I’m blind

I went to the eye doctor this morning, and they dilated my eyes … so I’ve been wandering around the kitchen in a haze since 11:30 a.m.

The good news is, my eyes haven’t changed all that much — and I’m still about six years away from needing bifocals. (The doc said that usually happens at around 45. Since I just turned 39, I have a few years before I need to worry about that.)

The bad? Before insurance, my current prescription is about $500. Luckily, I only had to pay about $250 of that — and that came out of my Flexible Spending Account.

Before my eye appointment, I whipped up a batch of Pumpkin Spice Cookies. After I saw the recipe on Peanut Butter Fingers last night, I knew I had to try them. With the weather cooling off so dramatically, I wanted something that screamed fall. I had the two ingredients — pumpkin and spice cake mix — on hand, making them super simple to throw together. (I also added an extra teaspoon of cinnamon.)

Julie’s right: They’re seriously addictive … sweet, soft bites of deliciousness. Better yet, the recipe made 51 cookies, so each one is less than 1 Point (0.8 Points, to be exact).

Of course, that doesn’t mean I can eat the whole batch in one sitting! 😉 Seriously, I froze a good many of them, leaving only about 12 (after devouring four of the suckers) out for the next couple of days.

To start, I put two on a plate with my breakfast, a Poor Man’s Egg Salad sandwich (on a slice of toasted sourdough bread) from Green Lite Bites. I snagged another one as soon as the second batch came out of the oven, and then munched on a third when I got back from the doctor’s, while I put the cooled cookies away.

Then I puttered around the kitchen making lunch. I received some panko bread crumbs in the mail at the newspaper office, so I needed to try them to write my column. I grabbed some cod fillets at the story last night and decided to make a fish sandwich with Foreman Fries for lunch.

To make the fish, I dipped it in egg and then Progresso Lemon-Pepper Panko Bread Crumbs, which have 120 calories and 3.5 grams of fat per 1/4 cup serving. I’ll save the details for my column, which I’ll try to remember to link to on the newspaper’s website once it’s published Wednesday.

I put one of the two fillets (cut in half to make breading easier) on a Sandwich Thin with a little Miracle Whip Free mixed with a pinch of lemon pepper seasoning, and served it up with a side of Foreman fries and steamed broccoli and shredded carrots.

Because it’s so cold outside, banana ice cream didn’t sound good for dessert. (That’s a darn shame, because I have a giant bag of bananas in the freezer waiting to be used, plus another bunch on the counter.)

I did, however, have about a cup of leftover brown rice. I put it in a saucepan with 1 cup 1% milk, cinnamon and about 1 T brown sugar, heating it until the milk thickened up. I topped 1/2 cup with 1/2 T of sliced almonds. (This is inspired by a Carb Lovers Diet recipe, but I didn’t actually look at the cookbook to check.)

Voila! A nice, warm dessert. Now, it’s time for me to grab something for dinner and head to work. At least my eyes are focusing properly again — I think.

P.S. I meant to post this as soon as I got to the office, because I wanted to upload the pictures there and not on my laptop. Work got the better of me and I had to wait until now. Better late than never, right?