Cooking Healthy When All You Want Is Bready Stuff!

I think it's in my genetic structure to want to eat anything doughy.  I'm Irish and German, so I think that means I am required to eat some kind of dumpling/potato/bread at least once a day.  They say " (wo)man cannot live on bread alone", but I sure have tried!  And don't even ask about beer.


Bud is always telling me we have to eat less, and eat healthier.  I agree wholeheartedly with this, but we all know getting started and keeping the engine moving along is tough.  Especially living in a place where fresh veggies and  fruit is thin on the ground and expensive during the winter months.  Bud would go out and grill, but I feel mean sending him out on the patio in freezing temps just to grill some chicken.  It feels wrong to spend the day thawing out chicken, just to have my boyfriend turn into a popsicle grilling it.  


In hoping for inspiration, I grabbed a few cooking magazines to look at over supper last night at work.  Big mistake.  I was inspired, heck yes.  Inspired to want to buy many many magazines and then not cook any of the recipes.  I know myself--and I can see all the magazines I've bought before stuffed in my cooking bookcase.  But I did cave and buy the Everyday Food edition for January/February.  It was the avocado section that did it.  I am delirious in my love of avocados, but all last year they were so expensive I had to do without.  Now--hold the phone--they were 8 for $10 at my local grocery store.  They haven't been that cheap for over a year.  They aren't ripe yet, so I can let them sit on the counter and plan how I'm going to use them.  Everyday Food has a recipe for avocado and white bean dip that has my name on it.  Yep.  I can predict I will eat it all in one day.  I'll try not to use bread as a dipping paddle.


But I did find a shrimp recipe that is pretty simple, so that's what Bud and I will have tonight:  shrimp with snow peas and brown rice. No potato around!  And I think that I may have to buy a new crock pot.  The one I have I bought at the age of 18, getting ready for moving into my own apartment.  It is older than many of my nieces and nephews, and only has "low" or "high" controls.  I need one that I can set to turn on at a given time.  Bud will be happy my meat concoctions haven't been cooking for hours and hours, and I will feel like a new woman with a crockpot for the 21st century.


How are you eating healthy?  This questions comes from the woman who just ate three slices of cranberry bread for breakfast.  See, I told you bread is never far away...