Valentine's PITA

Valentine's Day can be a pain in the ass whether you're single or not.  I don't envy the expectations the day puts on people in relationships to come up with grand gestures of affection or to pretend they don't care about the day, even when it's clear they really do.

But when you're single, even if you're okay with being single, it still sucks to get bombarded by all the love swarming around.  It's easy to fall into the rut of self pity when you're alone on Valentine's Day, but I'm trying to keep a lip upper stiff.  To be hopeful that someday it'll be my turn again and that, when it is, no one will begrudge me my moment of romance, as small or as grand as it may be. 

In the meantime, I decided to put a spin on my Valentine's day, taking it from P.I.T.A. to pita... bread - something even us single folks can love.

VALENTINE'S PITA w/ TZATZIKI

Photo - Copyright 2012, Julie Anne Wight

When your Valentine's day is less than sweet, opt for this healthy and creative idea for something to take to a party or to work.

You'll Need:
1 - 14 to 16 oz. container of low or reduced fat Greek Yogurt.  I used Chobani
1 - Large Cucumber
2 - Tablespoons of Extra Virgin Olive Oil
1 - Teaspoon of Rice Vinegar
2 - cloves of minced garlic
1 - Tablespoon of fresh dill, chopped
1 - Tablespoon of Sea Salt

To prepare Tzatziki:
1) Peel your cucumber
2) Cut length-wise and remove seeds
3) Shred as finely as you can.  (I didn't have a grater, so I used my vegetable peeler)
4) Strain excess water
5) Sprinkle with sea salt and refrigerate for 15 minutes.
6) Strain excess water again, then add all other ingredients
7) Puree all ingredients in a food processor and chill for 1-2 hours

To prepare Heart-Shaped Pita
1) Quarter round pita bread.
2) Using kitchen shears, trim corners off edge of pita and cut a small triangle to middle of edge side.
(Be careful to leave some crust untrimmed or your pita will separate)

Spruce the Fruit

This past week was rough.  I realized that, with the absence of any human competition, food was making a play to be my boyfriend again.  We met for lunch as "friends," and he began to viciously flirt, which led to a weekend of debauchery.  We're talking Chipotle, savory crepes, birthday cake and Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc.  Oh, food, he's such a sweet talker and brings out my oh so bad side.

On the flip side, I did get some good exercising in this week, including a bike to the Farmer's Market with another L.A. transplant... my good friend, Jillian.  We stocked up on fruits and veggies, so I'm ready for some major cock blocking with my ex.  If he wants to sweet talk me, he can do it with a little kiwi.

It's important that any healthy diet include some variety.  This means getting a little inventive with recipes and including a little variety into your staple items.  Even the worlds biggest broccoli lover can only eat so much broccoli before they begin dreaming of chia pets and George Bush.

Photo copyright 2012 - Julie Anne Wight

Spruce up your fruit salad with a new item -- like star fruit.  My sister introduced me to star fruit over the holidays when we played a game where each of us had to try to guess a food by taste.  I'd never had star fruit before, but I liked it.  When I got home, I decided to try getting one for myself. 

Purchasing star fruit can be a little confusing in terms of knowing what a ripe one looks like and how to cut it.  For a tip, here's a great link. 

Four Star Fruit Salad
Ingredients:
1 ripe Starfruit
and whatever other fruits you like

I also used
Kiwi, Banana and Blueberries on top of a Sugar-Free Cherry Jello cup

OK, RAh!

My mood of late is just blah.  I had all these high hopes for starting the year off ambitiously... yoga, eating right, biking to work, being caught up on my work and various writing projects.

It's not a complete bust.  I've managed to stay on track with eating right, but I've just been down in the dumps lately.  Reading scripts and giving thoughtful feedback is exhausting.   And, this year, I didn't have anything but work to come back to after visiting family, so I've been feeling kinda lonely.  I probably should get a pet.  Or expand my network of friends.  Or actually take a real vacation with those two weeks of vacation time I'll lose if I don't get out of town before the end of March.

I think the first of the year was just unfortunately timed to coincide with my artistic/ambitious blue phase.  But enough whiny, pissiness.  Time to fine something to get excited about.  For me, it's a new soup. 

When down in the dumps, try some OK, RAh! Soup! 

Photo copyright 2012 - Julie Anne Wight

You'll Need:

• One 4-cup container of Emeril's All Natural Organic Vegetable Stock (or equivalent)
• 1-1/2 cups of Petite Diced Tomatoes (I used Hunt's)
• 1 can (15.5 oz) of Black Beans, drained (I used Iberia brand)
• 2 cups of frozen Okra
• 2 cloves of minced garlic
• 1 to 1-1/2 cups of chopped white onion
• 1 cup of loosely chopped fresh cilantro
• 1 pinch of dried parsley
• 1 tbsp ground black pepper
• 1 tbsp dried basil

Instructions:

• Combine all ingredients into a large pot
• Bring to a boil and boil 2 minutes
• Reduce heat to simmer and simmer for 15 minutes

Serves 4

Best of all, for those of you on the Weight Watchers plan, each serving of this awesome soup is only 4 points on the Points Plus plan!

When Life Stinks...

...eat an onion.

Seriously.

When you find yourself single, alone for a holiday, with nothing to do, why not make yourself a meal befitting a stinky situation?  With no one to kiss under the mistletoe, no cheers to make as the new year is rung in, it's an opportunity to eat whatever the hell you want, no matter how smelly - tuna, garlic, stinky cheese, raw veggies or, my favorite, some roasted boiler onions.

Photo copyright 2011 - Julie Anne Wight

I'm alone this New Year's Eve, with nowhere to go, no one to kiss on and nothing to do but clean my house, grade papers and find a new BBC series to watch on Netflix, which is probably okay because I started my New Year's diet as soon as I returned from the ten-day holiday sugar fest with my family in Michigan.  This time around, I'm trying Weight Watchers.  Since I eat relatively healthily but struggle more with portions, a good roasted vegetable is a hearty, filling and points free meal (providing you roast your veggies in something like I Can't Believe it's Not Butter rather than olive oil).

These boiler onions are delicious when roasted in the oven or sauteed.  Let them caramelize for maximum flavor.

Saving it for Cabbage

For the longest time, I completely thought the lyrics to a Jay-Z song included the phrase, "saving it for cabbage."  Alas, it was "carats" not "cabbage," which makes total sense.  It just never clicked.  Maybe because the concept of holding out for a rich guy who can buy me a big ass diamond has never crossed my mind or been a part of the way my brain works.  With one exception, every guy I've ever dated was broke or just squeaking by.

The day that marked the true end of the end for my relationship with WSSG was when, in addition to standing me up and puffing on an electronic cigarette in front of me despite fully understanding my disdain for smoking, he excitedly said how it looked like he'd get approved for another year of unemployment.

Now, I don't begrudge anyone getting unemployment if they're actually looking for a job or going back for job training, but that wasn't the case.  He just didn't want to work.  He'd initially used the freedom from a day job to start writing a novel, which I totally get and was supportive of.  Heck, I'd still love to see him finish it.  I'm all about one chasing one's bliss.  I've done it several times myself to refocus my career and give myself some time to work exclusively on my writing without having to balance it with a day job.  Not while claiming unemployment, though.  Even if he'd still been writing his novel, or had been working at it wholeheartedly, I still don't think I'd have cared.  For a long time, I didn't.  But getting the unemployment extension was his excuse to give up on that particular story and start working on a new one.

In the end, though it was an amiable parting between us, I think the respect had dwindled both ways.

To me, respect is tantamount in a relationship.  I can date a broke guy, but not a lazy one.  I want to be with someone with dreams and goals that I can support, but he's got to earn it.  I don't need him to buy me carats.  I can buy my own if I really want them.  But chipping in for cabbage so I can make us a good soup ... that's a must.

JULES' "SAVING IT FOR CABBAGE" SOUP

Ingredients
1/2 head of cabbage, cut into chunks no larger than 2"x 2"
1 cup of diced white or yellow onion
1 can of diced tomatoes
1 pint (or 1-1/2 pints) of turkey broth
1 tablespoon of chili powder
1 tsp of oregano
Pepper, to taste

Directions
Toss all ingredients into a large pot
Bring to a boil
Reduce heat to low and simmer for 30 min.

Disappearing Acts

I haven't posted in a while so, if you're reading this, thanks for sticking around.  Truth is, there wasn't much solo eating going on for the last few months.  I was testing out the whole living together thing with Wicked Sexy, Super Smart Guy.  During that time, I learned a few things.  First, that my apartment is really only big enough for one person.  Second, that I missed my personal space.  Third, that my original take on living together and why it should be avoided before marriage has merit as well as some fundamental flaws.

I'd read an awesome article in Psychology Today a few years back which explained the psychological reasons why more marriages of people who'd shacked up before marriage ended in divorce than marriages of those who hadn't.  The basic premise was that we enter a shack up situation with the mindset that we're still single and can leave at any time.  After the marriage, there's no physical change in the environment or situation, so the mindset on leaving persists.  It made a lot of sense to me.  I also believed that, if committed to someone, you find a way to make things work and that little things can be worked through with communication and respect.

However, what I've realized after my first foray into living with a partner is that there is a value to "shacking up."  While we'd been dating, there were small things that had planted little red flag seeds.  Without the close up view of this red flag garden, I probably wouldn't have seen as quickly their growth.  Hence,  I was able to realize much more quickly than with guys I've dated in the past but never lived with that the red flags were much more serious issues for me than his preference to walk through the house, post-shower, and drip dry rather than toweling off.  Instead, it was things like the inability to see things through to completion, or the chasm between our views on the importance of family and how other big differences in things like living in the moment and for oneself versus some planning for the future and the potential of having a partner were big issues that couldn't be resolved.

Hence, I'm single again and resuming my eating solo lifestyle.  I'm feeling really positive about it and looking at the opportunity as a chance to purge of all things unhealthy -- food, belongings, relationships -- and to focus on surrounding myself with things (and people) that will bring me joy, hope, support, strength, energy and happiness.

This morning, I'm starting out with a healthy Banana Lime Breakfast Shake.

 Ingredients

• One Banana
• One cup of Organic Skim Milk
• One serving of Vanilla flavored Protein Powder
• One cup of Fat-Free Lime Sherbet

Instructions

• Combine all ingredients in a blender and enjoy!

 I used my Back to Basics blender, whereupon I discovered WSSG still has one of the blender mugs.  I still have one, which is fine for now.  But I'm hoping someday to serve for two again.  (Note to self to get it back.)

I'll come back soon...PROMISE!

I disappeared again.  I know, I'm sorry.  While trying to stay on top of the reading and grading for my day job, I got caught up with a side gig of rewriting a half-hour Disney Channel'esque pilot.  For money!  I know, cool, right?  Anyway, I shall return soon with brand new uber healthy, low-carb and just generally yummy recipes as well as updates on the relationship drama surrounding chips and dip.  Stay tuned and thanks for sticking around!