New Blog Idea

I think I should start a new blog. I could call it "Things I Love to Eat that Make Me the Fatass I Am." I could have a one line post every day.

Today I think I would post something involving pumpkin. Perhaps a Pumpkin Pie Blizzard. Mmmmmmm.

So Polite

Look at these guys as they wait politely for their snacks.

My husband was just as polite as he waited for his snacks.

I made fresh berry pancakes in honor of the holiday weekend and having today off! They were delicious.

Mac'n'Cheese

Yeah. I think mac'n'cheese qualifies as my favorite food. Maybe ever. Seriously. In high school, I even went through a phase where I ate it for breakfast. When I was a kid, you couldn't get me away from the boxed stuff. Homemade just wasn't going to work for me. Nowadays though, I'm all about the gourmet variety. In fact, I make a killer mac with smoked Gouda.

So, when I heard that there was a new place opening up that would just be serving mac'n'cheese, I knew I had to go there. I became Cheese-ology's fan on Facebook and began watching of news of their opening. Today was that day, and, I'm embarrassed to say, I was the first customer through the door. I went with my friend Joline, and the food was great! Here's the menu.


We decided to stick with the standard choices. Joline got the Classic and I got the Four Cheese. I was the clear winner in the menu battle. Her dish was good, but mine was much better. The goat cheese really added a nice tang to the whole thing. Plus it had long stringy pieces of real cheese in it. Her's was more creamy and the American cheese made it very mild.

Notice that you get your food in a real, cast iron skillet. It makes for a nice crunchy layer at the edges. I asked for breadcrumbs, but they forgot them. Oh well. Anyway, I ordered a large because the small was going to be too small for me, but I knew the large was too big. (I ate it all anyway though.) Overall, I'd give my dish an 8.5 out of 10. If you know me, this is a very solid grade. In terms of mac'n'cheese, I'd give it a 9 out of 10. I think it would have been perfect with breadcrumbs and curly noodles instead of elbows.

Now, like I said, today was opening day. If you've ever worked in restaurants, you know that this means that things are guaranteed to be a little bumpy. First of all, the girl at the front was still learning how to use the register. She also didn't have a pen for CC receipts. Ooops. Then, the food quite honestly took quite a while to come out. Because they make each dish individually, they put all the pasta and toppings in the skillet then run it through one of those conveyor belt ovens like at Quizno's.

Our food took about 10-12 minutes to come out. So less time than at a sit down place, but not what I would call fast. It looked like they did do call in orders to go though, so you could probably call ahead to pick up if you were in a hurry.

I suspect that things will run more smoothly as they stay in business longer. It's also probably good that they opened on a Tuesday so they can work through some kinks before the weekend. I'll be back, but I'll probably wait a little while for them to hammer out some details.

Summer Food

Anyone else love summer food? Man, if I could eat like this all year, I would be so happy. Well, maybe not. I do love my winter squashes (butternut, acorn, pumpkin.) Anyway, right now I am obsessed with yogurt and fresh fruit. I used to think I hated pineapple because I only ever ate the stuff in a can. Fresh is a totally different story though! So good! I hate cutting up whole pineapples though, and buying the stuff that's already chopped up is kind of pricey. I'll enjoy it as a treat though.

Mix that with some blueberries, blackberries, and strawberries. Yum!

I also tried a new flavor of yogurt today. I never buy the original stuff, but I had to try a couple new flavors.

Cherry Pomegranate. OMG! It's incredible. Next up are Blueberry Acai and Red Velvet Cake.



My goal for this summer though is to check out one or two of our local Farmer's Markets. Maybe I can get some more great produce for a little less than I'm paying at the grocery store. I'm also thinking about getting a Costco membership. My mom gets great deals on fruit there.

Christmas (Pt. 2)

OK, so that was the tree and the living room rearrangement. Next I have to confess that my favorite part of holiday decorating is wrapping the presents. That's right, I consider wrapping part of the decorating, and I think I'm pretty good at it. DH is totally perplexed by this quirk, but there you have it. So here are some of my pretty packages.





This year I did all of them in red, silver, and gold. I think they turned out great. I'm not big on themed trees, and I love having all of our memorable ornaments, so the matching packages are even cooler to me. Plus I haven't bought new paper in years, and I was getting tired of what I had. Thank you Garden Ridge for your great prices on paper and ribbon!

The dining room table also got the star treatment. It was a red and white year there too.



The candles acted as our Advent wreath.

Finally, I love to make a big, special dinner on Christmas Eve. In accordance with the red and white theme, I got a cute bowl and fun Christmas plates from Crate and Barrel.



This year we had lamb, a green salad with craisins, feta, and walnuts, and a rice pilaf. It was yummy!

Finally, here are a couple Christmas photos of the family. Unfortunately we couldn't get all the "kids" together, so here are two pairs.

"Silent Night"


This one was our Christmas card. Doc, the old dog, looks so excited!


I hope you all have a wonderful holiday.

Summer's Bounty

I love food in the summer. This year I have been working hard to eat healthy, and it is so much easier in the summer when the food is so amazing. So, without further ado, a glimpse of a few things we've enjoyed in the past month.

That is the fruit salad I made for the Fourth of July. It had pineapple, blueberries, strawberries, and raspberries. We had Cool Whip on the side, but I ate it plain. Mmmmm. It didn't need any extra sugar because the fruit was so perfect. (Isn't the tablecloth cute? I got it on sale at Target on the Fourth.)

Also for the Fourth we had white wine spritzers. While it wasn't necessarily fresh produce, spritzers are such a nice treat in the summer. It also cuts the calories drastically since it is 1/2 wine and 1/2 club soda with fresh citrus.

We had this last week. The tomatoes and basil were both from our garden. OMG. This was so amazing! DH was unsure when I said what I was going to make, but he just tasted a little of it and he was sold. It only needed the slightest bit of balsalmic because the tomatoes and basil were just divine.

Confession

I don't naturally like fruit. I am just not a sweets person, and this includes fruit. If given the choice, I will always pick salty type foods. However, I'm really trying to lose weight, and fruit is a reasonable snack in terms of calories. Why don't I like fruit? Here are a few reasons.

1. Fruit is sweet.
2. Most fruit is messy. I hate the feeling of apple juice on my hands, face, etc.
3. I am not good at picking good pieces of fruit.
4. What do you do with the extra bits (banana peels, apple cores, etc.)?

Buuuuut, in my effort to be healthy, I have been trying new stuff. So far I like nectarines, purple grapes, Fuji apples, bananas, and clementines, and DH says I would like white peaches. I tried mangos, but they weren't very good. I already know I don't like pears or regular peaches. Those both have textures that really bug me.

Is there any fruit that you particularly love? What do you do with your fruit trash? This is especially a problem for me because I often eat in the car. Yes, I know I'm bizarre for not eating fruit. I eat all kind of other crazy stuff, but fruit just has never interested me.

PS Ice cream is fabulous though. That is about my only sweets exception.

Serious Thoughts

I usually scoff at the idea of "food addiction" and other trendy terms to describe people's excuses for being overweight. The whole idea of being a food addict seemed absurd to me. Maybe you can be addicted to french fries or something, but food? How could you possibly be addicted to something you NEED to survive. Well, understanding and self-evaluation has always come to me in strange forms. I'm sitting here, watching BBC America before I go to work. You Are What You Eat is on right now. The ladies just asked the girl where her breakfasts and lunches were. She told them that she usually only eats dinners because she does not want people to think she's just another fat girl eating. Wow. Sounds absurd right? But I am that girl!

I rarely eat at the barn, especially if my boss/trainer is there. I know how pissed she is that I'm big, so I feel like I absolutely cannot allow her to see me put anything in my mouth ever. If I do need some sort of caloric intake to keep myself from collapsing, I'll have a skim milk coffee or a sugar free jello. Same thing when my husband and I go out. All I can think is that everyone must be staring at me and judging how awful it is that this fat girl is eating. Isn't hiding the fact that you do something a bad sign? I know when I was purging, I didn't exactly share that around!

The next question of course is: how do I address the issue? Clearly I must eat. I need to eat healthy food that makes my body strong instead of junk. Finally, I need to convince myself that by changing my habits to focus on using food as fuel instead of punishments and rewards will only help get me the weight results I want.

So, if you actually read this, what do you think? Have you ever had these thoughts or feelings? How did you deal with them? Does it get easier? Man, I think I'm pretty screwed up sometimes.

How old am I again?

Yesterday was crazy. I mean crazy. I was at the farm all day. Things were nuts. They bought me a cake because I had won an award for my riding, so I had a piece of cake for breakfast. It was a small piece, but nevertheless, it was a piece of cake. Then I took a potty break at about 11:00. I had another piece of cake and a couple kisses. By this point in the day I had been on my feet for four and a half hours and all I had eaten was two pieces of cake, two kisses, and about four cups of coffee. Yum. Around 3:30, I had one last small piece. As I got off work at 5:30, I looked at the day and realized my food intake was three pieces of cake, about six kisses, and six cups of coffee. No wonder my stomach felt like it was eating itself!

I went home to make tuna steaks with squash and mushrooms. Alas, I fell asleep before it finished cooking.

So yes, yesterday, I ate like a six year old. Only consuming cake and candy. I think I still came in under 1500 calories, but I don't think that is what nutritionists had in mind when they set those numbers. :P

Today I'm going to the circus. No really! My friend got a box for a bunch of us to go see Cirque du Soleil - Saltimbanco. I can be a kid for another whole day!