coming clean

So remember that 'no meat' challenge I took to?  Well I'm glad to say that I was successful in my week of no meat...trust me it was hard.  Like, last day of challenge, going to a food party where two of the guests are amazing chefs from Italy who made homemade sausage and spiedini hard.  But I prevailed.  Yay me!

And remember how I was so proud of myself that I said I was going to go another week without meat?  Well...it's time to be honest.  I failed.  Like 5 hours after saying I was going to go another week ate a 1/2 lb burger with bacon failed. 

my Everest

Sigh...

When people asked me why I was not eating meat, I told them it was a sort of detox.  The best part was when I gave that answer to my MOH-H whilst drinking a beer.  Yeah...she totally called me out on that!  Truth is, though, now that I've gone back to my regular diet, I've noticed that my veggie diet did have an effect on my body.  See I have a number of GI issues and well, my adopted diet gave my system a much needed rest (even if only for a week).  So....

As hard as it may be for me, I am going to try to give up meat for a month.  A.WHOLE.MONTH.  wow that was hard to type I can't guarantee that I won't slip up (especially if I make it anywhere near a BonChon Chicken) but I will try.  My GI system (and I'm hoping my waistline) will be all the more better for it. 

My no meat for a month challenge won't start until May (because we just got a new grill and popping it's cherry with a veggie burger seems wrong to me) so it gives me a week to research some yummy veggie recipes.  If you know of any, please send them my way!

{ cindie }

P.S. If you haven't done it yet, check out my post below and vote on what you think of my possible new hair-do!

bang-a-rang!

With Mama Nature teasing us with warmer weather, I get the itch to change things up a bit.  Brighter colored outfits, fun spring-y colored nails, and perhaps a new hair-do.  I recently was watching a you-tube instructional video on eye makeup and developed instant hair envy.  Impulsive monster that I am, I was ready to call up my salon and make an appointment...but then I thought...what if only I think it would look good?  So then I figured...why not ask you, my trusted readers what you think?!  So without further adieu...

Here's a picture of my hair as it is now, after a long day at work

and here's a picture of what I'm thinking of doing...

 

Drastic right? Lol...

I used bobby pins to make some above the eyebrow grazing bangs.  It probably only looks like I just tucked my hair behind my ears.  Here's a picture of what I was trying to go for...

screen shot of this chick's youtube tutorial

Usually when I get bangs cut they aren't so thick (I moved the part in my hair quite a bit) and are longer, so I'm afraid of going short and reliving the horror days of when my Mom cut my bangs so I looked something like this

oh the horror

I know it's just hair and my hair grows like weeds, but changing one's hair can drastically change your whole look, which is why I'm hesitant.  So I turn to you guys...whatcha think?

or leave me a comment below on what you think I should do instead!

{ cindie }

so ready...

....for mother nature to cooperate and bring some consistent spring time weather so the world can look like this...

purdy

...to wear these on my feetsies

flippies!!!

...to win this...

please?

...so I can do this...

wish

...and maybe open one of these...

it's a dream

...and truly be

ahhh...

...with these people by my side of course (just a few of the many)

LtoR,TtoB: Allure West, personal, Allure West x2, personal

................................................

..........but really I'm just totally ready for the weekend...

{ cindie }

i'm 'special'...

...in many ways.  But mostly in those, hmm...that's different type ways.

Like this week.  I've been having this pain in my right wrist for a good three weeks now and it only took me two weeks of 'dealing with it' before listening to Hubster and seeing a doctor.  Thankfully after taking some x-rays, the doctor put me at ease and confirmed it wasn't carpal tunnel.  He did however, go "Hmm..." when looking over my x-rays.  Yeah...just what you want to hear when a doctor is looking at anything that has to do with your health and well-being. 

Turns out my radius bone is abnormally longer than my ulna.  What the hell does that mean?  Well essentially, you know on the side of your wrist that little bulge that sticks out...well my bulge (heh) is more prominent that usual because the bone is longer than it naturally should be.  As a result, there's times when there is more pressure on the cartilage in that area causing pain.  And it sucks.  The only thing they can do for me right now is make me wear this robo-arm brace for 20 hours a day for 3 weeks to try to stabilize the movement of my wrist to relieve the compression and pain.  Wanna see?

robo arm!

To be honest, it kind of looks bad ass.  There's a steel rod type thing running down the center of the underside so I tell people it's my street fighter glove.  They then proceed to look at me weird...I'm used to it.  To be honest, it's more of a inconvenience than anything else.  Oh well, I should just suck it up.

In other news, my one week no meat challenge has been going really well.  So well in fact that I think I might extend it an extra week.  We'll see...

{ cindie }

in another life, I was meant to be a spy

...or something else cool like that.

I base this primarily on the fact that I love tv shows about hot female double agents (working for the good guys) who get the crap beat out of them by big burly guys twice their size but still end up taking down said big burly guys.  You know...shows like Alias and now Nikita.  If you've ever seen Alias before and watch Nikita now, it's pretty obvious that the shows share many similarities...like almost too many..like perhaps the Nikita writers watched Alias one night and well just figured it's been about 4 years, no one will notice.  Well this girl did...I consider this the start of my sleuthing and proof that I can be a good detective/agent.  That or I just watch too much tv.  Let's take a gander shall we?

Alias follows Sydney Bristow (played by Jennifer Garner) who is an agent for the super evil 'black-ops division of the CIA' SD-6.  But really, she's a double agent for the CIA.  Her fiance, Danny was murdered by SD-6 when they found out she told him she was a spy.

Sydney

Nikita (played by Maggie Q) was an agent of the black-ops government sanctioned Division that started out good but now is bad.  She went rogue when her fiance Daniel (hmm...) was murdered by Division when they realized that she was having a relationship with a civilian.  Big no-no.

Nikita

Sydney's CIA handler was Michael Vaugh (played by Michael Vartan) and the two had a little sumthin sumthin goin on

Hellooooo nurse!

Nikita's handler when she was in Division was Michael (played by Shane West).  They two had a little bow-chicka-wow-wow going on.  Michael was tasked with hunting down Nikita when she went rogue and they've reconnected recently...like in the bow-chicka-wow way.

You can chase me any day, everyday

The plot of both shows is essentially the operative (in the case of Nikita she has a mole at Division she trained and essentially placed there) goes on a mission to retrieve something that the big evil boss guy wants, but ends up either not getting it due to some complication in the operation, or gets but it's corrupted.  Both shows are probably loosely based on the French film Nikita (well Nikita is actually definitely based off of it).  In both shows, every episode features our heroines packing some serious heat and kicking some big time butt.  They're strong ass hot chicks who don't want to kill you, but will if they have to.  Either way, I love them both...well except for post Season 3 of Alias...it just got bad.  Please Nikita...don't do the same.  I need my spy shows to learn how to be one of them (who said you can't learn anything from watching tv) or at least to live out my dreams of being one of them.

And if I had to choose who I'd be....tho I love Sydney (it's the name I used to use at bars because it's close to my name without actually being my name) I'd have to go with Nikita.  She's got an awesome wardrobe and killer shoes.  And I kind of think her Michael is hotter than Sydney's.  Not that I would kick either of them out of bed...I mean if I wasn't with Hubster that is.

{ cindie }

i has a sad

Day three of my no meat week challenge and I'm doing good.

Sure I may have eyed up the turkey sandwich that one of the docs I work with was eating for lunch, and maybe I had two brownies and a cookie...but I didn't give in, and I'm proud of myself so far.  I even turned down an offer to get Chipotle for lunch...Chipotle people.  Read my review of Chipotle on Yelp...go ahead and then you'll understand how hard that was for me.  Anyway...

so...as I said before, I has a sad.  Remember my big green bowl that I eat ramen out of?  You know the one I wrote about here.  Well it's my absolute favorite bowl and I don't eat my ramen out of any other bowl.  If it's in the dishwasher waiting to be washed and I'm having my guilty pleasure meal, I'll take it out and wash it just so I can use it.  I.love.that.bowl. (is that weird?) Well, tonight I was pre-washing the dishes to wash them in the dishwasher (what's the point!) and...

I broke my bowl (it still hurts just having to write that)

I'm quite upset about it.  I don't think my ramen will ever really taste the same again.  Goodbye big green bowl.  You served as quite the vessel for many a very high sodium meal.  And you will be missed.

To make myself feel better, I am going to post a pic of some bunnies out at the bar.

and a drunk bunny drowning its broken bowl sorrows in some Jack & Ginger

{cindie }

wow..did I really just blog about a bowl and drunken bunnies?  I think I'm suffering meat withdrawl...

SND : prelude to a hard week for this foodie

Meat.  Oh meat.  It is so good.  Beef, pork, chicken and fish.  Grilled, sauteed, broiled...however you like it.  It's just so good...oh I already said that.  Yah, well I unapologetically love meat.

For some reason, I thought I would try something new this week.  Oh, what is it, you ask? Well this week I will challenge myself by not eating meat.

That's NO meat people

WTF is wrong with me?!

via

I'm going to attempt this week to be more healthy and not eat any meat.  I'm not doing it for animal rights or anything like that, I just want to kind of detox.  But I am allowing myself things that are cooked with meat or using a beef or chicken stock. Oh and eggs...I'm going to be eating a lot of eggs for my protein.  I'm just not eating meat.  It's gonna be hard.  Props to those who do it everyday, I just know myself and I couldn't go vegetarian. 

I wouldn't dream of making Hubster join me in this journey...I don't think we'd like each other much if we both didn't eat meat for a week.  So I'm still cooking like nothing's different.  Except it is for me...sigh.  SND this week is a dish I love and thankfully everything about it is full of flavor so even tho I can't eat the meat part I can still enjoy the meal.

Arroz con Pollo

It's an old recipe I've had for so long I can't remember where I got it from

Ingredients

For chicken:
3 large garlic cloves, chopped
4 TBS fresh orange juice
2 TBS fresh lime juice (if you microwave the lime for ~10 sec you can actually get more juice from it!)
1 1/2 tsp salt
3/4 tsp black pepper
chicken (I used 4 drumsticks and 6 thighs)
1 TBS vegetable oil
1 TBS butter

For rice:
1 large onion, diced (I use Spanish onion)
2 green bell peppers, chopped
3 garlic cloves, minced
1/4 tsp crumbled saffron threads
1/4 cup dry white wine (if you don't have wine you can substitute with light beer)
2 tsp ground cumin
2 tsp salt
1 bay leaf
1 can diced tomatoes, including juice
1 1/2 cups low sodium chicken broth
1 1/2 cups water
2 cups white rice
1 cup frozen baby peas

Prepare the chicken

In a blender puree the garlic, oj, lime juice, salt and pepper until smooth.  Pour the puree over the chicken pieces, turning to coat.  Cover the chicken and marinade and chill in the fridge for about an hour.

After marinating, transfer the chicken to paper towels, letting the marinade drip back into the bowl.  Pat dry.  Heat the oil and butter in a large oven safe pot over medium high heat until the foam subsides.  Brown the chicken in batches, trying not to crowd the pot, for about 7-8 minutes per batch.

Damn you chicken for taunting me!

Transfer chicken to a plate.  In the same pot you cooked the chicken, saute the onions, peppers and garlic, stirring occasionally and making sure to scrape up the yummy brown chicken bits from the bottom of the pot.  Cook for about 8 minutes, or until the veggies are soft.

veggies are my friends

 In the meantime, preheat your oven to 350 and then using a small skillet (or the other half of a fritatta pan as I did), heat the saffron threads over low heat, making sure to shake the skillet about for about 45 seconds.

 
Add the wine and bring to a simmer, then remove from heat.

Back in your veggie pot, add cumin and salt to the veggies and stir for about 2 minutes.

Stir in the saffron mixture, bay leaf, tomatoes (including juice), broth, water and reserved marinade and bring to a boil.  Once the mixture boils, add the chicken ensuring each piece is submerged in liquid.  Cover and turn heat to low and cook for about 10 minutes.  Stir in rice and return to a simmer.  Cover pot tightly, then transfer to the oven and bake for 20 minutes.

it may look like a hot mess but soon it's a thing of beauty

Scatter peas over the rice and chicken and let stand in the covered pot.

see?! looks much better!

If you can find it, discard bay leaf and enjoy.  If you like some spice, you can add some Cholula too!

Have you ever tried 'testing' yourself by doing something really hard?  How long did you last?  Do you think I can make it?

{ cindie }

btw...the picture of the finished plated dish is Hubster's.  Mine was just way too sad to take a picture of.

truth in advertising?

This morning, while in the shower, I realized I ran out of my shampoo.  Crap. 

So resourceful me decided to use Hubster's.  For reference, he uses this

via

and from the commercials...I thought all day that if I got too close to other females maybe this would happen...

original image from here, edited by moi

but it didn't.  I suppose I have proved Axe's advertisements wrong.  And I'm pretty glad about that.  I really don't want other women to try to nibble at Hubster's face. 

Ladies, I hope I've put your minds at ease about your men and these products.  You can thank me later.  Guys...sorry, you'll just have to rely on your bright and shiny personality.

I'm still not quite sure what I would have done had the advertisements been true....

{ cindie }

stinky butt pup...don't get her mad

Meet the many faces and names of Latte

a/k/a Bad Puppy

I remember when I was just a young pup in old Russia

a/k/a Monster

and...Stinky Butt Pup

What a sweetie she looks like, right?

Rrrrriiiigggghhhhtttt

Stinky up there has a tendency to get a little vindictive at times.  See...I'm convinced that she can tell time.  Like read clocks (if I could prove that I'd be a millionaire).  She knows that Mommy usually comes home anywhere from between 6-7 pm.  If Mommy is not home by 7pm at the latest...

yup...it's poop

...there's a present waiting for her.  Now you're probably thinking...aww...well she's been holding it for about 5 hours, of course she has to go!

Yah...not so much...because (and here's where the vindictive part comes) when I am home on time and we go out for a walk....

She doesn't poop!

 Never...never ever...never ever ever

In fact, her last poop of the day is when Daddy walks her before leaving for work.  Unless Mommy is late that is.  So suffice it to say, she has successfully taught Mommy...come home on time, or clean up my poop...Biatch!

Honestly...what can I say? My dog is brilliant...and as proof (and because she's too damn cute)

just getting some work done on Mommy's computer

{ cindie }

if I could eat anything..

with no consequence whatsoever it would be some variations of french fries every day

with cheese!

or crab fries!

or garlic fries!

I could go on, but I think you get the point...and I'm torturing myself looking up images of fries.  

It then got me to thinking about that show 'America's Next Great Restaurant'.  I know what my proposal would be.

Disclaimer: Let it be known that today is April 5th, 2011 and I'm (possibly idiotically) sharing my idea with you before I know that such an establishment exists.  If in a couple of months something like my idea pops up and makes you a millionaire...I reserve the right to do you bodily harm.  Or, if you have the money to invest in my idea, let's chat! :)

My next great restaurant idea would be a place that serves burgers and sammies...but that's main feature is french fries of any variation and combination you wish! Think instead of an ice cream shop, a fry shop!  (Yes, I would include those impersonating sweet 'potatoes' as a french fry option).  

You want waffle fries with melty cheese and a dash of paprika? You got it!  

Or garlic shoe string potato fries with a chipotle dipping sauce?  Coming right up!  

Or for the more discerning taste buds, maybe some creamy yukon gold natural cut fries infused with truffle oil topped with fresh parmesan shavings and finely chopped chives......OMG I totally need to get moving on this idea!

Ok, so maybe it's not the healthiest food option out there...but let's be honest...you know you want it!

What do you think of my idea?  Would you visit my restaurant?  And how much do you want some fries right now?

{ cindie }

it's april...you fools

yes, yes it's April Fools day

and yes, it's snowing here in the Northeast...which means my Facebook feed is full of statuses like

'Mother Nature sure played an April Fool's prank on us!'

or

'Looks like Pucsatawny Phil got us good'

Then I thought...hmmm what would be a good April Fools prank for me to pull?

What if I googled 'Ultrasound pictures' and changed my profile pic to one?  Brilliant, no?!

!!

Umm...no.  I'd have to think about the repercussions:

1. I'm already on serious babywatch...I mean seriously...I can't even say the words 'nausea, maternity, or baby' without people's eyes traveling down to my stomach area.  You'd think I'm like the lead actress in Dogma who will be carrying the second coming of Jesus.  Yesterday I had a conversation with a friend about our European colleagues and how much vacation time they get...and I mentioned in France how much maternity leave they get.  My eavesdropping officemate then turns to me 10 minutes later and says 'So I guess a congratulations is in order?' and pats her stomach...really? I've developed a running list of words I cannot use in public
2. I have family members who are my FB friends who would probably then call my mom who doesn't understand the concept of April Fools pranks and who has been waiting for me to be pregnant since 2004.  I'd then have to spend the next few hours explaining that I'm not pregnant and that it wasn't funny and that I'm sorry for making her think I was.  I'd also then have to get pregnant in the next couple weeks to make it up to her.
3. Hubster would probably ask who's child it was
4. It would only seem funny to me...for like a minute

So Happy April Fools!  Oh and just to clarify...

I'm NOT pregnant! .....yet....

{ cindie }