Confessions of Sloth

Last night I got tired of eating red lentil soup, which I still enjoy, but it does not make me feel full, so I went to McDonald’s and got a Filet-o-Fish meal. I did order Coke Zero though, to save on some calories. A couple of hours later, I passed out on my bed while trying to read. I think it was some sort of fat-induced stupor. I really tried to stay awake. I had my head propped up to read the computer screen, but I kept dozing off and finally I had to just take a nap. Then I read Tina Fey’s Bossypants until 3am. It is a very addictive book that you just want to keep reading because there’s no good place to stop. I really liked it and wished there was more so I could keep reading, but I was also sort of glad it was over because I was pretty tired. And I actually did laugh out loud while reading it, which I always think is bogus when I see that (when people write in book reviews about laughing out loud) I always think to myself ‘Yeah, sure, whatever. I’ll read it for myself and see how funny it is.’ There was exponentially more giggling and smiling than when reading most other books.

I think McDonald’s is downsizing its fries portion. When I was there I noticed that the guy in front of me got what looked like a small portion of fries in a regular box, and when I got home I realized that’s what I had as well. I did get ketchup without having to ask for it though, which was nice. And I guess I didn’t really need to have 30% more fries, but I certainly would have eaten them.

I felt really full and tired and slightly gross after eating the McDonald’s food, so I used that as an excuse not to do yoga last night.

Three nights ago at around 10pm or so, I made 2 small chocolate cakes in ramekins. I used this recipe. It’s easy, and quick, and it even tastes good raw. I scaled down that recipe for one person, which means that I made 2 one-person sized portions. It also made me feel less guilty about the amount of butter, sugar, and chocolate. I’ve made it a number of times now, and at first I wasn’t too impressed, but it tastes better the next day, at room temperature, for breakfast, lunch, or dinner. And you don’t even need any special equipment, you can mix it all together with a fork.

I have just started to get interested in the American version of The Office. Last night Dwight was eating a bunch of canned food that was going to expire soon. And I thought about my clams.

Earth Hour

I did not participate in Earth Hour. I actually forgot about it until it had already passed. I had no intention of participating anyway. Saturday’s are good for cooking since there’s nothing good on television. I used way more energy than I usually use on any other night of the week. I had the stove, oven, TV, computer, and two lights on. I also washed a bunch of dishes using hot water, and used the microwave to defrost some bananas. I baked some peanut butter cookies, a banana loaf, and cooked up a hodge-podge lentil stew. That should last at least three days, but the cookies will likely be gone in less than two days. The last batch I made was gone in less than 24 hours, but I was using them as meals, so that’s to be expected.

I’m trying to eat out of my cupboard because I’ve got all this stuff in my cupboards and it’s either going to expire soon, or already expired, or because I buy in bulk, by the time I get around to eating it all, it will be close to expiry, so I’ve got to start working on it now instead of buying new groceries. I had some expired mushroom soup today. It was only off by a few months, nothing too extreme. I still have that can of clams from a few years back. I’ve decided that I will not eat them, but for some reason I cannot bring myself to throw it away. I have terrible hoarding tendencies. I’m also curious just to see what one clam tastes like. I’m pretty sure that wouldn’t be too harmful.

Doughnuts

I’m about to go for a run/walk, to Krispy Kreme. I have a coupon for 6 Original Glazed doughnuts. I could let the coupon expire, or I could get pick up the doughnuts and eat them all in two days and make myself feel guilty about not exercising, which will hopefully get me to exercise. It’s not practical to suggest that I might be able to eat them in moderation. They will be gone in 2 days, if I behave like I normally behave. It’s even possible that they could all be gone in 24 hours. I have no way of knowing how much self-control I will be lacking in the near future.

I have not been for a run in months, but I have been thinking about going for a run quite often these past few weeks since my pants are getting tighter and tighter. I’ve had a couple short treadmill sessions in early January, and I think my hamstring was still not fully recovered. I don’t know if it is done healing yet, since I haven’t done anything strenuous in ages. When I sat up this morning I announced to myself that I was going to run today, and now it’s almost dinner-time. I was probably not even going to leave the house, and then I remembered that Krispy Kreme coupon is going to expire soon. My biggest challenge will be resisting eating a doughnut until I get home. I’m feeling a bit light-headed at the moment though, so that’s a pretty good excuse for eating on the sidewalk.

P.S. Challenge #2 will be resisting upgrading to a dozen doughnuts. Apparently it’s only an extra $3. When I first heard about it, I immediately told myself I wouldn’t do it. I DO NOT need 12 doughnuts. But now that I’m on my way there, I’m thinking that it wouldn’t be so terrible, especially if I could get some lemon-filled ones. Those are my favourite. It’s probably not a good idea to go there while I’m hungry.

P.P.S. 2.5 hours later (7:20pm): I’m eating doughnut #2. They are beautiful and delicious. I think I may consume four by the time I go to sleep. I decided to just get half a dozen. The store is actually closer than I anticipated, and there are a lot of nice looking restaurants on the same street. I had never been that way before. It’s the same street with the Pizza/Cocaine shop that got busted a few weeks ago. I also discovered that there’s no more ice in the park, so now I have no excuse for having no where to run.

P.P.P.S. (7:45pm) I can’t stop thinking about the doughnuts. I’m going to eat another one. Too bad I ran out of milk.

P.P.P.P.S. (Monday 1:50pm) All the doughnuts are gone.

Blog Note

I’m now really happy that I keep this blog. After writing the last post, I loaded the main page to verify that it posted, and then I scrolled through the rest of the page, and saw a very similar post from September where I wrote about binging on Party Mix. I did not realize it had happened so recently. It’s sort of nice to see that I haven’t changed. And also slightly horrifying that I write about Party Mix so often, but it really is tasty stuff, especially for someone who is indecisive, and wants a little bit of everything. Although, to be perfectly honest, the corn chips in this weekend’s bag were not up to par. The oil was a bit old I think, and the corn chips did not have good ‘corn chip’ flavour, and I also think they were over-fried. That of course did not slow down my rate of consumption.

Eating All The Ice Cream

On Friday, I bought a 300g bag of Party Mix and ate 180g in about 20 minutes. It was completely premeditated mindless eating. My sole purpose in going to the grocery store was to buy Party Mix. I knew that I when I returned home, I would open the bag and eat A LOT of it immediately. I also knew that if I took the time to read the nutritional value panel that I would probably eat less, but I wanted to binge, so I purposely ignored the panel. I hadn’t binged in a long time and it was quite enjoyable. It would have been even better if I had had some pop, but I didn’t think that far ahead, I was just fixated on getting the Party Mix. After the first 180g I realized I was no longer quite enjoying myself, so I took a one hour rest before eating another 100g and saved the remaining 20g for next morning’s breakfast. I was very thirsty that night as I had consumed 2 days’ recommended intake of salt and 1200 calories in about 2 hours(I looked at the nutritional value after binging). My mouth was very dry that night and I felt like crap the next day(Saturday), so to balance it out, I bought 2 pints of ice cream. That’s not completely true. I already knew the ice cream purchase was going to happen independently of the Party Mix incident. I had actually planned to get Party Mix last weekend, but the store was out of stock! That disappointed me on a number of levels:

1. Last week I was doing laundry and needed exact change to operate the washing machine, so the Party Mix was to serve as a nominal purchase with which to acquire change, and as a side-benefit, provide a tasty snack.
2. I actually really wanted an excuse to buy that Party Mix.
3. My back-up plan was to buy blueberries, which were on sale, but which I suspected were not of great quality, but they are a lot healthier than Party Mix.
4. I bought the blueberries and they were terrible, but I did put them to use in some pancakes this weekend, and they are decent when cooked and paired with maple syrup and bacon, but really, what isn’t better with maple syrup AND bacon?

And then ice cream was on sale this week, so I had to buy some. My taste in ice cream has changed slightly in my old age. I prefer sold plain flavours now, like chocolate and coffee. I used to like trying out new Ben & Jerry’s flavours, but I would usually end up disappointed and would always go back to their New York Super Fudge Chunk, my previous favorite for many years. But now I feel like there’s too much ‘stuff’ and not enough ice cream in B&J’s flavours. Anyway, two 500ml tubs of Haagen Dazs were purchased on Saturday and the empty containers went into the garbage on Sunday night, after Glee.

I sort of wanted to save the ice cream for a couple more days, but at the same time, I knew that I was going to eat it sooner or later, and then I decided it would be sooner. I figured I would get it over with, so that there was no more left, and then I wouldn’t have to think about it anymore. I am not going to buy more. I don’t really have that much freezer space at the moment. I had to take out some corn and cranberries to make room for the ice cream. I put them back in the freezer last night. And now I am going to start exercising semi-regularly. I am too chicken to run when there is ice and snow on the ground, so I probably will not be doing much running any time soon. I did go out once in January, but it was more slippery than I thought it would be, so I ended up walking more than running. I’ve been climbing stairs in my building every once in a while and I put out the yoga mat last weekend in the hopes that it would lead to some yoga. So far I’ve done a few downward dogs and some push-ups, which is better than nothing. I still can’t lift my cast iron pan comfortably, so I might start using that as part of some sort of weight training routine for my arms. I’ve also scouted out some hamstring strengthening exercises that I should be doing. So I guess the goal is to do any combination of three of those activities per week. Although, really, they are so simple that I should probably be able to do one activity per day.

Jewish Apple Cake

This is the first one that I made. It was pretty good. I made a few more, and the last one was not so great because I cut out some of the sugar, and I used golden delicious apples, which were not as tasty as the empire apples. It’s a good recipe. I’ll probably make another one soon.

I just discovered a potato that has some black goo attached to it, and also, the skin had started to separate from the flesh. It was also smelly. I’m surprised I didn’t notice it earlier.

In Ryan Adams news, this is pretty awesome:




Hallelujah

After over a week, I have finally discovered the cause of the foul smell in my kitchen. Potatoes were on sale, so I bought 20 lbs a couple weeks ago, and my fridge was getting increasingly full, so I had to store them outside. Everything was fine until this week. After a few days I concluded that the potatoes were the primary suspect, but after cursory inspection, I ruled them out. They looked fine. All three bags of them. Even though the smell did seem to be coming from them. I put one bag in the fridge and left the other two outside. The smell got worse, and today, while doing the dishes and having to smell the smell for over ten minutes, I decided to have a closer look at the potatoes, after I ruled out the onions. I stuck my nose in each bag and determined the source and then wondered why I hadn’t done that the first time. The first time I did the smell test, all the bags were in a pile and I just smelled down to the pile but I didn’t see if one particular bag was smelly. The bag with the rotten potato turned out to be the bag that I suspected least, it had the newest potatoes in it, but hidden in the middle was a rotten one. And now it’s in the garbage, along with the skin of some of its friends.

Earlier in the week I noticed another smell, but I think it might be gone now. I opened the windows to air the place out.

I am currently baking a Jewish Apple Cake. I made one a long time ago, from a recipe I got in the paper, back in the olden days, when I read the paper everyday. It was an easy recipe and I didn’t bother copying it down because I figured I could remember it, but I didn’t and I tried to make it a few years ago with another recipe and it was not as good. I have no idea how good this one will turn out, but the batter seems about right. And it is a simple recipe.

I went running today for the first time in two weeks. I was running quite a bit there in September. I had discovered a new running app, MiCoach, and I really like it, so I was running more often, but I should have taken more rest days because the numbness came back and then I also got some hamstring pain and butt pain, which I self-diagnosed as high-hamstring tendonosis, or some such thing, as described on the interweb. My hamstrings don’t feel so bad now, but a few weeks ago it was quite hellish to lean over even slightly, nevermind touch the floor. The weird thing is that my hamstrings were still flexible, and after they were warmed up there is no pain, so I thought it would be okay to keep running, but it got to the point where the pain was lingering longer during my warm-up, and it was hurting more, so I figured I had to stop. And now I’ve lost some fitness. I ran for 1 mile today, I took it easy and at the end, my foot was a bit numb. Then I stretched. I have decided that I have to stretch immediately after running, otherwise I will not do it. I usually just tell myself I’ll do it when I get home, but I get side-tracked by food and showering.

The cake is almost done. It smells good and even looks pretty good at the moment. I hope I don’t over-bake it.

Binge

I just ate a large cookie, I don’t even know what kind it was. It was probably like chocolate chip but without any chocolate. I also ate a full-size KitKat, and 30 minutes prior I ate a large amount of rice/lentil/chicken/veg/ stew-type dish that was very yummy. And a couple hours before that I ate two peanut butter cups and three small packages of M&Ms. I’m tired but I don’t think I can lie down yet because I need to digest. I think the current amount of stomach-fullness equates to about 2 hours of digestion time.

I sent some more stories about that annoying person to my brother today. I won’t repeat them here.

Quote of the Day

He will likely perish from stupidity before the technology exists. Oh well…

-My brother, via e-mail, after I semi-ranted about a casual family acquaintance, who will remain nameless. We like to exchange stories about this guy. He is one of those people that thinks they know a lot of stuff, but they actually don’t. And he says stuff that is completely ridiculous, and false, and you’re not sure if they really believe what they are saying and are delusional, or if they know they are lying. In his case, I think it’s a combination of both, but a lot of people seem to take him at his word, or at least they do outwardly, so maybe he thinks everyone believes him, so he thinks he is getting away with it, but they are secretly talking about him behind his back. Either way, you know what he is saying is not true, but you can’t really call him out on it. It’s just not worth your time. However, I do point out evidence that points to the contrary, when warranted, as was in this case, when he was misleading another relative, not out of malicious intent, but just due to his own ignorance. He reminds me of the Kristen Wiig character on SNL, who makes up outlandish stories to try to one-up whatever anyone else says.

Rotten Milk Recipes

I have used rotten milk in pancake, bread, and cake recipes, without ill effect.

Last night I used milk that had completely separated. I shook it up to homogenize the mixture a bit. It was the most rotten milk that I have ever used, but it looked like buttermilk or soured milk, so I wasn’t too concerned. The cake tastes fine. I used a bit less sugar, and whole wheat flour, for added fiber, so it’s not a great dessert cake, but it’s good for snacking. I ate 1/3 of the cake after it came out of the oven last night, at 11pm. And then I went to bed.

Chocolate Cake with Rotten Milk instead of [1/2 normal milk + 1/2 cup hot water]
0.85 cups flour
1/2 cup cocoa
3/4 cup sugar
3/4 tsp baking powder
3/4 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 cup rotten milk
1/4 cup oil
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla extract

I baked it in a Pyrex square for about 40 minutes t 350F, it didn’t rise too much because of the whole wheat flour, but it’s not dense.

Pain de Mie/Pullman Loaf
I didn’t know what this was until I read Alexis Stewart’s blog (Martha’s daughter). Her Pain de Mie entry is from the July 2010. I like her blog, it’s full of beautiful food and furnishings. Everything is clean and tidy and pretty, the total opposite of my life, so I find it quite fascinating. The Alexis blog referenced this site, and I combined that recipe with another. By combined, I mean that I took out steps that required me to do more stuff– like heat up the milk, and add the butter separately. I DID add the butter separately the first time, and this was time consuming, so the next time I just dumped in the oil with the rest of the ingredients. I mixed everything by hand.

I made 2 loaves, the first with butter and the second with oil. Butter is better. I think in all recipes where I have subbed oil for butter, butter wins. But I usually end up using oil anyway, it’s easier to pour.

3 or 3.5 cups flour
1 or 1 1/3 cups milk
1 or 2 tsp salt
1 or 1.5 Tbs sugar
1 or 1.5 tsp yeast
2-3 Tbs oil or 3 Tbs butter

Combine milk, yeast, sugar. Let sit. Add other ingredients. Knead. Cover and let rise for 2 hours or whatever, until doubled in size. Punch down and shape, or stuff into a buttered/oiled loaf pan. Let rise. Bake at 400F.

I didn’t bother with the folded loaf-shaping, and it looked perfectly fine. It’s a nice change from the no-knead bread, but I still prefer the plain bread with no milk or oil or sugar.