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. 

       




           

•  
  

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...

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! 

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.  

In the spirit

I got pretty excited for Halloween as a kid.  I wasn't necessarily all that into the costumes- I had a princess dress and a light-up tiara, and that was the standard for a few years.  No, the decorations were far more exciting.  You know what's a fun project?  Taking all the tissues in the house, wadding them up, using a marker to draw eyes and a mouth to make tiny "ghosts" to leave all around the house.  Hilarious.  Also fun?  Listening to the Ghostbusters theme song over and over on your Fisher Price cassette player.  

Those were the days.

Now that I'm an adult, I'm much more sophisticated with Halloween.  Goodbye Princess costume.  Hellooooo Honey Boo Boo.

You might think that as a dietitian, I'm the one in the neighborhood handing out apples and bananas.  Not so much.  You think I want kids coming back late at night to egg my house out of revenge?  Heck no.  M&M's packs for everyone!

Here's a list of the 5 worst fun size candies, according to Mens' Health.
5. Butterfinger
 
   100 calories, 2 g saturated fat, 10 g sugar

Better choice?  A fun size 3 Musketeers- only 63 calories

4. Airheads
 
 In a 3-piece serving, you get 140 calories, 1 g saturated fat, and 19 grams of sugar.  These use partially hydrogenated oils to keep them soft and chewy, which are filled with scary trans fats.  Instead try a Dum-Dum sucker for 25 calories.

3. Twix
 
Twix has the worst saturated fat profile of any Halloween.  Each serving (2 fun size bars) of these bite-sized candies carries 20 percent of the saturated fat you should consume in an entire day.  Swapping out 3 Tootsie Rolls cuts the fat by 79%.

2. Caramels


90% of the fat in these caramels is artery-clogging saturated fat, plus packs 160 calories.  Choosing 4 Now & Later chewy candies saves you over a hundred calories and eliminates the fat.

1. Reese's Pumpkin
 
So this may or may not be my favorite candy.  And I may or may not have eaten 3 Reese's peanut butter stacked together after trick-or-treating.  They were always the first candy in my stash to be depleted (the last?  Bit-O-Honey.  Whenever someone was handing out those chewy logs of awfulness I would make a mental note to egg their house later skip this shack next year).  Sadly one of these babies packs170 calories,10 g fat (3 g saturated), and 16 g sugars.  A better suggestion?  Eleven pieces of candy corn is only 70 calories, fat-free, and 14 g sugar.



So now that we all have preemptive guilt about the leftover candy we will inevitably have and inevitably eat, Happy Halloween!

I mean, a dolla makes me holla!  Happy Halloween, y'all!

 

PW: Finale

Big things in the news this week. 

The election...

Hurricane Sandy...

Syria's cease-fire for the holidays...

and the conclusion of Pumpkin Week.

Sure, I could've gone with all traditional pumpkin recipes.  Who doesn't love pumpkin bread or pumpkin pie?  But I like to think that part of my job is to give you new things to love.  Like pumpkin focaccia. Sounds weird- I know. 

Pumpkin Walnut Focaccia with Gruyere
from Cooking Light October 2005

3/4 cup warm water (100-110 degrees)
1/3 cup packed brown sugar
1 package dry yeast (about 2 1/4 teaspoons)
2 1/2 cups bread flour (plus 1/2 cup for kneading)
3 Tablespoons butter spread, melted
1 cup canned pumpkin
1 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1 cup grated Gruyere cheese
Cooking spray
2 Tablespoons cornmeal
1/3 cup coarsely chopped walnuts

• Combine water, sugar, and yeast in a large bowl; let stand 5 minutes. Lightly spoon flour into dry measuring cups; level with a knife. Add 1 cup flour and butter to yeast mixture; stir just until combined. Cover and let rise in a warm place (85°), free from drafts, 30 minutes.
• Add pumpkin, salt, and nutmeg to flour mixture; stir until well combined. Add 2 1/4 cups flour and half of cheese; stir until a soft dough forms. Turn dough out onto a floured surface. Knead until smooth and elastic (about 8 minutes); add enough of remaining 1/4 cup flour, 1 tablespoon at a time, to prevent dough from sticking to hands (dough will feel tacky).
• Place dough in a large bowl coated with cooking spray, turning to coat top. Cover and let rise in a warm place (85°), free from drafts, 1 hour or until doubled in size. (Press two fingers into dough. If indentation remains, dough has risen enough.) Punch dough down; cover and let rest 5 minutes. Divide dough in half; shape each half into an 8-inch circle. Place dough circles on a baking sheet sprinkled with cornmeal. Sprinkle remaining cheese and nuts evenly over dough circles; press lightly to adhere. Lightly coat dough circles with cooking spray; cover and let rise 20 minutes (dough will not double in size).
• Preheat oven to 400°.
• Uncover dough; bake at 400° for 30 minutes or until loaves are browned on the bottom and cheese melts (shield loaves with foil to prevent overbrowning, if necessary). Cool on a wire rack.

 Ok so I snuck a chunk before it cooled.

I ended up making turkey sandwiches for lunches this week.  It's nice and soft focaccia, not heavy and greasy like some that you buy. 

Still with me?  Ready for one more oddball pumpkin recipe? 

Pumpkin Lasagna

10-11 whole wheat lasagna noodles
1 jar marinara sauce (or butternut squash marinara if you go to Aldi)
1/3 cup lowfat ricotta cheese
1/2 cup shredded mozzarella
1/3 cup crumbled feta
1 pint cherry or grape tomatoes, halved
1 large zucchini, cut into coins
1 1/2 cups cubed cooked pumpkin

So first things first.  Yes, I want you to cook a pumpkin.  I bought my pie pumpkin at Home Depot.  Who knew?  They're cute and small- the larger pumpkins meant for carving are bad for flavor, so stay away from a standard pumpkin.  You have the option to swap out any other kind of squash. 

To cook the pumpkin, cut off the top and scoop out the guts best as you can.  Microwave for 8-10 minutes, until slightly softened.  Cut in half and microwave a few more minutes, until tender.  Peel and cut into cubes. 

While you're microwaving your pumpkin, bring a large pot of water to boil.  Add noodles.  You'll really only need 9 noodles, but I always end up with a few torn noodles, so I cook some extras just in case.  Spray the bottom of a 9x9 baking dish with olive oil cooking spray.  Spread a few spoonfuls of sauce on the bottom.

Drain cooked noodles and arrange 3 noodles in a row.  I had to trim my noodles to make them fit nicely.  Layer a few spoonfuls of sauce, then zucchini, then half the ricotta.  Add another row of noodles.  Layer some more sauce, then pumpkin, tomatoes, the rest of the ricotta, and the feta (which by the way is optional).  Finish off with your last layer of noodles, the remainder of the sauce, and top with the shredded mozzarella.

Bake at 350 for 30 minutes, or until lightly browned and bubbling.  Let cool for 20 minutes.  

This is for people who truly like pumpkin.  It's got a nice flavor to it- slightly sweet, and cheesy.  

Pumpkin spice lattes are for weenies.  Pumpkin Week is for the adventurous.  'Til next year...

PW: Day #3

Knock knock!

(Who's there?)

Orange!

(Orange who?)

Orange-ya glad it's pumpkin week!


Seriously, I am on a roll this week with the jokes.  And the recipes- we've now covered a coffee cake, a fruit dip, and today we pick a pumpkin entree.

Not that you couldn't have coffee cake or fruit dip be your entree, but, you know- dietitians usually frown on such things.  No, this recipe is a twist on your typical chili.  It's high protein, high fiber, and packed with vitamins.

Pumpkin Chili
2 pounds extra lean ground beef
1 large yellow onion, diced
1 bell pepper, seeded and diced
2 (15 oz) cans kidney beans, drained
1 (46 oz) can low sodium tomato juice
1 (28 oz) can peeled and diced tomatoes with juice (or you could chop up 4 large tomatoes)
1 cup canned pumpkin puree
2 teaspoons pumpkin pie spice
1 Tbsp chili powder
Salt & pepper to taste

In a large pot over medium heat, cook beef until brown; soak up any grease with a paper towel.  Stir in onion and pepper- cook 5 minutes.  Stir in beans, tomato juice, diced tomatoes, and pumpkin puree.  Add pumpkin pie spice, chili powder, and sugar.  Simmer on low for 1 hour. Alternative method: cook ground beef and combine with all other ingredients (raw peppers & onions) in a slow cooker.  Cook on low 6-7 hours, or until onions are tender.

Makes 8 servings.  Per serving: 400 calories, 37 g carbs, 14 g fat, 9 g fiber, 28 g protein