Food Rules Everything Around Me

Hello! Kali here, writing to you from the frigid north! All I keep seeing are everyone's 'First Day of Spring' posts, and we had snow this weekend! I'm so desperately wanting to see some flowers in bloom, or any sign that Spring is actually here. Until then, I'll keep crafting up a storm, and thinking about FOOD 24/7!

Eddy and I have still been doing pretty well with our diet, with a few cheat days here and there. We tried Union Square Donuts for the first time last week (an obvious cheat day), and we don't think we can ever have a stale donut from Dunkin Donuts again! Since then, all I can think about is that Maple Bacon donut, and everything else I'm not supposed to be eating! Instead of indulging myself, and hating myself later, I've just been incorporating my cravings into silly art. Here is how I gave myself pizza nails, and saved my waistline!

I chose my base color as pink, so the pizza slices would stand out, since there is no pink in pizza. Then I (very sloppily) painted yellow triangles on each nail. This will be the cheese base for each of your pizza slices. 

Next, I took my large dotting tool and made a row of brown dots, across the top of each pizza slice. Overlap the dots, so you can't see where each dot starts or begins. This will be the crust for your slices.

Now take your large dotting tool and make red dots in the center of the slices, to represent pepperoni. You can do as many as you want on each slice, or none at all! If you want a veggie pizza, you could make little green and red peppers, or brown mushrooms, whatever you want! 

Finally, I took my black striper, and outlined the pizza slice, so it will stand out more against the pink background. 

Voila! Zero calorie, adorable pizza nails! 

I could not get over how easy those nails were. I want to give everyone pizza nails! Since I was on such a food kick last night, I also decided I wanted to make some food related art to hang in our apartment. Let me be clear: I AM NOT AN ARTIST. But, I do enjoy painting, and food is fun to paint, and I want a hamburger! Instead of eating one, I painted this little baby instead... 

Silly, I know. But I love it, and it will go in our kitchen, to replace all the actual hamburgers that aren't being cooked in there! I got this little piece of wood at Michael's, along with a nice 8-pack of acrylic paints, that are really coming in handy during this cold season. As much as I am bummed that I'm still stuck indoors, this totally cheered me up!

So how about some actual food, huh? It is not pizza or burgers by any means, but last week I tried this recipe for Parmesan Zucchini Crisps, and fell in love. I'm not a huge fan of vegetables, so I love when I find a way to make them, so I forget they're good for me! Here's how you can do it to:

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees, and slice two zucchinis into quarter inch slices. 

Coat your pan with the non-stick spray of your choice, and arrange all of your zucchini slices, so they are all butted up against each other. 

Next, season your zucchini. You can use whatever seasons you want, but I used salt, pepper, and garlic powder. 

Using a spoon, press a thin layer of parmesan cheese onto each zucchini slice. Then pop them in the oven for 15-20 minutes. 

Keep an eye on these while they are in the oven, because as you can see, they can burn easily! Lucky for me, I like things crispy. These turned out to be a tasty, and healthy snack alternative, that were super easy to make! Do any of you have good recipes you use when you're craving something bad for you? We would love to hear from you, and know how you beat the diet blues! 

MARCHing to a new beat

Happy March, y'all! I don't know about you, but I am super glad February is over! I know I have said it a million times, but this winter is kicking my butt, and every inch we get closer to Spring, is a better day for me. I woke up with some new motivation, and a much better attitude than I've had so far in 2015.

Along with my bad February attitude, I fell off the diet wagon for the better part of last week. One too many beers were drank, I definitely consumed multiples of the forbidden carbs, and there may or may not have a been a late night stop at McDonald's. Shame. Shame on me! Anyways, today was a new day, with a whole new set of calories to eat up. I decided to not continue this shame spiral, and whipped up one of my favorite Pinterest recipes: buffalo cauliflower.

Since we are still trying to be as gluten free as we can, I decided to tweak the recipe a little bit, and breaded the cauliflower with quinoa flakes. All you need is cut up cauliflower, 2 eggs beaten, quinoa flakes, and buffalo sauce. Dip the cauliflower in the eggs, then the quinoa flakes, throw them on a baking sheet, and in the oven at 350 for 15 minutes.

They should look like this after the first 15 minutes.

Toss the baked cauliflower in the buffalo sauce, until it is all covered. I used store bought buffalo sauce this time, but Eddy has made sauce from scratch in the past. You can do whatever you want!

The cauliflower then goes back on the sheet, and in the oven for another 15 minutes. After that, you should have these tasty little nuggets, that are ready to eat!

Super easy, right? I was convinced that these would not be anywhere near as filling as eating buffalo chicken, but I was totally wrong. Not only is this a delicious meal, but it is also satisfying! I get pretty bored eating vegetables, so this is a quick and easy way to (literally) spice up your meal.

I hope everyone had a more positive start to March like I did, and that you all did something that made you happy today!

All I do is eat eat eat

Remember my last post where I pep talked you all out of being depressed during the winter? Well, I almost immediately fell into a black hole of despair after I wrote that, not taking any of my own advice! (Easier said than done, huh?) I had zero motivation to do anything, even less than before, & I did a lot of whining, & some crying, & wah wah wah'ed my way through the weekend. Then I decided to pull my head out of my ass, & try a little bit to not hate everything so much. My main focus for the past couple of days was trying some new recipes, so Eddy & I don't get bored with our bread-free/dairy-free/delicious food-free diet. I did a little Pinteret hunting, & chose a bunch of stuff that sounded delicious, with the hopes of having fun in the kitchen again! The first thing I tried was a Cucumber Dill Hummus, which isn't exactly a meal, but who cares?

So I will say, that I was not 100% sure about this recipe. I am not a huge fan of cucumbers, and at first taste, I thought I was going to have to let Eddy eat all of it himself. But, after I busted out the black bean chips, I couldn't stop scooping up this surprisingly refreshing snack! It was super easy, & it cost around $5.00 for all of the ingredients, making about 3x the amount of hummus you would get in a normal container at the grocery store.

The next recipe I chose was quinoa pizza bites, because I swear, all we see are commercials for pizza! I won't lie, I am definitely on a quinoa kick right now, and you'll be able to tell from my Pinterest board. I am sure I will be sick of it soon, but for now, QUINOA FOR EVERYTHING! Anyway, I was pretty proud of myself with this kitchen endeavor, because I decided to make the marinara sauce from scratch too. Who knows if I did it right, but it tasted good to us, and that is all that matters!

 

All of these ingredients look pretty disgusting right now, huh? 

The recipe called for the pizza bites to be made in a muffin pan, but I think you could always bake them in a glass dish (like one you would use for brownies), and then you would have a funny little quinoa pizza loaf! 

After I took them out of the oven, I sprinkled the bites with Trader Joe's Soy Cheese Blend (sorry, the internet wouldn't help me link that one for ya!), satisfying my efforts to stay dairy-free. 

Voila! I threw a little of that homemade marinara on the side for dipping, and we had a pretty sweet pizza substitute. We both agreed that the recipe could use some meat, so I think next time I will mix in some ground turkey, and then they will be perfecto! 

Finally, last night I decided to try this Parmesan Zucchini and Corn. Again, Eddy wanted to throw in some left over ground turkey to add some meat to the meal (he doesn't consider it dinner without meat!), and I cannot believe how tasty this was. It was by far, my favorite new thing I tried this week.

Fully equipped with a margarita, I'll say that dinner last night was just as delicious as if we had gone out to eat! Of course, even if we wanted to go somewhere yesterday, we couldn't have. I totally forgot to mention the 24" of snow that Winter Storm Juno brought us this week! The whole city had a driving ban on it yesterday, so we all got a snow day from work. You would think this would add to my winter blues, but it somehow cheered me up, and I actually thought being stuck in the house was fun. Here is a little glimpse of what we got, from my front door:

Crazy, right? Luckily, the house hadn't been cleaned since before we left on our month vacation, and I opted for staying in to clean, while Eddy shoveled our sidewalks, and both of our cars. He came inside with icicles in his beard! I did have to go back to work today, and this was the snowy mess that was once the parking lot behind my job:

I don't think I will ever get used to seeing this much snow, and the only thing I can compare it to is Blizzard Beach (you Floridians know what I'm talkin' 'bout). 

That is all I have for you for today. I am hoping to try some more new dishes over this weekend, and am hoping to have a post about some new items in my Etsy shop by the end of this week too! Have you guys tried anything new in the kitchen lately? I'll take all of the new recipes I can get!