My Almost Vegan Quesadilla

Standing in the shower at 11 AM I realize the only thing I’ve eaten today is two pieces of toast – made with, you know the sandwich bread that advertises only 100 calories? That, and two cups of decaf coffee. What the hell is my world coming to? Counting calories and drinking decaf to rest my adrenals, that’s what.

Anyhow, I’m hungry and don’t want to go do errands on an empty stomach – that means I will be focused only on the food and spend tons of money at the grocery store on things I don’t even like. You know how everything looks good when you’re famished. So I have now gone from hungry to famished in just a few seconds. What can I say? Sometimes it is all about the food.

I visually run through my options while I wash my hair. What I do have is some delicious Split Pea Soup that I made a few days ago. It is yummy but after three days of it, well I need a change. No chips, no chocolate – in fact, there is no junk food in the house period. Nothing I can grab and snack to fill the void gnawing away in my belly.

I do have some veggies. I could actually make something relatively healthy and not particularly fattening – there I go again with those damn calories. They haunt my food psyche and I hate when that happens. What I really want is a chocolate chip cookie and milk; you know the big fat one that hold lots of real milk  (not the 2% or soy shit) when you dunk them? But, there are none to be found in this fat deprived household so I might as well let that image go.

I finish the shower, dry my hair, fix the face and go to the kitchen to whip something up that is good for me – or so they say, now (next week it will likely be bad for me). You remember when butter was so bad for us that we invented that plastic crap called margarine and thought we were doing something good? Well, we all know how that turned out and most of us have reverted back to the yummy, fat-filled butter. If you are still eating margarine God knows how much indigestible plastic is in YOUR body.

Let’s start with some extra virgin olive oil from Spain – sounds like a winner. Keep in mind that the vegetables that arrive in Homer, Alaska are usually already old when they get here, and their shelf life is limited. I dig around in the crisper and find some broccoli with a few flowerets that aren’t brown and gross, cauliflower that still has some white parts (cauliflower always reminds me of bleached-out brain matter, but I eat it anyway – not sure what that says about me?), a few grape tomatoes from a bunch that is quickly going south, and the garlic cloves that I roasted myself, along with a red pepper, a yellow pepper, a sweet onion, a baby new potato, a baby red potato, and a baby purple potato. Why did I clarify the size of these potatoes? Because I didn’t want you thinking I ate three normal sized potatoes in one Quesadilla! That’s why. How gross is that?

Add some chucky mild salsa and a bunch of cilantro that has been in the crisper for . . . a time, but still looked eatable, and a couple carrots that resemble prunes. Oh well, I will stir fry all this together and make something for lunch. It ain’t chocolate chip cookies but it will have to do. I tell myself I can get those at the bakery when I go to town but of course by that time I will be full of vegetables and the craving will have passed. Being a calorie counting bitch, I hope so anyhow. Otherwise I will be beating myself up for that one delicious cookie for the rest of my life.

So there you have it, my almost vegan Quesadilla. It is classified as “almost” because I accidentally (really?) added some cheddar cheese to the mix and then realized, ah shit. It’s not vegan any longer. But it is vegetarian. Guess I have to focus on the positive and enjoy the cheese.

There is definitely too much emphasis on trying to eat healthy these days - no meat, no cheese, no ice cream, no eggs, no milk, no sugar, no flour, no cream, no butter, no gluten, no nicotine, nothing processed, no booze, nothing fattening and definitely nothing over 1,000 calories/day. What the hell is left? Fuckin’ vegetables, grains and fruits, that’s what. In order to eat something delicious AND healthy we must become food artists, aka Foodies. It takes chopping, blending, spices, more chopping, kneading, more spices, stirring, whipping, sautéing, an incredible imagination, a good vegetable cookbook, and a hungry belly to pull it off.

And whose big bang idea was it to take all the fun out of everything, anyway? I would personally like to kick her ass! It has to be a woman bitch because what man do you know personally that cares about caloric intake, fat grams, cholesterol numbers, or being a few pounds overweight? That’s what I thought.