Testing this thing out...

So I've decided to start blogging my daily foods. I generally enjoy cooking, eating healthy, concentrating on whole foods and discovering new foods and recipes. I've let my eating slide this past semester, fell into some bad habits of picking up frozen meals and even Taco Bell instead of cooking. It hasn't been the worst eating in the world...but I'm sick of it and ready to get back to cooking and feeling good about what I eat.

I think keeping this blog will help me stay excited and motivated about it. It's also a good place for me to record some of my favorite recipes and foods for myself, so I can look back over it when I'm uninspired and hopefully remember some great meal ideas.

I'm a student and I waitress at night. I like to cook in sort of big batches so I have things that are easy to microwave for dinner when I get home late from work. So I tend to eat the same things for a few days in a row. I doubt I'll take new pictures each time I have the same thing.

Okay, so this morning I had Crockpot Beans & Rice for breakfast. I like non-breakfast foods for breakfast, although I'll often have egg white omelets or oatmeal, too. You'll see these green-and-yellow bowls a lot...I tend to like foods that look like piles of mush and are eaten from bowls but taste delicious.

I had some iced coffee, too, with yummy Cinnamon Bun flavored creamer.

I guess my biggest vice (eating-wise) at this time in my life is artificial sweetener. I use Splenda in coffee and yogurt, and drink a decent amount of Diet Mountain Dew every day. I was eating disordered for a long time, used to smoke and drink too much alcohol, so in the grand scheme of things I don't worry too much about artificial sweetener considering how much other bad crap I've given up...but I don't feel too great about consuming it, either. At some point I'll try to quit. Maybe. :P

Mid-afternoon I had one of my favorite snacks: All Bran Garlic & Herb crackers topped with Laughing Cow Light Garlic & Herb cheese, slices of European cucumber and a few twists from the pepper mill. Yum. I also had a nice cup of Candy Cane Lane tea with a little fatfree Half & Half.

My eating times are a little odd because I go to work about 5.00 pm and get home between 10-11 pm. I never want to have a big dinner before I go because I run around like crazy at work and don't want to be too full. But I also usually get pretty hungry by 8 pm. So I generally put off lunch until late afternoon (hence the midday snack) and keep it fairly light, and then have a light dinner when I get home.

Today's late lunch was a big bowl of my Turkey Meatball & Barley soup which I posted the recipe for in another post and some of these delicious roasted veggies I made a big batch of the other day. Seriously, aren't those veggies pretty? Eggplant, yellow and red bell pepper, mushrooms, and pearl onions. You'll see those pearl onions popping up a lot in my foods...I just recently discovered them at Trader Joe's and have been putting them in everything.

LATE dinner tonight - had a late party as my last table at work so dinner was at midnight. Big bowl of lentil and barley soup that I had made a while ago and took out of the freezer earlier this week. Kind of heavy on legumes and barley today but it was just food that needed eating before it went bad. I really hate wasting food.

I'll probably have a medjool date or two for dessert. If I stay awake that long.