Healthy Eating. Sometimes.

I watch a lot of cooking shows. I love ‘em. I watch them the way some guys watch a football game, yelling at the TV, cheering, high-fiving. One show that has intrigued me is "Christina Cooks" which is on our local PBS station on Saturdays.

Christina is this lovely red-haired woman who cooks really healthy vegan food. I've dabbled in vegan eating and do okay with it, but like I said, it's just dabbling. Mostly, I couldn’t find much variety in that style of eating.

At first, I thought vegan cuisine consisted of little more than your basic tofu-and-broccoli nightmare. However, Christina’s really got a lot of variety going on and the woman does an amazing amount of cooking in each of her 30 minute programs.

The thing that really bugs me (there’s always something that bugs me when it comes to cooking programs) is that she has this side-kick named Jon Michael who is a singer/guitarist. Midway through each segment, we have to listen to one of his songs and for the life of me, I can’t figure out why he’s there. It’s a cooking show after all.

Also, Jon Michael obviously has a “thing” for Christina. He’s always leering at her and complimenting her in a really creepy way. I have a feeling that he’s off-camera doing naughty things with himself when Christina resumes the cooking. I always fast-forward through the icky Jon Michael segments. Thank god for Tivo.

So, I finally decided to make some Christina-esque food. Here’s a basic recipe idea of hers: Heat oil in a non-stick skillet, add brown rice syrup, soy sauce and fry sliced tofu in it. In another skillet, sauté red onion, red bell pepper, chopped jalapeno, sliced carrots, mushroom, diced mango and add chopped collard greens at the end. Put the veggies in a bowl and top with the fried tofu.

As you can see, it’s very healthy and the tofu is actually very good when fried in oil, syrup and soy sauce. I made a bunch of this and really enjoyed it. A lot.

Then, today for lunch I had a polish sausage with sauerkraut and a huge wad of French fries.

God, I need to get some balance in my life. . . .