Recipe Reviews

So I made the first three recipes. The Spicy Cauliflower Stew turned out deliciously. The goat cheese gave it a great flavor. The second one didn't turn out as well. I used fat free milk instead of 1%, and so my creamy sauce didn't thicken the way it should have. Tonight I made the Vegetable Pie, and I had the same problem. I used less milk 'cause I thought that would help with the thickening, and it looked very promising until I baked it. The sauce got really thin during baking and lost all resemblance to the picture. It just looked watery. No creaminess. Next time I'll be sure to get 1%. I guess chemistry requires a little fat.

Now I'm making chocolate chip cookies. They never let me down. I've got that recipe down pat.

Tomorrow I'm going to a Pre-Thanksgiving Dinner hosted by some girls from work, and I'm making a butternut squash apple casserole. I hope it will be good. If not, I'll ply them with the cookies to distract them.

Recipes On Tap

Here are the four recipes that I'll be making this week (I figure since I cook for one I'll get two to three meals out of each dish):

1) Spicy Cauliflower Stew With Spinach - features carrots, cauliflower, red potatoes and spinach (from Time Life's Great Taste Low Fat Vegetables Cookbook). Flavored with garlic, dijon mustard, goat cheese, and yogurt.

2) Pasta With Vegetables In A Creamy Cheese Sauce - features scallions, bell peppers, cauliflower, and rotini (from Time Life's Great Taste Low Fat Vegetables Cookbook). Flavored with salt, pepper, cayenne pepper, and Cheddar and Parmesan cheeses.

3) Vegetable Pie - features potatoes, rutabaga, parsnips, mushrooms, pearl onions, carrots, and green beans (from Time Life's Great Taste Low Fat Vegetables recipe). Flavored with garlic, salt, black pepper, milk, sage, and Parmesan cheese.

4) Spicy Kale With Baked Salmon - features kale and onions flavored with vinegar and red pepper flakes (from Moosewood Restaurant Cooks At Home). The salmon isn't from a recipe book (just my brain) so I'll probably just cook with olive oil and some 21 Spice from Trader Joe's.

So I'm pretty excited about making these delicious and nutritious meals! I hope that they turn out well.

Saturday

This morning I woke up at 8 and got to work cleaning the treehouse. Not quite as thorough as I'd hoped since I didn't have any dust-type cleaning product. But I dusted. I swept. I vacuumed. I moved my bed to make more room in the living area. I rearranged the rug about three different times. I'm 98% sure that it looks way more spacious now! I put away clutter. I hate clutter. I live in one room, clutter makes it seem even smaller.

Then I went to the Produce Place to pick up all of the produce on the list for the recipes I'm going to try. Stopped by Border's to pick up this month's book club selection, "Moneyball" by Michael Lewis. Then I went to Trader Joe's to get everything else on my list. I had to ask the guy at Trader Joe's what parsnips look like (I'd imagined small onions). They didn't have any. So I stopped by Harris Teeter to get the three things I was missing: parsnips, rutabaga, and ground mustard. At Harris Teeter someone helped me find rutabaga (was way off on what that one looked like as well). I spent a total of $134 on my groceries (which was $16 short of my budget! Yea!).

I stopped by a garage sale on my way home in search of a butter dish, but I didn't find one. I love putting away my groceries. It makes me feel like a successful grown up to have a full refrigerator and cupboards. Unfortunately I have a somewhat smaller than average fridge, so putting groceries up sometimes becomes a test of endurance.

But. After that. I made my first batch of banana muffins. They are currently cooling. They smell amazing. I was planning to go out to Smyrna this afternoon to see "Life As We Know It" (which I heard was pretty cute in a chick flick kind of way), but my date cancelled. Instead, I think I'm going to settle in with a banana muffin and disc 2 (season 1) of Nurse Jackie.

We might go to the dog park later. The evening is wide open! I love a lazy Saturday almost as much as I love a lazy Sunday.

Changes Good

So. How does one go about making positive changes in her life? Changes that she recognizes need to be made. Changes that she's been contemplating time and again. But bad habits are hard to break. And while I can very clearly see what changes I need to be making, I never seem to be able to stick with things. For me, it's money and health. I've already addressed my gradual weight gain in a previous post, so I don't want to gripe too much. The difference between the self of my now and the self of my youth is that I know what I'm doing wrong and I know what I need to do to fix it. Really my goal is not to focus solely on calorie counts and expenditures, but rather to make healthy changes in my life and then to see the results in the way my jeans fit.

So how do people resolve to make changes and then actually stick with them? If I did it once, I can do it again.

Ch-ch-changes:

1. Stop using my credit card and start paying it off. The balance just keeps going up. I have to be firm with myself and just say no. And learn to budget better.

2. Exercise more. And in different ways. There's no excuse for this one. It gets harder for me once it gets dark and cold, but I need to suck it up and do it. Especially when I know that it actually makes me feel good. The dog is not an excuse to not go to the Y!

3. Prepare and eat nutritious meals at home. I really want to start eating more whole foods and to expand my cooking abilities. I've been wanting to do this for a few months (since I read The Omnivore's Dilemma), but I basically haven't had enough money left over to try the new recipes that I've bookmarked.

I also need to drink less beer. But I might be condemning myself to failure if I try this during the holidays. So, we'll see about that one.

Anyway, there you have it. Probably the same three things that every girl aims to change every month or two. But maybe now that I've written it down it will make me hold myself accountable?

God Is Great

Beer is good. And people are crazy.

Common Sense

Maybe don't listen to Taylor Swift's new album on a day that you're already full up with longing and pathetic when you know that she channels your 15-year-old-whiny-baby-overly-romantic-heart.

Just an fyi.

Goo

I had this epiphany a year or two ago when I dropped a bit of weight that health and fitness are an uphill battle. You eat well, you get your work out in, and you feel great about it. Then you realize that you have to do it all over again tomorrow, and the next day, and the next day, and the day after that, forever and on into eternity. You never get to just sit back and hand it to yourself for the job well done and leave it be. Otherwise, all that effort will slowly dissolve back into your thighs.

Which brings me about to where I am right now. Somehow, my break-up caused me to gain weight rather than lose it. I blame it on all of the cheese and crackers I enjoyed during my first winter in the tree-house. And too much snacking at work and not enough exercise.

I've been trying to get back on track all summer (some of last year's jeans are too snug to wear!), but life always seems to get in the way. Hanging out with the girls or watching the game with the boys or working overtime instead of walking the dog. How does one balance her social agenda with her health goals and her budget? How can we ever be happy with our bodies without spending every iota focused on attaining what we want? And why am I so certain that being thinner will solve anything? I certainly wasn't happier last year, when I weighed five fewer pounds than I do now.

Ho hum. Nothing to do but plod along. Day after day. In search of balance. And fitting into last year's jeans.