(You guys serious have no idea how much I have laughed at this crappy photochop over the last week.  Just expect morbidly obese Matt to start making more appearances on this blog.)

I could go on to tie in some big emotional sob story about how miserable it is eating alone and living alone and onmygosh when am I ever going to find anyone who loves me and will help me do the dishes I’m going to die from loneliness.  And on a normal day, that’s probably what I would do on a blog post.  But I’m just not in the mood.  Nevertheless, I’ve got a problem. I literally just fried a bag of sweet potato fries and put them on a plate with ketchup for dinner. 

Let me reiterate: I JUST ATE NOTHING BUT AN ENTIRE PLATE OF SWEET POTATO FRIES FOR DINNER. And yes, while sweet potatoes are technically a vegetable, and according to the people who set the rules for school lunches, so is ketchup, it just feels wrong. And, at the same time, so very right.

I still have some chicken enchiladas leftovers in the fridge.  I’ve already had them for four meals, and even though I still have half of a pan left, if I have to eat one bite more, I am fairly certain I will projectile vomit across the living room floor.  And much like my dog, I’m fairly certain that, rather than puking on the laminate floor, I’ll probably end up puking on the carpet too.

And it’s even worse that we’re in the middle of winter.  I try to eat seasonally, and as far as I’m concerned, the only vegetable in season in the winter is Rocky Road Ice Cream.  (What? Marshmallows used to be made from a plant called the Marsh Mallow.  It counts as a vegetable.  Shut up.)  I event tried going to Pinterest for ideas, but apparently, its users only ever pin baked goods, the Pioneer Woman’s Creamy Chicken Piccata recipe, and cute pancake ideas for Saturday breakfast.  (Oh, and don’t even get me started on Saturday breakfast.  The chances of me getting up and cooking a giant breakfast for myself on Saturday morning are about the same as winning the jackpot in the state lottery.  Sure, I’ll get up early, spend two hours working on a giant breakfast, and then have to spend most of the rest of the day cleaning up the mess from the breakfast that, by the time I finished making, it was nearly lunch. Great way to start off my weekend.)

So I need help. I know that there are a lot of you domestic stay-at-home mom types who read this blog. Even those of you who work often cook for families, so you have to at least pretend to make healthy food to avoid the guilt of having Shamu-sized children.  I need dinner ideas.  These dinners should be:

• Heavy on the veggies—particularly ones that I can get this time of year (e.g., no tomatoes unless in a can)
• Re-heatable
• Fairly easy/quick
• A little different than usual. I don’t think I could force one more spinach salad down my gullet.

I’m in serious trouble.  I looked over my planned menu for the next two weeks and realized that two of the three big dishes I’m going to make (I usually cook a big dinner one night and then eat it for the next four) are super-complicated and messy, and I just can’t do it.  I mean, seriously?  Who thinks, “Hm. I really like Indian Food.  I’ve never made them before, but I like it.  I think tonight, after 10 hours of work, I’m going to go through the four-hour process of making Samosas, including making the dough from scratch.  And then I’ll eat them for both lunch and dinner for the next seven days.  Because I’m sure I won’t get tired of eating spicy Indian food for 10 of my next 15 meals.”  I must have been out of my mind.  (Thanks again, Pinterest.)

Meal ideas.  Please!!!

Big mistake.

After we had been there about two hours, Luke threw up twice.  Major projectile vomiting.  After I ran out of bags to pick up the contents of his stomach, I decided to throw him in the car and go home.  Now, when you have a dog, it’s generally not a huge deal when the dog throws up.  It happens.  I just figured that he swallowed a lot of lake water, and that was that.  Well that, as they say, was not that. 

From that moment on, Luke was unable to keep down any food for longer than about 30 minutes.  So, the rest of the night on Friday, and almost all day Saturday, Luke would eat something, then throw up.  Then he started getting really, really lethargic.  This, if you know Luke, is a cause for concern, since he’s usually pretty wound up.  I started getting worried.  By 3PM on Saturday, when Luke had thrown up for his sixth or seventh time in 24 hours, I called the vet and rushed him in.

Two x-rays, an injection, a bottle of pills, and $250 later, I discovered that Luke probably just had some irritation in his upper GI tract, and there wasn’t a blockage or anything serious.  I’m glad it wasn’t more serious, but I wish I didn’t have to spend $250 to find that out.  I don’t really have that extra money right now.  So, from Friday afternoon through Sunday morning, I was stuck at home making sure the puppy was okay.  (Good news: he’s back to eating normally now.)

Sunday morning, I went out to the garden to do a bit of puttering, and discovered that I was at last able to harvest tomatoes!  Below is my first tomato harvest of the season.

Most of these were picked a bit before total ripeness, because I want the plants’ nutrients to go toward ripening the rest of the fruit.  Plus, with heirloom tomatoes, you have to get them a bit early or they’ll turn to mush on the vine.  I like my tomatoes with a bit more body to them.  But aren’t heirloom tomatoes so pretty?

I also had to determine what to do with the seal-sized zucchini I had picked in my garden, so I spent most of the afternoon baking and/or cooking.  First up, I made Zucchini bread and muffins, and put in either raspberries, blackberries, or blueberries.  I ended up with four loaves of bread and two dozen muffins from a single zucchini…and still have four cups of shredded zucchini in my freezer for future baking projects.

By the way, if you’re a maker of Zucchini bread, I can’t recommend the use of fresh berries highly enough.  My personal favorite is the blueberry zucchini bread/muffins, but both raspberry and blackberry are also quite good.  And I bet cranberry would be amazing.

Then, I also invented a new recipe for stuffed zucchini. 

• In a skillet, brown 1 pound of hamburger. Remove the hamburger and discard the grease.
• In the same skillet, brown 1 pound of sweet or hot Italian sausage.  (I used sweet…I will probably use hot next time)  Remove the browned sausage, but leave the pork fat in the skillet.
• Add the following into the skillet and sprinkle with a little salt and pepper
• 1/2 Yellow Onion, Diced
• 1/2 Green Pepper, Diced
• 1-2 Medium Tomatoes, Diced
• Large handful of fresh parsley, Chopped
• Large handful of fresh basil, Chopped
• 1-2 T of fresh Oregano, Chopped
• 1/2 t. of crushed red pepper flakes
• Add the browned meats back in.  Season to taste.

While that’s cooking, split your zucchini lengthwise and scoop out the seeds.  This is a good time to use zucchini that have gotten a little too large.  Once that’s done, submerge the zucchini in boiling water for just a minute or two to get the cooking started.  Remove from the water, pat dry, and put on a baking sheet.  Spoon the meat mixture into the hollowed-out zucchini halves.

Then cover with mozzarella and a good parmesan.

Bake in the oven at 350 degrees for 30-35 minutes or until the cheese is brown and the zucchini is just starting to soften.  (You don’t want it too soft, or it’ll get mushy).

This was quite good.  I think next time I make it, I may toss the meat mixture with some Italian bread crumbs and a small amount of a pre-made marinara sauce or perhaps a nice basil pesto before putting it on the zucchini.

And now, it’s 150 degrees in my apartment, I have four loads of dishes that have to be done, and I’ve eaten enough zucchini in the last 8 hours to feed a small third world country. 

Luke even had a bit of zucchini.  And fortunately, he didn’t throw it up!

Most of Idaho, especially the part through which I-84 slices, is pretty darn ugly.  (Apologies to family who lives there…my heart goes out to you.)  I did however, find a slightly less ugly view at, of all places, a freeway rest stop.

See that’s not quite so bad.  Of course, you can put a river almost anywhere and it will improve the scenery drastically.  Idaho in the winter is the worst, though.  It’s like driving through Hoth.

Only without the mechanized shooty things.  (I have only seen Star Wars once, and I didn’t like it that much, so I’m not that well-versed on the correct terminology.)

In any case, this trip was nice and uneventful.  Sunday, my sister, her husband, and my adorable niece, Aubrey, came up to my parents’ house for a visit and a huge, early Labor day barbeque.  We sat around on the patio in the back and played with Stella the dog while Aubrey the niece played in the kiddie pool.

Seriously.  Isn’t she about the cutest thing ever?  Those eyes should be illegal.

Monday—Labor Day—was spent on my Uncle and Aunt’s boat up at Pine View Reservoir.

It wasn’t as sunny as we would have liked, but what can you do.  In fact, aside from Sunday, it was cloudy and overcast pretty much the whole time I was down in Utah.  It’s like mother nature decided to deprive me of any nice weather all year long this year, like she’s punishing me or something.  She’s such a vicious trollop.  I mean, I drive a fuel-efficient car.  I recycle.  I don’t clear-cut Brazillian rain forests.  She could ease up on me a little.

You know what, just for that, I’m going to go buy the biggest Hummer I can find.  If you want global warming, I’ll give you global warming.  Bring it on, Mother Nature.  I will take you down.

Anyway, Tuesday, I made peach jam with the peaches from the tree in my parents’ back yard.  The tree is only two years old, so they had to trim off most of the fruit this year (about 95%) to keep the tree from getting over-burdened before it’s strong enough.  Even still, they had about five dozen peaches that all got ripe at about the same time…which just happened to correspond with my arrival in Utah.  So I made peach jam with a few of the peaches, and it’s chillin’ in my freezer.  Note to self: make waffles soon.

One of the other main reasons that I decided to go down to Utah for my vacation time was to see my friend Nicole perform in a musical called “Drowsy Chaperone.”  Nicole is a classmate of mine from the MDT program at BYU, and is one of the most ludicrously talented people I know.  She was also my partner in Choreographic Styles when we sort of killed it.  It was also directed by my not-so-secret artistic crush, Dave Tinney.  My sis was able to come along, so I drove down to Daybreak to pick her up and take some more pictures of my stinkin’ cute niece:

Then sis and I drove down to Orem, were disappointed to discover that Lon’s BBQ had gone out of business, went to Burger Supreme for old times’ sake (at which I was disappointed to discover it wasn’t as good as I remember it being…especially the onion rings.  Blargh), and ended up at the Hale Center Theater in Orem.  The show was great, it was great to see several of my old theater friends and one of my former students (who is teaching himself now too!) and spend some time with my sister.

Wednesday, I got myself some Utah Scones at the Star Café in Clearfield, did laundry, shopped for some snacks for the road trip, and made a nummy dinner with the tomatoes and zucchini from my parents’ garden.  And through it all, we played a lot of games on the Kinect.  Tell you what…if my mom could spend a bit of time getting used to playing Dance Central, she could be a major threat.

So, it was a nice trip.  It was great to see everyone, but it was also nice to get back into town and get back to my dog.  He stayed with a co-worker of mine for the week I was gone, and quite frankly, he doesn’t seem all that thrilled to have me back.  He’s been pouting and disobedient ever since I got back.  I just think he got used to having another dog in the house since my co-worker has a very sweet Sheltie named Charlie.  I think Luke wants a brother.

And, to top it all off, I found four zucchini like this when I got back:

I was only gone for six days, and when I left, I didn’t have a single Zucchini on either of my plants.  In six days, I had four of these get pollinated and grow to roughly the size of a Northern Pike.  I also got a dozen ears of corn, a dozen carrots, a couple of bags of radishes, and two gallons of lettuce.  And my tomatoes STILL aren’t ripe.  Well, at least we’ll have another week of sunny, warm weather.  But this is getting ridiculous.

And, fortunately, I’ve got two more full days of weekend before I have to go back to work on Monday. I do love vacations.

At the same time as I was going through all of that, I decided that it was time to change up my life by increasing my exercise workload.  So, I started getting up early in the morning before work to go to the gym and swim a mile or so.  On one hand, I felt pretty darn proud of myself for actually managing to discipline myself enough to get up an hour early and go to the pool for 45-50 minutes before work.  On the other hand, I spent the whole week feeling like I had been used as a punching bag for the Russian Olympic Boxing Team.  Come about 2PM or so, I could barely sit up straight in my chair, let alone actually concentrate on my work.

Here is, I think, the problem: My endorphin maker is broken.  Let me give you an example from an article by K. Cossaboon called Exercise and the “Endorphin Rush”.

We’ve known for a long time about the benefits of exercise as a way to enhance our physical condition and combat disease; but it hasn’t been until more recently that exercise is being recognized as an element in maintaining mental fitness. Studies have shown that exercise releases endorphins in the brain, which in turn cause us to have what is commonly know as a "natural high" or a "runners high". You may not realize what caused it, but most of us have felt it. Whether we’re engaged in a leisurely swim or an adrenaline-charged rock climb, there is that moment when suddenly pain or discomfort drops away and we are filled with a sense of euphoria. We have endorphins to thank for these moments of bliss.

This. Doesn’t. Happen. 

Seriously.  I never, ever, ever feel better either while or after I exercise.  I only feel better three days later when I step on the scale and see that I’ve lost weight.  But the act of exercising has never once given me an endorphin rush.  I just hurt, my brain gets fuzzy, and I get really lethargic.  And don’t bother telling me that I just have to keep at it and eventually I’ll get there.  I spent about two years straight playing the gym rat.  I was in great shape, dancing every day, lifting weights for 1-2 hours a day, five days a week.  I know from exercise.  And I also know that, no matter how many times I do it, I never get the endorphin rush.

Ergo, there are only two options remaining.  Either my body is immune to its own endorphins, or my endorphin maker is broken.  (I see from my old friend Wikipedia that endorphins are manufactured by the pituitary gland and the hypothalmus.  ‘Cuz Knowledge is Power!")

In any case, despite my broken hypothalmus, I have continued to exercise and, perhaps also importantly, eat better.  In the process of doing this I learned something interesting. 

So, as you can see, the real trick to weight loss is to trick your body into thinking that you’re exercising and eating right, then slapping it across the face with McDonalds.  I think I can do this weight loss thing.

No, but seriously, I have lost about six pounds since I started just over a week ago.  It won’t win me anything on The Biggest Loser, but it’s a good start.  And, on that note, I’m going to close down this very cheery and chipper blog post, because I have to go to bed so I can get up at the butt crack of dawn tomorrow to swim before work.  I’ll probably gain half a pound.

I know that there are many people in this world who don’t like vegetables.  For some reason, most of those people are men.  I just don’t understand that, quite frankly.  From the time I was about three or four years old, we had gardens growing up in Utah.  Mom would send us out to the garden in the back yard to pick some green beans or corn.  We used to go sneak raw beans out of the garden all the time when we were playing. (We thought we were being SO sneaky, too.  My guess: mom and dad always knew, but weren’t about to stop us from eating vegetables on purpose.

The real problem, I believe, stems from canned vegetables.  Canned veggies are nasty.  All the way around disgusting.  I remember long, long nights being forced to sit at the table with mushy carrots or grey peas that had come from a can on my plate, sobbing and trying to gag enough down that mom and dad would let me leave the table.  I think that may be why a lot of people hate vegetables.  Because those nasty canned things barely count.

With my super-fun gardening adventure this summer (those are words that shouldn’t ever go together in a sentence), I’ve been eating WAY more vegetables than I have in years and years.  Because I have them around.  And I went to so much work to grow them that I don’t want them to go bad before I get to eat them.  And it’s great.  You forget how good green beans are when they’re fresh from the garden.  (The purple beans above turn green when you cook them, so even thought they are a gorgeous shade of purple, I still call them green beans.)  Snow peas that don’t come in a pre-sealed bag from the grocery story have an amazing flavor.  And I’m still completely in awe over the fact that lettuce actually has a flavor at all.  It’s not just crunchy water!

We eat miserably in this country.  I count myself in that number.  But the easiest way to get people back to eating healthily is to have them start growing their own food again.  I realize this won’t happen for most people, but I would like to use this blog platform to encourage people to grow what food they can.  It’s so much easier to eat healthy foods when you can pick them right off the vine as you need them. 

Shoot even Luke the Dog eats more healthily when the food comes from the garden. 

Seriously, he would have devoured everything on this plate if I would have allowed him to do so. I have never met a dog that loves veggies as much as this one does. It’ probably because he never had to eat that grossest of all foodstuffs masquerading as vegetables: canned peas.  Parents, for the love of all that’s good and holy, don’t ruin your children’s opinion of vegetables by feeding them veggies from a can.  It’s just cruel and unusual.

#FirstWorldProblems

So, living in apartment has always been difficult for me around this time of year.  I’ve always wanted to plant a huge garden.  I’ve had container gardens every year since I moved into this apartment complex, but the big issue there is that I get so little sun on my patio, what with it being covered and behind a large tree.

This year, however, I’ve decided it’s time to go big.  And go big I shall.

In Redmond, there is a massive park called Marymoor Park, which has among other things, a large community garden.  (It’s also the park that contains the 90-acre off-leash dog park with swimming holes).  I have opted to rent one of the plots in the community garden this year.  For $65 a YEAR, I get a 10’X40’ plot of land, with access to city-provided water and lots and lots of sunlight.  (No trees!)

The theme for this year’s garden (and pretty much all of my big gardens) is Growing Things You Can’t Easily Find at the Grocery Store, and with only a few minor items (Corn, Zucchini) I have managed to procure a quite astonishing selection of produce for this year’s project.  Most of my plants are heirloom varieties that aren’t commercially available, and those few that aren’t heirloom varieties are unusual enough in their own right.

Here’s the crop selection for this year:

	Peaches and Cream Sweet Corn
	Italian Striped Zucchini
	Stars and Moon Watermelon
	Spaghetti Squash
	French Breakfast Radish
	Horto Semi-Bush Beans
	Purple Vienna Kohlrabi
	Royal Burgundy Bush Bean
	Cherokee Purple Tomato
	Dr Wychee’s Yellow Tomato
	Striped German Tomato
	Brandywine Tomato
	Black Prince Tomato
	Roma Tomato
	Orange Bell Pepper
	Golden California Wonder Bell Pepper
	Jalapeno Golaith
	Anaheim Pepper
	Ancho Tiburon Pepper
	Rosa Bianca Eggplant
	Snowy Eggplant
	Imperial Black Beauty Eggplant
	Genovese Basil
	Sugar Sprint Peas

I have to say, the world of the Garden Center has changed a whole bunch over the last couple of years.  It used to be that when you went to your local big box store garden center, you could only get two or three varieties of tomatoes or peppers.  Now there are dozens.  I got every single thing on this list at my local Fred Meyer, and all of the tomatoes, eggplants, peppers, beans, and melons are heirloom varieties.  It’s quite impressive.

Now, I know what you’re thinking: Yes, this is a LOT of stuff to fit into a 400 sq. ft. garden.  Yes, this is a LOT of produce for a single person.  You are correct.  However, since I have a full 400 sq ft, I have every intention of using it to its fullest.  I will give away produce to friends who would like it, and if I have any excess, the community gardens have a plan by which I can donate my extra produce to the Hopelink Food Bank.

So, I am SUPER excited about the garden this year.  I won’t be spending as much time (or money) at the Farmer’s market, and will be spending more time, and hopefully less money, at the farm.

Let me be crystal clear: I know I do not eat as healthily as I should.  I eat processed foods.  I love sugar.  I eat fast food, and sometimes I love it.  I know that the way I eat isn't particularly healthy. I need to improve my diet significantly.  I need to eat fewer calories.  My eating habits are directly responsible for my weight gain over the last several years.  And that IS unhealthy.  I also do not believe that we should be raping the land and drowning our food with antibiotics and pesticides unnecessarily.  But I simply can not support so many aspects of the crusades being launched on the food system.

Nearly every one of these crusaders (who I believe are less interested in better health or saving the environment than they are in sapping all of the enjoyment out of life) proclaim that, "we have lost our way.  We should return to the ways of our ancestors, who truly understood our relationship with the earth, with mother nature, and between the food that we eat and our bodies."  Many of these zealots are the same ones who believe that modern medicine is broken, and if we only ate the way people used to eat–with natural, organic foods that are locally grown and harvested by communes of love children who hold hands and sing to the plants while harvesting–then we wouldn't need modern medicine to the same extent we do now.

Well, you know what?  I don't buy it.  You know why I don't buy it?

Now, I don't know about you, but I would really rather not go back to the good old days of eating only what's grown locally and organically if it means that I also have to go back to an average life span of 30-40 years.  How many people do you know who have died of natural causes between the ages of 30 and 40?  Our average life span has INCREASED by 40 years over just the last century.  We can't have lost our way all that badly if we're living an average of 30-40 years longer than we used to. Now, I know that there are many, many factors that go into these numbers.  Children died young, or women died in child birth.  Treatments for major diseases weren't as readily available.  But I am 100% certain nutrition played a significant part in those numbers as well.  And, to be frank, I would also take pesticide laced, inexpensive food over slaving all day long over a farm, going hungry during the winter, and still dying 30 years earlier.

Even at an average of 70 years, life is short.  I'm not advocating that everyone start eating Hostess Fruit Pies for breakfast, McDonalds for lunch, and a steak for dinner.  We should be eating more vegetables, and we should be eating more locally grown vegetables.  There's a reason why I go to the farmer's market every Saturday for six months out of the year.  But you know what isn't going to happen?  I'm not going to start eating all of my food raw because it's more healthy.  I'm not going to start spending 300% more on my food every month just to say I can have something that's "organic," whatever the hell that means.  No, I'm going to eat what I can afford, and what tastes good.  If I can find healthy options within those two criteria, then great!  If not, then I don't need to buy organic.

And to those people who are worried about genetically modified food, perhaps you should go back to your high school biology classes.  Humans have been genetically modifying our food for GENERATIONS.  Hundreds, if not thousands, of years.  In fact, it was a certain monk in the 1800s with an affinity for pea plants who introduced the world to Genetics.  (P.S. He died at the age of 62.)

I love heirloom varieties of foods.  I purchase my tomato plants from Seedsavers.org.  I generally go for the heirloom varieties at the Farmer's Market. But I don't love them because they're not genetically modified (because, as I mentioned above, they are) but because they taste better.  THAT is what I care about.  Taste.  It's why I spend $13 on a wedge of Parmeseano-Reggiano from the specialty cheese shop instead of getting the green can of white powder.  It's why I spend the extra dollar for the locally made fresh mozzarella instead of the flavorless waxy block wrapped in plastic.  It's why I buy the more expensive heirloom tomatoes or apple varieties at the farmer's market.  I'm not making a stand against genetically modified food.  I'm making a stand for taste.

If you want to freak right the hell out over preservatives or antibiotics in your meat, go ahead.  But as for me and mine, we're going to celebrate flavor, no matter where it comes from.  And that will be the last time I watch such a ludicrously lop-sided and biased "documentary" about the food system ever again.

As I mentioned in an earlier blog post, I recently had a craving for Caramel Pecan sticky rolls, and went to Panera to get one.  But, since it was 8:00 at night, they were all out.  So I decided to visit the Safeway right next door and get the ingredients to make my own. 

They weren’t so good.  The flavor was fine, but the texture was way off.  Very heavy.  So, I decided, as I am wont to do, that it was now my personal mission to make the perfect Caramel Pecan sticky rolls.  I went through a total of three batches (most of which I gave away to the office staff at my apartment complex and my co-workers, I’ll have you know) until I got what I was looking for. 

I was so proud of my creations that I even had to go out and buy some white china plates that I could use to photography my sticky rolls because the green plates that I was using before just didn’t do them justice.  So now, here is the recipe for my Caramel Pecan Sticky Rolls.  Enjoy.

Ingredients

Roll:

• 3 1/2 – 4 C Flour
• 1/3 C Sugar
• 1 t Salt
• 5 t Active Dry Yeast
• 1/4 t Baking Soda
• 1 C Warm Milk (120-130 degrees)
• 1/3 C Softened Butter
• 1 Egg

Filling

• 1/4 C Sugar
• 1-2 t Cinnamon
• 2 T Softened Butter

Carmel Topping

• 1 C Packed Brown Sugar
• 1/2 C Butter
• 1/4 C Dark Corn Syrup
• 1 1/2 – 2 C Pecans

Instructions

1. Add 2 C flour, 1/3 C Sugar, salt, yeast, and baking soda to the bowl of your stand mixer.  Add in milk, 1/3 C butter, and egg.  Using the paddle attachment, mix just until smooth, but don’t overmix.  Add remaining flour (1 1/2 to 2 C) gradually into the mix until dough is easy to handle, but not too dry.

2. Turn the dough out on a floured surface and knead until smooth and elastic.  Add additional flour as necessary to keep the dough from sticking.  Place the dough in a greased bowl and cover with plastic wrap.  Allow to rise for 90 minutes, or until dough is doubled.*

*I found that the absolute best way to deal with fast-rising dough like this is to use steam.  I put the bowl, uncovered in the cold oven, and put the base of my electric steamer filled with water in the oven and well, and would turn it on for 10 minutes every half-hour.  You could accomplish the same thing by using a shallow pan on the bottom rack of your oven which you can fill with boiling water, then place the dough on top of the pan on the top rack.  Replace the water every 30 minutes or so.  This helps keep the dough hydrated and speeds up the rise, which will result in a lighter, more delicate roll.

3.  While the dough is rising, Mix Brown Sugar, Corn Syrup, and 1/2 C butter in a saucepan and bring to a boil.  Once thoroughly combined, pour into the bottom of an ungreased 9×13” pan.  I prefer glass in this case.  Sprinkle pecan halves over the caramel in a single layer.  Caramel should be pretty much covered by pecans. Set aside

4. Turn out the risen dough onto a floured surface and roll out to a rectangle shape approximately 10×15”.  Using your hands cover the dough with 2T of softened butter.  Then sprinkle on cinnamon and sugar.  Roll up along the long side of the dough to form a “snake” about 15” long.  Using a very sharp knife, but the snake into 12 pieces.  Place those pieces on top of the caramel pecan mixture, allowing a little bit of room for a second rise.

5. Allow the rolls to rise another 30-45 minutes.  (I use the steam trick again for the first 30 minutes, then pull out for 15 while the oven preheats.)  Preheat over to 350 degrees.  Bake for 25-27 minutes or until the “top” of the rolls are golden brown and the centers are done, but just barely.

6.  While still hot, run a knife around the outside edge of the pan to loosen any rolls that may have stuck to the edges of the pan.  Then, place a greased cookie sheet upside-down on top of the rolls, then flip the sheet and the 9X13 pan upside down. Make sure that the rolls have separated from the pan, and then let the pan sit for about a minutes for the caramel mixture to drizzle down over the rolls.  Remove the pan.

7. Gorge yourself silly.

No, the momentous occasion is not St. Paddy’s day. (Side note: It’s Paddy, not Patty.  Patty is a woman’s name.  Paddy is the Irish nickname for Patrick.) No, March 17, 2011 is the day on which I made the absolutely PERFECT caramel pecan sticky rolls completely from scratch.

And once again, I am reminded how desperately I need to buy some white plates on which to do my food photography.  These celery green plates make everything look orange.

The color of my plates not withstanding, these caramel pecan sticky rolls were/are beyond awesome.  And I still have 12 left.  Soon to be 11.  Or possibly 10.  Light, flaky, crusty with caramel in the corners, and then sprinkled ever-so-lightly with sea salt for that salted caramel awesomeness.

Yeah, I think I’m going to have to make these one more time just to be sure.  But only after I go to Kohl’s and buy some new white plates.  And a few pair of larger pants.

1) Lose 25 pounds.

I started the year (December 27th, technically) at a particularly lumpy 202.3 pounds.  I get out of breath walking up stairs.  My lower back always hurts.  My clothes don’t fit, and I (out of principle) refuse to buy bigger clothes.  I have CONSTANT heartburn.  I experience uncontrollable cravings for fried foods.  It’s gotten out of control.  So, I’m on a diet.  It’s a “eat homemade, healthy meals with moderate portion sizes and count your calories” diet.  I’m trying to subsist on about 2050 calories a day, although that number goes up if I exercise.  (That way, exercise can be used as a gating factor for a treat.  You want a banana split from dairy queen?  Fine.  Go run on the treadmill for 48 minutes first.)  I get one day a week to not count calories or portion sizes.  I’m going mostly vegetarian, and will try to limit my meat intake (especially beef) to no more than twice a week.  (Not including my cheat day).

Another small change that I’m making is that I’m only going to be shopping for a few days at a time now, instead of for an entire week at a time.  I find that if I only shop for the next few big meals, I end up spending SIGNIFICANTLY less money, buy less junk food, and throw away a lot less spoiled produce than I have in the past.

I’m using http://www.mynetdiary.com to track my calories and exercise.  It’s a fantastic website, and has a really amazing iPad/iPhone app.  I’m starting to build out my recipe box of healthy recipes at Epicurious.com, which has a really great recipe collection in addition to some cool features to add your own recipes.  I’m also using a great app for my Android phone which uses GPS and the accelerometer to track my time and distance on my runs/walks.  It gives me little badges for hitting certain numbers of calories burned in a 7-day period. 

I’ve had some decent success so far, but the last major thing that I’m doing is that I’m not going to weigh myself every day like I have in the past.  There’s just far too much variation from day to day to be helpful.  Instead, I’m going to weigh myself in every Thursday morning first thing when I get up.  Thursday is ideal, because my cheat day is usually going to be either Friday or Saturday, and then I’ll need to get back into the habit starting on Sunday.  That will allow me to make some decent progress.  (Ideally).  Then I’ll post my weight on Twitter in order to help motivate me to improve week over week.

Let’s just hope that this won’t fizzle out like, well, pretty much every major lifestyle change I try to make. 

2) Go on a real vacation

The last “real” vacation that I went on was in June of 2008, two and a half years ago.  I left from Washington, drove down to Utah for a few days, picked up a friend in Provo, drove down to LA, picked up two friends from the airport, went to Disneyland for a few days, then drove up the Pacific Coast Highway to San Simeon to tour the Hearst Castle.  It was a very cool vacation, and a lot of fun.

This Christmas when I was home, I started to realize that I am in a unique position.  I am single, I have a job which affords me a fairly decent amount of paid time off every year, I get a decent-sized bonus every year in August, and I don’t have any children.  (Unless you count my dog as a child…which I usually do to a certain extent.  But it’s easy to take a dog to a boarding facility.)  I’ve seen a large chunk of Europe, but there are things that I’ve never done, and that I want to do.  I’ve never been to Disney World and all the parks down there.  I’ve never seen Mount Rushmore, or been to Yosemite.  I’ve never been south of the border.  I want to go to Australia and New Zealand.  I want to see Switzerland.  I MUST get back to Norway, Denmark, and Spain.  I want to see Ireland and Scotland.  I want to visit Alaska.  I want to go to Tahiti.  Or Hawaii.  I want to take pictures of all of them.  And, perhaps more than anything else, I want to swim with dolphins. 

I love spending time with my family, but let’s be honest, for the last two years, the only time I’ve left Redmond, let alone Washington, was to visit my family.  And as nice as it is to see them, Syracuse, Utah is not a hotbed of activity, nightlife, culture, or food.  Sometimes it’s just nice to relax, but I’m still young, and sometimes I want to go out and experience new things.

So, while I was home, I found the website for a dophin swimming expedition company based off the northern coast of the Bahamian island of Bimini.  Wild dolphins.  The company has a 97’ yacht that sleeps twelve plus the crew, they have all the scuba equipment you’ll need.  Meals are provided.  It looks heavenly.

I was originally planning on going this year, but I don’t think I’ll be able to have enough money saved up to go before the Hurricane season rolls around, and I would just as soon not spend the money to go down to the Bahamas and then get stuck down there in the rainy season.  (If I wanted to see rain, I’d just open up my blinds.)  So the trip to Bimini is planned for 2012. 

I still haven’t decided when/where I’m going for 2011, but I will likely stay within the United Stated.  I thought I might fly back to the midwest to visit my grandparents and brother (and his family) for a few days, then fly on to New York.  I went to New York back in 2003 when I went with my graduating class from BYU, but I had a miserable time when I went.  I had been spending nearly every waking hour with a batch of 20 musical theater people for the last several months getting ready for this show, and they were grating on my nerves.  Rather than having time to experience New York, we had a very tight schedule of classes, rehearsals, and showcase performances for agents.  I was completely ignored by agents, and didn’t get a callback at all.  There was one individual in particular who was driving me so bat-crap crazy that I probably would have tossed him into the East River in cement shoes if the opportunity had arisen.  So it wasn’t a great experience, and it’s rather tainted my opinion of New York ever since.  I may try that this year.

I might take a summer cruise up to Alaska.  I’d like to go to Disneyland again, if I could get someone to go with me.  (Single 33-year old man alone in Disneyland just screams “creepy pedophile” in a way that few other things can.)  I hear Austin, Texas is a pretty cool place, although I’m not sure it’s vacation-worthy.  I might go back to Toronto.  That was a very cool city.  Or maybe Chicago.

So, I’m not sure what I’ll be doing this year, but at least 1/3 of my bonus will be going toward a vacation this year.  A real vacation.  Doing something fun.  That I want to do.  That is a new experience.

So, those are my two goals. 

***

On a tangentially related note, I made a really excellent Risotto with Butternut Squash, Leeks, and Basil tonight for dinner.  The recipe is super-easy, and it makes enough to act as an entrée for six people, easily.  You can find the recipe on Epicurious here:

http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Risotto-with-Butternut-Squash-Leeks-and-Basil-362289

It’s only 369 calories for 1/5th of the entire recipe.  I also used chicken broth instead of vegetable stock, because I had a bunch of chicken broth in my freezer from when I made Chicken and Dumplings before Christmas.  Highly recommended.  It’s very yummy.  And I’ll find out tomorrow how well it re-heats.