Day Off?

I am so pumped for everyone to be in town. But I feel like there is so much stuff I want to do to the house before they get here. I am probably treading down an unwise path and doing the big projects that none are likely to notice, instead of starting with the easy stuff. But oh well, they know I'm messy.

Bfast-.5c egg whites (not until 11am arrgh)

Lunch-Steak and Blue Cheese Wrap-not as good as yesterday, maybe bc i wolfed it down at 2pm

Snack- 1 cuke

Dinner- Mediterranean Pork Chops, Broccoli w Almonds and hot Pepper, Quinoa pilaf, 2 glasses of white wine

Exercise-4 mi jog w Zito (7:30am baby), photo shoot of a 4week old and her 14mo sister, 2.5y sister and 5 y brother, rearranging the garage and bookcases .

Ryan helped me in the kitchen a bit which was very nice, since this is a kinda do a bunch at once meal (especially since I started in the wrong order). I'm also pumped I got the Photo Session done in 1 hour. The garage looks GREAT, just need to get the couch outta there and the bicycles hung. Dinner was good, but the pork was waaaay overcooked. My oven doesn't keep an even temp AND I have now confirmed the meat thermometer is broken :(

I'm off to scrub the labels off at least a dozen wine bottles then my day will be complete!

Well Lookie Here

Something new! Me posting.

I have been holding steady weight wise in the high-mid 150s. So that's really nice as I have not at all considered myself to be dieting, watching or anything. In fact I have been just living, drinking more than is probably necessary, and eating out with friends and family frequently. But now the high-mid 150s are feeling chunky to me and I yearn for single digit pants (besides my work pants, which are worn at my belly button, so I feel it doesn't quite count). I did buy a stop gap size 10 jeans.

So last week I went back on Wave 1, but with Ryan's Bday (2 dinners out) and Mother's Day it was a no go. But try, try and try again. Or there is no try only do. So I am trying to recommit myself to the Wave 1 hardcore-ness. To that end I have made the fun, exciting calendar below! FYI, since the last time I did Wave 1 I have been promoted to Managing a Brand New Studio, and it is v e r y s l o w . Therefore lost of free time! Well I can't seem to get a readable copy of my calendar in here, but you can see it's prettiness at least.



So hopefully I can take some of my learnings from last Wave 1 and do it happier, easier, cheaper. Said learnings: don't halve and third recipes, just eat it multiple times. It is not the end of the world when I take a diversion, every day is a clean slate. Buy Minced Garlic! And most importantly, if it is evening time and I am cranky and hungry, just take a Advil PM and get in bed with a book.

Yesterday was good...

Bfast: Glass of FF milk

Lunch: Black Bean Wrap with 2 slices of turkey, 1c of romaine on a whole wheat pita

Snacks: 28 peanuts, 1.5c of roasted veg medley (a little too much portion wise, but meh)

Dinner: Easy Balsamic Chicken, roasted veg medley

Snack: 3 weird crackers-Wheat Thin's new product (I was depressed bc I just paid for the groceries-meh)

Helpers: Advil PM and Sigrid Unsdet's Kristin Lavransdatter: The Wife. Zito in bed cuddling with me (I so got busted by Ryan)

Exercise: I did not, had Left knee Pain though, puzzling.


As you can see by the schedule, today is Sibling Day, so there will be some alcohol consumption. I will enjoy this and just try not to eat because of it.

Back up to Speed

Dear Junkies,
This week started with a big fat shopping trip and fun evening of cooking. I was just in a cooking mood, and looking forward to lunch at our place with a girlfriend. Also I finished up the Wave 2 recipes this week, which felt like an accomplishment (artificial possibly). In addition to a nice social, very long lunch I also have made some purchases that have pleased me to no end. I bought a size 8 Tahari dress from Von Maur. Not only does the size thrill me, but the price was amazing! Original price of $150, I paid $39 with tax! Yay! I got a nice work shirt from Penney's for $10 after tax and it is a SMALL. I am in disbelief and of course will buy more next time I am at work b/c it is so freaking comfortable and elegant looking. Additionally, Friday morning saw my lowest weigh in yet at 156.4! That officially in the mid- 150s! SO here's with the eating!

Monday
Kashi Go Lean and FF Milk

Spinach Salad topped with 3 c Chicken breast and leftover Vegetable Medley from the Chile Ginger Beef and Asian Vegetable Medley Night
1/2 a cucumber

Chile Mint Burger on Pita Bread-good
2 tbsp Cuke Sauce
1 squares 86% Dark Chocolate

Tuesday
FF yogurt with Blueberries and a splash of Kashi

Turkey Garbanzo Bean Soup
Spinach Salad with Red Wine Vinaigrette
Cuke Sauce with Carrots
15 Almonds

Pork Chops with Rosemary-delicious, simple
Brussel Sprouts with Prosciutto-love, love, love
2 oz of Prosciutto-you gotta eat while you cook sometimes!
2 squares 86% Dark Chocolate

This was my day off and my girlfriend Cindy came over with a bottle of wine and we ate and talked and drank and repeated.

Wednesday
Skipped bfast, bad me

1/2 serving Turkey Sausage Garbanzo Bean Soup with Pasta
1 whole wheat pita with Black Bean Dip
1 serving Greek Pizza-very good, we couldn't find the boboli crust, but I loved the whole wheat crust we did find!
1/2 bottle Chardonnay (La Crema)

1 serving Greek Pizza
1 cheese wheelette
2 servings pizza crust (the pack comes with 2! brushed with olive oil and garlic)
2 glasses Pinot Noir

Thursday
Kashi and FF Milk

Wild Rice Salad with Chicken
1/2c cherry tomatoes
1/2c baby carrots

3 slices of fancy cheese stolen from parent's refrigerator
2 small Whole Wheat Pitas
(I was absolutely starving this afternoon, so I ate, shrug, what else to do?)

Turkey Sausage Garbanzo Bean Soup with Pasta
Spinach with Standard Vinaigrette
2 cups Pinot Noir
1 cheese wheelette
1/4c quinoa
15 Almonds

Friday
Kashi and FF Milk

Wild Rice Salad with Chicken
Plum

1/2c Snow Peas
24 peanuts & 5 almonds

Dinner hasn't happened yet, but I look forward to it. My anticipation is largely because I have no idea what I will eat.

~The PABJ

Week in Review

Dear Junkies,

After my marathon grocery shopping on Sunday, I was ready for an awesome Sonoma week (week = Su-Th). That's what happened! Failing to plan is planning to fail and all that jazz. Also working everyday this week in off peak season helps a ton. I even made lunch for Ryan twice this week! Other fabulous things are happening as well, Ryan is becoming more amenable to doing the dishes. The amount of nagging I have to do is decreasing, and the length of time dirty dishes sit out is shorter! Last night he even covered and put away the leftovers!

I am preparing for house guests (as you can tell by today's copious updating) and will not eat home prepared much at all this weekend. I'm not really looking forward to that, because I think it will mean me gaining some weight, and i am oh so hapy in the 150s. But Ruth will be with me, so maybe she will guide me to goodness.

Here's what I've been eating.

Tuesday

1/2c Grape Nuts + 1/2 FF Milk

Spinach Salad with 3 oz pork chop, 1 tbsp Gorgonzola and red wine vinaigrette
6 oz FF plain yogurt
1/2c blueberries

Sicilian Tuna Steak-Ryan's Wave 1 fave, revisited
1/2 c strawberries

1 glass blush wine-finally gone, also used this for the tuna (instead of a dry white), smelled awful, tasted just fine

1"x1" flat squar of 80% dark chocolate--YUMMY!

Wednesday

1/2c grape nuts 1/2c ff milk

Greens with Beans and Artichoke-very good, first time have Great Norther Beans, they were very tasty
3/4c Raspberry Mush-so I experimented with purchasing frozen raspberries. I just bought em then kept them in the fridge until I wanted them, at which point I had a water mush on my hands. I'm not one to give up at set backs, so I rinsed of the berry paste and put 3/4 c into a baggie for me and one for Ryan. It was horrid. Tart and gross and a wretched texture.

piece of string cheese-FULL FAT, it has been literally YEARS since I have had full fat string cheese, what a joy!
1c broccoli florets

Grilled Morrocan Pork Tenderloin Kabobs-I really had my shit together here people, since the recipe called for a 1-2 hour marinade, and I get home at 7:20pm I started the DAY BEFORE making and starting the marinade, then called Ryan 30 min before I left work for him to start soaking the kabob sticks! This was terrific. Ryan says possibly his new favorite
Tunisian Carrot Salad-I couldn't find Harissa Sauce and was not even considering spending an hour to make something that is a small ingredient in a side dish, I might not have a life with all the wedding planning but I do have a job and high sleep requirements! So I used hot Chile paste instead. This was good, I love carrots
Steamed Brown rice-I barely burnt the rice! It was pretty good, like Chinese Buffet at 3pm good, which is certainly a step up for me! Also I added a dab of olive oil and salt n pepper.

Shared a bottle of wine with Ryan Castle Rock Pinot Noir-we gave this to friends for their housewarming because it looked good, and I am relieved to say I was right! A bit more than my normal price point, but worth it.

Thursday

1 slice bread w 1 tbsp Peanut butter
1/2c straberries

Sonoma Express Wrap featured above
1/2 a Granny Smith apple-left over from barley night
1 string cheese-mmmmmm

Ditto on last night's dinner, pictured below!

Dear Junkies,
There have been some bumps of my cooking adventure. Lots of them are due to the unavailability of ingredients in my home or a poor understanding of cooking terms.
I suspect today's issue was due to one of my old nemeses, math. There was a point when I was good at math, even enjoyed it a bit. Then I got more into photography and into the part of Math that included words instead of numbers or single letters, and it's just been downhill from there. Four years of art school didn't help with my math skills that much either.
Here what I am getting at. The image to your left is supposed to be of Hearty Lentil SOUP. The result of my efforts was not a soup at all. I blame math and Guttersen. Why make half of my meal for 6 people and half of my meal for 4? She regularly throws in 8 or 12 in there as well. I would wager that if she did a market survey of her following she would find out that it's mostly couples or singles. But it tasted fine.

I also had a new discovery on the cooking front. Roasting cumin smells like the boy's locker room! Almost instantly my kitchen was turned into a locker room at the end of football season (I know I went in there on a dare once). Cumin doesn't smell at all like that if you use it in a pan or oven. Very curious.

Here's today's Menu

1/2c Grape Nuts 1/2c Skim Milk

1 Baby Bel Cheese Wheel

Sonoma Express Wrap-2 oz Pork Chop, 1c spinach, 3 halved Cherry tomatoes, 1 tsp parm (freshly crumbled), 1 tsp Roasted Garlic Balsamic Vinaigrette
1c Quinoa Pilaf

Hearty Lentil Soup(ish)-pretty good
Fish with Zucchini Relish-Ryan really liked the relish, I really liked the fish (tilapia)
Spinach with Roasted Garlic Balsamic Vinaigrette
2 glasses Nobilo Sauvignon Blanc

~The PABJ

Double Days

Dear Junkies,
I had the same thing two days in a row so, I figured I would just blog once. This is my favorite meal so far, by a lot.

On Friday I made the beautiful creation you see to the side. It's Serrano Shrimp and Southwestern Grain Medley. It is so delicious! I think I undercooked the rice. I made it in the microwave because I didn't properly read the rice cooking instructions, and to be honest, I usually mess up rice anyways. Unless Uncle Ben puts it in a boil bag for me I tend to always have crunchy rice. So this rice was crunchy, but I really liked the textural difference in there. Ryan even liked the dish and ate it with the beans!

Friday was a nice day and I took the doggies on a run, then had an oh-so boring training class with work and was home in time to eat at a much more usual hour than usual. Saturday was crazy busy at work and I regret not bringing a snack in addition to my food because I was starving by the time I left around 5:30m. Anways here's my days.

Wave 2

Friday
1/2c grape nuts 1/2c milk (I was eating 1c of each, but that just seemed like way to much food, so I experimented today with cutting back and it was just fine)

Sonoma Salad with Tomato and Feta-I used goat cheese instead because that's what I had. the tomatoes in this were so sweet and delicious, just like the bag said! Hooray for truth in advertising
1/8 of a cantaloupe (I think I ate more than I should of about 1c instead of 1/2c)
1 small whole wheat pita

Serrano Shrimp-oh so very delicious, but I really need to purchase gloves for cutting these with, my fingers are still a little stingy when I touch my eyes.
Southwestern Grain Medley-this might be better than pasta
side spinach salad
1/8 a cantaloupe

1c baby carrots & laughing cow wedge-this cheese is much better with something vs alone like in Wave 1

1.5 mile run .5 mile walk

handful of peanuts (not on the plan)

Saturday
The same thing, minus the overlarge portions of cantaloupe and the peanuts and exercise. Plus White table wine.

Spicay!

Dear Junkies,
Today was a totally weird eating day. I slept in until and about 10:30 and wasn't hungry at all when I woke up. So no bfast, a weird lunch-ish thing and a super yummy dinner. More on the Menu below.

Szechuan Shrimp was dinner and is pictured to the side. You might notice a lack of shrimp in my image. That's because they were buried under all the mushrooms I hand picked out of Ryan's plate. What a baby!

Good news on the Ryan front I got him to do almost every dish from tonight's dinner. Thus the me picking out all his mushrooms for him as a reward. Dishes have been a sore spot between Ryan and I since we began living together. And even more so as I have been putting so much more time and effort into cooking I feel like he should do the clean up. He feels more like doing the dishes sometimes, but not ever in a time frame that suits me.

I had my first wedding nightmare last night. You know how I feel about using that word, but this was terrible. Basically, it was the wedding day and I had as much done as I do now. I didn't know what dress I was going to wear, seating charts, flowers, cake, all undone. Ugh, at least I woke up. Funny thing, I saw my Mom today and the first thing she said was that she couldn't sleep last night worrying about wedding stuff. So here we go.

The Day's Menu
Wave 1 Day 12

1 celery stick with 1 tbsp left over yogurt cucumber dip

1 tbsp peanut butter on a slice of whole grain bread

1/2 c grape tomatoes & 1 mini wheel Babybel cheese

Szechuan Shrimp-minus the pea pods, I somehow missed those on the list. I used the water instead of Sherry. This was so good. About the top of the heat level I can do, even hot enough to swell Ryan's lips just a bit. It had a nice sweetness to it, I think possibly from the Sesame Oil. Next time I will use more green onions on the top.

~The Pasta Addicted Bread Junkie

Celebration

Dear Junkies,
So last night I celebrated my end of Wave 1 (although I still have food for two wave 1 dinners, so I might extend it a bit more), my new jobness and my weight loss to date. I fit into a shirt I bought last year, but have never been able to fit in it. It was one of those 'I'm going to loose some weight soon' purchases. The picture is of said shirt of me feeling amazing!

So, for the celebration, we went out to eat with some friends and I picked a restaurant where I knew it would be easy peasy to stick to wave 1. But I forgot about the fresh, warm bread they serve with delicious, soft, butter. Oh friends it was terrible. They brought our drinks, then set down the temptation. I looked at it. The draft in the room was just right and I could smell the butter. I could smell butter! Ryan realized I was staring at the bread Adan moved it away from me. But it was too late. There was one itty bitty piece of the loaf, like literally the diameter of tablespoon and the thickness of a Hallmark envelope with card inside. So I had that piece with butter on it. I made it last almost till the salads came, several bites of heaven.
After that it was pretty easy going. I had the house salad, just avoided the carrots and had oil and balsamic on the side, and only ate about half. Then someone had a piece of bread, but it wasn't cut all the way through and there was a little bit left at the bottom after they got their piece, so I had that piece too. Then Ryan took the bread away. Luckily he and I were sitting diagonal from each other so I really couldn't reach it.
I had an 8 oz top sirloin with steamed vegetables. the steak was delicious, I really love this restaurant because they know medium rare means that no part of the steak (besides outside) should be brown, just pink and red for this girl! The veggies were good, fresh and cooked to proper tender crispness, but I have to say they lacked the seasoning that Sonoma has.
I even made my glass of wine last about 1/3 of the way through the main course. I in no way intend to lead you to believe that I only had one glass of wine. I had 2 at home before we left (over the course of two hours), and three at the restaurant. It was a celebration! But I did really stretch out that one glass!
So after all of that we went home to celebrate some more and at some point the boys ordered cheese sticks and pizza from my favorite place. Luckily, again, I was asleep by this point, the delivery didn't even wake me up.

So today's menu

Wave 1 Day 12

1/2c Egg Whites

Spinach & Lentil Salad-I'm not a huge fan of this, edible for sure

1/2 c grape tomatoes
1/2 cuke sliced

1 Laughing Cow Mini Babybel Cheese round

Salad w oil n vinegar
8 ox top sirloin steak
steamed veggies
3 tablespoons of bread

5 glasses of wine!

So I had a great time, stayed on the plan pretty much food wise, and could have drank more but didn't! And since it is now tomorrow I can tell you that I am holding steady weight wise!

Freestyle

Dear JJs,
What a weird ass day it has been. A super dense fog covered the city for most of the day and I have been in a lackluster mood, despite several good things that have happened today. Lost weight since yesterday, unexpected lunch visit from Mom, a new TShirt and tattoo for the KU game, got a raise, got a promotion, still just feel blah-ish. So it' was clearly dementors. I mean fog in Olathe, the only bodies of water are at the pools at our mega big High Schools.

The good news! All of these causes to commiserate/celebrate only resulted in some extra broccoli and one cheese wheel. Also I went to a dive bar and didn't partake in the deep dish pizza that our table ordered OR let my hunny buy me a drink.

Last night all my dreams were about alcohol. That is to say they were about college/sorority life. Specifically the part that happens in between the learning. That's a tough one. The dreams were really fun though, we played lots of board games.

Today was my first freestyle dinner. I was going to make Szechuan Shrimp tonight, but Ryan at out and I didn't want to make the super spicy dish w/o him there to clean up anything I couldn't handle, and enjoy it. Just worked off the Wave 1 ok list and my 50%/50% plate rule. I hope I did good.

Anyways, here is today's freestyle menu

Wave 1 Day 11
1/2 c egg whites

1 tbsp Peanut Butter w Celery Sticks
1 Babybel mini cheese wheel

Lentil Salad-I substituted chicken with pork, since i had the latter and not the former

a pork chop, salted and peppered then cooked in a pan
Broccoli and Roasted Red Peppers with Goat Cheese-I had to try this again since Ruthie said it's her favorite. I made some changes of course. Last time I made this the broccoli burned and didn't cook enough so I cooked at about 3 or 4 on my stove top dial. I skipped the olives as well. I also added an extra 1/8-1/4c of broccoli, you know, to celebrate. I really liked it much better than last time. Next time I will cut back significantly on the lemon juice.

ANOTHER cheese wheel--party time! And I think I will go have a glass of wine. We only have white and bluch wine in the house (through no fault of my own) and I know red is the best, so I will obviously have two glasses of blush to reach the benefit level of one of red.

~The pasta addicted Bread Junkie.

PS-Also, I got my invite to the 10 year HS reunion today. It's $65 per person AND there's only heavy hours'devours and open bar. First, that's a ton of money for bar food (it's at a local bar), AND it's not technically an open bar if you are paying. It's open if someone else is paying. On the other hand I'm sure it has taken immense effort and time to arrange, and I'm glad that didn't fall on my shoulders.

Hello Junkies,
How do you feel about being JJs? Jessica junkies? There must be all of one other person reading this besides me, so possibly not plural. To the side you see Easy Balsamic Chicken adn my new and improved Roasted Vegetable Medley.

My good mood from this morning has continued throughout the day, there's nothing like a little number on the scale to make me happy. Despite the inital start up costs the Sonoma Diet has been surprisingly easy on the bank account as well, since I'm not going out and eating/drinking with friends.

I have been rethinking my rewards schedule. I really need rewards, as you might have noticed from the puzzle, and massage planing etc. My inital rewards schedule was a reward for the end of each wave and a reward for the the beginning of each new (lower) decade of pounds. But now the rewards are coming too fast. Tomorrow is day 10 of Wave 1, but I am extending it until day 12 to get some more meals in since we have done seconds a couple times. So at any rate, new reward schedule is needed..
End of wave 1/first decade will be a trip to the casino with my cousin for his Bday! Whee, that will be fun and I will def say goodbye to Wave 1 with a glas of vino. We will see what else.

Today was a good day, except I left the stove on from 9:15ish to 2:30ish, Whoops.
I also had another meat finding issue, this time I couldn't find Halibut, it's not a huge deal since I can rearrange the schedule a bit, but any ideas for a Halibut substitute? Is any Basa/Catfish type thing ok?

Wave 1 Day 9
1/2c Egg Whites & glass of tea

4 cuke slices w Laughing Cow Light Herb Cheese SPread

Chicken Pita w Cucumber Yogurt Sauce-is there not end to the delicious Sauces? I left out the mint because I didn't have any.

Easy Balsamic Chicken-this had been marinating for about 48 hours, but tasted the same as the stuff that only marinated for 1 hour
Roasted Vegetable Medley-My best oven roasting experience thus far. I premixed the water, oil and herbs and found the result much more pleasant (no crispy roasted herbs in your mouth poking you) I also did the vegetables a bit different than suggested, extra cauliflower, some broccoli and less green peppers, (I'm kinda sick of this particular super food at the moment). Next time I will put the green beans in a little later, they didn't need as much time as the cauliflower, broccoli and brussel sprouts. BTW how awesomoe are brussel sprouts, they get quite the bad rap.

~The Pasta Addicted Bread Junkie

My Nemesis

Sorry for the visual repetitiveness folks, but last night was leftovers. Here's the Tandoori Chicken and Roasted Eggplant Salad.

Today was hard, due to work constraints I didn't get lunch until about 2 at which point I had a few bites and didn't get to finish it until 5 at which point I had my snack too. The plan had been to save the snack until dinner with the girls (which I missed due to workness) but whatever. So after eating all that I was very hungry and had the snack again, not on the menu. Even after that I was stomach pain-y, headach-y, and overall grouchy and inconsolable. Not only did I go off the plan but I was still starving. We ended up eating dinner at 7:30, and I got halfway through it and was full. This was all especially distressing because this morning I weighed exactly the same amount as I did the day previous. First day without weight loss, fiance keeps pointing out that's better than gaining, does he think he's marrying an idiot, I know that! Sheesh.

So maybe being full was a small success for shrinking the appetite, but eating extra snack wasn't great. The main issue is that this will happen at work again. I think I just need to do a better job of making the time to eat. It's not the best situation to force the issue, but I could have done a better job of grabbing a few bites. At any rate, I probably came out about right calorie and fat wise.

Good news is it's pretty easy not to drink, and trust me today at work would have typically led to more than one glass. I guess it helps to have a greater cause than making up for your day. Although I did get a a puzzle to distract me from my melancholy. It was actually 4 puzzles for $4.99, not only was it a great deal, but Ryan bought it for me.

The Day's Menu

1/2 c Egg Whites and Mushrooms

Salad Nicoisse with Tuna-not a two days in a row kinda thing, which is unfortunate since you can't just buy the ingredients for one serving

Tandoori Chicken-better after marinating for 24 hours even though the recipe says 1-3
Roasted Eggplant Salad-better the first day

Here's The New Plan

Fellow Addicts,

Here we will encounter what will probably be our first point of dispute-I am going to do the Sonoma diet.

What's that you say?
That diet is completely wrong for me?
It requires loads of cooking, gobs of trips WEEKLY to grocery stores (yes that's stores plural).
It talks to you in hokey language about celebrating food and wants me to measure my plates?

Yes all of these things are true, but here's the deal-It has the highest recommendation that exists in all the land for me, that's right, my own personal Oprah has had huge success with it AND (as you can imagine this really sealed the deal for me) there's WINE in it. Sure not for the first 10 days, but after the last two weeks I've had I can skip the wine for a bit.

And secondly, what's your better option?
Weight Watchers? Been there done that, have successfully lost 15 lbs, but there's more to do.
Slim Fast? All that deprivation makes me too cranky (another hit against Sonoma I suppose)
Ridiculous amounts of exercise? Tried it, got up to 20 mi/wk this summer, but my knees gave up and I only lost one dress size and no weight.

So here we go. I bought the book last night (don't worry, $7 at the Half Price Bookstore I haven't lost all my scruples) and I am presently off to eat my two scrambled eggs (kinda I like the Real Eggs, it's just easier) and go to multiple grocery stores. So yes, 11:13 is a bit late for breakfast, BUT I'm going places!

Sincerely,
The Pasta Addicted Bread Junkie

PS-Here's my first three day shopping list.
Whole Grain Toast
Egg Whites
1/2 fresh shrimp
Garlic x2
1 lemon
1.5 c spinach leaves +2 c
1.5 c romaine
1 med tomato
.5 cucmber med
1/8 c red onion
1-8 c feta cheese
1 large whole wheat pita rounds
olive oil
red wine vinegar
1 tbsp fresh mint
Dried oregano
Dried Thyme
1 lb chicken breast
10 oz fresh asparagus
6 oz pea pods
1 c canned artichoke hearts
2 c cherry tomatoes
fresh parsley
1/2 green onions
PARCHMENT PAPER?
almonds
peanuts
ground coriander
ground cumin
canola oil
1/4 c cilantro
15 oz can black beans
lime juice
canned chipotle chile pepper
.5 lb beef flank steak
dried rosemary
dried marojam
paprika
8 c broccoli
1 c bottled roasted bell peppers + 1/4c + 2c
2 oz goat cheese
mushrooms
whole wheat flour tortilla
2 boneless pork chops
sliced almonds (toasted)
2 c quinoa
3c reduced sodium chicken broth
1 bay leaf
1 raw bell pepper
1 cucumber
salt
pepper

My Eating MO

1. I think Pasta is the perfect food. I can walk away from it while it cooks (that's right folks I'm not a stirrer), it's delicious to me with the most basic fridge ingredients (garlic & spray butter/margarine) AND it's so filling.
2. After pasta; bread, cheese and butter are my loves. In an effort to downsize me I only use low fat cheeses & fake butters (Smart Balance, I Can't Believe It's not butter)
3. In an effort to downsize spending on food I do all of my shopping at the Wal-Mart grocery (read: she buys the low fake WM brand singles and off brand No Fat parm).
4. In an effort to downsize time spent on food I go grocery shopping once every two weeks, so everything I buy needs to last that long or longer.
5. I never start cooking until after I am hungry, which is weird because I think about food ALL THE TIME.
6. I don't enjoy cooking (possibly see #5), I enjoy eating.
7. Besides knowing I will have breakfast sometime before 11amish, there's nothing remotely regular about when I might be able to get a meal in at work.
8. The main way I reward and comfort myself is through food. I also tend towards the fridge when I'm bored. So we;ve got good times-check, bad times-check, in between-check.

So I think we can see possibility for positive change in most of these areas. Clearly there's no way that anything could be better than spending the least amount of $ possible on food #3; and the only thing possibly better than shopping 2x a month would be shopping less than 2x a month #4; but alas I can admit the shadow of a doubt in my ways in this area too.

OH YEAH!
9. I enjoy wine on every level. Besides your basic S's which any sommelier can tell you about, I enjoy just a glass, just a few glasses, just one glass more, just one glass before we get there, just one more before we leave, just one since we're back home, and too frequently just one too many.