The Holiday &“Overstuffing the Pie Hole.”

If I'm being frank, Thanksgiving is not my favorite of holidays, while I love the family atmosphere this holiday seems to celebrate the wrong thing, overstuffing yourself til you either pass out on a couch somewhere or are regretting that you ate 3 slices of pie and your skinny jeans now feel like a scuba suit does not a holiday make. I'm just sayin.

Don’t get me wrong, I obviously love food, I cook it, eat it, photograph it. I guess there are some things a Dietitian thinks about more than the average person. Fine, I sometimes fall into that stereotype but I wouldn’t have it any other way. You’ll never catch me measuring out half a cup of rice, however, I’m likely more aware of how much I’m putting in my “pie hole.”

My Turkey Day

What I typically cook up will be one or two dishes that are “healthy” and that I know I’ll eat at the same time it will make a huge hit with the family, then there’s the flip side, the “not so good for the waistline”dessert. I love baking! I just don’t want the end product sitting on my counter all week! I never said I was perfect. In past years I’ve made such items as skinny pumpkin pie’s, cranberry apple sauce, maple roasted brussel sprouts (don’t let the word brussel sprout mislead you, those guys had butter all over them!) cheesecakes and salads.

The Girl Can Cook

This year I decided the two pie pumpkins hanging out on my ledge needed to be roasted and pureed, then served up in a pie and tossed in a salad, and I felt the need to try a new hazelnut spiced pumpkin pie !

Here’s my maple glazed roasted pumpkin and arugula salad (in case you missed it), such the perfect marriage between that peppery arugula, sweet pumpkin, creamy goat cheese and crunchy toasted pecans! Half my plate was filled with this. Oh how I love that arugula!

My Turkey Day Tactic

First, I eat breakfast, and maybe a snack, then workout in the morning.
Second, at mealtime I fill my my plate 3/4 of the way with veggies on turkey day (actually, most of the time), and I don’t eat the bird (I know, tragic) so we’ve got sweet potatoes, broccoli, huge portion of salad and some scalloped potatoes on the side.
Overall, I’m eatin veggies! I don’t waste my time on the rolls, bread, or other foods I can have any other time of the week.
Oh, and I usually leave somethin on my plate. You know we all eat with our "eyes" instead of our "stomachs" sometimes.

: Leavin room for dessert...

Maybe this trick allows me the rights to eat more dessert, or maybe the 8 pies we had for 10 people had me glazed over at the site of them and I ate a lil more than I normally would. Everyone spent so much time in their kitchen it’s only right to have a smidgen of each dessert? Right?

Refer to “Eat what you really Want.”-Hip Tips for the Holiday Season.
And you might as well read Part Deux-Hip Tips!

I just have to share the leopard print carpet (my aunt's choice!), oh and the abnormally large turkey!

So there it is,

my Holiday Bonanza.

Nobody was overstuffed, there are always too many desserts, and nobody left with a button popped on their jeans.

HOW WAS YOUR HOLIDAY? WHAT WAS A MUST HAVE TO EAT?