What I cooked this past week & ingredients...

I like to cook something I've never made before every week. I get ideas from Food Network, restaurants' menus, other people's cooking, and simply mixing whatever I have in my house at the time.

So last week I made grilled chicken breasts stuffed with pepper jack cheese, spinach, and pesto, covered in pesto as well. These are the things that went through my brain when I put this meal idea together. First, "I want to make some stuffed chicken, I haven't done that in a while". Second, "stuffed chicken needs cheese, I have pepper jack, I'm not spending any more money on food this week and I don't feel like going to the grocery store". Third, "I have this spinach I need to use before it goes bad, I let it go bad all the time and end up wasting my money, I'm not doing that this time". Fourth, "Stuffed chicken can get dry pretty quickly, lemme add some pesto in this. I need to use this pesto I made because I don't know if/when it goes bad." Fifth, "I should addd some pesto on top to cover it, so it looks pretty and to make sure it isn't dry again".

So over the weekend, I made my usual breakfast: scrambled eggs with cheese, bacon, and pancakes. I bought these cranberries from the grocery store the week before that I needed to use. I've never had fresh cranberries before, so I bit into one and it was completely sour, I was over it. So I remembered a technique I saw on food network and I threw some cranberries in a warm skillet, added a little warm and some sugar and made a cranberry compote. I added that on top of the pancakes and they were mm mm good! I originally bought the cranberries because I wanted to make cranberry orange pancakes, I've been addicted to these cranberry orange nut muffins from Target and I want to use that combination for something else. I didn't make a whole lot of the compote as you can see below, because I got nervous when I tasted the sourness of the cranberry. I would like to add that Hormel makes the absolute best pork bacon there is, next up is Smithfield. Debate me on this if you want to, but nothing beats the sweet and salty aroma of that Hormel Black Label Maple bacon in my kitchen. YES GAWD!

For dinner that same night, I made some pizza fries that I saw floating around Instagram a few weeks back. Justyn and I had been saying that we wanted some and I had been saying I was going to make them, but I never did, probably because we mainly eat healthy and he's on some fat loss Atkins Southbeach Herbalife diet BS with his friends. (Clearly I'm over it) Never the less, I finally made some. I used regular ol' Ore Ida zesty curly fries cooked them for a bit on 400, then covered them in mozzarella (don't be cheap with the cheese) and turkey pepperoni. I made turkey burgers seasoned with Indian seasonings  (cumin, garam masala, salt, pepper, fresh cut yellow sweet onions, and probably something else I can't remember) and sauteed broccoli for our veggie. I bought some famous Dave's pickles from the grocery store and they are absolutely delicious. I love pickles because I love vinegar, so I just had to share that.

I eat the same thing basically...

Some of the things I eat every week:

1. Salad: romaine lettuce, spinach, and arugala

2. Tuna on my salad

3. Salmon

4. Asparagus

5. Broccoli

6. Yogurt

7. Wild Rice

8. Almonds

9. Quinoa

10. Bananas

I have gotten in the habit of looking up the health benefits of the foods I eat often, I like to know what I'm putting in my body if I'm putting the same thing in quite often. I WAS going to post the health benefits of these foods, but I'm not trying to make this a healthy eating blog or portray myself as a nutritionist, motivational health coach, or any other thing that most people act like they are because they read a couple articles. Read. Because you know shade came from reading. 

How I pack in all these foods throughout the day

Breakfast & Snacks:

I eat two, one while I drive to work, the granola or a fruit smoothie with carrots, at about 7:30, then the other when I get to work at about 9am, then the banana at about 10:30am, then almonds around 11:30am.

Banana, granola bar, warm item (egg white sandwich usually)

Lunch:

Salad with tuna  some type of nuts, almonds/walnuts, craisins, and mozz at times because I love cheese

OR

salmon/baked chicken, with a whole grain/quinoa, and a green veggie

Snack:

Greek yogurt with fruit and granola

Dinner: 

Is the the "OR" item from lunch. If I had salad for lunch, then dinner is the warm item and vice versa.

By the time I walk in the door of my house at 4:30 pm, from being awake since about 6:00 am, I'm running for the toilet. Fiber. 

Weekends:

Because I'm a realist, pancakes for breakfast, turkey/pork bacon, and whole eggs with cheese and sometimes spinach, or an omelette, whichever I feel like making. I always indulge in some type of fried food on the weekend too, live a little. Oh! And wine, because we all know that's a food group.

"Jesus turned water into wine, he knew how to get the party started".  -Ranita, another tryflin line sister

iCoupon.

The cost of living where I am is absolutely absurd, but I am beginning to grow accustom to the mayhem on the highways from 6am-10am and 3pm-7pm, the HOV lanes that require 3 passengers, the red lanes, which are strictly only to be used for rush hour, the people who ride my bumper when I'm already going 15 over the speed limit, 'tis the life of living in the DMV. Along with the hustle and bustle comes people who make good money, which thereby leaves them feeling privileged and entitled. When I first moved to this area at 17 after graduating high school, it was astonishing that people didn't hold the door open for you when you were clearly walking directly behind them. At the middle school I work at, a couple of the boys have stepped aside and held the door open for me on occasion, I almost broke down in tears because I was so happy to see them acting as young men should.

Seeing as how I just graduated from my Masters program, I make good money, but it aint good enough, so coupons are necessary. LOL! Meaning, I can't shop as much as I would like to. While in grad school, I watched a lot of Extreme Couponing, so that got me into couponing heavily. Although at the time, I used coupons for other things. I found grocery coupons on the internet (coupons.com, couponsuzy.com, googling the brand and searching coupons), but my system just wasn't good enough. That is until one beautiful Christmas day, my mom got me a real deal coupon binder. I'm talking side pockets, printed out labels for each section, my name on the top, baseball card holders (what you use to put your coupons in), 3 zip pouches, calculator, grocery list, and scissors. At the moment, it was solidified why God placed me on this Earth...TO SHOP with coupons! I began to buy 2 Sunday papers, which have all the coupons in them. My grocery store, Giant, and Safeway does this as well, sell the paper in a bundle of 2 where you can save a dollar (2 papers for $4 instead of 1 paper for $2.50). The newspaper shows at the top right hand corner on the front page how much the coupon values are inside "$210 of savings inside". When the value is in the $100s or below it's a pretty trash Sunday for me, but when it's $250+ I smize. That is when I know whether I should buy 2 papers or 1. Usually when it's $100 or below you can find a bunch of household product coupons. There are other ways to get newspapers, but I can't say that on these internet streets. The feds may be watching.

<---Yesterday's trip

From there, it takes about 2-3 hours to clip and organize the coupons I want, I don't throw away the ones I don't want, I hold on to it, sometimes I change my mind and will buy a product or I'll keep it and send the coupons to my mom that she wants. Most of the time, I'll go to the grocery store that week and match the store sales ads with the coupons I have. They ALWAYS overlap. I will not buy a product unless it's on sale, it will always go on sale and then I will stock up on the item. I haven't purchased laundry detergent, dish soap, dishwasher soap, body wash, or cleaning products in months.

People are constantly asking me to teach them to coupon, but I honestly don't believe most will actually implement the techniques so I just say "buy the Sunday paper" because I don't want to waste my time. But I've given you some of the things I do, you can find more information here ---> The Krazy Coupon Lady.

A little bit of store insight:

Target

You save $0.05 for each reusable bag you bring in

Open up a Target DEBIT card, not credit, you save 5% on all of your purchases. It's a card linked directly to your checking account, just go in with a blank check for your banking info. You'll also get extra days to return items and free shipping.

They often have sales where you buy 2-3 of something and you'll get a $5 Target gift card, break your transaction up into 2 or more and you can use the gift card right at that moment for optimum savings

You can use manufacturers + their store coupons on the same item

They do NOT double coupons

Giant

They double coupons valued at $0.99 and below. Meaning I enjoy my $0.75 coupons more than my $1.00 coupons because they turn into $1.50

$0.05 per reusable bag

They often have coupons in their sales add, where when you buy $50 of groceries you get 300 gas points at Shell ($0.30 off of gas/gallon)

These are the only stores I coupon for groceries at really, WalMart does not double and they act incompetent when it comes to coupons and I aint got time for dat.  Look online to see what your store's coupon policy says and also make sure you read the print on the coupon.

Last tip:

Go to the young cashiers, they always process a coupon through, the old people always read the fine print and take their job way too seriously :)

Happy couponing.

Taste of DC...or better yet, everything I laid eyes on

Over the weekend I went to Taste of DC and ate my entire heart out alongside the BF and bestfriend.
We started out with a shrimp po' boy as Justyn and I waited for Jamie to arrive, that was meal #1, just the beginning. We then went to get Indian curry chicken, so we could have something to snack on while we waited in line at another restaurant. The next spot was Wicked Waffle where I had a waffle with cheddar cheese and bacon on the inside and ALSO a waffle with peking duck on top cue the drool. Next, we saw a Morningstar brand veggie food giveaway, so we tried that as well. LOL! The Mediterranean veggie patty was pretty darn good, I can't lie. Next we wanted dessert, Justyn was hell bent on getting a funnel cake, we waited in line, then when he seen they didn't have toppings he was completely over it, so we got out of line. I must admit, a funnel cake with strawberries would have been amazing cue drool #2. We then had "chicken on a stick" as we referred to it that day, terriyaki chicken from Chef Hogate '85. It was so good and moist. So we find doughnuts, and my God those doughnuts were good. I realized they were pretty overpriced after I indulged, but they were amazing. I mean $2 for a doughnut hole is absurd, but I grew up on Krispy Kreme and wanted to see what the hype was about, plus the dude working the counter was a good salesman. Next, back to Wicked Waffle we went. Le sigh. greedy. I ordered another grilled cheese w/ bacon waffle and THEN I was stuffed. OH! While we were leaving we saw that La Tasca was giving away their food, because everything was closing. I told the guy I heard of the place before and had never been, he said "of course you've heard of us. who hasn't?!" all snooty like. So I'm thinking the food is about to be thebomb.com...NOT, we got lots of paella, which needed salt and more paella stuff like seafood eye roll.  I mean hell, I've never had paella before, but I definitely see it enough on Food Network to know that it's supposed to have some dang seafood in it. Not this place. But I did however, have some bacon wrapped dates, you would have thought I was a professional food critic the way I described the sweet and savory mix.

Please excuse the quality of the shrimp po' boy photo, I was too hungry to stand still and take the pic evidently. 

Apparently, it's not cool for men to carry/utilize umbrellas, we had a pretty extensive convo about this while there, but I really needed Justyn to hold my umbrella while I ate (gorged down) my 2nd grilled cheese w/ bacon waffle.

While there, we indulged some of us more so than others eh hem myself, in wine. My word! That wine was just great, Jesus! I had Madria Sangria, which was soooooo good, but the rude heffas working the counter gave us the worse attitudes. For what reason? I don't know. I don't drink and drive, like AT ALL. So when I know I'm going to be partaking in the devil's juice I accommodate by taking the train or remaining sober, so on this day, we all took the train. I was ready to indulge, with class of course. We had drink tickets, which were being sold for everyone to use, and these females working the counter refused to give us more than one tasting at a time, mind u a tasting was about 3/4th the size of a shot glass, which clearly couldn't do anything for you. When we asked about multiple tastings she said "we're only doing one. We have to limit our inventory and you all need to drive safely" with a smirk on her face, I bluntly said "we didn't drive" and flipped my hair as we walked away. By this time, we're still sober, so I was way pissed. IDK who she thought she was, but clearly she got to me yall. All in all, I had an amazing time, I enjoy anything with lots of food, so it was bound to be a blessed (yes, blessed) experience with food AND wine in the same atmosphere.

May I have the chicken biscuit please with a side of Internalized Racism?

How do I know Jesus loves the absolute crap outta me? THIS BLESSING BESTOWED UPON MY MAILBOX THIS EVENING!!! 

When I was young and tubby, my dad, before taking me to my babysitter's house before school, would take me to Burger King and let me get a bacon, egg, and cheese croissant meal with tots, orange juice, and...an extra croissant sandwich on the side which I ate all in one setting. Those were some of the happiest mornings of my life. LOL! But please know that I will be getting the HEFTIEST Chic-fil-A sandwich on the menu with this thing...I'm thinking the multigrain bagel with egg, cheese, and bacon...hell! maybe chicken! It's free!

WOMANIST

Monday, I was leaving work and in the car preparing for my 1.5 hour commute home. There's an intersection that involves crossing a median and oncoming traffic on both ends, so I'm driving as I usually do and I don't see this Black Mercedes and the driver honks at me. A fault of my own. I apologize in my car to the woman (as if she can hear me) and keep driving. Next, I get to the line of a traffic light, mind you it's raining outside. As I'm waiting at the light, a White woman walks up to my car, I pause for 3 seconds, look at her and think "maybe she needs directions, I hope not because I probably won't know what to tell her" but I proceed to roll down my window anyway. She looks at me and says "you need to drive more careful, you almost hit me and my two kids back there". Every curse word in my brain came to mind, but I said "I SAID I WAS SORRY. BYE!" and rolled up my window. 

I don't know what made this woman believe it was okay to walk up to a stranger's car in the rain and give them a piece of her mind, but she had to be the stupidest (expletive) I've ever seen in my life. One may attribute this to privilege, but then I have to question myself. What made me believe it was safe to roll down my window for her? In those short 3 seconds I also told myself "she's a White woman, she won't be robbing me or anything" and in that short amount of time, my own internal racism crept up on me like a thief robbing me of my own internal cues. I am left wondering, if while she was standing in the rain examining who was in the car and she seen a White male/female, would she have done the same?

To the woman who walked up on me while in my car, I thank you for reminding me that no one is to be trusted, especially White women approaching your car slowly in the rain. 

R.I.P. Trayvon Martin

Sometimes it's the other who reminds you of who you are.

I Have a Fear of Being Hungry

I always keep snacks in my purse, car, and office desk for these very reasons. My rationale, you never know when you're going to be stuck on an elevator and I lie to you not I think I would just cry in the corner if I got hungry while stuck on the elevator. Okay, but for real, I think I kinda sorta keep food because when I was younger we (my dad & I) didn't have a lot of money. I knew it was a struggle some times for him to feed me, so now it's ingrained in me that food shouldn't go to waste and I appreciate everything I have. Okay, enough of the emo stuff...

I have this mantra I've been repeating to myself recently, "Eat White, Live Right".

Background:

Life expectancy broken down by race

(Women tend to outlive men)

Asian-American 86.9 

Latino 82.8 

Whites 78.9 

Native Americans 76.9 

Blacks 74.6

Whites living in the rural South tend to have similar life expectancy rates as the Blacks in that same area.

The only reason I say "eat White" is because they tend to have the resources to buy healthier foods/be more educated on what's healthy and what's not. I recently saw this article about the worlds oldest people, who was on the list you ask? Asians in various countries, Whites, and 2 Black people out of a list of 10. As a kid I remember eating corn and broccoli WITH cheese, I hated string beans and anything else, now as an adult I still see Blacks my age eating this same way. We have to do better. So I've been incorporating other foods into my lifestyle when I noticed other longer living races ate it: greek yogurt (my White grad school classmates always ate this stuff), raw veggies as snacks (cut up peppers), and etc. Recently I have been tearing up, do you hear me, TEARING UP, roasted seasoned seaweed. SEAWEED??? Yes seaweed, it honestly tastes like pork rinds to me, try not to judge my entire life off of that, but it really does. It's loaded in vitamins A, K, and low in calories. I also heard on Dr. Oz that it's good for memory, which is why I initially purchased some. Next up, green tea sans the sugar. I'll make a nice (free) cup of green tea every morning when I get to work. So many health benefits and it seems to curve my appetite as well, apparently there's some inconclusive data on weight loss related to green tea.

So basically, this is just a reminder to try foods from different cultures, eat more than what you're used to, train your palette to like things with less sugar and you'll be surprised by what you end up enjoying.