Satisfries

For you, I stopped in the Burger King next to my AFLAC office and purchased my first order of Satisfries. Actually, I ordered the vegetarian burger—no onion, no mayo, extra pickles—ice tea and a small order of Satisfries. The combo cost $5.49 plus tax and the survey receipt earns me a free sandwich in the future. Obviously, BK was looking for opinions on the latest French fry faire that has seventy less calories than their regular fries.

I am pleased with BK vegetarian combo as it is the last fast food chain to still offer the meatless patty. McDonalds and the like think that a fish sandwich is vegetarian. Flextarian yes. Vegetarian no.

Although, I don’t regularly order the fries because I don’t need the calories and more importantly the BK regular fries are not as good as McDonalds. These were good. Crinkle cut, lightly salted, with a satisfying crunch, the fry did not droop and they stayed hotter than BK regular choice. I liked the low cal Satisfries better. The patented coating does not have much potato flavor but with the amount of ketchup I use, I didn’t care.

My vegetarian fast food meal contained 590 calories—ketchup not included.

Today’s Menu:

Breakfast: Hot oatmeal with banana and almond milk.

Snack: Coffee with creamer and sugar.

Lunch: Burger King vegetarian burger—no onion, no mayo, extra pickles—ice tea and a small order of Satisfries with ketchup.

Snack:  Dark Chocolate covered raisins.

Dinner: Vegetable soup with rice cakes.

Snack: Dark Chocolate covered cranberries. Fuji Apple from my tree.

It's Not The Chocolate

It’s NOT chocolate, not HoHo, not fried chicken, and not Häagen-Dazs. And it’s not lack of exercise either. Yay! Party time. What am I talking about? Weight gain of course.

Buzzing through the internet is research linking our civilizing the night time with electric light and weight gain in mice.  

“…article published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences they found that mice exposed to dim light during their sleeping hours for a period of eight weeks had a 50% higher weight gain compared to mice that slept in the dark.” http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/204236.php

Think about it. When was the last time you slept in a dark house? My night stand is cluttered with plugged in and glowing iType products. The bath has a night light. My bedroom curtains do not block the street lights or a full moon.  Lights come off of the wireless gadgets, the cable box, digital clocks, and automatic coffee maker. Let’s count the four solar powered security lights the cover the four corners of the house. Other than the closets, my house is lit. 

I remember driving with my husband from the Twin Cities airport to Fargo on vacation to visit my aunt. The highway is a straight shot through open farm land dotted with lakes. We had left the car rental at dusk and drove for three hours in the dark with few street lights or traffic. Dark. Suddenly, to my squinting eyes I saw metal barns lit as bright as spotlights.

“What the heck?”

“Oh,” stated my husband, a man full of facts, “Turkey farms. They keep the lights on until midnight until Thanksgiving. The turkeys eat more in the long days.”

I just thought of this trip. Why wouldn’t the same logic apply to people? My grandparents would not have had a midnight snack or a 9:00 P.M. snack either. Why not? Because they were in bed.  Early to bed early to rise…something…something.

So keep eating chocolate or whatever is your passion, click off the breaker, and sleep.

Today’s Menu:

Breakfast: ½ c Raisin Bran w/almond milk.  Coffee with agave syrup and almond milk.

Snack: None.

Lunch: Veggie Burger, Fries, and Ginger Ale from Burger King (770 calories).

Snack:  Pear, Mango, and a small Fuji Apple picked from my tree.

Dinner: Small Salad.

Snack: Peanut butter.

Un-Cook Books

I bought my darling a box of chocolates for Valentine’s Day and a pile of books for me. Yep. I went online to Amazon.com looking for raw un-cook books. Most raw recipes I have found so far feed an army of six and I am just one—Moose has a whole other diet. So I let my mouse do the walking. I purchased “Alive in 5—Raw Gourmet Meals in Five Minutes” by Angela Elliott, “Ultimate Raw Vegan Chocolate Recipes” by Kristine Suzanne—hey, it was Valentine’s Day—and “Raw Food Made Easy—for 1 or 2 People” by Jennifer Cornbleet. I liked the fact that Jennifer’s last name looked edible.

After reading all three cookbooks, I found that “Raw Food Made Easy” may be the most useful. Both Ms. Cornbleet—I loved that name—and Ms. Elliott had complete information on how to set up a raw kitchen, what utensils to buy, and when to use them. The chocolate book had pretty pictures.

“Raw Food Made Easy” covered a wider range of flavors including Asian, East Indian, Mexican, and Italian. I craved Italian. Because the portions were smaller I could visualize preparing the food daily. Jennifer Cornbleet had some of my favorite foods listed in a raw version like Olive Tapenade and a mock spaghetti recipe—“Zucchini Pasta al Presto with Marinara Sauce and Not Meat Balls.” Oh, yum. Her book included full menu ideas and a collection of raw desserts for my Sunday cheats.

Hope you will get the spirit to try something new this week. BTW you can go on Amazon and preview the books and a couple recipes.

I gained two-tenths of a pound. Given the holiday and the past month’s events, I can’t complain.

Valentine Chocolate

Monday is the day—chocolate abounds. What to do about your waistline then?

My recommendation is to go with the flow only sensibly. That means to ignore the cheap and plentiful options and go with something expensive and memorable. After all it is a holiday of sorts and should hold some sort of excitement don’t you think?

Options:

1. Edible Flowers work as an alternative to chocolate. They are pretty, make you feel good, and are edible. So tell Romeo to get you rosemary, hibiscus, carnations, chrysanthemums, lavender, marigolds, nasturtiums, pansies, peonies, or violets from a pesticide-free vendor. Washed flowers can be added to tea, champagne, or salads, or dipped in honey or chocolate. High fiber and low cal, it’s a beautiful alternative.
2. Godiva Chocolate. Have I gone crazy? The calories? The cost? You can run down to your local drug store and get a giant heart full of cheap-sugary candy, or pick up a six piece box of Godiva truffles for about the same price. Box of six Godiva chocolates equals 630 calories. For about the same price, a box of eighteen Whitman/Russell Stover chocolates equals 2,070. The Godiva will cost three times more than the other options but oh baby the flavor. Have one 105 calorie piece a day for a week to celebrate the love.
3. My choice—Intense dark chocolate with cacao nibs. The company is Endangered Species Chocolate—available from the local health food store. A three ounce bar costs around $3 and has nine individual squares of chocolate to snap off and eat. The whole bar has 420 calories making each square of ethically traded cacao chocolate only 47 calories each. The flavor stays on your tongue forever and the mouth-feel is incredible. Plus ten percent of the profits support wildlife. The inside wrapper has wonderful information on critters. Love this chocolate.

Enjoy the day by telling someone that you love and appreciate them. The flowers and chocolates are optional.

Death by Raw Chocolate Covered Dates

How innocent? I signed up for Raw Holiday Desserts Class with Chef Stacey—a local raw chef of some renown in Sacramento. My intentions were pure. Take the class, taste the delights, then determine which recipe to make for my cousin’s Thanksgiving feast. Having zero experience in making raw confections, I had no choice but to go this route. You are following the logic. Yes?

So what happened next truly was not my fault.

I arrived exactly on time to the lovely Rancho Cordova home. Greeted by several nice ladies, I signed in and paid my entrance fee. Cucumber-laced pitcher of water and a bowl of celery sticks adorned the foyer table. Picking up a couple sticks, I sat next to a “Cooking with Chef Stacey” veteran. We talked endlessly about raw foods, desserts, evils of tap water, the loss of favor for agave syrup, and the mortality of bees.

Chef Stacey worked the kitchen like Emeril Live with one important difference nothing cooked—a dehydrator replaced the microwave and the Vitamix 5200 Blender replaced about everything else. She made orange-persimmon cheesecake, chocolate-dipped dates with orange-spice almonds, a blueberry-chia tart, and dark chocolate caramel cups. All raw. Stacey hinted we would taste later and that we could take items home. As time ticked by and trays of delights passed my face, I remembered I had not had a dessert in four months, a long time for this former heavy weight. Finally, the chef’s assistant sliced the cheesecake.

A good size piece slapped down onto the china plate, a fork added then passed to the first person in the first row. Several minutes passed before I received my plate. I skipped dinner so that I would not go over my one thousand calorie diet even if I had a bite or two of dessert.

Persimmon is not my favorite fruit. I like the taste not the pucker affects the flesh offers. Still the fruit, nuts, spices, and honey excited long neglected taste buds. My well-intention one bite plan turned into sucking up the cheesecake and scraping the nut crust across the plate into my salivating mouth. Before I could set my fork down, the plate was snatched from my hand and returned with a gooey blueberry tart plopped in the center of the dish. Blueberry. Good. My favorite. In no time at all, I consumed all of the tart. Looking around I found that I was not alone in inhaling the samples. All ten women managed to keep up with the assistant’s refills that included the last two chocolate tastings.

My head started spinning as soon as the first chocolate bite hit my tongue. My temples screamed for a hot cup of coffee to cut the sugar sliding through my stomach. I knew better than to ask for the roasted bean for it is forbidden in the raw world. My suffering continued when one of the guests offered me coconut milk laced with probiotics to “cut the sugar action.” Politely, I accepted the drink and swallowed what tasted like liquid yogurt. Normally that would not have been a problem but having consumed, in less than ten minutes, four servings of honey based desserts, my stomach thought the sour liquid was a cruel joke.

The food orgy continued with offers of samples to be taken home. Ladies pulled Rubbermaid containers from their purses and lined up at the counter to claim the booty. Unprepared for this stage, I stated to no one in particular that I did not have a container and therefore would not be taking home the gifted desserts. A collective gasp came from the crowd. A search was on to find an unclaimed container. I prayed that none would be found as I was having problems feeling my jaw. The lady to my left proudly held a container just for me and the assistant chef filled it. The sugar hit everyone—the once quiet restrained group now giggled, chatted, hugged and gained volume. I begged pardon to leave, stepped out of the house and into the night. Walking seemed as difficult as keeping my stomach at ease. I climbed into the car and sat the plastic box of treats next to me. I actually considered eating one more chocolate. Oh yes, I did consider it. Thankfully, I had enough reason left in my sugar-shocked brain to stop myself.

I drove home. I lived. I gained two-tenths of a pound.

No more dessert classes.