Delicioso!

Yesterday, I decided that I needed to get rid of some ground turkey that I had in the freezer for a while, so I opted for turkey taco salads. Yum. It wasn't totally "clean," but I was using up old groceries so I am going to say what I actually made and then ways I would make it in the future to "clean" it up.

Meal: Turkey Taco Salads with Mexican Rice

I started by browning the ground turkey and cooking the Mexican Rice. In the future, I'll probably use brown rice and just add spicy seasoning to it to give it that south of the border flavor while keeping with the clean theme.

After I browned the turkey, I added a package of taco seasoning. Again, in the future, I'll probably just use chili spice and whatever other seasonings to spice up the taco meat, but I already had a taco seasoning package.

Then, I added about 1/2 to 3/4 cup of salsa to the ground beef and let it simmer, covered for a few minutes until the salsa soaked into the meat.

I put down a big bunch of shredded lettuce and topped it with a spoonful of the rice, then a spoonful of the ground turkey, and finished it off with a little shredded cheese. YUM! It was really good and I think with the above changes, it would be a really great "clean meal."

With all that said, however, I could not help but think of my newfound information regarding the food industry when I was cooking the ground turkey. I would be lying if I said it didn't gross me out a little bit. I wonder if I will ever be able to eat meat again without thinking of the source of the meat and what might be in it. I still ate it, though, and I ate it again today for lunch.

I still really want to make some additional changes to the food we eat, including eating less meat and making sure the meat we do consume is locally grown/raised and not factory farm, ammonia washed, disgusting chemical-laden meat.

On that note...happy eating!

Snow Day!

Well, the weather men were right! We fell asleep to the snow falling and woke up to this!

My neighbors looked out their windows to see this idiot taking pictures of her house in her holey sweatpants...

We decided we needed to get bundled up and let the puppies play outside. C-Money was not excited about the layers of goofy-looking clothes we put on him.

The puppies loved playing fetch in the snow. Well, Buster plays fetch. Berry plays, grab the ball and run with it.

C Money's FIRST snow!! He wasn't sure what to think, but his BFFs, Buster and Berry said it was cool, so he got down and gave it a gander.

Daddy-O and C-Note having fun in the snow.

Billbowski did his best to try and take a family self portrait. This was attempt #3 and at least this time, all three of our heads are visible!

After the snow, we needed some soup to warm us up. Luckily, I made that delicious black bean soup yesterday. It hit the spot! Doesn't it look yummy?

One last tip: Don't eat yellow snow (read: don't eat any snow in our backyard now that the puppies have been out a few times!)

I hope you're all enjoying your snow day as much as we are!

Today was a soup day

From the looks of facebook, it seems like everyone I know headed to the grocery store to prepare for the snowstorm (which I am desperately hoping will give us a snow day tomorrow. I am perpetually a 5th grader, hoping to miss a "school day.") Since I would rather amputate my right arm than brave a crazed, snow-scared grocery crowd, I decided I would survey the contents of my pantry and see if we could make do with what we already had. I surmised that we have food for the baby, which finalized my decision. I was not going to the grocery store. I'd rather starve to death.

I decided I would try and make some black bean soup. A friend suggested a recipe, which sounded delicious, but would've required my previously vetoed grocery trip, so I made up my own recipe. Guess what? It was DELICIOUS! Now, we have some hearty and delicious black bean soup to eat tomorrow if we happen to be snowed in. Yummo.

Here's my recipe. At least, it's what I can remember throwing in. It was more of a "toss in what's in your pantry" kind of thing than an actual recipe.

I started with sauteing a pretty big onion (chopped) in some extra virgin olive oil. Then, I added 6 cloves of garlic (minced). (This much, I stole from the recipe. From there, it was a free for all).

Once the onions were translucent and the garlic had cooked for a few minutes, I added a can of chopped tomatoes (drained), a tablespoon of ketchup, two tablespoons of chili powder, and about 14 oz of low sodium chicken broth. Then, I added three cans of black beans (drained, not rinsed) and turned the heat up until the soup was boiling. I added a can of corn (drained and unsalted) and then a little bit of cumin, garlic salt and black pepper and let it cook until it thickened up a bit.

I have no culinary experience and I do not fancy myself a chef, by any means, but this makeshift soup is the bees knees. I took a test bite (or so many test bites that I finally put the soup into the fridge so we would have some for the snow storm) and it was perfect! Spicy, warm and delicious.

Happy Snow Day (hopefully).

Food, Inc. Review

Upon the suggestion of several people, I watched Food, Inc. yesterday. It was very informative and not at all boring, despite the fact that it is a documentary of sorts. (In other words, it was not a PowerPoint presentation, which, I have heard, some acclaimed documentaries are. I can neither confirm nor deny this, as I rarely watch informative movies).

In addition to shining a light on the horrors of big companies and how their factory farming ways are slowly leading to the demise of Americans and our planet, this movie also points out some things that you probably know but hadn't realized or noticed. For example, the movie makes reference to the fact that foods really know no seasons anymore. Think about it. It's January and I am almost positive the last time I was in the store, I saw strawberries on display. Apparently, grocery distributors will pick out of season produce (in another country or somewhere that they can grow) and ripen them with chemicals. I may not be telling this completely as it is, but the bottom line is, we don't even think about eating seasonal foods or think it is weird to see foods we know are not in season. I'd wager to say that someone purchasing strawberries or tomatoes or whatever in the dead of winter likely thinks he or she is making a smart and healthy purchase choice, but where did these fruits and vegetables come from? And how were they transported and ripened? Do you know what you are eating? This movie made it pretty clear to me that I don't.

The movie also made it frighteningly clear just how much "food" has changed with the introduction of scientific "advances." For example, corn or corn products (high fructose corn syrup, xantham gum, and MANY more) are in just about every single thing we consume. It's no wonder, with all this processed food and all of the additives, not to mention the pesticides we consume, that people are becoming more and more ill. Think about the number of people you know that struggle with obesity, the number of obese children in America, the number of people who suffer from diabetes, and food allergies! I mean, I don't know, but I am relatively sure that these severe food allergies were not near the problem they are now. It only makes sense that the changes in the food we eat have led to these adverse consequences in the majority of our population.

Food, Inc. also features a mother who lost her son to a strain of E.Coli after eating a contaminated hamburger. A totally healthy two year old child DIED because of tainted beef, and, allegedly, the company knew there was a problem and did not say anything until several days after the child's death and several other reports of E.Coli poisoning. An estimated 76 million people are made ill from some food borne illness EACH YEAR!! How disgusting is that? And to remedy some of the problem, some meat producers have resorted to "washing" your meat with ammonia. WTF? That is disgusting. It cannot be healthy. It just can't. The child's mother has since been an activist for food safety modernization. You can learn more about her efforts here: http://www.foodborneillness.org.

Although I feel a little bit overwhelmed and a little helpless after watching the movie, I would totally recommend it to anyone who wants to learn about what is happening to our food. It's not okay. It is really scary, actually. It makes me want to plant a big ole garden in my backyard and grow all of our food and hand make Carter's baby food. I know that is not feasible, but I just might start small and plant a little garden and see how it goes.

There is SO much more that I didn't even mention about the movie, but I am not going to get the details right, so just watch it and decide for yourself what to think.

Sidenote: I promise I will not turn this into a crazy, preachy blog. I just find this all really interesting right now.

To Meat or not to Meat

Since beginning the eat clean experiment, I have done lots of research (read: reading health blogs at work) and one of my regular reads is the Daily Garnish (formerly frontburner.blogspot.com). She is a vegetarian and gives her reasoning for becoming a veggie on her blog. I also mentioned in a previous post that I read Skinny Bitch not long ago, and it seriously made me consider whether I needed to make the switch to vegetarianism (the Skinny Bitch authors are full blown vegans). I also recently read that Bob Harper (love) became a vegan after reading Skinny Bitch. Apparently, it is all the rage. A quick Google search will show you just how popular it is in Hollywood. Some really popular (and thin and gorgeous) stars are vegetarians and vegans. Of course, if you are a wealthy and successful actor, you can have someone cook vegetarian and vegan meals for you that don't taste like a garbage dumpster.

In addition to the blog and article reading I've been doing, we also talk about food and diets at work quite a bit and my coworker, a hunter, has a theory that if you could not kill and eat your own food, you should not eat meat. Admittedly, if I had to kill or even just butcher my own meat, I would FOR SURE be a vegetarian. I am blissfully unaware. Only now, I am not so unaware. There are truly some ATROCITIES that occur in the factory farming industry. In order to not be the biggest hypocrite in the entire earth, I have been trying to purchase "friendly" meat, meaning organic meat from vegetarian fed hens and grass fed beef, etc. from cruelty free sources. It is more expensive, but trust me, if you informed yourself about the animal cruelty that goes on in factory farming, you would be appalled and disgusted.

Still, for the time being, my love of chicken and lunchmeat wins out. I rarely eat red meat, but I am still not above it. I am mostly just don't know how to cook it and am too lazy to learn. I think if I had the time to really learn how to cook and how to substitute other types of foods as proteins, etc., I could be a vegetarian. I would have to ease into it. I love a sandwich. It's pretty much my favorite food. If the world were uncivilized, though, and I was forced to literally eat what I could kill, I would hop on the VEG train real quick-like! I'll keep you all posted on my journey and whether or not I decide to go meatless. I don't see that happening anytime soon, but it is something to consider.

What are your thoughts on the matter? Do you think that if you would not butcher your own meats, you shouldn't eat meat? General thoughts on vegetarian and veganism? Are any of you vegetarians?

Case of the Mondays, and Tuesdays...

I didn't post Monday or yesterday, mostly because I was in too ill of a mood to spread that kind of negativity around. I don't know why, but try as I might not to have a piss poor attitude coming into the new year, I have been in a bit of a rut. I tried to change my luck by playing the Lottery for the first time in my entire life (despite the fact that my retirement plan is to win the lottery). Unfortunately, I didn't win. Obviously, as I am at work again today.

Are any of you in a New Year funk? I believe it is partly because I feel like now I have to get back to the grind and there are no upcoming holidays to look forward to. Hopefully, we will have some snow days or something :)

A Time for Change

The beginning of a new year is the time everyone makes resolutions to change or improve their lives in some way. I would imagine about 97% of people's new year's resolutions involve weight loss, or something superficial. Mine does, too. My real resolutions, however, are a little deeper than just wanting to look good in a pair of jeans again. I just hope the jeans look good as a result of my changes.

I got a devotion book in my stocking this year, and the first devotion says, in part, "Do not cling to old ways as you step into a new year." I think that is excellent advice and intend to try my best to abide by those words. In order to truly change, to keep one's resolutions, you must change your ways. Otherwise, a resolution is just a group of empty, meaningless words.

The holidays are over, now, so it's time to get back in the saddle. I am sure most of you, if you are weak like I am, ate like crap over the holidays and are dreading the return to "real life," where there are no foreseeable breaks from work, and no excuses to be lazy and gluttonous. Although I always hate to see the holidays come to an end, it's definitely time. Yesterday, I took down most of our Christmas decorations and the house is starting to get back to normal. Today, I will make a trip to the grocery store so that my clean eating project can get back on track as well.

Happy New Year, everyone, and best of luck with all of your resolutions. 2010 was a tough year but it brought me the best gift ever (Carter, of course). Here's hoping that 2011 is our best year yet!