Mid week mini blog: The Leaking Coffee Pot

Okay, this blog is about me venting... I don't think that I can even pretend that it has anything to do with health and diet, although a case could me made for the causes of "stress eating"! Please understand that this entire fiasco is MY HUSBAND'S FAULT!!!!
I went and got groceries this morning, a load of them. My kitchen did not have a spare inch of counter showing (admittedly I am not the best house keeper in the world) so where to put them was a dilemma. I decided that since it is quite cold out, that I would leave them in my car and clean up the kitchen before I brought them in.
My husband, who is madly adicted to caffeine, has a leaky coffee pot. We have argued over the damn thing because he says "we can just order an o ring and fix it." I, who have lived for three years with a one burner stove ("we can just order a new plug and fix it!") have said... "JUST BUY A NEW COFFEE POT!!!" Now, in my quest for kitchen counter space, I picked up a bag of pancake mix (my daughter suddenly wants them every morning and since I have a hard time getting her to eat, I comply) and head for the pantry with it. Just as I reach the doors the soggy, coffee dripping bottom blows out and I have a cloud of pancake mix covering me and the floor! I'm not going to lie, the f bombs were flying! I got the broom and dust pan and started sweeping up the mess. With every lift of the broom more little clouds stirred up, spreading the mess further and further. Finally I got the powder swept up, and with the broom hovering over the dust pan, got out the front door and to the trash can.

Returning to the kitchen cleaning production, I was emptying the dishwasher when it hit me. I smelled dog shit. Now we have a most beloved dog who is 15 years old and frankly quite senile. He is also incontinent. "Damn it Ranger!" I yelled and started searching for the giant pile of poo that I knew he had left for me. I looked all over the upstairs... dining room, familyroom, office... and nothing. I returned to my task and thought, "I know I smell dog shit!" Well guess what? I was packing an entire turd on the bottom of my shoe that the old boy had left on the deck, which I had now stomped all over the entire upstairs of my house!!! SHIIIITTTTT!!!!
I am going to kick my husband tonight, then I am going to take him shopping for a new damn coffee pot!

A Day in the Life of a (non)Diet

Okay, some pretty basic information about a foodies lifestyle change is what... exactly you do eat! I am going to go through a basic day's menu, and share the recipes as they go, (including a one pot spaghetti recipe that will knock your socks off!)

My menu plan begins each day with a daily menu. For instance, here is what you would eat on a typical day:

Since you know that I will digress (it's a given) I am going to start right off by doing so. My husband and I get up at 5AM every weekday. I am not a creature of habit BUT 5 AM is not exactly my creative peak of the day! I make the same breakfast every morning! Someone who was editing my menu plan suggested that it was a fatal flaw... I said "Nonsense! It's easy, it's great and we'll never get sick of it!" Last week, after a year of repeat breakfasts, my husband told me he could not choke down another plate of basic eggs (big baby). So I am reworking the breakfast portion of my menu plan. However, here is the basic eggs recipe for you. This ought to hold you for a year or so!

Breakfast

Basic Eggs for 2
4 ounces ground turkey sausage
½ cup egg whites
½ grapefruit or fresh seasonal fruit
Basic Eggs for Two
Start with ground turkey, sausage flavored. ( I use Honeysuckle White brand Breakfast Sausage, which comes in a tube. It is a little higher in fat but Holy Cow!!! Good!) Squeeze ¼ of the tube (4 oz) of turkey into a non stick skillet on high heat. Let the turkey sizzle for a minute, turn the blob over and flatten with your spatula. The slightly cooked side won’t stick to the spatula (I learned about that the hard way). Hold the sausage patty with a spoon or fork and gently use your spatula to scrape off bits of the patty to spread around the pan. What you want is ground turkey chunks, no patty, and to let it brown as you pull it apart. Once you have done that, keep turning the meat over until it is browned and cooked completely. Now pour in about ½ cup of egg whites (enough to cover the bottom of the pan.) These cook very quickly. Keep them turning until they are cooked through and mixed in with the turkey sausage. Serve with a half grapefruit or piece of fruit.

Morning Snack
Smoothies for 2
¼ cup pasteurized egg whites
½ cup non fat milk
2 tablespoons Splenda
1/2 banana (save the other half in a baggie for later!)
1 cup frozen strawberries
Place all of the ingredients in a blender. Blend on high until smooth. If you need more liquid add another ¼ cup of egg whites and/or a little more milk.



For Lunch
Lunch meat and rice cakes
A rather effortless meal for your lunch. You get 2 rice cakes with lunch meat piled on them and a handful of little carrots. I like the white cheddar rice cakes. They have a little more salt but the extra flavor is worth it to me. You need to find low fat low sodium lunch meat. The best lunch meat I have found, in terms of sodium, is Healthy Ones. You get eight slices of meat, four on top of each rice cake! Instead of, or with your carrots you can eat strips of green or red peppers and/or a couple of sticks of celery or a few cherry tomatoes.

Midday Snack

Okay, it's another rice cake. Not all days are so rice cake rich, but I am going for ease here!

You get one apple flavored rice cake, smeared with about 2 teaspoons of low fat peanut butter.

Now is when you are going to use that other half of a banana! Slice it in thirds, the long way and place the banana slices on your peanut butter coated apple rice cake and enjoy the hell out of it!

DINNER!!!

Holy cow... it's spaghetti time! By the time you make this easy meal and eat it... I swear you are going to want to give me a french kiss!!! But no need, this one is a freebie!

Spaghetti for 2 (2 meals, so put up the leftovers!)
1 package of rice spaghetti (I like the kind with a bunny logo)
1 pound of ground, low fat turkey)
3 cans of low sodium tomato sauce (do your best to find the lowest sodium one)
½ onion (diced very fine)
1 green pepper (diced very fine)
2 or 3 jalapeno peppers (diced very fine, include a few seeds if you like things spicier!)
6 cloves of garlic (diced very fine
2 tablespoons no salt Italian seasoning
Fresh ground black pepper
2 tablespoons balsamic vinegar
1 tablespoon Splenda
This meal is so easy, and only dirties one pot. Everyone who tries it, raves about it. Start with a big cooking pot. Spray the bottom with a little oil and toss in all of your diced veggies to sauté. Once the onion is translucent, or starting to brown, crumble in the ground turkey and continue to cook. When the turkey is nearly done, stir in the Italian seasoning and add some fresh ground pepper. Pour in the cans of tomato sauce, the balsamic and the Splenda. Allow the sauce to come to a boil. Now use the empty tomato sauce cans to measure the chicken broth and add two and a half cans of broth to the sauce. It should have the consistency of a thin cream soup. Break the dry spaghetti noodles in three and add them into the pot. Stir them in, until the hard noodles are covered with liquid. Allow it to boil for two minutes, stir it one more time, turn the burner off, put a lid on the pot and let it sit for 20 minutes. After 20 minutes, remove the lid and stir it real good again. Put the lid back on and wait for about 5 more minutes. Honestly, you are not going to believe how delicious this spaghetti is! I have doubled the recipe, to feed a crowd or to create extra leftovers. If you are trying to cook a big batch, try 5 cans of tomato sauce, 5 cans of chicken broth, and at least once, while the pasta is cooking, give it an extra stir so you don’t get big clumps of spaghetti stuck to each other.

If you are hungry for dessert enjoy a nice piece of seasonal fruit.

So there you go... a day in the life of a non diet! What I failed to place in the menu is some exercise time! My "workout"regime is fairly simple. I lift weights on a weight machine. I do five sets of ten repetitions, three times. When I started out I was lifting ten pounds. I am lifting 40 pounds now. I also walk a minimum of 10 minutes on the treadmill. Again, starting out I could not do even 1/4 of a mile. My top speed was 1.8 miles per hour. Now I walk about 1 mile (takes me 13 to 15 minutes) and my top speed is 4.3 miles per hour, though I am more comfortable at 4... so I go back and forth. I try to work out 5 days a week. I love water aerobics, it's the only exercise that I truly enjoy... but I've always felt that there was no way I could display my fat ass in a bathing suit in public. Sadly, now that my ass is somewhat less fat, I feel like I can't display my underarm wings publicly! Yeah... I know. My self image issues are a work in progress!

If you try the spaghetti recipe... and you certainly should!!! You had better by God let me know how fabulous it was! (In lieu of the french kiss!)