Salad Party (a.k.a. Crouton Recipe)

My class has a garden plot at school, and our lettuce was overflowing! (please note that we have another teacher help us with the garden; see yesterday's post about my black thumb).

In an attempt to get the kids excited about eating nutritiously and to build their independence and self-agency, we held a Salad Party. We split into five groups of four students each and prepared a different part of the salad. One group harvested and washed the lettuce. Groups shredded carrots and cheese. Another group made salad dressing, and my group made homemade croutons.

Each student brought in something to contribute to the party: forks, shredders, carrots, cheese, bread, salad spinners, etc. One of the children even brought at toaster oven, so we could make croutons.

Here's the simplest (yet most delicious!) recipe we used:

1. Cut bread into 1-inch cubes and place in a giant zip-lock bag
2. Pour melted butter into the bag
3. Add garlic salt
   
4. Shake vigorously
5. Bake at 350 degrees for about 10 minutes
6. Enjoy!

They were seriously easy (after all, we made them in a classroom with 6-9 year-olds!), and they were scrumptious. I think it might have been the first time I ever made homemade croutons (pathetic, I know!). I will never go with store-bought again...

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Tomato Seeds

Hooray! It's time to start planting seeds (at least in Houston it is...).

According to Year Round Vegetables, Fruits and Flowers for Metro Houston, it's time to plant tomato seeds indoors. I used those expanding peat moss seed growing things. They are fun to watch expand!

Perhaps I should not actually feature my gardening endeavors on this blog, since I have pretty much no idea what I am doing. I try to read books as much as I can, but when those books tell me things I don't want to hear, then I'm forced to ignore them. For example, apparently, you need to raise tomato seeds under fluorescent lights instead by a window. Well, we don't have fluorescent lights in our house, and I'm not about to buy some for our little tomato project.

We also have little to no light around our house, so I'm trying to figure out where to put a raised bed. I think my best bet will be on the west side of the house, but I'll have to ask my neighbor for permission to let the beds slip a little onto his property. It shouldn't be an issue, since the house is pretty much abandoned, and he only stops by once in a while to mow the lawn.

Crossing my fingers!

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Getting Back on Track

Okay, I have gained approximately six pounds since Christmas. And I feel it. I feel it when I squeeze into my pants, get them buttoned, and then my belly inches over the waistband. I feel it when I run and my butt jiggles so much it hurts. Seriously. (I apologize for being so graphic.)

I think the problem is two-fold (or maybe three-fold?). First, I do best with routines and habits. We had a two-week winter vacation which was awesome, but we did not follow our normal routines and habits. We ate out a lot. We snacked a lot. We ate a lot of dessert.

Secondly, I've been focusing more on getting a wide variety of vitamins and minerals and haven't been paying attention to how many calories I consume as a result.

Third, I've been in a little bit of a funk lately, so I've been eating to make myself feel better.

I need to get back into my healthier routines and habits.

1. I need to follow my well-balanced foods plan, but I need to do it in a way that is calorically reasonable. In order to do this, I'm going to plan a few sample days using the Weight Watchers point values and my tracking sheet (click on the image above to enlarge it).
2. I need to run religiously. Four times a week for 30 minutes. Period. Rain or shine. Funk or no funk. Cold or hot. It makes me feel better (physically and psychologically).
   
3. I need to have healthy foods on hands for snacks. When we don't have food around and I let myself get too hungry, I'm much more likely to binge on something unhealthy.
4. I need to stay hydrated. I misplaced my water bottle, and as a result, I haven't been drinking as much water.
   

Here's a sample day that would satiate both my food group needs and my Weight Watchers points:

• Breakfast Smoothie: 1.5 cups of yogurt (one protein, one calcium) + 1 cup fruit frozen peaches (one yellow fruit) = 5 points
  
• Snack: 1 apple (one other fruit) = 1 point
• Lunch: Leftovers = 4 points (one protein, two whole grains)
  
• Snack: 1 cup milk, one cheese stick, or 1/2 a cup of cottage cheese = 2 points (one calcium)
  
• Dinner = 7 points (one protein, one green leafy, one other vegetable, two whole grains)
  
• Snack: 1 cup orange juice = 2 points (one yellow fruit, one calcium)

More importantly, this kind of eating needs to become a lifestyle, not just something I do until I'm back down to my idea weight. I need to get into the habit of resisting unhealthy temptations at work (or eating a very, very small amount). I need to stop making excuses about why I can't exercise.

And, of course, I need to have patience with myself and celebrate what I am doing right!

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Cheese & Chocolate Fondue Party

Matt and I host monthly potlucks for the Houston Heights Time Bank. This year we made a new year's resolution to: a) make the potlucks more innovative and interesting and b) to expand the guest list by inviting some of our favorite friends.

Our first one of the new year was a cheese and chocolate fondue party. Mmm, mmm, good!

Making cheese fondue from scratch can be quite expensive, so we opted for a pre-packed kind from Whole Foods. Matt picked it up on his way home from work, and he reports that it cost something like $6. What a deal! People complimented the cheese fondue, so I will definitely go that route again.

We cut up yummy bread into cubes to dip in the cheese and used my friend's fondue pot. She has a ceramic pot with a double-boiler function from Williams-Sonoma (like this one), so it creates the perfect temperature for the cheese.

For the chocolate fondue, we used my pot (like this one) and we followed the recipe on the box:

1. 6 ounces semi-sweet chocolate chips
2. 6 ounces butterscotch chips
3. 14 ounces of sweetened, condensed milk
4. 1/4 cup of milk
5. 1 t vanilla
   

We served it with pineapple (frozen and thawed), honey wheat pretzel sticks, and homemade pound cake using this recipe. The cake was divine! After we stuffed our faces, we played a rousing game of Crainium. Matt kept us hydrated with a special concoction: Sprite + cranberry/pomegranate juice.

Hosting a party after a really hard week was honestly not something I was looking forward to. However, after it was all said and done, I'm so glad we prioritized good food and good friends. I'm looking forward to next month's potluck (a Valentine's party!).

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Meals for This Week

Image courtesy of Jamie's Kitchen

I'm trying to cut back on my caloric intake (I'll write about it for tomorrow's post), so here's what's on the docket for this week:

1. Salt and Pepper Tofu (which we never got around to making last week because I was in a funk and just wanted to eat out)
2. Spinach, Feta, and Tomato Pitas
3. Stuffed Winter Squash with Pears
4. Bean Burritos

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Scrabble Slam

I am a lover of games, and I have recently been introduced to a new one: Scrabble Slam.

It goes a little something like this: The dealers makes one four-letter word using the letter cards (such as love, slap, ooze, etc.) and then deals the rest of the cards among the players. When the game starts, each player tries to add a card to change the word. For example, if we started with "love," someone could add an "i" over the "o" to make "live." Then "live" could be transformed into "lice" with the addition of a "c." By the time you dig through all your cards and find something that works (there are letters on the front and back), someone has probably already changed the word. It's a rapid and challenging game.

I definitely recommend it for you word-philes out there!

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Getting Ready for Motherhood

Matt and I have talked about trying to start getting pregnant this summer. While I'm busy preparing my body for conception, I'm also trying to prepare my mind. I know I can't fully understand how my life will change with a baby*, but I can try to imagine it, as a way of better preparing myself.

For example, when I pull myself out of bed at 5:30am (usually after 7 or 8 hours of sleep), I try to think about what it will be like to wake up through the night in order to satiate an infant's needs. When I sleep in on Saturday morning, I think about what it will be like to wake up to the tug of a toddler who is ready to play. When Matt and I cook dinner together, I think about what it will be like to give up our joint endeavors and instead "divide and conquer" (e.g., "I'll cook dinner; you give the baby a bath.").

This process gives me renewed appreciation for my current life stage, but I think it also prepares me for the challenging** reality of expanding one's family.

Several years ago, I got accepted to Teach For America, and I had to make up my mind about whether or not to join. I waffled back and forth for a long time because I thought through how challenging it would be on a daily basis to work in some of the nation's neediest schools. I even asked for an extension on my matriculation in order to think through the decision a bit more. At one point, a TFA representative called me and said, "If you're not fully committed to the job, then please don't enroll. We would rather have you back out now."

What she didn't understand was that I was in the process of fully committing myself. I was adjusting to my future reality. While I knew I couldn't imagine everything I would go through, I could imagine the general hardship and challenge I would face.

And a TFA commitment is two years, while the commitment of motherhood is a lifetime!

* I don't mean to sound presumptuous by talking about a baby. I fully understand that getting pregnant is difficult for a lot of couples. Even if I do get pregnant, I may have a miscarriage (or multiple miscarriages). Even with fertility treatment, pregnancy may still not be an option for us. In that case, we would pursue adoption.
** Even though there are challenges that come from growing one's family, I know there are also indescribable joys. I think there's a parallel between having a baby and having a dog. Hoss makes our lives more difficult in many ways, and yet those difficulties are totally worth it because of how much happiness he brings to our lives.

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