Aside from that, I thought I'd talk a little about my weight gain when I moved to Texas..
For most of my life, I haven’t felt comfortable in my own skin. I was taller than everyone else in kindergarten, and therefore ‘bigger’. I’ve always been tall for my age, which used to make me really uncomfortable. Clothes shopping was always a nightmare for me. Yet I was very active, rode my bike everywhere, usually ate the right things.. maybe sometimes a little too much of the right things.
I gained the most weight, though, when I moved to Texas. I moved in with my boyfriend and his parents, and his mother said that she would do all of the cooking. I was not used to Southern Cooking. She would fry potatoes in 2 inches of oil, do chicken fried steaks, her canned veggies were boiled in a bath of butter. And if she didn’t feel like cooking, we would go get something from Taco Bell, Sonic, or McDonalds. My clothes started fitting tighter, but I was sort of in denial.
My breaking point came when I was visiting my parents in Maine. I saw the pictures of myself when I got home. I looked HUGE. I didn’t recognize myself. I had a double chin. As big as I always thought I was, I NEVER had a double chin. I realized I had to do something.
I got home and went to the Doctor’s and realized I had gained 40lbs, since graduating college. This was bad. Really bad. I almost cried. But I was determined. As much as I say it was my mother-in-law’s food that made me gain weight, it was also the fact that I was too intimidated to change it. I didn’t want to be rude and not eat her food. Well, I’d rather be rude than dead at 30, or 300lbs. So I told her that I was going to start cooking for all of us, and I started buying ‘our own’ groceries. I did some research and found a gym that was fairly close, lots of locations, always open, and had fun classes.
Then, when my work started doing ‘Weight Watchers at Work’, I jumped at the opportunity. Work would pay half, and we would have the meetings during break time or during lunch. I feel like I really learned a lot, and that Weight Watchers taught me how to balance life, eating, ect. I didn’t have to starve to lose weight. I could still eat carbs. It felt so easy, eating within my points and 40lbs fell off almost easily!
It wasn’t until a friend at work decided to rope us all into entering the Dallas White Rock Half Marathon in 2008 that I started to get into running. That's when I went on to lose 30lbs more.
And speaking of carbs, I have a really interesting recipe to share with you tonight. It's from the webside TheVeganSwedes.blogspot.com. They are Swedish Vegans, if you couldn't tell. They called it 'Potato Pizza', but I like Pierogi Pizza better. Though you'd probably need more butter and some sour cream for the title to stick. Here's what you need!
For this crust you don't need yeast, and you don't need to let it rise. Unfortunately, you DO need to roll it out with a rolling pin. That kind of stinks, but at least you don't have to wait an hour? It's less of a puffy pizza crust and more of a 'savory pie crust'.
1 2/3 cup all purpose flour
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 cup olive oil
2 tsp baking powder
2/3 cup unflavored almond or soy milk
Stir it all up and refrigerate it while you're making the topping.
Topping:
6-8 potatoes, sliced thin. I used red ones with the skin on.
2 Tbsp olive oil
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp pepper
1 tsp rosemary
1 tsp thyme
1 med onion (I used sweet white) sliced thin
1-2 cloves of garlic.
Put these all in a big bowl and swish it around with your hands until the potatoes and onions are covered.
This recipe says it's for two pizzas. But you know what they say in Texas.. I rolled the whole thing over my pizza stone, and it made a pretty thin crust:
Then, I slid the parchment paper over to my cutting board, and let the stone preheat with the oven, to 350 degrees. While it was doing that, I spread the potatoes and onions over it.
It was supposed to be in there for 20 min. But it didn't look done at 20 min. So I added 10. Then, I still wasn't sure, so I added 10 more. At that point the onions looked and crust edges looked pretty done. So I'd say bake for 30 min, and keep an eye on it.
Still, I thought making this pizza was a mistake. It looked pretty weird.
I don't know. I took a bite, expecting to have to apologize to my husband, when... huh.. It's actually really good! Definitely a comfort food. Probably something to do with potatoes on pie crust. Ha! I'm thinking it could use a sprinkle of garlic powder next time, maybe.
Nick said it was good, too. His words were, 'It tastes like something familiar, but I'm not sure what. The rosemary keeps distracting me.' Yep, definitely sounds like comfort food to me.
And I know, pizza night is usually Friday. But I'm meeting a friend for happy hour and then possibly some vegetarian sushi later on that night. So I thought I'd make it early! :)
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