Friday, November 30, 2012

The fine line becomes blurred


I hold a few things sacred in my life.


Chip-free painted nails.









 My belief in "the higher the heel, the closer to God."











Preventing my unibrow from taking over my forehead, a la Bert. 
 
And my opinion that one should never- ever- go out in public with wet hair and/or pajama pants.


*thanks Google for the random image

So given that I'm a little too into keeping up appearances, it was a surprise to even me when I found myself buying this at Target:

















A leopard print adult onesie, complete with footies.  One part Snooki, one part "I-give-up."

I took a gamble, having to weigh out extreme comfort vs risking my husband leaving me out of repulsion. 

He actually took it fairly well, but maybe that's only because I distracted him with a tasty dinner. 

Vegetable Chickpea Curry from CookingLight.com
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 1/2cups chopped yellow onion
1 cup (1/4-inch thick) slices carrots
1 tablespoon curry powder
1 teaspoon brown sugar
1 teaspoon grated ginger (I bought jarred)
1 teaspoon chopped garlic (again- just buy garlic in a jar)
2 cans chickpeas (garbanzo beans), rinsed and drained
1 1/2 cups cubed peeled potato
1 cup diced green bell pepper
1 1/2 cups (1 inch) green beans
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon black pepper
1/8 teaspoon ground red pepper
1 (14.5 oz) can diced tomatoes, undrained
1 (14 oz) can low sodium vegetable brown
1 bag fresh spinach, rinsed
1 can light coconut milk

1. Heat oil in a large nonstick skillet over medium heat.  Add onion and carrot; cover and cook 5 minutes or until tender.  Add curry powder, sugar, ginger, garlic, and chile; cook 1 minute, stirring constantly so that spices don't burn.

2. Place onion/carrot mix in the bottom of a slow cooker.  Stir in chickpeas and next ingredients (through broth).  Cover and cook on high for 6 hours or low for 8 hours.  Add spinach and coconut milk; stir until spinach wilts.  You can serve over rice or with whole wheat naan if you'd like.


Makes six servings.  Per serving: 275 calories, 44 g carbs, 7 g fat, 11 g protein, 10 g fiber.
 


At least I don't have wet hair. 

       




           
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Monday, November 26, 2012

Thanksgiving holiday (alternate title: Why I haven't been blogging)

Now that the Thanksgiving holiday is 100% behind me, I can throw my full-fledged focus on Christmas.  Before T-giving, I had to hide my Christmas tunes and downplay how many decorations I had already purchased.  29 days left, baby.

My holiday in pictures:
Doggy socks.  What else would you expect her to wear under her new doggy booties?
Yes, that is bacon-flavored soda.  I couldn't take a small enough sip of this stuff.
Wal Mart- Thursday at 8 pm.  Really people?  Did...not...do...this.
Woke up to this on Friday morning.  I think all of the backyard pics I've ever posted have had at least one piece of plastic lawn furniture in them. 
Here's your Where's Waldo challenge.  I raided my mom's Christmas decor stash.  Turns out stocking holders are expensive.  $45 for stupid metal hooks?  Growing up we had "PEACE"- one stocking for each family member.  So what was I to do now with only 3 family members?

Now it's back to reality with a full work week.  I promise to post some upcoming new recipes.  Get your slow cooker ready...




Monday, November 19, 2012

One is the loneliest number

Ever since we got married, I've been packing my husband a lunch every day.  Some people find that sweet and endearing.  Others find it control freak-esque.  Fortunately my husband is in the former...at least that's what he tells me.

I usually pack the same lunch for both of us, only his portions are larger.  I try to make it balanced- good proteins, healthy fats, and of course healthy carbs- often in the form of an apple.
But now- for THIRTY DAYS straight- this apple has gone uneaten.

After the first few days of being ignored, I figured that my husband just wasn't hungry for it.  So I started packing a little bit less food in accordance.

Nope.  Didn't work.  How dare he ignore my healthy apple!
The passive-agressive continuous re-packing gave rise to this more creative approach.  But of course he's not going to eat an apple with Sharpie all over it...I hope.  So I packed a smaller apple too.  One for humor, one for eats.

As soon as he got home I opened up his lunch tote to see if my ploy worked...


Success! 

Tuesday, November 13, 2012

Practical applications on the topic of cholesterol

This past weekend was spent in my hometown for a family friend's wedding.  My husband proved himself to be the Best Sport Ever by willingly going on my nostalgia tour all around town.

Let's see...first we went on a tour of a historic mansion.  This was in the parking lot:
What the what?

Then it was to the mall!  Times have changed.  Pretend I'm saying this in a creaky old lady voice: Now back when I was a kid, there was no Coach store at the mall.  We had to buy our handbags at Sears! 

The morning after the wedding we went for a jog around the lake in town.  In the rain.  In 30-degree weather. 

To wrap up the nostalgia tour, we went and hiked through some caves that I hadn't been to since I was 8 years old.  In the rain.  In 30-degree weather.

Hence the Best Sport Ever award. 

He didn't exactly suffer the whole weekend though.  The wedding was fun, and between rainy events, we went out for burgers. 
The "Fatty Melt."  Two grilled cheese sandwiches with a beef patty, onion rings, and bacon in between.  And a heap of fries.  I estimate this meal to be around 1600 calories, with 93 grams of fat, and 210 mg cholesterol.

The daily recommended maximum intake of fat is about 60 grams (for an adult male) and 300 mg cholesterol.

Practical translation?  You'd think that eating cholesterol makes your blood cholesterol increase.  Yeah, it does a bit.  But actually saturated fat has a huge influence on your blood cholesterol.  LDL, "bad cholesterol" is the one that clogs up your arteries and puts you at risk for heart disease.  HDL, "good cholesterol" acts as a scooper to pick up the LDL and bring it back to the liver.  Saturated fat will increase the bad cholesterol.  Trans fats both increase bad cholesterol and lower good cholesterol- that's why you've seen the health push to limit trans fats.

Not the end of the world to have something like this on a rare occasion.  Just keep in mind that it'd take 8 laps around the lake, 10-1/2 cave hikes, or 25 mansion tours to burn it off.