Whole grains are delicious.

I’m having an RA flare, and while it’s relatively mild, I’m still finding it quite annoying because it’s all spread out - left knee, right hip, left hand, and jaw. Fun times all around, basically. So, no kickboxing for me, but I did hit the gym after work to do some cardio and weights. I’m always really proud of myself when I manage to exercise through pain - as long as it’s not excruciating, it really helps.

But enough self-congratulation. Wait, no. I’m not done. This meal was really delicious, too:

I’m going mostly meatless this week, just because meat is expensive and I didn’t want to buy any before we go on vacation. Good thing, too, because I took some WebMD diet assessment today and it was all DANGER, WILL ROBINSON! TOO. MUCH. PROTEIN.

So the main course (top right corner) was a delightful barley and walnut salad. It was inspired by a recipe from Food and Wine, with some major modifications. I’m more of a Cooking Light kind of girl, so I was a little appalled by the fact that the recipe called for 1/3 cup of olive oil. Just the idea of that makes me feel kind of sickly. Anyway, it’s barley, a few toasted walnuts, some spinach that I threw in with the barley at the last minute, a nice lemon vinaigrette, and some feta.

Close up:

I also roasted some veggies to have on the side, because I wanted to take advantage of the fact that it was only 78 degrees.

Now I’m off to clean and read and stress out over whether or not I can make it to the gym in the morning.

I have five minutes.

I know it doesn’t seem like it, but sometimes I do put a lot of thought into this blog.

Well, maybe not thought. But definitely time.

Not tonight. I have to post, set up the coffee pot, make muesli, eat some soy ice cream, peel some carrots, get my gym bag ready, and take a shower, all in the next 12 minutes. No problem, right?

I’m doing this because, for the first time in a month, I’m going to really make the effort to actually go to the gym tomorrow morning. Which means getting up at 4:50. NO PROBLEM. REALLY. It’s good training for Thursday when I will stay up almost that late to see Dark Knight the SECOND it opens.

I made it back to kickboxing, so my toe is back to normal. I also did another abs class, which kind of felt like I set my torso on fire on purpose. But whatever, it means I’m tough enough to get back to my morning gym routine.

I’m trying to stretch our food and our dollars this week, so I rummaged around in the freezer this morning until I found some ground turkey, which I thawed for turkey burgers. With them, as usual, we had sweet potato fries. And some roasted broccoli since the oven was at an obscenely high temperature anyway.

My turkey burger was kind of little, but that’s really probably because that bun (one of those Ezekiel buns) was massive. And delicious.

Six minutes! Okay GO.

Cheap and easy

I think tonight’s dinner cost me approximately -2 cents. Nice, right?

Here’s my version of Heidi Swanson’s Lemon-Scented Quinoa. I just had quinoa on Saturday but I can’t help that I crave grains that are not really grains.

I was going to make something more complicated but I had a bad day and I decided I could have WHATEVER I WANTED as a reward for making it through. And instead of pizza or brownies or something, I had quinoa. And chickpeas. Served with a delicious tahini-based dressing, some roasted broccoli, and brussels sprouts.

I hope my kids are more normal than this.

I’m not going to bother uploading the brussels sprouts picture because a) you’ve seen it before and b) WordPress is ON MY LIST of annoyances because it won’t upload my images.

Here’s what we had last night, which I didn’t post because I hate Sunday nights and I also got really involved in The Tudors again.

Spinach/apple/cheese paninis with homemade potato chips (more potato-y than chippy, sadly), and some fruit. I actually ate two of these sandwiches because I was hungry and they were amazingly good.

That reminds me that I want some cherries. I used all of the money that I saved on my cheap dinner to buy ridiculously overpriced cherries, which will be my financial downfall this summer. At least I know in advance.

My feet hurt so I’m going to stop typing with them.

No. Not really. But I wish.

Stress eating

Last night, I was in a great mood because I was elated by the outcome of Top Chef and the fact that Matt brought home cupcakes with sprinkles on the icing and then the tornado sirens went off again. we’d been in a watch all afternoon but apparently that’s normal for June, though I think “normal” is a complicated word in this context. It was an advance warning, so we had time to run to Donna’s so that we could take cover in her basement.

It was just like last week except that, this time, the tornado came through our town. This is the first time in 30 years? More than that? I don’t know. The first time in a long time, at any rate. We are safe, and our house and car are fine, but there’s damage everywhere. The tornado, which was more than 1/4 mile wide when it got here, touched down three times in town, including once on campus, where it caused more than 20 million dollars in damage. We weren’t able to work today, which was good because I’m in a fragile state of mind. I went to the gym a few hours ago and it was kind of surreal, like you’re driving and it looks like there was a really bad storm, branches everywhere, that kind of thing. And then suddenly it’s 10,000 times worse and you can actually see, in a very clear line, how the tornado moved through, taking off roofs and things like that. There’s metal everywhere, and insulation from houses, and trees and power lines down. It’s… I don’t know.

So I needed a comforting dinner. I also needed something filling because I did a “Rep Recycle” class at the gym which made me feel basically like a puke bucket should’ve been included on the list of equipment needed for the class, along with a step, two sets of weights, a mat, and a barbell. Seriously. That’s a lot of equipment. And I’m clumsy. So I needed this

I had a better picture but I accidentally deleted it and by that time things didn’t look very photogenic. Here’s a stuffed baked potato with some ground turkey breast, salsa, a little cheddar, and some sour cream. Kale chips and broccoli on the side. Multiply that serving by two because I went back to finish off the veggies.

I’m off to try to relax now.

Double dinner

Okay, not really. Not that I haven’t been known to indulge in a fourthmeal every now and again. Although, for me, it’s really more like eighthmeal. I eat a lot of meals.

Anyway, Matt and I have been wanting to try out our new grill pans (Thanks Mom and Dad and new Mom and Dad!), so Matt made portobello panini while I was on my way home from work. I wasn’t that hungry, because I’m on this new medicine that’s been making me feel sickly, so I just had this one and decided to wait until later for the rest of my meal.

Gorgonzola and sun dried tomatoes pressed between portobello halves. So, yeah. Delicious.

Then I ran to Target with Donna and suddenly it was 8 when I got home and I only had an hour before the Top Chef FINALE. We had a bunch of leftover portobello pieces, so I decided to marinate and roast those. I also needed some veggies, protein, and calories to round out my eating for the day, so I roasted some tomatoes (grape tomatoes - they’re safe), broccoli, and chickpeas along with the mushrooms. Then I really wanted couscous but the salad greens aren’t going to last much longer, so I compromised and had both. Look at this bounty:

Up close:

Roasted chickpeas are great. I think I’ll have some more in a few minutes. Oh, I also added some goat cheese. Because. It’s goat cheese.

Top Chef is on.

Boo, Lisa.

I can’t think of a title.

Today was kind of rough, so I’ll keep this short.

Dinner was pan-fried tempeh, bulgur pilaf, and roasted vegetables:

I’ve never roasted broccoli before. It was awesome. I’ve also never cooked tempeh before. I’ve eaten it, and one of my favorite Planet Sub sandwiches is the tempeh parmesan. I loved making it. I think I’m going to make it every single day for the rest of my life. This blog will now be called See Food (But Only Tempeh). Nice, right?

Here’s a close-up. It looks like I burned it, but that’s actually a soy sauce/rice vinegar coating type of thing. I hope.

Mmmmmmm. Grainy.

Anyway, now I’m struggling with my eternal question: Edy’s fruit bar or coffee ice cream?

Both?

Two great tastes that taste great together

Peanut butter and noodles are two of the greatest foods on earth. Tonight I finally took the plunge and married the two. Here’s a really unappetizing picture of soba noodles with chicken and vegetables in peanut sauce.

This was so good. Like, almost barley risotto levels of good. Sometimes I think back to the food I was eating when I was trying lose weight and it makes me want to cry a little bit. Lean Cuisines, ONE CUP of pasta, Special K, carrot sticks. I think I ruined carrot sticks for myself forever. And Special K. Actually, that stuff is good, especially the one with the dehydrated berries? Yeah, maybe I’ll pick some up.

Anyway, enough about me (AS IF!). This doesn’t look super but the peanut sauce was so good and it really made the recipe. It was just 2 tbsp of peanut butter, 2 tbsp hot water, whisked together. Then I added 2 tbsp of rice vinegar and just under 2 tbsp of soy sauce. That was for four servings (8oz of soba noodles and a pan of vegetables that actually overflowed). It went really nicely with the broccoli, green peppers (the recipe called for red, but these are hard times and we don’t have 1.89 to spend on a single red pepper), and bok choy. This was my first time preparing or eating bok choy, and I’m a fan. I was so excited to see it at the farmer’s market last week that I knew I needed to do something with it, stat.

See, Kansas farms are so much more than beef. And other cow things. They even have fancy chinese cabbage!

Okay, it’s almost 10 and that means it’s time for me to take a Benadryl and slip into sweet oblivion. Our bedroom was 89 degrees last night, so I’m really looking forward to that. Hey, people pay dozens of dollars for Bikram yoga classes, right? This is the basically the same thing. Just free.

Pit-za

I’m a little under the weather tonight, so I didn’t have the energy to make my usual gourmet fare (ha). I’ve been thinking about these pita pizzas since I saw them on Green Lite Bites. I crashed right after work and woke up wanting pizza, so this seemed perfect. Plus, the recipe met all of my criteria for the evening:

1. bread
2. cheese
3. five minutes or less
4. toaster oven-friendly

My version had tomato paste, chicken breast, peppers, basil, spinach, crushed red pepper, and reduced fat provolone. With broccoli on the side:

I don’t have much to say about this, except that it was good. I’m really posting it for my sister, because it’s a nice alternative to english muffin pizzas, which she and I both enjoy. The pita bread is more like pizza crust and didn’t get as soggy. It also holds up better under the weight of veggies than english muffins or tortillas or other not-pizza pizza bases.

I’m going back to sleep now. And by sleep, I mean, mindlessly watching Keeping Up With the Kardashians. It’s fascinating to see how the other half lives. Plus, we’re going to cancel cable soon and I need to get my fill of these sorts of things to remember fondly when I’m forced to do things like read books.

I’m learning some very important things

I’m fascinated by the “blog stats” feature on WordPress. Recently, people have gotten to my blog by searching for: “miss rap supreme,” “diablo cody,” “girl,” and “all my hair cut off.” Oh, and also “brussels.”

The lesson here is that I need to make more pop culture references in my posts so that people find them. I’ll try to be subtle in my blatant attempt to get more than 14 views a day.

Rob Lowe nanny scandal.

Dinner was fast and easy (unlike Rob Lowe’s legal battle with former nanny). Lemon/garlic/rosemary chicken with roasted potatoes and broccoli and cauliflower.

This is the kind of dinner I love to cook when I don’t feel well, because I spent about 2 minutes on it, total. The recipe for the chicken is from a Robin Miller cookbook, and all I did was season the chicken, dice some potatoes to roast with it, and put one of those steam-in-bag vegetable things in the microwave. The chicken and potatoes were good, but I couldn’t finish mine, so I had half of what you see here. I guess those smart chickens are intelligent enough to make themselves super hearty. The steamed vegetables were, well, vegetables steamed in a microwaveable bag. So, you know. Kind of bland.

After dinner, I finally made a Good Choice and had coffee for dessert. Instead of a slice of cake and two cookies, which was what I really wanted.

I ended up icing it because it’s like 900 degrees in our apartment. Which bodes really well for the summer.

I ended up having some peanut butter to complement this. I can’t be perfect ALL THE TIME.

And, now you all know that I completely lack pop culture knowledge because I can’t think of anything except that Rob Lowe thing, and that’s only because I randomly saw it scroll across a screen yesterday, and then my sister confirmed it for me.

I just asked Matt to help me, because he does a lot more reading of the internet at large than I do. Here’s how it went:

Me: What’s something pop cultural that I can reference?

Matt: Secret Invasion.

Me: That’s a comic. I mean, like, an event.

Matt: It’s an event comic. It’s the crossover event of the year. God.

So, okay, here’s my final attempt.

Secret Invasion spoilers.

Actually, I think I’m going to go hide stuff like “Suri Cruise” and “Jamie Lynn Spears” in my code. That’s pop culture, right? People still care about them

Sno’ boyz

Last night, I had one of those terrifying restaurant moments where there was a fourteen-way tie for what I wanted to order and the waitress was there waiting for me to decide and all I could think was “WHAT IF I CHOOSE THE WRONG ONE?” Although, honestly, everything I was considering came with tater tots as a side option, so it would’ve been hard to go wrong.

What I went with was some kind of chicken sandwich with pizza sauce and mushrooms. And, tater tots, obvs.

Do people still say that?

One of the other options I considered was a shrimp po’ boy, but their version had fried shrimp, and I happen to have a delicate constitution that doesn’t handle fried food well. There’s another restaurant in town that does a non-fried bbq shrimp po’ boy that I loooooooove, and it comes with “taters,” which are basically potatoes with a bunch of cheese and something saucy and, sadly, I just learned that the saucy business contains pork, which I don’t eat. Luckily, I don’t really eat there often because it smells weird.

There’s a point to this.

We were going to go out to dinner tonight, because our heat stopped working last night sometime and the house was freezing. But, by the time I got home from work, the landlord had fixed it, so we stayed in. They’re calling for snow overnight, and it’s freezing outside, so we settled in for a night of TV and some homemade po’ boys.

I made my own version of the meal I described earlier, minus the bbq sauce (I don’t typically have that around) and the grease and pork associated with the real “taters.”

Jenny-style taters with chili powder, cumin and, of course, cheese:

(I know it’s not a good picture, but I put it up anyway, because I think they look kind of… ON FIRE)

Grilled shrimp po’ boy with red peppers:

And here’s the whole thing. On a stool. With some steamed broccoli (with cheese), because I wanted to use my new steamer, and because I was feeling a little guilty about having double desserts at lunch. Of course, in the end, that didn’t stop me from making myself 4 no-bake cookies that I saw featured on Couch Cubicle. No pictures, because the cookies magically disappeared.

It was really good. Matt ate three po’ boys, so that’s a solid yes vote.

BIG NEWS.

A shirt that I personally own was actually featured in an episode of What Not To Wear. Like, as an example of a good thing. Otherwise, I wouldn’t be bragging about it.

Tara and I sent our chapter to the editor yesterday, so I’ve got this weekend to kick back and relax a little bit. I guess I’ll finish my taxes. But I’m only in it for the return.

Now, we’ll wait for the snow. And try not to hate our families, who enjoyed 80 degree weather in North Carolina today.