Health Nut

If anyone who knows me was asked to describe me in two words or less, I believe their answer would be health nut. *this may or may not be a gross exaggeration* A while back I wrote about how I was going to start working out more, and I have been doing a fairly good job of sticking with it. Currently I am unable to walk normally, due to Jillian Michael's No More Trouble Zones.

Now that spring is around the corner, and summer isn't too far behind, I am having nightmares about shorts, dresses, skirts and bathing suits. So for the next while, I am really going to try and attempt a more balanced eating lifestyle. This does not mean I'm going to eat steamed chicken or fish with a salad every night. I am still looking for really good food, that's tasty and satisfying, but borderlines on the description healthy.

Yesterday I had a flat tire on my car, I took it to the shop, and by the time my car was ready to go it was 6:30 pm. I still had to go to the grocery store, so I had to make something quick or I wouldn't be eating until 9 or 10. I went with Everyday Food's Orecchiette with Bacon and Tomato Sauce. Those of you thinking that I am crazy if I think this is healthy... it's not so bad. The sauce is comprised of canned whole tomatoes, red onion, garlic and 4 strips of bacon. The recipe serves 4 people, so that is roughly only one piece of bacon in a ton of produce per person. I also only used 3 strips of bacon, and even that small amount created a lot of flavor in the sauce.

Since the sauce has so little ingredients, you want to use a good brand of canned tomatoes. Look for Italian whole plum tomatoes. Every time I have bought them they were in a can with a yellow label. I used tri-colored bowtie pasta, since that's what I had on hand, but to make the pasta even healthier I would have preferred to use a whole wheat pasta. Finally, it was topped with Parmesan cheese, which also isn't so bad because it doesn't take a lot of cheese to get a lot of flavor out of it.

This was very good, and it was ready, start to finish, in under a half hour.

I did follow up this meal by making Peanut Butter Brownies. Even though that's what they are called, they are more of a blondie. (Brownies are made with cocoa powder, blondies are made with brown sugar) Those of you thinking that I will never be able to follow a healthy diet, let me show you something using my awesome Paint and awesome Internet skills. I bet there isn't many of you who click on the recipe link so I took a little screen shot of the recipe to show you how healthy this bad boy is:

Unfortunately my zoom skills are lacking, so if you can't read that it says "2 cups white whole wheat flour". Ok, so making a sugar laden baked good with whole wheat flour doesn't make it entirely virtuous, but it tasted really good!