Food Hangover
Oh my freaking god. I destroyed myself last night. On my way home from work, I had this big craving for pasta marinara with goat cheese. (I know evil with the cheese, but I was going through cheese withdrawal.) Anyway, I never know how much pasta to make. For some reason I’m terrible at eyeballing the portions as I’m dumping a box over a pot of water, so I decided I would measure it. I measured out two cups of dried fusilli (spirals) and boiled it up.
Then I took a jar of sauce and tossed the whole mini log of cheese into it -- four ounces -- since that’s what looked about right in proportion to a whole jar of sauce.
When the pasta was ready and I strained it, I realized that, while two cups dry looks like a trifling amount, it cooks up to a massive Cheesecake Factory-sized portion that could feed a truckload of hungry farmhands. And this meant that if I were actually thinking with my little noggin, I would have put most of the pasta in a Tupperware and forgotten about it until it started growing suspicious fuzzy hairs.
But anyway, you can see where this was going. I ate. A lot. And then when I was full, I thought it would be a good idea to eat more, because you see, it was delicious and it was hitting the spot and because I was tired and stressed and I was watching TV and not paying much attention to how much I was eating. Ugh.
I threw out the rest, because – well I would like to say because I was repulsed and feeling contrite, but it was actually because there wasn’t really enough left for a meal. Yeah. Nice work.
Then, due to the world’s supply of pasta sitting in my stomach, I woke up at 2 a.m. and was wide awake until sometime after 4 a.m., and well, I’m sure the times I actually spent “sleeping” I must have really been unconscious and in need of a veterinarian who is a specialist in that thing that happens to dogs when they eat an entire side of beef plus a whole roast pig at your BBQ when you’re not looking and so the dog’s stomach ties itself off at both ends.
I’ve had four cups of coffee so far today, and so now I have the whole “lights are on, but no body’s home” thing going for me. Could this day be over now? Thanks.
Katie Morton
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Reader Comments (13)
god, i do the SAME thing with pasta. esp since i invariably make it under extreme hunger craving craziness so i kind of half know its too much but dont care until i cant roll myself off the couch
Urgh. I hate it when that happens. This is why Weight Watchers helped me so much. Now I know exactly what a normal portion is not just by eyeballing it but also by ounces, cups, etc. Which has helped me avoid situations like that. Which has been so good for me.
Girl, you are just so adorable and funny, you know that, right? Right? AND you write so well! Do you actually have these conversations in your head before your fingers type them out? I bet you do! hee.
The day's half-way done! YAY!
Have a super weekend!
violet, you crack me up.
Jess - I was actually thinking about weight watchers today for that very reason. I did it a long time ago in NYC, but I always got so crazy with the points. When you're in the bottom rung, I think it's 150 lbs or less, then you're only allowed to eat a half a cheerio per day (not even half a bowl, you actually half to use scissors to snip a cheerio in half) and so it made me crazy and I was always scrounging around for weird food in attempts to stay under my points for the day, yet satiate my hunger. Anyway. I like the Zone Diet a lot for feeling satisfied and for controlling my portions, so I'm going to go back to that.
Imperfectbitch – I just go BLEAH!!!!! and let it out all over the keyboard. Sometimes I have conversations in my head, like one in the middle of the night last night that went like this, “And then the zit on my chin courted a companion that sprouted right between my eyes,” but I always forget my plan when I’m blogging, so that stuff rarely makes it in.
I would just like to say that I love pasta more than any offspring that should have the misfortune to spawn from my loins, and cheese even more. I would eat two cups, and more, of cheesy pasta without batting an eyelash. I blame it on the fact that I eat healthy, like, 90% of the time, so when I splurge, I SPLURGE. So don't feel bad. Or at least, feel better because you're not as bad as me!
I have found my personal solution to cravings for sauce and cheese etc. is to make them with veggies in place of pasta. Pasta is a BIG BAD thing. Use heaps of spaghetti squash instead when you are craving red sauce, and use heaps of tasty steamed broccoli when you need some creamy alfredo/garlic/parmesan. You can sit there and eat till you're ready to bust, and you have only filled your system with healthy fiber and vitamins, instead of white flour. The fat isn't so bad to eat if you eliminate the starch from the equation. I never gain weight eating like this, and I get to eat mass quantities. Still though, 4 ounces of goat cheese for one person just CAN'T be good...
I'm curious about this goat cheese marinara...tell me more!
Beth, only problem is that sometimes, it's really all about the pasta and not as much about what you want on top. But I definitely agree with you that white flour is the evil in this equation. At least the pasta I ate last night was whole wheat, enriched with omega-3s, had 10g protein and a bunch of fiber per serving, so it could have been worse.
Lauren, I first had goat cheese in spaghetti sauce at the now-gone Basso Est -- little Italian joint across the street from my old apt. in NYC. One time they had a special -- a lamb ragout with goat cheese over pappardelle, and it was better than any pasta I'd had in Italy. Then on New Year's Eve this year, my friend Heather who shares my obsession with goat cheese, took a jar of tomato sauce and threw some goat cheese in it so we could dip bread sticks, and oh my goodness, I realized that this is a tremendous combo that should be cherished. So there you go. Recipe is sauce + goat cheese to taste = awesomely delicious.
I have had those food hangovers before and God, do they suck! The worst part is that it seems like it stretches my stomach and I feel hungry for three days afterward.
Oh well, a good binge just reminds us how to eat sensible again.
Hope you recovered.
You poor thing. I hear carbs late at night is terrible for sleeping.
What I do to measure out pasta is using a certain percentage of the bag. Most come with 4-6 servings, so I never make more than half at a time (unless you are buying pasta in bulk, which is probably not good for anyone's diet!) and eat half of whatever I made (you have to separate out the leftovers before you take any onto your own plate and put it right in the fridge so that it doesn't tempt you).
Hope you feel better!
Live dangerously!
Ugh, I am terrible at eyeballing portions, too. I always end up making WAY too much because the alternative of having far too little is unthinkable.
Ow my stomach hurts just thinking of it. But sometimes I do that too because food...so good.