Day Twenty Seven:

Friday mornings at the Harris/Long house are a little hectic.  I don't know if other people have this issue, but by the end of the week I am drained of just about everything.  It is hard for me to just drag myself out of bed.  This morning was no different.  We woke up late, couldn't get started at a decent pace, and ended up running out the door in a full out tizzy with no breakfast to be seen.  If you have ever been on a breakfast kick (eating breakfast consistently for a while) and then something happens and you don't get it one day you know that it is terrible! This morning was a bit sad because of the no food thing...but! look what I had for lunch!

These nachos were good, but not what the menu said they were going to be.  Hate when that happens.

Dinner was a thrown together salad.

Ok, so on to the changes I was talking about last night. Dun, DUn, DUN!! They really aren't that big.  First of all, it is a bit taxing to formulate a blog post five nights a week.  I know they are not awesome pieces of literature, but it still takes quite a bit of time.  So, to (hopefully) make my blog a little less blah, blah, blah, here's a picture, this is what I ate today, the end, I am going to try and write more like once a week from here on out.  I will take some pictures of my favorites or new things and post them.  Second change-fish!  My tummy has been doing pretty ok, but not 100%.  So, in order to further pin point my specific problem foods I am going to introduce fish for the month of Feburary just to see how it goes.  Beef, pork, chicken, all other meat is still out (at this point it really just a personal preference for me). Also, I am going to drastically cut back my milk and cheese intake.  I was raised in a milk and bread kind of household.  Milk, big tall glasses of milk, and at least one piece of bread with every meal you ate at home.  Instead of trying to cut out all dairy all at once, I am going to try to just focus on milk and cheese.  So, we shall see how all of this goes.  I'll keep you "posted." (Hahaha...I'm a nerd, I know!)

Day Twenty Six:

Today started out with what Meredith calls a frittata.

It was like an egg pie with mushrooms, spinach, and (of course) some cheese!

I had left over kryptonite for lunch.  I have been eating lunch in my office's break room this week and people are giving weird looks when I take pictures of my food. So, I didn't today.  *see last night's dinner for picture*

Dinner was on the fly tonight because Meredith and I went to our favorite hair guy, Jason, to get our heer did!  He is amazing.  Jason Henderson at the Buzz hair salon in Hendersonville, TN (615) 824-4338.  Call him!  Get him to do your hair.  You will never go back to anyone else. Period.  Anyway, I had a cheese quesadilla from taco bell and a "beans and cheesus" as the cashier so aptly called my pintos and cheese. :D


Just so you know, changes are a-foot.  Hopefully I will have time to go into more detail with tomorrow's post-and maybe I'll have everything laid out better in my head by then!

 

 

Day Twenty Five:

I've been wanting a good smoothie ever since I tried and failed miserably the other day.  I still haven't bought the true necessary ingredients, but I gave it another go this morning. It was a bit more successful. I could actually drink it this morning, so that's a plus!

  Lunch was a little frustrating, but only because it took so long in coming. Puckett's is a restaurant on the first floor of my building.  The food is usually pretty good.  It is good ole country food.  The problem with this place is that it takes f o r e v e r for your food to come.  I get an hour for lunch, and as I said, the place is in the bottom of my building (just an elevator ride away), but I have had to take a long lunch before because they are so slow.  Today was no different.  I was so rushed when I finally got my food (a veggie plate with a side salad) that I didn't snap a picture of it.

Dinner is what Meredith so fondly calls "kryptonite."

It is a white bean chili of her own creation.  It has all kinds of white beans, green chilies, jalapenos, tomatoes, artichokes, cheese, and some other things.  I don't know she has ever revealed the entire recipe to me, but it is amazing!

Day Twenty four:

Breakfast today looks suspiciously like yesterday's...

I'm telling you though, this is the best cantaloupe I have ever eaten and I could always-at any point in the day-eat some eggs.

Lunch was a bit small, but I just wasn't feeling it today.  I wasn't that hungry, so I just picked up some chips and salsa.

and...don't tell my boss, but I illegally ate it in my office :/

Dinner was also Mexican inspired.

a nice big bowl of Chipotle rice, beans, veggies, sour cream, and cheese!

Day Twenty three:

First, I hope that everyone is safe after last night's round of crazy storms here in Tennessee.  I had trouble sleeping through all of the insane booming and flashing.  Finally, around 1:30 AM, the biggest clap of thunder I've ever heard woke me up good enough that I headed to the living room to look for some weather.  Meredith was already up and watching diligently.  Needless to say, I think I'll be going to bed pretty early tonight.

I started out today trying something a bit different.  I found it on Pintrest a while back, but I did not pin it at the time.  I thought I could make it work though...I was wrong.

The eggs and cantaloupe are not what I'm talking about. The "smoothie" was the bad stuff.  I heard if you throw a handful of spinach into a fruit smoothie you can't even taste it.  This is false.  Well, maybe not if you do it correctly, but I figured out this morning that I don't even know how to make a plain ole smoothie.  Our blender was broken-it started squirting juice out everywhere-and we didn't have any yogurt to put in it.  I'm going to try again when I get a few necessary ingredients.

Lunch was so good.

This was my first go at a "Black Bean Patty" sandwich at Which Wich (my favorite sandwich place in downtown).  It was so yummy!  I have never had a black bean burger or anything, so I was intrested to try a form of black bean meat alternative.  If they are all as good as this...I am sold!  Which Wich is awesome.  They have a few different vegetarian options.  I'm excited to try all of them!


Meredith spoiled me yet again for dinner!

Eggplant Parmesan with a tasty side salad.  I don't know how she did it...I was working on some laundry...I just know it was delicious!

She also whipped up some homemade mango ice cream in our food processor somehow.  She is the kitchen Queen and my belly is fat and happy to have her!

Weekend! (Days 21 and 22)

This weekend has been a bit of a bust.  I have had what I suppose to be a bit of a stomach bug.  The whole weekend, starting Friday, I have been a constant visitor to our bathroom-night and day.  This virus means that I haven't been eating much of anything...just some snacky things (popcorn, some fruit, grilled cheese, etc). Late Friday night I just knew that my trouble was that I had eaten quite a bit of fried food that day (which I am, from this point on, going to try to avoid more) but now I am not so sure.  I even missed my sister's wedding shower today over this crap.  I hate viruses!  I just feel weak and yucky.

Luckily though, on Friday Meredith and I hit up a book store after work I bought these two books:

 I bought this one from talking to a friend who used it to help her.  So far it has been very infromative!

  This book is a written by two, seemingly, catty women.  They do seem to know their stuff though.  I haven't read a terrible lot in either one, but I am pretty excited to dig into them.

Day Twenty:

Breakfast=a biscuit honey wheat biscuit, some pretzel sticks and some coffee.

Lunch:

Supper:

Day Nineteen:

I'm afraid I didn't sleep well at all last night and am feeling a little beat down.  I literally cannot see straight. So, tonight this will be short and sweet!

I was in charge of breakfast.

I have always hated oatmeal.  Always.  Most of the fights I ever had with my mom started over being forced to choke down oatmeal.  I wanted to try it this morning.  So, I made some cinnamon, walnut, blueberry oatmeal this morning.  It was disgusting!  The (back-up) french toast was yummy though!

Lunch and super were both salads.

 Lunch was a cobb from Panera.

Supper was a salad of my own creation.  It had just about everything you could ever think of in it.

I was hungry pretty much all day.  If breakfast stinks and I don't eat much I feel like I can't get caught back up.  It also may have something to do with the fact that we are out of morning breakly food, so I don't get any snacks throughout the day.  Eh, I'll live!

Day Eighteen:

Meredith is the best!  We are trying to switch up who is in charge of dragging themselves out of bed early to magic up some breakfast.  This morning it was Meredith's turn.  I've always known that she's the better cook, but I think today sealed that fact-with gorilla glue.

Breakfast, the delicacy of the day, was this!

Meredith must have been up with the chickens this morning.  She made biscuits and these ridiculously good mini quiche/breakfast casserole things.  I have no idea what all she put in it, but there were mushrooms, cheese, and of course, really fluffy eggs.  It was buttery and awesome!  Bottom line...Meredith wins!

Lunch was just a salad...

Quiznos yet again.  You would think that I would be so tired of salads.  I'm not though!  While munching on this yummy bowl of veggies I had a thought.  I think that at this point you could put a bowl of plain lettuce in front of me and I would be tickled.  I love vegetables!

Dinner was my duty tonight.  Now, this picture is going to prove my previous statement about Meredith's cooking prowess.  When she makes dinner...we eat things like homemade ravioli.  When I cook we get this:

a sad, ugly, plain ole stir fry.  It is fresh zucchinis, squash, onion, garlic, mushrooms (of course), canned water chestnuts, lima beans, and baby corn all spiced up and cooked down practically into mush-oops-over jasmine rice. As mushy as it looks, it actually tasted pretty ok.



Happy Woden's day, all-especially my good buddy Will ;)

Day Seventeen:

This morning started out on the right track! (Finally!) I woke up in time to whip up some scrambled eggs and sauteed mushrooms.

The muffin is left over from Sunday dinner with Meredith's grandmother.  It has broccoli mixed in...delicious!

Lunch was a little bit of an ordeal today.  I went to Deli Dave's, a deli in the Arcade.  They have really good baked potatoes, but they tend to run out early.  So, I was rather surprised to see a sign to the effect of, "we still have potatoes!" at 1:30 today.  A little further down the line, however, there was another sign that read, "Sorry, we are out of potatoes."  You can see my confusion.  I asked the cashier whether or not they had potatoes.  She said no...so I told her about the double signage.  She looked really confused...and never (the whole time I was eating) took either sign down.  I also got a bit of grief about ordering a salad that they had to make-they usually have quite a few pre-made.  Ultimately, my lunch was good.

I just had a bit of trouble getting it.

Dinner wins!  Even Nyon waited patiently for this culinary delight...

Meredith hand made ravioli.  Yea, she's pretty awesome!  She made cheesy spinach ravioli with a homemade vodka tomato sauce.

She also tried these egg yolk ravioli!

I know it sounds weird...an egg yolk in a ravioli pocket salted and peppered with olive oil drizzled over top...but it was so good.  All of it was!  Here is a oozy picture just in case you are wondering about the innards.

: D : D : D

I think I have figured out my Starbucks dilemma from a couple days ago.  There is a Starbucks in the building right across the street from me...and it is a weakness of mine.  I got the same drink as last time (Salted Carmel Hot Chocolate) today after lunch.  I just got a smaller size.  I was hit with just the right amount of tastiness with no tummy upsets!

Day Sixteen:

No sodas and no meat for 16 whole days...that is so weird to me!  I still have quite a bit of energy, although I didn't wake up on time again.  Breakfast was a bit of disaster this morning.  I needed to get gas so, we stopped at the nearest gas station.  I got out and pumped gas while Meredith went inside to scrounge up some breakfast.  Being the awesome, considerate friend she is Meredith decided to grab some eggs and a fruit cup for me.  I don't know if you have ever eaten boiled eggs from a gas station...but I do not recommend it.  I only ate one out of the two pack, but it tasted really weird and kinda made my tummy hurt.  So, no more gas station eggs for this gal!

Lunch was a lot better!

I ate the Strawberry fields salad from Puckett's in downtown.  Puckett's is good, but slow and expensive.  So we never go there unless we want salads.  It was so good! A little messy to eat...but delicious.

For dinner we picked up some Chipotle!

I love Chipotle!  It is really easy to eat vegetarian there too.

Weekend! (Day 14 and 15):

This weekend I chauffeured Meredith to her parents' house.  We have been a one car household since December 17th.  I know it is weird that I have it down to the day...but that was the day my sister got married!  Meredith's car crapped out on the way home from Bumpus Mills.  We have been solely using my car for a month now while Meredith looked for a replacement. 

Bada Bing, Bada Boom...

This is her beautiful, new 2003 Toyota Camry!!

Day Thirteen:

Happy Friday, everybody! Breakfast was kinda gross looking today! Last night Becca told me about a diet which has you eat quite a lot of protein first thing in the morning. The idea is that protein is very helpful in the losing fat department. Ok, so this is what I came up with...3 eggs, 2 mushrooms, 2 handfuls of spinach, a cup of red kidney beans, and 2 cloves of garlic all mixed up together and scrambled up with cheese grated over top. It was a weird texture and it looked a bit like a big pile of cat vomit, but it didn't taste that bad. I kinda snacked through lunch today. Pretzels and clementine oranges, etc. Dinner was a delicious mushroom alfredo. :D mushrooms again!

Day Twelve:

Breakfast this morning was a sad bowl of honey nut Cheerios on the run.  I didn't realize how dependent I have become on a nice breakfast.  I was absolutely starving by 9 o'clock this morning!  My stomach was growling...and I have the world's most noisy stomach. When my tummy growls it sounds like an airplane is about to crash into the room!  Luckily, I have an office, so no one could hear it. 8)

By lunchtime I thought I was about to pass out!  It was so cold today we ate lunch at Pan Asian, a Chinese place connected to my building.  I have never been a huge fan of this place, but Meredith likes it pretty well.  I ordered a side of vegetable lo mien and a bowl of egg flower soup (which I had never tried before).

The Lo mien, albeit rather greasy, was tasty.  I would not recommend the egg flower soup.  It didn't have much of a taste...

Dinner was awesome tonight!  Not so much the food, but the company.  Meredith and I met up with a friend at Fido in Nashville. We talked and had a good time.  I truly enjoyed myslef!

I had a veggie burger with a small salad.  It was a black bean burger and had chipotle peppers mixed in. By about halfway through it my mouth was on fire!  I am a bit of a pansy about spicy foods though.  I was not impressed.

Not the greatest day for awesome food...it was nice to catch up with an old friend though!  Oh, and today was Tennessee's first snow of the year!

Day Eleven:

Meredith started us out with a delicious breakfast this morning!

She whipped up some baked eggs, which I had never had before.  It was a little like a quiche.  Eggs, cream, mushrooms, spinach, and cheese mixed all together and baked in a water bath made my morning good.

For lunch I walked down to Panera.  I hadn't been in a while and was a little overwhelmed with all of their choices.  After a few minuets of starring aimlessly at the menu board, one of the cashiers asked, "Can I help you?"  She said it in that "I know you are completely lost here" tone. So, I walked up and asked if they had any specifically meat-less options.  She was very helpful and this is what I ended up deciding on. 

The sandwich is called the Mediterranean veggie.  It has feta cheese, cucumbers, lettuce, tomatoes, onions and cilantro Jalapeño hummus all on Tomato Basil bread.  It was really good!  The salad is just a normal Cesar salad.  It was a really good and the big hill that I had to walk down and back up might help a little too.

It was my turn to cover dinner tonight! I decided to try and make ratatouille.  This is what mine looked like...

 Not exactly as beautiful as Remy's from the movie, but it tasted really good.  Instead of using eggplant, since we didn't have any, I used mushrooms.  In case you hadn't figured it out yet, I absolutely love mushrooms!  I sauteed up some sliced mushrooms, zucchini, and squash while (in a different skillet) sauteing some onions and garlic.  I pureed some fresh tomatoes and threw them into the onion/garlic mixture.  Then I layered it all up, baked it for a while, grated some cheese over the top, and viola!

Just like lasagna, Ratatouille doesn't plate very well!!

Our cat, Nyon was being ridiculously cute after dinner...see...

And for my last trick....I am going to saw this cat in half :D

Cheers! Happy Winds-day!

Day Ten: The Day of the Falafel

Today was an awesome day-even though I woke up kinda late, and ended up being 7 minutes late for work.  Everything just seemed to work out for me today.  My boss was in court-so no grief for being late-and I think I had the best food of the whole year today!

Breakfast wasn't anything special because I woke up late.  I think I jinxed myself the other day talking about how I almost never wake up late!  So, breakfast was a cold, left over biscuit from yesterday morning and a big cup of coffee.  I did manage to eat some yogurt and a cutie (clementine) at 10 o'clock (break time!!).  Meredith is very good at peeling cuties and last night she tried to teach me how to go about it.  I impressed even myself at break time by getting the peel off all in one piece.  See...

I know I'm weird, but it is oddly satisfying!

The magnificence of lunch made up for my piddly breakfast ten times over!  Today, I discovered FALAFELS!

This was my lunch.  I know it doesn't look like much, but it blew my freakin' mind!  I ordered a veggie falafel with rice at our regular greek place in downtown-Kebabs.  I figured I'd just get some salad inside of a pita pocket.  All was going to plan-the guy was tossing lettuce, tomatoes and tabouleh in the pita-then he took my sandwich in the back.  I just thought they were out of something in the front (this happens at Kebabs a lot).  Then I bit into my falafel.  Amazing! Basically, I got a salad in a pita pocket with little fried chickpea corn cakes mixed in.  I thought falafel was just another word for sandwich.  Turns out falafel means these little fried chickpea cakes.  Trust me they are delicious!

Dinner was awesome too!  Meredith made jalapeno cheddar poppers from scratch (she's awesome like that) and a cilantro lime chickpea salad.  She sliced up some mushrooms and finished out the plate with a few really yummy tomatoes.

The cilantro lime chickpea salad is the best thing I have ever eaten.  Hands down.  It was fresh and just so good!  The poppers were a little spicy for me-I'm a pansy about hot foods-but they had a really good flavor.

Today was a good day for food.  Also, I think I am in love with chickpeas.

Day Nine:

Well...I did not quite make it out of my snuggly bed in time to see my good buddy, Donna, off this morning.  I did wake up a little early--early enough to make scrambled eggs, biscuits, and saute up some mushrooms.

This isn't the best pic, but it was pretty yummy!

For lunch, Meredith and I went back to Quizno's-her idea, not mine.

I am trying not to be aggressive at all about where we eat because, surprisingly enough, I have found that there is a meat-less option everywhere! I was surprised about that.  I thought that I was going to have trouble finding things I wanted to eat.  While watching tv tonight a subway commercial came on.  I found myself not even looking at the meat on the sandwiches, which was weird to me...I was totally eye-balling the tomatoes and lettuce.

After lunch I grabbed a Salted Carmel Hot Chocolate from Starbucks.  I hadn't had one in a long time...and, if you've ever had one, you will certainly concur that they are the most heavenly drinks on the planet.  It was, as I expected, totally delicious.  So, I sucked it down pretty quick!  About an hour later my tummy revolted--Willie reared his ugly whale head and I was miserable.  Not sure if it was the ridiculous amount of dairy, or just that Salted Carmel Hot Chocolates are incredibly heavy drinks, but it was not a good afternoon.

Dinner was a super delicious Lemon Spinach Mushroom Orzo soup.  Meredith took a recipe from tastykitchen.com (http://tastykitchen.com/blog/2012/01/spinach-lemon-orzo-soup/) and tweaked it.

This was some super delicious soup!  I am so thankful to have such a great best friend who is not only trying to help me figure my issues out, but is also actively seeking out recipes to cater to my experiment!

I am still, overall, feeling really good! Let's hope it holds out.

Weekend!! (days 7 and 8)

As you all know...weekends go by way too quickly!  I decided instead of logging what all I ate throughout the weekends I'll just tell how my weekend went.  I am still completely meat-less and completely soda-less.  My tummy is going fine!

A life without sodas is kind of hard when you are sleep deprived and driving at all hours of the night-which is what I did on Saturday.  It was totally worth it though!  Meredith and I met up with one of our best buds, Sarah in Chattanooga Saturday afternoon.  We ate at Carrabba's after a really long wait, which was totally fine because we had plenty of time to talk and catch up.  Then we drove around and had a milkshake.  It was so nice to see her!  I always have so much fun with Sarah and Meredith.  When we get together I am in a good mood for weeks after! Meredith and I did have an interesting drive home though.  We had both stayed up pretty late on Friday night and then didn't end up leaving Chattanooga until 1:00 AM.  If I could have taped our drive home I think I could have made some cash from that funniest home videos show.  We were yelling and making noises and singing really loudly (and badly on my part).  It was crazy.  We didn't get home until close to 4:00AM.

I slept in really late today to try and make up for all the sad sleep I've had this weekend.  Donna, another school bud, came to our house to visit today.  She is still here.  She is staying the night with us.  We have had lots of fun watching movies, snacking on random stuff, and we played Monopoly.  I won!! I bought the new Monopoly credit card edition for Christmas.  I have played this game with various people about 7 times since Christmas...and tonight was the first time I ever won.  Word of advice: if you want to win Monopoly get Boardwalk and Parkplace and use all your money to put as many houses/hotels on it.  That is how I did it!  I ended up with over 35 million dollars! I wish that was real life...that would be awesome!

Ok, well...bedtime, buddies!  Hopefully I will be up pretty early tomorrow-Donna has to be out of here by 5:30.  We shall see!

This is the gang (not this weekend).  Left to Right: Sarah, Donna, Me, and Meredith

Day Six:

Late start to this morning...Meredith woke me up in a tizzy at 6:10 (a time which, on any other day, both she and I would have already taken showers and would be well on our way to looking presentable).  Every once in a while this happens in our house.  I am not sure if it is normal or not, but Meredith and I oversleep from time to time.  We hadn't overslept in a while, so we were probably due for one. 

No elaborate breakfast of waffles or eggs today.  I was lucky to make it out the door with matching shoes on. Breakfast was a half of a cold left over bean burrito, a clementine, and a banana.

I ate a salad from Quiznos for lunch.

This is a stock photo, as I forgot to snap a photo before I started into it.  The one I had was minus the chicken...and I added Chickpeas and olives to mine.  It was delicious!!


After eating this salad for lunch, I decided that Buddy Valastro (the Cake Boss) is a smart, smart man.  In pretty much every episode ole Buddy stands back from the cake he is making and says something to the effect of, "I'm lookin' at this cake. And the more I'm addin' to it the better it's lookin'."  Basically, this theory also works on salads.  Salads taste better if they have tons of things in them!


After this Cake Boss induced epiphany, this is the salad that I whipped up for dinner...

It has everything I could possibly think of in it-beans, eggs, grapes, walnuts, sunflower seeds, cilantro, spinach, cheese, cherries, salad mix, mushrooms...etc.  It was SO good.  


This evening Meredith and I went shopping.  On the way home she was talking about what we should eat for dinner.  She decided that she was going to eat chicken dip and some nachos.  Every time she talks about meat of any kind she apologies.  Weirdly enough, I am totally ok with it.  I still don't miss meat at all. Meredith keeps saying how sad she would be at the thought of no meat...I'm just not.  I think I am just so ready to figure this out and fix it that I don't really care what it takes!

Day Five:

This morning started out rather well...I woke up to a delicious breakfast ready and waiting for me.

Meredith made this wonderful breakfast for me!  Also, a side note, the awesome Mr. Tea cup was a Christmas present from my sister, Jenny. It's my favorite.

For lunch, Meredith and I went to our favorite Chinese place in Downtown, Oriental Lunch (in the Arcade).

As you can see...instead of my regular-fried rice with chicken and broccoli with a meat eggroll-I ordered rice with vegetable and a veggie spring roll. This earned me some weird looks for the cooks...and even a question about why I didn't get my usual.  It was so yummy, but this afternoon my belly was not very happy.  A lot of my issues center around (I hate to say it...) gas.  My stomach swells up and starts making strange noises...but the gas just sits in my belly and makes me miserable.  About an hour after lunch today I felt like I had swallowed a hot air balloon...and my stomach sounded like an orca whale (think Free Willie as he is jumping over that final barrier). When this happens...you can imagine how supremely embarrassing it is!  The embarassment factor is what led me to try this experiement-I've been training the same guy for about a month and I cannot tell you how many times I have apologized for my stomach!

For dinner I was kinda bad.  I had Taco Bell-a bean burrito and a nachos bell grande (minus meat).

After my bad lunch experience today I am beginning to wonder if rice (grains) is a big part of my problem too.  I think that will be the next thing to go.