Pumpkin Pie Smoothie

My food-creation adventure began this evening with an empty, unhappy belly, armed with a newfound diet determination. Although this year has been largely devoid of regrets, one unhappy moment came when I could no longer fit myself in to mypants. An unwelcome by-product of a welcome development - my happy marriage - happy feelings seem to have swollen up and taken over my body. I checked out a couple of pumpkin pie smoothie recipes tonight, for some pumpkin puree I had, that I purchased for something like this, before Christmas, having no intention whatsoever of cooking anything with pumpkin.

Pumpkin is supposed to be, like, super good for you, so I'm thinking I have nothing but good things ahead of me tonight. Unfortunately, in all my bad-girl cooking (and eating), I've run plumb out of any of the healthy ingredients these recipes call for. For one thing, I'm supposed to have frozen my puree. Not gonna happen; this girl's hungry. For another thing, they call for some nice plain or Greek yogurt, which is all fine and good, but all I can seem to find in my fridge is heavy cream. I figure at 40 calories a tablespoon, that cream ain't gonna cut it, so I kept looking, and lo and behold I find some leftover holiday egg nog. I need to get rid of this stuff anyhow, and it probably won't do to add to my coffee before work in the mornings, seeing as it's got alcohol in it and all.

2011 Ornaments

My 2011 ornaments came about in a rush, because this ornament exchange snuck up on me, then I couldn't find the supplies I wanted for my first idea. I ended up with this. Pretty happy with them!

Ingredients for one dozen (you'll have lots of leftovers!):
3 Sheets White 12x12 Card Stock
Elmer's Paper and Fabric Glue
Skinny Sparkly Yarn
Felt
Tiny buttons

To make:
1. Take card stock and cut into quarters, then cut each quarter into a circle, then cut in half. Twist the six-inch-long semi-circle into a cone shape (sorta half it then pull ends together) and attach (I stapled, which somewhat flattens that side, then bent the staple a bit).

2. Apply glue on the bottom of the cone and start winding yarn around. You can use any kind really, but I got skinny yarn and I think if it was fatter it would have looked sloppy since the trees are so little. I wound all the way up as well as I could, adding glue as I went, then went back down and filled in the gaps. You can add as much glue as you need to, because it dries clear anyhow. You'll get it all over your fingers. Also, before we stapled the cone, we added a little loop with the knot on the inside, so you don't have to worry about attaching it later. It kindof gets in the way, though, so if you can ball it up at the top, it helps keep it out of the way.

3. I cut the stars out of felt and glued them on along with a tiny button. And that's it! My husband's mom and I did a dozen in about three hours, but the first ones probably took a little longer when we were still figuring it out.

No Meat May

"Eating greens is a special treat. It makes long ears, and great bit feet. But it sure is awful stuff to eat." - Thumper

I hadn't originally planned to have a "diet" month, seeing as how I'm less of a dieter and more of a healthy lifestyler, or at the very least a healthy lifestyle attempter. I don't generally believe in fad diets or anything you put your body and metabolism through that you don't plan to or can't continue indefinitely.

One of the easiest - ok, best - ways to control your diet is to begin to make all your own food. I was able to start this during no spend month, because I couldn't eat out. Although the goal of the month was not to improve my diet, it did end up having that result. Making your own food means you control all the inputs, and more than that, you know what the inputs are. This has helped me to be able to cut out meat.

So I covered the how. Now for the why.

Green month started the "why". In learning about green living, I've reinforced something I already knew - meat takes a lot of energy. Cutting out meat can do good things for your carbon footprint. I'm not even cutting out milk and eggs, but animal-derived energy needs many times that energy for its production. This energy largely comes from fossil fuels, which aren't sustainable. Thus, a vegetarian lifestyle comes closer to a sustainable one. Growing lentils or beans, which are other good sources of protein, takes less energy than producing a similar amount of protein in meat. Getting a calf out of a cow, growing the feed for the calf, feeding and housing it, butchering it, and keeping that beef fit for consumption until it gets to the grocery store takes a whole lot more energy than it takes to grow a bag of beans. All this points me toward attempting to cut out meat. For no meat month, we are cutting it out completely, however in the future I expect we will eat it in limited quantities, especially for special occasions or when there aren't many options. For example, this week I got invited to lunch at a BBQ joint... I figured I could eat some beans, as long as they don't have any pork added.

That's my no meat story. I have tried several new recipes this month and have enjoyed them all. I don't feel run down or deficient in any way thus far. Time will tell!

I will have to post some of my favorite new recipes soon!