Happy Monday (By Natalie)

When you’re Hangry, it happens.

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Hanger Busting Dessert (By Natalie)

I love dessert. Specifically, I love frozen yogurt for dessert. It’s kind of a problem. I live in the East Village in Manhattan where there are literally 4 frozen yogurt spots on every corner. It’s ridiculous. This easy access is both good and bad…Good for hanger? Yes. Good for waistline (especially with summer around the corner)? Nay. So, I’ve put myself on frozen yogurt lock down recently, and I’ve been creating alternatives for my favorite treat. One alternative is a bit of a snooze fest, but delish nevertheless. I simply take a 0%, flavored, Chobani Greek yogurt,mix it up and throw it in the freezer for a half hour or so, and I’ve got something to spoon that is pretty decent. But, there’s no chocolate in it, and I’ve gotta admit, a big part of the reason I like the whole fro-yo thing is that I get to put some chocolate on that sh*t. Not healthy at all, but fun. We all need chocolate in our lives sometimes, am I right? Am I right? Yes, I’m right. I needed some chocolate last night and I knew that fro-yo wasn’t an option. So what was I to do? I was to create my own concoction. And that I did.

For my base, I subbed the fro-yo with a banana (I learned this trick from my former roommate and current best buddy, Andrea, so I can’t take credit for this myself). I cut up a whole banana and stuck it in the freezer for 1 hour. That way, it gets frozen enough–but not too frozen–to mimic frozen yogurt consistency. When I pulled it out of the freezer, it looked like this:

Banana in a bowl. Definitely need a picture for that.

To add some chocolate and to bump up the fro-yo quality to my base of banana, I added one fudgsicle. Remember those guys? I eat them as a treat all the time. They’re only 60 calories and some frozen fun. But that wasn’t enough for me last night. Oh no. I had to have fro-yo. So I will continue with my healthy version.

Here’s what it looked like when I added the fudgsicle to the banana. Again, picture necessary:

I forked the fudgsicle off of it’s stick, dropped it in with the banana, and then mixed it around a bit. Beautiful. THEN, I got nutty–both literally and figuratively–because I added 1 tbs of all natural peanut butter to the mix. Holla! That really made this dessert. It also helps to cut hanger unlike normal frozen yogurt, because you have healthy fat contributed by the PB and slower digesting fiber from the banana. Here, you can look at it:

It looks so yummy, right? No, it doesn’t. It looks like…well I won’t say what it looks like because then that image will be stuck in your brain and you’ll never eat it. Let me just tell you, it’s a bowl of healthy dessert deliciousness. I used normal fudgsicles, but you can also opt for the sugar-free kind to cut down the sugar of this nummers “dish.”

So, friends, enjoy and indulge with this hangry busting dessert, and as always, may the hanger NOT be with you.

Dudes get hangry, too! (By Natalie)

“Ladies, all my ladies, louder now, help me out, oh, all my ladies!” Let’s talk about sex being hangry! (Thanks, Salt’n’Pepa, for that shout out).

Don’t you get pissed when yo’ man says you need to chill when you’re getting to that hangry point? You’re ravenous, all you can think about is snarfing to quell the beast inside, and he’s all up in your bidness, telling you to calm down? Listen, dude, I had A, B and C to deal with, and I forgot to bring a snack, AND I was doing A, B, and C FOR YOU, and you need to deal with the Hanger Beast until I get some calories in my belly! NOW! Right? Can I get an amen over here?

From my past experience, dudes never get hangry. I don’t know how they deal with it. I mean, I think I’m fine, and then all of sudden, I’m so hungry I’m like the one and only chick in Mortal Kombat, full of crazy and ready to kick ass. I googled that chick, btw, and her name is Mileena (here she is, with a severed head in her hand, I believe–nice).

She’s dubbed as “the man eater” and described as “unstable; prone to fits of madness and savagery.” I think that just might be my hangry chick alter ego. Also, why is there only one female representing Mortal Kombat? And why does she have to be labeled as “unstable” when all the men characters in Mortal Kombat are on the same crazy killing spree? Discuss.

I digress. Back to the matter at hand–dude hanger. Like I was saying, I always thought that guys never experienced being hangry like ladies do. I wasn’t quite sure why. Are we more fragile or just more in touch with our feelings and express them like normal humans should? We don’t stuff our hanger deep down inside like gyro meat in a pita, we let hanger flow and be present and one with it (Om). However, I recently learned that dudes DO experience hanger, they just stuff it down like that gyro meat and try to pretend it doesn’t matter. Oh, it does matter. Oh, yes, it does. Here’s how I experienced dude hanger firsthand:

I met up with a man-friend right after our respective work days to go to an event that started at 7. Since this was right at dinner time, neither of us had the opportunity to eat anything before this 2 hour long thing. By the time the event was over, we were both pretty hungry and needed some dinner, stat. We decided we would go to an Indian resto in my hood, and we knew it would take about 25 or 30 minutes to get there, which is too long when you’re starting to get hangry. I was very open about my hunger, saying things like, “OMG, I could eat my arm off right now.” or in a super high-pitched whiny voice, “ehhhh! Why does the train have to take SOOOO long!”  but he wasn’t open about his. He told me he was hungry, but that he was “fine.” But here are the clues that told me he wasn’t fine:

  1. He was getting all antsy about what subway we were taking back to my hood.
  2. This dude is super talkative and outgoing and during our trip back on the train, he was barely saying a word to me.
  3. When I was walking up the subway steps, I had to hold onto the railing to balance myself because I was wearing heels (and I was weak from hunger). As we walked to the restaurant, I grabbed his arm and he immediately  asked if that was the hand that I used to hold onto the railing. I said no, and he went into a rant about how gross the railings are and how he wouldn’t hold my hand if it was the one that touched the railing.
  4. He housed the Indian “bread” that was given to us as soon as we sat down. I mean HOUSED, it.
  5. As soon as he housed the bread, he started talking again. And being sweeter.
  6. As soon as he finished his samosa, he was full-on complimentary.
  7. As soon as he finished a few bites of his entree, he probably wouldn’t have cared if my grubby subway railing hand touched his nether regions.

I called him out on it and told him that he was totes hangry. He tried to deny it for a bit, but there was no denying the difference in human before food, and after food. He came around and admitted to some personality changes because of hunger, but described that he wasn’t getting angry, but more hazy, so he dubbed himself as hanzy. Okay, fine, call it what you want, but I’m gonna say you were so hungry, you got hangry. Since there are multiple male characters in Mortal Kombat, I could choose one of many to compare, but I’m going to say that my man-friend was like SubzeroImage

–all cold and distant until the icy is melted by samosa, and the hanger is filled with a food-fire in-belly. Moral of the story: DUDES GET HANGRY (and always be sure to eat at least every 4 hours. It’s best for you and your metabolism)!