Food Love

It's been quite a while since I last posted. That's partly because I didn't meet any of the goals I set for myself about weight loss, and I didn't want to admit it. However, I did attend (and participate in!) my best friend's wedding this past weekend and my bridesmaid dress fit! I consider that in and of itself a total win. Aside from not meeting my weight loss goals, I did recently accomplish a few other things (both related and unrelated) that were definite wins as well. I am eating more fruits and vegetables, drinking less soda, doing some cardio, and lifting weights significantly more. All good things. Something also happened recently that I am not yet allowed to say (at least not here on the interwebs), so that will remain a mystery until it's official. Let's just say it's a darn good thing. The reason for this post (and the re-focus of the blog in general), is to toss out a realization I had within the past few days. I love food. Obviously. But I don't just mean eating food. I mean I love everything about food. Researching it, preparing it, eating it (of course), enjoying it, and writing about it. I like knowing what's in my food and how it was prepared. I love the ritual of preparing a meal, and the nostalgic feeling of some food (like elephant ears at summer fairs and good lattes during fall). In short, I'm becoming a foodie, and for someone like me, I think that's a much healthier way of approaching food than my current approach to it (read as: I eat it because I'm fulfilling an emotional need, as opposed to a physical one). Perhaps I can turn my love of food into productive (and not totally screwed up) ways of thinking about it. We'll see. We'll start with today. I did some good research on Chai Tea Lattes (which I LOVE) and shared a fantastic recipe for a DIY Pumpkin Spice Chai Latte on Facebook, which you can also find here: http://sumptuousspoonfuls.wordpress.com/2011/11/11/make-your-own-pumpkin-spice-chai-latte. I also discovered that I was running low on Chai tea (gasp!) and quickly purchased more. Yahoo! In addition to exploring recipes, I also made some delicious (and mostly nutritious) meals and snacks today. I had a totally awesome fruit salad when I came home from work today, with an English Breakfast Tea Latte (which I do not recommend, at least not the way I made it). I should point out that I typically don't use any sweetener in my tea, but that particular latte definitely needed it. Yikes. Anyway, my awesome fruit salad is pictured here:

Not only did my fruit salad taste fabulous, it also looked beautiful! I also made a totally great salad for dinner, which consisted of carrots, red pepper, romaine, and a bit of onion. I used this weird but very delicious buffalo ranch dressing made by WishBone - the light version. No pictures of that salad, but I can tell you that it tasted great and looked great, too. When I got home I discovered that my mother had requested I bake some cookies - from the package. That was fine because I'm not great at baking from scratch and had I made a sweet treat, I would have made something fruity and frozen, since fruit is better for you and it's pretty darn hot this week.

For the 4th of July, my family is heading up to my aunt and uncle's cabin, and I am bringing some amazing pineapple salsa that I've made before. I decided this year that instead of buying tortilla chips, I would try my hand at making pita chips to go with the pineapple salsa. I made a small batch tonight and they turned out pretty good. They taste good, but the bread on most of them ended up being a little too thick to brown them correctly. I'll work on that for the actual chip-baking day prior to the 4th. Here is my first attempt at pita chips:

So there you have it - today's baking and cooking adventures. As I said, hopefully this is a more productive use of my love of food than overeating. I couldn't imagine why it wouldn't be! More to come as I continue to cook, bake, eat (albeit less and healthier), savor, and LOVE!