I'm sorry I've been away for like, the entire summer. You see, this summer was supposed to be epic. Turns out, it was just an epic fail.
Things were going quite well. Then, my car decided to almost catch on fire, and my neck decided it was going to stop being a bendy thing that supports my head, and instead it was going to be a hurty thing that caused major trauma for my entire body.
This was not a great summer.
Well, because the neck issues weren't getting better (or rather, they would get better, then get worse again, then get better again, then get worse again--like the worst roller coaster ride ever), I decided I needed to drastically change my diet.
How does a diet make a difference in neck pain?
I'm glad you asked.
The answer is SCIENCE!
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| I SAID SCIENCE! |
Well, okay, actually, the answer is inflammation. I did some interneting, and I discovered that certain foods are either inflammatory (increasing your body's inflammatory response), or anti-inflammatory (figure out what that does on your own, brainiac. Must I spell out everything for you?). And I figured I'd cut out all the foods that would increase my body's inflammatory response, while adding in more foods that would decrease my body's inflammatory response.
Wow. That was boring. Sorry. If you're at all interested in that anti-inflammatory diet stuff, go use the Google. It has way more boring than I have.
Anyway, with my new diet, I cut out sugar, red meat, poultry, gluten, AND all grains (at least for now).
I call my new diet the "Oh My Gosh, I Can't Eat Anything" Diet.
OMGICEAD?
OhMagicHead?
Sounds good. The Oh Magic Head Diet.
Well, I knew I'd eventually start missing things like eating, so I started looking into what I could do with vegetables. I discovered some recipes for making "rice" out of cauliflower. So I decided to try it.
Here is the Couth Ramble method of cooking the PERFECT cauliflower "rice" in 10 easy steps. More or less. I really didn't bother counting them, okay? I may or may not actually be a cooking expert.
1. Wash your cauliflower and chop the big florets into little florets. While you're doing this, think about the word "floret," and how silly it is. Also think about how angry it makes you that cauliflower isn't spelled "collieflower." But then think about how "caul" looks like "maul," and how the word "mauliflower" really should be in everyday English usage.
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| Chuck Norris doesn't eat cauliflower. He eats MAULiflower. ...because he's angry it's not spelled "collieflower." |
2. Chop the mess out of your mauliflower (I used a food processor, because I'm not She-Ra: Princess of Cooking Power) until it's in these little bitty pieces that somewhat resemble rice.
3. Decide that you are no longer making mauliflower rice. You are now making mauliflower couscous. Because that junk don't look like no rice you ever seen. Consider going back to elementary school for grammar lessons.
4. Think about how much you like to say couscous. Say it a few times to yourself, because, gosh darn it, it feels good. Couscous. Coooouscoooous.
5. Put some butter in a skillet. Turn on the burner. If you don't turn the burner on, your skillet will not get hot, and your butter will get sad and lonely.
6. Wash and cut up some mushrooms to saute in that lonely butter. Stir it up now, nice and slow. Wonder if you should give your mushrooms and butter some privacy. Turn your back for a moment, and think about how much fun it is to say 'saute.'
7. When your butter and mushrooms have combined into something beautiful, go ahead and add in that mauliflower couscous. Couscous. Cous....cous. Couscous. Stir it up.
8. Keep stirring.
9. Keep stirring.
10. Add in a little olive oil. Tell yourself you're only adding the olive oil for anti-inflammatory purposes. Stir some more. Lie to yourself some more. You were way too good for that jerkface, anyway. Yeah.
11. Add some spices--like sage and cilantro--because obviously those two spices go well with everything. And obviously I have no idea what I'm doing.
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| No. Idea. |
12. After you're just really tired of stirring, turn off the burner. Put that mauliflower couscous mix into a bowl.
13. Tentatively try a spoonful.
14. Make a weird face.
15. Immediately add enough extra spices to sufficiently cover up that you are, in fact, eating cauliflower.
16. Try it again. Smile.
Victory is yours!
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| Victory tastes kinda like spices trying to mask the flavor of cauliflower. |
Enjoy!
...ish.
