Long life tomato soup

Ingredients:

2.5 pounds of mixed tomatoes, preferably vine-ripened
Several cloves of garlic or a couple of spoonfuls of pre-minced jarred garlic
2 yellow onions
Half a cup of extra-virgin olive oil
1 quart reduced-sodium organic chicken stock
2 bay leaves
Pink sea salt and fresh ground pepper
4 tablespoons omega-3 Smart Balance stick butter
1/2 cup of fresh basil or a few tablespoons of dried
3/4 cup of half-n-half ( optional )
Avocado

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 450.
2. Wash and core the tomatoes, cut into halves. Slice onions. Peel garlic cloves if using whole ones.
3. Add tomatoes, onions, and garlic to a baking tray and drizzle with the olive oil. Season with salt and pepper. Roast in oven for 20 to 30 minutes. They should look caramelized.
4. Transfer it all into a big pot. Add chicken stock, bay leaves and butter. Bring to boil, then reduce heat and simmer for 15 to 20 minutes or until liquid is reduced (evaporated and thickened) by about a third.
5. Add basil to pot, then use an immersion stick-style blender to puree the soup until fairly smooth. I like to leave mine a little grainy and chunky.
6. Return soup to low heat, add half-n-half if your diet goals allow for it, then add more chicken stock if you want it thinner.
7. Add more sea salt and pepper if you want, pour into bowl, and garnish with avocado slices.

-- Recipe borrowed from my buddy ChrisShugart

Goes great with some turkey bacon crumbled on top or even better a roasted poblano pepper stuffed with a touch of goat cheese and turkey bacon!!

Reeses peanut butter pie

You can make this and eat the whole thing without feeling like a total fat person.  Just a partial one!
 Note: you can make this fattier and carbier if you wish.  Use real peanut butter and a pre-baked pie crust.
Ingredients:

Crust: diced walnuts
4 oz fat-free cream cheese (half a standard package)
1/4 cup fat-free sour cream
1/4 cup Splenda
8 oz Cool Whip, sugar free
2 scoop chocolate Metabolic Drive
butt load of PB2 ( available at large grocers or online )

Directions

1. Line the bottom of a pie tin or bowl with diced walnuts

2. In a bowl, mix up the cream cheese, sour cream, and Splenda with a fork.

3. Fold in thawed Cool Whip, PB2, and Metabolic Drive ( add more protein powder or PB2 to taste ).

4. Pour over "crust."

5. Chill for a few hours in the fridge or one hour in the freezer.

6. Eat the whole thing whole watching Glee. I won't tell.

A different coin purse.

Time: We all use time like it's money, it's the measure of all things. Especially during the work week.

We evaluate whether it's worth it to cook breakfast or just hit Mc Donalds, or skip it entirely. We erroneously speed because we really value that extra 2 minutes we shaved off our daily commute. We find time for Jonnie's soccer practice, Susie's ballet, book club, desperate house wives, and

two for one at chili's.

Strangely we never spend time on what really counts, Ourselves.

Think about the last time you spent on yourself, no really the last time you took the time to do something for you.  We as a society spend so much time just doing.  We don't use the time for good, we don't use it for bad, we just use it.  Yet we're always late and in a rush for things we don't even need.

It's Sunday night, that means AMC's The Walking Dead is on.  We made sure we got to watch it tonight, yet we didn't cook dinner because we didn't have time.  How's that Taco Hell heartburn treating you?  Think about your day's, what all do you make time for?  Now think about the things you don't have time for.

Some of you might be in graduate school with a legitimate reason for not having time or maybe you've got a hyper demanding job, heck some of you have 5 kids!  I understand we can't always have spare time to do what ever we please, however there's always time for something that we just don't really need to spend our precious time on.

If we think of time as being finite in a day, from the moment we wake, we are "wasting daylight".  

Tick. Tock.

What if we stop looking at time as a finite resource for each day?  What if we instead look at it in chunks?  Is there 15, 30, 60 minutes a day you could carve out for yourself?  Time for you to do something positive for yourself.  A hot bubble bath?  A fresh cooked dinner for a change?  Maybe it's just a cup of coffee and getting lost in your thoughts?  Maybe you'll finally get a chance to kill those pesky aliens.

How much time did you waste Facebook stalking today?  Find some time and spend it doing something positive for yourself.  Set aside as much as you can and do anything!  Make it personal, make it useful to you.  You will thank me.

How are you doing?

Having a rough time lately?  Is your boss jumping down your throat, did your girl friend leave you, or maybe you've just had bad luck?

Get over it.

Life throws us obstacles, some more than others.  If you can complain about it on facebook, twitter, work or to your friends and family, let me just tell you right here, right now: It's not the bad.

Greg's Dad died earlier this year.  He's buried friends this year and had others diagnosed with cancer.  Greg even got diagnosed with prostate cancer.  He's prepping for a power lifting competition while under going treatment.

That girl at the coffee shop that screwed up your order?  Yes, the moronic one who couldn't grasp the concept of a "Non-fat, extra foam, 3 shakes of cinnamon, hold the sugar, use splenda, double expreso shot Venti Mocha Latte", I mean your two year old knows what that is, Gosh.  She miscarried 3 days ago, but because she needs her job, she's at work.

Lance Armstrong just lost all of his titles.  Regardless of your outlook on doping usage, he's probably feeling pretty shitty right now.  I doubt he's complaining on facebook.

This author, the one who is typing this, he's got Chronic Myeloid Leukemia.  ( Here's the Wiki entry: CML feel free to read up )  This is my first public post that my friends will see about it.  I've known about about 18 months now.  It's just a part of life.

I remember two days after I was diagnosed, I was in the gym on the lat pull down station.  Paige, the ever cute and pretty gym worker asks "How are you doing?".  Between reps of what was probably 50 pounds I muttered "I'm good, except I've got cancer" and kept going.  She kept going until she realized what I said.

Sure you don't know Greg, Lance or little miss can't make a latte right, heck some of you don't even really know me.  This isn't to belittle your life's complications.  It's more of a shout out, you're not the center of the universe.  Your life isn't that bad.  If you can whine about it to the world on Facebook, then life isn't so bad.

Everyone is the center of their own universe, which is great, in mine, I'm the Universal Dictator.  My people call me Uni Dick.  It's catchy.  However, we're not the actual center of the universe, life went on before us and you bet your "Non-fat, extra foam, 3 shakes of cinnamon, hold the sugar, use splenda, double expreso shot Venti Mocha Latte" it's going to be beating someone else up after you're gone.

Now it's ask that again "How are you doing?".  Things might be shitty, but hopefully, just maybe you've realized you need to suck it up and keep pressing forward.