Apple Cranberry Pumpkin Muffins

What produce comes to mind when you think of Fall? I associate the yearly bizarre weather patterns and flaming foliage with mellow pumpkin, juicy apples and eye-catching bags of crunchy cranberries. In my zeal to celebrate the change of seasons, I snapped all of these up at the supermarket last Saturday. I promptly opened the canned pumpkin puree to add to oatmeal and pancakes and grated the apples into curry and unique salads.

All well and good, but towards the end of the week I ran into a problem. The pumpkin had reached its air-exposure limit, the apples were starting to turn soft and the cranberries hadn't even been touched. I had to figure out how to use all three in one go. Solution: muffins!

I planned to scour the internet for a good muffin recipe before diving in, but my sweetie was busy transferring data between both computers. Instead, I brushed off the recipe book that came with the life-enhancing Vitamix my mother bought when I was in high school. In the little "grains" pamphlet stuck in the back, I found a recipe for pumpkin muffins that only used 1/4 cup oil! I made some modifications to the recipe (and didn't actually use the blender it was designed for):

-1 sweet variety of apple, chopped
-1 cup fresh or frozen cranberries, chopped
-1/2 cup sugar (Vitamix called for 3/4 cup, but that would have been overkill with the added sweetness from the apple)
-2 eggs
-1/4 cup oil (Vitamix suggested light olive; I used canola)
-1/4 cup light soy milk
-1 cup pumpkin puree
-1 tsp vanilla
-1 cup all-purpose flour
-3/4 cup whole wheat flour
-1/2 tsp salt
-2 tsp baking soda
-cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, allspice etc.

First, I combined the apple and cranberries in a bowl with the granulated sugar. I theorized this would take the edge off the cranberries through maceration--an idea I picked up from Annie's Eats.


While the sugar carried out its mission, I whisked together the egg, oil, milk, pumpkin, and vanilla. Then I mixed the flours, salt, soda and spices, going heavy on the cinnamon and lighter on the others. I stirred the wet and dry together until just combined, then folded in the fruits and dolloped into a muffin pan. Each well was almost entirely full of batter, but I had no worries of spillage because the recipe used soda instead of powder. The tin went in a 350° oven for 20 minutes.


The muffins were okay fresh, but fantastic the morning after! Cranberries suffer the same syndrome as blueberries--they taste meh newly cooked but burst with flavor after aging. I froze the muffins after they cooled, and for breakfast the next morning microwaved one for 40 seconds to eat with broccoli-mushroom scrambled eggs. Then I sipped Earl Grey and pretended I was in a fancy B&B.

According to the Vitamix book, each muffin is about 200 calories. Since I cut the sugar, that's probably an accurate estimate even after adding the fruits. I won't calculate it out precisely because I'm extricating myself from meticulous counting per the recommendations of the down-to-earth Mireille Guiliano.

Chicken "Curry"

The other day I discovered another keeper for my "recipes with quotation marks" collection. I've found my dinners boring lately--it seems like a never-ending cycle of stir fry, pasta, and fish. I wanted to try something new, preferably with chicken, because I have a ton of tenderloins hanging out in my freezer and all the recipes I know for them are lame. Tess to the rescue!

The "curry" I made based on her post should really have multiple quotations around it. As Tess explained in her introduction, the Japanese recipe is a ripoff of the English recipe ripped off from India. In turn, I have modified the Japanese recipe to fit my American quick-cooking needs. The dish was still amazing, though!

Tamara's "Curry"
(Makes 1 serving)
-1/8 an onion, chopped
-2 chicken tenderloins or 1 breast, cut into bite-sized pieces
-1/2 a Gala or other sweet apple
-curry powder (or a mixture of coriander, tumeric, cumin, garlic, black pepper etc.)
-ginger powder
-soy sauce

Heat a small saucepan and spray with canola oil. Saute the onions until translucent, then add the chicken and cook for 3-5 minutes, until the outside of the meat is no longer pink. Grate the apple and add it to the chicken along with the curry, ginger, and a small splash of soy sauce. Lower heat; cover and cook for 3-5 minutes until the liquid from the apple has thickened and the chicken is cooked through. Serve with rice.

Chocolate Truffles

On my last trip to the grocery store, I stopped by the candy aisle to replenish my supply of after-dinner chocolate. I usually head straight for the Lindt, but a bright yellow sign for half off on these guys caught my eye:


Anomaly: The wrapper is actually a bright purple, but due to the way digital cameras store images, it looks blue. Sweetie and I had some fun placing it next to other blue and purple items in the house to see the contrast on/off screen.


That can is roughly the shade of the wrapper with just a hint more red. If we have difficulties capturing colors with modern technology, I can't imagine the headaches early Technicolor people must have gone through.

Resetting mental coordinates; proceeding. I ate one of the bars plain, but there's a reason it was a fraction the price of the Lindt. The texture was okay, but it tasted closer to milk than the advertised dark chocolate. I didn't want to waste my dessert-time on something I didn't particularly like, so I did something new with the remnants: truffles!

I don't know where I found this recipe, but it sounded relatively foolproof. I first broke up 3/4 of a Cadbury bar.


I microwaved the chocolate for one minute, then stirred until smooth. Then I added 3/4 of a cup of fat free whipped topping and folded everything together into a sticky, glossy mixture. I placed some parchment paper on a plate and dropped the chocolate cream by tablespoonfuls.


Since I didn't have enough room on the plate for more than seven truffles, there was some chocolate cream leftover. I ate it warm with a small scoop of vanilla ice cream--it made a lovely and unexpected fudge sauce. Two recipes in one!

I left the plate in the freezer for an hour. When the truffles were firm enough to handle, I rolled them in cocoa powder.


These truffles aren't dense and fudgey like the kind you buy from chocolatiers, but they're very creamy and indulgent. My sweetie said they taste like chocolate Cool Whip, but I hope they're a little more unique than that.

CeDIR Fall Party

On Monday, CeDIR hosted the annual "open house" for the Indiana Institute for Disability and Community staff. My superiors went all out on the goodies:


C. made the gingerbread, S1. made the roasted pumpkin seeds and empanadas, and S2 made the pumpkin bars and brownies. There's no tangible evidence, but I may have sampled a bit from each plate. And a desire to curry favor with said C., S1. and S2. may have been a driving factor.

Compared to the desserts, the table for savories was sparse and much less frequented:

My humble contribution sat in the back, approached by a few guilty souls seeking to obscure the sugar-domination of their plates with a dab of protein.


On Sunday night, I hard-boiled a dozen extra-large eggs. I peeled them while watching an episode or two of Bones, then cut each egg in half. I separated the yolks into a bowl and mashed them with enough light Miracle Whip to form a dense, creamy paste. I rinsed the emptied whites in a mixture of vinegar and water, then spooned the mixture into their wells. For presentation, I sprinkled paprika over the tops. When it was time for the party I removed them from the fridge and arranged them prettily on a plate.

This was the first time I've made, or even eaten, deviled eggs. I'm not certain they tasted like the "traditional" kind with mayo and relish, but I thought they were delicious. There were about six of the twenty-four left after the party, which I took home and have been consuming as blood-sugar-stabilizers when I feel snackish. I've never really liked hard-boiled eggs, but this recipe has made me rethink them--if only they weren't so darned time-consuming to make!

♪ These are my confessions ♫

First, I have to say that I hate "confession" posts. They're like the superficial Today show weight-loss success stories or that sadistic circus called The Biggest Loser--always dwelling on the dramatically horrible past and egoistically casting people in tragic heroine molds.

Nevertheless, a confession post is necessary today, because it's really difficult to hawk my crystalline amateur nutritionist values when I recently ripped them out of their homes in the dead of night, tied them by the wrists to a horse-drawn carriage and dragged them through the streets, then dumped their torn and bleeding bodies in the Wabash.

If you've read my "About Me" section, you might have noticed a tiny sentence or two that referenced my rocky dieting history. I like to keep that bit as a tiny sentence or two because it's useless to dwell on the stupid mistakes of a self-absorbed teenager. However, old habits die hard, and some refuse to die at all: like my inexplicable compulsion to binge eat under duress.

Sunday afternoon, a month's worth of financial worries, medical concerns, and career frustrations tried to bury themselves in my kitchen cupboards, and I chased after them. I won't name names, but let's just say the near future holds a trip to Kroger to replace a lot of carbohydrate- and fat-based foods. I attempted to stem the flow with a cup of tea, a sticks of cinnamon gum, a warm bath...but no go. I only stopped when I finally felt the sort of "full" associated with feast-laden holidays.

Curtain closed, moving on. Usually, I advocate facing problems head-on and devising intricate battle plans to conquer them. However, in these situations the best thing to do is pretend it never happened. Remembering a binge is like mentally dog-earing the time your boyfriend forgot to take out the trash--it serves no purpose but to make future actions/relations worse. So on Monday, I was determined to eat "normally," including sampling the baked goodies at CeDIR's fall party. Today I plan to walk 2.5 miles without pushing myself too hard. The mirror, the tape measure and the scale are off-limits for at least one week.

Hopefully, my zen-liked approach will ensure that I'll never have to give you part two of my confessions ♫

'Bagelfuls'

Have you seen those commercials for Bagel-fuls? Yes, they're kitschy marketing ploys full of goodies like "cream cheese" [pasteurized milk and cream, salt, cheese culture, stabilizers (xanthan and/or carob bean and/or guar gums)] and "dough improvers" (ammonium sulfate, calcium sulfate, and azodicarbonamide). But those pictures appeal to the part of me that can't resist soft, warm, wheaty dough and creamy fillings.

Kraft advertises that their wares "provide a fresh-baked taste at home." Yesterday, as I was preparing to make my weekly loaf of bread, it occurred to me: why don't I just make them at home? To make my bagelfuls (note the absence of the hyphen; I'm copyright conscious :D), I followed my usual recipe for whole-wheat bread. I left out the egg, oil and flax because I'm a traditional bagel purist. I let the machine whir away until it had thirty minutes of rising left to go, at which point I stole the dough from its warm nest and divided it into eight pieces.

I decided to make four flavors: strawberry cream cheese, PB&J, apple cinnamon, and pizza. I made a pair of each for backups in case of seal failure. I flattened each piece into an oblong shape and spread the fillings in the center.


Then I folded the sides over in a burrito-making fashion and rolled the long edges up and over to make my bagel-logs. I placed the bagelfuls seal-side down on baking sheets and covered with plastic to rise for their final half hour.


When I came back after half an episode of Bones, the logs were puffy and ready for the bath. I boiled them for about a minute on each side.


They floated beautifully, and none of the fillings escaped! You can imagine how nervous I was slipping peanut butter and tomato sauce bombs into the pot, but there was nary a mishap. I popped the boiled bagels into the oven for 10 minutes at 400° to finish them up.


I only had one micro-spill--one of the PBs leaked its J.


I put them on the rack to cool, and ten minutes later dug into a strawberry cream cheese bagel for my afternoon snack. It tasted divine! Fresh, sweet and yeasty, and completely azodicarbonamide-free. For dinner, I had one of the pizza bagelfuls. I probably should have put more fillings in, but I was afraid of the sauce overflow common to Hot Pockets, calzones and their ilk.


I froze the others in individual baggies marked with a Sharpie pen for quick meals and snacks throughout the week. One of them is in the office freezer right now--I can't wait for lunch time!

The Cookie Diet

When I was waiting in line at the credit union to deposit a check the other week, I heard one of the tellers ask another, "So, how's the cookie diet going?" The second laughed and replied, "Well, the cookie jar is lighter!"

I assumed it was an inside joke. The two of them had probably been talking about fitness when someone said, "You know, I saw some ads for books in a magazine called, like, The Ice Cream Diet and The Peanut Butter Diet. Wouldn't it be great if we could just eat ice cream and peanut butter all day and lose weight?"

"Or cookies! Like a grapefruit diet, but with chocolate chips!"

"Ooh, chocolate! We should make an Oreo diet."

"Yeah, we should totally do it. We'll eat nothing but Double Stuffed for a month, lose a ton of weight and then write a book about it and make millions." [laff]

The invention of a "cookie diet" is a gag, like when Woody Allen wakes up in the 22nd century to find that cream pies and hot fudge are considered health foods. So imagine my surprise when I read yesterday that the diet is real!

Apparently people will pay some company $50+ a week--not for prepackaged meals or protein shakes--but for cookies. Cookies that contain, according to Dr. Sanford Siegal the Cookie Guru: "protein derived from meat, eggs, milk and other sources...microcrystalline cellulose...and sugar." Mmm, beef & grass snickerdoodles.

Apparently, this fad has the celebrity endorsements of Denise Richards, Jennifer Hudson and Kelly Clarkson (ABC). Yeah, well, Gwyneth Paltrow advocates detoxifying the body by drinking castor oil, which I'm pretty sure was used as a Fascist method of mob violence.

The diet is such an easy target I feel lowly for picking at it. It commits every laundry-list sin of marketing-driven fads: too restrictive, can't be maintained long-term, could lead to nutrient deficiency, and takes shameless advantage of desperate quick-fix-seeking consumers.

I mean, seriously. If you want to eat cookies and lose weight, there are cheaper and less drastic ways to do it. For breakfast, bake a batch of monster oatmeal raisin walnut cookies using applesauce instead of butter (or use my recipe for bars). For lunch, accompany some lean meats and veggies with a beta-carotene-happy pumpkin cookie. Eat a decent non-pasta dinner to leave room for a couple of small crunchy treats like these awesome-looking whole-wheat animal crackers (I want to try cocoa powder in them!). Have some fruit and mixed nuts for snacks, and you're golden.

Tada, a sane "cookie diet." Sure it doesn't give you the ideal nutritional profile, but it's more or less balanced if you don't eat too many carbohydrates on the side. Theoretically, you'll eventually learn that even cookies aren't taboo and train yourself to eat them in moderation. And there will be fewers zeros in the number on your credit card statement.

Apple-Rice Salad

Most Saturdays, my sweetie and I sleep in, eat leisurely meals, and laze around in robes avoiding any activity that could be construed as "productive." However, today was not "most Saturdays."

We started off by running errands: he had his hair cut while I took an overdue trip to the grocery store. We touched base at home so I could fill my growling stomach with some yogurt and granola, then shot off Downtown to the post office. Both of our passports had expired, and because of an amorphous plan of travel next spring, we wanted to apply for new ones ASAP.

After an eternity of mostly line-sitting, we hustled through the freezing wind back to the car and home to a warm 2pm lunch of homemade pizza. We promptly conked out afterward, exhausted from our unusual display of youthful energy. I woke up around 5 with one of my crazy hankerings for something I've never tried or heard of before.

I chopped up one of these:


Mixed the pieces with some of this:


And drizzled it with a bit of this:


Add the entree,


and voila! A tangy/sweet/chewy/crisp and mostly healthy dinner. The vinaigrette-Gala combo was especially good, and I'll have to keep it in mind for future potato or pasta salads as well.

Spinach Eggs with Mushrooms and Bell Peppers

Some days I wake up and say, "I feel like peanut butter for lunch and spaghetti for dinner." Then I have to figure out where to fit my 5-a-day into this carbohydrate fest: a banana with the sandwich, a side of roasted broccoli with the pasta, maybe some extra onions snuck into the sauce...but that still leaves a big nutrient chasm. The solution: a veggie-happy breakfast.


Scrambled eggs are my versatile go-to when (a) I don't plan to eat much protein at lunch, (b) there are small remnants in the produce drawer to finish, and/or (c) I have vegetables I don't particularly like. Like bell peppers.

I bought three bell peppers at the supermarket a while ago, just because they looked so bright and pretty. I had never actually made anything with them before. Unfortunately, I found I don't like the taste of them without a lot of modification--they smell nice, but they're acidic without character. Peppers, meet eggs.

-1 egg, beaten
-1/4 cup egg whites
-1/2 cup frozen spinach, thawed
-1/2 a bell pepper, chopped
-a handful of mushrooms
-black pepper, to taste

Procedure: heat pan, oil pan, add egg, egg white and spinach. Cook until set. Add peppers and mushrooms. Stir until heated through. Season. Eat.

See, that gives me at least two total servings of vegetables that I don't have to worry about later. Then I can eat my PB in peace.

Somebody call 911! Shorty fire burnin' on the dance floor

A writer for the NY Times published one of the most bizarre articles I've ever read in the health section of a news giant: "Should a war on shortness be one of the goals of health care reform?" On my first read-through, I couldn't determine whether Mr. Engber was being serious or satirical, but on review I'm certain it's the former.

Though he isn't clear about it, what he's really talking about is switching the over-refined focus on obesity to malnutrition. "Stature," he says, "can serve as a crude measure of public health. If everyone came from a perfect home, the average height across the population would be a function of our genes alone...Anything less than an ideal standard of living tends to stunt a child’s growth." So he isn't advocating eugenic horrors, but using average height to track how successful we are in getting nutrients into kids.

His argument isn't that radical, when you think about it, though the stats he uses to back it up have as many holes as a buttered crumpet. For example, he cites that "male college graduates are, on average, more than an inch taller than men who never finished high school" and "a decrease in a man’s height...is associated with a dip in earnings." As much as we hate to say it, the first statistic probably has little to do with height and a lot to do with race. 38% of white male high school graduates, who are an average of 70 inches tall, earn a bachelors by age 26. Hispanic males are an average of 67 inches tall, and only 18 percent of Hispanic high school graduates obtain a bachelors by the same age (Halls MD; Pew Hispanic Center). As for the second stat, it doesn't reflect ability or energy as much as a ubiquitous cultural bias.

Regardless, the article did prompt me to think about how leveling out at 5'2" put me at a medical disadvantage. Here are some ways shorties get the short end of the stick:

(1) We should eat less, but are taught the standards of the norm
A woman my age and height needs about 100 calories a day less than someone three inches taller. But we're taught standard portion sizes as children regardless of how tall we are. Example: a mother of two teenage sons, one 6'0" and the other 5'5", would give both the same amount of pasta at dinner to avoid "favoritism," inadvertently training the second one to eat more than he needs. Unless we short people eat everything in miniature, we need to eat fewer things, which is difficult when the role models around you have fuller plates.

(2) Sports are reserved for tall people
Basketball and volleyball are out. Little legs make it hard to run as fast as the graceful 5'6" gazelles, which put the status of track star out of reach. Short arms necessitate extra exertion on the tennis court, and stunted bodies give us more distance to cover in the pool. Only off-beat niches are left: figure skating, gymnastics, golf.... Even gym equipment is discriminatory. I've never been able to stretch out my arms enough to handle the "butterfly" pads on weight lifting machines.

(3) We're not the standard of beauty
We can aim for "cute," but heads don't turn for petites. And let's face it: when you're used to being the It Girl, you try harder to stay that way. I don't see fellow Asians or little Latinas scuttling around the track; I see normal heighters in sports bras and clingy short-shorts that show off their mile-long legs. We figure if we're going to slip by unnoticed anyway, we might as well enjoy our fudge brownies.

I'm not being entirely serious with the examples, but it is true that short people have to be especially vigilant when it comes to portion sizes and exercise. A five pound gain on a tall woman is barely noticeable, but it makes a world of difference to the health of my miniaturized body. And with regards to Engber's article, I've always wondered--if I hadn't crash dieted through my formative years, could I have grown an inch taller?

Rich Fudge Brownies

Before we went away to Greensburg last weekend, I peeped into the Rubbermaid containing my pumpkin swirl cake to wrap up a few pieces for emergency road snacks. The moisture on the lid was the first clue, and the non-cake smell that drafted upwards second: my treasures had spoiled! I had to dispose of them all, vowing to never leave moist goods out of the fridge again.

I tolerated ice cream the night we returned, but yesterday I needed a substantial dessert. Thanks to a particularly evil blogger, I had a massive craving for fudge brownies. I couldn't make Katie's "alternative" fudge because I don't have any dates, so I made the boring every-day kind.

I basically followed the directions that came on the Baker's unsweetened baking squares box, but halved it. Plus I halved the sugar a second time to increase the chocolatey impact per bite of brownie.

Tamara's Making-No-Effort-to-Be-Healthy Brownies
-2 squares unsweetened baking chocolate
-1/4 cup light butter spread
-1/2 cup sugar
-1 large egg
-1 teaspoon vanilla
-1/2 cup all-purpose flour (for once, I do not advocate swapping in whole wheat; it's just too dense)

Line a loaf pan with greased foil and preheat the oven to 350°. Put the butter and chocolate in a microwave-safe bowl and nuke on high for 30 seconds. Stir, and microwave for another 30 seconds, until the butter has melted. Stir until the chocolate has melted. Add the sugar, egg, and vanilla and mix into a glossy batter. Fold in the flour. Bake for about 20 minutes, until the center has just set.


Turn out, cool, and cut into 6 squares. I enjoyed my first warm, gooey one with a small scoop of Breyer's lactose-free vanilla ice cream.


By decreasing the sugar, I increased the chocolate coefficient that directly correlates to the satisfaction:quantity ratio. A single piece was just as efficient as an enormous slice of layered German chocolate cake in taming the taste buds. Although these brownies are the sort of thing you should enjoy without reminding yourself to feel guilty about it, I calculated that each brownie is about 220 calories--50 less than a single Little Debbie fudge brownie (and remember, those things come in packages of two!)

End Fat Talk

I learned from yesterday's post at Bran Appetit that this week is End Fat Talk Week. The week is sponsored by ΔΔΔ Women's Fraternity as part of the Reflections Body Image Program (wow, that's a lot of links).

The End Fat Talk video is kind of cheesy, but it does have a good essential message: "Friends don't let friends fat talk." It always rubs me the wrong way when women (or men) complain about their bodies, as I expressed in my People First Language post about how even well-meaning bloggers can support damaging ways of thinking. It probably irks me so much because I used to do it 24/7.

I'm trying to figure out when the widespread phenomenon of body-hatred started. It isn't exactly recent, that's for sure. In Victorian times, women with "small appetites" were regarded as virtuous, and wasting away was bizarrely romantic (examples: Fantine from Les Miserables, Mimi from La boheme, Helen Burns from Jane Eyre etc.) But its modern incarnation is difficult to trace. Silent screen starlets were well-fed, but the ideal grew steadily smaller thanks to the glamourization of the likes of Audrey Hepburn, whose tiny figure was the product of a malnourished childhood in Nazi-occupied Holland.

It's well and good to wish to keep your weight within a healthy range, but blind pursuit of thinness is dangerous, and I'm not just talking about the danger to mental stability. Underweight populations have higher mortality rates than normal or even overweight groups (Science Daily). Having an unnaturally low body weight puts you at risk for anemia, heart irregularities and osteoporosis, and leaves you especially vulnerable to infection (WD).

The thinnest person I know is my boyfriend's father. According to the Wii Fit, he has a BMI of about 17. Every time we visit, I'm afraid we'll wake up one morning to find he had died in his sleep. This past weekend I kept an eye on how he fed himself, because a 5'8" man should be eating at least 1600 calories a day, and that's just to support his current 115 pound frame. On Saturday, he woke up after noon and picked at half a tiny prepackaged turkey meal, the rest of which he abandoned on the kitchen counter. He didn't eat again until 7, when he attended the American Legion hog roast and probably ate 6 ounces of meat with a scoop of potato salad (his usual for barbecues). After we went to bed, he watched car races while downing some Coors Lights and cans of Coke with a couple of Pringles.

In essence, the man acquires half of his daily calories through alcohol and soda, and 90% of what he puts in his mouth is rolled-up paper (he's moved to Menthols now, which means he'll probably never quit). He would lose a couple of pounds a week if it weren't for the chips and fatty frozen meals. So while he's the thinnest person I know, he's also the least healthy. His example is extreme, but begs the question: do you really want to be like him?

If you want to lose weight, I recommend burning your copy of Skinny Bitch, cancelling your subscription to fashion magazines, and heading to your library for French Women Don't Get Fat, French Toast for Breakfast, or Eating the Moment. Then lace up your walking shoes, replace restaurants with homemade meals and contribute the resulting money saved to the trip-I've-always-wanted-to-take fund. Voila.

Pizza King

My sweetie and I visited his father over the weekend to celebrate the latter's 50-something (or is it 60 now?) birthday. Who's celebration of choice was a hog roast at the Greensburg Legion. Since we young'ns didn't have tickets and like to keep our lungs pure, we spent the day helping him around the house and dropped him off at the party before heading down the street for a quick dinner date by ourselves.

Greensburg, Indiana is hardly a culinary hot-spot. The options are pretty much pizza, burgers, fried chicken, and more pizza. My sweetie has a nostalgic fondness for a particular eatery down there: Pizza King. Even though we had eaten our homemade Friday Night Pizza the day before, he convinced me that Pizza King was "different."

Here's my first impression of the restaurant:


That's class, right there.

When we went inside, I found myself in what looked like a hollowed-out barn with tables. The teenage girl at the cash register took our order, and we snuck past the carousing families in the main dining area and the strongly vocal children in the arcade into the empty back room. Once there, I took a look at the receipt: $11.50. The pizza was supposed to be a base of $7, and they apparently charged us for extra toppings because we went halvsies. Plus, the girl had charged me a full $1.50 for water, since it was a "fountain drink." I promptly went back out to the fountain, emptied out my cup, and filled it with Diet Coke.


Yes, it made me sick later, but since I haven't had soda in over a month, it tasted divine. And I wasn't going to let them take $1.50 for water that tasted like it came out of a bathroom tap.

When the pizza arrived, I saw that it was cut into small squares, which had both good and bad points. The good: I ate a lot slower than usual, which made me feel fuller, and I didn't have my usual bedtime hunger pangs. The bad: the piece in the middle with no crust edges had to be eaten with a fork, which made it seem more like a pineapple-olive-tomato-paste salad than pizza.


Though the entire "Pizza King experience" was less than impressive, the food itself was definitely better than average. The olives were firm and not overly salty, and the sauce was less runny than my homemade version. The crust was the best part: thin, light and crispy.


We ate happily, with sweetie playing with the pepper flakes he had always wanted to try as a kid (verdict: they don't taste like much unless you put them directly on your tongue, and then it takes a little while for the bite to come through). Then we sat and chatted to give Who time to enjoy his pork and raffles until a girl who looked about 14 years old sidled in to ask if we wanted anything else. We took out our wallets to leave a tip for the woman who brought the pie to our table, but all he had was a fiver and all I had was four nickels and three pennies. That made me think: what do I ever use cash for, besides tips? In college I frequented the Chemistry and Jordan Hall vending machines, but those devil-may-care-if-I-buy-this-80¢-granola-bar days have ended.

When we swung by the Legion to pick up Who, he asked how much the dinner had cost. His bizarre answer to the reply of $11.50: "That's all?" To me, that amount for a 10" pie and some bubbles in sugar water was outrageous, but it's apparently on the low side by public perception. Maybe he expected his son to down an entire order of breadsticks or something.

All in all, it was a nice experience on someone else's dime, but it wouldn't be my first choice in splurge situations.

Whole Wheat & Flax Bread

Every weekend, I bake a loaf of bread to use throughout the week. I only started doing this recently, but it was a brilliant switch to make: the bread tastes a lot more like 'food' than corn-syrupy store-bought varieties and I save money too.

I use my bread machine to prepare the dough, but I don't bake in it. My machine is a dumpy square shape that makes slicing really inconvenient, plus the one time I tried the crust turned out way too hard. It only takes a minute to turn the dough out into a pan and put it in the oven, anyway. I like to add milled flax seeds to the loaf for nuttiness and texture, but it's more sandwich-friendly without (e.g. not as crumbly).

Whole Wheat & Flax Bread
-1 cup warm water
-1 medium egg
-1 tablespoon canola oil
-2 cups bread flour
-1 cup whole wheat flour
-1 tablespoon sugar
-1 teaspoon salt
-2 heaping tablespoons milled flax seed
-1 tablespoon active yeast

After the machine finishes the dough, I transfer it to a loaf pan and brush the top with water. Then I make a slit lengthwise down the middle and pop it in a 350° oven for 30 minutes (the slit is necessary; otherwise the top rises like a square and you end up with a really strange-looking lopsided loaf).

Here's my favorite meal to make with this bread: grilled (swiss) cheese!


And yes, that's fresh chicken stew next to it. I've been can-free for months now. I also used the bread to make that weirdly appetizing pear melt I didn't exactly invent last month, and it was much better than before. Heartier, fresher, and all-around more satisfying. Of course, that may be partly psychological--what's more satisfying than knowing you're eating your own bread?

Tea & Pumpkin Pancakes

When I started this blog, I promised I would never do product reviews. (a) Food blogs should be about foods, not particular premade concoctions, and (b) I'm a shameless capitalist who doesn't feel like making money for someone else for free. However, I'm going to bend the rules today to review something not terribly diluted by manufacturers: tea.

I've been craving warm drinks at night, what with the 45° weather out there ("Fall? What fall? It's more efficient to jump straight into winter!" claims mother nature). But I can't drink my green teas if I want to sleep before 2am and I refuse to pay for "decaf," a.k.a. boiled, filtered, and otherwise mutilated. So on the last grocery shopping trip I stopped by the breakfast aisle to check out their herbals. Kroger is hardly a tea mogul, so the best options available were chamomile and peppermint. I decided to try the Twinings peppermint, since the only other brand on the shelves was cheap Bigalow. Bigalow and I don't have a happy history (warning: stay AWAY from the vanilla almond black).


When I cracked open my first bag, I was shocked by the powerful aroma. My first sip was incredible--like brushing my teeth with a single swish. The leaves were fresh and potent enough to provide two cups!

The next day I was excited to try another Twinings tea: Earl Grey. I love the Stash Earl Grey my boss never drank (and which mysteriously ended up in my mug every morning >.>) so I was really eager for this one. I whipped up some pumpkin pancakes by adding a 1/4 cup of puree and some cinnamon to a 1/3 cup of buckwheat mix, then adding enough soy milk to reach batter consistency. They turned out huge!


I'm used to pancakes 75% that size; it's amazing how much bulk vegetables have.


Unfortunately, I was a little disappointed by the Earl Grey. I think it had more bergamot added than the Americanized Stash, so it wasn't what I was expecting. However, I think I'll become accustomed to it over time. It is definitely more flavorful than your every-day black.

Purple "Risotto" with Peas

I'd never had risotto before I made it the other day, but I'm pretty sure it isn't supposed to be purple. If you do a Google image search for "risotto," all of the pictures that come back are varying shades of browns and golds--not lilac.

So my "risotto" gets quotations around it, just to notify unsuspecting diners that there's something unique about it. There are a couple of things, actually: for one, I used canola oil instead of butter to coat the grains. For another, the reason my rice turned purple in the first place is that I don't buy wine (I could, but last time I was in the checkout line with an older man behind me, the cashier picked up his bottle of scotch, looked at me, and said to him, "This is yours. She isn't old enough." So I just don't go there). I used cranberry-grape juice instead. It's made from the same fruit, right?

Tamara's "Risotto"
(Makes 4 servings)
-2 tablespoons canola oil
-1 small onion, chopped
-1 cup uncooked rice (you're supposed to use amaretto, but I just used white)
-3/4 cup cranberry-grape juice (or white wine, if you're a purist)
-1 cup fat-free chicken broth
-1 1/2 cups water
-handful of frozen peas

Heat the oil in a small saucepan. Add the onion and saute until browned. Add the dry rice and stir until the grains are translucent. Pour in the juice/wine and stir until absorbed. Add the broth and water, a half cup at a time, stirring continuously until until all the liquids have absorbed, about 25 minutes. Throw in the peas and cover for 2 minutes until heated. Season with garlic salt and pepper to taste.

Comments: everyone says "risotto takes time, but it's worth it!" They don't bother to say "Your arm will hurt like the devil after the first 15 minutes." The stuff gets really thick, which tastes great but is cruel on the wrists. It's a good thing I made a 4-serving batch in one go to last the week! Since the dish is pretty heavy-tasting, it goes well with light entrees like pan-fried fish or roasted broccoli.

Pumpkin Swirl Cake

I finally finished the pumpkin cookie-cakes I made last week. Even though I only made half a batch, it didn't occur to me at the time that it would take ten days to eat the ten cookies. By the second week they tasted kind of "meh," so I made open-faced ice cream sandwiches out of them :D

Anyway, now that I've finally finished the dessert-type goods in my kitchen, it was time to make some new ones. Pumpkin brownies seemed like the logical next step, but every recipe I found called for two cups of sugar! I'm not a sugar-phobe, but I do have my standards. Fortunately, the StreamingGourmet posted about precisely these treats today as part of their "31 Days of Pumpkin" (I reiterate, the blogosphere has gone nuts for pumpkin lately!). I didn't use their recipe, but followed the link at the bottom to some healthier bars by the Makover Moms. They only used 3/4 cup of sugar for an entire batch, no butter, and half whole wheat flour--score!

I made some further modifications because I wanted swirls instead of chips, and halved the batch as usual.
(Makes 9 servings)
-1 cup pumpkin puree
-1 large egg
-1/4 cup egg whites
-1/4 cup canola oil
-2 tablespoons light soy milk
-1 teaspoon vanilla
-1/3 cup sugar
-1/2 cup all-purpose flour
-1/2 cup whole wheat flour
-1 teaspoon baking powder
-1/4 teaspoon baking soda
-1/4 teaspoon salt
-cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger to personal preferences
-1 tablespoon cocoa powder

In a medium mixing bowl, beat the wet ingredients and sugar together. In a separate bowl, combine all of the dry ingredients except the cocoa. Incorporate the dry into the wet and pour 2/3 of the batter into an oiled 8x8 pan (oil it well; my cake fell apart when I attempted to turn it out and I was 'forced' to eat the broken bits :p)


Add the cocoa to the remaining batter and combine thoroughly. Drop the chocolate batter by mounds onto the pumpkin batter and swirl with a knife.


Bake at 350° for 20 minutes, until the top is spongey.


Leave it to set for five minutes, then turn out onto a cooling rack and cut into 9 pieces. Each soft, fluffy piece is only 150 calories and contains plenty of beta-carotene.

Always Sunny in the Rich Man's World

I love reading other people's food blogs. Every day I add a handful of new recipes to my mental collection, garner little tidbits to make my favorite meals even better (vegetables in oatmeal! Who'd-a-thunk?), and get a taste of everyday life in exotic locales like Boston, Singapore, Osaka, and Great Britain.

There is one aspect of others blogs, though, that makes me feel a little left out: popular product placements. Authors don't purposely push things, but they often sing the praises of brand-new loves that feed the wildfire of hype. I can't remember a single day since I started blogging that I wasn't bombarded with images of POM juices, Chobani yogurt, Barney Butter or Larabars.

I wrote on Saturday about how my boyfriend and I like to save money on food by making things like pizza and bread from scratch. Lately I've been especially frugal at the grocery store because I want to take a trip to Japan next year. The aforementioned boyfriend has decreed that we're not allowed to buy plane tickets if, at the projected time of departure, the expenses will exceed half of the total in my bank account. I think that's a pretty arbitrary measure--it would have made more sense if he had said the remainder in savings had to equal the income I will lose for a year by starting graduate school--but no matter. The end result is the same: I have to pass on the products whose mouthwatering photos grace the pages of my fellow bloggers, or risk chipping away at my precious Tokyo funds. Here are some particularly popular foodstuffs I can't afford:

POM Wonderful
These pomegranate juices have crept their way into smoothie and tropical oatmeal recipes throughout the blogosphere. The company sneakily sends bottles of iced coffee and other flavors to authors for review. Those lucky ducks; they get to bypass the $3.99 for a 16oz bottle at my local Kroger. Sixteen fluid ounces is approximately two cups, so that's like paying the same for a single cup of this stuff as I do for a gallon of Ocean Spray!

Chobani Yogurts
I started this blog with a Tribute to Yogurt, in which I exalted in the buried treasure of greek-style yogurt. It isn't so buried anymore, thanks to the explosion in sales of this creamy fruit-on-the-bottom brand. The protein-rich snacks aren't terribly expensive at $1.19 for a 6oz cup. Generally affordable, but when you consider that for less than $6 I can strain 64oz. of plain non-fat Dannon and mix with fruit preserves for the equivalent of 6-8 of those Chobani cups, it's a bit of a rip-off.

Barbara's Bakery Puffins
Chobani cups are often pictured topped with this Cap'n Crunch look-alike. Wheat-free and low-fat, heralds the box. At $4.39 for an 11oz box, a few weeks of these puppies could lower the numbers on both my bathroom scale and my bank statement. Other flavors, like cinnamon, cost the same for 12oz, but when I'm used to paying $2 for an enormous box of bran flakes, that's still a bit much for me to swallow.

Larabars
An aisle down from the organic Puffins I found Larabars, nestled in the sea of energetically decorated plastic encompassing "energy" and meal replacement bars (energy meaning, of course, sugarsugarsugar). Individually wrapped bars are ridiculously priced in general, so when I saw the "$1.49 each" on the open-topped box I wasn't surprised. But when I looked inside, I was taken aback: like Hollywood celebrities, the bars look voluptuous on screen but are tiny in real life. Each Larabar is 1.6oz. Yes, those are a healthy nut-and-fruit-only 1.6oz, but the neighboring Clif bars were 2.4oz and selling 10 for $10. I'd rather stick some walnut pieces together with pureed dates myself, thanks.

Almond Butter
My Kroger didn't carry Barney Butter, so I can't make any data-supported snarky comments about it. But I did pass by the nut butters for kicks and giggles, to see how much the haloed non-peanut butters cost in comparison to your generic Skippy. I don't usually hover on the brink of heart attacks, but the price tag on Earth Balance Almond Butter almost pushed me over it: $11.49. MaraNatha was a bit more reasonable at $9.39, but still cost just as much as the enormous bag of frozen Talapia fillets I picked up in the Seafood section.

I don't object to paying more for quality foods. It's much better to savor a fantastic square of 70% Lindt than it is to endlessly reach for cheap kisses in search of satiety. But for some of these products, especially the POM and Larabars, I think the ratio of cost:quality has been blown way out of proportion.

Fried Rice

Stir-fry is one of my favorite meals, but some days I come home too hungry and tired to go through the effort of making it. The shortcut imitator: fried rice. It has all the vegetables, protein, and flavor of my stir-fries, but take half the time and effort to prepare. Why? Those vegetables are chosen carefully to avoid long cooking times, there's no special sauce to worry about, and everything is thrown into a pan in one big mess.

-1 teaspoon canola oil
-1/2 cup liquid egg whites
-1/2 cup cooked rice
-1/5 a block of firm tofu, cubed
-1 handful of sliced mushrooms
-1/2 cup of frozen peas
-soy sauce, salt and pepper to taste

Heat the oil in a saucepan or wok. Pour in the eggs and cook until half-set; add the rice and stir to coat with uncooked egg. Add the tofu, mushrooms, and frozen peas. Cover and cook until the egg is done and the peas are warmed through. Season with soy sauce, salt and pepper.

One downfall of this dish: it can be heavy on the sodium if you use a liberal hand with the soy sauce (like I do sometimes). If you do, cut out the additional salt, or consider switching to a low-sodium brand of sauce.

Sweet Corn Chowder

I don't have any fond childhood memories of corn chowder. But if I'd eaten it as a child, I would have. Chowder has that pleasant mingling of body, sweetness, and saltiness which fends off the cold gray world outside (which I also wasn't exposed to as a child in sunny SoCal; I suppose it was a trade-off).

I like traditional chowders, but cooks usually use short-cuts to creaminess through the likes of butter and heavy cream. I half-improvised this lighter version, drawing from this over-the-top recipe in the Boston Globe as well as from my basic experience with cheese sauces and puddings, which thicken by the same principle.


(Makes 3-4 servings)
-one large potato, cubed
-1 cup fat-free chicken broth
-1 tablespoon canola oil or light butter
-half a small yellow onion, peeled and chopped
-15 oz. can sweet yellow corn, drained
-1 tablespoon all-purpose flour
-1 cup light soy milk
-garlic powder, black pepper to taste

Place the potato cubes and chicken broth in a sauce pot. Bring to a boil, then cover and simmer 10 minutes until potatoes are tender. In the meantime, saute the onion in the oil until translucent. Add the drained corn and flour and stir over medium heat until slightly browned. Add the potatoes and broth to the corn mixture. Stir in the soy milk. Simmer for 5-10 minutes until the soup has thickened. Flavor with garlic powder and black pepper and serve with a hearty bread on the side.

Carrot "Cake" Oatmeal

I was just finishing up the last of my pumpkin pie inspired oats when I spotted this post by Brandi at Bran Appetit: carrot cake oatmeal! It looks like I won't have to make many desserts this winter because I'll satisfy my sweet tooth through breakfast. Now I'm thinking about banana cream oats, cherry pie oats, gingerbread oats....

But I'm getting ahead of myself; right now I have another day's worth of carrot "cake" oatmeal a la Brandi in the fridge.


I made a few tweaks to her recipe, since I prefer chunks of pineapple to crushed and didn't have coconut or nuts on hand.

(Makes 2 servings)
-1/2 cup rolled oats
-1/2 cup pineapple tidbits in juice
-1 large carrot, grated
-1/2 cup light soy milk
-1/2 cup water
-1/4 cup raisins
-1 teaspoon sugar
-1 teaspoon vanilla
-ground cinnamon, nutmeg, and ginger to scent


I put everything except the vanilla and spices in a sauce pot, brought the mixture to a boil and simmered for 10 minutes, until the water was absorbed and the carrots were reasonably tender. Then I stirred in the flavorings and inhaled deeply before digging in.

At first, I hadn't intended on adding any sugar, figuring the pineapple juice and raisins would flavor it by themselves. They did, but the taste of carrot was a tad too strong, so I sprinkled in that bit of sweetener to counter it. If I had used vanilla soy milk, or an entire cup of soy milk instead of water, it probably wouldn't have been necessary. I was out of greek-style yogurt when I made this, but I think a dollop of it mixed with honey on top of the oats would be a great "cream cheese frosting" :D

Frugality or Falsity?

My sweetie and I do our best to live within our means. To be more accurate, we're Scrooge McDucks. To be even more accurate, we're lazy.

Laziness has been paying off. On weekends we might toss around the idea of going out for breakfast Downtown like exciting young couples should. Then we decide it's too much effort to get dressed and I slap some batter on the frying pan instead, saving the $15 we would have spent at the Village Deli. Or we note that the cat has really torn up the bed sheets and we need some new ones, but I whine at the prospect of traffic around the mall until my sweetie grabs the needle and thread. That $20+ expense has just been stalled another month.

But sometimes, I wonder if our behaviors really save as much money as we think they do. What if we've been tricked by the do-it-yourself hype? Example: when you wear your own knitted sweaters, people praise you for being handy and frugal. But the three skeins of semi-decent yarn required for said sweater add up to at least $9, and a sweater from the bright display tables of Old Navy would cost just as much without the weeks of work. Can the same be said of homemade foods?

Yesterday was pizza night, and I took the opportunity to examine whether the money-saving claim I made in my original recipe post was true. I put together this chart:

Ingredient	Cost	Package Size	Servings/Batch	Cost/Batch
Bread Flour	$5	18 cups	1.5 cups	$0.42
Yeast	$7	16 tbsp	1/2 tbsp	$0.22
Cheese	$2.50	8 oz.	2 oz.	$0.63
Sauce	$1	26 oz.	≈5 oz.	$0.20
Pepperoni	$3	6 oz.	≈1 oz.	$0.50
Pineapple	$1	15 oz.	≈4 oz.	$0.25

You'll notice I left out some of the minor ingredients--oil, sugar, pepper, etc.--because the portion used compared to the enormity of their packages makes their cost negligible. From this chart, I gleaned that one Friday Night Pizza costs $2.22, or adjusting for those left-out ingredients, approximately $2.25. That's about $5 less than a Pizza Mia from the Pizza Hut on the corner (before delivery fees). After only 8 Fridays, that made up for the $40 cost of the machine to churn out the dough.

So yes, my sweetie and I can pat ourselves on the back. I get a second pat because the chart also suggests that my machine-kneaded whole wheat loaves cost about $1.50, or one dollar less than the Active Lifestyles bread I used to favor. And I didn't make a chart, but we figured out that when I bake my sweetie's chocolate chip cookies, we save $2-3 for every Keebler's package.

When it comes to baked goods, homemade is best for both your waistline and your wallet.

Spicy Chicken and Rice with Black Beans

I was at a loss over what to make for dinner the other day, considering that the only protein sources left in our kitchen were frozen chicken breasts and I needed to use some leftover cooked rice and the black beans I prepped for chili last week. I figured I'd surf the internet for some recipes that used them all. While browsing, I opened up Blogger for the heck of it and wouldn't you know it, this recipe for Chicken and Rice with Black Beans popped up at the top of my reading list! I made some minor adjustments, since I didn't have the ingredients called for in the proper form, and made a fiber-and-protein rich dish perfect for a chilly October night.


-two chicken tenderloins (or one breast), raw and pounded thin
-1/2 cup cooked rice
-1/2 cup cooked black beans
-1 tablespoon chicken broth
-1/4 cup salsa or picante sauce

Spray a frying pan with Pam and cook the chicken for three minutes on each side, until browned and no longer pink in the middle. Chop into bite sized pieces and set aside. In a small saucepan, add the rice, beans, and chicken broth. Heat until the broth has evaporated. Add in the chicken and salsa and cover until heated through.

Easy-peasey, and a great base for any other leftovers hanging around in the fridge. Some wilted spinach on the verge of slimyness, corn that's starting to dry, or the last shriveled potato in the bag would make nice additions. Spice has a wonderful way of masking inadequacies.

Root Veggie Soup with Ginger

I had my endoscopy yesterday morning. I knew it would be invasive; I knew I would be groggy; but they didn't tell me it would be hell. Seriously. The procedure was a nightmare of multiple people in scrubs talking at me at once, sticking things in my veins and nose and spraying nasty chemicals in my mouth, then waking up to a burning throat, an inability to control my own limbs, and nausea to a magnitude I haven't felt since I the night I simultaneously started birth control hormones and UTI antibiotics.

I vaguely remember someone poking my pharynx with a tongue depressor, shoving papers in my hand, and loading me in my acting mother-in-law's car to go back to the apartment. I don't think I should be held responsible for anything I said during that time period. AMIL was sweet enough to stay with me while I sipped some of the Root Veggie Soup I made yesterday in anticipation of the occasion. The soup did wonders; after that I felt well and safe enough to let AMIL go to work and settle down to sleep through the remainder of the fog.

BTW: I just read through those papers, and it looks like there was NOTHING wrong with me. No inflammation, no holes, no nothing. I don't even have gastritis. I have colorful pictures of my organs to prove it, but I won't subject you guys to them. The doctor made a summary diagnosis of acid reflux, even though I never get heartburn. Treatment: "don't smoke, don't drink, and stay away from Starbucks." Lame.

Anyway, the ordeal did show me the value of a good vegetable puree. I think this will be my new go-to food when I'm feeling under the weather. Instead of your typical garlic and Italian herbs, I flavor mine with ginger (another root vegetable, incidentally) for a twist.

Root Veggie Soup
(Makes 3 servings)
-1 cup water
-1 cup fat-free chicken broth
-One large carrot
-One large potato
-1/2 a small onion
-ginger powder (or grated fresh if you have it) to taste
-black pepper to taste

Chop the vegetables and add to a stove top pot along with the water. Bring to a boil, then simmer for 45 minutes, until veggies are tender.


Stir in ginger and pepper. Harvest a cup of the potato pieces from the soup and set aside. Puree the remaining soup and vegetables. Add the potatoes back in, and serve with a thick slice of homemade (or artisan) bread with hummus.


The soup would have been creamier and more substantial if I had added 1/4 a cube of silken tofu while pureeing, but (a) I didn't have any on hand and (b) I have no idea how that would have affected my stomach post-operation.

NYC's Bake Sale Ban: Well-Meaning but Misguided

Although the state of New York is on the lower end of the obesity spectrum in the US (with 24.4% in 2008, compared to an average of 26% overall), the Big Apple has made many attempts to control their residents' waistlines in recent years. First the Board of Health mandated that restaurants post calorie information on their menus (CNN Health). Then the Department of Education attacked the sugary drinks and fatty snacks in vending machines, contracting with the likes of Snapple in hopes of implanting good habits in the young (WNYC news). But they've gone a little too far with the latest measure: banning bake sales.

Now, I'm all for encouraging children to eat healthily. Scrapping the greasy pizza in the cafeteria and limiting easy access to salted-saturated-fat-parading-as-potatoes is a good idea. Giving kids Pepsi and Honey Buns at break will affect their ability to pay attention in class later in the day, not to mention the long-term health repercussions.

However, Oreos and blueberry muffins baked by the football team are on two completely different levels. Homemade goodies are a rare treat. Kids don't just wolf them down; they become intoxicated by the scent, crowd around the table excitedly clutching dollar bills, and savor them with friends. I've never seen one do the same with boring spongy HoHos, which they grab mindlessly and hunger for an hour later. And despite being "calorie traps," homemade goodies are made with more wholesome ingredients than some of the things the school board OK'd: so-called healthy baked Doritos and "lower-sugar granola bars." Take a look at the ingredient list for Quaker 25% Less Sugar Chewy bars, which contain brown sugar, sugar, malted barley extract, corn syrup, corn syrup solids, molasses, and sucralose, as well as hydrogenated oils. Don't get me started on the diet sodas, which are also considered kosher despite seriously screwing with people's appetites.

The NYC Education Board's dietitians seem to believe teenagers should eat nothing but turkey on whole wheat, cut-up fruit and carrot sticks. In attempting to eliminate everything with a remotely unhealthy profile from school grounds, they're missing an opportunity to teach a key concept that every child should master: moderation. What do you think the students do as soon as the bell rings at 2:30? Make a beeline for forbidden Snickers, of course. Wouldn't it be better if they learned to crave David's mom's oatmeal raisin cookies instead?

Bake sales abounded for decades before the "obesity epidemic" struck. Evidence the 1950s, when only 10% of the population was obese but the quintessential wife had an apron on and a tray of fresh cookies in hand. The problem isn't that fudge brownies and poppy-seed muffins exist, but that they've been watered down with high fructose corn syrup, engorged to the size of basketballs, and distributed en masse to every gas station and Dollar General in the country. Remember Anne of Green Gables waltzing around on cloud nine for days after her first taste of ice cream at a church social? There were few 250-pound individuals walking the streets in the days when treats were linked to times of celebration.

NYC school administrators ought to remember this and consider adopting a less Puritan and ultimately damaging approach to encouraging nutrition.

Pumpkin Oats

The blogosphere's gone pumpkin-crazy these days! Posts abound about pumpkin patches, pumpkin muffins, pumpkin bread, and Healthy Eats devoted a day to pumpkin's multiple possibilities. Everyone is singing the praises of the creamy beta-carotene-loaded vegetable.

Side note: I should really stop calling it a vegetable. My Botany professor from senior year would have smeared red ink all over my blog and docked my participation points for the day because it's actually a fruit, like zucchini, bell peppers and corn kernels o.o

I've been fully sucked in to the mania, as evidenced by my weekend post on pumpkin cookie-cakes. I also took a few ideas from that Healthy Eats post and tried my first pumpkin Green Monster on Sunday; it was nice but needs some tweaking before I'm confident enough to post the recipe here. And yesterday morning I made my first batch of pumpkin oats.


To borrow the favorite turn-of-phrase of Tina at Carrots 'n Cake: holy yum! These oats were extraordinarily creamy and only one tablespoon of sugar away from being a remarkable substitute for pumpkin pie.

-1/2 cup old-fashioned oats
-1/2 cup light soy milk
-1/2 cup water
-1/2 cup pumpkin puree
-1 teaspoon maple syrup
-handful of raisins

I simmered everything for about ten minutes, until it looked like the water had been absorbed. This made double the volume of oatmeal I usually eat in the morning, so it was no surprise that I could only finish 2/3 before my stomach said "Stop!" The remainder went in the fridge, and I'm pleased to report the it was even sweeter and more fragrant today!

Some commenters on the Healthy Eats page suggested topping pumpkin oats with nut butters and chocolate chips. Nuts sound like a great idea--chopped walnuts would be perfect--but I will never understand the compulsion to put chocolate in everything. Personally, I find it really annoying when I'm trying to enjoy some delicate pancakes or banana bread and and an arrogant chocolate chunk commandeers my taste buds. Cocoa is such a strong flavor, and the aftertaste is so lingering, that it's very difficult to enjoy the substance of the meal if it's studded with the stuff. Chocolate definitely has its place (like in my favorite homemade pudding), but that place is not at breakfast.

A Night at Red Lobster

Last night my sweetie and I felt like splurging. We eat out about once a month--twice if someone else is paying :D We decided on Red Lobster: not your typical fast food fare, but not terribly expensive, and practically college-kid free (a coveted rarity in this town).

I took the occasion to dress up a little, as you can see to the right. I almost never wear get the chance to wear this dress, and I never wear heels. It took me a good ten minutes walking around the apartment to get my balance. I really like the outfit, though--look how small it makes my waist appear.


A model, I will never be. I have such a hard time cooking up a decent smile in front of a camera.

There was no wait at the restaurant, which took me by surprise. We were shuttled into a corner booth with a fare dose of kitschy decor. My sweetie ordered the Seafood Sampler; check out the chic sea critters on the booth cover behind him.


The entrees at Red Lobster can be way too big, so ordering an appetizer instead was a smart choice on his part.

I was determined to be adventurous, so I ordered something I've never had before: the half-portion of talapia. It was topped with shrimp, which I've also never had before. Yes, I know I'm strange; I've just always had a mental block against eating the entire body of an arthropod in one mouthful. Even last night my sweetie had to cheerlead me into trying it--I just kept seeing it crawl around on my plate.


I'm sorry to say, I found I don't care much for shrimp. My sweetie assures me the flavor was overwhelmed by the garlic salsa, and they taste much better plain. I took his word for it and nudged the rest of them to the side of my plate. The talapia, though, was heavenly. It tasted a lot less like "fish" than I'm used to (I've been a strictly salmon and tuna girl up until now), and was extraordinarily tender. I also loved the wild rice. It probably had a pound of butter in it, but it was a nice break from my usual plain ol' steamed.

Have you ever eaten something that had so much flavor you ate about half of it and felt like the meal should be over already? That's what happened to me last night. I finished all my veggies, but only 3/4 of the rice and 1/2 of the fish. I felt sad to let them sit, but knew if I forced myself to finish my stomach would act up later (it hates being stuffed). And unfortunately, food like that doesn't reheat well, so I pulled a Tree Grows in Brooklyn and convinced myself that abandoning the remains was a form of indulgence.

I'm really unfamiliar with seafood, so we will probably select Red Lobster again in the future. My sweetie has plans to introduce me to lobster, oysters, and other marine-dwelling delicacies.