Happy New Year 2012!

This is our Jan 2 dinner: Buckwheat Risotto with sauteed chicken & fennel topped with apples. Yeah, that's a couple of new things for me - never cooked with fennel before. And I challenge you to try to find buckwheat. I felt like a skilled hunter when I found it.
Ricardo and I have made a New Years Resolution. But before you start saying, "Wait, fancy pants, I thought you were too good to make New Years Resolutions..." Well, here it is. We've made the resolution that Ricardo calls our awesome electrician guy to fix our breaker for the microwave.

"Well, Leslie, that's great and all, but if you're calling someone to do it, it's not really YOUR resolution, now is it?"

You're always a naysayer!

Well, listen up, it's Ricardo's resolution, because he's opted to get it fixed. Just him having this idea is a major accomplishment, as our current situation where we turn off all the lights in the kitchen and living room and then when that doesn't work, we just flip the breaker every time we're trying to microwave something for more than 3 minutes. We've been doing that for years. So that he's come this far to even suggest we fix it correctly is overwhelming and therefore, indeed, a resolution of sorts.

It is my resolution, because when he says he's going to call Josh, he really means I will call the electrician. And I so will.

But anyways, we also happened to start our Clean Eating year on New Year's Day as well. It's mostly coincidental, but the momontherocks fiscal year starts Jan. 1 Because I just decided that just now, so lets do this.

We are driving home from our Tour of Texas Road Trip on January 1, which makes our first day, vulnerable and challenging. Ever bought Clean Eating roadtrip food? Me either. The first tip to Clean Eating is to be prepared. Given that we've been bouncing around from gracious hosts and households for a solid week now, well, asking them to stock their fridge and our bellies with this bizarre new challenge on top of bringing in my entire family to embark on your house, and oh, by the way, we have the dog too.

I did find hope in our last leg of the trip, our fellow twin pals' house - they eat healthy and organic. We even have the same coffee maker. So, that makes us both awesome. This will be so easy. We'll just eat something clean, fuel our bodies with something simple, and head out on our trip. Some wheat toast, an egg, and some fruit.

I should probably mention here that our Tour of Texas road trip served dual purpose. Oh sure, I got to see some family and waltz my kids around and "It's so good to see you, look at my awesome kids and dog!" probably did come out of my mouth. But the second - probably more forceful purpose would be our last meals. Ricardo and I have some severe food eatery cravings in Texas. Tex Mex is my personal insistence and I have been known to use physical force to get someone, anyone to meet me at Pappasito's for some shrimp brochette and fajitas, those chips and salsa, and dear Lord, thank you for the Baby Jesus and that frothy garlic butter sauce. Ricardo usually requests a trip to Rosa's Café, which we hit. And usually we hit a Whataburger while we're there as well.

When my sweet new best friend (finish this sentence and you'll see why) learned of my Clean Eating quest, she understood, and so began the quest for the Last Supper\New Year's Eve Dessert. She introduced me to the most beautiful dessert ever - I'm pretty sure it was culinary greatness - a fried brownie with green tea ice cream. It was dirty and brilliant and yummy.

Since it was New Years Eve - and we stayed up late. And I cracked open a few ginger beers - hit it hard, you know - and for the record, ginger beer is delicious and not recommended for Clean Eating due to the sugar. Since I thought it might be rude to suggest what we normally do at home - celebrate NYC's New Year (or if I'm really tired, Australia's) - because really, that's staying up late enough for me already. I bucked up so as not to out myself that I'm usually in bed when the kids go to bed if not sooner. So, when Ricardo rolled over to me this morning and announced, "Happy New Year baby, it's 8:30" Well, crap. Here we go we were supposed to have left for home by 7a. We get up, get dressed, and pack the car. We said our goodbyes and hit the open road.

Our sweet friends - knowing I was going on this Clean Eating for a Year adventure, handed us organic granola bars. We head out and I announce to Ricardo that we're about to find out real soon if Starbucks is clean eats. I'm pretty sure they are not. Let's be real. And I've figured out a way to make my home coffee regimen clean. However, we're not home. And as much as I'd really like to stick to it, I'm about to not because I think it's safest if I don't experiment without coffee while driving for 10 hours. For the safety and sanity of my family, I'm gonna need a coffee and a lot of it. I hop into Starbucks with hopes of a regular coffee with organic milk and stevia or agave for creamer. I can do this. I can so do this.

"Can I help you, ma'am?"

Let's do this. Let's be clean, Leslie.

"I'll have a skinny Cinnamon Dolce Latte with an extra shot of espresso, please."

What just happened? I must have had clean eating failure and guilt all over my face because Ricardo wanted to know what I got, and when I reported my purchase, my guilt and failure was confirmed.

"Um, baby, just by definition and by the title of that coffee, that's too many ingredients and not clean."

"Ok, but seriously, a 10 hour trip, baby."

"Good point, we'll start our challenge at noon."

God, I love him.

We resolve to keep trying, and by the time we make it all the way to Denton (uh, that's about 9 miles into the trip for the record.) Lucy is feeling car sick, and begging us to stop at the grocery store we'd resolved to pick breakfast up at. I grab some organic baby carrots, bananas, cuties, bare naked granola mix, and greek yogurt and off we go.

Like the granola bar, the bare naked granola mix has organic and easy to pronounce, pure ingredients, it's just that there's about 30 organic ingredients. That's slightly more than 2 ingredients rule for Clean Eating. My personal clean eats rule is 3 ingredients. The granola mix, if you're doing the math, indeed, is dirty by either standards

This isn't a successful start. But we're learning to be prepared. And probably, we should start this adventure at home. I'll keep trying to eat clean today on the road. I'm guessing since this isn't a new years resolution, and we're road tripping, well, maybe we should start this gig January 2.

I opted to keep trying and use all this new fancy technology and turned on our mi-fi and my laptop and googled healthy restaurants. Lo - y'all know what the healthiest "fast food" restaurant is? It's Panera Bread. We calculated where we'd be around lunch time - since we got a late start and all - it's Oklahoma City.

By the powers of internet, I found a Panera Bread that's closest to the highway in Norman, OK. Of course I have my Nebraska Red shirt on and we're stopping in OU country. I can't keep up with conferences and all that. I just like to see their cool shoes and bowl game stuff when I watch football. So, I check with Ricardo.

"Nah, no one should punch you in the face. At least not at Panera. You're good."

Good to know. See, this clean eating will save me. Had I waltzed into a McD's in Norman, OK with a Nebraska shirt on, I'd probably have been shanked.

I eat as clean as I can at Panera: Pick Two Combo with a black bean soup and half a smoked turkey sandwich, no mayo.

Afternoon snack is pistachios, which are clean in content - only two ingredients. But I'm pretty sure they labeled it wrong. Should be salt, THEN pistachios.

Somewhere near Concordia, KS, we realize we need dinner. Go ahead and google Healthy Restaurants in Concordia, KS. I'll wait. Yeah, there's nothing there. So, we have to go with Subway and start the real clean eats January 2, but still with effort. Subway is fairly healthy and I got as healthy as I could bear: Subway Club on 9 grain bread, toasted with a ridiculous amount of veggies.

I'm hoping after a few months of this, our road tripping efforts for clean eating will improve. But surely eating cuties instead of Cheetoh's is better. Right?

On the rest of the 10 hour trip, I study my Clean Eating Magazine menu, and assess that indeed, we've actually done pretty well. Some of the ingredients, like Akmok crackers are pure and great and you can read all the ingredients, but there's more than two listed. We did well.

That's how I roll.

Song of the Day: Our Day Will Come by Amy Winehouse