Healthy food is ugly...and my traumatic Verizon upgrade story

Oh sad. I wrote a whole post and the interwebs ate it. That's been my theme lately (or at least that is my segue to write about the horrible experience I had at Verizon upgrading my phone). I have been needing to upgrade my phone lately; the home button didn't work, it wouldn't hold onto any contacts, and it was slow as molasses. On the other hand, I was reluctant to get a new phone because I have been holding onto all of my voice and text messages from my mother. TW backed up the voicemails on her computer, but I liked having them in my pocket. I almost never listen to them, but the idea of being able to hear her voice at the touch of a button was such a comfort.

Anyhow, my sister upgraded her phone recently and by all accounts the rep at her store was great. She got her new phone, all of her contacts and voicemails were transferred over seamlessly, and basically everything was coming up roses. So on Friday, after I couldn't close out of a single screen because of my broken home button, I headed on over to the Verizon store closest to my Columbus Circle job to get my new phone.

Things were weird from the beginning. I signed in and texted TW while waiting to figure out if I should get a 16 or 32 GB phone. When the rep called my name we were in the middle of our conversation so I hadn't totally decided yet. She asked me what I was there for, what phone I wanted, and what size I wanted. I said I hadn't decided yet, and she asked me how she was supposed to help me if I didn't know what I wanted. I am not the most, say, tech-savvy, so maybe I have required more help than most at these occasions, but the store employees have always guided me through the process in the past. We finally figured out that I should get the 32 GB version. This is where it got bad.

The rep had to scan my phone a million times as part of the upgrade transaction. While she was doing this she was chatting with a bunch of her friends who were hanging out at the desk. At the same time, she told me that I would be losing all of my text messages when I upgraded. I freaked out and got emotional, and TW begged me to take screen shots of every text from my mom before going through with the sale. The salesperson was very patient while I did this, which clouded my judgment and made me think I liked her. We finished up, and I walked out with my fancy new phone. I sent a message to TW telling her that the salesperson had turned it around and ended up being great (because she was so patient). Then the message showed up on my phone. She had upgraded my phone to TW's number (because she was distracted and chatting with friends while doing all that scanning). I went back in, and she was able to get me back my number, but basically now everything is screwy. I initially lost all of my voice messages (of course, including my moms), then I got them back, and now they are gone again. Things still aren't working totally right. I had my contacts, lost them, now got them back again. I am unclear how much of this is Verizon's fault and how much is Apple's, but since the store experience is so fresh I am going with Verizon. I always sing their praises, too...

Whew. Glad I got that off my chest. The original post was all about how I keep taking beautiful foods and making them ugly, but tasty. Case in point. On this whole healthy kick, TW and I have been cutting way down on our meat eating (not that we ate much to begin with). For this one, I took a recipe I had made before (spicy beef and cabbage) and replaced the beef with lentils. Boom--vegan. And tasty. And super ugly. Despite using my real camera and not my iPhone. Oh well--the original recipe called for red tomatoes, this just happened to be what I had. If you used those, at least there'd be a little color contrast.

Spicy Cabbage and Lentils
adapted from Cooking Light

2 T peanut oil
1 cup thinly sliced shallots
1 tsp salt
1 tsp turmeric
1/2 tsp cayenne pepper
2 cups cooked lentils
4 cups thinly sliced cabbage
1 cup sliced tomatoes (I used yellow grape tomatoes, the recipe calls for plum tomatoes)
1/3 cup coarsely chopped peanuts

Heat oil in a large pan over medium-high heat. Add the shallots, salt, turmeric and cayenne pepper, cook until shallots are tender and starting to become translucent. Add lentils, cook for 2 minutes. Add cabbage and tomatoes, toss well and cover. Cook for 10 minutes, until cabbage begins to wilt. Add peanuts and cook for 10ish more minutes, until cabbage is soft and everything looks ugly. Eat. It's delicious. Promise.

PS Started tennis. I am a natural. Call me Serena Williams. Or a yuppie in training, either way.

Reset

Lately, TW and I have been healthing it up over here. I know that's a familiar theme in that I've mentioned it before in more than one of the twenty or so posts on this blog, but that's how it tends to go. Indulge, restrain, repeat. I will say that maybe this time I went a little too long between gym visits, as at my first spin class back I legit thought I might lose it Biggest Loser style for the first time ever in my life. Or maybe it was just a really hard class. Totally...

Anyhow, as I was saying to a friend of mine last week, this time I'm really going in, whole hog. I've watched 'Forks Over Knives' and 'Fat, Sick, and Nearly Dead,' and while I'm not going vegan or on a juice fast (and I dislike their approach of 'standard American diet' vs 'twigs and salad'), I am aiming for a more unprocessed, whole foods approach. I even made plane snacks for our recent family vacation, and got my dad to eat a lentil summer roll, and he liked it. Score.

I consider myself lucky that TW is relatively un-picky (besides a few food allergies) and doesn't have strong opinions about what I put in front of her for dinner. It can be a tiny bit frustrating to ask for help with planning the weekly menu/shopping list and get little to no input, but in general I like total control in the kitchen. I consider food preferences to be a major compatibility issue. It is probably more important to me since I like to cook so much, but I would have a hard time being with someone who, say, thought dinner wasn't complete without meat. Or someone who wouldn't eat certain vegetables just because. I digress.

When she does ask for something specific, I do my best to give it to her. This past week, while in St. John, she discovered a love for coconut. Specifically in the form of piña colada pancakes. She had them a couple of times for breakfast at the resort, and requested that I figure out how to make them at home. So in an effort to keep vacation alive, encourage menu participation, *and* in keeping with our health goals (which were partially tossed aside on vacation) I created a 'healthed up' version for breakfast this morning. The recipe was inspired by Smitten Kitchen's upside down sour cream peach pancakes from her cookbook (so. much. love. for that cookbook) but I actually did enough modifying that I can almost call it my own. Almost.

PS New goal: go back to using a regular camera for blog pictures. Sick of the unappetizing green filter from the iPhone. Too bad the last several things I made were instagrammed/hipstamaticked/regular iPhone pictured. I'll try to phase it out.

Piña Colada Pancakes

1 large egg
1/4 tsp vanilla
1 cup low fat or fat free greek yogurt
1/4 tsp cinnamon
1/8 tsp nutmeg
1/2 cup oat flour
1/4 cup spelt flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
2 tablespoons sugar
1/8-1/4 cup finely chopped pineapple
2 tablespoons unsweetened, shredded coconut
1-2 tablespoons pineapple juice
Several chunks pineapple, thinly sliced, or you could use pineapple rings
More coconut to sprinkle on top
Butter

Combine egg, vanilla and yogurt in a medium bowl. Add dry ingredients, stir gently until just combined. Add finely chopped pineapple and coconut and fold into batter. If batter is very stiff, add 1-2 tablespoons pineapple juice (it's ok to add more, just do it slowly) to thin it out a bit.

Heat a small amount of butter in a nonstick skillet over medium heat. When butter is sizzling, use a 1/4 cup measure to pour pancake batter into the skillet. Arrange pineapple slices on top of batter. When the pancakes begin to have bubbles in their surface, flip. Cook until golden brown on both sides.

While pancakes are cooking, toast a small amount of coconut in a dry skillet (this is the point where TW popped in, told me it should be toasted, and then asked if I wasn't toasting it too much, and was promptly kicked out of the kitchen).

Top pancakes with coconut, and butter and powdered sugar, if desired. You could also do syrup. I wish I got a good pictured of how nicely browned the pineapple chunks looked. Actually, and just in general, I wish I got a good picture of the pancakes. Oh well. It's good to have goals.

PPS I am starting tennis lessons tomorrow. Stay tuned.