I'm hungry!

All out of OJ

2011-11-17T10:45:00.001-05:00

I woke up this morning and decided to have a smoothie for breakfast, as I do many days. Banana, strawberries or pineapple (frozen works fine), plain yogurt, and orange juice. But, we're not at our house this morning, and there's no orange juice. There is, however, some grapefruit juice. It's citrus, it should work... right?

WRONG! Don't do it!!

It's been an interesting week!

2011-10-28T12:06:00.002-04:00

We've been busy! Exciting things like Friday night dates to Home Depot, Saturday work-work, and Sunday yard work. And we decided to cut down some trees! Two were already dead, and one turned our backyard into a hard hat zone starting sometime in August. We didn't know until after we decided to cut it down that it's a somewhat prized Black Walnut... but I don't want to hear your whining because it's already been chopped down. It tried to kill us! Throwing down heavy tennis balls at our heads, and then trying to trip us with them, not cool. They allegedly taste good, but a little research showed a huge amount of work, permanent stains, and potentially moldy nuts. AND, it turns out this tree is toxic to lots of other plants! (So no composting the leaves or using them as mulch for your garden). We decided that it had to go. But... it didn't go easily! Here's what we came home to on Wednesday:


This picture is deceiving. The pile was like 3 times bigger than it looks! It was as tall as me, and twice as long as it was wide! There was definitely more than our 3 trees in there... I know for a fact that we did not cut down a cedar, but we sure shoveled a lot of it... at least it smelled good :)

But you're still missing information: The forecast for Thursday was torrential rain. And maybe ice. Sooo... this giant pile blocking our driveway was about to weight 10 times more! We scrambled, and came up with a wheelbarrow with a flat tire, broken tarp, and an empty garbage can... but we got the job done! Only took us 7 hours... we're well warmed up for winter! Here's what it looks like now:

It rained a little while we were clearing, so you can see the footprint

We wanted the mulch for back here, since one of the previous owners decided it was a good idea to put lots of glass in the way-back yard. We tried picking it out, but it was impossible. Now there's a layer of protection!

And it's a good thing we didn't wait, a giant snow storm is coming tomorrow! While I'm waiting out the snow, I might eat all of the halloween candy before the trick or treaters come. If they slip on the icy walkway to my front door while trick or treating, can they sue me? Do you think I can pay them off with candy? Maybe I'd better buy some more... Or maybe I'll just give them black walnuts.

Rosemary Snack Crackers

2011-10-06T13:28:00.003-04:00

I just tried these, and they're surprisingly good! Surprising, because I had trouble picturing lentils with a crunchy texture and cracker-like taste. But they've succeeded! And allegedly, they're healthy too!

Fall is REALLY here!

2011-10-04T15:13:00.005-04:00

How do I know it's fall? Because I made butternut squash soup! And I was going to write a post about it, and then I realized that I posted almost the same exact recipe last year! I did a few things differently this year:

No beer (still trying to do gluten free)
2 small apples (was the perfect apple ratio)
No tortellini (again, trying to be gluten free... i used brown rice noodles)
I kept the sausage in the whole time, and even blended it in with the blender
For spices I used a bit of oregano, cinnamon, black pepper, and a dash of nutmeg and cloves.

And again, it was delicious!

I also spent some time this weekend scouring the web for an easy gluten free AND low sodium/sodium free dessert ideas, since I was having dinner with my parents and my dad is on a new low sodium diet. The year-of-slowcooking-lady has been a really great resource for gluten free recipe's, and I found this easy (crockpot, always easy) recipe for cinnamon sugar almonds. Beat an egg white with 1tsp vanilla, stir in as many almonds as you want (I used 4 cups). Then mix with a whole bunch of cinnamon, sugar, and salt (I think I used the recommended 3 tbsp cinnamon with 1.5 cups of sugar, with half the recommended salt), place in a greased/sprayed crock pot, and cover and cook on high for 2 hours, stirring every 20-30 minutes. Let cool. Voila!

Dad loved them, and so did husband :) I will DEFINITELY make them again!

October Starts Tomorrow!

2011-09-30T10:43:00.004-04:00

When you buy a house, you suddenly get a whole bunch of catalogs that you've never heard of, that mostly contain items you can't afford... but you look through them compulsively every month anyway. Yesterday, we got a new catalog from Plow & Hearth, which mostly sells expensive things for the outdoor living room room no one in the northeast has. BUT, it also had these, and I think they're AWESOME! I might actually buy them! $17 for both isn't so bad... if only they came with the pumpkins! Not sure about the name though... what's so spooky about being cross-eyed?

Spooky Spider Pumpkin Holders

Crock Pot Adventure!

2011-09-29T12:13:00.003-04:00

Tis the season! Here's what's in the pot:

1 onion, chopped
2 carrots
half a red pepper
half a green pepper
4 or 5 chopped garlic cloves (did you know in spanish, they call them teeth?)
beef stew meat
1 sweet potato, chopped
3? small red potatoes, chopped
half a zuchinni, chopped
Red cooking wine (1/4 cup?)
Beef broth (1 or 2 cups?)

I added them in the order listed above, but saved half the garlic to put directly on top of the meat. For some reason, I took the effort to brown the entire frozen slab of stew meat (it's chunks, but they were so frozen solid that they never broke apart), and then deglazed the pan with a tiny bit of red cooking wine and beef broth, and poured that into the crock over the beef.

Who knows what it will taste like, but it sure was colorful! And gluten free! And my 6 quart crock was quite full.

UPDATE: It was really good! The sweet potatoes and meat all fell apart when stirred, and made a nice thick, sweet stew. I sprinkled a little bit of "pasta sprinkle" and black pepper on before serving. It was ugly though, so no photo.

To Wheat, or Not to Wheat...

2011-09-21T17:18:00.004-04:00

I'm doing an experiment. It all started with a giant bowl of pasta. Followed by weird stomach pains. I don't really know if these pains were caused by the size of the bowl, by the pasta itself, or maybe they were just coincidental. But it happened a few times... hence my experiment.

I'm attempting to go 2 weeks without consuming gluten.

THIS IS HARD!!

Do you know what gluten is? I knew it as "that stuff that makes bread dough...doughy."
But it's also a magic ingredient that's in just about everything! Cookies, chicken broth, soy sauce, cookies, cookies... did i mention cookies?

So, in preparation, i did my research and stocked up on some gluten free cookie supplies. Here's what you need to know: packaged gluten free cookies are pretty gross. Homemade gluten free stuff is DELICIOUS! I even found a "cookie" that I can claim is breakfast. Here's a scone recipe, right off the package of baking mix! IT'S DELICIOUS! (I'll be honest, the only scones I ever baked before were weight watchers... and therefore a huuuuge dissapointment. but not these!!)

Here's how good these are: I went to take a picture of them, and ended up eating half of one, even though I wasn't hungry!! Mmmm.

Click Below for Recipe

Ingredients

2-1/3 cups Pamela's Baking & Pancake Mix
1/3 cup sugar
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 cup currants (I used golden raisins instead)
4 tbsp butter
1 egg, beaten
2/3 cup milk
1/2 tsp vanilla (Not in original recipe)

Directions

Mix the dry ingredients together. Cut in the butter using two knives. Add the milk and beaten egg. Mix together with a fork. Dough will be thick. Drop large, tall dollops of dough (scones will spread when baking) onto lightly greased baking sheet. Bake in a preheated 375° oven for 15-17 minutes.

Yield: 10 scones.

Recipe Source: Pamela's Baking & Pancake Mix

Praying for a good harvest

2011-09-07T10:55:00.001-04:00

This coffee is so disappointing! I could say that about most of my food over the last 24 hours, since I'm "eating healthy" after a weekend full of cookies and holiday food. Then again, I had a hot dog for dinner. Guess I'm taking the gradual road to eating healthy... also, my hot dog was not disappointing. Neither were the cookies. Have you seen the commercials for the "whonu" cookies?? They're pretty good! But Husband ate half the box in one sitting like he usually does with Oreo's (how is he not fat?).... we'll see how he handles all that fiber he didn't know he was eating, muahaha.

Speaking of fiber, my garden isn't dead yet! It looks dead, but I've got a few green tomatoes and baby peppers, so there's life yet! Look at this guy I found while cutting down my spent sunflowers this weekend! I never saw a praying mantis disguised as a stick before...

And here's what my sunflowers looked like! They were ENORMOUS!!

Gaviota, gaviota

2011-08-22T12:05:00.001-04:00

Here's a story about what happened to me and my sandwich this past weekend:

Mmm, Sandwich!

Just Chillin, taking it all in.

And here we go!

Ugh! I think I just got attacked with a beach umbrella!

Oh my god no, it's alive! And it wants my SANDWICH!

This is ridiculous!

Go away you jerk! It's my sandwich!

oh MAAAAN!

That's when family stepped in, while I ran screaming toward the seaweed infested waters to cleanse my hair of seagull cooties. Then, since I was still hungry, I ripped off portions of my sandwich highly likely to contain seagull cooties, and proceed to eat the remainder of my sandwich under protection of an umbrella and family guard, because this was no normal seagull. It was ENORMOUS, and when husband threw a sandal at it, it barely flinched. No fear. I think I finally met someone who wants cookies more than I do!

It's late. I feel old.

2011-08-15T21:29:00.003-04:00

Monday, 9pm.
2 glasses of wine, no dinner (but I did have 2nd lunch)
Close my eyes on the train... enter "the spins".
I'm the only 28 year old I know who gets tipsy from 2 glasses of wine, at a work function no less!

This reminded me of a story, but I forgot what it was... So here's another one!

A few weeks ago, husband and I took some friends to the U2 concert, as a birthday present. It was really hot out, but there was a lovely breeze at the new meadowlands stadium (which I'm allergic to, but that's a story for another time). We brought some subways to tailgate, and had some beer and hot dogs (because I condider it blasphemous to go to a stadium without consuming beer and hot dogs!). Once settled into our seats, Husband and i got into a very serious conversation about who knows what, paused, did the wave, continued. I pointed out that we'd just had our very own "when harry met sally" moment just in time for us to resume serious conversation, pause, wave again, resume serious conversation, crack up laughing! it was wonderful!! I'm so proud to have a husband who appreciates these special movie moments the way i do. Later on, it got kind of hot way up in our nose bleed seats, but I took a nice refreshing shower when the drunken idiot behind us spilled his beer on my head.

http://movieactors.com/actors/brunokirby.htm

Mmm, Chemicals!

2011-08-03T09:06:00.001-04:00

What is it that makes blue box mac and cheese soooooo delicious? (Chemicals! Boooo!)

In honor of giving my mother in law a "real" american meal that I loooooved as a child, I went all out last night, not only did we have mac and cheese from the box, but we put hot dogs in it too, kiddie style. Delicious! Only thing missing was a little ketchup, but I thought that was taking things too far. And ok, i'll admit it... the adult in me came through, I mixed in some (lots of) broccoli to cut the guilt, and only put 1/4 of the recommended amount of butter (seriously? 1/2 stick of butter per box? And does anybody really only prepare 1 box at a time?)

It may look gross, but you just need to look at our eyes to tell it was delicious.

PS - Don't fear, this is not the only american food I've exposed my mother-in-law too. We've also had lots of hamburgers and grilled vegetables, chili, sandwiches, salads, lasagna made with no cook noodles and sauce from a jar, and a variety of other "short cut" or "improvised from the pantry" recipes. But we forgot to have meatloaf or taco salad! Oh no! MMmmmm, taco salad... is it too early to start thinking about lunch?

nuts about breakfast!

2011-07-19T10:34:00.000-04:00

So these were on sale at the grocery store once. It was a trap! They haven't been on sale since, but I got hooked; they're delicious! And healthy... I can even pronounce most of the ingredients! But I repeat, though they're delicious... it's a trap*! I keep buying them, even though they're not the cheapest option, because they're so tasty and satisfying, and just sweet enough that they go really well with my coffee for breakfast. There are a bajillion flavors, and so far I've liked every one I try! My favorites are the basic fruit & nut (shown below), the cranberry almond, and blueberry pecan. I also think I had an awesome peanut butter and jelly bar once... but I haven't seen it in the store again, so maybe I made it up. (FYI - the quickest way to my heart is through peanut butter and jelly. Make note in case you need to get back into my good graces some day - pb&j just might be the key. For some girls it's jewelry and fancy cars, but for me, I'm pretty sure food is the way to go. Though I won't stop you from buying me jewelry if you should be so inclined... just saying it wouldn't hurt to make me a peanut butter and jelly sandwich too).

image from www.kindsnacks.com

However, the other day I saw a cheaper, smaller, knock off brand in the super market, and decided to give it a shot. Stop & Shop Nature's Promise, peanut butter flavor, from the organic aisle. Even better list of ingredients, I could pronounce allllll of them! (reminds me of that old ice cream commercial). The bar was a little smaller than the KIND bars, but also had lower fat and calories... so would be better as an anytime snack. Not as many options in flavors, but still tasted pretty good, and less expensive! I think perhaps I'll split my time between the 2 brands, so that I can afford to buy coffee sometimes...

* "trap" in spanish is "trampa", which always makes me imagine some tramp trapping a good man

Hot hot hot!

2011-07-14T16:14:00.000-04:00

I'm not talking about the weather.
I'm talking about soup!

This afternoon, soup saved me. As of late, I've been losing my battle with pollen...

Until today!

Thanks to some mulligatawny soup from this place up the road, I've remembered my old friend: SPICY FOOD!! Since allergy medicine (as well as the allergies themselves) make me a bit of a space cadet, I do what I can to treat them naturally. Namely, by using a neti pot and getting lots of rest. But thanks to today's incidental soup purchasing, a world of other helpful options have worked there way back into my memory! Ok, not a world. But two! And both have been very effective in the past!

Spicy foods! This includes hot peppers and chili powder, as well as fresh ginger. Wasabi and horseradish are not recommended, because unhappy sinuses + horseradish = evil explosion. Eating raw onions and garlic might count, but the aftertaste just makes me keep eating foods that I can't really taste unless I've eaten chili first. (Why is it that with a stuffy nose I can still taste bad things like onion breath but not delicious things like cookies?)
Chopping onions! All that crying is kind of like using a neti pot, without the weird posture. haha.

I think tomorrow I'll chop a bunch of onions, and use them to make chili!!

Mooooo

2011-07-12T12:34:00.000-04:00

I feel like a cow. And in honor of this occasion, I ordered a hamburger for lunch. I think the guy liked me, look at the amount of fries he gave me! To put this to scale: I measured that hamburger with my ruler. It's 5 inches across... I've resorted to eating it with a fork and knife it's so big.*

Lunch for the rest of the week?

This is not at all normal for NYC, especially for less than $6.

Unfortunately I only took 3 packets of ketchup! What was I thinking?!

*strike that... my fork just gave up and yielded under the weight of this thing

Home alone (at work)

2011-07-01T09:51:00.002-04:00

I already ate my 2nd breakfast, and I still have to survive 2.5 hours until it's acceptable to eat lunch!

"Kevin Arnold" face.
No wait, he's from the wonder years. I was going for that other Kevin from my childhood.

Also, I feel like the entire world (ok fine, country) has today off, except for me.

So is that a good excuse to go buy some cookies and a fancy coffee for third breakfast?

Wrong side of the bed!

2011-06-22T09:56:00.000-04:00

Things are not going my way this morning!

I overslept
husband used all the hot water (he was sleepy too and zombie showered I guess)
I missed the late train, and had to wait for the REALLY late train
I stood in a very long line for iced coffee while I waited, only to receive really crappy iced coffee which I'm pretty sure contained sour milk, but I was out of time to request a new one...
skinny girl stood next to me on train platform, made me feel fat
got middle seat on train (normally fine) but couldn't figure out how to balance coffee and book... made a fool of myself trying to put coffee on floor by sticking my face in neighboring gentlemen's lap
in nyc got 2nd iced coffee at fancy coffee place, I ruined it by putting wrong ratio of milk/sugar
regretted not buying delicious looking pastries while lamenting over 2nd coffee failure
muggy and uncomfortable out, hair looks awful, skin shiny
it started raining before I made it to the office, the kind where an umbrella is useless (I always get lucky and miss the rain when I arrive on time... observation: in NYC it never seems to rain between 7:30 and 8:30 am, but rains quite often at 9 am and later)
Starving upon arrival at the office (since I didn't buy delicious pastries and coffee wasn't drinkable) I unpacked my lunch/snacks and realized I brought a rotten banana, squished strawberries, grapes, AND raspberries. And no chocolate bars.

When I recounted these events to myself, I laughed, and *pouf*, bad mood gone!

PS - I know I said I was giving up coffee, but I'm not quite there yet.

PPS - I gave in and bought expensive "local" strawberries last night, so cute and tiny and DELICIOUS! Also, I suceeded in growing a strawberry! Just one, but a strawberry nonetheless!

PPPS - Has anyone ever eaten a mulberry? I think I have a mulberry tree, but I'm not 100% sure. Berries all over the driveway. I could eat them, but they might be poison, how can I tell?

I get so emotional bay-bay, every tiiiiime I think of you-oo-oo!

2011-06-15T14:11:00.002-04:00

I'm trying to convince myself that I don't need coffee in the mornings. I've been good about not having coffee more than 4 days in a row, so I've done pretty well avoiding the physical addiction - I'm not getting headaches at least. But I still feel like I neeeeeed that sugary appetite supressant to get through the morning! I yeeeaaarn for it. Mentally. So this morning, I planned ahead and bribed myself away from coffee: expensive juice/smoothie, and a couple of ginger snaps (and yogurt, fruit, and granola bar as backup).

But I didn't stop at a couple of cookies. I ATE THE WHOLE BAG! 8 servings! That's 40 cookies!!!!!!!! And of course didn't touch the healthy back-up options.

So much for fixing my emotional attachment to a breakfast item. I think maybe I'll have some coffee tomorrow morning...

The apple doesn't fall far from the... sandwich?

2011-06-08T13:14:00.001-04:00

I treated myself to an enormous sandwich for lunch today. Smoked turkey, brie, sprouts, green apple, and honey mustard on a roll. Mmmm! I noticed it was a little too crunchy, but I continued eating, thinking it must be a healthier roll than I thought (you know, healthier bread = harder to chew?). Turns out the person making my sandwich was too distracted by my beauty (just kidding, though he did give me extra chips and TWO pickles!) to concentrate on what he was doing... he gave me slices of apple with seeds still in them! I ate apple seeds! But i'm pretty sure I chewed them enough so that this can't happen:

Though considering how quickly I ate all the potato chips, I could get that fat.

NY Pizza is so overrated

2011-06-07T12:58:00.001-04:00

I just had some really crappy pizza for lunch. In general, I don't like pizza. I've been told many, many times, that this is unbelievable... but it's true! I have a texture problem with the gunky mozarella, and pouffy bland crusts. I ate it today because it was free, and as I've discussed before, free food has a strange power over me.

However, I overcame my pizza bias and ate lots of pizza in Italy... and loved most of it! The super thin crust kind, mmmm. In Siena we sat at a touristy restaurant on the plaza, eating bacon pizza, which was basically pizza with cheese, onions, and bacon melted on it. Yes, the bacon melted. Amazing.

Mmmm, pizza and beer. And salami and cheese and bruschetta, because why not?

We were sitting next to this!

il campo

we tried to take a self portrait

we almost succeeded...

And here are some other pictures from the same day!

I fell off the face of the earth!

2011-06-01T12:00:00.000-04:00

A lot's been going on! I have a house guest (other than the birds, they finally left! Mama bird was SCARY!) to whom I'm trying to speak another language, and then I went to Italy! It was amazing! Except I kept accidentally speaking Spanish! I was so focused on being able to communicate with my mother-in-law at my own house, that I forgot to learn any Italian for vacation! But language was hardly a barrier since everyone in Europe seems to speak English these days, and I was able to eat lots and lots of pastries, pasta, and gelato EVERY DAY, and somehow lost weight. I should do that every day! Here's a picture of husband and me in Italy!

Mmmmm, gelato!

Tweet!

2011-04-20T15:04:00.001-04:00

The birds are crazy around here lately. And very industrius! Look closely at this wreath on my front door (no, the birds did not build the wreath):

There's a nest hanging on my front door!!

And look inside!

A REAL Easter Egg!!

It's like the easter bunny came early, and was running low on chocolate... it's only the size of one single mini cadbury egg (the BEST easter candy in my opinion). But this one isn't chocolate, it's real!! Anyone know what kind of bird lays a tiny bright green/blue/teal egg??? Can a robin's egg be that dark?

A little behind...

2011-04-19T11:10:00.004-04:00

Warning: If your not interested in plants, this is a very boring post. But not to me!

Now that I have a yard, I'm going to have a vegetable garden this year! (In containers! In my driveway...taking it slow, haha). I don't know where the sun will be in my backyard (lots of leaf-less trees at the moment), but you can be sure that I will be marking out a spot for a REAL vegetable garden for next year, after I figure out where to put it!

I'm a bit of a procrastinator, mixed in with a bit of what I suspect is adult onset ADD, so I finally ordered seeds last week, and planted them last night. Only about 2 months later than recommended.... we'll see what happens!

Ordering seeds is stressful! There are so, so many choices! I'd never even seen a seed catalog, so I signed up for a bajillion different ones, such as Johnny's, Burpee, Stokes, Cook's Garden, and more! I dog-eared and circled all over each of the catalogs, loving everything, wanting to become a full time farmer. But then the day came when I realized that I needed to choose JUST A FEW, to try this year. I had to cross off many options, including this beauty, because I just had to draw the line somewhere! But it will be on my "short" (actually very long) list for NEXT year!

Romanesco Broccoli (image from wikipedia)

So what did I actually buy? Well...

brandywine tomatoes

yellow tomatoes

grape tomatoes

smaller "apple" sweet peppers

long skinny green eggplant (on sale!)

mini "icelandic" poppies

coleus

Notice I did not buy any basil, chives, oregano, etc. That's because I freaked out and couldn't handle anymore decision making. Also, that's a loooooot of seeds. I'll just buy some already grown this year! I also have already planted some seeds my mom brought me a few weeks ago... spinach, green onions, mammoth sunflowers, and red sunflowers. They're all very happy! I can't wait to plant them outside... this morning (at 6:15) I planted some sweet pea seeds along the fence... I hope the squirrels don't find them!

(Mom's also hooked me up with a threesome of baby blueberry bushes, 2 forsythia bushes, some hollyhocks, dahlias, elephant ear, and a few other mystery ground cover/shade plants, I'm so excited and/or overwhelmed!!)

Green Things!

2011-04-06T10:14:00.001-04:00

My yard is turning green! Not necessarily in all the right places, but some of it is green, and that's better than none! It seems that very little of it is actually grass, but who cares as long as it's mostly green? We thought we had some clumps of super duper grass celebrating "yay spring!" but upon closer inspection, it's not grass. Here's what it looks like:

Can you tell what it is? CHIVES! I have a yard full of chives! And so do the neighbors! When we mow the lawn will it be oddly onion scented? How did they get there??? Did Earl (the rabbit living in our backyard) do it? Or maybe the wild parrots (also in the backyard, and yes, I said parrots, they're green!)?

Oh my darlin, oh my darlin...

2011-03-28T15:01:00.001-04:00

I loves this snack-time surprise!

I have parties in my tummy all the time!

Dandelion Slayer

2011-03-21T16:09:00.005-04:00

Believe it or not, we only went to the hardware store once this past weekend! We went for a bunch of things, but my most important purchase was one of these:

Giant Garden Fondue Fork

A weed-ripper-outer! I'm pretty sure the sellers just mowed over all of the dandelions last year, so this is what my yard looked like before:

I even found one that already had 3 seed heads about to open,
they'd been yellow and I missed it!

And this is what it looked like after:

Those are piles of DIRT. Stop thinking otherwise.

Maybe the snow this morning covered this mess up and made it look a little better? If not, at least they blend in with the rabbit holes... Actually, as I was digging out a particularly stubborn patch of dandelions next to/over one of the rabbit holes, I was suddenly overcome by the fear that it would turn out not to be a rabbit hole, and that a skunk or opossum would come out and bite me and give me rabies! Luckily, that didn't happen. (My foot did slip down inside though! EEEeeek!)

After I finished making the front yard look like a battle zone, I looked at the backyard and did nothing but sigh. Then I went outside and set up "repotting" camp for four of my houseplants in the driveway, and I came back inside with eleven potted plants! They're reproducing like bunny rabbits!

Yaaaaay!

2011-03-11T16:35:00.002-05:00

There are green things growing in my yard!

But I don't know what they are!

Maybe daffodils?

The anticipation is killing me!

(Perhaps some of these surfaced at Thunder Moon Farm last year???)

I can't smell anything!

2011-03-11T12:31:00.003-05:00

It's been a long couple of days.
That's the last tissue in a box that was only opened on Wednesday!

(Not pictured is the gallon of ice cream* Husband brought me for lunch yesterday... I could almost taste it!)

* "The best medicine!" according to our local CVS Pharmacist

Yo ho and really bad eggs

2011-03-08T12:09:00.006-05:00

Yesterday was not my day. All sorts of things went wrong! But one very important thing went right: while the rest of connecticut waded through the muck, our (empty) basement stayed dry!! HOORAY! To celebrate, I decided to try using up some leftover egg yolks to make my husband a delicious caramel flan like his abuela makes. FAIL

Lets start at the beginning. I should have realized these eggs would not bring good tidings, based on their origin. Why did I have extra egg yolks? Because I used the whites to try and save my cloudy chicken broth. Apparently, when you make chicken broth, you're not supossed to ever let it boil, ever. I was tight for time and lacking this pertinent information, so I boiled the heck out of my chicken bits. Gross foggy brown liquid later... I did some research and found out that you can fix this mess by boiling it with a mixture of egg whites, crushed shells, and vinegar. THIS WAS NOT PLEASANT (this chicken just wont leave me alone!) It smelled really weird and was very difficult to clean up... but it worked!

Flan Comparison Diagram

So now I had some decent chicken broth, a weird smelling kitchen, and several egg yolks. There's not a whole lot you can do with egg yolks on a weeknight. But it just so happened that my pantry was stocked with condensed milk*, evaporated milk, vanilla extract, and sugar. So I tried my had at microwave caramel flan... otro desastre. Still tasty, but definitely not the smooth creamy custard known as flan. Maybe it wasn't really the egg yolks' fault, seeing as I chose a microwave as my heat source. Eggs + microwave tends to end badly, but I'd heard it could work... I'm pretty sure flan isn't supossed to bubble and puff into layers as it cooks. Nor is caramel supossed to turn into rock candy on a spoon. Oh well, at least it still tasted good!

*I never used ot have condensed milk in my pantry, but husband eats it with saltines - it's his favorite meal. And I thought I had a sweet tooth!

Cranky Pants

2011-03-07T09:54:00.001-05:00

Lack of sleep + train chaos + damp + cold = Liz on the verge of tears

Wimping out + going home + coffee + strawberries + bathrobe = Happy Liz

And now there's sunshine streaming in the window!

Once in a while, taking the easy way out can be the right choice.

(Don't tell your children!)

PS - anyone willing to knit me a pair of these?

B-gock!

2011-02-28T11:18:00.005-05:00

I cooked a chicken! A whole one! It was my first time! I forgot to take any pictures, but that's probably for the best, because to be honest... it's kind of a disgusting process. It tasted great, but I definitely considered becoming a vegetarian more than once throughout the course of my afternoon.

Things got off to a rough start, when I realized my defrosted chicken was not actually defrosted. I sent it to the lukewarm water spa for an hour or so, which seemed to help. I opened up the chicken to remove the little package of gross things, only to find it was still frozen and wouldn't come out! And not only that, but the package was PAPER, so it ripped open and oooooh it was not a comfortable 10 minutes of surgery. (Who puts a paper package in a typically moist location??) Eventually I got it all out and into the garbage, put the chicken on it's rack, and washed my hands 17 times.

I pureed a bunch of fresh thyme, sage, and parsley with some salt and pepper, butter, and a bit of olive oil, and rubbed it all over the chicken, inside and out. Strangely, it turned the skin yellow... like fake tanner. (Spa, tanning session, maybe the I wasn't being so cruel to the chicken after all...) I had half a tomato leftover from lunch, so I put that inside the chicken, along with a quartered onion. Placed about a half cup of water in the bottom of the pan, and covered the roast with foil. Into the oven, 350, for about 90 minutes (this chick was a little under 6 pounds). Then I bleached everything in the kitchen. Not really, but I wanted to. I tried to be reasonable, and only bleached areas the chicken had been. And washed my hands 16 more times.

I removed the foil for the last 10 minutes, and then put it back on for about 20 minutes after the chicken came out of the oven. The smell was woooonderful, and I couldn't keep my hands off for long... I needed to know how it tasted! Lucky for me, it was delicious! I went right to work making little piles of white, dark, and soup meat, but a good portion of it went straight into my mouth. I hadn't realized how slimey (the spell check wants me to say smiley, but it doesn't feel appropriate considering the carnage) I would get!! I think the slime helped combat the compulsive hand washing, because the skin on my hands is feeling a little softer than usual today, haha. (Gross!)

I tried to use as much of the leftovers as I could... I made gravy and broth too! The gravy had the flavor of the roasted herbs too, really nice. I couldn't think of anything to do with the skin though, it was way too disgusting (I've heard you should use tit to make the broth taste better, but ewwwww slime). The whole process was pretty gross, it was tasty (served with steamed broccoli and experimental sour cream & parsley mashed potatoes), but once again thoughts of vegetarianism are swirling through my head... I don't see too many whole chickens in my future... for now I think I'll just stick to my former approach to cooking, mainly cooking things that are not recognizable as body parts! And maybe I'll start growing some of these chickens, I know my mom would be very, very happy:

Peeps!

PS - Have any of you ever microwaved a peep? I'm a goody two shoes and therefore haven't tried it, but I've thought about it... maybe that should be my preferred method of "growing" peeps?

Easy and delicious cuban food!

2011-02-24T12:24:00.004-05:00

I love cooking, but I never have enough time. Which is why I love my crock-pot so much. Husband loves my crock-pot too, because I use it to make him ropa vieja*! I know I've probably mentioned this before, because it's so easy and I make it fairly often, but I don't think husband will ever get sick of it, so I'm ok with that. I made it Monday and he's having it for dinner tonight, 4th night in a row, haha. Here's how easy it is! The list looks long, but it's just faking you out. Plus, it will last a while. You could also freeze it, but we always eat it all.

Ingredients

Flank Steak
1 can of diced tomatoes
1 can of tomato sauce
1 can of tomato paste
Red Bell pepper, sliced
Clove or two of garlic, minced
Large onion, sliced
Bay Leaf
Cumin (tablespoon?)
Oregano (teaspoon?)
Salt and Pepper
Wine, Cooking wine, or white vinegar - 1/4 cup(ish)

Directions

Place garlic, onions, and peppers in bottom of crock-pot.
Place flank steak on top of the veggies. Sometimes I sear in the juices first, sometimes I don't. I haven't noticed too much of a difference. If you don't sear and it has any visible fatty portions, you should probably remove them.
Add tomato paste, oregano, cumin, and bay leaf.
Pour in the tomatoes, sauce and vinegar or wine.
Cook for 4 hours on high, or 8 on low. Longer is not a problem.
Pull out steak and place on a large plate. Cut in half or thirds, against the grain (to make strips shorter when shredded).
Using two forks, pull in opposite directions with the grain, and the steak should shred very easily.
Mix shredded steak back in with tomatoey goop in crock pot.
Salt and Pepper to taste (authentic would be lots of salt, but not so healthy), and serve over rice! (or mashed plantains, or potatoes, or in a burrito, though cuban husband would be mortified by the potato and burrito suggestions) We usually have with rice, cuban black beans**, and sliced avocado. Sour cream also goes nicely... as do scallions)

To make it more veggie heavy, you can add a bunch of shredded or diced carrots, and the flavor won't change much. I've also heard apples work, though I haven't tried it. You could also up the amount of peppers and onions, or use only half a flank steak (but don't tell my husband!).

*Husband would freak out if I served it as shown in this Wikipedia image. Yellow rice and black beans can't be served together! Silly Cuban food rules. Or maybe I got the rules mixed up? Husband? Care to clarify?

** You can buy Cuban black bean soup in a can, but I make husband make the beans! Recipe to come if I ever try my own hand at them...

Amazing!

2011-02-21T08:33:00.000-05:00

Remember when husband's phone decided not to come back inside after all that shoveling? Well after last week's thaw, our snow mountains shrunk into snow sand castles... and husband found his phone! It had been soaking up some rays, so it was looking nice and steamy after that slow soak in the melting snow. I'd heard that if you take a phone apart and put it in a bowl of rice, it helps draw out the moisture... so we tried it. 24 hours later we put it back together and plugged it in... AND IT WORKS! I kid you not. Best cheap phone EVER!

I made these ricotta cookies to celebrate (also, they're Italian... and we're going to Italy!). They are delicious! I had one for breakfast. Now it's snowing again... maybe we'll play hide and seek with another phone?

Kale Fail

2011-02-18T12:36:00.001-05:00

I've been hearing a lot lately about kale chips. Everyone says they're awesome and that they're just like potato chips... so I couldn't wait to try them. A crunchy, delicious way to eat kale? I was doubtful, but figured it was certainly worth a shot. Kale is one of those foods that I want to like, I just can't seem to get there. Smitten Kitchen feels the same way!

Unfortunately, my kale chips are super gross. They did nothing for me except make my house smell like broccoli while they baked. And then they still tasted like kale... with a slightly "burning" undertone. Did I do something wrong? Do any of you out there like kale and recommend a way of eating it?

Eatily!

2011-02-17T22:23:00.002-05:00

I was supposed to go to Eatily today for dinner with a friend. I haven't been yet, I can't wait to go! But things came up, and we changed our plans to lunch at Le Pain Quotidien. I had some delicious vegetable quiche that claimed to have less than 400 calories (I don't believe it!) and tasted some bread spread with ricotta, figs, and honey. MMMM!!! I'm sad that i didn't get to check out the smorgasboard that is Eatily, but that's ok, because WE BOOKED A TRIP TO ITALY TODAY!! (The real thing, not the restaurant!) GIVE ME ITALY TIPS!! What do I HAVE to see? What do I HAVE to eat?

I'm so excited!!! We're not going until May, but that gives us pleeeenty of time to plan! I've never been, so I'll pretty much be happy with whatever we see, though we have a history of action packed travel agendas. We'll see!

To celebrate (and to mourn the train home that I missed by 1 minute), I enjoyed a take-out frozen margarita on the train ride home, yippee!

I'm a cheetah

2011-02-16T16:45:00.000-05:00

What is it about unhealthy orange foods that makes them so satisfying?
Healthy orange foods can't claim the same.
A satisfying carrot? Who ever heard of such a thing!
Cheetos are shaped like baby carrots... and much more delicious.
(By the way, there are some very scary recipes on that cheetos website)

Mmmm

2011-02-15T11:33:00.001-05:00

2nd breakfast. Mmmm. Actually It's 11:30... so is this elevensees?

Did you know that second breakfast is a real thing? And so is elevenses*! Who knew!! They're not just eaten by hobbits!

* According to Wikipedia, elevensees used to equal a late morning whiskey break in the US... let's bring that back!!! It would really help me ease through that 11-12:30 stretch of stomach growling...and i'm sure it would greatly improve my mood! (though maybe not my productivity...)

I'm not a mushroom! Hooray!

2011-02-10T11:21:00.000-05:00

I got a haircut! I had been rocking an 18 month old uber-short Rihanna haircut, which was looking pretty strange, now shoulder length. I'm trying to grow it long again, but needed something to make it look a little more normal (also, I was bored). I decided I wanted layers... because why not? But I was terrified I'd look like a mushroom! Luckily, I got this great haircut, and I don't look like a mushroom! (Hmmm... now I want mushrooms, maybe I'll cook some for dinner...Hey, did you know about these? I'm thinking about trying one!). Here's how my hair looks right now, since I haven't washed out the nice blow-dry the hairdresser gave me:

Question: Do I have a mullet? Guess it doesn't matter as long as it looks good, right?

But, it won't look good for long. As soon as I wash my hair, it will most likely look like this everyday:

My hair likes to all point the same direction, like I'm walking around in my own little bubble with an imaginary breeze. I also have a history of developing wings out of any bang layer (maybe to stay aloft on the imaginary breeze?) so this could get interesting.

Free Food!

2011-02-09T13:35:00.000-05:00

Have you ever noticed that if there's free food, you HAVE to have some? (Or is that just me?)

For instance: I just went out and bought a giant vegetable udon soup* for lunch. It's still too hot to eat, so I've only nibbled so far. I'm about to dive in, when word comes around that there are extra platters of sandwiches, salads, and cookies in the kitchen (from a meeting). I resist the mad stampede to the kitchen (thereby missing out on all the free dessert), but even though I have lunch ready... I CAN'T RESIST THE CALL OF FREE FOOD!! So now, in addition to my udon soup, I'm having pickles, coleslaw, and olives (since obviously the salt in my soup wasn't enough). Not so sure this goes together, but that has never stopped me before!

*I think maybe the soup guy liked my new hair cut**, he gave me 5 times the normal amount of these kinda gross fish cakes in my soup (I used to think they were hard boiled eggs mysteriously missing the yolk and died pink).

**How do you know if you have a mullet?

Change of Season... and Furniture?

2011-02-08T14:21:00.009-05:00

I just found a pumpkin!
I bought it months ago and used it as a decoration... but now I'm going to cook it!

Be warned if you Google images for "funny pumpkin" that there are some surprisingly disturbing results!

However, that's how I discovered the existence of pumpkin armchairs...
which led me to a link for this wonderful love child of an armchair and a Snuggie**

courtesy of http://dreamfunhouse.com

**image results for which open up a whole other world of fun

Tinkle Tinkle little star...

2011-02-07T12:16:00.003-05:00

I recently discovered the "stats" tab, which shows some statistics regarding web traffic visiting my blog... and I thought I'd share a graphic showing some of the things people have searched for to stumble upon my site:

Source: Blogger Stats

My particular favorite, [pregnant "hold it" "i peed my pants"] really baffles me. Have I given the impression that I'm pregnant and have recently peed my pants? Because it's not true!! I'm not pregnant (though I eat like I am) and I haven't been peeing my pants!! Also, I'd like to point out that the tally says my blog was visited as a result of said keyword search MORE THAN ONCE!?! For the record, I tried this search myself... and Google did not find my blog. But perhaps after this post it will! haha

Super Bowl

2011-02-06T21:59:00.004-05:00

Some people might think the Super Bowl is named for the king of football games, sometimes referred to as "bowls". But I have another theory. It's called the Super BOWL because on Super Bowl Sunday, you eat lots of foods that are served in BOWLs. Dips, Chips (baskets are giant bowls), Chili, even chicken wings come with a side of blue cheese in a little bowl. Lots and lots of bowls = Super Bowl Sunday.

For our Super Bowl food, we had guacamole, hummus, a failed attempt at baba ghanoush, a failed attempt at jalapeno poppers (ok, so these don't come in a bowl), and chili. (All for just 2 people, yikes, I think I may be right back where I started last week!)

Cookie Surprise!

2011-02-05T21:43:00.001-05:00

Yaaay weekend!

I'm still experimenting with meringue cookies... today was a flop!

I'm not sure what I did wrong, but they wouldn't whip. At all.

So I dumped the mess into a pan, added chocolate chips, and cooked it! Here's what happened...

I opened the oven and thought: Sweet! Giant chocolate chip cookie! Let's get that out of the pan and eat it!

Oh shoot! I broke it!

It's hollow! And somehow, delicious!

The outside is crispy and light, and the layer under the air is like marshmallow!

To make your own hollow cookie, pour flopped meringue in pan on top of parchment paper
bake at 250 for 1 hour, turn off oven, and leave pan in, undisturbed, for a few hours, until oven is cooled off.

So I guess I'm a binge eater?

2011-02-04T11:31:00.002-05:00

Yaaaaaaaay Friday!

It's been a long week. I knew early on that it was going to drag on, so I delved into the cookies headfirst. Tuesday morning I was particularly desperate as I channel surfed the uncertain weather forecasts, which kept growing in disappointment level (if you're going to forecast a ginormous storm, there had better be more than light freezing rain to show for it!). As I grew more and more desperate for fulfillment, I ate vast quantities of bread and butter, cookies, and cake. By noon I felt terrible about what I'd eaten, so I tried to find out how many calories I'd consumed... mostly out of curiosity. So I downloaded the Lose It! App, and guestimated what I'd eaten...

HOLY COW!

I ate approximately 2,000 calories on Tuesday morning... BEFORE lunch!!!!! WOOPS!

So obviously I've been trying to be good since then... (part of why the days seem to drag on forever...) and I've already lost 4 pounds! Probably just the 4 pounds of cookies I ate on Tuesday morning... hahaha. Shoot.

Chocolate!

2011-02-03T20:00:00.012-05:00

Maaaan oh man do I love chocolate.

Especially dark chocolate. On it's own it's wonderful... but it's even better if it's got just the right amount of a special flavor... orange, mint, ginger... you name it, I probably love it. Even slightly spicy... like mexican hot chocolate... If you've never tried it, you should! I've even tried (and liked) bacon flavored chocolate! (though the toffee is better)

My coworker suprised me the other day with a couple of these:

Li-Lac's Glacé Ginger
"Candied ginger coated in dark chocolate. A spicy and delicious treat."

They're AMAZING. The ginger inside of them is cooked and candied, so the stringy and bitter aspect of the ginger is gone, and only the burny deliciousness remains... soft and encased in dark chocolate. Now that I've tasted it, I'm going to want more! I think I'll try this kind next; I've seen it in stores so it will be much easier for me to get my hands on:

Chocolove Crystallized Ginger in Dark Chocolate Bar
"65% Rich Dark chocolate gives way to moist chunks of crystallized ginger. Surprisingly stimulating."

And while googling, I even found recipes to make candied ginger myself! Which I can then cover it in chocolate! I'm putting that on my list of things to make sooner rather than later, fo sho.

Ice, Ice Baby (dun dun dun du-du dun dun dink)

2011-02-02T10:49:00.004-05:00

Mmm, hot tea and toasted oatmeal bread.

If I close my eyes, I can pretend it's warm...

On the other hand... if I open them... there's much to see!

Look! While we were sleeping we got bubble glass installed!

And we lucked into that view of a pond we always wanted!

This was such a nice tree, we thought we'd preserve it.

Here it is from another angle, doesn't it look nice encased in glass?

These bushes weren't looking so great, so we got them sparkled up.


Unfortunately, they're not doing so well with the extra weight of the crystal...

And one more, just for fun.

Oatmeal... Bread?

2011-02-01T14:41:00.011-05:00

I've been baking a lot of bread lately, now that I have a handy dandy mixer to cut down on the mess. I've been keeping my eyes open for new kinds to try... and I came across a few recipes for oatmeal bread. What the heck is oatmeal bread? I don't know! So I decided to try it! It seems there are many different ways to make oatmeal bread, so I modified the easiest recipe I came across to suit my pantry. It's not usually safe to experiment with baking, but I'm doing it anyway! It turned out to be delicious, though possibly tooo moist? Doesn't even need a spread, tasty and moist all by itself! Yum! Also, I'm really excited, because I've come close to solving the mystery of the delicious but "what the heck kind of bread is this" bread from Tir Na Nog!

Quick (no yeast!) and Easy Oatmeal Bread

Makes 12 servings. Per serving: 149 Cal, 2.3 g fat, 27.6 g carb, 1.4 g fiber, and 4.2 g protein.

(click link below for recipe)

Equipment (minimal, yaaaay!):

1 large mixing bowl
1 microwave safe liquid measuring cup
1 ½ cup dry measuring cup
1 measuring teaspoon
Loaf pan
Oven

Ingredients (probably in your kitchen right now!):

1 1/2 cup boiling water
1/4 cup honey (I estimated, it’s so messy to measure)
1 tablespoon (approx.) butter
1 1/4 cup (2 heaping ½ cups) rolled oats
1 egg
½ cup almond milk (regular milk would work too)
2 cups (4 ½ cups) all purpose flour
1 tablespoon (3 tsp) baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
Non-stick spray, oil, or butter

Instructions:

Preheat oven to 350, grease and flour a loaf pan
In large mixing bowl, combine boiling water, honey, and butter
Add oats, let sit 10-15 minutes
Add ½ cup cold almond milk and mix well (to make mixture cool enough to not cook an egg)
Stir in the egg (mix very well if didn’t beat the egg first)
Stir in flour, salt, and baking powder (best to combine these first, but that would involve an extra bowl, and I’m too lazy). Mix very well!
Pour into loaf pan and bake for 45 60 minutes. Check with knife or skewer… if it comes out clean, then it’s done. If not, cook for another 10 to 15 minutes (look carefully, I thought "mostly clean" would be enough, but it wasn't - tasted great but difficult to cut!).

PS - This would be really easy to mix things into, like dried fruits and nuts, cinnamon, or anything else you put in your oatmeal! Chocolate chips? Breakfast on the go!

PPS - There's room for improvement, falls apart while slicing... but still delicious!

PPPS - It's really dense. This has pros and cons... very filling, but bad for sandwiches

Scraps for dinner!

2011-01-31T08:00:00.009-05:00

I like to play a game called "What's in the fridge?" Sometimes, this game overlaps with another one, called "What's in the freezer?" I played a mix of the two this weekend! I didn't take any pictures, since it was super ugly, but it was also super delicious! Here's what I used:

Fridge:
1/2 a head of cabbage
1/2 a can of tomato paste

Freezer:
Cooked ground beef, crumbled (about a cup or 1/2 pound?)
Cooked italian sausage, diced (2 links?)
Super salty leftover stir fried egg plant (1/2 cup?)

Countertop:
1 onion
2 red potatoes

Instrucciones:

Chop onion, place in bottom of casserole or crock pot.
Dice potatoes, same.
Chop cabbage, same. Mix the 3 together a bit.
Season with oregano, mrs. dash, herbes de provence, or whatever herby stuff you might have.
Salt and pepper too (unless you have super salty eggplant coming, like i did)
Spread around sausage, ground beef and eggplant
Mix tomato paste with water (about 1 cup total liquid) and pour over.
Put on lid, and bake at 350 for an hour or two, checking to make sure concoction doesn't dry out. If it does dry out (like mine did after more than 90 minutes, husband neglected instructions to turn off oven when timer went off), rescue with tomato-y liquid! I used a can of tomato soup.

It was delicious, I win! I like this game! Would also work just fine with uncooked meats, just make sure to cook long enough for them to come to a safe temperature. Instead of tomato-y liquid, I bet broth would work... and instead of eggplant I imagine mushrooms would work well. Maybe I'll try those substitutions next time I play!

Pretty Cookies!

2011-01-30T16:39:00.004-05:00

Roughly 2 and a half years ago, I went to my cousins bridal shower. Someone got her a pizzelle press, and I exclaimed, "ooh, I love pizzelles!" My grandma overheard, so when my bridal shower came around... guess what I got? Thanks Grandma! But with all the moving we've done in the past few years it's been neglected. Today I finally opened the box! It came with a couple of easy to follow recipes, so here I am all ready to go:

The press is pretty easy to use, there's a little indicator light that signals when the cookies are done! How great is that! Unfortunately you can only make 2 at a time and need to stand around while they cook, but it's pretty great not having to worry about burning the entire batch of cookies! Here are the first few beauties, below. Also convenient is that you can refrigerate the batter (or so the recipe book says), so timing is pretty flexible. I stopped half-way through, I'll finish making cookies some other time! Like maybe in a few hours when I've eaten all of these? And maybe I'll dip them in chocolate... like Mike's!

I actually made the batter yesterday night, planning to cook them and just didn't get around to it, so I've already tried refrigerating the batter. The texture changed enough that you could probably use the dough as regular cookie dough, rolling it flat and skipping the press... maybe just baking on a sheet like regular sugar cookies? Feel free to experiment! Here's the recipe I used, courtesy of Cuisinart:

1 3/4 cups all purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
3 large eggs
3/4 cup sugar
1 stick unsalted butter, melted (i used salted... that's what i had!)
1 tablespoon anise extract (or vanilla, I did 1/2 and 1/2)

mix liquids and sugar, then add dry. If using the press, rounded spoonfulls... if making without a press... who knows! Experiment! Makes 35-40 pizzelle.

Fresh Snow!

2011-01-28T10:01:00.006-05:00

Guess what we got yesterday?
That's right... MORE SNOW!! Good thing I like making snowmen.

(photos not shown, yesterday's snow"wo"man belongs in an adult magazine)

We shoveled and shoveled and shoveled, then shoveled some more.

Thank goodness it was a beautiful day!!

We took a break by doing this:

Unfortunately, we did not take this picture when Husband got up, only when I did:

We think that if we had, we might have seen his cell phone taking an extended rest.

It's ok, he needed a new one anyway.

Turkey Sandwich for Breakfast!

2011-01-24T11:16:00.006-05:00

I made bread on sunday night! I love my mixer! I more or less followed this recipe from the book that came with ol' red, and made them into a variety of sandwich shapes. I didn't know how much they would rise, they turned out pretty enormous!

So... I made a giant turkey sandwich on homemade bread for lunch. Yay! When I got to work, it looked so much better than my yogurt that I ate half for breakfast! I'm eating the other half now... haaaaaalf a sandwich! (sung as only the best-roomate-ever-other-than-your-husband can sing it, tune of hallelujah choir). They're so much better in halfs!

And beyond the bread, my sandwich gets even better! Fresh fixins from Costco! I bought 12 tomatoes. Giant ones. I really only wanted 3 or 4, but hey, it's Costco. Also, a bajillion pounds of lunchmeat and cheese! Freezer is stocked, and now we don't have to wait in the line at the stop&shop deli! Yaaay! One hour of costco-suffering may have saved us hours of stop&shop suffering. Or maybe not... that's the tricky thing about costco... you're never sure if it was worth it.

Now that we're homeowners with storage space, we often ask ourselves: Should we man up and pay the membership fee at Costco? And so far, our answer keeps being "eh...", ie, indecisive. So this past weekend, I convinced Husband to accompany me to Costco under Mom's supervision and membership, this time through the eyes of potential members for the first time. Our theory was, it can't hurt (and if it so happens that they have snow blowers, bonus! Alas, they did not).

What a zoo! I'm so proud of Husband for not losing his temper while we were there, I know I came very, very close! Especially when I picked up the package of a bajillion individually frozen chicken breasts and got chicken juice all over me! Ewwww! And no purel or napkins or anything of the sort in sight! (Don't worry, I still bought the chicken, what a deal! Though obviously a different package...)

What's with the men buying weird things? We saw a man with a cart full of nothing but mountains of Coca Cola! And another buying trays and trays of Lysol wipes (where was he when I was covered in chicken juice??), and yet another with several BAGS of avocados! (aguacate! my second favorite spanish word!)

$260 later, no cookies, covered in chicken goo, and full of questions about what that man would do with all those avocados, we loaded up the car and headed home. How did we spend that much and not even come out with a package of cookies??!??!!! The jury's still out on whether or not we'll join... but we've at least postponed the decision until we run out of granola bars, which will be several months from now judging by the size of the box!

Blow, blow, blow your snow?

2011-01-24T10:46:00.008-05:00

When we bought a house, we knew that there would be a lot of homeowner maintenance, but we didn't realized that would mean we could quit the gym (technically I quit several months ago, but lately I don't feel too guilty about it). Shoveling! Grrr! I have one of those "back saver" shovels, but it's all a lie. They don't save anything if you have to lift the snow 4 or 5 feet in the air to the top of the piles of snow lining the driveway! My waist is getting nice and trim though, all that twisting to launch the snow up and over the pile. Only one side of my waist though... I can't turn left! (haha, actually I can't turn right, left I can do).

Latest rumor is there's another snowstorm heading our way... so we decided yesterday we should consider getting a snow blower. We live in an area that usually only gets a few inches at a time, close to the salt water stays warmer and there's all that salt in the air... so nobody has a snow blower... in a normal year that would just be silly! But so far this year we've had several feet! 18", 6", 14", 4", 5"... it all adds up! With this latest storm I've even heard "feet" rolled into possible storm scenarios. So husband and I were thinking...

You know how if you bring an umbrella it doesn't rain, but if you forget the umbrella it pours?

How much would YOU pay to make it stop snowing? Does that amount happen to equal the price of a snow blower???

We decided that yes, we would buy a snow blower if it meant no more snow. But apparently everyone else in New England came to the same conclusion a week earlier than us... there are none to be had! They're sold out everywhere!

Anyone want to come shovel my driveway this week? I'll pay you!

De-Christmasing

2011-01-18T08:00:00.003-05:00

I finally took down Christmas on Sunday... later than most I know, but I felt like we deserved an extension since the decorations went up late because of the move and all.

The decorations look so sad waiting for their turn to be blanketed in paper towels and newspaper before being shoved into a box until next year...

In need of Christmas cheer

Apparently it was past due time to take the tree down, check out all the needles that fell down while pulling off the decorations:

Our new green carpet

Luckily for my spirits, there are a few decorations that will be keeping us company for a while. This cheery red table cloth, candy canes from the tree (I'm thinking cookies???) and mini ornaments that provide some decoration for my lonely orchid year round :)

Yes, that is a recliner playing "head chair" at our folding dining room table. We moved in less than a month ago! It's super duper comfortable... and makes a great "temporary office" chair!!

But now what do we do with that gaping corner of the living room where the tree used to live??? To cheer myself up, I tried my hand at a 2nd batch of homemade pasta (mixed the ingredients in the right order this time... muuuuuch easier! Also, added some pistachio oil, we'll see how that turns out). Then I made bread! It turned out great! For the first time ever I tried the "roll it out, then roll it up" method (like this), and the texture of the inside came out very nice. Success! Yaaay! Between all the bread and meringues and leftover whipped cream and cake mess, i think i gained about 5 pounds this weekend... mmmMMMmmm!

Lesson Learned

2011-01-17T09:53:00.006-05:00

Ah... weekends. Two more days to play with my new mixer! Husband and I went on a fun Friday night date to the supermarket, so I was all ready to continue with my experimentations.

Alas, did you know that you cannot make meringues with store bought egg whites? I didn't! Turns out it says so on the carton, in tiny writing. Who has time to read tiny writing in the grocery store? I didn't have time to read it until after my failure had become obvious. At this point my plans fell apart and I threw some flour into the frothy not whipped egg whites and sugar... and called it a cake? (more like guessed it a cake). Actually, I think almost accidentally created an angel food cake, it puffed up huge in the oven, but then deflated to the thickness of a pancake (which is pretty much exactly what happened the time I tried to make an angel food cake for real). This "cake" tasted great, but was impossible to eat, it was like chewing gum with a crunchy layer on top... I salvaged a few crunchy bits (husband declared them a delicious breakfast the next morning) and started over with REAL, HAND SEPARATED egg whites. Finally, SUCCESS! All these, from just 2 egg whites:

They look kind of like peeps, don't they?

While all of this was happening, I had some ropa vieja in the crockpot, getting ready for our dinner guests from Thundermoon Farm (not the animals of course!). But I still needed to make dessert! I had some leftover pound cake that was tasty but dry, and strawberries were on sale this week... so my plan was to try out my mixer on some home made whipped cream to tie those two together! I though to myself, if I succeeded in whipping egg whites, cream will be easy, right? WRONG! I don't know what I did wrong, but my whipped cream wouldn't get whippy enough! Tasted fabulous though... especially with a little sugar and vanilla thrown in... mmm. Unfortunately I only ended up with about half as much whipped cream as estimated... so my trifle was more like an ugly single layer mess that tasted great.

Dinner was a success, I taught our guests how to play Scattergories (which, as I discovered thanks to college roomies is 2nd only to trivial pursuit, and muuuuch easier to play), and we had a great night! Fun was had by all (I hope)!

Birthday Presents!

2011-01-10T12:44:00.009-05:00

It's not even my birthday yet, but so far I've gotten the best presents possible! I found out this morning that I passed my professional engineering exam, woohooo! And Husband got me this awesome kitchen aid stand mixer for my birthday! It's so pretty!

So, what's the first thing you have to do when you get a stand mixer?

Whip!

I didn't have any cream, so I whipped egg whites and made my first ever meringue cookies! I screwed up the recipe (added a 1/2 cup of cocoa instead of a 1/4 cup... woops!) but I corrected for it (added enough water to make it moist...) and they turned out reasonably delicious, and super duper chocolatey. Here's a picture!

But then what do you do with all those leftover egg yolks? I searched and searched... and settled on another first: homemade pasta! Again, I screwed up the recipe. I reversed the order of dry/wet, and got a whole lot of dry mess! I again added a little extra water to hold it together, and gave myself the ab workout of a lifetime trying to roll out the pasta dough. But it might have worked! I haven't had a chance to make dinner yet since I made the pasta, so I have no verdict on my rescue efforts. Maybe we'll find out tonight!

I'm pretty sure this is not what pasta dough is supposed to look like...

...but maybe it worked anyway?

2011, a year of deliciousness?

2011-01-03T17:29:00.012-05:00

So it's been a while. Maybe 2011 will be a year of better blogging? We'll see. Hopefully I won't have to resit the PE exam (i should find out in a few weeks... the anticipation is killing me!) And hopefully I won't have to spend all my internet time browsing real estate, because we finally bought a house! We moved in right before Christmas, and set up a tree before we'd even begun to unpack! 2 years in a row of Christmas moves taught me to get my priorities straight.

We even hosted my family Christmas dinner! We still did Christmas morning at Mom's, but we packed up the refrigerator and commenced the cooking at nuestra nueva casa.

Sister and mom practically kicked me out of my kitchen (which i dont even know my way around yet) and made a delicious dinner! I helped here and there, but they definitely deserve all the credit. We started out with some baked brie and shrimp cocktail, but graduated onto roast pork with stuffed apples (amaaaazing stuffed apples), cauliflower and fennil gratin, simple greens with a mustard vinagrette, carmelized onion mashed potatoes, and pan blackened (with butter?) brussel sprouts. Look, here we are:

To top it all off we dined on peanut butter brownies, everything oatmeal cookies, and a pineapple layered cheesecake that was to die for. mom gave me the recipe, i can't wait to experiment with other fillings! I lived on leftovers all week, expanding my belly in preparation for new years eve's banquet.

For new years, mom and dad returned to nuestra nueva casa for more snacks, cuban food, sangria, and chocolate fondue and games. I've oversimplified... let me try again. Cheese and crackers. Mom's shrimp dip (one of my favorite things in the world), chips and guacamole, veggies and dip, cuban lobster, ropa vieja, cuban black beans (the husband cooks!), rice, Toblerone fondue, scategories, and wii sports. Thank god husband's friend joined us or we would have died of overindulgence. As it was, we all went to bed with belly aches, though the sangria helped dull the pain of over expanded stomach's (until the heartburn kicked in of course!).

Hopefully all that delicious food means that there will plenty more where that came from in 2011 (though perhaps without the belly aches?)

Easy Recipe for Mom's Shrimp Dip

1 jar of cocktail sauce
1 small tub of cream cheese (light is ok, but fat free is gross)
1 can of tiny shrimp (same size as a normal tuna fish can)
1 box of Triscuits
pie dish or other shallow serving dish

The combo of ingredients sound weird, but it's delicious!

Spread the cream cheese in an even layer covering the bottom of the serving dish. Aim for 1/4 inch, doesn't have to be perfect, you can use as much or as little as you want.
Pour half the jar of cocktail sauce over the cream cheese.
Rinse the can of tiny shrimp and dump into the center of the dish, on top of the cocktail sauce.
Pour remaining sauce over shrimp.
Gently, using the back of a spoon, distribute the saucy shrimp mess evenly over the cream cheese layer.
Serve with Triscuits! Mmm mmm!

I guess summer isn't over yet!

2010-10-08T11:42:00.005-04:00

It may be October, but my little balcony garden isn't done trying yet.

I guess little gardens produce little fruits? Check out the bountiful mini produce I'm getting:

That big green pepper is almost a normal size!

Yaaay Fall!

2010-10-08T10:14:00.013-04:00

I'm diving right into this cold weather! This past weekend i made not one, but 2 delicious and hearty soups/stews. (in other words, i've been procrastinating with my studying).

I'm a big supporter of "one pot" cooking. So i make lots of soupy stewy type meals, intended to be eaten in a bowl, because I'm also a big fan of spooning. I should also mention that i make up recipes as i go, so sometimes they could use improvement.

Saturday, we had:
Butternut Squash, Apple, Sausage, and Tortellini Soup

Chopping list:

2 lbs butternut squash, 1/2 inch to 1 inch pieces (i used the pre-cut kind, it was actually cheaper!)
1 or 2 apples, diced ( i used 3, too many i think.)
1 small potato, peeled and diced (i used red, but shouldn't matter much)
1 medium onion, diced

Other:

3 links sweet italian sausage, casings removed
1 package frozen cheese tortellini
1/2 tsp herbs de provence ( i have this one with a built in grinder and i love it... i definitely bought it at a regular grocery store, but i don't know which one)
1/4 tsp pumpkin pie spice
1 carton (4 cups?) chicken broth
water... enough to cover what chicken broth can't
a little butter? (i didn't use, but would have been a good flavor addition)

Optional:

1 beer for enjoying while cooking
music (optional) for singing and dancing while cooking (I used a combination of Ella Fitzgerald and "Rhythms del Mundo: Cuba)
Blender (I looooove my kithen aid immersion blender)

Instructions:

Open beer
Cue music (Que? Queue?)
In large pot, brown and crumble sausage. Anyone know a good way of doing this? I end up with giant chunks, but it doesn't really matter, since they're still delicious.
Sip beer. Start nodding your head to the music.
When fully cooked, remove sausage, put in a bowl, and set aside.
In same large pot, now greased with sausage juices, add onions and spices and saute until onions begin to turn translucent. I bit of butter would be good to add here for increased flavor, but I didn't think of it at the time.
Sing into your beer bottle microphone.
Add remaining vegetables. Stir well.
Add broth and enough water to cover vegetables. Dance a bit while it comes to a boil, then some more after reducing to a simmer, stirring occasionally, until the vegetables are fork tender.
If you want a creamy soup, remove from heat and submerge immersion blender, or blend small amounts at a time in a traditional blender.
Place back on medium heat, add in sausage and 1 bag of frozen cheese tortellini. Cook until tortellini is warmed through. Dance and finish beer to speed along the process.
Salt and pepper to taste, and serve!
Yum!

Sunday, we had:
Mustard and Beer Beef Stew

Chopping list:

1 small potato, skin on, chopped
1 medium onion, diced
few carrots, peeled and chopped
few stalks of celery, chopped

Other:

Stew meat, doesn't really matter how much... i use a package. 1.5 pounds maybe?
Beer (darker is better), not for drinking this time.
Mustard of choice, ~2 tsps (i used a combo of "cuban mojo" and brown mustard)
1 carton (4 cups) beef broth or stock
1 Bay leaf (i forgot, would have been good)
1/2 tsp of herbs de provence or oregano, or maybe sage?
bit of olive oil

Optional:

half a kielbasa or smoked sausage, chopped

Instructions

In large pot, add a bit of oil, and brown stew meat. Cut up into bite size cubes as is easiest for you... i use tongs and kitchen shears while they're browning to save time.
when done browning, add mustard of choice, stir well.
Add sausage, if including.
Add half the beer, stir well. Cook a bit over medium low heat.
Add onions, stir well, let cook a bit.
Add a little bit of herbs de provence
Add remaining vegetables, stir well, cook until onions are translucent.
Add broth and bay leaf
Cook for a while... until the potatoes start to fall apart
Make sure beef is fully cooked
Remove bay leaf
Salt and pepper to taste
Serve! With remaining half beer perhaps?

Smelled funny while cooking (due to the weird mustard i used) but turned out well. Even more tasty a day later!

Pea-nuuuut, peanut butter! (and jelly!)

2010-09-30T09:13:00.008-04:00

I don't know about you, but wonderbread has always held a special place in my heart, even though it tastes like nothing and has no nutritional value whatsoever. When it comes to a comfort food sandwich (peanut butter and jelly or fluff, grilled cheese, old school tuna salad, to cite a few), there's just no acceptable substitute.

UNTIL NOW!

I've discovered fiber-one country white bread. Still super processed I'm sure, still fairly flavorless, but now with nutrition! Or at least a little. Fills the same role, with less guilt :)

Yay!

so much in my head!

2010-08-17T11:39:00.007-04:00

I've gotten myself into trouble.

I started a blog because i really like how it makes me feel when i write, i'm just not very good at writing. I started writing about me and food, because it's one of the most important relationships in my life, and i'm 100% certain that I am not the only one that this applies to. And I started drawing pictures because it's fun.

I don't have time for fun anymore. What happened?

I still think about food, constantly.
I still think about how i would like to have fun, constantly.
I still try my best to have fun whenever i can, constantly.
I still fail at having fun and doing my best, constantly.
Or do i?
Maybe i am doing my best.
I certainly try hard enough...

Firstly... I've failed at being a blogger. That sounds silly to say.. "blogger" is such and ugly word. But that's how it is... I don't have time! I can't even succeed at defining myself as this ugly word! (maybe that's a blessing in diguise, haha). Not only that, but i've been trying not to think about food (since my pants don't fit...) but how can you write about food if you're trying your darndest not to think about it? Just writing this makes me hungry... imagine how hungry i get writing more interesting excerpts about food. Or imagine how many cookies i could have baked (let alone eaten) in the time it takes me to write this?

Unfortunatly, I don't feel like restraining myself from thinking and writing about food has made me any better at other aspects of my life. I still feel overwhelmed, ALL THE TIME!!! What happened to me that i feel unable to deal with the curve balls life decides to throw my way? As I said to my friend earlier today: Maybe i should consider myself successful given that i've made it this far and haven't yet had a mental breakdown? How do YOU define success? I'd like to know, maybe it will help me to put things in perspective!

PS - I had a wonderful evening with friends. I had fun, which is one of my goals. Having fun as reminded me how often i am dissatisfied with myself for worrying about things, when i could be letting them slip aside and focusing on the fun. But where's the fun in studying for a licensing exam? or trying to decide if you want to buy a house in this failing economy, when you might not have a job in 6 months? The fun is in the kitchen. No matter what's going on in the world around me, the fun is in the cookies... the wine and cheese... the seasonal berry cobblers. So why am i trying to distance myself from food? If i love food, i should embrace it! Not indulge in the traditional american sense of overeating, but indulge in the pleasure and appreciation!

I have baby tomatoes! Here's a picture of me watering my babies:
and here's what it would look like if i watered real babies:
Moral of the story (though incomplete): Appreciate what's there. As long as you're trying, there's no point in worrying about the rest! Love what you can, be happy anyway.

There, now I feel better!

PPS - now that i read back through, it seems as if i were imaginarily watering babies with the intent to harvest. This is not the case! The only baby product i'd consider harvesting would be baby giggles.

stick it to the man!

2010-07-30T09:27:00.003-04:00

I just ate a bunch of oreos for breakfast because i'm mad at my dental insurance. Tooth decay and all that. (in hindsight, this will probably backfire on me, but it tasted good!)

Understand your policy before you go to the dentist! We have a new insurance this year, from husbands office. We found out the hard way that we're only covered for $1000 per year (that's roughly a cleaning and 2 metal fillings), and that even though they say we're covered for major work at 50% (up to the $1000 of course), we're pretty much not covered for anything, ever. They have this sneaky little "waiting period" set up so that you don't qualify for any major work (crowns, root canals, bridges, etc) until after you've been a member for a year*

*more specifically, until after EVERYONE IN YOUR OFFICE has been a member for a year! ie, when we switch to my company's dental in the fall (which there is no doubt we'll be doing) everyone in husband's office will have to restart their waiting periods! Isn't that absurd?!?! How do these insurance companies get away with these things!!???!!??

Rant complete.

Cookie's Revenge

2010-07-07T09:14:00.004-04:00

I broke my tooth on a cookie. OOOooohh, the irony!!

I bit lovingly into a soft chocolate chip cookie, and suddenly i felt like i was eating a rock (not typically found in soft delicious chocolate chip cookies). A porcelain filling came out! and then, THEN, i bit down on the broken filling, and broke ANOTHER filling! And it's all the cookie's fault! Or maybe the dentist's. I think I'll blame the dentist. Grrrrr!!! Two holes in my mouth! And no cookies, because I'm afraid to eat! :(

Where the heck did June go?

2010-07-06T10:03:00.006-04:00

Ok, so i've been a terrible blogger. But that doesn't mean i've been neglecting my cookies. Actually, I think I OD'd on cookies yesterday, i even woke up with a belly ache in the middle of the night that i fear may have been cookie induced. I love my country, I love my cookies.

I've been so busy! I don't even know what I've done in the past month of not blogging. Well i guess i do know if i stop to think about it... i've gained a few pounds. So, number one on the list of things i've done this month is eat.

Things I've done this month:
1. Eat
2. Work A LOT
3. Bake
4. Eat baked goods
5. Drive to Boston and back in one day
6. Throw a Bridal Shower (well, helped throw)
7. Host friends from Spain
8. Run around like crazy trying to make up for working instead of entertaining friends from Spain
9. Work some more
10. Totally failed to go to the gym or pool
11. Took friends kayaking on 4th of July (yay not in nyc!)
12. Missed 4th of July fireworks, disappointing visitors :(
13. Ate cookies
14. Slept roughly 20 of the first 28 hours after friends went back to Spain
15. Sweat. It's f*ing hot out!
16. Also, somewhere in there was father's day?
17. And a tree fell on my parents house
18. And my sister moved back to Boston and started her job! Yippee!

still to come: Friend's Bachelorette, Mom's surgery, and friend's wedding!

I'm out of time to make a picture. Maybe next time!

I grew 3 greenbeans!

2010-06-07T22:42:00.005-04:00

My greenbean plants died. I'm not sure what happened, but they are no longer of this world. BUT, while pulling up the dead plants, i found 3 beans! They looked a little dried out and sketchy to me, but my sister's boyfriend rinsed one off and ate it! He declared it delicious. I'll take it! Gardening success! (hey, there's a way to spin everything, right?)

I had a wonderful weekend with my sister and her boyfriend visiting. We even went to the beach! It was great! (see right). Then my sunscreen exploded at dinner and i peed my pants with it. What can you do, that dress is ruined. So the next day we went shopping! Unfortunately not for a new sunscreen-free dress, but for my sister's new work clothes, because she got a job! Hooray Sissy!! She's moving back to Boston next week, where I hope she'll be very happy :)

Though my sister is spending her last week of freedom in my apartment, I am not. Horrible timing, but duty calls and I am in Charleston, West Virginia for the week. Fun, right? Actually, it might not be so bad, i get to drive around a lot (and i like driving), the weather is nice (so far) and everything is super lush and green and hilly, seems pleasant (since my allergies aren't bugging me yet, can't say the same for my coworker!). I might even get to set foot in Ohio tomorrow, my first time in WV and OH! Checking off those states one by one... I was almost in Virginia today! (At least i think it's in VA...) I spent 4 hours sitting in the DC airport, looking at the Washington Monument out the window, waiting for our tiny 2 propeller plane to show up. Luckily, i've been to both VA and DC before, so i don't have to have an inner battle about whether 4 hours in the airport counts as me being in VA. Phew!

I went to spain!

2010-05-25T12:06:00.008-04:00

I'm having a problem. Actually, I'm having several problems.

1. For the first time ever, i have pink eye! gross!!
2. I have pink eye in BOTH EYES! iiiick!
3. I have a partialy stuffy nose
4. Because of this partially stuffy nose, i have little to no sense of taste or smell
5. Because i can only barely taste anything, i can't stop eating everything in the kitchen to see if i can taste it.

Luckily, none of these problems started until Sunday. Which means, i didn't have any of these problems on my trip to Spain! (Though it seems spain may have caused the problems. they all started on the airplane ride home...)

Spain was AWESOME!! Lots of great people, lots of great sights, and lots, and lots, and lots of great food. (My pants were loose when i left the US, but they were tight when i came back. Crap! Totally worth it though!)

Vacation food highlights:
- one of our hosts made us a savory zuchinni flan, served cold with a tomato and onion chutney. AWESOME! Unfortunately i couldn't eat too much of it, because right before, he served us:
- some kind of gazpacho (has a different name, but i can't find it anwhere) with hard boiled eggs blended in, served with extra chopped up eggs and jamon serrano. Mmmm!
- i love manchego.
- nobody eats manchego WITH jamon, one or the other.
- they drink a lot of yogurt in spain. It's not kefir, it's watery yogurt. I got yelled at several times for suggesting it might be like kefir.
- I'm dissapointed in churros. Maybe i didn't have very good ones?
- chocolate (drink) is awesome. regular chocolate (to eat) is awesome too, of course.
- marzipan can be delicious!
- cheap wine tastes good, unlike in the US.
- tapas are great, you get to try everything!
- cafe bombo/bonbon is delicious. espresso with condensed milk.
- pa amb tomaquet is a great idea.
- patates braves are basically spicy fries. even husband didn't know this.
- best place to drink a beer: on the beach in barcelona
- i tried paella for the first time, pretty tasty. Reminds me of really good chinese fried rice, but don't tell this to anyone in spain, they hate chinese food. Guess the chinese restaurants there suck?
- tiny whole fried calamari are delicious. Don't think about the fact that you're eating their brains.
- tiny whole fried fish are disgusting. Think about the fact that you're eating their brains, and scales, and fins, and everything.
- tortillas are not the flat wraps that we know in the US via mexico, they are (usually potato filled) omeletts. They can be delicious!
- i had nothing healthy for breakfast every day! Sometimes a croissant, sometimes an ensaimada, sometimes a sandwich, sometimes all of the above!
- i ate this weird black rice sausage-like thing, it was delicious! Turns out the black was blood. Gross! (but still delicious!)
- i got to try a cake that's made in santiago only on holy years, which is rumored to be about once every 10 years, but i really have no idea about these things. It was an almond cake, and very tasty! Do you think i'll get in trouble if i try to make it on a non-holy year?

What the heck man?

2010-05-12T12:08:00.006-04:00

Here's a picture of what I've looked like over the past few years:

What the heck man? If I'm only 5 pounds more than I was when I was thin, why the heck don't I look good? I look like I've had children, but I have not! Cookies yes, children no.
Also, maybe it's the hair.

chuga-chuga-CHOO-CHOO!

2010-04-30T12:29:00.004-04:00

I'm melting! I've been subconsciously sabotaging my weight loss regime (judging by the amount of cake i ate this weekend, amongst other things) yet i lost weight this week anyway! amazing! And, more importantly, MY PANTS FIT!! well, almost. Only some of them, haha. But huge milestone!

I'm writing this on the train home, where i've treated myself to a beer. Probably not good to be balancing work laptop on my lap in a moving vehicle while drinking an open bottle of beer, but i'm a good multitasker. Here's a picture!

Now i have to go work on my PE application. Deadline is Saturday, but self inflicted deadline based on endorser availability is TOMORROW (Thursday) 4 PM! Aaacckk! I probably won't make it, but i should try. Penalty if i miss it? 6 months more of free time and studying, but 6 month delay in adulthood.

PS - i spent so much time rushing around with my application that i didn't have time to draw a picture and post! But, to celebrate the fact that I FINISHED MY APPLICATION IN TIME(!!!) I had another beer on the train the next day. And a candy bar. Take THAT weight loss!

Shoot, i think i already wore this shirt this week

2010-04-22T11:23:00.006-04:00

and it's bright orange, people might notice! At least i don't smell bad. There's one old guy in our office who smells really bad, pretty much every day. Do you think it's because he's old and his nose stopped working? Or maybe he's been wearing the same shirt a whole lot more than once per week. This could be. He wears a white button down shirt every day... maybe it's the same one over and over! If only he'd wear bright orange like me, then i'd be able to tell. But if he wore bright orange, he'd look like a pumpkin. He's really short, under 5 feet i'd say, and also has a beach-ball belly, and he walks in slow motion, like a turtle (I'm tempted to draw a picture of this, but i think that would push me over the line from being observant and concerned to being mean and hyper-critical). Poor old man. I'm glad i'll never be a short old man. Short crochety old lady, perhaps, but hopefully i'll have my belly and my "scent" under control. I think i want to be an old lady that smells like soap... good goal? What do you think?

Speaking of controlling my belly, i've lost 5 pounds this month! Hooray! Only 10 more to go until my pants fit again! haha. But, it might be a while, since to celebrate this weeks' continued weight loss i ate 2 cupcake ice cream cones (best idea ever! similar to these, over at my sister and her friends' food blog), a big cookie, and a bite or two of cake. Man i love cookies.

Tastes like...

2010-04-14T12:45:00.004-04:00

I've been really sick. The kind of sick where you can't taste ANYTHING, and therefore haven't been very hungry... hence the lack of food-related-blog-post enthusiasm.

However, over the past few days i've slowly regained my sense of smell (and therefore taste), and similarly, slowly decimated the contents of my kitchen cabinets. It's like my tongue has a mind of it's own!

Mmmm, Beer!

2010-04-02T10:16:00.007-04:00

So I have a new friend. He’s irish, his name is Guinness (weird first name, right?). Anyway, Guinness is great. Lot’s of fun! Low calorie (so i'm told), and filling at the same time. When I was new to beer, I thought he was gross. But now I’ve realized he’s a really well rounded guy.

This past week, I rejoined Weight Watchers. Everyone always joins on the worst weekends (because what week ISN’T a bad week to go on a diet?), and we had friends visiting from Spain, which meant lots of eating out around town. So instead of eating, I drank guinness and espresso (i made a picture!). Filling, yet guilt free. So what if they leech all of the nutrients out of my body? (I’m just kidding mom and dad, I ate lots of fruit and healthy foods before and after…but I digress)

Today, my coworkers talked me into going out for a drink after work. Sounds like good fun, but I was hesitant since my commute is on the “rather long” side. But, I gave in, since it’s been a long, long while since I've gone out after work. My co-worker’s boyfriend owns a great pub downtown, and today was the first day of the season for which they opened up the outdoor seating. It was wonderful! We sat outside drinking Guinness and wine for HOURS! (see same picture, but substitute non-cubans, beer, and bar food). I meant to go home early, but who can leave smiling, laughing friends and magically refilling pints? Ok, so I only had 1 and a half. But that’s a lot for me. And I was about to leave, when bar owner (coworker’s boyfriend) said, “hey! Who wants some wine??". So we had some great wine from a wine bar across the street, and my efforts to go home were again pushed aside. Poor husband. Working late and studying, eating leftover cabbage soup (booooooring), while I was dining on Guinness, Cabernet, corned beef and swiss sliders, steak on toast, and lamb “lollipops”. Oh, and 100 calorie pack Cheetos, because I planned ahead and packed a snack for the train. Delicious!

Also, I lost 4 pounds during my first week of Weight Watchers! Thank you Guinness and espresso! (again, just kidding mom and dad, lots of healthy food.)

I just ate eight oreos

2010-03-24T16:45:00.005-04:00

My coworker and I agreed last week that we would join weight watchers tomorrow. I hadn't planned on having a go-crazy-you're-about-to-lose-your-freedom binge, but i just ate everything in the kitchen. And had a beer.

But i decided this is ok, if i'm all puffed up from too much sugar, i'll weigh extra tomorrow. Which means when i go back in a week, and i don't weigh extra, i'll feel like i lost a whole bunch more weight than i actually did! Right? It's all about setting things up for big confidence boosts.

I don't feel like drawing any pictures today, but here's a picture of green beans i planted, after only 7 days (they're even taller now!) That's my thumb, as a size gauge.

And here's a close-up of how they open, the leaves come right out of the seed! Looks like an alien, or maybe that bird from "Up!" bagobblegok!

Spring is here!

2010-03-18T11:02:00.007-04:00

Last Fall, i embarked on several experiments planting seeds i got for free from my kitchen. Thanks to this, i have several gimpy baby lemon trees, some crazy tall ginger (with a really ugly, but unique flower), and 2 pots of bell peppers! Unfortunately, i planted the bell peppers in September... one pot red, one pot green, so they got to be about 4 inches tall and stopped growing for the winter. I got about a bajillion plants in one pot, and one, single, lonely plant in the other. Since they haven't had a chance to take a stab at making babies yet, i have no idea which is which! They weren't so happy about the whole "winter" thing, but lately they've perked up. That's how i know spring is here!

This year, since i have a teeny tiny bit of outdoor space, i'm attempting to grow my own food, round two! It will probably absorb all the scary chemicals and pollutants out of the city air, but hey, can't knock it till you try it. Who knows, maybe pollution is a super flavor booster!

So far i'm hoping to grow an assortment of herbs including parsley, lavender, and chives (basil, rosemary, and lemon verbena survived the winter in my windowsill! They're really, really ugly right now, but alive and green!), bell peppers, tomatoes, hot peppers, and green beans, and strawberries! I would grow a whole lot more, but my balcony is only about 10 square feet. And i'm hoping i'll be able to sit on it once in a while. Husband and i have been debating whether or not there is room for 2 chairs and a small table. Considering that the balcony has 4 sides, 3 of which are doors, and one of which is railing... it's not looking good. But i think we'll do it anyway :)

Bread Fail

2010-03-16T12:18:00.007-04:00

I broke out Mom's ancient bread machine. It looks like R2D2, only white. Who ever thought a bucket shaped loaf of bread was a good idea? Well i'll tell you this, it sure smells like a good idea.

I've never used a bread machine before. But lately i've been trying to make bread, and making an enormous mess, so i figured, why not? For similar reasons (ie, why not) i've decided to make rye bread on the machine's maiden voyage. Ok, so it's not really a maiden. But 15+ years of sitting on a shelf have given it back it's virginity - it's out of practice. Unfortunately, it seems the machine really is out of practice. Either that, or the recipe i used for rye bread was crap. Tastes like fresh bread... but not very rye-y, nor delicious. Tastes like wheat bread, and a little bit burnt.

Bread Machine (similar robot model):

R2D2:

I wonder if r2d2 can make bread? Wasn't really a skill showcased in any of the movies, but could be useful. Stranded on a cold desert planet? No worries, robot makes delicious fluffy bread from scratch. I'll have to ask husband, he'll know.

Coffee Love

2010-03-15T10:45:00.006-04:00

I think the coffee boy has a crush on me.

I don't drink coffee very often (only when i feel like i won't make it until lunch time) but apparently that's been happening a little too often lately. I've never observed the coffee boy to be particularly social, but this morning when i walked in later than usual (wasted 90 minutes upstairs trying to convince myself that i didn't need coffee) he said "oh, hey!" and had memorized my order! And then he gave me a special cardboard cup colder advertising nurse jackie (you know, so you don't burn your hands) before going over to get more milk out of the refrigerator. All the while, continuing to look at me and smile. Which was awkward, since there was a tower of super processed packaged pastries in the way.

It made me smile. Too bad he's not the register boy, then maybe i could get free coffee...

Don't worry husband, all you have to do is learn how to make coffee and i'll stick with you. (Just kidding! I love you! You made me brownies!)

Meal Time, all the time!

2010-03-09T11:48:00.003-05:00

I ate my lunch an hour ago. It's like i'm in high school again! Maybe that's why i can never make it all the way between meals without a snack, i was trained through 12 years of public school education that breakfast is at 6:45, and lunch is at 10:45. 2nd lunch is at 3 or 4, and dinner is at 6. That's pretty much the same schedule i still adhere to, only most meals shifted slightly such that 1st lunch is now called 2nd breakfast.

chili for chile?

2010-03-03T09:16:00.006-05:00

All these news reports about Chile have been making me want chili. I know they're unrelated, and that's probably insensitive of me, but they sound the same! Plus, at least it means i'm thinking about the trouble in Chile. It's my equivalent of praying... i'm not religious, so i don't say prayers for people, instead i send my thoughts, and things like that. So last night, we ate chili, inspired by Chile.

Ok, so maybe it's REALLY inspired by Mexico. Regardless of where it originated, chili is a wonderful thing. It comes in so many varieties, and they're all wonderful in their own way. In it's simplest form, chili (or chile) refers to the peppers themselves. A bowl of green chile is basically a bowl full of chopped up stewed green peppers. A bowl of tex mex chili is basically a bowl full of meat stewed in dried chili powders and tomato. MY chili is of my own making, with no specific recipe.

My general plan involves a bit of oil, garlic, onions, bell peppers, sometimes a spicy pepper of some kind, diced tomatoes, at least one can of beans, cumin, and chili powder. And I usually prepare some kind of meat on the side, as simple as browned ground beef, for the husband to mix into his serving. Sometimes i cook it with meat, but usually not. I'm a veggie chili kind of girl (I prefer my meat on a bun with cheese and ketchup). There are many nice things about this dish, one being that it's so easy to prepare, with no real rules, and a fairly short cooking time. Basically i throw everything in a pot (starting with garlic and onions in oil), and let it cook until it's the right consistency, somewhere between 15 and 60 minutes. Flexible, my kind of cooking.

Another good thing about cooking chili is that it always, without fail, makes me feel better. Whether it's mental or physical, wielding a knife, reaping the delicious rewards, and clearing out my head a bit with the spice never fails to improve my status. Mood problem? chop chop chop! Sad? Emotional and guilt free (super healthy!) eating. Sick? Lots of vitamins and sinus clearing.

Last night i tried adding chipotle peppers in adobo to the chili, something i've never cooked with before. I didn't realize that the tiny cans contain more than one WHOLE chipotle pepper! Seeds and all! I wasn't sure what to do, so i tried my best to scrape out the seeds, and chopped up the rest of one pepper, adding it and a couple of teaspoons of sauce to the chili pot. Holy cow what a spicy mess that made on the counter! I wonder what the normal way of using chipotle is? I'd already added a bunch of chili powder to the chili, so i'm not really sure what it would have tasted like using chipotle instead of chili powder, but i did notice that it made the chili much more smoky-sweet than usual. I also used fire-roasted tomatoes instead of regular diced tomatoes, so it's possible that they contributed to the smoky sweet flavor. I'll have to try again using only 1 unknown ingredient! All in all the chili was a sucess, sprinkled with shredded cheese for me, and over rice and meat for the husband. I wish i'd had some corn to throw in, i think that would have made it a more complete bowl of flavors. Still, it made a great burrito for lunch today!

Grocery Store vs Those Other Stores

2010-03-02T14:18:00.006-05:00

Somebody's lunch smells delicious! Unfortunately, it isn't mine. I've got a boring, healthy lunch, with the hopes that it will help me fit into my pants a little better. On the plus side, i finally finished those gross "greek" yogurts, and restocked on non-gross greek yogurts at the grocery store last night.

I love the grocery store. It's one of my favorite places to go! It's much more fun than regular shopping, since i don't have to worry about whether the food will fit in my mouth (as opposed to over my thighs), of COURSE it will!

Aisles and aisles of possibilities... most of them delicious. Also, in the grocery store, i feel like i'm rich. I'm not, i'm a normal person, but if i wanted to, i could buy anything in the grocery store. Not EVERYTHING, but ANYTHING. Not that i would, but that i could if i found something i just had to have! I don't feel that way when i go regular shopping, i'm a sale rack shopper. I cringe if an item of clothing is over $10. But in the supermarket, hardly anything is over $10! And if it is, it feels like a tremendous splurge, how's that for bargain endulgences? $10 fancy olive oil, $1000 fancy jacket... easy decision.

Mermelada de Guayaba

2010-02-26T11:03:00.004-05:00

When my husband's mother came to visit us from Cuba, she brought a can of guava marmalade with her. Yes, a tin can of marmalade. Seems like somethings wrong with this picture, a can? of marmalade? A jar sure, but a can? Turns out in cuban (ok, so maybe spanish) marmalade isn't really a jelly, it's more like a syrup.

My husband was super excited, he opened the can and ate the stuff with a spoon. He also eats condensed milk with saltines, so i thought maybe this was one of his weird cuban things. However, one of my friends recently went to Costa Rica and came back raving about this guava syrupy stuff they served at her hotel. I'd been on the lookout for cans of "marmelade" for my husband, so i doubled my efforts, curious to find something for both husband and friend.

I'm a big fan of guava juice from time to time, so i decided to try the guava jelly i found in the spanish aisle at the super market. It's tasty, but definitely not what husband and friend were talking about. Then i stumbled upon this in the peanut butter and jelly aisle at Stop & Shop, and it's delicious! Husband doesn't eat it with a spoon since it's still a little too spreadable, but it's DELICOUS! Bought some for friend, and she agrees that it's very much like what she was eating in Costa Rica... not quite as syrupy, but same flavor. It's great on toast, or in any combination with cheese (popular cuban dessert: chunks of guava paste with chunks of cream cheese, great flavor, but i have trouble just eating chunks of cream cheese!).

Try some! The brand's website is weird, but like i said, i get mine at Stop & Shop (and it seems to be slightly cheaper there too... though not cheap, a little under $5 for a smallish jar, but it's worth it!)

PS - the real cuban thing would definitely not say "no sugar added", maybe that's the real reason husband isn't eating this stuff with a spoon?

Chocolate covered (sugar?) plums

2010-02-16T12:19:00.002-05:00

I had some of these for 2nd breakfast. They're delicious! Probably not the healthiest choice for breakfast, especially since i had way more than 1 serving, but delicious nonetheless! Plus, they're partially fruit! (why do people think dried plums sound delicious and prunes sound gross? Same thing! Both extra tasty when covered in chocolate!)

Warning

2010-02-09T12:07:00.002-05:00

This yogurt is pretty gross. I bought a few assuming they were greek yogurt, thinking that their claim of being made with rBST/rBGH free milk couldn't hurt.

Unfortunately, after tasting and going "blegch" i read the ingredients list, and apparently it's not greek yogurt. It's regular yogurt with a bunch of stuff added to make it think and greek-like. Texture is horrible...chalky maybe? Don't buy these.

grrrrllluuaaa (stomach growling)

2010-02-09T10:56:00.001-05:00

I'm starving!! My stomach is talking to me, it has a mind of it's own. And it's saying "don't eat healthy food, get me some lasagna!" I know it's only 10:30, but the cranky old man in my belly doesn't care about acceptable dining behaviors. I offered him a yogurt, but who in their right mind would accept yogurt when they want lasagna? Not this cranky belly, i can tell you that. I tried little coffee with lots of milk and sugar (wear down the attitude with some sugar and acid?) but it only made him angrier. Maybe carrot sticks or a nectarine will have more success? Not likely. I might have to go out and get some lasagna for 2nd breakfast.

Maybe I can appease him by detailing my weekend food adventures? Saturday I made my own chicken stock! (not good enough for the cranky old man, but i was plenty happy!) I used this recipe (using chicken breasts!), and it turned out very well. I also made bread, tried to use a recipe with no milk (basically yeast, water, sugar, and as much flour as i could get in there), but then i let it rise for way too long, it collapsed, and i came out with a weird foccacia-like brick. As it's aging, it's getting less crusy and is actually not so bad.

With my stock-remnant boiled chicken breasts, I decided to try making a buffalo chicken dip. I modified the recipe a bit, forgot about the vinegar, and used feta cheese instead of blue (gross!). It turned out pretty good, but i think i went a little too heavy handed on the hot sauce! We have lots leftover, so I used a bunch of my fresh chicken stock to make potato soup, into which we mixed spoonfulls of the leftover buffalo chicken dip for a spicy chicken & cheese potato soup. Was pretty tasty! More for dinner tonight... and probably every night for the rest of the week, haha.

I also made chocolate cookies! They were delicious! But we already ate them all.

Whatever it is I think I see...

2010-02-05T13:48:00.000-05:00

Lollipop, lollipop, oooo, Lolli-lollipop! How many licks does it take to reach the center of a tootsie pop? not very many when you're eating one of these mini ones, i can tell you that much.

One of my coworkers was selling chocolate bars for his son's school for a dollar this morning. After lunch, i dug out a dollar, getting pretty excited about getting a chocolate bar, only to find out the chocolate bars had already gone home to start their weekend! Boooo! most people in my office are on a 4.5 day week, so i'm pretty much the only one here right now. And chocolate-less. Until i remembered my mini toostie roll pops! Phew!!

Tootsie roll, tootsie roll chocolatey chew...tootsie roll i think i'm in love with you! (I just looked up the first half of that lyric, and what a let down. They couldn't come up with anything better than "tootsie roll tootsie roll chocolatey chew?")

punxsutawny THIS!

2010-02-04T10:28:00.000-05:00

Winter is ending! Major snow storm this weekend? Who cares! When i walked to work this morning, i got sun on me! Yippeee!

It can keep snowing, i like snow. But mostly i like sunshine. Sunshine + snow = even brighter sunshine!

Whenever I see pictures of groundhogs (did you know that last year Staten Island Chuck bit Mayor Bloomberg?!) they remind me of the gopher in winnie the pooh. I wouldn't trust him to tell me when spring is coming... all he's good at is digging holes, falling down them, whistling, and using dynamite, while pooh eats honey.

Speaking of honey, there's a rumbly in my tumbly....

Shake shake shake

2010-02-02T10:52:00.000-05:00

I'm trying to make myself like soymilk. I'm addicted to yogurt and cheese, but lactaid pills are kind of expensive and i'm trying to learn to like soymilk for things like coffee and cereal. For my belly, i've been trying to avoid caffeine, but sometimes i get a giant craving for a sweet beverage. So imagine my delight when i found a packet of carnation instant breakfast in my desk drawer this morning, next to the rice krispies! (well, rice krispie wannabees, puffed brown rice, blegh). So, off to the kitchen i went, to mix up a chocolate soy instant breakfast. GIANT FAILURE! A. Nothing to shake with, B. Tasted really gross, and lumpy.

Maybe carnation instant breakfasts are a bad idea to begin with, aren't they full of chemicals? Chemical vitamins... but chemicals nonetheless.

I've been wondering lately if i should give my body a "clense", like go vegan for a week, see if i can survive, and see if i feel healthier. But let's be realistic, i can't go vegan. Or even vegetarian, i love me some cheeseburgers.

So instead, maybe i should focus on ridding my life of one terrible food... but what food? What food can i eliminate from my diet, with the biggest health impact? Processed meat? White flour? Cookies? (Forget it!) What's the worst food out there? Probably hot dogs. They taste pretty good sometimes though... but maybe i could give up processed meat... no cold cuts, no hot dogs, no sausage? What do you think? Are there any decent hot dogs substitutions out there? Maybe a hot dog roll with some roast pork, saurkraut, and mustard would work... what about kielbasa? Any substitutes for that? Would fresh sausage from the butcher (or butcher department) be allowed?

PS - Why do vegans think that fake chicken patties are healthier than real chicken patties? Are they really? I can't see how fake food could ever be more healthy than real food...

First times

2010-01-28T20:48:00.000-05:00

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!

2010-01-28T09:48:00.001-05:00

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...

2010-01-26T10:48:00.000-05:00

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

2010-01-21T11:07:00.001-05:00

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!

2010-01-19T12:54:00.000-05:00

These are delicious.

And a relatively healthy sweet tooth solution.

I just wanted to share.

2010-01-18T15:05:00.001-05:00

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!

2010-01-18T09:45:00.001-05:00

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

2010-01-15T10:13:00.000-05:00

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!

2010-01-11T11:05:00.000-05:00

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...

2010-01-08T11:18:00.000-05:00

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).