clean eating and why chickens stress me out.

A few weeks ago my boss was going to get rid of some magazines that had been hanging around the waiting room for too long. They were some back issues of "Clean Eating", a magazine that's packed with recipes for meals that are "clean" -- meaning healthy and natural by whatever means possible. I took them home because though I don't consider myself a gourmet cook, I enjoy looking through new recipes and trying out a few here and there.

Well... I ended up getting rid of the magazines anyway. Here are a sampling of some of the ingredients needed to perform these acrobatic feats of recipes:

Black bean veggie burgers

Chevre goat cheese

Food for Life Ezekiel 4:9 Organic Sprouted 100% whole grain flourless bread

Soba noodles

Miso

Sucanat

Chipotle chiles in adobe sauce

Bocconcini cheese

Escarole

Udon noodles

Oricchiette pasta

Armenian crackers

Chayote

WHAT ARE THESE THINGS!??!

Honestly. I have a hard enough time finding the mozzarella cheese in my grocery store, never mind that Biblical bread. And what's wrong with Ritz crackers? Why do I have to use Armenian?! Sheeeez! I have willingly and happily gone back to my Taste of Home recipe books.

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In other news, this past weekend I cooked a whole chicken all by myself for the first time ever. It was a ridiculously low sale price at the grocery store and I thought it'd be a fun adventure. Well... it was an adventure, anyway.

First I had to defrost the thing which took several days. Then I had to take the gizzards out. UGH. Won't go into detail there. Then comes the stressful process of cooking the thing and trying to figure out whether or not it's done and whether or not you're going to treat yourself and your spouse to a lovely round of salmonella food poisoning because the digital thermometer can't seem to make up its mind about whether the dang bird is hot enough. Then, hours later, you eat a pile of meat that tastes really good but this doesn't erase the fact that you're totally paranoid about ingesting bacteria and you sit through a movie all evening wondering when you're going to start throwing up. After this you have to peel the remaining meat off the carcass and chuck the thing in the dumpster then sit in a house that smells like Swiss Chalet gone a little... off. Then you go to bed and have dreams about raw chicken.

Conclusion: Chickens stress me out. Maybe one day I'll try it again. But for now... stir fry! Yay!