Ninjas are SO better than pirates

Wow, I really haven't posted in a week? OI!

To be honest, I haven't actually cooked this week. Kirk (my girlfriend, for those of you who don't know) came down to visit Sunday night, and stayed until late Wednesday. Together we went to Valentino's pizza down on the square in San Marcos, and got the most amazing pizza. It had artichoke hearts, spinach, sliced tomato, onion, and feta. SO good. It was a massive pizza, too, so it lasted until she left, and we didn't even touch my quiche, so I still had plenty of that left. Although, I am eating the last piece now. It's still delicious.

So, this week hasn't been healthy for me. The pizza, though delicious, was probably not the best choice, given my options, but oh well. Besides that, at some point I contracted a cold, and am now suffering through the last of it (I hope), and the drastic weather changes here in San Marcos have not helped me feel any better.

Classes have been good, if intense, and I've been kept busy most nights reading frantically to keep up with the lectures. Wednesday night, actually, I thought I had done my homework until I decided to take a second look at the night's assignment, and realized I still had about a page or two to write before I could go to bed. The same night I watched Double Indemnity for my Film and Prose class. The movie was actually really good for the first 3/4's, but due to the rules Hollywoodland had in place at the time, people cannot get away with crimes, so the ending was drastically different from the book. My advertising classes have been boring so far, so I have nothing to report on those. So far, it's just been lecture and reading.

On the home front, I started reading Hunters of Dune, Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson's interpretation on where the whole Dune story was going. It's been a while since I read Chapterhouse: Dune so I'm slightly lost, but according to the forward, a lot of fans didn't even read through to that final book by Frank Herbert, so I'm actually ahead of the game in a sense. So far the book is alright, though I wouldn't tout it as a masterpiece of sci-fi literature.

Also, I splurged ($8) on a game I've been wanting for a while. It's called Ninja Town, and it's a super cute tower defense game. The story is absurd, in a good way, and the characters are unbearably cute. While these two items usually hint at terrible gameplay, I've found that the learning curve is appropriate (if steep at times) and the gameplay is terribly addictive. The story is filled with inside jokes, and blatant silliness. One great part is when your people are besieged by pirates, and Ol' Master Ninja notes that ninjas have always been better than pirates. So true. The characters are all awesome. From Consultant Ninja with his pie graphs to Business Ninjas who moves super fast due to the quantities of caffeine they consume, each character is guaranteed to make you smile. Whether you've played tower defense games before, or you're new to the playing field, I suggest this game. If you have a Nintendo DS, for your own sake, buy this game. Best $8 game I've ever played.

Anyway, my neighbor just knocked on my door and invited me over, so I'll talk about whatever I forgot to talk about later. 'Til then, eat well.

Short day/Long day

Today started later than I had expected, but not too late. By mid-afternoon I was up at a local coffee shop (the Coffee Pot) and was reading Double Indemnity by James M. Cain. My professor only required us to read up through chapter eight, but by that point I was so into the book that I decided to finish it. It's an awesome book with some great plot twists, and I really can't wait to see how it was translated to film. I'm wondering if the director picked up on the internal monologue, whether he skewed the ending, and a hundred other questions. To be truly honest, I think that Jeff Lindsay (author of the Dexter series) has read this book and taken it to heart. There seem to be a lot of parallels in the books, though Cain's character is not nearly as dark, though both main characters share a connection with the moon.

Anyway, so I read that book, and now I just have to watch the movie by Thursday. It's next on my Netflix queue so I should be getting it in the mail by Wednesday. The other reading I have to do for next week has not been done yet, due to me spending all my study time today reading the novel. I'll probably finish up that reading tomorrow during the day. Sundays are such lazy days anyway, I'm sure I'll be bored enough to read two textbooks.

After I got home from reading (and a short trip to the grocery store for an ingredient or two), I began to cook. I cooked for nearly two hours... What did I make? Quiche, green bean casserole, and some brownies. All delicious.

THE QUICHE!

1 Pie crust

1/4 cup milk

1 can spinach

1/2 cup mushrooms

1/2 Roma tomato, diced

3 eggs

1/4 cup shredded cheese

1/4 cup Feta or Gorgonzola (I used both)

Salt and Pepper

Strain all the liquid out of the spinach, and lay flat at the bottom of the pie crust. Layer the mushrooms on top of that. Stir together eggs, shredded cheese, salt and pepper, diced tomato, and the milk until well mixed. Pour this mixture on top of the spinach and mushrooms. Top with crumbled Feta or Gorgonzola cheese. (I couldn't choose which to use, so I did half Feta, half Gorgonzola.) Bake at 350 for at least 40 minutes. Enjoy.

THE CASSEROLE!

1 10.5oz can cream of mushroom soup

4 cups green beans

1/4 cup milk

1 big bag of french fried onions

Pepper

Mix the beans (drained, if canned), milk, soup, pepper, and about half of the onions into the dish you're going to be baking in. Bake at 350 for 25 minutes, or until the concoction is bubbling. Remove from heat, and stir. Top with the second half of the onions and return to the oven for 5 minutes. Your casserole is complete. Enjoy.

THE BROWNIES!

The brownie mix I actually got for Christmas from my aunt Mary, and her family. The mix is from the Women's Bean Project, which assists women who have suffered from "chronic unemployment, poverty, or difficult life situations" by providing them with work and a steady income. Of course they make more than just delicious brownies, they make a range of packaged food goods available for purchase by anyone who cares enough to spend an extra few cents to help women in need. Check it out at www.womensbeanproject.com

Speaking of brownies, those dastardly girl scouts were outside of Wally World when I went to pick up my ingredients. They were tempting me with their delicious wares, and I had to check. Turns out that Samoas (or whatever stupid name they have for them now), the greatest cookie in the world, has corn syrup... I felt like falling to my knees and screaming. How could those precious little girls peddle such delicious, yet dangerous wares? Do they not know what they are doing to the world? EVIL! Evil little girl scouts, silently poisoning the American populace. How could they!?!?

...Maybe I just really want some cookies... but these delicious brownies will have to suffice.

Anywhoo... 'Til next time, a toast to your health.

SSDD

I don't really feel creative today, so I did the Annie's mac & cheese/veggie thing. Today it seems kind of bland, so I think I'll retire this recipe, but it did me well for a while.

Breakfast consisted of a banana and an apple... I would have done more, but I had to rush out the door, since I slept through my alarm (surprise, surprise). Still got to class in time, somehow.

Third day of classes went by well. I'm really enjoying my film & prose class, as the teacher is a blast. Afterwards, for some reason the buses were taking forever, so I had to wait almost as long as it would have taken me to walk home. Actually, the bus pulled up just as I was about to start walking. Wow, this paragraph is terrible.

Tomorrow is going to be a cooking day. I'm going to make a lot of casseroles so that I have good food throughout the week. Well, maybe I'll just make one casserole, and a quiche. I'll report on it tomorrow.

Oh, and I've been forgetting about this... I finished Treasure Box by Orson Scott Card, and it was MUCH better than Lost Boys. I really loved the plot twist, and the ending. It was good and open: not a "Happily ever after" ending, but more of an ambiguous ending like Eternal Sunshine. Now I'm reading Road to Dune by Frank Herbert, Brian Herbert, and Kevin J. Anderson. The first part, about "Duneworld" is basically the rough draft of Dune. It's as if Frank Herbert knew that this story wasn't as engaging, or well developed. He knew he had to grow to create a masterpiece like Dune. His son, on the other hand, thinks he can make more money by publishing the terrible first draft of the novel, along with a few assorted deleted portions of Herbert the Greater's published novels. I haven't gotten to these parts, but I'm pretty sure that he took the excerpts out for a reason. Basically I'm mad I spent five bucks on this book at Half Price Books. Oh well, lesson learned.

Never go shopping hungry

Never, ever, ever go grocery shopping while hungry. You will inevitably buy far more than you ever intended. For example, I just went shopping. I left with the intent to buy bananas, more milk (still out from last night), and some other small things. What did I buy? Lots and lots of stuff. I splurged on strawberries, I filled up on fruit, I procured pasta, I even sneaked in some cereal. I meant to spend ten bucks and I spent forty.

What's the moral of the story? NEVER GO SHOPPING WHILE HUNGRY.

oi...

'Til next time...

Edit: The strawberries were TOTALLY worth it.

Mmm... Eggy goodness

Not much going on here in San Marcos. Second day of classes went by well, though I can't wait for other students to stop caring so that the buses are less packed than they were today. I had to stand on the way to school, and on the way back. I guess it could be worse, but I've got to have something to gripe about.

The two classes I had today were alright. International Advertising will probably be very interesting by the end, since the final project is to actually create an ad for a foreign market. The other class is also about advertising, but doesn't seem as interactive. Both classes are too big. 100+ students in the first, 200+ in the second... Oh, well, I'll get some face time with the teachers eventually.

Anyway, you aren't here for that, you're here for food, and good, healthy food at that. So, tonight I made one of my old favorite fallbacks: The Egg Sandwich.

Now, I have a pan that is perfect for cooking one egg. It's just big enough that when the egg spreads out it creates a little egg patty that fits perfectly on a slice of toast. If you don't have one of these pans, you may want to cut your cooked egg to size, if only to prevent your sandwich from requiring knife and fork.

Normally I use Romaine lettuce, one or two slices of a large tomato, and peanut sauce (Tseng's?Tsang's? I can't remember, and Wally World stopped carrying it). Tonight, however, I had none of those. Instead I used spinach, the last of that Roma tomato I used in the eggs the other night, and spicy southwest mustard.

Ingredients needed:

Bread (whole wheat W/O HFCS)

1 Egg

1 slice of cheese

Tomato

Green leafy veggie of your choice

Peanut sauce or mustard varietal of your choice

Salt & Pepper

Start cooking your egg on medium heat, seasoning to taste. While this is cooking, grab your bread and put it either in the toaster, or (my favorite) use a toasting rack and put it in the oven with the cheese already on top of one of the slices. When the egg is done, if you've timed it right, the bread should be done as well. If you really don't know how to finish a sandwich from here, I can't help you.

Slap everything together, and enjoy. Takes about 4 minutes to make, costs less than a dollar. Love it.

Alright, well that's it for me today.

I guess at some point you all want to know what I eat for breakfast, lunch, snacks, etc. Well, if you do, today is not your day. Check back in tomorrow for information like that...

'Til next time, eat healthy!

First day of the semester, dinner disasters

School started today, and since I had to get up early to do some last minute schedule changes, I've been running around like a chicken with it's head cut off all day. The two classes I had today seem fun and interesting. The first class should be interesting simply because the main book is Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. The second class features a teacher that reminds me of Ellen DeGeneres, which is pretty hilarious. Both of these are English classes so I should be reading a LOT this semester.

And the butcher's bill on books this semester? $465... Publishing companies love to f*ck over our country's student population.

Gripes aside, due to the chicken-lacking-head-dance I performed most of the day, I forgot to get milk until I got home, and my first idea for a quick meal quickly went south. So... I packaged up the ingredients in a ziplock bag and that will just have to wait for another day. I already had water boiling though, so I just tossed in some Ronzoni whole wheat rotini (no HFCS in this whole wheat) and put some Classico sauce on it. Then, for flavor, since the pasta itself was actually lacking any, I topped it off with some crumbled feta.

I'm really disappointed in the rotini, especially since I have a whole new box to look forward to cooking with.

I'm thinking hot sauce...

"Hot sauce on pasta?" you ask?

Yes, it's THAT bland, I can't think of anything pasta-y with enough flavor to overcome the aggressive blandness of this rotini. It's gross. Don't buy it.

'Til next time, get plenty of sleep (unlike me) and eat well!

Chipotle

So I'm feeling... not lazy, but not up to cooking today. So I went out to Chipotle (although in this town I could choose from any burrito chains you could think to name, and one or two you couldn't). Got myself a giant burrito for dinner, so nom noms there, but nothing I need to describe. In lieu of a recipe tonight I just have some pictures of the clearing of my kitchen.

I scoured the kitchen, reading every ingredient list, and removed every item which had High Fructose Corn Syrup, or regular corn syrup. Thinking back on it, I did see some ingredients against which I had been warned in my research the other night, but I don't quite feel like scouring the pantries again, so I'll just keep on my toes and hope nothing bad goes unnoticed.

So this is the canned goods pantry before I took out all the bad stuff....

And after?

The bread pantry before and after are next...

And finally, these are all the products I removed from my kitchen:

Altogether, Hershey's Chocolate syrup, Nestle hot chocolate mix, Blue Bell ice cream, Great Value potatoes au gratin, Great Value pancake syrup (the first two ingredients were High Fructose Corn Syrup, and corn syrup), Ocean Spray cranberry sauce, Wishbone Balsamic Vinaigrette, Great Value Peach Halves in heavy syrup, Great Value vegetarian vegetable soup (why in the great, ghastly world does SOUP have HFCS? Speaking of which...), Campbell's AND Great Value tomato soup, Knott's strawberry preserves, GV Strawberry spread, GV cherry fruit mix, Knorr Pesto mix (didn't have HFCS, but did have some worrying ingredients), GV Spaghetti rings, Ritz crackers, hot dog buns, GV whole wheat bread (isn't whole wheat supposed to mean it's good for you?), GV marshmallows, and I wasn't completely sure about the fig newtons, since I didn't have the box, but I fig-ured (heh) that I shouldn't take the risk.

*wipes brow*

PHEW! that's one hell of a list for you...

If I ever perform a scouring of the shire, ehem, I mean pantries again, for other ingredients, I shall let you know, faithful readers (or reader).

'Til next time, Eat Healthy!

Edit:

By the way, I'm taking all of the canned goods to the local food bank. Everything else was opened, so, unfortunately, I can't donate it. But my neighbors accepted some that which otherwise would have ended up in the dumpster, so that's good.

2nd Dinner

Oi!

I'm feeling lazy tonight, and have been reading an Orson Scott Card novel, so of course I'm entranced. This one is Treasure box, and it's a nice departure from his usual sci-fi/fantasy (should that by "syfy" now? Nah, screw that network.) and it is definitely a better ghost story than Lost Boys. Well, so far it is, if the ending is stupid like Storyteller or Lost Boys I'm going to be angry... but literary criticism is not what you came here for.

Dinner tonight was an off the cuff idea, and it turned out alright, but wasn't spectacular.

2 eggs

1/2 roma tomato

10-15 leaves of spinach

Small pat of butter, or olive oil

Salt and Pepper to taste

Wash and chop your veggies.

Beat the eggs with the salt and pepper while heating your pan at medium heat. Once pan is at temperature, add the oil, making sure it covers the bottom of the pan, and quickly spread the eggs before the oil burns. Let the eggs cook for a few seconds so the bottom is solid, while this happens, add your pre-chopped veggies, spreading evenly across the eggs. Fold the veggies in while the eggs cook. Remove from heat when spinach has wilted and eggs are fully cooked.

Serve immediately and enjoy!

Cost: About $1

Needs cheese, but I forgot it, and it needs Salsa Roja, but mine has gone bad. I'll either have to order some online, or wait for Scarborough Faire. When I find the pepper lady's web address I'll post it up here. Some of my favorite ingredients come from her.

Eat Healthy Everyone!

GAB

Dinner for tonight

Well, since basically all of my food either went bad over Christmas break, or has HFCS in it, I went shopping today and picked up some good, healthy food. I found out that the Wally World near me doesn't stock Gorgonzola cheese. And I forgot to get half the stuff I meant to get. I need to start making a grocery list... Which I guess means I need to start planning meals ahead.

Anyway, to make this short, tonights dinner is Annie's organic brand shells & real aged cheddar with one of those little microwaveable "just for one" veggie bowls poured into it. Total cost = $2.08. Awesome.

I actually don't like the Annies mac and cheese until you add the veggie bowl (corn and peas). Kind of ironic that my first meal blogging would have corn in it... At least it isn't corn syrup.

Oh, and I forgot that I have an addendum to my original intent. I was doing some research online, and it turns out I should really be paying attention to the terrible fat substitutes that companies are using. These include partially and fully hydrogenated oils and mono- and diglycerides. I think I got that right, but spellchecker denies me...

Boy vs. High Fructose Corn Syrup

Okay, here's the deal: I have made it my goal to completely remove corn syrup and high-fructose corn syrup from my diet. This will be difficult. For one thing, I am a college student at Texas State, and have very little money for food to begin with. The fact that I am removing from my diet something which may be found in almost any box of food (aka: cheap food) you find at the supermarket will make this a great challenge for me.

In addition to doing this I'm going to try to work out regularly, and to stop smoking cigarettes (both good ideas in general). So basically I'm going to try to live a healthy life.

Anyway, that's the concept here. I hope if anyone actually reads this web log you'll find it interesting, and maybe it will make you take a second look at the ingredients of the food you ingest.