Pasta with Roasted Sweet Potatoes, Feta and Arugula…Eat.Live.Be. for a Better 2011!

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Here’s what keeps me up at night.

You know all of those commercials for weight loss regimens, diet pills, exercise programs.  Etcetera.

You know how at the end, they all tell you to “consult your doctor before making any significant dietary or lifestyle changes”?

The fine print.  Black box warning.  FDA-mandated disclaimer.

Well.  Someday.  Someone will stroll into my office and ask me whether they can join Weight Watchers or run a marathon or go on a soup diet.

Or my mother will call me and tell me about this itchy rash that she has on her neck and ask me whether or not, in my professional opinion, I think it’s cancer.  Or she could be thoroughly impatient and not even wait until I know anything about medicine to ask me this.  In fact, she could have asked me on Saturday.  Just a hypothesis.

(And for the record.  Cancer is not itchy.  That sounds to me like a mosquito bite.  Put some toothpaste on it and call it a day.  Yes.  Toothpaste.)

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Peanut Butter and Jelly Bars

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My brother is not a seasonally appropriate person.  He isn’t aware of the fact that strawberries shouldn’t be eaten in January.  Or that beef stew actually tastes best when the temperatures are below 50.

Which may or may not be because he doesn’t like stew.

We are obviously barely from the same gene pool.

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Split Pea Soup

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This split pea soup is made in the crockpot, making it a hearty healthy weeknight meal!
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I don’t like to sugar coat anything that doesn’t resemble a cinnamon-sugar dunked soft pretzel.

So I’m not going to sit here and ask you to stare at this soup and revel in it’s beauty.  I won’t recommend that you take it home with you, put the pot in your child’s old bassinet, and whisper sweet nothings into it’s ear.  There will be none of those shenanigans.  Okay?

(I know.  I’m being uncharacteristically rational today. Not for long. Just wait.)

In fact, let’s call a spade a spade.  It’s ugly.  It is an ugly soup.  Please.  Take a moment of silence and accept that.

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Spiced Chipotle Honey Chicken Breasts with Sweet Potatoes and Winter Squash…Eat.Live.Be. for a Better 2011!

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Last year, when I was bestowed with two very lovely pelvic stress fractures.  The only thing I could do for exercise was sit my butt on a stationary bike and pedal away.  Day in.  Day out.

The first week or so was fine.  I had never really ridden on a stationary bike before and so it was new and glamorous and exciting!  (Plus, the week or so before that had been spent on crutches and no matter how much I begged and pleaded, my roommate, Sophie, wouldn’t let me anywhere near the gym.  So by the time I was “allowed” to bike, I was of the opinion that anything was better than nothing.)

But eventually (a week in) the bike and I hightailed it out of the honeymoon period.  Straight into disillusionment and resentment and pure hatred.  Typical.

Basically, I went stir crazy.  Hit a low that even Bethenny and the Real Housewives couldn’t rescue me from.

And so is it really any surprise that I attempted to eat my weight in brownie batter?

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Banana Cranberry Bread with an Amaretto Glaze

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This banana cranberry bread with an amaretto glaze has bursts of fruitiness in every bite!
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I am an alien life form when it comes to bananas.

I like them on one day, and one day only.  And that day is the day before you think they are going to turn yellow.

As soon as they’re ripe enough for normal humans to eat, I declare them dead to me.  And god help them should they find themselves in my kitchen with even a single speckle of brown.  Out they go, in a very “if you want to live in MY house, you have to live by MY rules” kind of way.

And this, my friends, is why I don’t buy bananas.  It would be exhausting to have to kick them out every week.

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Tortilla de (Sweet) Patatas

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Give the traditional Spanish tortilla a nutritional shake-up with this tortilla de sweet patatas!
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Have you ever had a wheel of brie in your house?

Did it make you feel like you should be in some kind of support group?

What?  Oh.  Uh.  …me neither.  Averts eyes.

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