Pad Thai for Two

I owe the environment an apology. Five copies of my dissertation - which included discarding black and white pages that needed to be substituted for color and noticing typographic errors that warranted even more extra printed pages - probably produced a carbon footprint equal to driving from here to Durham and back. And then I drove to Durham and back. Twice.

Carbon footprint or no, I have spent a glorious weekend feeling über-victorious and haven't had the anxiety-ridden episodes that I so enjoyed in the troubled days leading up to turning in my work. I've planned meals, gone shopping, registered with my fiancé (one of the best inventions of the modern wedding EVER), been to the gym, and have had a ridiculously delicious home-cooked meal at a friend's house - more on that later.

Pimento Chicken Burgers

Well, these burgers certainly are a discovery.

Case in point, healthy eating does not mean meals of dry toast and protein in powder form. It does not even mean infinitesimally small portions. Healthy eating doesn't even mean having dry spinach salads without dressing - even though some days call for such meals.

During these past two weeks, I have been experimenting with hearty, healthy food. I have certain favorites, and most of my favorite food is rich, Southern fare. While I do not condone permanently slimming down these recipes (there is a reason we use so much butter and bacon grease), some months or even stretches of months require just a bit of healthy tweaking. So whereas I would normally love to be deep-frying chicken and hand-pies, sometimes the healthy alternative actually tastes better, both to body and soul.

Chicken Pot Pie with Buttermilk Biscuits

It's a dreary, rainy day here in the North Carolina Piedmont. The Christmas decorations are down and things are finally back to normal. It's back to the grind of paper edits, meetings, countless drives between Chapel Hill and Durham, rehearsal schedules, and lesson planning. I usually take a strange sort of comfort in the return to a normal schedule and balanced lifestyle. Still, I try to plan healthier versions of the warm, hearty meals that we enjoyed over the holidays. The winter here has been temperamental, with hints and peeks of warm spring days interspersed with cold ones like this. So I find that the best way to counter the ups and downs of holidays and normalcy, unseasonable warmth and winter cold, is with hearty, healthy food. Obviously.


To be completely honest, I never really liked chicken pot pie. I hope nothing is wrong with me. I'm sure that my childlike tastes were averse to something in it - maybe the starchy beans or creamy chicken, maybe the flaky pie top. Each individual ingredient - chicken, vegetables, cream, crust - is stunningly delicious. I never figured out why I didn't wholeheartedly enjoy them all together. Enter flaky buttermilk biscuits. Greek yogurt instead of cream. Cauliflower florets and zucchini chunks instead of starchy beans. Balanced.