As we’re on the verge of hurricane Irene. So I figured why bother planting anything if we’re going to lose power.

But, you can take it to the bank that once power is restored (if it is lost) that I will be posting the planting festivities, and weekly updates on the garden progress.

I have a couple of seed kits raring to go, there is sweet bell peppers, and salad greens. I also bought a grow anything kit. This will allow me to do just that grow anything, well anything except things that grow under ground like carrots or beets. The difference with the grow anything kit also is they don’t guarantee success. Whereas the bell peppers and salad kit they do.

Anyhow I wish this damn hurricane would hurry up and get the hell out of here as it is holding up progress, and I feel like a child who has been punished and told he could play with his new toy.

Well here is an amazing toy I found, that I will be purchasing as soon as I get back from vacation. It’s called AeroGarden.

It uses NASA Aeroponic technology to grow veggies and herbs indoors. Without soil no doubt. I won’t bore you too much with technical mumbo jumbo. But basically the roots sit in a pool of nutrients filled water instead of soil.

Basically since going vegetarian, and living in a place that doesn’t allow for a garden I figured this would be the next best thing. Sure it is a little pricey, but I figure it is a small minor investment into the savings I would gain over buying produce in the grocery store. Which I might add, is really sucking these days. The only place around my woods that sells good produce is Whole Foods.

Which is a bit pricey, but well worth the added expense. However, this would be well worth it in the long run as well. All the reviews and videos on YouTube show amazing results and amazing praises. So why not right?

Ewww, that’s gross!!!

Some times some of the worst looking stuff tastes amazingly good. I mean how can we honestly say something is gross if we never even attempt to try it?

Anyhow where was I going with this post? Oh yeah, the other day I found a blog post for a quick and easy snack titled “Quick Snack – Chili Apple Slices“. Of course the first words out of my wife’s mouth when I mentioned it was.

Ewww, that’s gross!!

Anyhow, despite her immediate dismissal of such a thing. I thought I’d give it a shot. So I sliced up some granny smith apples. Then I squirted some fresh lemon juice on top of the slices, and sprinkled some chili powder I happened to have on hand from the other night when I made homemade veggie chili.

Well lo and behold, I was pleasantly surprised that it was a very tasty snack.

I would like to thank Gretchen for posting this nice easy quick snack on her blog…

One of them is cooking at home. I always enjoyed cooking, but up until now I never did it that much. Why? Well, the answer is simple, if it took longer than five minutes to cook than it just didn’t happen. I was lazy to put it bluntly. It sure is a lot easier to just hop in the car and go to the closest favorite restaurant than it is to cook yourself.

Anyhow I won’t lecture you on that subject as that isn’t the purpose of this post. What is however, is to share without one of my favorite things to cook. Brocoli, Mushrooms and Snow pea Stir Fry over brown rice.

Now some of you may ask isn’t “Frying” unhealthy? Well, yes if you use oils I don’t I do what they call water saute or frying. I just use a touch of water to steam the veggies in my wok. Anyhow here is the recipe I do.

1/2 Cup Sliced Mushrooms
1/2 Cup of chopped brocoli flowerets
1 Small handful of snow peas
1/2 teaspoon teriyaki sauce (kikkoman’s low sodium)
1 Cup Brown Rice (Uncle Ben’s or whatever brand you like)

In a sauce pan cook the rice according to the instructions listed on the box of the brand you like, I use Uncle Ben’s. Once cooked put the rice aside, and combine the brocoli mushrooms and snowpeas in a wok or skillet on medium high heat. I use a T-Fal wok (best cooking pan I ever had barely any effort to clean).  Add about 1/3 cup of water to the wok with the veggies and let steam until the tenderness is to your liking. Stirring occasionally. Once cooked add the teriyaki sauce, mixing the veggies and sauce until the sauce is incorporated. Now, put the rice on a plate spreading the rice so it covers the plate making a bed of rice for your veggies. Then put the stir fried veggies over on top of the rice.

Bonappetit

Although, this doesn’t mean I don’t think there shouldn’t be something done. Perhaps a law or two preventing restaurants from giving their patrons excessively large portions of food. Last night we went to Ninety-Nine and I decided to have the pasta with chicken and brocoli (didn’t eat the chicken). Anyhow, the portion they give you is enough for three people at least.

Now, I am one for getting the most for the buck however, that is just totally mind-blowing. Especially when I think back how I use to polish the whole thing off without even thinking that I ate enough for three people.

When you look at the menu of any restaurant whether it be Ninety-Nine or Friendly’s or whatever your local favorite place maybe. I am sure they have plenty of dishes on that menu that could easily be enough for two or more people. It’s insane, because my generation has been brought up to eat everything on our plate or we can’t have desert, that there is starving people in this world we need to finish our plate.

However, certainly one could argue that it shouldn’t be up to the law makers or the restaurants. That we should learn how to control ourselves and know when we are full, and take home left overs if we are concerned with wasting food or money. But, I beg to differ. People have no self-control; especially when we were brought to finish what is on our plate.

Then we wonder why we’re a hundred pounds overweight. Well it’s our upbringing and the restaurants that are doing it to us.

Oh, sorry I was talking to my scale. It is continuing to behave itself like a nice wonderful scale that it is. Just reached the almost 357 mark (another 0.2).  At this point I am loosing about 6 pounds per week. That’s about where I want to be.

I just got to keep asking myself those questions over and over again.

Can I honestly say I am happy with being fat?

Can I honestly say I am happy with feeling like crap everyday?

Then I will continue at this pace. This weekend we didn’t do the gym at all, but I don’t feel guilty about it because we used the Kinect and I was playing the “Biggest Looser, Ultimate Workout” which is certainly harder than the workout I was doing at the gym.

So that’s right scale you keep going down.

Here I am thinking, that we are really doing a good work out. But, today I played with one of the games we purchased for our Xbox Kinect, called the “Biggest Looser Ultimate Workout.” All I can say is damn. I didn’t even do ten minutes before I was ready to drop right there on the floor.

I had it on the easy setting too, as I knew there would be no possible way I could do anything but. Let me tell you something, if this was the easy setting I hate to see the next setting up. Of course I am severely out of shape, but still it is an amazingly difficult workout for someone who is out of shape.

Never the less I recommend it if you really want to workout when you can’t make it or just choose not to go to the gym.

However, recently our daughter’s doctor suggested if we had a Wii Fit or XBox Kinect it would be a good thing for our daughter as she is fourty pounds overweight.

So the first thing we did was checked with the local Planet Fitness that we belong, to see if they would allow her to go there with us. However, as it turns out they have a minimum age restriction of thirteen. So we figured might as well see about getting a Kinect. We ran out to our local GameStop (I love that store), and purchased one.

Got it home and hooked it up in our living room as you need plenty of space. Little did we know we would have a blast with the thing. We ended up messing with it all afternoon and then got so sweaty and tired that we didn’t go to the gym like we were going to; for our daily workout. Basically, we got our workout right at home and had a blast at the same time.

I highly recommend it if you have a XBox 360 (One of the newer ones which has the connection slot for it). It’s like having a personal gym right in your living room. We’ll be using it on days that we just don’t feel like going all the way to the gym.

Sure I could have just had a salad but, I wasn’t feeling myself today and let the carnivore out of it’s bottle for a breath of fresh air. Of course now I am regretting it my stomach isn’t too happy with me at the moment. I guess next time I will just stick to my guns and keep the cork on the bottle and the carnivore can lump it with salad.