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…

Snacks?

So one of the things I have been looking at in my move towards losing weight and also towards saving money, as how to handle snacks. I think that because I have a history with using food for so many reasons OTHER than being hungry, I have a tendency to reach for snacks throughout the day just out of force of habit or boredom or stress. Sometimes, I will even FEEL hungry when I know there is no earthly reason why I should!

Case in point - I made a fabulous green monster smoothie for breakfast this morning and drank it in my first class at 8am. Now I have calculated the calories on this before just to see about where it stands on the complete breakfast food chain, and with the protein powder, spinach, soy milk, flax seeds and fruit it averages around 400 calories and a good dose of protein and nutrients. Very healthy for a full breakfast, and no reason why this shouldn't last my tummy a solid 3-4 hours until it is time for lunch. BUT by around 10am I started to feel like I wanted to eat something. I had about an hour until my next class, I was sitting down to read, I was a little bored, and I almost felt like my tummy was rumbling for food. But how could this be? It had been LESS than 2 hours since I had my smoothie and really was it that difficult to wait until lunch at Noon? But I swear to you, I spent the next 2 hours going back and forth on if I wanted my string cheese that I had brought for an afternoon snack now, or maybe a bottle of soda (what?? I don't drink soda anyway! Why now??)

So what I ended up doing was telling myself to suck it up, that my tummy being a little hungry for the last 1/2 hr before lunch wasn't the end of the world (that in fact I SHOULD be going to lunch a little hungry!) and that I could wait and I wouldn't die of starvation - and it turned out to be true. I was just the right amount hungry for lunch at Noon when I got to work, and I saved my string cheese for my afternoon snack around 4pm when I actually WILL be hungry and looking for something to sustain me through the bike ride home and the couple of hours until dinner.

But I find myself facing this issue a lot. I don't just nibble because I am bored, my body will actually make me feel PHYSICALLY HUNGRY when there is no biological reason I should. For example, I eat a healthy sized lunch at 12:30, and 1-2 hours later I get bored and then feel starving. Am I really starving?? No way! I am just bored and my body is kicking in anticipating the food it knows I will most likely consume to distract it. Because as soon as I am busy the hunger goes away, so I know it wasn't really "I need fuel" hunger, it was just "You are bored which means I am getting a snack soon and I am going to find a way to make sure of that" hunger. Even now typing this post and THINKING about snacks I am feeling that fake hunger starting up in my tummy even though less than 2 hours ago I had homemade minestrone soup, a slice of sourdough bread, a container of greek yogurt, and a dish of peaches. In other words...my tummy in no physical way needs food but my mind is trying to convince me that it does. AUGH!! So I LITERALLY cannot trust my body to tell me the truth?!?! How do you listen to your body's natural signals if the signals it is sending are fake???

So I am thinking for both health and for budget I need to get better about planning my menus for the day. Just write it out, "this is what you are having for breakfast, lunch, afternoon snack, dinner and evening snack if you really want it and this is what time you are eating each of those items". That way, I am not digging into my lunchbag and downing my afternoon snack at 10am out of boredom. Saves money because I am not eating a ton extra than I need, helps with health and weight loss for the same reason. As long as I am regular about planning this out in advance and making sure I pack my lunchbag properly before heading out every day this should be a good thing.

So although it is a little late, here is my plan for today:
Breakfast - Green Monster (8am)
Lunch - Soup, bread, yogurt, peaches (12:30pm)
Snack - string cheese, orange slices (4:30pm)
Dinner - leftover Mexican casserole w/veggies, sauteed bananas (7pm)
Snack (optional) - mini bag of popcorn(10pm)

There - now I am accountable and everything is already packed and ready for consumption until I get home. I will plan tonight for tomorrow, and so on and so forth and hopefully this will help greatly with my budget and overall feeling of health and wellbeing!

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 :-)

Pink Washing

October is Breast Cancer Awareness month and it feels like every company has slapped a pink ribbon or pink packaging on every single product. Now, to some extent I think this is a good thing because when you are surrounded by the pink every day you can't help but have your awareness raised, maybe remember to do your self breast exam that slipped your mind last month, finally get around to scheduling that mammogram since it is in the front of your mind - important things!

However, I think it is also a time to think critically about how companies use our collective social guilt and desire to make a difference in the easiest way possible to get us to spend more money on their pink washed items. There is a great post on the Crazy, Sexy Life blog about how hypocritical it is of these cosmetics companies in particular to put out makeup items plastered pink for breast cancer awareness, but that themselves are FILLED with cancer causing chemicals! Check out the post and take a look at a few of the links to see if the cosmetics you use are in the red zone or the green zone for dangerous content.

A few of the changes I have made to try and get more unknown chemicals out of my body -
1) Stopped using shampoo and conditioner and now use just hot water, baking soda and the occasional apple cider vinegar rinse.
2) Switched to basic Ivory bar soap from the chemical filled body wash
3) Replacing cosmetics with organic and mineral based makeups as mine run out
4) Shopping with a more critical eye in general to what I am putting on and in my body
Something I know I still need to work on is my hair dye. I do dye my hair red, and I like it a real brilliant color (as opposed to the natural dishwater blond I was born with). Feria is usually my hair color brand of choice, but in a complete NON surprise it scores as some of the absolute worst on types and amounts of cancer causing chemicals. So I need to decide how I can go about changing this and still enjoy having my signature fiery hair. Any suggestions would be extremely welcome!

Own Your Beauty Project

So I ran across this website today on the BlogHer network that is all about taking the next year to really own our own unique beauty and live more authentic lives. I think this is beautiful! So often it is easy to get caught up in the trap of comparisons with your friends, peers, celebrities, really everyone! But the fact of the matter is, no matter your age, your size, your skin color, your hair length, or your sense of style you are a beautiful, unique, wonderful person who adds to the tapestry of humanity in this world.

I read an interview with Eve Ensler (the author of The Vagina Monologues) once - and fair warning I am going to butcher what she said but get the main point across - and she said that when she had asked a woman in Africa didn't she ever get self conscious or compare herself to other women she pointed to the trees and said "look at that tree, it is skinny...look at that tree, it is large...would you say the large tree is ugly or wrong in some way? No, they are both beautiful trees in their own way, why is it any different for humans?"

So while I am working to be a healthier person for my own sense of energy and well being, my focus is not on losing weight or being "thin" because honestly, I am a curvy woman! I have broad hips, I have linebacker shoulders, I have big boobs...I can lose all the extra fat I want but I am never going to look like Kate Moss - and why would I want to? I want to have the energy to do everything I want to do and I want to live a long healthy life, so I eat nutritious food and exercise so I can achieve that...but I still love myself for who I am RIGHT THIS MINUTE and that is important!

The theme for this month is Authenticity - And everything I have done in the last 6 months has been about me trying to move into a more authentic life for myself. Moving out of Philadelphia, going back to school for what I love, leaving behind a stable (but soul destroying) corporate job for the uncertainty (but joy) of theatre, and just generally trying to focus on doing things that feed my spirit instead of taking it away. Is there something in your life that you just know is not serving you? Something you dread doing every day? Maybe it is time to let that go and replace it with something positive that can build you up instead of tearing you down. Take the leap and begin today with living your most authentic life!

Go to Own Your Beauty and sign the pledge to celebrate your own beauty...who knows how much richer your life could be this time next year? A lot of things can happen once you decide to take action!

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 ;-)

Stuff N' Nonsense

So I don't have a ton of updates - just kind of a random jumbling of thoughts health/food/living related that I thought I would share. I am about to go into tech week for the show I am currently Assistant Stage Managing so my schedule is going crazy yet again. Hasn't left as much time for cooking as I would like, so I am still trying to get things as put together on the weekends as possible because Monday - Thursday (and this week Monday - the following Saturday, yes, almost 2 weeks) I am at class/work/rehearsal from 8am - 9pm or later. So, here are where things are in the Shakespearean Tomato world at the moment:

1) I am the master of food stretching! I made a 2 lb. roast with carrots and potatoes last weekend in my crockpot and ate about 3/4 of it for dinners over the course of the week. So this weekend I took the remaining roast and veggies, added some kale, water, pasta and extra seasonings and turned it into an amazing beef veggie stew/soup that I got another 4 meals out of (currently in my freezer awaiting lunches for the week.) So basically, that one roast, 1/3 bag of potatoes, and 1 bag of too old to eat fresh baby carrots is going to feed me for almost 2 weeks. Not too shabby I would say!

2) In relation to the item above - part of me is feeling guilty that I am still eating on this grocery store meat that is still in my freezer. As I have said in previous posts, I have decided to go vegetarian but for economical reasons I just can't justify not eating the food that I already have in my house. Of course, being such a good food stretcher that single roast, 1 lb of ground beef and 4 chicken leg quarters will probably last me a month or more. That means another month of eating food that I don't think is particularly healthy for me, but financially it means another month of EATING which is always good. So I am trying to remember that valuable recovery phrase "Progress, not perfection!" Because honestly, even if I am still eating meat at the moment, averaging out to 1 lb. of beef per week for myself really isn't that terrible. And once it is gone, no more will be coming in!

3) Evidently I have crazy healthy hair that is THRIVING under this No Shampoo routine! I haven't used shampoo on my hair in over a week, just doing a nice, warm water rinse with a good scalp massage every morning in the shower to loosen up and get rid of any dirt or grime. My hair looks fantastic, I haven't had to use ANY product in it at all, it is holding a style better than it EVER has in my life, and that whole "dipped in a jar of oil" look that a lot of the blogs warned about for the first few weeks hasn't happened AT ALL for me. I am thrilled. I will still put together the baking soda and vinegar rinse and maybe start doing that once a week, but I feel like any more than that would be overkill because my hair is just doing great on its own.

4) I had planned on beginning the Couch to 5K routine again last week and I just ended up busy tackling other things to do with school and life and it didn't happen. But we were watching a video in my Nutrition, Fitness & Wellness class today that followed a group of fairly sedentary people of all ages as they trained for the Boston Marathon with the Nova tv channel. And honestly, it got my toes twitching to get out running again. I remember how good I felt when I was running every day and training for the half marathon. I just had so much energy, slept well, felt strong, and when I did the half marathon it was such a HUGE accomplishment. I miss that...I miss having a goal to work for and train for like that. I am going to start again, at least with Couch to 5K and then take it from there, see how I feel and time-wise what I feel like committing to again. But If I can just pack my clothes and plan on running for 1/2 hour every Tuesday and Thursday morning in between classes, running longer one day on the weekends, and adding in some resistance training 2-3 days a week for 15 minutes in the evenings before bed I just feel like I will feel SO much better. What do you think? Can I plan on starting this tomorrow? It means laying out my exercise clothes tonight and having everything ready. I bet I can do it!