How About Some Tomatoes?

(this photo comes from Google images)

Another attempt to sneak in some healthy goodness to my otherwise high carb diet.

This morning a cut up some tomato and threw it in a pan, added an egg and scrambled.

I do not really like cooked tomatoes, but these were not in the pan very long.

Then I toasted a wheat bagel with one slice of cheese and made an egg sandwich.

Again, my usual choice would be a scrambled egg and a bagel, but throwing in the tomato took nothing away from the overall eating experience, and provided me with a serving of vegetables (well, probably half a serving).

How to Get a Little Bit Healthier

I am a baaaad eater.

As in a eat a lot of bad foods.

I have been known to have ice cream for breakfast.

That kind of bad.

Chocolate is my drug of choice.

And I am overweight.

So I am not advocating my food choices.

I try, I really do.

I bought a Ninja blender.

They had them at my warehouse store and I got it for about $80, which is much better than the $400 - $800 I saw when I researched them on-line.

I was going to make smoothies.

Healthy ones.

It even came with a recipe book with lots of healthy smoothie choices.

And I did try a couple.

I really did.

And we have been using that blender a LOT.

For milkshakes.

Yum, yum, yum.

So much for eating healthy, right?

WRONG!

Well, not entirely wrong.

BUT, for me, I am trying to incorporate some health into my bad eating.

So, yesterday I made myself a milkshake.

(I made them for the rest of my family too, just so you know.)

But for me, I made a chocolate milkshake,

and I put fresh strawberries and blueberries in it.

YUM!

I also made a macaroni salad to bring to my sister's house for a picnic.

There is a bag of kale in my fridge.

Yes, I did, I put some chopped kale in my macaroni salad.

(Well, I actually split the salad into two salads and put it in one.)

Today I am trying to eat some leftover fruit salad.

I have a little hot fudge sauce in the fridge.

Yum!

So I can look at this three ways:

1. I am ruining healthy food by eating it with unhealthy food.
2. I am ruining the taste of unhealthy food by adding healthy food.
3. I am improving unhealthy food choices by adding healthy foods and getting some healthy food into my body.

I choose door number 3.

What Am I Going To Make For Dinner NOW???

Dinner is my nemesis. Actually, FOOD is my nemesis but we won't go there. I can't decide on a food plan because of my many sided food personality. There's the comfort food side of me like in Taste of Home. I've considered once a month cooking. I've tried E-mealz. I have my favorite blogs that feature scrumptious recipes for comfort food.

Then there is the side of me that wants to eat the whole grains, dark leafy greens, yellow & orange veggies, and legumes laden meals. The Reversing Heart Disease kind of food plan. The, if I eat this way I will be forever skinny food plan.

Then there is the part of me that wants to be able to feed my family of five (including two teenagers now, thank heavens one is a girl...) on $75 a week (instead of $300+).

So how do I reconcile all of these sides of me without blowing a gasket, or responding "I have no idea" when my kids ask me what's for dinner? This is getting on my nerves. I will gladly clean 20 toilets and fold 100 loads of laundry if I didn't have to decide what to have for dinner EVER AGAIN.

So do you want to read about my latest program? It is called the TAKE EVERYTHING I WROTE ABOVE AND INCORPORATE IT INTO ONE PROGRAM PROGRAM. And here is how it works:

1. I read the grocery store flyers (which come on different days and include different weekly schedules, if I wasn't already crazy enough
2. I look at what I have in my freezer/pantry/food storage
3. I try to choose healthy items from the sales flyers
4. I look through one or two of my THOUSANDS of cookbooks for inspiration
5. I loosely come up with a week's worth of meals
6. I write a shopping list
7. I go to my warehouse store, grocery store, and natural food store
8. I wash all of my fruit, salad makings, etc so that they get used
9. I try to MAKE THOSE DINNERS while BEING FLEXIBLE and NOT WASTE ANY FOOD
10. Try to include: something different, something comforting, fish, chicken, legumes, a variety of veggies.
11. I learn from my experience in finding new (and cheaper) ways to prepare even healthier foods
12. And I do all of this PRAYERFULLY, seeking the Lord's guidance.

Sounds easy, right? Well anyway, we'll see, we'll just have to see...

So today I looked at the flyers and I went to the warehouse store and the grocery store. Tomorrow I plan on going to the natural food store.

So far I spent $200, but that includes $32 on a new pressure cooker and $30 on a new pillow, so make that $138.

As for meats, I only bought 1 pound of sea scallops for tonight and a large package of boneless, skinless chicken breasts from the warehouse store. I am going to go back to get a roast because of this recipe, but then I hope to fill out the rest of the week with beans and stuff in the freezer (leftovers of this and that).

As far as grains, I did not buy any. I have half a bag of potatoes and tons of pasta. I have even more tons of rice. Plus I have containers of various specialty rices and couscous etc. So I won't be buying any starches (other than bread) for awhile. Tonight I used up one of my specialty rices.

Tomorrow I will go to the natural food store to buy fresh fruits and veggies. I will try not to overbuy. It is so easy to do because everything looks wonderful and it takes me forever and a day to get there and back and so why waste the trip? Well, I don't want to waste the food... So I will try to buy a variety but not a large quanity to get us through a week.

Meanwhile, I hope to have enough breakfast and lunch foods to get us through the week... I'm really going to try to make us stick to eating what we have on hand.

Oh, and one more strategy, keeping track.