Good morning! What does everyone have planned for today?

I’m just excited it’s the weekend – today I’m heading out for one of my massive grocery trips, plus I’m heading over to Sportchek. I got a gift card for Christmas and I am desperately in need of some new workout clothes!

So…cravings. I’ve pretty much come to accept them. If I feel like “I need a cookie RIGHT NOW, dammit!”, it’s much more pleasant for me to just eat the cookie, smile, and move on. I know a lot of people follow the idea of a cheat meal, but I know that when I force myself to hold off on a craving, I’ll either a) eat a bunch of other stuff, than eat what I was craving anyways, or b) hold off until my designated cheat meal, and then proceed to stuff myself sick. All of which can be avoided if I just eat it and move on.

(source)

So now, if I’m craving chocolate (which happens pretty much daily) I just eat it. Food is meant to be enjoyed, so I make sure that I enjoy it.

Although as I learned yesterday, not all my cravings are for sugary or salty things. When I was walking home after class for lunch, all I could think about was chowing down on a good piece of chicken. Umm, random? Apparently with all my heavy-lifting time in the gym lately, my body is starting to crave more protein.

I didn’t have any (defrosted) chicken at home, so I swung by Williams on the way home and picked up a Chicken Cobb salad.

Salad greens, tomato, chopped chicken, hard boiled egg and bacon, with Italian dressing that I added at home. Delicious.

After pretty much every dinner (and the occasional lunch) I feel the need to finish off with something sweet. What I want changes often – sometimes I just want a square of dark chocolate, a handful of berries, or a peppermint. Sometimes I need something a tad more:

This is my inconspicuous freezer.

Theeeeere it is. (hidden behind the Costco bag of frozen veggies…sneaky). Yup, I’m holding onto a container of Candy Cane ice cream. I know I’m going to end up craving the stuff in like, April, so I’m trying to ration it out so it lasts for a while. Yup – I make sure my house is well-stocked with my cravings. A big spoonful and my sweet tooth was satisfied…for a little while, anyways.

Dinner

I made a slow cooker version of this for dinner. Except when I was putting it together, I realized that I was missing the bottle of tomato sauce. I just used an extra can of diced tomatoes and it worked fine – the liquid was a little thinner, but still delicious.

While I wouldn’t exactly call it a craving, cornbread seemed necessary and I had a bit of time (and desperately wanted a distraction from my stats homework) before dinner, so I threw together a batch.

(although here’s a horrifying story. When I was making the bread, I went and pulled down the container of flour and opened it, I noticed out of the corner of my eye that the flour looked like it was moving a little. I looked closer and OH MY GOD it was filled with tiny bugs. Ew ew ew. Needless to say, that container was immediately tossed and all my other flour/rice/grain jars were carefully inspected. Fortunately the other ones were fine and I had some more WW pastry flour. Ugh, so gross).

I have no idea why, considering that I followed the same recipe I always do (the one on the Bob’s Red Mill cornmeal package) but this was probably the best cornbread I’ve ever made. Just the right amount of sweetness with the perfect texture – fluffy without being too crumbly. I love unexpected kitchen wins.

Eric and I are heading over to The Piston Broke tonight for a date night. It’s a pub (favourited by Laurier students) but they actually have a great menu. Speaking of cravings, I think I’m feeling onion rings tonight.

<— What’s your approach to cravings?

<— Do you try to ‘save up’ on seasonal food items? I tend to hold on to gingerbread, pumpkin and peppermint stuff. Even though it’s traditionally fall/winter flavours, I know I’ll randomly crave it in the middle of summer.