That's what friends are for...

No pictures or food tonight...

So I was feeling a little down this evenning (we all have hard days, right?), and I talked to my best friend for a while on the phone, then decided I'd go home and mope on the couch while eating my weight in non-dairy chocolate. But just like any best friend would do, Michelle sensed that I needed a good friend, so she called me back and convinced me to get out of my pajamas (yes, it wasn't even 5pm and I was already in jammies) and meet her at Q'doba.

I protested and whined, but I went. We talked and laughed, and had our usually good time catching up, so I of course felt better by the time I got home. It really warms my heart to have a friend like Michelle. Thanks for helping me out of my doldrums.

Just a minute or two ago another friend, Meghan, who lives way too far away from me now, messaged me to say hi for a few minutes. Maybe God just knows when we need a little extra loving :)

So...thank you to all my friends and family out there. You are wonderful, and I love you a lot!! And, thanks for the reminder tonight that I am a very blessed woman.

Oh - and thanks be to God for inventing Q'doba - it is only He who could make the food there taste so heavenly....hehe

A Week in Review...

Well this has certainly been an interesting, and long week. From good intentions to peanut butter cup meals, and channel surfing to going out I feel like I'm really starting to get the hang of this independence thing. So far...



So, Sunday night came, and I had no grocery shopping done, but still had a fridge full of unused veggies that were going to go bad soon after my failed attempt at being a "superhero". I hate waste. So the challenge of the night was to take this counter full of veggies and to make something great with it...

Ta Da!!! Okay, so it looks gross, but its my Mighty Miso soup. It was supposed to be 4 cups, but ended up at about 10 after I filled it with all the veggies. Started with wakame (most all miso soup recipes has this sea veggie in it, so if you've eaten miso, you've eaten seaweed), then it all gets fuzzy from there. Here is what I think went in it: onions, carrots, daikon, leeks, kale, collards, and udon noodles. I think there was more than that, but its all I can remember. A little nervous, I took my first bite and...AWESOME. I think that this is my favorite miso so far :)

But after making probably the healthiest soup in the world, disaster struck!! I'm not sure what happened to me, but for most of the week my breakfast became home made peanut butter cups and twizzler nibs, and diet mountain dew. I feel like they should kick me out of the American Dietetic Association. Not sure what was up with that?! Plus it was fountain soda, which means I was using lots of styrofoam which is really bad for the environment. Sorry world. I pledge to do better next week!! I think I need to go write on the chalk board 100 times peanut butter cups and Twizzlers do not a breakfast make.

Then Monday was Lucy's second graduation from obedience school. The trainers had joked about me dressing her up last week, so of course I had to play along and get this lovely ballerina skirt for my little girl. Isn't she ADORABLE?!

Then around Wednesday I had an epiphany....

I was laying on the couch watching TV as usual and bored out of my mind. And it occured to me. I'm a grown ass woman!!! I don't have to stay in on "school" (work) nights. If I want to go out and do something fun, I can. I don't HAVE to go to bed "on time". Okay, so I know that this is pretty obvious, but in my...let's just say, in my past life this was not an option really. But this is my new life. This is MY CRAZY NEW HIPPY LIFE, and I can make it what I want. So anyway, I finally called up one of my best friends, Jayme, and made plans to finally start going out and hanging out.

Thursday night, my stellar cousins, Shelby and Savannah, came over for a movie night. I love those girls - they are so awesome. Shelby just graduated high school, and is going to UMSL next year on a dance scholarship - how cool is that?!!

So last night, she and I went to a pre-openning of a cool bar in Soulard and hung out on the patio. We had a good time and it was a beautiful night. Today, I went with her to a pool party in Creve Couer. Below is a picture of us when we got there. Unfortunately it started raining pretty quickly after we got there, but we still had a good time, and I got to meet some very fun new people.

The End.

My new FAVORITE pizza!

The weekend started out PERFECT. A co-worker and friend of my, Kris J, decided to head to Pi (think the Pi sign) to eat some pizza. Pizza? You ask. But you can’t have pizza!! Oooh, yes I can!! Pi has many, many options. Their thin crust dough happens to be vegan. To top it off they have sauce (of course), any kind of topping you could think of and one of my new favorite things in the world - daiya cheese (http://www.daiyafoods.com/ ). I don’t really like vegan cheese. It kind of tastes weird. But I think I like daiya cheese more than I like Imo’s cheese. I know that is blasphemous to any true St. Louisan, but it is REALLY GOOD. So I got the vegan pizza with spinach and zucchini, which sounds weird, but was actually really good. My dad called it the vegetarian Canadian bacon and pepperoni.

Anyway, Kris and I had a ton of fun solving the world’s problems, chowing down and having a drink. Thanks for a fun Friday!!

Another cool thing about Pi is that back in the election year, Obama fell in love with it as well. He actually liked this St. Louis restaurant’s version of Chicago pizza more than the pizza from his hometown of Chicago. So, the Pi guys were flown to the White House to prepare some pizzas in DC. Pretty cool, huh?? Here is Pi’s website, and I think it has an article or two about this visit on the website as well. http://restaurantpi.com/

Please consider trying Pi. It REALLY is that good!!!

BTW, I forgot my camera, so I only got a picture of my pizza on my iphone. I guess you will have to go there yourself to see the pizza. Please invite me when you go!

Mochi

Mochi is a crazy weird food that is so cool that I recommend everyone make it sometime. Its basically brown sweet rice all mushed together. You buy it in these hard, then blocks and then cut it to meet your needs. This is the stuff I made waffles with on my first day of the experiment. So its in these dense blocks and then when you start cooking it, it starts puffing up. Its Craziness! (and tastes pretty good too!) Here was my attempt at fried mochi for breakfast (not really "fried" - only has 2 tsp oil)...



This is how the mochi starts out. Just little dense blocks....

This is a picture of the picture from The Kind Life of what it was supposed to look like. Cool, right?

These are what mine looked like...not quite the same, but I'm willing to bet that they were just as good. I drizzled them with maple syrup...this is a good weekend breakfast indulgence. Yum yum!!

Try mochi - you will be amazed too!!!

More Superhero Pictures

Here are some more pictures from Superhero week:


Okay, so this was just Miso from the packet. Miso soup is awesome...this is good in a rush, but when I have time, I make it homemade.

This was the beginning of the end. These were peanut butter rice crispy treats with chocolate chips. FABULOUS! Gooey, sticky, and wonderful. I think I ate too many of these, and it kind of made my belly hurt. Still SO good!! Took them to work and people liked them too.

This was polenta and corn cereal. Never had polenta before, and it didn't look very good, but was actually really really tasty. I love hot cereal in the morning and I have a lot of great hot cereal recipes now, thanks to these recipes! Yum Yum.

This was supposed to be steamed watercress with that Ume-Sesame dressing, but I didn't have enough watercress so I added some spinach as well. That dressing is way too good!!

This is (although a little hard to see) going to be a regular for me. This was fried udon noodles. Onion, cabbage, paprika, and udon - simple, quick, and really flavorful. A combination I would have never thought of, but I REALLY liked it!!

All of these recipes came from the Superhero recipes in The Kind Life, but after day 3, I started switching the order of things around based on time constraints, and being so full from yummy food all the time.

Not a Superhero...

Superhero Experiment Grade = Incomplete

Well after eating peanut butter and bananas wrapped in tortillas, and hemp ice cream, I think its safe to say that the Superhero experiment officially stopped with day five. Now I still have lots of veggies in the fridge and I will do my best to not let anything go to waste - I hate waste!

So I guess I'm not a superhero...just the regular kind. Life happens I guess.

I did learn some good things though.

1. I was able to try lots of foods that I would have never thought of putting in my mouth that were both good for me and DELISH! I eat seaweed, and that's just weird, but I liked it. I fried something for the first time (even though I'm not sure that this is a good accomplishment for an RD). I liked almost every meal that I had, and while I will try variations, in just 4 days I was able to find countless combinations of foods.

2. Cooking from scratch can be time consuming. This was the hardest part of the experiment. I, like many others, don't have the time or energy to cook full meals daily. However, I think I am fully capable of making a plan for myself to cook a couple days of the week and have healthy leftovers for the other meals. Daily, I hear single men (at work - I don't just go around interviewing random men) tell me that they can't eat better because they think its a waste to just cook for themselves. That's a crock! A) You can make any recipe work for one person, or at least you could freeze leftovers so you have something on the days that you don't want to cook. B) I 100% believe that your health is in YOUR hands. As a society, we watch countless hours of TV, spend lots of money on cable and phones and cigarettes, but when it comes to ourselves and what we put into our bodies suddenly its just too time consuming. Taking care of yourself is YOUR responsibility whether you live by yourself or in a family of 10. Which brings me to...

3. Although many gobs of people will disagree, including some fellow RDs, you can eat healthy on a budget. This experiment used some weird/specialty ingredients, which caused my bill to go up. But even a vegan who relies mainly on grains, veggies, and fruit can eat VERY inexpensively. With about 30 bucks, I have enough grains and beans in my pantry to last me 2-3 months. Since those things are so cheap, I can spend my money on fruits and vegetables (local, seasonal are great options this time of the year to get on the cheap, and frozen and canned are good options as well). Again, we spend our money on beer, cigarettes, cable, cell phones, but we can't spend money on food that will nourish our bodies and keep us healthy? I think our priorities are really messed up in this country. I'll leave it at that.

4. My body feels its best when I feed it with good, plant-based whole foods. Most of you know about my never ending belly issues (and if you don't, consider yourself lucky...hehe), but since becoming vegan, I really have had minimal problems. yippee! Even eating the fried dish I made this week, I didn't feel icky like I usually do if I eat fried foods. When I eat a good balanced diet, I don't crave sweets, and other junk foods. I feel more content, and I am able to listen to my body's hunger/satiety cues much better. And finally...

5. Even though I didn't make it through a whole week of being a superhero, I am continuing to learn that life is not about being perfect. Today, I needed some peanut butter banana to keep my sanity. But, I can already feel myself craving some veggies, so you better believe I'll eat a bunch tomorrow. I struggle with it, but I keep trying to learn this balance thing.

So, looking ahead to what will likely be a difficult week for me, I will be armed with some good-for-me leftover veggies, and another lesson in this balancing act. Hopefully I will be kinder to myself if I have a hard day, and push myself to try new things when I can.

Superhero Experiment was a success afterall. (by the way, I have a few more pictures to share in the next few days of the rest of the food I made - I am very intrigued by mochi!)

New Additions!

Okay followers - all 5 of you!! hehe - be excited. I've added some AMAZING additions to the blog. On the top right corner you will see a funny cat picture. Yes - that's right, funny cat pictures. I know you are excited.

Next, at the very bottom, you will be greeted each day by a Mr. T quote. This addition might bring my followers list up to a million or so. Let's face it, I pity the fool that doesn't like Mr. T.

Finally (and this one is more serious), I added a function at the bottom of the page that shows in season produce for Missouri each month. You can use the drop down boxes to find seasonal produce in your state. Please think about supporting your community and local farmers by buying in season, local produce.

Enjoy my new and improved blog, and try not to get fired from looking at it so much.