Monday, April 23, 2012

Improvised Pasta and a Possible Blogging Experiment

Sorry it's taken longer to post than I was expecting.  Right now I'm taking a little break from writing my final papers, so I thought I would post.  I've been thinking about conducting a little experiment with this blog, but it will take reader involvement.  If you're interested, you can look after the story about the missing rigatoni and picture.  As soon as school is finished for the year, I should be able to post on a more regular basis, and I have lots of great food I'm ready to share!

I had planned and shopped for a delicious pasta dinner.  It would include rigatoni, spinach, chickpeas, a spicy pepper, and freshly grated Parmesan cheese.  The beans were soaked and cooked, the spinach was washed, and the pepper was dehydrated and ready to go.  All I had to do was boil the pasta and toss everything together.  I started rummaging through my cabinets and realized I couldn't find the pasta.  I looked in other cabinets; I rechecked the cabinets I had just looked through, and I had my husband look for the pasta too.  We couldn't find the package of rigatoni.  I knew I bought it.  I could picture it in my cart.  I knew I bought it, but I couldn't find it.  The water was boiling, and I had to think of something quick.  I found a package of lasagna noodles, broke them up and put them in the water.  Everything got tossed together and dinner was saved.  While supper was not as good as it could have been, I managed to at least put an edible meal on the table.  The next day I found the rigatoni in the cabinets both my husband and I had looked through twice.  Go figure!

The experiment:

I remember being around 15 and reading magazines in the car on the way to a vacation destination.  One of these magazines featured an article where two women wrote down everything they ate for an entire week.  Both women were then assigned to follow the other woman's eating habits for a week and write down their responses.  I've been fascinated by this idea ever since, and I'm interested in doing that and posting it here.  I'm always curious about what other people are eating, the choices they make, the reasons behind those choices, and the way those choices make them feel.  I think the best way to examine my own eating, which admittedly has been horrible lately is to walk in someone else's shoes for a bit.  If you want to participate then you need to keep track of everything you eat for an entire week with amounts and recipes (I know this is a lot to ask, but I bet some of you do this anyway).  If you want to swap diets with me let me know and I will do the same for you, but it's not required.  If you have a blog and want to blog about this along with me then I will link to your blog on the week I chronicle this.  I'm not sure if I will get any responses for this, but I think it will be interesting to try it out.  I will blog about what I eat and how it makes me feel.  Obviously, I will not engage in any diets that I feel are harmful (below 1200 calories, all alcohol, etc.).  Just something I'm curious about and I bet someone else out there is too!

Monday, April 16, 2012

A Pig Cake to Tide you Over

I just wanted to make a quick post to say that I just got back from Boston and final's week is coming up, so things are crazy right now.  I will have a post by Thursday with food.  Thanks to everyone who is stopping by.  The only food I have to post for today is my husband's birthday cake.  My mother made this after Jason told him he wanted a pig cake.  When he said this I tried to decide how I was going to make a cake out of pork with mashed potatoes as frosting, but then he explained that he wanted a cake that looks like a pig.  I don't make pretty cakes, I just make cakes that taste good, so thankfully my mother came to the rescue with her cake.  It was a chocolate cake with vanilla frosting.  The eyes are jelly beans, and the feet are Good and Plentys with the candy coating removed (she did this by running them under water).  The cake went over well.  Later in the week I also make him a peanut butter cake with chocolate peanut butter ganache and peanut butter cream cheese icing.  I will post that cake later.  Without further ado: the pig cake.