Shit on Toast, and Other Things

Well, this went down the tube rather quickly. Let's just pretend I've been diligent and sort of pick up where I left off.

Since I love looking at what other people are eating, and not in a fancy, food bloggy photography sort of way, I thought putting some camera phone photos of some of my meals here would be fun. Am I the only one who's like that? Oh well, too bad.

Here's some food that I was relatively proud of (not necessarily for how they looked, so I guess you'll just have to take my word for it. They were good dammit.)

This, my friends, is a pb&j french toast sandwich with a side of banana pudding. You make a pb&j, mix up some eggs, milk, vanilla & cinnamon, dunk both sides of the sando in, and grill to perfection. I thought I made up this brilliant idea, but then I saw this on Undressed Skeleton, which is different but kind of the same...whatever I'm still claiming it as my own. The Jell-O banana pudding on the side? Yeah not so brilliant...ick.

I'll call this section, "Yummy Shit on Toast." 

A riff on one of my favorites, simple avo toast. Just top with hard boiled egg, S&P, and some tapatio. Yes, I did artfully arrange my egg slices, thanks for noticing. :)

You know how they say, "Bad pizza is still good, because it's pizza," or something like that? That's how I feel about toast. These watermelon radishes from our CSA box were really pretty, but I let them get all wilty because I'm so sick of trying to figure out what to do with all these f***ing radishes. Ate them anyway, kind of a waste of toast but still toast, ya know?

The cleanse phase. 

This was a 24 day stint of my life that I devoted to Advocare, which is basically a diet/cleanse system that tells you to cut out dairy, carbs, sweets & alcohol for at least the first 10 days (but ideally the whole 24 day period), work out every day, and says that you'll lose weight because of their supplements. Yeeeaah..I'm gonna go ahead and say you're losing weight because you're on a healthy diet and exercise regimen. But whatevs, I gave it a shot to appease a family member who's a rep for them. I actually enjoyed the challenge of coming up with new, grain-free meals 3 times a day (which was really freaking hard as a vegetarian). After a while I got pretty over it, since I already live a healthy lifestyle and wasn't really aiming to lose any weight. ANYWAYS. Ok, here's some of my cleanse food:

I went out to buy a julienne peeler one night after work because I missed pasta SO MUCH. Ran home and made this zucchini "pasta," which was definitely not pasta, but, ya know, slippery food with tomato sauce on it is a good alternative if you're living a life of restriction.

Ohhh how my life was filled with omelets. I never make omelets guys. NEVER. Don't get me wrong, I love me some eggs, but I like being able to taste the difference of the runny egg and the white. Mixing it all up is just sort of meh for me. But, I was feeling adventurous so I made this egg and spinach omelet with salsa and blueberries. And you know what? It was fucking delish. 

I was feeling extra exotic one weekend and really wanted to trick myself into thinking I was eating carbs, so I made this veggie curry with chickpea "pancakes." It was aiight. I have never made a curry that was as good as one I got from a restaurant, and I've tried lots of times. Ohh Indian food, how you elude me!

More eggs! I wish I could remember what was underneath that broccoli...maybe some sneaky pasta? No...I would have never cheated...

Cauliflower pizza — aka REALLY trying to stay on the bandwagon with this cleanse shit. Most recipes for cauliflower crust called for a ton of cheese, which also wasn't allowed. Can't really remember what I did here, but it ended up tasting a lot like a dry, savory pancake, but less fluffy. Am I making that sound disgusting enough? It wasn't that bad I guess. The caramelized onions, mushrooms and wafers of banned potatoes coaxed me through it.

Dinner omelet and a side of green beans. Obviously I was feeling very simplistic as I put nothing in it. Straight protein to the brain.

I was really excited about buying these guavas from a farmer's market because my grandparents used to have a guava tree in their backyard and I hadn't had one in so long and these smelled so good! But then they were filled with these really big, hard seeds that I was worried were poisonous because I can't remember which fruit has poisonous seeds? But then I figured the guy would have told me "Hey, be careful about the seeds because they'll kill you," which he didn't. And I'm still here so I guess that answers that riddle.

Really good chili that I thought was going to be really weird because the recipe seemed to call for way too much bulgur but then turned out totally great! Just one of my many creations for our Superbowl party. Topped with some guac & eaten the next day at a desk.

Cleanse over!

The FIRST thing I ate after being done with Advocare was a big ol' bowl of cereal with almond milk and nanners. Shredded Wheat + Frosted Shredded Wheat = the perfect sweetness. All about those ratios.

And theeennn, to top off my grain-alicious diet, I made some homemade granola. It was so good and I reluctantly shared some with the boyfriend because THAT is how much I love him. But I really almost didn't share.

And then he made me delicious vegetarian dumplings for Valentine's Day because it's my favorite idea of food even though I'd never had them (hence, 'idea') because they're always filled with meat! So now I can confidently exclaim that I do, in fact, love dumplings!  

And that's it for Shit on Toast, and Other Things. I hope you enjoyed looking at bad pictures of my food as much as I would have if I were someone else reading my, I mean their...nevermind.

Mother's Day

Happy Mother's Day to the kindest, most generous and loving woman I know. Love you lots Mom!

Two hours ago I was living the normal adult life of a day-to-day grind. I had put my 8 hours in and I could finally go home. I said my 'See you tomorrow's and got into my car. Then I got fired.

I read an article the other day that had images of famous people who faced opposition or failed at some point in their lives. Walt Disney was fired for lacking imagination, Marilyn Monroe was told she wasn't pretty enough to be an actress, Albert Einstein was labelled as mentally handicapped as a child. All of these people were told no, – that they weren't good enough, that the grand plans they had for their lives weren't going to happen. But it made them work harder and become more focused on their dreams.

So that's how I'm looking at this situation. One moment in my life where the rug was pulled out from under me. Was I really truly enjoying my job? Not at all. Was I grateful to have it? Of course. But years from now when I'm looking back, I'll hopefully see this time as the bump in my road. The thing that catapulted me into my great idea/job/life. Or maybe not. Fingers crossed.

Making Girlfriends

By far the hardest part of moving to a new city is meeting new people, especially when you only know a handful of people there to begin with. But even more difficult than that, is meeting girls you could actually see yourself being friends with. Girls my age are so much more intimidating than anyone else. I completely clam up!

I've always been so impressed by my best friend who lives in Houston and makes friends everywhere she goes. She let me in on a few of her best tricks on how she always manages to keep her social life bubbling even when she's the new girl.

1. Use the people you do know to meet more people you may want to know. Chances are, you're going to get along with at least a couple of their other friends.

2. Once you meet a girl you have a fun connection with, give them a sincere compliment. Ask where she got her blouse or comment on a funny story she tells. Starting a conversation can be hard but someone's got to get the ball rolling.

3. Be the first to suggest another outing. Ask for her phone number and if she'd like to get coffee sometime soon. Lady date!

4. My friend's most successful technique is to join dating sites, which allows her to not only go on tons of fun, casual dates with great guys, but also to meet all of his friends at group outings. Rather than finding more guys to date at these events, she concentrates on the girls and makes weekend plans with them. What a smart way to branch out!

Not being a single lady, this last option is off the table for me. But the next challenge I'm assigning to myself is to join the local adult soccer league I've been thinking about. Kind of scary to jump in alone, but I've got to start somewhere!

Eat, Work, Cuddle, Sleep.

I think doing this every night after work is my version of settling into adulthood. Add to the tea, a giant hunk of 4-day old, homemade blueberry chocolate chip bread. Which was still delicious.