Emeril!

Hi All-- guess what??? I am in Orlando for a work conference and tonight I get to eat at Emeril's restaurant Chop Chop (I think that is what it is called?).

I am so excited! I think it might be inappropriate to take a picture of my plate for the blog... but I'll be thinking about wanting to the whole time.

Talk to y'all soon!

Things I want to make/eat...

I started following a new blog on my Google Reader. Actually, I don't know if it would be considered a food blog but it is called Food Gawker and it has the most delicious looking pictures of food you've ever seen in your life. Apparently there are recipes to go along with them and they are all from random food blogs *such as this one, ehem*.

I must try each and every one.

Twenty Ten

Happy New Year!

I must say that I am sort of pumped to be past the holiday eating festivities. My waistline is not happy with me. Or really, the waists of my pants are not happy. Problem.

I haven't been writing lately for a number of reasons... one of which is that I literally have been spending too much of my time eating to pause for even a moment to stop and reflect. Instead, I've been feeding my face as if there was no tomorrow with homemade fudge, pasta and homemade sauces or "gravies", french fries from some of the finest diners up and down the East coast, discount Christmas candy, soups, homemade chocolate covered pretzels, gingerbread cookies, chinese food, and then of course beer, wine, and champagne. Happy freaking new year. Sheesh.

Now that this is all over, I am back to work for a week and then will be leaving to go to Orlando, Florida for 10 days. Most of which will be for a work conference which are routinely also filled with mass amounts of eating (it is typical at one of these conferences for me to be working 14+ hours a day and constantly chewing and swallowing is one of the best ways to keep myself awake and focused).

All of that being said... I spent today getting back to some of my normal eating and cooking habits. I do everything that I can to have a Sunday routine that involves going to the grocery store and buying foods to prepare for the week. I like to eat the same basic things for lunch every week, which helps me to have a routine, manage what I eat, and not spend a ton of money overshopping or eating out.

At the grocery store today I purchased:

- Box of Special K Cinnamon & Pecan.

- 5 Dannon Light and Fit yogurts

- Carrots

- Green beans

- 5 Apples

- Box of Fiber One bars (peanut butter and oats)

- English muffins

- Turkey

These are pretty much weekly staples of mine. And alright, ready? Here is a tip I have, that I think actually works REALLY well. Every Sunday right after I grocery shop, I take out 5 ziplock sandwich baggies and I immediately bag up the vegetables into serving size bags. That way when I am up in the mornings getting ready for work, everything is ready for me to grab. If I ever purchase bags of chips or crackers, I immediately put them into baggies of one serving each as well.

And the english muffins? I typically don't eat more than 4-5 in a week and they come in a bag of 6 so right away I will put a few into the freezer.

Anybody with a similar lifestyle to me, I swear doing these things right after grocery shopping on a Sunday will help you to get out of the house faster in the mornings, eat proper serving sizes, and waste less food.

Happy New Year-- sorry for the random and rambling post!

P.S. I am so pumped for the results of Jackie's salsa challenge... anybody else?

Salsa Challenge

Those who know me understand that my favorite meal consists of guacamole, salsa and chips (and maybe a margarita on the side -- but a dirty vodka martini is always my number one beverage of choice).

Good guacamole is hard to find, but I have discovered that good salsa is even harder to find. Over the next several weeks (I hope that's all it takes), I am going to embark on a quest to find the best salsa money can buy. At the end of my quest, I plan on making my own salsa -- and including the recipe here -- by figuring out which ingredients I like more and which ingredients I like less in what I perceive to be the perfect salsa.

I'm not going to discriminate: I will try store-brand, sit-on-your-shelf-for-a-year-and-not-go-bad glass-jarred salsa and I will try fancy, plastic-container, short-shelf-life organic salsa -- I will try every salsa I can. I will then write about them here, on this blog.

I invite you to send in suggestions of your favorite salsas and salsa recipes. If you wouldn't mind including a note about why you love it, I'd love it!

Happy Eating.

Love,

Jackie