spaghetti squash = not bullshit (forserious)

I have a deep, undying, unnatural love for pasta. I can probably attribute most of my weight gain to deliciously wonderful, gluttonous-in-magnitude pasta consumption.

Recently I have made the switch to spaghetti squash (in lieu of pasta). And it is good. Forserious!

I know what you are thinking, squash is no pasta. This is true. I was pretty reticent to try it, too. But now that I have I make it like twice a week. If you have yet to try it, give’r a go.

How to Cook Spaghetti Squash

• Cut in Half (if too difficult to cut fork some holes in it and toss er in the microwave for 3 min)
• Remove innards of squash (not unlike you would a pumpkin)
• Put cut-side down on cookie sheet in some water
• Cook at 350 for half an hour
• FORK out squash
• Consume

I usually make it like I would pasta - top it off with tomato sauce or pesto - either way is pretty delicious. I also cook up meatballs or turkey sausage to have with it. Freaking glorious.

and on the 7th day she had rest…and went to the gym, grocery shopping, made a chili and roasted stuffed red peppers

A bit better than my last 7th day.

You should see my fridge. It’s all orderly and shit. I have two days of lunches packed, each equipped with: chicken and a roasted red pepper stuffed with potatoes, black beans and corn. I’ll probably put it on a bed of baby romaine and alfalfa spouts to up my veggie intake. Maybe toss some fresh salsa on top too. If it’s any good I will post the recipe (it’s a food experiment). I also made a chili (I used ground turkey instead of beef this time) and froze some of it in single-sized portions so I have a meals at the ready for when I don’t feel like cooking.

stuff I eat for breakfast when I’m on Core

I am always looking for meal ideas and like to share them as well. The following is a list of stuff I eat for breakfast when I’m on Core. I have been frequenting #1 and #6 the most often.

1. Cheerios + fruit (usually blueberries or banana) *on days when I have Cheerios for breakfast I am stuck not having rice, potatoes, pasta etc. for lunch or dinner
2. (2) Scrambled eggs with red pepper and onion
3. (2) Scrambled eggs with avocado and tomato, squirted with a lime
4. (1) poached egg with (cooked) mushrooms and onion on the side (and sometimes also a grilled tomato)
5. Cheese and onion omelet
6. Yogurt + blueberries
7. Cottage Cheese + some sort of fruit

What do you eat for breakfast?

stuff I eat sometimes

Okay, so I am in a bad mood. Feels like a rut. Smells like teen spirit.

Could be karma - I took the garbage to the shoot after writing that first sentence just now and it exploded some gross smells and liquids in my face before making its way down to the basement. Ewwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww.

Either way I am about as up for blogging as I am for running a half marathon. So, today I will leave you with a list of stuff I eat sometimes. I find getting ideas for food to be exceptionally helpful, especially if it is realistically easy to cook stuff. So here goes.

Broccoli Slaw + Teriyaki Beef + Sesame dressing

This is stupid-delicious and takes 8 seconds to make. You can buy Broccoli Slaw (pre-cut broccoli, carrots, and lettuce) at the grocery store. Toss on some Teriyaki beef and seasme dressing and BAM you have a Core lunch (+2 points for dressing). Careful which dressing you choose, I saw a fancy President’s Choice one that was like 11g of fat for 2 tablespoons. What the fuck is that?

Chili

Mmm chili. My dad is a fireman so I learned to make a mean chili early on in life. It isn’t really that difficult and mainly involves opening cans and is Core to the max.

- half lb lean ground beef browned, drained, then cooked in Old El Paso chili mix

- 2 cans black beans (drain and rinse)

- 1 can kidney beans (drain and rinse)

- 1 can low sodium diced tomatoes (dump whole can in)

- 1 onion cooked in cracked chili peppers

- 1 red pepper + 1 green pepper cooked in cracked chili peppers (sometimes I cheat and use frozen veggies - fajita mix)

- 1 thing of President’s Chioce Arrabbiata “Italian Magic Sauce” (I use this as the base)

Combine in giant pot and let simmer till it is thick or runny as you like it. If you like things less spicey than I do omit cooking things in cracked chili peppers.

Warning1: This makes a lot of food.

Warning2: Cooking onion in cracked chili peppers hurts if you get it in your eyes.

Chicken + Potatoes in the Crockpot

Mango Salad

Cottage Cheese + Salsa

This sounds and looks gross but is fucking delicious if you are weird. Try putting it on top of a salad with avocado, tomato and onion (and lettuce) if you are ready for awesomeness to ensue.

Pita Pizza

Sometimes I make a pizza on a whole wheat pita. Hawaiian, veggie, whateva! Millions less points than take out. And your house/apartment smells nice when you are done. (I cooked 1 at 350 for like 15 minutes, I think.)

So those are some cooking ideas for now more to come in the near future. I am going to avoid the garbage shoot for the rest of the day (the bastard).

day 6: taste

THE YEAR BEGAN with lunch.

We have always found that New Year’s Eve, with its eleventh-hour excesses and doomed resolutions, is a dismal occasion for all the forced jollity and midnight toasts and kisses. And so, when we heard that over in the village of Lacoste, a few miles away, the proprietor of Le Simiane was offering a six-course lunch with pink champagne to his amiable clientele, it seemed like a much more cheerful way to start the next twelve months.

By 12:30 the little stone-walled restaurant was full. There were some serious stomachs to be seen - entire families with the embonpoint that comes from spending two or three diligent hours every day at the table, eyes down and conversation postponed in the observance of France’s favorite ritual. The proprietor of the restaurant, a man who had somehow perfected the art of hovering despite his considerable size, was dressed for the day in a velvet smoking jacket and bow tie. His mustache, sleek with pomade, quivered with enthusiasm as he rhapsodized over the menu: foie gras, lobster mousse, beef en croûte, salads dressed in virgin oil, hand-picked cheeses, desserts of a miraculous lightness, digestifs. It was a gastronomic aria which he performed at each table, kissing the tips of his fingers so often that he must have blistered his lips.

The final “bon appetite” died away and a companionable near-silence descended on the restaurant as the food received its due attention. While we ate, my wife and I thought of previous New Year’s Days, most of them spent under impenetrable cloud in England. It was hard to associate the sunshine and dense blue sky outside with the first of January but, as everyone kept telling us, it was quite normal. After all, we were in Provence.

- Peter Mayle, A Year in Provence

Gag.

I was strongarmed into joining a book club at work about 2 months ago, and today we got together for the inaugural meeting, having had the (dis)pleasure of reading the book from whence the above excerpt came. A monument to pretentiosity, this book of France and Food was dull, with a few (fleeting) moments of hilarity drowning in a sea of condescension. I can see how people could find it “delightful,” but I wouldn’t want to hang out with those people. It really wasn’t my cup of tea. And I straight up love tea.

We met for lunch at a French Café - my first adventure in eating out on weight watchers. Apparently French food is crazy high in fat and also dairy products: even the grilled vegetable sandwich was full of cheeses and pesto; I was really unsure of what to order - something I forsee happening again and again when I attempt eating out in the future. Confused and hungry, I ended up going with a smoked salmon panini thing which came with a vegetable soup. It totally isn’t sitting well, and was NOT worth the points I allowed for it. I am currently sitting in my office surrounded by my own terrible gas waiting for the stomach cramps to subside, hoping no co-workers have the unfortunate experience of walking into this haze of flatulence, made all the more irritating by the knowledge I spent 3 hours of my life reading that piece of crap, later forced to discuss it over food which will take considerably less time to race its way through my system.

Fucking rich food.
And I’m still hungry, somehow.

So today I discovered I prefer consuming anglicized food (and teen fantasy fiction) to those literary and culinary creations which attempt to encompass all things provençal.

day 2: difficulty adjusting or, the importance of your afternoon delight

Ohmygod.

Musteatfuckingsaladimmediatelyorwillsurelyconsumeentiretyof

bluemenupizzaassoonasitemergesfromthedepthsoftheoven. Not enough points left to “allow” for that. Plus the whole scalded mouth thing seems like it would be uncomfortable.

Faaaaaack. Totally got home from work late and hadn’t thought to pack a snack this morning.

Never again.

day 1: “ouch.”

What’s up with your stomach having to take like 20 minutes to tell your brain: “Yo! We’re full!”? (An obvious design flaw.) And who the shit decides to diet/change eating habits the week of her fucking period when, by all rights, she should be having rage-induced, cornicopic-in-magnitude feasts consisting of Big Macs, chocolate ice cream, straight up chocolate and Pringles for dinner??!

Hello. And welcome to my blog. Here I will transcribe my weight watching efforts as well as my musings about life and food.

This week I commit to:

• FLEX
• taking the stairs
• eating more vegetables

DAY 1

So I run to save this ball that is going way out-of-bounds. I stop, arch my back so my back-bump won’t hit the ceiling, make a glorious pass - and then fall hard onto my ass. This (of course) was followed by considerable difficulty getting back up, and complete disorientation and inability to be remotely useful when I made my way back to my position at the net.

You’d think day 1 would be glorious - feeding off that high of finally making and acting on the choice to eat better, and taking ownership of my weight. Instead, I totally under-ate, misjudging how to space out food throughout the day and ended up hungry and useless on the volleyball court.