Sicky sickerstein :-(

I am sick...I have fought it hard, but I think it is official. It went from a couple weeks of beautiful spring-like weather here in the mountains to rain rain rain and it brought this nasty head and throat bug with it. I have done SO GOOD at not being sick the past year! And I used to be teased by my mom for having the world's worst immune system because it seemed like I was sick constantly! But I am realizing that I was probably just a lot more eager to jump on the slightest symptoms to stay home from work when I was doing the corporate thing, and now that I am doing what I love and the stress level is so much less I am more willing to push through it and not succumb so easily to illness. In any case, I haven't been really sick much the past year so feeling this sick now is really getting me down :-(

I ate chicken soup for breakfast that I had made in December and dug out of my freezer (yes, I am still eating off the food I made over winter break!) and I brought a stash of green tea and Advil to get me through the day. Fortunately I don't have class today so I am just curled up at the front desk at work with my shawl wrapped around me, clutching my mug of tea, and trying to get some homework done.

We just launched into rehearsals for our last show of the season this week so I REALLY don't have time to be sick! Unless I am dying I can't miss rehearsal so miracle of modern medicine - do you work!! Although hopefully I should have some good news about this summer soon. I don't want to jinx it so I won't say much, but it looks like I will have some real professional theatre credits on my resume soon :-)

When I disappear it means I am involved in a play :-)

So I posted like a FIEND during winter break, and as soon as we came back to school I immediately jumped into 5-6 day a week rehearsals for our show that opens in 1 week (EXCITED!!) And between that and actual homework - of which I am avoiding right now and counting on the fact that my Dramatic Lit Crit teacher doesn't read my blog, my time to update has been limited. And honestly my cooking has gone to hell too since I have had no time so pictures of nifty cooking projects have been nonexistent. Fortunately this is why I spent all of winter break cooking! And everyone at school drools over my pasta with sausage, chicken enchilada casserole, chicken soup, and all the rest of it :-) Truly one of the best thing I did with all that time...it has saved me a ton of money, time and trips to fast food joints on campus.

So I don't have a ton to update right now except that I have been stage managing an amazing show that opens on Feb 9th. It is my first time stage managing and it has been one of the most amazing experiences of my life. It's like all my time in the corporate world, along with all my passion for the theatre, has combined to create the perfect place for me to use my super awesome skills! I still love acting of course, and that is still where I am getting my degree, but I am so thrilled to have found this other new outlet for my talents. And after all, that's why I went back to school -to explore ALL the possibilities out there and find the best path for me!

Joseph Campbell famously said "Follow Your Bliss" and that is what I am doing. Is it a perfect life? No. I am broke most of the time (that whole starving artist thing minus the starving part), I am a city girl at heart living in a tiny town in the mountains of North Carolina and having severe urban envy, I still struggle with loneliness (especially since all dating prospects at college are around 10 years younger than me and ummmm...well, just no) and I still am not 100% sure what I want to do when I grow up :-) But the fact is that I have amazing friends (Dirty Dancing and sangria night rocks my world!), I am involved in an amazing theatre program, I am fully supported by my family in my crazy dreams, and I am ultimately making my life full of the things I love. Honestly now, what could be better than that??

P.S. If you happen to be in NC you should come check out out a great play showing Feb 9th - 12th at Western Carolina University. Reasons To Be Pretty is about the anatomy of a break up, the consequences both comedic and tragic, and explores what it means to be "pretty" in our society. Come and see and say hi!

http://www.wcu.edu/4853.asp

Food and portions and stuff

So I packed my food for work today. After having a panic attack over how much money I spent on eating out during finals week ($10-$15 a day, seriously more than 50% of my weekly income was being spent on Subway, McAllister’s and Mad Batter) I decided that during break I will do LOTS of cooking, pack my food when I am working, and freeze a ton of stuff to be ready for the insanity that is going to be January 9th – February 12th (first day of rehearsals through closing night of Reasons To Be Pretty) (I should stop using parenthesis so much…but I like them…don’t judge me, I’m a theatre major not an English major)

ANYWAY…………………

So I packed some of my leftover curried lentils and brown rice for lunch today. I also packed a slice of fresh baked bread, 2 clementine oranges, package of miso soup mix, a string cheese, and an apple. I figured all that would cover me for lunch and afternoon snacks. But seriously, I think I grossly overestimate how much food I need in a day. I ate about 3/4 of the lentils and rice, the bread and the clementines and a Christmas cookie that a coworker had brought in and didn’t touch the soup, cheese or apple. It’s like, I pack every day on the off chance I am chosen to join an expedition to climb Everest and all I will have to eat is what is in my lunch bag. PLUS the tupperware I pack my leftovers in holds 3 cups and of course I feel the need to fill it full. That means I packed around 1.5 cups of lentils and 1.5 cups of rice. I mean, no wonder by 3/4 of the way through I felt like I was going to burst with curried goodness! I’m thinking maybe I need to downgrade to a 2 cup tupperware container for leftovers for a more reasonable serving size so I don’t have a curried food baby after lunch.

So, lesson of today boys and girls – you will NOT starve, or be chosen to cater a mountain climbing expedition on the contents of your sack lunch, so pack for a single meal and not a week.

ALSO! I got my Christmas packages from my mom today. Although I left the wrapped presents until Saturday (if I can hold out) I did open a box of Trader Joe’s goodies that I am SUPER excited about. My closest TJ’s is 2 hours away an I haven’t had a functioning car for almost 3 months so getting awesome care packages from across the country always makes my day. Behold the stash!Trader Joe’s miso soup and dried peaches are probably two of my favorite things in the entire world…right up there with world peace and pillows stuffed with bunnies.

Cranberry Love

So I finally got a fully functioning laptop! Yeah! I have spent the last 6 months with a laptop that wouldn’t type the letters W, S, A or D.  Understandably this made blogging difficult because it meant I either had to type a post missing all those letters, then go to a webpage and copy and past each letter individually throughout the post (which is probably one of the most annoying things to do EVER!!) or I had to post at school or at work.  And honestly, I found that time was more often used for, you know, school…or work But I got an early Christmas from my Mommy in the form of a fabulous little netbook, the perfect size to toss in my bag to take to school, and with up to 11 hrs of battery life.  So in other words – Tina is connected!!  Hooray!!

My food has been kind of boring lately.  I’ve been penny pinching and trying to stretch my food stamps  since my budget is about $30 a week so I’ve been taking bits and pieces from my pantry and eating the same thing almost all week.  It works though…still doing soup for lunch, been baking fresh bread using the Artisan Bread in 5 Minutes a Day recipe, lots of fresh fruit, some string cheese and almonds as snacks.  Hey, it may be basic but it is tasty, homemade and filling.  Can’t knock on that!

I have also been snacking on leftover cranberry sauce I made for Thanksgiving.  It was actually cranberry/apple sauce because when I made it with just the 1 bag of cranberries it didn’t look like very much, so I chopped up 3 apples, cooked them down a bit and mixed it in with the cranberries to bulk it up.  Of course I got to the potluck and someone else had brought a giant kettle of cranberry sauce so mine ended up coming home with me.  Hey, I’m not complaining…it’s good!  I put 1 bag of cranberries in a pot with about 1/2 cup of apple juice, the juice squeezed from 1 orange, the rest of that orange (peels and all), a dash of ginger and 1 cinnamon stick.  While it was simmering on the stove I brewed a cup of very strong Earl Grey tea.  After about 10 minutes I added the tea and then sweetened it up to taste with about 1/4 cup of brown sugar and about 1/8 cup of honey (the sweetening I did all by taste).  Let it all simmer about another 10 minutes and then pulled the orange and cinnamon stick out and put the sauce in a bowl.  Saw that the bowl was only about 1/2 full so I chopped up 3 apples and simmered it in another cup of strong Earl Grey tea for about 10 minutes until the apples were soft.  Added them into the cranberry sauce and refrigerated overnight.  By the morning it was nice and thick, bright red, sweet/tart and all the things I love about homemade cranberry sauce without just being a bowl of cranberry flavored sugar!  And this is what I have been nibbling on all week with lunch.

I have a bag of mixed chocolate/peanut butter chips in my cabinet that are begging to be baked into something…the question is, what?  Yet to be determined…

Check In

Alright - I am going to not apologize for how long I go between blog posts and just accept that for the time being I am an inconsistent blogger and I will post when I have the time and inclination to. And if things come up, or I get more readers, I may try to increase that...but until then I am just going to let this be what it is - a place for me to share my thoughts, ideas, recipes, struggles and successes when they strike me.

On that note - I was home alone all this weekend. The roommates were on a roadtrip, my car is still broken down so I wasn't going anywhere. So poochie and me curled up on the couch and enjoyed the chilly (occasionally snowy) weekend together. And I won't lie, Saturday stunk...I was in a funky funk, feeling lonely and sorry for myself, irritated that I couldn't go anywhere and just kind of all together BLAH. It's funny because I think my Saturday blahs were kicked off by a Friday night party I went to.

Being back in school can be GREAT in many ways. Even the first time I went to school I didn't do a lot of the full time student stuff because most of my friends were older and already out of school. So it has been fun to just throw myelf in and experience some of the college things I didn't do as much the first time around (and maybe cut back on some of the stupid stuff...haha!) And the group of friends I am developing are fabulous, and hilarious, and awesome and I just love them to death. It's hard to believe that 3 months ago I didn't know ANY of them and now I feel like I might as well have known everyone forever. BUT...the fact of the matter is that I AM a decade older than most of the people in this group. And let's be honest, 10 years spent in college, out of college, working, married, separated, moving from the Pacific NW, to the Greater NE, and now to the mountains of the South makes for a BIG experience difference. And while I try not to harp on it too much (yes, I occasionally smack myself for getting a little too "well back in MY day!") Friday night for some reason I just felt the age difference very keenly. Maybe it was the fact that the music people were saying was "old school" was actually the music that was just coming out when I first moved to NJ so it brought up a lot of memories. Maybe it's that for some reason I was looking around the party and seeing the faces of people who I knew over the last 10 years but are now firmly in my past juxtaposed on my new friends here in NC. But somehow, I just felt like I was a person out of time and out of place in that moment and it weighed somewhat heavily on me. And that energy carried over into Saturday for me, and not in a positive way.

Yes, you may remember when Britney came out - but the difference is I could have been babysitting you at the time, while we were actually partying to her music!

And unfortunately I manifested my Saturday down energy in my old, not so healthy ways - namely, eating a bunch of junk food, watching almost the entire 3rd season of The Wire, and sleeping more than half the day away. But by Sunday morning I realized that this was no way to be, and that living in a melancholy past was doing no one any good! So Sunday I attacked with purpose and energy!

So Sunday I decided that my rear end was back on the healthy living bandwagon. First I pulled out my journal and did a little writing to center myself. Then I got out one of my favorite books, "The End of Overeating" by Dr. David Kessler. A really fascinating book that talks about how the food industries really do manipulate us through science and chemistry to eat more, take in more calories, be less satisfied with healthy, NORMAL food, and ultimately spend more money on their junk while getting less and less healthy as a society. I read that book entirely through during the course of the day, just to remind myself why I had made a commitment to eat whole, natural foods and get rid of the junk. In between I also cleaned my kitchen, which turned into me emptying the fridge and scrubbing it with soap and water, emptying my cabinets and putting the less healthy food up to out of reach and more healthy food down in plain sight, and cooked up a storm!
I admit, when I went to the grocery store last week I got JUNK...frozen pizzas, lean pockets, fried okra, Oreos, chips...all that stuff that makes me feel like crap. And you know what - it WAS making me feel like crap! For the week that I was eating a combination of that and junk take out I had a permanent headache, stomach ache, tummy problems, and just felt all around sluggy. As soon as I started changing over to the whole grains, more fruits and veggies, and less processed food I feel a MILLION times better immediately!
So I made 2 pots of soup (I have learned from experience that if I plan on taking soup for lunch every day and I only make 1 kind I get burned out by Wednesday. By making 2 kinds I can switch it up every day and not get bored and go spend money on fast food) A sort of minestrone, and spinach/lemon/orzo. I also made a quiche bake with bacon, cheddar cheese, sauteed mushrooms, and eggs that I will have for dinners. And I have the stuff to make a mexican polenta casserole a little later in the week. I am meal planning, packing, and keeping things healthy and whole. And you know what? I feel GREAT already! I think a combination of the change in attitude and the change in food is already kicking in and I feel positive and ready to move forward and continue with getting healthy.

And you know what else? 29 isn't really that old :-)

I am the disappearing blogger evidently!

So theatre - it Is wonderful for giving me a sense of fulfillment and joy about pursing my dreams in life. Not so great for keeping up to date on a blog!
I was assistant stage manager for a show called Romantic Fools - which was hilarious, awesome, fun and a joy to work on. A sketch comedy type of show all about the absurdities of love, romance, sex and relationships. But it also meant that between classes/work/rehearsals/shows I was spending just about every day at school from 8am-10pm. And considering this is a food blog and I was eating an inordinate amount of ramen noodles and fast food burritos, also less than thrilling for updates. But...I'm baaaaaaaaack! And will try to ramp it back up a bit, at least until the next show starts :-)

That also means I will try to start posting more pictures again...promise! In the meantime - some updates and a recipe or two.

1) Very exciting news...I got foodstamps!!! Hooray!! That means my approximately $30/month budget for groceries has been tripled...I still have to work around a budget because $120/month which is still lower than I was used to before, but with eating healthy, cooking more from scratch and going vegetarian I can definitely do it. It also means that I can go back to buying certain things that I was morally and healthfully struggling with because I couldn't afford it - things like almond/soy milk instead of dairy milk, organic cheese, organic eggs, organic produce, leave the ramen behind! Because I am not using my foodstamps to buy a ton of junk like soda, chips, cookies, cereal, etc. I can afford to spend a bit more on organic, high quality of what I do buy.
2) Also because I have food stamps now and I don't have to watch literally every single penny at the grocery store, I decided to go ahead and take the vegetarian plunge again right now. The meat still in my freezer can stay there until I want to use it for friends or my dog or something. As of Sunday I haven't had any meat and feeling damn good about it! I have decided I am not going to stress over being vegan just yet, although I have continued to drastically reduce my dairy consumption and anything I do buy I am committed to getting from organic, humane, sustainable sources. I may make the vegan transition at some point, but honestly I just don't like hummus that much and my bagel and cream cheese is an easy on the go breakfast for rushed school mornings when I don't have time to blend a smoothie!

2) One of the things I loved most when the show was over was being able to go back into my kitchen and cook for myself without feeling like I had to run back out the door in 15 minutes. The first thing I made was a batch of peanut butter cookies for the cast party...and they were successful! I made 3 dozen and they were devoured in less than an hour (with the director himself polishing off about 6 of them!) So yeah, I got to have a cookie and enjoy baking and share the rest so I don't have them sitting around tempting me all week. The second thing I made was jello shots (also for the cast party!). Ok ok, maybe not really COOKING persay - but they were even more successful than the cookies! I will let you in on the secret of the world's most amazing grown up jello shots shortly ;-)
3) On the vegetarian side of things, I made a killer pot of veggie chili on Sunday afternoon! I have been making chili for others for awhile, so I tend to stick to a pretty simple meat/beans/tomatoes recipe...but for myself I decided to PUMP IT UP! I ended up with (ready for it?) onions, garlic, bell peppers, green beans, peas, corn, zucchini, mushrooms, tomatoes, carrots black beans and kidney beans! I added in some cooked elbow macaroni to make it chili mac and topped with a little shredded cheddar and some sliced avocado. Holy YUM! Made lots too, I put 2 containers in the freezer and 1 in the fridge for lunches. I don't really use much of a recipe but here is what I did for anyone who would like to try your own variation:
* Sautee 1 onion (diced) for 1-2 minutes in olive oil until translucent.
* Add all diced fresh veggies you are using (mushrooms, bell peppers, garlic, celery, etc.) and cook until tender
* add any extra frozen veggies you have sitting around that you want to use up (green beans, corn, peas and carrots, etc.)
* add 1 large can of diced tomatoes, and 1 large can of crushed tomatoes, 1 can of black beans, 1 can of kidney beans, and 1 bottle of beer to the pot and stir everything together well
* season with chili powder, cumin, salt, red pepper and oregano (and if you are feeling CRAZY a dash of cinnamon!) to taste
* simmer for 30 minutes to allow all the flavors to combine well
* while the chili is simmering, cook a box of elbow macaroni until tender, drain and add to the
chili.
* serve with tortilla chips, avocado, and/or shredded cheese as you like!

4) Fitness! Because this blog is also about me getting HEALTHY I wanted to let you know that I have begun going to the gym...hooray! I started the week before the show and went for 30-45 minutes every day. Then the week of the show happened and I felt like I had been run over by a truck, so I decided rest and sanity were more important and took a week pause. But, rather than let that throw me off schedule, I am back again this week and feeling great!

Let me share my planned fitness program with you so I can stay accountable -
M/W/F I have 35 minutes between classes to exercise - so I will be doing the Couch to 5K running program to work myself back up to running condition (maybe I will be able to finally tackle that Disney World half marathon in 2012??). It is fairly high intensity, I can push myself, and it is done in 30 minutes plus some stretches.
A screen shot of the fabulous IPhone Couch to 5K app that I use

T/Th I have an hour between classes to exercise - so I will be doing a 15 minute cardio warmup and then 30 minutes of the Shape "Best Body" strength training workout using resistance bands, and then 15 minutes of additional abs work and stretching
Sa/Su I will pick one of the days that is the most free and do a repeat of my 1 hour T/Th cardio/strength/abs workout and one day will be purely rest.

This is a total of 4 1/2 hours of exercise a week - add in the 2-3 hours a week that I am riding my back back and forth to school and around campus and that makes 6-7 hours a week of exercise or almost an hour a day. Very doable and great for fitness and hopefully some weight loss! The other thing I like about this program is that it is doing it in decent chunks of time that I have available...I know I have a hard time going to the gym at 5pm after work when I really want to go home and get dinner and see my dog. So if I only have 1/2 hour to workout between classes but I know that I will DEFINITELY DO that 1/2 hour, that is more valuable than having an hour scheduled every evening that 50% of the time or more I don't follow through on.

Ok - enough for now! I will share the post o' jello shots soon...something to look forward to ;-)

Yummy Yummy In My Tummy

So I made a recipe last night that I found on Eating Bird Food for homemade, sugar free apple butter. Now, my sugar free muffins were not super successful. I actually have had a hard time eating them because they just are too dry. But I am not one to be wasteful, and I thought apple butter sounded like about the perfect thing to make with my 5 lb. bag of apples to spice up my muffins and have around for awesomeness!

Here is the recipe straight from Eating Bird Food

(with the changes I made starred ***)

Healthy Homemade Apple Butter (no sugar added)
10 medium sized apples (choose a sweet variety like Red Delicious or Gala)

***I used about 13 apples, the entire 5 lb. bag because they were pretty small
2 cups of unsweetened apple juice or approximately 5 apples juiced

***I used no sugar added 100% apple juice
1/4 cup water

***I added this, but would probably leave it out next time...just seemed a little too liquidy and if it needs more moisture I would go with more juice
1/4 cup apple cider vinegar
1 T cinnamon
1/4 t ground cloves
1/4 t ground nutmeg

***I used about 1 Tb (give or take) of pumpkin pie seasoning and tossed a whole cinnamon stick in the crockpot while it was cooking for seasoning...I like the ginger flavor that it adds.

1/2 t pure vanilla extract
pinch of sea salt

Prep:
1. Place cored and sliced apples (not peeled) into a large crock-pot / slow cooker.
2. Juice apples and pour juice on top of sliced apples. Add water, apple cider vinegar and spices. Stir all ingredients together, cover pot and let it cook for 15 hours on low.
3. The liquid will reduce and the apples will be very soft, darker in color, and smell lovely. Turn the crock pot off and let the apples cool down a bit (about 30 minutes), then transfer the mixture into a blender (or use a hand/stick blender) and blend until completely smooth.
4. Let the apple butter cool and then transfer into storage containers. It should store well in the fridge for about 3 weeks.

***I ended up getting a peanut butter jar, a marinated artichoke jar, and an Earth Balance tub full of apple butter (hooray for reusing containers!) I am keeping the peanut butter jar in the fridge to use over the next 3 weeks and I froze the other 2 containers to take out when I finish off the first one. And I am TOTALLY making another batch of this and getting pretty little jars and giving it away with batches of homemade muffins for Christmas!

I made a peanut butter & apple butter (pb&ab) sandwich to go with my leftover chili for lunch today, and brought another little tub to go with a muffin for an afternoon snack. It is just yummy! No sugar, no sweeteners so I like it even better than jam. And it can't get much cheaper to make for how much you get! ($3 for a bag of apples, $2 for a jug of juice that I froze the rest to use next time, $1 for a jar of vinegar that I was buying anyway for my hair and face). Definitely in love with this stuff...try it this weekend, you will be happy you did!

Other variations I would love to try are apple/pear and apple/pumpkin. Can you think of other variations that would be good? Let me know!

Oh yeah, and anyone who reads this blog who I may be giving a Christmas gift to...you will forget everything you just read :-)

Massive Cooking Weekend - No Cooking Week

So I have disappeared for a little bit because I have been crazy busy! The musical 7 Deadly Sins runs this weekend at school and I am the Assistant Stage Manager so I have been in rehearsals from 6pm-11pm pretty much every night, and this is after being in school and work from 8am-5pm every day!! Knowing in advance this would be happening, though, I took my free time this past weekend and did a MASSIVE cooking frenzy to stock my fridge in advance. And I have to say, it has worked out pretty well.

Here is a rundown of everything I cooked this weekend with some pictures. No real recipes this week because everything was more of a throw together:

1) Cherries and apples stewed in red wine and cinnamon

2) Potato and oyster corn chowder

3) Homemade Macaroni and Cheese

4) Chili
5) Brown Rice
6) Marinated Tofu
7) Peanut Butter Cookies
8) Sweet Potato Muffins
9) Baked Eggs
- I whisked together 8 eggs and about 2/3 cup of milk with some seasonings as if I was making scrambled eggs. Put a small piece of whole wheat bread in the bottom of each cup of a greased muffin tin, topped with a little diced cheese, and poured the eggs evenly into each cup and then baked. Yummy, but I would make a few changes next time. I would toast the bread first so it didn't get as soaked up into the egg as it did this time and I would add veggies like spinach or broccoli to bulk it up and make it more satisfying (and healthier!). I have also seen an idea to do this with a crust made of biscuit dough or puff pastry which would also be an option, although more expensive. I will include pictures and a REAL recipe when I do it again and feel happier with the results.

10) Baked potatoes

Holy hell! Looking at the list even I am overwhelmed by how much I did! But it has worked out great...I have been able to take chili over a baked potato for lunches, muffins and eggs for breakfasts, have a cup of chowder and a grilled cheese sandwich for dinner, pack a couple of peanut butter cookies as an afternoon snack/treat, marinated tofu with brown rice...it has been super easy just to reach in the fridge, grab something and go!


Now granted, I didn't do a whole lot of planning on this and I probably overdid it. For example, I baked 7 potatoes and I am NOT eating a potato a day. I did freeze half the muffins, but I will probably need to freeze some of the chili and brown rice too so it doesn't go bad because I just can't eat it all when I am one person and I cook for an army (something I still need to work on). I think for next week I am going to do some better menu planning, for one to make sure I am getting more veggies in my meals, and also so that I don't end up overwhelmed with a fridge full of food I just can't eat in 1 week.

I am still on a strict budget (and I will be for the next few years, might as well get used to it now!) so I won't be doing much more grocery shopping except maybe some fruit and veggies. I am also planning on going through my freezer to see what I have already stashed there that I want to thaw and eat before it gets too old. I know I froze a couple containers of black bean soup so I think that will accompany some quesadillas for lunches and dinners next week! This pantry cooking is actually a lot of fun and a great challenge - Use what you have instead of going crazy spending a ton on stuff for a single recipe.

Still feeling healthy and riding my bike to school every day. It is definitely feeling easier too! I am taking less breaks heading up the hill (only 1 pause this morning and I was stopping 3-4 times when I started 3 weeks ago!) and able to do it faster without feeling like I am dying. Once it gets to the point where I don't feel like it is pushing as much anymore, I am going to start taking the gears up slowly so it remains a good workout. As long as I keep the intensity high, it will continue to be a good 1/2 hr or so of exercise every day and that is a good start to getting healthy! I will say though, riding my bike after 6 hours of sleep and riding it after 8 hours of sleep I can sure tell a difference in how sluggish my legs feel...sleep really is key, and once the show is over I will start getting it again :-)