First times

So everyone raves about these, but i never tried them until today. I don't know if it's lucky coincidence, but i will definitely be trying them a 2nd time!

I decided to put as many zero-effort items into the crockpot as i could find, and see how it came out. So i combined:

1/2 a bag of frozen chopped onions and green peppers
1/2 a bag of frozen chopped butternut squash
2 frozen chorizo (or so i thought, i think they were the similarly named portuguese sweet sausages)
2 frozen portabella asagio sausages
1 can of diced fire roasted tomatoes
1 can white beans
1 container of chicken broth
several turns of salt and pepper grinders
some (few shakes?) of oregano or italian seasoning, chili powder, paprika, and garlic powder
1 package frozen cheese ravioli

Combine everything except beans and ravioli, and cook for 6-8 hours on low. Add beans and ravioli with about 1 hour remaining, voila! I took the sausage out right before serving and chopped up, but it's pre-cooked. There are no rules. Served with some parmesan because i had some. mmmm! What should i call it? Crock-pot-sausagy-soupy-breeze?

Maybe it's not the tomatoes... i've also never ever before used frozen chopped onions and green peppers, frozen chopped butternut squash, nor either type of sausage. But who cares, it was one of the easiest meals i've ever made, and delicious! Almost like a really great minestrone... only with ravioli and sausage, haha.

Mmm, snow!

I've been up since 6, and i'm only just getting to breakfast! As someone who used to eat cookies before she even got in the shower, this is mind boggling to me. For the past few months i've been taking some early morning meds that require me to wait 30 minutes before eating... by which time i've begun my commute. I feel bad eating on the train, so the 30 minute wait turns into an hour and 15... and then i don't want to eat while i'm walking as fast as i can through the streets of manhattan, so add another 20 minutes... plus however long it takes me to get settled in at the office. All in all, it took 3 hours and 45 minutes for me to settle down to breakfast today! I'm both proud and mortified, think of all those neglected cookies i could have eaten in that amount of time.

Word on the street is that if you don't eat within the first hour you're awake, your body goes into "starvation mode" and you have super slow metabolism for the rest of the day. Maybe THAT's why my pants don't fit! It's not the cookies, it's the medicine/commute combo!

Today I ate snowflakes on my walk to work, the snow was so crazy that all i had to do was open my mouth, but i did catch myself unconsciously sticking my tongue out a few times... i wonder if anyone saw? haha

PS - According to the Blogger timestamp i live in California... which makes it sound like i only had to wait 45 minutes to eat... and this is not the case.

get your motor runnin...

I am buzzed. Bzzzzzzz! Too much caffeine! Or sugar? Or bagel? I don't think bagels make you jittery, but you never know. I had a thing at the doctor yesterday where they drugged me up something good, and i've been pretty slow coming out of it. I was still tired this morning (though i think that was probably just because it's morning) so i decided i deserved not only a coffee, but a coffee with real sugar AND a bagel with butter. I only intended to eat half the bagel, but once i started drinking that coffee, my mind and mouth and eyes just took on a life of their own and now the bagel's gone. Maybe i'll go get some cheetos out of the vending machine like my receptionist did this morning? She sent another guy to get them for her, but he couldn't figure out which bag was the cheetos (???) so she came back to show him which ones she wanted. I asked her if it was too early for cheetos (9:30) and she answered "not for me!" Maybe we can be friends after-all! I love cheetos!

hungry hungry hippo

I find myself chanting "hungry, hungry hipp-Oh!" quite often. Hungry Hungry Hippo used to be one of my favorite games when i was little. Surprising? No way, it involved eating! Granted it wasn't me eating, but still, i was controlling the eating, without bustin' out of my kid pants. (Another favorite - ready, set, spaghetti!)

I wonder how many kids have tried eating the hippos' white marbles? I'm proud to say I don't think i ever did. But i'm pretty hungry right now, maybe i'd try one. Or maybe i'd be more fun to play the game with yogurt covered raisins or after dinner mints instead? Faux-healthy snacks, made into a game with multi-colored hippos! Even better!

Oooohh! Inspiration! Cheese-ball eating hungry hungry hippos! But holy cow (or holy hippo?) that would leave quite a mess to clean up. Licking the game platform? Probably not acceptable.

PS - that reminds me of something i wrote a long time ago...

Oh delicious round orb of orange, from what planet cometh thee? I don't really care, as long as you're here for me to eat. So what if you look like you're made out of toxic chemicals? So what if you taste like you definitely could be made out of toxic chemicals? If I someday find that I'm dying due to cheeto-induced radiation, it just might have been worth it.

Is it the cheese? The salt? The color that makes you so addictive? You smell a little bit like feet, but my craving seems to defy all common sense and eats you anyway... I don't eat other items that smell like feet! But the feeling you give my tounge is near orgasmic. Who needs vegetables? Can I count you as a vegetable? You're the same color as a carrot... and one of your main ingredients is vegetable oil...

I've proved many times that I cannot buy a package of cheese balls and eat just one serving... my will is not strong enough. But I'm glad that there is someone out there, be they man, machine, or alien, that can do it for me. Thank you 100-calorie-pack-maker-man!

PS - Once upon a time, many years ago, I tried smoking a certain weed. Many people claim that this causes them to crave orange things, and I now support this theory. I cried that night... because the super market was out of cheese balls.

Sweet!

These are delicious.

And a relatively healthy sweet tooth solution.

I just wanted to share.

I'm hungry! I'm not sure what i want to eat... all i know is that i want to eat! I'd like to share something I wrote a year ago, because it's still so true.

I have an addiction.

You might be sniggering, but this is no laughing matter. Well, I often giggle about it... but not right now.

Right now I feel guilty, like I'm having an affair. I haven't even overeaten today (yet)! Still, i can't stop thinking about food. When's it going to return my calls? Might we arrange a lunch date? There's a grocery store down the street, nobody would see us... I tell my self "It's ok, I've got protection..." Unfortunately Lactaid doesn't keep the fat from sticking.

The daydreams... What's for dinner? The possibilities are endless...

The memories... I bought fresh bread from the bakery, it's sitting on the counter looking pretty... it was delicious covered in butter (okay, it was lite butter) , the peanut butter was good too... and the jelly... should I make grilled cheese for dinner?

The return of the guilt... I should try to eat something healthier. There's an old low fat english muffin sitting next the the beautiful loaf of fresh bread, i could substitute that, add some fat-free styrofoam cheese and a "fried" egg, save many calories and compromise the flavor... And while it cooks I'll sneak seventeen slices of the seductive fresh loaf and pretend that I didn't. It will be so delicious! And I'll feel so guilty...

But this affair isn't easy to hide, the evidence is everywhere! There are the crumbs on the counter... the chocolate on my breath... the wrappers in the garbage... the dishes... the pants that don't fit...

Last night I realized we had no cookies in the house. I asked my husband if he could turn into a giant chocolate chip cookie for me (I was only half kidding). He said no, he didn't want other girls taking bites out of him as we walked down the street (have you seen that chocolate commercial?). What man doesn't want girls chasing after him with love bites? Do I deserve such a loyal man when I'm in the middle of a raging affair with cookies? chocolate? bread? cheese? It's not even an affair, it's an orgy!

I'm trying so hard to get my eating (and food-thinking) under control, but how do you control something that's this embedded in your head, your heart, and your social activities?

Anyone want to go out for wine and cheese?

Unfortunately, though it's been a year, I've made no progress. I've had my ups and downs, but I'm right back where I started. Hopefully 2nd (or is this 3rd?) times the charm!

mmm, mmm, mmm! Peppermint mocha's are god's gift to this commuter on holidays. Well, if there is a god... if there isn't then they're just my gift to myself :)


Peppermint mocha's (even with skim milk) are like a peppermint brownie in a cup. With a shot of caffeine. Can't even taste the coffee, it's great! At 4 ww points for a tall non-fat, no whip, 100% worth it on a day when the whole world seems to have the day off, yet i have a 10 am conference call. Who schedules conference calls on National Holidays? Canadians, that's who. Not a holiday for them either, i guess i should sympathize with them... especially since they'll help my morning go by faster!


Now if only I'd saved some of my peppermint mocha for the looming call...

H es por galletica

I just ate 3 cookies. 3 enormous chocolate cookies. For second breakfast. Shoot.



Was it worth it? Yep.
Do I regret it? Not yet.
Will I? Definitely.
Will it still have been worth it? Maybe.



But i wrote it down... that makes the calories not count as much, right? I used to be good at weight watchers. Now i'm just good at finding excuses to eat cookies. There are so many other things i could have eaten that would have been more delicious and healthier... but they're not cookies! My husband and I were just discussing last night how these cookies weren't particularly tasty cookies, but that doesn't seem to matter to me. They were cookie shaped. And tasted like cookies. Why doesn't somebody work on growing broccoli to be cookie shaped? I'd probably eat it if they marketed it as a cookie. Maybe I should try that cookie diet, since I have a seriously unhealthy cookie problem, and as long as they're cookies, they don't even have to taste good (which i'm sure the cookie diet cookies don't).

Why can't i have a vegetable obsession instead? Anyone out there want to hypnotize me to crave celery sticks instead of cookies? Should it have been my new years resolution to love vegetables as much as cookies? (good thing it wasn't because that's just nonsense! Cheese maybe, but vegetables HAH!)

Cookie's for breakfast!

Ok, well, maybe cookies aren't recommended for breakfast, but for 2nd breakfast! 2nd breakfast is one of my favorite times of day. Well, unless i've had cookies for 1st breakfast that is. Because if i have cookies for first breakfast, i fell guilty and slovenly by 2nd breakfast. I try to have healthy food for both 1st and 2nd breakfast, but some days cookies win. Like today. But it's ok, because it's my birthday!

I believe introductions are in order...

This is me, waving. Obviously, i did not inherit my mothers talent as an artist. However, it is rather true to form. My legs really are that shape (well, not the lopsided part), and i never have enough black socks to wear with my black shoes and black pants. I died my hair a non-permanent red, and it hasn't quite made it back to dirty blonde. Hopefully my face doesn't really look that much like Jay Leno's, but i do have a butt chin. And big hands (for a girl).