do self-destructive things after Edward leaves her and to save Edward in the end (after he tries to commit suicide when falsely learning Bella had died, which, BARF). These things do not count, however, because they are both in service of her Edward obsession. Even more annoying is Bella's complete certainty she wants to become a vampire. This would be all well and good if she had a compelling reason to be turned, but the only reason she wants to become a vampire is to keep Edward! Which is seriously messed up and so wrong on a feminist level it makes my head hurt!

Wait -- in relation to this, Bella does have another action in the film. She goes to Edward's family and asks their permission to allow Edward's sister to turn her. Yes, Bella's big action is to ASK PERMISSION. Her one big, character-defining trait of the first book and of this film is to do something that she can't even do for herself: be turned! Oh my God, I hate this girl. Oh wait, I forgot! There's more! (BIG SPOILER BIG SPOILER) At the end, Edward asks Bella to marry him if she is intent on being turned. Her face is shocked and concerned and confused! What, so marrying him is a big deal but being turned into a MONSTER just to be with him isn't? What is wrong with you, Bella!!! (Don't even get me started on the other things about the story that annoy me, like how Edward can't kiss Bella without it hurting him. It's like bad fan fiction.)

I really want to like these movies. As I mentioned, I love vampire stories. The Vampire Diaries is one of my favorite shows right now, but the main female there is an actual CHARACTER and not just a cipher like Bella. I quite like most of the cast, except the Cullen family. Edward and Alice are good but the rest are terrible. I love stupid romantic movies. Yet I just can't get behind something that models a character like Bella to millions of young girls. Girls out there, get some outside interests. Boys are not worth losing yourself over, even if they do sparkle.

Okay, rant over! Now on to dinner. I had some shrimp I needed to use up so I decided on a quick stir-fry.

 

In the mix: shrimp, green beans, red and yellow peppers, onion, garlic, salt, pepper, red pepper flakes, honey, and this:

 

Served over brown rice.

 

Delicious!

Dessert featured something very, very exciting. Candy Cane Joe Joe's!

 

One of the best things about Christmas are these little cookies. I think they were sent by Jesus himself to make me happy. Something else making me happy?

 

Peppermint ice cream! You all know I love my holiday flavors.

I had 1 1/2 small scoops with two Joe Joe's crumbled over the top. Heavenly!!!

It's time to go to bed now. Good night, all.

Post title from "Nobody Girl" by Ryan Adams

08 Nobody Girl

I'm Thankful

To be home! Remember how the internet was working for me on Thanksgiving? Yeah, well...that was obviously a temporary situation. Although my time dog-sitting was fun, I am happy to be home and to have a working internet connection again.

Since I didn't get a chance to post my "things I am thankful for" list on Thanksgiving, I'm going to go ahead and post it now. I was very thankful for these things three days ago, darn it! So here goes.

I'm thankful for cute pooches like Ryman.

Even when they are begging me for food. Don't worry, Nea and Pablo, I didn't give him any! ;)

And I'm thankful for cuddly cats like Kobe and Renegade.

 

They are lap cats to the extreme and it was nice to have them to keep me warm all week.

Later on I caught them doing this.

Kobe totally busted me taking this picture. This is his "mind your own business, human" look.

I am also thankful for friends who have HDTV.

It's so...beautiful.

I'm also thankful for friends who have these!

That's right, I am thankful for a piece of exercise equipment. Shocking, I know! I was so excited to have a treadmill parked in front of a television that I actually exercised five out of the seven days I was at their house. Willingly and happily, and dare I say I even enjoyed it? It was so nice to just roll into the other room whenever I wanted and bang out a few miles while catching up on episodes of Survivor On Demand.

My running stamina was going so well all week that yesterday I decided to try to run an entire mile without stopping. Now, I know this probably sounds like child's play to most of you out there but I have never run a mile without stopping to walk in my entire life. I was a swimmer, okay? This whole "land" thing confuses me. I turned on the latest episode of Survivor (which turned out to be one of those lame recap episodes and not the real thing, yuck) and got to running at a very, very slow pace. At about half a mile I felt like I was going to die but I forced myself to keep going and it actually got easier as I went along. When the distance hit one mile on the dot I slowed down to a walk with a HUGE smile on my face! I can see why people like racing and hitting new milestones, it really is a great feeling. My goal now is to join a gym and get to two miles!

That's it for now. I'll be back later to get on track with my normal food blogging. Happy Sunday, everyone!

Post title from "Thankful" by Kelly Clarkson

09 Thankful

Technology It Needs Me

I'm baaaaaaaaaaaack! Yes, today the thing I am most thankful for is the wireless network's decision to finally allow me to connect again. Thank you, stupid wireless access point.

Since I couldn't connect, I took a break from taking pictures of all of my food this week. I did take a picture of a few of my meals from earlier in the week because they were pretty fun. A quick recap:

Monday's dinner:

 

Sausage and Apple Stuffed Sweet Dumpling Squash! Nea and Pablo left these cute little squash with the instructions I could have them if I would like. I would like very much! Thanks, guys!

 

Here it is, in mid-hack. Isn't it cute?

Since it's Thanksgiving week I have been craving Thanksgiving food big time, so as soon as I saw these little guys I knew I wanted to stuff them with a semi-traditional stuffing. It included onion, celery, bread cubes, some killer chicken apple sausage from the butcher case at Whole Foods, dried cranberries, apples and spices. I actually think this is one of my better creations and I'm anxious to try it out on some acorn squash and perfect the recipe. (For example, I need to use a binder like egg because it all fell apart. Oops.) Once I do that in the coming weeks I'll post the recipe in full. I might even measure my ingredients so other people could make it as well! ;)

I'm especially proud of this meal because I made it in a toaster oven. I am a cooking maverick. Sort of. Maybe.

Tuesday's dinner:

Leftover Sausage and Apple Stuffing, 1/2 a giant baked sweet potato and green beans sauteed with some onion. I had to take a pic of this because it was so Thanksgiving. It made me laugh.

Today's breakfast:

 

My first oats in a jar! I've seen other bloggers do this and it always looked awesome, but it takes me forever to work through a jar of nut butter. I finally had one and made the most of it. In the mix: 1/3 cup oats, 2/3 cup water, 1 huge banana (1/2 mashed and whipped into oats, 1/2 sliced on top), dash of vanilla, tons of cinnamon, dash of nutmeg and a pinch of salt. This was amazing. I usually stir my almond butter into my oats but no more. The big melty chunks were heavenly!

That's about it for this week's eats. I'll be back later with a more traditional "what I'm thankful for" post. Right now I am going to watch some football and count the minutes until I eat a delicious turkey dinner!

Post title from "Technology" by The Whigs

09 Technology

We Are Experiencing Technical Difficulties

Hello all! I apologize for the lack of posting over the past few days. I am dogsitting for Nea and Pablo this week and for some reason my computer has decided to stop connecting to their wireless network. Stupid technology.

I'm hoping to hit a wireless hotspot sometime in the next few days (or just truck my computer the 3 minute drive home) and post about what I've been eating (hint: delicious squash!) and what I've been doing (hint: watching sports on their awesome HDTV and...drum roll please...RUNNING on the treadmill!) this week.

Stay tuned!

Stripes Around My Shoulders

I feel perpetually one day behind. Skipping Thursday's blog completely threw me off! I thought about skipping yesterday's eats, but I was actually pretty proud of myself for practicing relative restraint in the face of temptation, so I decided a quick post before I run out the door tonight was in order.

Yesterday was a quite the special day for me in another way as well. You see...I wore stripes!

When you're a "bigger" girl, stripes are one of the things you avoid like the plague. I believe this is my first striped garment in quite a while. Yay, stripes! (I wish they had this in garnet and gold. It would be a really cute football sweater.)

After donning these stripes, I went to work and ate this:

Breakfast: Whole wheat English muffin with cream cheese and fig jam and a pear. The cream cheese didn't hurt my belly. Success!

Remember that Grubfest thing I mentioned? Well, it was yesterday and they were NOT kidding around when they titled it Grubfest. We had enough food to feed an army. I was determined not to overdo it, so I made a plan: peruse the offerings before selecting anything and only get little tastes of the most enticing things. Also part of the plan was avoiding the meat and bread (there were huge platters of fresh roasted turkey and ham with soft white rolls). I think I did pretty well! Here's my plate:

 

Clockwise, from top: veggies and dip, collard greens, squash casserole, some sort of vegetable casserole, sweet potato casserole, green beans and a deviled egg. I only ate one bite of the green beans, sweet potatoes (way too sweet for me) and vegetable casserole, and ate the rest of the plate. The collard greens were SO GOOD. I should have just gotten a whole plate of those!

One of the reasons I was abstaining so much on the savory portion was because of the giant table of desserts. Here are the ones I selected:

Clockwise, from left: buttermilk pie, some sort of brownie concoction...and my TWINKIE CAKE! I ate all of the brownies and cake but only one bite of the pie. I think buttermilk pie is too sweet for me.

Now, about that cake. This is what I mentioned as being totally unhealthy. Check out two of the main ingredients:

Why, hello, trans fats and weird chemical additives! Still, I grew up eating Twinkie Cake and I knew it was a crowd pleaser, so I went with it. After all, eating stuff like this once in a while is not a big deal. I actually think I might try to come up with a more natural version of the recipe, but I'm blanking on what to replace the shortening with. Do they make trans fat free shortening?

Here is the Twinkie Cake, in all its glory. So, so good.

Later on in the afternoon I decided I deserved a little snack for being so good at lunch. ;)

 

This is a brownie/chocolate chip cookie bar. Genius.

Later that night I wanted something light so I made a simple hummus and veggie sandwich.

On the side I had half a container of applesauce that's been chilling in my fridge since the last time I made muffins, oh, in the Mesozoic Era. I also might have maybe had another small piece of Twinkie Cake.

Sorry to cut this short, but I have to run. I'm going to see Joe Purdy tonight!

Post title from "I Got Stripes" by Johnny Cash

16 I Got Stripes

Every Single Night the Same Arrangement

Sorry for being MIA yesterday. The last few days have been absolutely killer at work and I just needed to unwind and watch some Vampire Diaries instead of blogging. I'm sure you all understand, right? Vamps before blogs. Always. (Except for Twilight. I am Edward Cullen immune.)

Now let's recap! Most of this will look annoyingly familiar.

Yesterday's eats: 

 

Breakfast: Greek yogurt, 1/2 Cameo apple, Kashi Honey Almond Flax. You can really see the flax seeds today. They look like little bugs. Appetizing! (Does anyone know the deal with flax? I heard you can't really get the benefits from the omega 3's unless the seeds are freshly ground. Is there any truth to this?)

This was my first time having a Cameo apple. I bought one because I hadn't heard of it before and it was really, really pretty.

Verdict: tasty, but not as tasty as honeycrisp.

Snack: the other 1/2 apple dipped in almond butter.

Lunch: The last serving of my vegetarian chili...

...served with the rest of my roasted red and sweet potatoes. I only ate half of this chili. It was a BIG bowl!

I had a rough day at work yesterday. I needed some chocolate.

For dinner, I wanted one of these:

These taste just like a fattening deep fried falafel (albeit a little drier), but have a great ingredient list. Check it out:

They put it HUGE on the package. Braggarts.

Along with the falafel I was craving a big salad.

So pretty! 

In the mix: Romaine, cucumber, red and yellow pepper, red onion, carrot, tomato and feta cheese. I dressed the greens with my standard dressing of red wine vinegar, olive oil, salt, pepper and 21 seasoning salute. I almost didn't want to put the falafel on top because I knew it would ruin the whole "pretty" thing I had going on.

 

I was right. Still, this was really, really good. I even said (out loud, to myself) "Man, this is good!" several times while eating. While I ate I watched Syracuse kick Cal's butt in basketball. Go Orange!

After dinner I made something ridiculously unhealthy...which I'll talk about in my post about Friday's eats. Until then...

Post title from "Going Through the Motions" from the Buffy the Vampire Slayer musical episode

01 Overture_Going Through the Motion

Hidin' From Your Brothers, Underneath the Covers

It is freezing in my apartment right now! We're having a bit of a cold snap here in Nashville. I think the low tonight is going to be in the 30's. (I know, some might just call this "winter." I am in denial. Cold snap it is!)

My eating was very on point today. With all of the excess lately, I've been feeling a little bit tired and run down. I am determined to reverse this trend by eating better, getting more sleep and attempting to get back on the exercise bandwagon. We'll see how this goes considering my work is doing something called "Grubfest" on Friday. Yeah, it's exactly what it sounds like. Of course, I can't complain too much or else I would be a hypocrite. You will understand once I post what I am bringing on tomorrow's entry. It's an affront to healthy living bloggers everywhere. A tasty, tasty affront. ;)

Today's eats:

Breakfast: Greek yogurt, 1/2 honeycrisp apple, Kashi Honey Almond Flax.

Snack: 1/2 of these pear slices. They look kind of disgusting because they oxidized ridiculously quickly, but this was perhaps the best pear I've ever eaten. Green D'Anjous are totally my favorite.

Lunch: Two slices of whole wheat sunflower seed bread toasted and topped with cream cheese, fig jam and the rest of the pear; carrots, celery and spicy hummus on the side. So good I couldn't even wait to snap a picture before taking a (giant) bite. Unfortunately, though, I think this cream cheese is hurting my belly. I had an uncomfortable afternoon. I'm going to give it one more try before I add cream cheese to the list of foods I can't eat. Sigh. Why can I eat certain dairy products with no issues (full-fat ice cream, Greek yogurt, most cheeses) but others (low fat ice cream, milk, and apparently cream cheese) hurt my belly? At least it's better than a few years ago when I couldn't eat any dairy at all.

For dinner I wanted to use a sweet potato so I decided to make one of my favorites, potato hash topped with an egg. Instead of frying the potatoes on the stove top I decided to roast them to save some calories.

One red potato and one sweet potato chopped and tossed in olive oil, parmesan cheese, salt, pepper, cayenne, fresh thyme and 21 seasoning salute. I then cooked them for about 40 minutes at 375 degrees.

Once they were brown and crispy I cooked an egg over easy (well, sort of) and threw it on top of half of the potato mixture. I'm saving the rest for lunch tomorrow!

 

Picture this, plus ketchup. ;) I totally overcooked the egg because I wasn't paying attention, so it ended up more like over hard. Oops. It was still delicious.

Brrrrrr! Time to bundle up and watch Glee. And maybe have a few squares of salty chocolate.

Goodnight!

Post title from "Rebellion (Lies)" by Arcade Fire

09 Rebellion (Lies)

If You Want a Burrito

Today was an exciting day in the life of Carrie! As I'm sure all of you Nashvillians know, our first Chipotle opened this past Friday and today was my first visit. My first Chipotle since I lived in L.A.! Life is good.

Let's run though today's eats:

Breakfast: Yogurt bowl with 1/2 a honeycrisp apple, pumpkin butter and Kashi Honey Almond Flax. Are you sick of these yet? Because I'm not. ;)

Snack: Triscuits and Laughing Cow.

Here's the moment you I have been waiting for...Chipotle!

You see those people standing in front of the door? That's the LINE.

No joke. Luckily, my very savvy coworker ordered our food online so we got to bypass all of those poor suckers, walk to the front and pick up our meal. Brilliant!

I ordered a vegetarian fajita burrito bowl, no rice or dairy, and all the salsas. Unfortunately, instead I got this:

A vegetarian fajita burrito, no rice or dairy, and all the salsas. Sans bowl, with tortilla. Oops. Still, it was basically what I ordered (and we were already back at the office) so I dove right in.

 

Look at all those yummy veggies. This was really delicious. I forgot how much I like their guacamole. The only thing I didn't like? The tortilla. Which I didn't want in the first place. :)

For some reason, after I ate this I had an immediate, strong, uncontrollable chocolate craving. I think maybe I was having some sort of sense memory to my old life. After Chipotle in the past, I would probably hop on over to Coldstone next door, or head right to a movie and get some candy.

I ate this entire thing in like 30 seconds. It was good, but I was perusing the ingredients and saw partially hydrogenated oil on the list. :( Trans fats are bad, mmkay? I don't think I'll be eating any more Snickers. I also don't think I'll be having any more post-Chipotle sugar attacks. What was that all about?

For dinner, I got the inspiration to make something I've never made before. Kabocha squash!

Since I don't really have many groceries in my fridge I decided to make a Kabocha Squash Brown Rice Risotto since I had most of the ingredients on hand to improvise this dish. Oh, and did I mention I've never made risotto before, let alone risotto with brown rice? This was a recipe for disaster if there ever was one.

For my recipe, I sort of adapted Rachael Ray's Butternut Squash Risotto recipe. I didn't have all of the ingredients and subbed other things, but the end product was only "meh" so I'm not going to outline them here. It is a recipe I think has potential so perhaps I'll give it another shot in the future and share then. :)

 

It was creamy, kabocha-y, cheesy...and a little bit crunchy. I got impatient at the end and my rice suffered a bit. I was hungry! Ha. I still ate it, and will probably eat the leftovers, too. It wasn't bad, it just wasn't as good as I know it can be. I will conquer you next time, brown rice risotto!

Post title from "Burrito" by Pete Yorn

10 Burrito

I Find It Kind of Funny

Well, you guys, it's official. I'm going to hell.

I had to run an errand today at lunch and was in a really big hurry. Of course, the errand I needed to run was in possibly the busiest strip mall/shopping center in Nashville with very sketchy lunchtime parking. (Oh, and they just opened a Chipotle in this shopping center. Enough said.) I was racing around looking for a spot and saw one directly to my right. I backed up, did a hard right turn in, and ran into a shop to do my errand. When I came back out about 10 minutes later? I noticed IT WAS A HANDICAPPED SPOT. You guys. I parked in a handicapped spot! I am a horrible person!

I had a pretty annoying and crappy day today. Perhaps it was karma for my parking debacle? (Although most of the annoyance happened before lunch. Can you be the victim of bad karma before you commit the crime?)

Anyways, here are my eats. It was not a very good clean eating day today.

Breakfast: whole wheat English muffin, 1/2 with the rest of my leftover madness frittata and 1/2 with cream cheese and fig jam. This was pretty tasty.

Lunch: a tomato and avocado sandwich on whole wheat from Which Wich. This looks like a hot mess (and I took a bite before remembering to take a picture -- oops!) but it was very tasty.

On the side: crack (a.k.a. Diet Coke) and 1/2 of these apple slices.

After I finished my lunch some coworkers brought out Maggiano leftovers from a business lunch. I decided I wanted to "taste" a few things. I am dumb.

Spinach salad, one rigatoni noodle and mushrooms from a chicken marsala dish. I ate everything but only one of the mushrooms. The spinach salad was pretty decent, but totally overdressed. It had bacon and pickled red onions, which are like my favorite thing ever. I need to make some of those.

For dinner I am going to have the last serving of my vegetarian chili from the freezer and the rest of the apple slices from lunch. And I'll probably have this:

 

Mmm...rice krispie treat.

Daily TV Dish

I've decided I want to start incorporating more television talk in these blogs. Although my focus is on healthy eating (or...just eating) I really do miss writing about television.

If you are friends with me on Facebook, you know I've been sort of obsessed with the story of James Franco doing a guest arc on General Hospital. I have always been a fan of the soap opera genre (ever since my babysitter got me hooked on The Young and the Restless in elementary school) and even though I haven't kept up with Y&R lately, I've always wanted the genre to flourish.

The reason I am so obsessed with the story, though, is because it's so profoundly weird. I mean, it's not like this is Lindsey Lohan doing a stint because it's the only work she can get these days. This is a popular, sex-symbol actor who is in the middle of a pretty darn successful film career. Actors just don't do this! I keep thinking that in the middle of one of his scenes he's going to turn to the camera and wink at all of us in the audience, letting us know he's simply pulling a Joaquin Phoenix-level prank on the American public.

For those of you still doubting he will actually be on the air, here is an (awesomely awesome) promo:

Seriously. Amazing. Stuff. I've been watching the show for the past two weeks to get caught up on the story before his arc starts this Friday. You know what I love? I don't know any of these characters, but I'm already pretty much caught up. Gotta love soaps!

Although...if they don't stop playing Adam Lambert's version of "Mad World" in EVERY SINGLE EPISODE, I'm going to stab someone.

Do any of you watch soaps? What do you think about Mr. Franco's dalliance in daytime?

Post title from "Mad World" by Gary Jules

Mad World

Pancakes For One Are No Fun

I am a lazy slob...and I love it!

I had plans today to wake up and clean my entire apartment top to bottom. It is disgusting and needs a good scrub. What did I do instead? Made pancakes, watched TV and napped. It was glorious. I'm going to have to pay for this by cleaning after work a few nights this week, but it was worth it. Now...on to the eats!

First, a quick recap of last night's dinner. Nea and Pablo invited me to join them for dinner, and I happily accepted. They picked one of their favorite restaurants (and mine as well), Chef's Market. Chef's Market is a sort of gourmet meat-and-three restaurant and catering business in Goodlettsville, and it is seriously tasty. You can order either from their cafeteria-style hot/cold bar or from a menu of pastas, salads and sandwiches. I went into the night planning on getting a vegetable plate but my favorite meal was calling my name, so I decided to go with it.

Here's my (giant) plate: hot chicken salad, mixed veggies, green beans almondine and a butter roll. The hot chicken salad is creamy, cheesy, and oh-so-deliciously bad for you, so I got two veggie sides to make up for my main dish. It works that way, right? Never mind that the veggies are covered in butter. They have important nutrients! :)

I couldn't eat the whole plate, but I came pretty darn close. I was starving.

Now, the food at Chef's Market is fresh and tasty, but the reason I love the place so much are their incredible cakes. Let me introduce you to...my nemesis!

Just look at those! I've tried most of them, and every one I've tried was delicious. The absolute star of the case, though, is this one:

Oh, strawberry cake with cream cheese icing. How I love you so. After a good five minutes of deliberation, I decided to forgo the cake considering my previous two days of gluttony. We'll meet again some day soon, strawberry cake. 

This morning I woke up with one thing on my mind: French Toast! I even got a few slices of bread out of the freezer to defrost in preparation. Of course, then I remembered I used the last of my eggs for yesterday's fritatta. Drat. I quickly changed my plan to make pancakes (sans eggs) instead.

I found an eggless recipe online and adapted it to include 1/2 regular and 1/2 whole wheat flour and got to the 'cake makin'. Have I ever mentioned my crappy stove? It only has one big burner and three teeny tiny ones, and the one big burner is crooked. Like, really crooked.

This pancake started out in the middle of the pan. Stupid burner.

Here is my giant plate of four pancakes with maple syrup. Unfortunately, these pancakes sort of sucked. I think I needed to add more leavener to make up for the lack of egg or something. They were leaden (and I know I didn't over mix). I still managed to eat about 2/3 of this plate. Syrup makes up for a lot of sins.

At lunchtime I was hungry but not for one particular thing. I stared at the fridge for a long time before deciding on a little big appetizer plate.

Included: celery and carrots with spicy hummus, 1/2 a honeycrisp apple, a few kalamata olives and crackers with goat's milk brie and fig jam.

Everything was tasty, but the crackers definitely stole the show. I don't know if I'll buy goat's milk brie again (it's a little too...goat-y) but it was still very good.

A few hours later I got really snacky and had a bunch of Triscuits right out of the box.

 

I don't normally buy "reduced fat" items because they usually add some weird chemicals or stabilizers to make up for the lack of fat, but these still only have three ingredients: whole wheat, oil and salt.

 

I also had one of these at some point.

For dinner, I was feeling lazy and decided on a grilled cheese and tomato sandwich using the goat's milk brie.

 

I also had the other 1/2 apple from lunch. The brie was sort of weird with the tomato, so I ditched it after a bit and dipped the sandwich in fig jam instead. Yum!! Fig jam fixes everything, apparently.

For dessert, more salty chocolate!

This stuff rocks.

I'm off to watch some television and then hit the hay. I miss Mad Men already! (Did anyone see January Jones on SNL last night? She was TERRIBLE. Absolutely abysmal. Next week, though: Joseph Gordon-Levitt! Love him.)

Goodnight!

Post title from "Pancakes For One" by Of Montreal

06 Pancakes For One

Outside You Will Find There Is Love All Around You

What a gorgeous day! Let me tell you, earlier this fall when the temperatures were in the 40's and I was wearing my winter coat, I didn't think a day like today (and, come to think of it, all of last weekend) was even possible. It's glorious.

My alarm went off at 7:30am this morning but my body was craving a little bit more sleep, so I dozed until about 8:30. Mmm...sleep. I immediately got up and looked outside and knew what I wanted to do: exercise! Crazy, eh? After the overindulgence of the last two days my body was practically begging for some physical activity.

 

On my way out the door I quickly ate the other half of this Larabar from last weekend. I know, I said I wouldn't eat it before exercise but it was already open. This time it wasn't so bad.

I went to our local greenway to walk/jog and ended up doing my typical 3 miles. I jogged probably about 3/4 mile of that, tops. I'm still working on this whole "running" thing. Obviously.

On my way home I had to run quite a few errands, so by the time I was back at the house it was after 10:30 and I was starving. During my walk I dreamed up exactly what I wanted for my brunch. A Leftover Madness Frittata! I love frittatas but rarely eat them because while I always have eggs, I rarely have any milk due to my belly's frustrating refusal to properly digest moo juice. Stupid belly. I happened to have some on hand leftover from some recipe or another, so I took this opportunity to make one of my favorite egg dishes (and don't be surprised to see either French toast or pancakes tomorrow).

I had a bunch of random leftovers in the fridge, so I decided to just throw them all in the frittata and see what happens. Experimenting is fun!  

First, I sauteed some leftover squash/onion mixture from last nights dinner in a little bit of olive oil. Then I crumbled up the last tiny piece of meatloaf and added that. Once it was heated through, I added my egg mixture (1 1/2 eggs, milk, salt and pepper), turned down the heat a bit and let it cook for a few minutes. When the eggs were almost set on top, I added some shredded cheese and put the pan under the broiler until the eggs were set and the cheese was melted. Note: I have NO IDEA if this pan is actually oven safe or not. You should probably know if yours is before attempting a frittata. I've never had any sort of horrible accident with this pan, so I'm thinking it is? Maybe?

My serving:

This is 1/2 of the small frittata (I used a tiny pan) and 1/2 of a honeycrisp apple. This was really good! Apparently, you can put anything in a frittata and it will be awesome. I will have to note this for future reference. The best bites were the ones that had the ketchup-y meatloaf top in them. ;)

I was still hungry so I ate another 1/4 of the frittata and the rest of the apple.

For the rest of the afternoon I caught up on some websites and watched some football. So relaxing.



A few minutes ago I munched on the rest of my pumpkin granola from Whole Foods for a snack. I'm going to dinner with Pablo and Nea tonight and didn't want to fill up too much. I'm saving a few calories for my dinner treat! Hopefully this time I will be brave enough/the restaurant will be bright enough for me to snap a few pics.

Have a great Saturday night, everyone!

Post title from "Beautiful Life" by Fisher

13 Beautiful Life

What Can I Say?

I'm about to write one of the most embarrassing blog posts of my five year blogging career. When I made the decision to catalog all of my eats in this space, I knew sometimes I would have to reveal that I ate "unhealthy" things. I never actually thought I'd be revealing just how horribly I've eaten in the last few days. It's sort of gross. Still, I made a promise and I'm trying to get better at keeping my promises. So...here goes.

Yesterday's eats:

Breakfast: yet another yogurt bowl, but this time with 1/2 a pear, Kashi Honey Almond Flax and my new favorite ingredient.

 

Fig jam! I bought it after being seduced by a tasting station at Whole Foods. It is fantastic.

A few hours later I was starving and ate the other 1/2 pear. This did nothing to satisfy my hunger so I had a handful of homemade trail mix.

Walnuts, raw sliced almonds, raisins, dried cranberries and chocolate chips.

By the time lunch rolled around I was starving again and had eaten everything in my lunch bag except for the meatloaf sandwich. I tried to satisfy my hunger by adding some chips from the (evil) vending machine at work. This vending machine has NO healthy options. The healthiest thing in there is a crunchy granola bar, and I was trying to avoid too much sugar. (This idea will become hilarious in a moment, just wait.)

The sandwich was delicious. Chips, eh. Lays kind of suck. After I ate this...I was still craving more food! Specifically, chocolate. So I ate this:

I always eat Twix when I'm avoiding sugar, don't you? Also, hello, trans fats and artificial sweeteners. How you doin'? Sigh. The Twix was pretty darn good, though, I'm not going to lie.

After work I had an appointment to get a haircut but was having a severe sugar crash. I ended up getting a giant Diet Coke to combat the crash. I KNOW! IT JUST KEEPS GETTING WORSE!

This is how I used to eat all of the time. I honestly don't know how I did it.

After my haircut, I had to make cupcakes for a work party the next day. I was really excited to try a new recipe and throughout the baking process ate a good amount of batter and frosting. All of the sugar and caffeine must have dulled my hunger because I had no appetite for dinner at all. Around 9:30pm I realized if I didn't eat something at least a little bit substantial I was going to feel really, really bad in the morning.

Celery and hummus to the rescue! This was yummy and refreshing. After this, I ate one of the cupcakes. Unfortunately, they sucked. This is what I get for trying a new recipe and planning on feeding it to "company." The only good thing about the cupcakes was the peanut butter frosting, which was absolutely sinful and heavenly. I ate a lot. A lot a lot a lot. And there is still more in my fridge. Dangerous...

The next morning I had to leave early in order to buy some generic grocery store cupcakes on the way to work. I was starving, so on the way to the store I chowed on an apple. After the apple my stomach was still rumbling and, strangely, I was craving a bagel. I haven't had a regular (non breakfast sandwich) bagel in a long time, and I don't know where the craving  came from but I went with it and bought a whole wheat bagel and some cream cheese at the store and ate it once I got to work.

That tea started out hot but I wasn't feeling it so I added some ice. The bagel was great! Just what I wanted.

So...I mentioned that work party? Every month we have a "birthday club" where we celebrate all of the birthdays from that month. They are really fun and the food is always good, but it's usually pretty unhealthy. I try to partake without going overboard. Usually, I do okay. This time, not so much.

The food this month was Frito pie! Holy crap, I love Frito pie and hadn't had it in years. It. was. AWESOME.

Um. I might have gone back for more. This time with tortilla chips as we were out of Fritos.

I promised myself I wasn't going to eat any of the cupcakes I brought, but I couldn't hold out and had one.

Aren't they cute? It was only okay. Still, it tasted 100 times better than the horrible ones I made the night before.

At some point in the afternoon I ate these. I don't know why. I wasn't even hungry. It's like I'd given up on life at this point. ;)

For dinner, I'd had enough. I wanted veggies. I wanted lean protein. Luckily, I had all of the ingredients for a tasty, quick, and super healthy "get back on track" meal in my fridge.

First I chopped some onion, zucchini and yellow squash and sauteed it in olive oil, salt, pepper, and 21 seasoning salute.

 

When those were done I removed the veggies, seasoned a wild king salmon fillet and sauteed it in the same pan.

While the salmon was cooking I made a quick sauce out of these ingredients:

 

Plus salt + pepper.

All together:

 

Tiny plate trick! I used a small one again, so this is a pretty moderate portion.

 

Yum! Better looking than anything I've eaten in the last two days, that's for sure!

I hate to beat myself up for slipping in my eating habits, but I almost can't help it. If I eat one unhealthy meal or snack it's no big deal, but two days of gluttony is not good. Mostly because when I eat like this I don't feel very good, and feeling bad is no fun.

In all honesty, though...I have some more peanut butter frosting in the fridge. And some of it is definitely going to end up in my belly tonight. Baby steps...baby steps... ;)

Post title from "What Can I Say" by Brandi Carlile

02 What Can I Say

I Think About the Big One, W.W.I.I.I.

Happy Veterans Day, everyone! A special shout-out to all of our troops overseas and the loved ones they leave behind at home in order to make our country a safer place. I don't know how they do it.

Eats!

Breakfast: Greek yogurt, apple (leftover from yesterday's Panera lunch), pumpkin butter and some country spice pumpkin granola from Whole Foods. The granola was tasty, but I think I need to stick to my Kashi because this totally didn't stay with me. By 10am I was already dying for a snack, when usually my stomach doesn't start growling until 11.

 

Snack: I liked yesterday's Triscuits/Laughing Cow combo so much I did it again. That cow is too damn happy. Perhaps she's just grateful to be a dairy cow and not an eatin' cow.

Lunch: leftover Greek salad and...drum roll please...a pumpkin cream cheese muffin from Whole Foods! Perhaps my favorite muffin ever.

After lunch I was still feeling unsatisfied (lack of protein in my meal, maybe?) and so I ate this. Good, but again: too much sugar.

In the afternoon I had an unexpected brownie. There was a presentation for Veterans at my office, and there were refreshments. Unfortunately, I can't refuse a brownie. Good thing this one was tiny.

For dinner, I knew I wanted meatloaf. I absolutely love meatloaf, and before I cooked for myself regularly I would always request it from my Mom on trips home. Her recipe is completely old fashioned, and my total favorite of all time. I think she got it from my aunt, who got it from one of her small-town church cookbooks. Here it is, in her own handwriting:

Catsup. Hee! Of course, I only had about half of these ingredients so I had to improvise. (If you're going to make this, use the recipe!) Here is my mini-loaf, right before getting the oven treatment:

On the side, I wanted my favorite potatoes. Of course, yet again I didn't have all of the ingredients so I improvised.

This is one chopped red potato tossed in olive oil, salt, pepper, 21 seasoning salute and parmesan cheese. I then baked them for about 30 or so minutes at 350 degrees.

When everything looked done, I removed the meatloaf and potatoes from the oven and cut into the loaf. Of course, it wasn't even close to done. Oops! Since the potatoes were hot from the oven, I didn't want them to get cold so I went ahead and ate them while waiting for the loaf to finish.

Perfect, especially with ketchup and sour cream dippers! Brings me back to my childhood.

After 15 or so more minutes, the meatloaf was done. I had two small slices. I could have used a new plate and had a pristine picture, but I'm all about telling the truth on this blog. And the truth is I just slapped some new ketchup on the old plate and dug in.

This isn't the "healthiest" meal ever, but it is wholesome and delicious, which is good enough for me. I'm especially ready for tomorrow's inevitable meatloaf sandwich.

After dinner I may or may not have had another two squares of that incredible sea salt dark chocolate from yesterday. ;)

I have to get to bed. I have strength training on the schedule tomorrow morning and I refuse to allow myself to hit the snooze button.

Post title from "The Temptation of Adam" by Josh Ritter (Live @ the El Rey in Los Angeles)

14 The Temptation of Adam (live solo

Even Better Than the Real Thing

[Warning: long post ahead! Be sure to have a snack handy. ;)]

So...I'm still working on this whole "blogging all of my food" thing. I'm behind! And today I forgot to bring my camera to work so I have no pictures again! I was especially excited to snap my eats today because I had no groceries in the house and was forced to eat both breakfast and lunch out, and wanted to illustrate how easy it is to eat healthy on the go when you put some thought into it. Darn.

Before we get into tonight's (AWESOME) dinner, a quick recap of Monday.

Yesterday's eats:

Breakfast: typical yogurt bowl with pumpkin butter, 1/2 banana and some Honey Almond Flax cereal.

Snack: one serving of Triscuits with a wedge of Laughing Cow. This was surprisingly delicious! I hadn't had cheese and crackers in a while. ;)

 

Lunch: leftover Spaghetti Squash Spaghetti. I couldn't snap a pic because one of our big wigs was in the kitchen, so imagine this except with really bad lighting and in an ugly travel container.

 

Snack: M&M's. This was the last of my Halloween candy, thank goodness.

 

Dinner: refrigerator madness pizza (a.k.a. pizza made with random things from my fridge), jazzed up with some caramelized onions I made. Put caramelized onions on anything and it will taste good. ANYTHING.

 

On this pizza: the aforementioned caramelized onions, sauce, feta, leftover roasted mushrooms, roasted red peppers, banana peppers and some parmesan cheese.

 

Yum!

 

For dessert, I tried a new chocolate bar.

 

My serving. It was fantastic! I think it's my new favorite.

Whew, it feels good to get that off my chest. Now on to today! This morning, I opened my fridge and realized I had NO FOOD. Not one fresh fruit or veggie. After mentally planning my post-work grocery trip, I decided not to stress and to just make sure I eat healthy takeout meals. It can be done! The secret? Planning.

On my way to work I knew exactly what I wanted for breakfast: oatmeal from Starbucks. It's not perfect (although that's what they call it) but it is satisfying and probably the best "fast food" breakfast out there. I was going to get a soy latte as well, but balked at the last minute for fear of getting the caffeine shakes. As much as I love it, coffee does quite a number on me. The oatmeal was passable, but not as good as my normal banana/almond butter/cinnamon/raisin oats!

For lunch, I was craving a sandwich. I first walked into Subway and almost immediately walked back out. It smelled weird (you know, that trademark Subway smell?) and I realized I totally hate Subway's bread. It tastes like cotton. Luckily, there is a Panera in the same shopping complex so I booked it over there. For my lunch I got a 1/2 Mediterranean veggie sandwich and a 1/2 Greek salad. I've discovered the trick to getting a good veggie sandwich at Panera: ask for extra hummus! Normally they use the hummus like a condiment, spreading only a super-thin layer. Hummus isn't a condiment, Panera! It's the delicious, delicious protein! This lunch was tasty and filling, and not too bad for me (minus the salad dressing, which I don't usually stress too much about.) I even got unsweetened iced tea instead of my usual Diet Coke. Go me!

For a snack throughout the day, I munched on an Oatmeal Raisin Walnut Clif bar. I've been buying these bars without really reading the label, which all changed today when I bit into this delicious bar and realized just how SWEET it was. It tasted like dessert! I looked at the ingredient list and the first thing on the list was a sweetener. Okay, so it was organic brown rice syrup, which isn't exactly high-fructose corn syrup, but still. Total sugar in the bar? 20g. That's the equivalent of 5 teaspoons! As delicious as they are, I don't think I'll be buying any more Clif bars. I'll stick to my Larabars instead.

After work I went on my much-needed grocery run. The entire time, I was brainstorming what I wanted for dinner. I knew I had one serving of pizza dough I needed to use tonight or throw away. Inspired by my yummy Greek salad from lunch, I hit on the idea to do a healthier spin on my old favorite pizza from California Pizza Kitchen: the Greek pizza. This pizza consists of a sauceless cheese pizza topped with a cold chopped Greek salad and tzatziki sauce.

My version consisted of the last of my whole wheat crust topped with olive oil, salt, pepper, caramelized onions, parmesan cheese and (surprise!) 21 seasoning salute.

While this was baking, I whipped up a quick Greek salad of cucumbers, tomatoes, red onions, Kalamata olives, feta cheese, olive oil, red wine vinegar, salt, pepper and 21 seasoning salute. You didn't think I'd leave that out, did you?

 

All baked:

I could have eaten it just like that, but I'm sure glad I didn't! Here's the finished product, topped with the salad and a little Greek yogurt.

 
OMG yum, OMG yum, OMG YUM! This was absolutely freaking fantastic and, if I do say so myself, better than the too-cheesy CPK version. I seriously wish I had more caramelized onions and pizza crust so I could make myself another one to take for lunch tomorrow. It was that good. If you like Greek salads, make this! You won't be disappointed. (I apologize for never having measurements in my recipes, but I don't measure anything unless I'm baking.)

After dinner my breath was particularly potent, so I had a mint to cleanse my palate.

 

Yes, this is a mint from Sonic. Yes, I sometimes feed my craving for Sonic tater tots. Don't judge. :)

Well, this was officially the longest post ever. Thanks for sticking in!

(I'm testing out the bigger pictures in this post. Are they too big and distracting? I hated how the old ones didn't fill up the post field.)

Post title from "Even Better Than the Real Thing" by U2

Oh Sweet Jesus, Heal My Hangover Today

I have one word to describe myself today, and that word is...

LAME.

A group of friends and I went out to a sports bar last night to watch the FSU/Clemson game. I had the equivalent of about three beers. Today? I have a hangover. A hangover! I wasn't even drunk last night! I swear, sometimes living a healthy lifestyle is not beneficial. Like when you want to party. (Imagine if I had actually gotten drunk? I'd be dead.) To top it all off, FSU lost. This is doubly insulting, yet unfortunately not too surprising. ;)

Despite how I feel today, I had a pretty great day yesterday. The weather was lovely, and I woke up and actually went out and exercised! I know! I was like bizarro Carrie yesterday. I was feeling a little dehydrated and so I didn't want to overdo it, so I very briskly walked three miles, with only one quick 1/4 mile spurt of jogging to get ahead of some ladies on the trail. Despite hydrating like a madwoman both before and after the walk, I still felt dehydrated much of the day. Perhaps that is why I'm still feeling the effects of my beer from last night?

A quick recap of (some of) yesterday's eats:

I woke up starving so I had half of this on the way to the park for my walk yesterday morning. This flavor is pretty decent, but not the best before you exercise. I was tasting the lemon throughout. Yuck.

After my walk I stopped at my favorite local bakery for some breakfast. They had three separate pumpkin-flavored things, so it was very hard to choose. I was actually craving something savory, though, so I got one of their delicious breakfast sandwiches.

It's egg casserole (with cheese and green chiles) inside of a warm cheddar scone. Totally awesome. I had some grapes on the side for some fruit, and because I was still feeling really dehydrated.

For the rest of the day I watched Thursday's episode of Fringe, went shopping and got a new pair of really cute jeans, and then came home and caught some football before leaving for the game. Oh, and I ate this!

 

A pumpkin cream cheese bar from the bakery. Come on, you didn't expect me to not at least sample ONE of those pumpkin goodies, did you? It was delicious.

I don't have any pictures of my eats from the bar because it was super dark in there, and also because our table was so small every time I moved I knocked something either 1) on my friend John, 2) on myself, or 3) on the floor. No joke, a took out a (thankfully empty) glass of water and my entire Turkey Reuben. Luckily the sandwich landed in my lap, but people. I was a menace. Taking pictures would not have gone well. (As for my eats, in addition to my three Yazoo Dos Perros and Turkey Reuben, I had a small portion of a nachos appetizer and a side salad. Because the salad made my meal nutritious!)

This morning I woke up and was craving an egg sandwich from someplace unmentionable. (*cough*McDonald's*cough*) I decided to make my own instead and came up with this:

One over easy egg on a whole wheat English muffin with a little melted cheese. Take that, Ronald!

Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to go out and buy the largest fountain Diet Coke in the world. Despite wanting Jesus to heal my hangover, only (the devil) Diet Coke will do the trick.

Post title from "Jesus, Heal My Hangover" by Chevy Downs

03 Jesus, Heal My Hangover