Archives for March 2010

I’m blogging from my phone! Test post… Testing, testing, 1 2 3.

Awesome! The app isn’t as awesome as windows live writer, but when I can’t get to the computer I can still blog.

Now let’s see what happens when I try to publish it…

and I’m a procrastinator!  I should be studying for a test, but instead I’m blogging.  I seem to do my best blogging when I’m procrastinating though! 

I feel like I’m neglecting my poor little bloggie, but there are so many things going on right now that unfortunately this is the first thing to go out the window.  I need to figure out how to multitask better and I need some lessons in time management as well I think.  Anyone out there good at that stuff that can give me some pointers??

So the newest thing in my life right now is that I’ve officially decided to become a vegetarian!  It was a long process that brought me to this point, but here I am.  And the rationale behind some of my reasons may sound silly, but if you know me it probably makes sense, lol.  I’ve never denied the fact that I’m weird- in fact I like that about myself, it makes me different from everyone else.  How boring would your life be if you were the same as everyone else in this world? 

Anyhoo- I officially cut out beef and pork about a year ago.  Really the reason I did that was because I thought that cows and piggies were just too cute to eat and it hurt my heart to think about killing one just to put it in my belly when there were so many other things that I could eat that weren’t quite so cute.  I grew up in the country, so I grew up with animals.  I also grew up knowing EXACTLY where meat came from and how it got to my plate.  I knew where that little piggie was going when my parents shooed him into the trailer and it made me sad.  From that point on I pretty much refused to eat pork.  My parents tried over and over to explain that it was just part of life and the food chain and that that’s why these animals were put on the earth, but I think that just made me more stubborn about it than if they had just let it go and let me sort it out on my own (If you know me, then you know that this is how I am- STUBBORN!  haha!  I like to come to conclusions about things on my own instead of taking someone’s word for it, I have to work things out in my own time and in my own way, and If someone says I can’t do something you better believe I’m going to prove them wrong!) . 

So I was pretty much done with pork at a young age.  In high school and college I went through a no beef phase, but it didn’t stick too long because the problem is that I LOVE BBQ brisket and burgers!  I mean I’m a Texas girl through and through so I love my BBQ!  But when I officially decided to give it up last year it had been weighing on my conscience for a very long time.  So I weighed all my options, including my high cholesterol and decided that I needed to give it up.  Surprisingly it wasn’t hard at all!  I had no problem giving it up, I don’t miss it except for when I pass by a BBQ place (especially Hard 8 in the ‘ville- oh that place is amazing!) and smell the smoked meat smell.  But then I just remind myself the reasons why I gave it up- not just the animal thing, but for my health- to add years to my life and to not have to take meds for high cholesterol, and I’m just fine again!

So up until now I’ve just cut out the pork and the beef, but continued eating chicken and turkey (I’m not really a fish fan, so that’s not really something I had to give up- I didn’t really eat it anyway).  I kind of wanted to cut that out too, but I wasn’t sure how to go completely meat free.  Plus, chickens just aren’t as cute as the other animals, so I just kept eating it but cut down on the amount of it that I ate, and controlled the quality better- using organic free- range chicken instead of the other kind I had been using.

So what made me finally decide to officially give up the poultry?  Well, it’s all thanks to my quantity foods teacher, haha.  (My husband isn’t happy with her, lol.  He’s a big meat and potatoes kind of guy and he gets easily frustrated with the fact that I don’t want to eat it anymore.  Hey, he can eat as much of it as he wants I just don’t want to anymore.  I’m not forcing him to eat vegetables, though I hope that after a while he will come around and see how delicious they are!)  So in my quantity class, we go through our lecture for the day in about 30 mins.  There’s just not much material to cover in that class(which I have a problem with having to take a class like that, but that’s another story for another time!) but she has to keep us for at LEAST an hour- she was letting us out early at first but she got in trouble with the department for doing it so now she has to keep us in there.  So after lecture we go over some review questions or case studies or watch a video.  Well, this time we watched a video.  And it was about chicken farms.  I’m sure you see where I’m going with this.  Anyway, long story short I got so upset when we were watching this that I started crying and I had to just grab my bag and leave class early.  I just walked right out, lol.  I didn’t think about it, weigh any options, or make a decision even, I just knew right then that I couldn’t eat any meat at all anymore.

So here I am!  I’ve started researching, gotten a few books on living a healthy vegetarian lifestyle and consuming a balanced vegetarian diet- I made sure to get stuff that was written by RDs and that had scientific findings that backed up the information, so I feel good about my decision so far!  I ordered a new vegetarian cookbook on amazon.com as well- can’t wait to play around with that!  I don’t think that it will be too difficult of a transition for me, seeing that I didn’t really consume much meat to begin with.  The hardest part I think will be dealing with other people who think that I’m either insane or an idiot.  But who cares what they think right?  This isn’t about them- so they can just get over it! 

So that’s what’s going on in my world right now!  I didn’t mean for this post to get so long- it’s just that I haven’t blogged in forever so I just had so much to say!

And since my camera is STILL broken, I don’t even have any great pics to share!  I will share one fun pic I took yesterday (thank goodness for cameras on phones- not that great quality but will do in a pinch) of the pup.  We’ve been giving her LOTS more exercise lately because she is an extremely high energy pup and she is just so much better behaved when she can burn all of that energy off in a structured way.  Anyway, I just had to take a picture when I saw her playing with one of my 5 lb hand weights, lol.  Fitting, right?  haha.  She’s trying to tell us that she wants to start lifting weights too I guess, hehe

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Gotta get back to studying now- don’t want to fail my test!  Adios for now!!

www.sarahsnacks.com

I’m studying for a test, but I decided to take a quick break to post a recipe.  This recipe is deelish and very easy to make!  I don’t make it a whole lot because it has cream of mushroom soup in it and that stuff has some weird sounding ingredients in it and I’ve yet to find an organic version of cream of mushroom. But it’s so cheesy and delicious that I just need to have it sometimes, and it’s all about balance!  I usually serve this with a salad or some steamed veggies.

Here we go…

Chicken Spaghetti

Ingredients:
8 oz cooked chicken, shredded or diced
3 cups cooked spaghetti (4.5 oz dry)
3 oz velveeta (you can use regular cheese if you’re not down with the velveeta)
1 can of Rotel (a small one)
1 can of cream of mushroom soup
1/2 onion, chopped
mushrooms, sliced (however much you like or none at all if you don’t dig mushrooms)
1/2 bell pepper, chopped

Directions:
Preheat oven to 450 degrees

Sauté onions, peppers, and mushrooms.  Mix velveeta with soup and Rotel in a sauce pan and heat until melted.  Add sautéed vegetables, cooked chicken, and spaghetti to the soup mixture and mix well.

Pour into a 13×9 casserole dish and bake until heated thoroughly, about 10 minutes. 

Makes 6 servings.
Calories:209
Fat: 3 g
Carb: 28 g
Fiber: 1 g
Protein: 15 g