Been cooking with new ingredients. First time with tumeric. I will post the recipe, but this was too pretty to wait on …
who's shroomin' who
Towels, lips, countertop = yellow/orange
Chowing Down
It’s not a tumeric
Categories: Chowing Down, Food, In The Kitchen, Photography
Tags: cooking, food photography, shitake, shrooms, tumeric
Food photo: Guess what I made
I made myself cook all last weekend because I’ve been wasting money AGAIN on seamlessweb and take out lunches. What do you suppose I made with these guys:
I spy asparaguy
Categories: Chowing Down, Food, Photography
Tags: asparagus, cooking, food photography, green, guess
You can all eat quiche!
This quiche makes your pee smell.
How did we get here?
Here’s what happened – I wanted to make a breakfast ahead of time that would keep for the whole week and feed my constantly-running(hahahhha)-late ass every day. Presenting: Alli delight, Asparagus Rice Quiche. I know, you’re thinking “Rice? who the whatty?” I KNOW. But guess what, brown rice is nice and filling, and it makes this quiche feel like a solid, heavy meal when it really isn’t!
Here’s the crew you need to invite to your quiche quagmire:
Ingredients
- 2 cups rice, brown, cooked (I used basmati rice, which blorped up HUGELY. If you use basmati, go 1 cup, your crusticles will be more crusty)
- 1 tablespoon Parmesan cheese, fat free (The people at Whole Foods laughed at me. I don’t think this exists. And guess what, Parm is pretty light on its own, so just don’t use more than Dr. Alli McPoopyerpants says, ok?)
- 1/4 cup egg whites
- 2 teaspoons extra virgin olive oil
- 1/2 cup onions, chopped
- 1 1/4 cups fresh asparagus, chopped (I suggest going over the allotted amount. It’s a veggie! You need it! And your pee will smell fun!)
- 1 cup cheese, Swiss, low fat, shredded (Another cheese whose slightly more slender counterpart is hard to find. Especially in shredded form. I found mine at Gristedes in slices. I just slivered it and crumbled it to make pretend.)
- 3 eggs, medium (I used two. Again, eggs are kind of fatty and I kind of don’t want to leave a buttkiss in my seat)
- 1 1/2 cups milk, fat-free
- 1/4 cup dill weed sprigs, fresh, chopped (dillhole)
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
- 1/8 teaspoon black pepper
The line up
Preparation
Preheat oven to 425°. Coat a pie dish with cooking spray.
Mix rice with Parmesan, egg whites and 1 teaspoon olive oil. Press into pie shell to form a crust.(I used a square pan, no pie pans in this house!) Place in oven and bake for 15 minutes.
Heat remaining olive oil in a skillet to medium heat. Add onions and asparagus; sauté for 3 to 4 minutes.
Spread cheese into bottom of baked rice crust. Top with asparagus mix.
Beat eggs with milk, dill, salt and pepper. Pour into pie shell. (now, this may have been because of my RICE EXPLOSION, but I had to be REALLY careful with the pouring. I poured, then waited, repeat. Then I had to scoot the dill around with my fingers so it wouldn’t clump in one spot.)
Reduce heat to 350°. Bake for 45 to 50 minutes until tester inserted in center comes up clean. (THEN EAT THAT BITCH)
I cut it into serving (serves 6), froze some, fridged some. Breakfast all week!
And here’s all the nutritional fun you’ll need to know as you smirk while eating a delicious quiche while other dieters eat rice cakes with bacon breath on them:
Nutritional Information
| Calories | 190 |
| Calories from Fat | 50 |
| Total Fat | 5 g |
| Saturated Fat | 1.5 g |
| Cholesterol | 100 mg |
| Sodium | 240 mg |
| Total Carbohydrate | 21 g |
| Dietary Fiber | 2 g |
| Sugars | 5 g |
| Protein | 14 g |
| Vitamin A | 10% |
| Vitamin C | 4% |
| Calcium | 30% |
| Iron | 8% |
Categories: Chowing Down, Dieting, Food, Health, In The Kitchen
Tags: alli, alli recipes that don't suck, asparagus, quiche
What’s green and yellow and tastes like forest?
Toward the end of the day today I was exhausted, lead headed, and starving. I was mad. Why was I on this stupid diet when all I wanted to do was go home, get into cozy clothes, and order something ridiculous with a bottle of wine. I mean, a person should be allowed to do whatever the fart they want.
Leafy cheese pile
THAT is why I’m on this diet. I have NO self control. Instead of bemoaning my cheeseless, pizzaless, french fryles, hamburgerless existence, I sucked it up, walking home FREEZING in my fishnets, and stopped at Westside Market where I nabbed a bundle of kale, and three Lean Cuisines, one being this nuclear yellow mac n cheese.
I’m full, not bloaty, and food shame is no where to be found. Food shame is the worst. It’s a shitty cycle. Eating to feel comforted, then the internal verbal abuse, the feeling like a loafy boob, beating myself up about wasting money, ingesting pointless fat and calories, and then just being miserable.
Cheese of this color is the color of control, my friends. So, see, I KIND of satisfied a cheesey craving (it tasted of wet paper, thus Srichacha was applied profusely) and still stayed within the confines of Alli. There you have it: Kale and Lean Cuisine Mac n Cheese. It’s not pizza, but… say it with me… it won’t make you shit your pants.
Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to make like a loafy boob and absorb at least 10 episodes of some sort of British programming on Netflix.
Categories: Chowing Down, Health, In The Kitchen, Photography
Tags: alli, cheese, dieting blows most times, staying the course
One Good Thing: some number here, but who’s keeping track
I couldn’t get out of bed this morning. Call it exhaustion, call it SAD, call it whatever it is, I couldn’t do it. I had T-Rex arms, they wobbled and shook as I tried to push my body up and off my bed. I couldn’t do it. I felt nauseous, I felt wrong. I immediately fired off an “I’m out sick” email to my team, declaring “barf!” I felt on the edge of barf all day. When I finally was able to get out of bed, I shuffled into my kitchen, the cold tile waking up my feet but nothing else.
I pulled my coffee maker out from its nook and began the ritual of setting it up. Rinsing out the old coffee, tapping out the old coffee. Adding the new water, tucking in the paper cone filter. Spooning the coffee dig, sssst, dig, ssssst, dig, sssst, dig, sssst four times into the cone. Snapping the lid closed and pressing start.
The heating rod coughed to life, bubbling the water around it, feeding hot liquid wakey juice through the grounds.
The “all set now” beep beeped and I tugged the glass carafe out of its cave, pouring the hot dark coffee into my Ohio mug.I sipped, it burned my tiny upper lip and I smiled. Coffee. One good thing today.
Categories: Chowing Down, One Good Thing
Tags: coffee, one good thing
Never make this recipe. EVER.
You know, everyone tells you what you should make but no one ever tells you what you SHOULDN’T make. And let me tell you, if anyone ever tells you to make what I’m about to share with you, you take them aside, some where during the night, where few people are gathered. May I suggest ushering them to a dog run in NYC? You bring them over and you tell them you see a bundle of hundies on the the ground. When they crouch down for a closer look, you grab a plastic gloved handful of those hamster shaving-like chips on the floor of the dog run and you rub those canine urine caked chips in that person’s face, all the while yelling “WHY WOULD YOU GIVE ME THIS HORRIBLE RECIPE THAT TASTES WORSE THAN A CANKER SORE MILKSHAKE?!?!?”
When you’re done, you make that recipe. You make that recipe and then you make your friend eat it. Eat it all.
Here, this is all the benign crap you put into it:
- 16 ounces tofu, firm, low-fat – fine, this can’t be bad, right? It’s tofu, it’s low fat, not no fat, how bad can it be?
- 1 cup sour cream, fat-free - there is no way this is going to work. Fat free sour cream has the texture of inner ass and the flavor of inner ass concentrate
- 2 tablespoons parsley, fresh, chopped - parsley. It’s fresh, it smells nice, it’s pretty. How can parsley go wrong?
- 1/4 teaspoon thyme, ground - Mmmm, I love the smell of thyme, I’m sure this will be fine.
- 1 teaspoon oregano, dried - again, a totally benign and usually friendly herb.
- 1 teaspoon garlic, chopped garlic, hey buddy, I love you! You’ll make everything in this dip alllllriiiiight
- 2 tablespoons green onion, chopped - oh yeah, you and garlic are pals, this’ll work out great!
- 1/4 teaspoon black pepper - of course, pepper, of course.
NONE OF THIS WAS OK. NONE OF IT.
You know, I’d say maybe use low fat sour cream instead of fat free, but I’m still to mad at this recipe to try again. The herbs were indiscernible. You could have added shredded cotton and it would have tasted the same. Maybe better.
In case you’re dying to hate something in your mouth, here are the nutritionals. This is an Alli recipe and it’s enough to gag a maggot.
| Calories | 70 |
| Calories from Fat | 5 |
| Total Fat | 0.5 g |
| Saturated Fat | 0 g |
| Cholesterol | 5 mg |
| Sodium | 140 mg |
| Total Carbohydrate | 7 g |
| Dietary Fiber | 0 g |
| Sugars | 4 g |
| Protein | 8 g |
| Vitamin A | 8% |
| Vitamin C | 4% |
| Calcium | 10% |
| Iron | 6% |
One Good Thing: Alli Friendly Pita Pizza
For whatever reason, I always feel comforted by the crispy triangle of pizza. Hot tomato sauce slithering down the throat and the faint kick of red pepper flakes soothe me from the inside out. Keep the vampires away with a clove of garlic chopped and sprinkled all over.
Most importantly, however, is that… and say it with me now: It’s won’t make you shit your pants.
Categories: Chowing Down, Food, Health, One Good Thing, Photography
Tags: alli friendly food, one good thing, pita pizza, you won't shit your pants
Might as well tell you now
As you can tell from the photo above, this is no ordinary pizza. It’s what I like to call Fauxza. It satisfies that monster yelling in my head for hot tomato sauce, a crunchy crust, and gooey cheese. Ok, everything but the gooey cheese.
Why would I torture myself with such an item when I live in the city that delivers pizza at 2 in the morning? EXACTLY. I guess I should let the 5 of you who read this know that I started a hardcore, very serious, potentially pants pooping diet. That’s right. I’m doing Alli. Chortle all you want now about “oily discharge.”
Listen, I didn’t enter into this lightly. As a matter of fact, I’ve had these pills since before my life imploded. One of my “well, I’ll lose weight and he’ll love me again” ideas. It’s no surprise that now that we’re not together I found the motivation and commitment to do this again. PS, I am not a doctor. Do what you want with yourselves, I am not saying you should do this, I’m saying I’m doing it and I saw incredible results when I did it 4-5 years ago.
Because of the tail end of my relationship my self esteem is pretty low. I look in the full length mirror (or my passing reflection in NYC windows) and I hate what I see. I see this blorpy, pasty white lump of a human. “No wonder he didn’t want your toilet parts,” I say (I say it less now) to myself. I’m not looking for sympathy here people, so put away the platitudes. What’s funny is, I wouldn’t want me either. And seriously, if you want a non flabby dude, or your idea of a sexytime match is someone without a spare for your flat, then what right have you just to flap around? And by you I mean me. And by me I mean I’m not that shallow, I love the person, but I still know what makes my nethers go neenerneener. 90% of me doesn’t blame him for losing sweaty animal interest in me. When we got together I was a tiny little shit. I’m now a nearly 35 year old out of shape wiggly blob.
The fun part is, I want to get fit and healthy. I want it. I want to look in the mirror and not feel like shit. I want to see the cute bodied little trollop I know I can be (and I know I’ll never lose this can), and as Oprah as this sounds, I want to do it for myself. I have ABSOLUTELY NO NOTIONS of “oh I’ll run into him on the street and he’ll want me back because I’m so smokin’ hot” because guess what, kids, I don’t want someone back who can’t love. I’m not doing it so I’ll net 5 dates a week and MY FUTURE HUSBAND. I don’t want anyone. I won’t want anyone for a good long ding dong time. I want me. I want to keep working on this weirdo for no one else but me.
And then maybe I’ll send that sassy little bubbly bootied trollop out into the wild. And when I decide to do that, look the frig out.
Oh, and PS – the Alli thing? If you follow the diet (and the fat limitations), you will not shit your pants. What I love about this diet is the threat of consuming falafel and producing falafel almost instantly. Want those french fries? Yeah? How about shitting your pants? Have a damn salad or a fugly red pepper. It works. I feel better already – AND paired with my alcohol moratorium, I can tell I’ve lost a little face bloat.
Here’s my recipe:
- 1 Whole Wheat pita
- 10 cherry or plum tomatoes, halved or quarters
- 1/4 of a jalapeno (zing zinger!)
- 2-3 Tbsp tomato paste
- 1 oz part skim mozzarella
- 3 Trader Joe’s Meatless Meatballs, halved and smooooooshed
- 1 cup (plus a little more) arugula
- crushed red pepper flakes
- a spranklin’ of garlic salt
It’s totally filling, good for you, and the big kicker? Say it with me now: It won’t make you shit your pants!
Categories: Chowing Down, Food, Health, Life, Photography
Tags: alli, dieting, getting hot, me me me me me, shitting your pants
One Good Thing: Baristastic!
YUM Good Thing
I love my Starbucks. Now, if you google mapped Chelsea, you’d see that I have more than enough location to choose from. In fact, as the cliche says, there is literally a Starbucks every 3 blocks on 8th Avenue alone. However, I love “mine” the most. The baristas are polite and actually return my smile and the focus is on each customer, not the one familiar one that tends to occupy all the attention (pal, if you want to keep talking about your new weight lifting gloves, wait until I’ve had my medicine).
AND, they make the BEST iced triple grande non fat toffee nut latte EVER. My roommate, who takes things literally reacted with “oh, I thought they were all supposed to be the same.’ In a perfect world this would be true. When I went to Caribou College (mmhmm, you read that right), we were taught consistency. The cappuccino in Beverly Hills (Michigan, that is) should be the same cappuccino in Birmingham. Again, this is not a perfect world. I’ve gotten some pretty sad lattes in this town.
But my toffee nut latte from the Starbucks on 19th and 8th Avenue is always so full of chachacha that after I sip it, I can feel myself smile like a freak, I hear myself say aloud “YUUUUM” and I thank my barista for a friggin delicious beverage. I’m fairly certain I say that to him.
Categories: Chowing Down, Food, Love, NYC, One Good Thing, Photography
Tags: happiness in a cup, one good thing, starbucks, too many calories, triple grande non fat toffee nut latte
Trickery
I do little things to trick myself. I know you do, too. Back when I used to have an actual alarm clock in my room, I’d be sure to set it 10 minutes ahead of time so that when my alarm went off I’d be tricked into getting up 10 minutes early. Now I have this pesky phone, but that hasn’t stopped me. I set all three alarms on my phone so that even if I dismiss instead of snooze the first one, i’ve got the second as backup. And if I dismiss that one, I’ve got the “no really, you’re REALLY late!” one as the third. Past that I need to cash in my chips and become a cellar dwellar since I’m obviously not mature enough to wake up on time.
I wouldn’t necessarily say I trick myself into having a good morning with bacon, but it does give me something to look forward to. AND it’s an exercise in self control because I cook it the night before. So, on top of the mini egg situations I bake, which give me two each morning, I have two slices of bacon. Why two, you ask. Well, it’s a great number, and it’s the same amount as the mini quiches, which love to have bacon draped up on them. Also, two slices of bacon = 6g of fat. And since it’s the only fat consumed in that meal, I don’t feel like a fat gluttonous turd.
When I’m prepared enough to bake the quiches and cook the bacon, I get to torture my coworkers. Yup, I plop those little egg pals in the toaster oven and line the two slices of bacon up next to them. As they cook, I see heads in the office swivel trying to figure out the bacony scent tickling their nose holes.
DING! The toaster oven beckons me to my mini bacon lair and as I gently tug the bacon out onto a no doubt dirty paper plate the scent is even stronger and my coworkers eye my crispy stack with envy.
Categories: Chowing Down, Food, Photography
Tags: bacon, breakfast, easy like every morning, trickery
