Booya Folks!
Week six was smooth as silk, and ingredient-confusion-free! I am now more than ten percent through this, and have only consumed three things which I was unsure about (besides cigarettes). I feel great!
While I’m going to be honest and admit that there are things that I really, really want to eat (we got some beautiful looking cookies in at work yesterday, and those peanut butter cups are still haunting me wherever I go), it is getting much much easier to say “no”. Actually, I say “I can’t. I couldn’t tell you what’s in it”. I find that this response usually gets a confuddled look, followed by a great opportunity for me to gab someone’s ear off about this whole adventure, and to get their perspective on food, what they believe it means to eat healthy, and sometimes a good recipe or interesting food story.
It was a similar situation at work a couple of days ago when a customer ordered something because it was his “only option”.
I said “I know how you feel, I’m pretty much only allowed the apples or the oatmeal because…” and this sparked a conversation about food and trying to get healthy. This guy is about to start some kind of cleanse where he can’t eat sugars or grains of any kind, and has to give up a bunch of other stuff as well. I said that that sounded tough, and he explained that he and a group of friends often try out different food things. One month he went raw food. That to me sounds extreme. I would have to give up all meat (I don’t eat sashimi), baking, and hot anything, and that sounds like it would just make me miserable. It does sound interesting though, and I kind of hope that guy comes back in so I can find out what other crazy diets he’s tried, what tricks he uses to get around things (i.e. eating at restaurants), and what made him feel healthy versus what made him feel sluggish and ill.
There were no giant fancy meals cooked up this week, but I did make a pretty yummy dinner from the salmon and potatoes I picked up at the market, along with some asparagus (I used to hate that stuff, but it’s actually pretty yummy), broccoli and red peppers.
I also discovered that a brand called Simply Natural makes a pineapple salsa that I can eat! It contains tomato puree, green peppers, pineapple, tomatoes, sugar, white vinegar, pineapple juice, salt, garlic puree, jalapeno peppers, chopped onions, cumin, cilantro and crushed red pepper, all of which are organic (I realize that I should have typed “organic” before every ingredient, but there are only so many times you can read the word “organic” before you get tired of reading “organic” and forget what “organic” actually means – you would have read “organic” eight more times by the way). I also found some corn chips to eat it with! I do feel a little guilty about buying convenience food as I make a killer pineapple salsa on my own, which tastes better than this one, and is much fresher, but I am also lazy sometimes, and want the stuff out of a jar. It’s not like you cook yourself a three course meal every night or make ALL of your snacks from scratch either, so stop judging me.
This morning (maybe in an attempt to make up for the salsa from a jar) I re-attempted the granola bar. Who’d have thought these things can be so tricky! They are not as crumbly as the last ones, but still fall apart quite easily. They do have a nicer texture this time around though, chewier and sweeter. This is probably due to the fact that I threw in some honey, and a couple of generous spoonfuls of peanut butter. I also didn’t quite measure everything out, so there’s a possibility that there is more butter and more fruit/trail mix/coconut/holy crap like cereal in there too. Even when they are falling apart, this is a good grab and go kind of snack. Plus the last ones kept really well, and they take almost no time at all, so I can bake them once every week or week and a half and have them for lunches. As I am starting a new theatre contract on Monday and am pretty much expecting to be out of my house anywhere from 9 to 17 hours a day, six days a week, this is a good thing. Maybe next week I will even get them right..
I also threw together some more macaroons. I like coconut macaroons because they are sweet, because they are simple, because they are wheat free and are easily sharable with most people (vegans are pretty much out of luck with me because of my love of butter, and often usage of eggs), and because they look pretty darn cute. I like the little haystack looking domes when they get lightly browned. They are perfect with a cup of tea or coffee, you can make them any size you want, and they are just all around awesomeness. Yay Macaroons!
This was also my third week with my new milk. I’m not sure if it’s just an odd week, or what the deal is here, but I flew through the last litre like crazy. In fact, Thursday I had to go buy a bottle of Avalon because I was almost out of the good stuff. Maybe it’s time to up my dosage to 2 litres a week.. we’ll see what happens next week.
Today also marks two weeks of not smoking. Take that nicotine!! I feel good. My brain is returning to normal, and there are only a few times a day that I am missing it. I find that it’s hard to get out of bed in the morning, because my old habit was to grab a smoke, take a pee and curl up on the fire escape and plan my day while inhaling clouds of chemicals. Now I wake up, think about smoking, realize I don’t smoke anymore and spend way too long avoiding crawling out of bed so I don’t feel like I’m missing out. This is silly of course, because once I’m up, I’m fine. But the first 5 – 25 minutes of my day are a little rough. Then there is leaving my house. I have fought this one by eating a piece of fruit or half of my breakfast after I leave the house. Similarly, I make sure I have something to eat or drink when I leave work. The only other time I feel a little antsy is when I get off the bus, but even that is getting better with time.
One of the huge benefits of not smoking anymore is watching the jar of money on my dresser slowly fill up. I decided when I stopped that I would put six dollars a day into the jar (money that would have gone to smoking), and put it towards something or a bunch of things for myself. Last time I stopped I didn’t do this, and the money that I had once put towards smokes seemed to be absorbed by every day things. This time I can see how much I am saving. I also know that when I do buy something, I will think to myself every time I use it “If I still smoked, I wouldn’t have been able to afford this knife/juicer/skydiving adventure/ driving lesson/ espresso machine”. This will hopefully inspire me to keep putting that money away and keep getting better and better things, like a trip to somewhere hot and sunny, a time machine, a freeze ray, a meat grinder, a mansion on a private island, and world peace. Win! I am thinking as a 2 week smoke free celebration that I will spend some of that this weekend. My rules for spending it are simple. It has to be on either an item that I wouldn’t have bought otherwise, or a memorable adventure. No using it for a coffee, or a movie, or groceries. It has to be a treat. I am thinking that this is the week for either a knife, or for a crock pot. Crock pots are on sale at London Drugs, and would make my next four weeks of working too much a lot easier.
As far as next week goes, I will be busy and it will be an excercise in lunch making. I will also be trying out a new recipe for broccoli cookies. Yes, cookies with broccoli in them.
Eat Write Play 