Cracking the Fat Loss Code: Week 4

I know, I know, I haven't posted anything in a while.  On the plus side, I've actually been following the diet I wrote about in my last post - and have only made a couple of *oopses* - not too bad for someone that usually has less willpower than a kid in a candy store.

Add a few years of life to this chic, and basically you have
a pretty good picture of the extent of my willpower.

I usually have great ideas that I don't follow through on, and find all reasons in the world to blame my lack of committed-ness on.  General reasons include having other more pressing things to do (ie watching re-runs of Happy Days), washing my hair, and my general love of chocolate.  In short, my willpower essentially equals zero.  So, when I manage to stick to something for almost a full month, I am nothing short of shell shocked, amazed, and overly proud of myself.  Gooooo me!

Anyway, it's been successful thus far - I've lost approximately 7 pounds in those 4 weeks, and I've definitely noticed a change in my feelings about food and portion sizes and eating times.  The one down side to this whole lifestyle change is that I still haven't managed to convince myself to start exercising.  I don't know what the hang up is - it's not like I have lack of time as an excuse - I think it must be pure laziness.  Why would I exercise when I could simply sit on the couch and watch MORE Happy Days re-runs?  Or a few episodes of Kourtney and Kim take Miami (or is it Chloe?) - they're all interchangeable to me.  And equally ridiculous.  I repeat, there's NO EXCUSE for me not to exercise, I just don't.  I'll get to it, I swear!

Greg has also lost weight as he's been participating in this program with me.  It's been great to have him supporting me while also making changes to live healthier - and, again - having friends at work who are also following the same plan helps on those days when I can't remember why I started this mess in the first place.

Here's hoping the good work keeps up!  I'm nervous about the SuperBowl on Sunday - watching it in the absence of chips and salsa, wings, and beer seems JUST WRONG on many levels.  I've been trying to think of low carb snacks I can eat instead - maybe something like cucumber slices with some kind of cheese and protein topping (maybe shredded chicken in buffalo sauce with blue cheese).  Hmmm...that could be interesting.  We'll see.

Enjoy the SuperBowl everyone!  And, if you're trying to lose weight, I officially state that I endorse this Crack the Fat Loss Code book - it's reasonable to follow, doesn't require weird food combinations, and teaches you really great ways to change the way you eat.  So far, so good!

Thanksgiving II: The Return of the XXXXL Ziploc Bags

Yep, we're hosting Thanksgiving again this year.  And, for all intents and purposes, I'm underly stressed out about the whole thing.  Literally I've done NOTHING to prepare, and the holiday is exactly 9 days away.  I haven't looked up one recipe, haven't nailed down my menu, haven't made sure all our linens and such are ready to go, haven't even decided how large of a turkey we'll get or if I will buy it fresh or frozen (and if it's the latter, I need to get on the ball ASAP and get it defrosting this weekend!).

Remember last year when I was waking up in the middle of the night with cold sweats dreaming about dried out turkey?  Well, not so this year.  By this time last year I had shopped at a million stores to buy tons of odds and ends we'd need to decorate our table, made the breadstick-cournicopia that was the centerpiece of our appetizers, and had even come up with really cute napkin rings to adorn each place setting.  This year, thankfully, I will be able to re-use most of what we bought, but I have no clue about how I'll decorate, if at all.  Or what we'll have for appetizers.  I figure a veggie tray from Costco will suffice, right?

The one thing I do know for certain is that Greg and I will definitely brine the turkey again - it turned out to be very tasty last year and I see no reason to change a good thing.  Of course, to brine a 20-lb turkey appropriately, one needs a rather large pot - or - in our case - an XXXXXXXL Ziploc Bag.  Yes, they make them that large (OK I may have exxagerated the number of "X's" shown on the actual bag packaging, but seriously, these bags are ginormous!)  Here's a picture of Greg from last year, man-handling our 22 pound turkey, which fit (with tons of extra room) into one of those aforementioned GIANT ziplocs.  Take note of how the turkey looks like it would barely fit into our sink.  That's because it was almost too large to do so.  The sucker was huge.  But it had nothing on the brine bag!

Here's a picture of the box of bags we bought last year at Target. They come in a 3-pack, and yes, they're safe for food use (at least according to the Ziploc FAQ webpage - see below).

Here's hoping that we can pull off another successful holiday...or that we at least have relatives who love us enough to not care much if we botch it all up and end up eating Chinese.  

Porch Progress

Lots has happened on our front porch since my last post related to our renovation.  Greg and I have spent pretty much every weekend working on the dang thing, but at least we're making progress.  Totally worth it, right??

Here's a picture from last weekend, sometime on Saturday evening when we had finished installing roughly 60% of the deck joists (notice the nicely re-faced and re-supported piers that the framing is resting on -- those were a bear and took a lot of time, making it look like we had made no progress for several weeks).  Also, you can't see it too well here, but we also re-surfaced the exterior concrete foundation wall that is below the porch, and also replaced the window that lets us see out under the porch from our laundry room area.

Simple Dinner Deliciousness

On a whim last night, I put together a simple dinner that ended up being quite tasty.  Greg was out of town for work, and I was on my own.  Typically, when he's away, I will just eat through whatever we have in our cabinets/fridge, and usually I end up eating things that are (to normal people) considered breakfast fare - cereal, oatmeal, egg sandwiches, etc.  However, yesterday I HAD to go to the grocery store because we had no milk left, and I absolutely need milk in the house at all times - so that I can munch on cereal whenever my little heart desires to do so.

So...in addition to milk, I bought a bevy of produce including fresh basil...which is absolutely divine when added to anything...and decided I would make SOMETHING that had fresh basil included.  When I got home, I decided to make a salad and a panini for dinner.  Having no thawed meat on hand (yes, all of our chicken, sausage, and random steaks are currently frozen, just waiting for the day they get to sit in the fridge for thawing and eventual grilling if the weather would just cooperate!) and having a desire to add some protein to the mix, I pulled out a can of white cannelleni beans and then began creating things.

First, I chopped up some lettuce, celery, cucumber, tomatoes, avocado, and red onion for my salad.  I added some shredded carrot also, and was done with that part of my meal.  For the main event (i.e. the part with carbs, hence my favorite part of the meal), I sliced a whole wheat ciabbata roll to use as the outter most part of my panini.  For the filling, I chopped up some fresh basil, sliced a tomato, and shredded some mozzarella cheese.  Then, I chopped some red onions and sauteed them in a tiny bit of olive oil to bring out the sweet flavor.  I set that aside, then put some minced garlic into my frying pan with some olive oil, sauteed just a short bit, then added a handful of the beans (rinsed and drained, of course!).  While it was warming up, I smooshed the beans into the garlic, making a kind of bean paste.  I added some extra virgin olive oil to this to get the mix a bit smoother, but it was still pretty chunky, which I was OK with.  I ground some black pepper into the whole thing then took it off the heat.

To build my panini, I spread the white bean mix on the bottom of my sliced roll.  On top of that I put my sauteed onion.  Then I placed my tomato slices down, followed by a LOT of chopped basil, and then the mozzarella cheese.  I topped this with my second half of the ciabbata, then put the whole thing into my George Forman grill for about 5 minutes.  The cheese got all melty, and the outside of the roll was crisp while the inside remained a bit soft.  And the flavors of all came together to make an all over awesome simple dinner.

I was going to take a pic of my creation, but couldn't wait to just dig in and eat.  The panini idea is simple though, you really can use whatever ingredients you like - I've made them with pesto, chicken, and sundried tomatoes before - and that's a totally awesome combo.  One of these days I plan to incorporate black beans and salsa into one of these bad boys and see how that goes.

The best thing about paninis is that you are able to really get creative with fillings - even with the bread you choose to use.

*If you don't have a George Forman (or similar) grill, you can use a non-stick frying pan with something heavy placed on top of the sandwich to "press" the panini - you'll have to flip it midway to get the crispiness on both sides of your sandwich, but trust me, it will be sooo worth it!

Kale-iciousness

My sister, Lindsay, sent me a recipe for Lentil-Lemon-Kale soup that I'm super excited to try this week.  I'm hoping for a delicious, tangy soup that will pair perfectly with some whole wheat garlic bread (gotta have my carbs!).  OK, I admit, being this jazzed over making soup is just a tiny  bit ridiculous.  But I can't help it, I just love food! And trying new recipes...especially ones that are somewhat healthy, that help me to justify the 3 cups of ice cream I am sure to imbibe as a "snack" the night that I make this beaut...makes me giddy.

Here's a pic of the soup Lindsay sent over...it looks delicious to me, and I totally can't wait to try it!

Steak, The Plaza, Hot Fudge, & Frankie Valli: our V-Day Celebration in NYC

Forgive the long post title...or don't.  Your call.  I think it perfectly sums up the amazing weekend Greg and I had in celebration of Valentine's Day (albeit a few days early).

A few weeks ago, I got a weekly e-mail from TravelZoo with the top 20 travel deals of the week, which included a deal on stays at several Starwood hotels in NYC for very deeply discounted rates.  Anytime TravelZoo features anything in NYC I check it out - because I love to get a deal, and because we live so close to NYC that going there for an event is like getting away without the hassle of driving a million miles or sitting in an airport waiting for delayed flights.  I booked a room for one night, and prayed like crazy that it wouldn't snow the weekend before Valentine's Day.  Unfortunately, the weather forecast called for snow Friday night and Saturday, so I ended up working all night on Friday - but for almost no reason since the snow we were supposed to get never really amounted to anything.  Someday I'd like to be a weather forecaster...what other job can you have where you can be wrong 50% of the time and not get penalized for it?  Not a bad deal.