No dinner report tonight. I had an appointment after work, so The Husband made steak with black beans and rice for dinner. A nice quiet day at the office, it's beginning to look like everyone took vacation this week except me! The Husband had off today, as did The Neighbors -- geesh! A conspiracy I wasn't involved in. No matter, I was able to get caught up on all sorts of things at the office today, and considering how much time I've missed being sick in the last few weeks, I needed the catch-up time.

With the New Year fast approaching, I always come up with some resolutions, just a few, with some relative stick-to-it-eveness. You know, easy ones that I have some hope of fulfilling, as opposed to crazy ones that are doomed before the ball in Times Square drops. One resolution I'm making is to get a minimum of 7 hours of sleep a night. I tend to get second winds at 11 or so at night, sometimes staying up well past 1 am. I'm going to focus on getting a little more sleep. Should be easy enough, right?

Now for my second resolution, it's food-related. I'm MUCH better about eating fruits and vegetables than both The Husband and Nicholas are, but I know I can be even better (and likewise, so can they!). To that end, Tuesdays at Sweetnicks are now designated ARF/5-a-Day Tuesdays. I'm hoping fellow food bloggers and visitors join me on this new adventure. I'm going to start making a bigger concerted effort on getting more Antioxidant Rich Foods (ARF) in my menu planning. I figured if I put a focus on it (for example, through a weekly event), I'd be even more inspired, and be able to keep up with it longer.

Scientists believe that foods rich in antioxidants prevent damage from molecules called free radicals. By increasing your consumption of Antioxidant Rich Foods (ARFs), you can protect your body against the damage from these free radicals, docs say. In addition to getting more ARFs in your body, sticking with the USDA's recommendation of 5 fruits and vegetables servings a day is also still a good thing.

Every Tuesday, food bloggers who make a recipe using an ARF food (see list below) can send me their permalink (by 9 pm) and I'll post the round-up. Taking it one step further, if you make a recipe that includes fruits or vegetables, but might not be an ARF, send me your permalink as well. Eating like that gets recognized. You only have to include one ARF/5-a-day food to be included in the round-up, but if you include more in your recipe/dish, all the better! You can choose anything from the ARF list/fruits/vegetables -- your muse is limitless. First round-up of ARF/5-a-Day #1 will be 1/3/06 (next Tuesday), and then weekly thereafter.

Listed below are the Top 20 Antioxidant Rich Foods. The rule of thumb, if you forget which the ARF foods are, is usually, the brighter, the better. Here's to a Healthy 2006 for all of us!

Antioxidant Rich Foods (the Top 20):
Small red beans (dried)
Wild blueberries
Red kidney beans
Pinto beans
Blueberries
Cranberries
Artichokes (cooked)
Blackberries
Prunes
Raspberries
Strawberries
Red Delicious Apples
Granny Smith Apples
Pecans
Sweet cherries
Black plums
Russet potatoes (cooked)
Black beans (dried)
Plums
Gala Apples

Until tomorrow...