Don't Eat Before Bed

A little while into my reading I decided to go European style and have my dessert first. I also figured this would be better for digestion to avoid having a sweet thing in my stomach last before going to sleep. This Plum Cobbler was so good I think I won't be able to make it unless for special occasions. It was that good! It just went to fast and I will have to reserve it as a treat from now on. Tough!

Dinner

About 50 pages down in my reading of Dracula I decided to make a quick dinner. I wasn't super hungry but I would rather eat a little something at 8:30 than wait and be ravenous before bedtime. Going to sleep directly after eating is terrible! Doing it once a week isn't the worst thing in the world, luckily our bodies have a Plan B. But habitually eating directly before going to sleep can lead to:

• constipation
• absorption problems
• heartburn
• damage to the immune system
• weight gain
• tiredness

Uh...no thank you! When you sleep, so do most of your bodily systems, including digestion. There is one, however that is more active when you are sleeping than when you are awake. Can you guess??

The immune system! When you go to sleep with a bunch of food in your stomach your body is forced to spend energy moving food out of the stomach and into the small intestines (where it will sit and wait until you wake up...a whole other set of issues). It spends energy that would otherwise have been used towards the immune system which fights off infection and heals existing offenses. Are you starting to see why making this a habit is a bad idea? I try to put at least three hours in between my last bite and my in-the-bed-about-to-go-to-sleep time. (I can't just say bed time!)

Anyways for dinner I had a mixed baby green salad with my homemade lemon vinaigrette dressing and an improvised potato hash. For the hash I used

• 1 small red potato, grated
• 3/4 of a 1/2 of a large white onion, grated
• salt, pepper, garlic powder, chicken (free) seasoning.
• drizzle olive oil

I mixed everything together in a small bowl and poured onto a hot pan at medium heat. I cooked them like hasbrowns, giving them time to brown throughly.

Well I still have quite a ways to go in Dracula but I must say I actually enjoy the classic. It's written completely in journal form and is supposed to be a compilation of journal entries from all the main characters. For instance, I'll read the retrospective account of the same day from three different characters' journals to get a complete, and yet still somehow lacking, picture of what is going on. It is making me really want to start keeping an accurate journal, you know, just in case I become vampirized anytime soon! At least I have this blog where I record a lot of the little details of daily life that would otherwise be totally left behind. Oh, bloggy!

Anyway, enough of that, back to reading. Good night and I wish you all a restful sleep. We could all use one!

Plum Cobbler!

Bloggies, I fell behind yesterday and didn't get a chance to blog at all. I was working and reading non-stop! Here's the recap:

Breakfast

I started my morning with a mug of Honey Lemon Ginsing Green Tea. This tea is really flavorful and, not that I usually do anyway, but doesn't need any sweetening.

I cut up and gobbled this grapefruit. When grapefruits are good, they are so good! This one was particularly juicy and sweet.
30 minutes or more later I made a quick bowl of Coach's Oats, steel cut oats that cook faster than regular. I sweetened with a little honey just for something different.

Lunch

After class I came home and decided to have some of these lovely looking cherries.
Cherries make reading sweeter.
30 minutes later I had an 'appetizer' of Food Should Taste Good multigrain and sweet potato chips with some garlic lover's salsa. yum!
I reheated a bowl of vegan chili and enjoyed a hot lunch.

Snack

I headed back to campus for my two other classes and instead of going home again afterwards decided to stay on campus, getting a little reading done, and get a Jamba Juice with the gift card my mom gave me! I went for peach perfection and took it down to the pond.



Purple!


I also had a few almonds and pecans I had hiding in my purse.

After work I decided that my plums were either going to go bad in the fridge or I would make the Plum Cobbler I had been so dying to make from FatFree Vegan Kitchen. Also my brother Eric was going to come over and hang out for a while and I thought he might like a break from dorm food!
I sweetened the tops of the plums with a drizzle of agave because I was worried they weren't all the sweetest plums...
Wets and dries.
True to cobbler nature, dough went on top of the fruit.
Popped it in the oven for 45 minutes and voila!
I'd never made this before so I had no idea what to expect!

Dinner

For dinner I started with a mixed salad of baby greens, tomato, cucumber, avocado, sunflower seeds, and a homemade lemon vinaigrette dressing.
I love when salads taste like food, not just plants!
For my entree I went for quick and easy: sauteed onions and a grilled piece of salt and pepper seasoned tofu. Doused in garlic chili Cholula and the meal was complete.
Dessert

Eric and I sampled the cobbler and agreed it was pretty good. If you can imagine a spectrum from pie to cake with cobbler in the middle, this definitely rates closer to the cake side of things. I would even describe it as something of an upside-down cake. With a little almond milk on the side it was totally satisfying!
We'll be in the present all caught up soon!!