Bren-friendly BBQ

Last night I went to my friends' new place and they grilled a bunch of yummy veggies and diet-approved chicken. I ate about 5 lbs of asparagus and my pee has been radioative all week.



I was dreading bbq season, but maybe it won't be so bad after all.

Bren tested, Doctor approved

I avoided Thanksgiving so it didn't seem right to avoid Christmas, as well. I had grand intentions to try to make some sort of pie or holiday cookies, but then I got horribly sick and lost all motivation. Maybe next year...

I did, however get to enjoy some approved snack items like:

Rosemary chicken(lovingly prepared for me by a friend) to compliment the BBQ chicken everyone else was having



and almond cheese & oat crackers to go along with the cheese & cracker tray



and guacamole I made from scratch



One of my resolutions is to create and try more recipes this year. My sister helped get that ball rolling by giving me this for Christmas:



I'm curious WHAT is actually in these deserts, so we shall see. Stay tuned!

I ain't missing you at all

PIE.



I. Miss. PIE.

And BBQ. I'd stalk & butcher a cow tomorrow, single handedly, if my doctor told me I could.



And donuts. 3 dozen. That's how many I'd sit down and eat. I doubt I'd come up for air, even. With sprinkles. So. Many. Sprinkles.



I also really miss Smirnoff Ice, particularly the Mandarin Orange and Green Apple varieties. (I recently got wind there is now a pineapple flavor! FML)

I miss being able to drive through any place I wanted, order whatever hit my fancy and spend less than 5 bucks.

And pre-packaged foods and microwave dinners. Oh to be able to shop once a month and be able to prepare a meal in 3-5 minutes with nothing to clean afterwards. Those were the days!

And ice cream. I would KILL for an Its-It. No seriously, I've yet to see someone eating one, but when that day comes, my cane WILL be re-purposed to bludgeon.



But none of that comes as a surprise. From the start I knew it would be tragic letting those things go. What I was not prepared for, however, were the things I thought I'd miss, and don't.

Got milk? Well I don't and I'm surprised by my utter lack of heart-pangs for my loss. I was a gallon to 2 gallon a week-er and yet, rice milk is doing me just fine. Sure, throwing back a box of rice isn't the same as chugging from the gallon, but other than that, I've made a painless transition and never looked back.

Cheese. Aside from ketchup and bbq sauce, I once covered everything in cheese. I don't really like many spices, can't stand salt and pepper, and don't trust any white sauces(alfredo, white gravy, horseradish, tarter, mayonnaise, hollandaise, sour cream etc.), so cheese was always my go-to. But, I guess when you aren't eating burgers, pizza, noodles or bread, what's the point anyway?

Bread. Really carbs in general. Meh. I have some oats here and there and some rice crackers or millet and it's all good. (Hmm, it just occurred to me that I may retract this on Thanksgiving when I'm missing stuffing, but aside from that...)

Speaking of Thanksgiving, this year I'm going to have to come up with some worthy alternatives so I don't go crazy watching everyone eat and then murder them while they're enjoying their Tryptophan-induced fat-puppy comas.

I ain't missing you at all since you've been gone away
I ain't missing you, no matter what my friends say



*Also, I baked my first butternut squash this evening. I took pictures of it and promptly hid my camera from myself unwittingly. I swear, sometimes I believe all the weight I'm losing is coming from my brain...cuz it's sure not coming from my rear-quarters.

Comparisons

July 2008


July 2009


July 2010


Experiencing July without a face-ful o' meat is sacreligious, y'all :(

"I went two point seven seconds on a bull named Fu Man Chu..."

This is what I ate on the 4th, when I was mourning the fact that I wasn't gorging on brisket:

Chicken breasts, yellow squash, chopped red onion, pressed garlic and orange bell peppers splashed with rice milk(I didn't have Dr approved olive oil with me) and a dash of ground cinnamon. Baked on 350 for 40 min(flipping chicken halfway through). It wasn't BBQ, but it was a tolerable substitute. I'll def be making this again.

Attention friends: Please note, if you go out to eat with me, and you ask me whether you should get a salad or chili cheese fries, I will demand you get the fries and also a milkshake to wash it down, as witnessed tonight. *Cue Tim McGraw's Live Like You Were Dying...*

If I can't eat it then you'd damned well better! I have a sneaking suspicion that I'm not only going to enjoy living vicariously through my friends' eating habits, but also watching them get fat as I wither away. Happy eating y'all.

Identity Crisis

I was the girl:

that ordered desert first...and often skipped the entree and ordered another desert.

that baked pies and cakes for every occasion.



that ate 2 dozen donuts in one day.



that drank drinks so sweet, it made other people's teeth crack.



who never cooked anything other than deserts unless it was a holiday or I was trying to impress a girl.

who dipped already sweet fruit in sugar.

that lived for good BBQ.



that lived on frozen tv dinners, Mochi, dried fruit, It's-Its, pie and BBQ.

that never read the nutrition labels or ingredients and didn't give a hoot about it

who once recieved 10 pies for her birthday.



that threw sprinkle & icing parties. (If you never attended one, you've truly missed out on something epic)



that ate so much at The Texas State Fair that she had to make herself throw up just to go eat more.

who drank 1-2 gallons of milk a week.

who was more a 5-hour-rule girl than a 5-second-rule one.

that traveled everywhere with beef jerky, dried mango and Smirnoff in her backpack.



that never went to a store, got gas or saw a movie without buying at least one candy bar, usually three, sometimes five.

who thought street/fair/carnival foods were gifts of the gods and seized every opportunity to shove my face full of them.

that never in a million years thought I'd give any of that up.