The Experiment - Gotta buckle down!

9:32 AM AirplaneFoodCritic 0 Comments


I have not had many new revelations about dieting in the past week. I am going steady and strong so I have not found anything new that may be of use to anyone reading my blogs. This is a good thing though. I have found a nice groove and I am exactly one month away from my trip. My days are pretty much similar with similar meals at similar times every day. An example of a typical day goes as follows:


4:30am wake up
5:00am eat breakfast: Two thick slices of turkey, 1/4 avocado cubed, poached egg, hot sauce.
8:00am eat snack: Apple
10:00am eat half of lunch: Large chicken breast and a nectarine
12:30pm eat other half of lunch
3:00pm eat snack: 1/4 cup soy nuts and dried fruits
5:00pm get home, make light dinner: Green salad with nuts and fruit.
8:30pm go to bed

During that day I make sure I am drinking two liters (60 ounces) of water. Sometimes I get wily and add some lemon juice to my water. I know, pretty exciting. I am not a fruit person. I do not like the sugary taste they have. I do not like the juicy mess most of them impart. I have found a few fruits that I can enjoy though. Apples are one of those fruits. I buy Granny Smith apples in bulk at Costco and eat at least one a day. I get out my Swiss Army knife and slice off bits to snack on as I work. I also like grapes a lot. Those are super easy to pop into my mouth as I am working. I tried the globe grapes but they have seeds and that makes for more work so now I stick to seedless. No mess. The nectarines are great because they are a little juicy. I eat it right along with my chicken so it adds moisture to my reheated chicken breasts.
The week days are great. I have the above schedule and I follow it. Weekends, as you may have learned, are a whole different animal. I have a party to go to every single weekend! This weekend was no exception: Dining out with friends and then a double birthday party with an Italian theme.

Dining out with friends is an understatement. I went to a fabulous show in San Francisco. I saw Conan O'Brien's Strictly Prohibited From Being Funny On TV.





It was awesome!! Famous comedians doing stand up, Conan, of course, Andy Richter, the whole band was there, Triumph the Insult Dog was there, Masturbating Bear, the Walker Lever...everything you can imagine was there....and as a wonderful surprise, Chris Isaac did a performance!!
We bought the tickets when we thought it was going to be our last chance to see Conan live. We are quite happy to have learned that since then he has been signed on to TBS. We still plan a trip down to L.A. to see him once that show in up and running later this year.

I digress, this was supposed to be a diet update. While in the City, we were with friends and everyone was hungry. We had to grab something really quick so we ended up at a pizza place. There was absolutely nothing on the menu that wasn't cheesy and melty. My only option was to be a party pooper and get nothing. The location of the event was such that I was able to get a workout getting to it. San Francisco is known for it's hills. This area was the epitome of that. The sidewalks were not sidewalks, they were stairs. I used the opportunity to burn some calories so while all our friends were huffing and puffing up the hill with 'Za's in hand, I was sprinting up with little effort. It is a great thing when you can FEEL how much weight you have lost. I FELT lighter. I felt like a gazelle bounding up the steep hill. I also felt good about not ordering a slice of pizza like the rest of the folks.
Saturday I knew was going to be a challenge. I woke up, walked the dog and made a huge breakfast. Remember, breakfast is my largest meal of the day so I wanted to really feel satisfied all day long so I didn't go into the evening party starving. Once it came time to go to the party I had a glass of milk to help fill my tummy. At the party itself I could not resist having a Negroni. Ahh sweet nectar. Of the appetizers, I was able to nibble on a few. There were bread sticks wrapped in prosciutto. I unwrapped the sticks and ate the prosciutto. Lean protein, right? Then there was bruschetta. I ate the two with the most topping on it. I figured, it is only tomatoes, garlic and onion so I could eat a lot of the topping. There were also olives of which I allowed myself to eat as much as I pleased. I skipped the mini pizza bites.


For dinner there was Insalata Caprese, a green salad picked from the garden, beef carpaccio and a giant bowl of spaghetti with homemade meatballs. I was a very good girl! I had some of the insalata caprese salad, even though there is cheese in it, it is really fresh mozzarella so I felt I could have a few slices and I could have as much as I wanted of the tomatoes. I had a huge pile of the garden salad because it only had a simple oil and vinegar dressing. I took two slices of bread and about two ounces of the beef carpaccio. Beef carpaccio is nothing more than lean, raw meat so I felt I could have as much of that as I wanted. Then there was the spaghetti. What I did was take two meatballs and a pile of tomato sauce and plopped them right onto my plate. No pasta at all. I was so proud of myself! I was stuffed by the end of the meal but I had not eaten anything bad for me.
Since it was a double birthday, there were two birthday cakes. That proved to be a bit more difficult to maneuver. One cake was a chocolate layer cake and the other was a fruit tart. I had the latter. It may have had a lot of sugar but it still had all that fruit on top so I allowed a slice to pass my lips.
I have no excuse for the half a bottle of Chianti I had with dinner or the sip of Grappa I had to end the meal. I just really enjoyed them both. Sometimes you need to allow yourself little treats...or a whole half a bottle of treats.

When I over indulge on alcohol or food, the very next day I make a fruit smoothie. I use the recipe I developed a while ago to detox your body. You can find that recipe in my first "The Experiment" blog entry. I gotta say, that recipe is fantastic!! I always feel much better after having it. I did a lot of research on what ingredients I should put in there so I could maximize the output. It really works. The flavor is a bit too lemony for my bf but he sucks it down anyways and he agrees that it feels like it is cutting into the junk food that is sitting in his stomach. It gives you a boost of energy and gives you the feeling of being lighter. It also cures a hangover. I am quite proud of that recipe and I depend on it often. Try it out!
My weight loss is steady but it is much slower than it was at the beginning of this adventure. As you may recall, I began this whole thing in March with a rapid weight loss plan followed by a more sensible, healthy plan. The healthy plan I am following is also a weight loss plan. I am eating around 1200 calories a day which I have learned is my optimum weight loss intake. After this weight loss diet I do plan on continuing with a healthy diet, just not for weight loss. I hope to make up new recipes as time progresses. I will post them here as I come up with them.

The next distraction is this Wednesday where I will be eating Thai food followed by strawberry shortcake for my brother's birthday. Next weekend is another wine tasting event where I always end up eating way too much. Following that is Mother's Day where I will have the pleasure of eating at Angele in Napa. The weekend right before I leave my food group meets where we are cooking Southern food. What does all this mean? It means I will have to be extra good during the week days for the next month!!!

I have 32 days to lose 9 pounds. Wish me luck!

0 comments:

Mexican Chocolate Cupcakes and Hominy and Chilies Casserole

9:57 AM AirplaneFoodCritic 1 Comments


My food group had a theme of Tex-Mex this month. I looked all over the internet for healthy recipes but learned that Tex-Mex, by nature, is mostly unhealthy. The host of this month's party is from Texas and said it herself: "Basically, you take some food and cover it in queso". Queso, meaning gloppy, yellow cheese. It tastes fantastic, don't get me wrong, but finding a recipe that is good for you and delicious is out of the question. So, I gave up on that attempt and created a couple recipes based on what I was in the mood for eating. Both these recipes are vegetarian because one of the hosts of the pot luck is a vegetarian and I wanted to make something she could enjoy.

The first thing that came to my mind was hominy. Made from corn kernels, it is not a well known ingredient that has no fat and minimal calories. It is very good for you. I love hominy and I see it in giant tubs in the Mexican markets so I figure it must at least cover the "Mex" part of the theme. I figured if I tossed in some chilies it would cover the "Tex" part and to tie it all together, of course, cheese. The result was a HUGE hit at the party. Everyone asked me for the recipe which is always a great compliment so I am providing it below.

Tex Mex Hominy Casserole

1/2 white onion
2 cloves garlic
1 Tbsp olive oil
1/2 tsp red pepper flakes
1/2 tsp cayenne pepper
1 1/2 tsp cumin
Juice of 1 lime
1 small jalapeno, some seeds removed
1 poblano pepper, seeded
1 can chipotle peppers in adobo sauce (7.5 oz)
1 can of white hominy(29 oz)
1 can of kidney beans, drained
3/4 cup light sour cream
1/4 cup vegetable broth or water
1 package of shredded sharp cheddar (12 oz)
2 corn tortillas cut into thin strips

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Dice onion and chop garlic, place in a small pan with oil and cook until fragrant, about three minutes. Add the pepper flakes, cayenne and cumin and lime juice, reduce heat and simmer for about two minutes.

2. Chop jalapeno, poblano and chipotlte peppers finely together. You can use a food processor or one of those hand slapping choppers. Add peppers to a 9 inch square casserole dish, or something similar, along with the hominy, beans, sour cream and broth. Mix thoroughly.

3. Add about 2/3 of the package of cheese and blend in with the rest of the ingredients then top with remaining 1/3 of cheese. Place tortilla strips on top in a lattice pattern.

4. Bake for 30 minutes then broil for a few minutes at the end for an extra crispy tortilla topping.

If you are like me then you want a relatively large serving so I figure this serves 8. I added up all the calories et. al. from all the cans of ingredients as well as what calorieking said about the oil and veggies then I divided it all by 8 and here is what I got:

Calories: 380, Fat: 18g, Sodium: 1128mg, Protein: 17g, Fiber: 7g, Carbs: 37g


The day of the pot luck party I was feeling particularly thin, and good thing because of all the food I was about to eat. I was really craving Mexican chocolate. I recall one time when I was young my mother brought home an angular yellow box full of wrapped discs of hardened chocolate.

My mother explained that it was spiced chocolate from Mexico used for making hot chocolate. I really liked the hints of cinnamon and other spices it had. I thought that would make a yummy cupcake. I wanted to make the cupcake even more interesting by adding some heat to it with some cayenne pepper. I had to eat a lot of cupcakes to come up with the right ingredients but it was worth it!

Mexican Chocolate Cayenne Mini Cupcakes

1 box of devil's food cake mix
2 tsp cayenne pepper
2 tsp cinnamon
4 eggs (in lieu of how ever many the cake box tells you to use)
1 cup buttermilk (in lieu of how ever much water the cake box tells you to use)
Vegetable oil (what ever amount is on the instructions on the cake mix box)
1 disk Mexican chocolate, chopped into chip sized bits.


1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Line mini cupcake pans with muffin paper cups.

2. In a large mixing bowl combine the cake mix, cayenne pepper, cinnamon, salt and pepper. Add the egg, buttermilk and oil. Stir until combined. Add the chocolate bits and stir until it is incorporated in the mix.

3. Spoon batter into muffin cups filling them up about three quarters of the way. Bake at 400 for 10 to 12 minutes. Let cool and remove from pan.

Frosting

For the frosting, I didn't have any butter in the house and I was too lazy to go to the store just to buy one stick so I improvised a sort of ganache. You can make it as spicy as you like by adding more or less spice. I found that the chocolate seems to calm the spice down a lot and was surprised by how much pepper I was putting in just to get a tiny bit of spice in the flavor.

4 disks Mexican chocolate, chopped up to melt faster
3 Tbsp buttermilk
1 Tbsp cinnamon
2 Tbsp cayenne pepper
1 tsp sriracha hot sauce (if you dare)

1. In a double boiler melt the chocolate with the buttermilk. Once melted add the cinnamon. Add the pepper in increments until you have achieved the level of spiciness you would like. Add sriracha sauce if not spicy enough.

2. Remove pot of chocolate from double boiler. Take a cooled cupcake, invert and dip into the chocolate mixture. Roll the cake until the top is covered in a layer of the chocolate. Let the frosting cool and repeat with all cupcakes.

The chocolate that I used had cocoa nibs in it. This made the frosting a little crunchy which people really liked so do not worry if your chocolate doesn't seem to completely dissolve.

1 comments:

The Experiment - Salt is not worth it's...err...salt.

7:42 AM AirplaneFoodCritic 0 Comments


As I mentioned in a couple blogs ago, last week was a weight plateau for me. I hovered around the same weight the whole week. I understand there will be times when plateaus occur. I studied several articles that suggest ways to break that plateau. Some suggestions were to change up the caloric intake of each meal. For example, maybe have a smaller breakfast and a larger lunch. This is supposed to shake up your metabolism somehow. I don't really buy that but that is what they said. Also, and this makes sense, they say to increase your exercise. There were other things said but the thing that made the most sense was to increase the exercise. I decided to give it another week to see if things picked up again. That week was this week. Guess what happened! I GAINED weight.
The first time since I began blogging, I actually gained weight. I was so distraught. I could NOT understand what was going on. I had not changed a thing. Same lack luster exercise, same caloric intake. Why on EARTH was I gaining weight???
Obviously, this took the wind out of my sails. I moped around most of the week hence, the lack of blogs. What good things have I to share if I am putting on the pounds? I stuck to my diet though. I know it was working at one point so I had no choice but to stick to it. I am not giving up!

Then, about mid-week I noticed something. The prior weekend I did my grocery shopping. I went to my usual Costco and I also went to a new market called Mi Pueblo. Mi Pueblo is a massive Mexican grocery store that just went up in a nearby neighbor hood. There were all kinds of cool things there. There were different kinds of cactus, weird, prickly fruits that my bf got stabbed with while he tried to pick it up, lots of different kinds of peppers (I picked up some jalapenos and poblanos for my grape salsa) and a huge array of things in cans that I had no idea what they were. I was quite excited and a bit overwhelmed when I got the the hot sauce section. I love hot sauce. The spicier the better, but I like it to have some flavor too. I spent way too long in that aisle. It was sort of late at night and we were tired so I finally just chose a random bottle with Spanish writing on it containing a red liquid. I figured, it is red, it is Mexican, it must be hot and tasty!
I brought my new hot sauce to work and used it on my turkey breast slices for lunch. It turned out to be a very tangy sauce but not spicy at ALL. As such, I had to put a truck load of sauce on every single bite just to get the slightest inkling of spice. It was almost a soup. I wanted that heat to help boost my metabolism. I thought I was doing a good thing for my weight loss. That is until about mid-week when I was eating my turkey and gulping down the "hot" sauce. I started to look at the label of the sauce. I realized that I had not looked at the ingredients or the nutrient label when I bought the sauce. I was just figuring it was like all the others, ground up chilies, vinegar, water...blah blah. I saw the nutrients that were written in Spanish and then, in tiny writing, English.

Ingredients: Water, Salt, Sugar, Citric Acid, Chili Peppers....(then there was a list of things I did not know what they were, probably to thicken up the sauce like guargum and xantham gum and other horrible things)

Serving Size: 1tsp
Calories: 0g
Total Fat: 0g
Cholesterol: 0g
Sodium: 315mg
Total Carbohydrate: 0g
Protein: 0g

>insert record scratch here<

315 Milligrams of Sodium??? *scratches head*

doing a little math.....I was eating at least three ounces of the stuff a day, carry the one......

I was eating about 5985 mg of sodium for lunch every day. HOLY CRAP!!!!
I might as well be dumping pure salt into my mouth and chewing. No wonder I was gaining weight. I was retaining water...apparently a LOT of water. I took the bottle of poison and brought it downstairs to the break room. No one in there was willing to touch the stuff. I just wanted it as far away from me as possible. Every man for himself! I left it down there and didn't return. Not until today, that is. I wanted to take a picture of the nutrient label and the label and the ingredient list because it was like a UFO or a ghost sighting. No one would believe me. Alas, much like a UFO or ghost sighting, it was gone. I searched the refrigerators, the trash, even the recycling....poof. Gone. Good riddance.

Once I got rid of the liquid weight gain I bounced back very nicely. I am happy to say that I weigh less than I have ever weighed this whole year. I have another distraction this weekend but I feel so much better knowing that I am not a total idiot when it comes to losing weight. I guess I am still doing things relatively right. At least for me I am. This weekend my food group meets. Our theme is Tex Mex BBQ. I looked it up, there is very little that is healthy. I have decided to make a hominy casserole. It will have cheese in it. Just warning you. I will post any delicious recipes I deem to be healthy enough to share.

I have 42 days to lose 10 pounds. Go me!

0 comments:

Tasty Healthy Recipes

11:46 AM AirplaneFoodCritic 0 Comments


I belong to a wine group that meets once a month to taste wines. Each meeting has a particular theme. This past weekend the theme was Gewürztraminer. I adore these wines. The aroma, the sweetness, the fruit. Everyone brings a dish pot luck style to share once we are finished tasting. I like to bring food that pairs with the wine we are tasting. I looked long and hard for a recipe that interested me and paired with the Gewürztraminer. The foods that pair best with this wine are spicy dishes like Thai food and curries or fruity dishes like strawberry shortcake. I came up with a wonderful dish that combined the fruit and spice and ended up pairing really well with the Gewurz.

Chevre Toasts with Grape Salsa

1 lb seedless red grapes (black works too, or you can mix colors)
1/3 poblano chili
1/2 jalapeño chili (more or less depending on your spice preferences)
1 Tbsp red wine vinegar
1/2 cup fresh cilantro, finely chopped
1/2 small red onion
Salt and pepper

1 whole grain baguette
8 ounces goat cheese
2 Tbsp soy milk (regular milk will do as well)

Remove the seeds from the poblano and jalapeno and chop both finely. Finely chop the red onion. Dice the grapes. This works best if you slice them twice lengthwise and then once widthwise. Place the peppers, onion and grapes in a bowl. Add the cilantro and vinegar and season to taste with the salt and pepper. Toss ingredients together.
Slice the baguette into 1/4 inch pieces and arrange on a baking tray. Toast the bread in the oven on broil for two minutes. Turn each piece over and broil for another two minutes or until toasted. Let the toast cool.

Put the chevre into a small bowl with the milk and blend until you have a smooth consistency. Spread about a tablespoon of the chevre mixture on a slice of toast and top with a mound of the grape salsa.

Chevre Toasts with Grape Salsa



Still on my diet, I have learned that if I mix my protein with fruit I get full faster, I have more energy and I seem to lose weight faster. I devised a recipe that gives me the protein and fruit I want in a meal with a tropical twist. One of my favorite restaurants is on Maui in a town called Paia. It is called Mama's Fish House. I go there at least once a year and every time I order the same starter. It is called Seared Beef Polynesian served in a Grilled Ripe Papaya. Below are a couple pictures of the beauty.



Mama's Fish House Polynesian Beef in Papaya

This is relatively simple to make at home but there is a lot of oil involved and I try to not eat red meat too often. I created a recipe to take to work as lunch that is more healthy but has a similar inspiration.

Tuna Salad in Fresh Papaya

1 6 oz can chunk light tuna
1/4 cup plain fat free Greek yogurt
1/2 Tbsp Dijon Mustard
1/2 Tbsp Mayonnaise (optional)
1 celery stalk, diced
1/4 red onion, diced
1 small pickle, diced
1/4 tsp dried dill
salt and pepper to taste

1 fresh, ripe papaya

Place all ingredients but the papaya in a bowl and stir to combine. Peel the papaya and slice in half lengthwise. Use a spoon to scrape out the seeds from the center leaving a smooth bowl shape. Spoon the tuna mixture into the papaya halves and serve!
Tuna Salad in Fresh Papaya

0 comments:

The Experiment - A Different Kind of Boost

9:53 AM AirplaneFoodCritic 0 Comments


I do not know what is going on with my body. I follow the rules of dieting. I monitor the calories going in and the calories going out. I have not changed my level of exercise nor have I changed what I am eating during the week (weekends are completely out of my control!). Last week I lost an ungodly amount of weight. I was eating a large bowl of turkey chili for breakfast, an egg for snack, a very large chicken breast with a whole fruit for lunch and dinner (split) and an apple for afternoon snack. I am still doing little to no exercise save for walking my doggy every afternoon but he stops to sniff the bushes so often during that walk that I never get my heart rate up. This week I ran out of food (we grocery shop every three weeks and we are at the end of said time period) so I was scrounging but still had similar meals. I had a large bowl of cereal for breakfast, hummus and olives for snack, a large chicken breast for lunch and dinner and an egg for an afternoon snack. I did run out of fruit, maybe that was the difference but all this week I stayed at the same weight. When I stall like that I get bummed and unmotivated. I try to be good but with no results. To remedy this, I went on the intra-webs and tried to look up ways to boost the diet, to get off a plateau. I know that one week is not really considered a plateau but for me, who weights herself everyday, it is. What I found was what I expected to find. I could do a fast for a day, I could beef up my (non-existant) workout, I could lower my caloric intake.....blah blah. I know all that stuff but it isn't all that healthy, well, the exercise part is but if you have been reading my blogs you might know that I am a busy girl as well as a bit of a lazy girl.

And so I was left bummed. That is until my boss asked me to do a special project. I had to take a pallet of spoiled wine and dump it. I took that opportunity to be out in the sun for a while. I dragged out the pallet (about 24 cases of wine) into the sun and began to open and dump each bottle. I used the situation as a way to get some extra exercise. I was purposely lifting boxes and tossing bottles into the recycling dumpster in a manner that would benefit maximum energy output. It got hot. I got really hot. I took off my sweater and then just stripped down to a little tank top. A tank top I never intended to be seen in at work. I had no choice. I would have had heat exhaustion had I not. I also liked the thought of getting some vitamin D as well as perhaps a bit of a tan.


There I was working away in the sun in my skin tight jeans and little tank top. People started walking by and noticing me. Pretty soon I was getting compliments from people walking by.I didn't realize that at work, I wear pretty baggy shirts and jackets just because of the nature of what I do and how dirty it can get. I mean, I know what I look like under all the baggy clothes but others didn't. It was a huge ego boost to have my friends and coworkers tell me.."wow, you look fantastic!" and "If you lose anymore weight, you will disappear!" Sure, the latter is not true. I know I have a bit more to go, but those compliments really gave me a boost. So the scale didn't tell me I lost weight, the people around me did and that is good enough for me!

On a similar note, I do have to say that at home, my bf is always complimentary. I have no problem with self esteem at home. He has always said I am perfect but I have noticed that in the past month or two he has been following me around with his tongue dragging particularly long on the floor which I like a lot. He is into the tall, curvy, blond thing and I provide that in spades but I am having one concern. For many women, when you lose weight, you lose it in your chest to some degree. I think it is possible that I am near that stage and I am trying to keep an eye on the situation even though there is little I can do about it. Those are two curves I do not want to lose. I only have 11 pounds left to lose so hopefully, the shrinking of my body overpowers the shrinking of any other body part! So far I am very happy with my results and this past boost of confidence from my friends and coworkers has really helped.

Tomorrow I have another distraction. My wine group meets again. I am making what sounds like a wonderful little snack of goat cheese and grapes. I will share the recipe later if it is any good. For now I have 11 pounds to lose in 48 days. Wish me luck!

0 comments:

The Experiment - Yummy Recipes

10:43 AM AirplaneFoodCritic 0 Comments


I thought I would share a couple recipes that are super tasty and easy to make. One is a recipe that you can either make with chicken or fish. The flavor is totally insane and there is NOTHING in it bad for you save for a bit of salt that you certainly leave out and lose very little flavor. The other is a fantastic hummus recipe. This is different than any other hummus recipe I have seen out there because it uses minimal oil and isn't overly garlicky. I know garlic is good for you, but your coworkers can only take so much!

First off, the chicken/fish recipe:
This came about one evening when my bf and I were both tired and no one wanted to make lunch or dinner for the week ahead. I am not a fan of fish but we had a bunch of tilapia fillets partially defrosted on the counter. I took a filet and placed it in a large square of tin foil, I started adding all kinds of ingredients and sealed it all up together in the tinfoil. We baked the foil packets at 350 degrees F for about 20 minutes. We let them sit in the packets until we were ready to eat them for lunch and dinner the next day. I did something a little different to each packet so it was a surprise when we opened the packet each day. We liked it so much that we tried the same thing with chicken breasts and found the results were just as wonderful. A general recipe is below:


1 Chicken Breast or fish fillet (tilapia or salmon have worked well for us)
6 large green olives (you can use the kinds stuffed with feta, garlic or jalapeno for a little kick)
2 1/4 inch think slices of lemon
2 tbsp garbanzo beans
1 clove garlic, chopped
1 pinch sea salt
1 dash pepper
Optional additions: sprig fresh rosemary, sprinkling of paprika

Take a square of tinfoil that looks big enough to wrap around the chicken or fish, about 1 square foot. Place the two lemon slices in the center of the foil and top with the fillet or breast. Sprinkle the salt and pepper on top. Cover the breast or fillet with the garlic, beans and olives. Pull two ends of the foil up and fold together. Curl in the sides in a similar fashion so the contents are sealed inside. Repeat for as many packets you would like to make. Place in preheated oven at 350F for 20 minutes. Open the packets and enjoy hot or take the packet to work the next day, empty the contents into a microwave safe dish and heat up.

Calories: 342, Fat: 13.4, Fiber: 4.5, Protein: 40.5, Carbs:17

This is so so tasty, easy to make and easy to transport. It also is a great way to control portion size. You also have the freedom to add or not add anything you like to adjust to your flavor interests.

The Hummus recipe is from the Blossoming Lotus vegan cookbook, although I do not use the vegan soy sauce that they recommend. The Blossoming Lotus is a vegan restaurant that used to be in Kapa'a, Kauai but closed that location in 2009. There is another location in Portland, Oregon although I have never been to that one. I have had the pleasure of dining at the Kauai restaurant and was wholly impressed by the flavors and textures they offered. If anyone has the opportunity to visit this restaurant, I very highly recommend it, even if you are a devout carnivore. I can't help but post a few pictures of the meals we had when we were there last, in 2008.
Coconut Sake and Chilled Coconut Milk


Vegan Enchiladas


Vegan Spanakopita


Roasted Red Pepper Hummus:
1 large roasted red pepper (1 cup)
3 cups garbanzo beans canned or cooked and drained.
3 tbsp soy sauce
1/4 cup lemon juice, fresh squeezed
1 tbsp olive oil
3/4 cup tahini, roasted, creamy variety
2 tsp cumin
1 1/2 tsp minced garlic
3/4 tsp salt or to taste
3/4 tsp pepper or to taste
1/2 tsp cayenne pepper

Place all ingredients in a blender and blend until consistent. This should make 4 cups. You can serve it with falafel, pita chips, or toasted pita triangles. I like to top the hummus with big green olives.


For a half cup serving (you do not want to eat much more than a cup in a day, it is, after all, a bunch of beans and garlic and your tummy might not agree with a large amount of it):

Calories:263, Fat: 13g, Fiber: 7.6g, Protein: 9g, Carbs: 9g

If you eat with a few olives, this makes a fantastic 300 calorie meal to act as one of the five daily meals if you are following my diet plan.

That is all I have for today. I have 51 days to lose 13 pounds. Still on a schedule of a quarter pound a day and holding steady!


0 comments:

The Experiment - I eated too much!

10:55 AM AirplaneFoodCritic 0 Comments


I was a naughty, naughty girl this weekend!! I constantly complain about the "distractions" I have from my diet. I usually have only one day of these distractions, maybe two in a week's time. This weekend I was a glutton for two days straight! This indulgence followed a period of rapid weight loss so it had a worse effect than it could have had.

It all started on Friday when I was doing nothing out of the ordinary. All last week I followed my five meal a day diet plan. I do not really understand why but the weight was just MELTING off of me. I dropped a great deal of weight by Saturday morning. To be specific, I had lost 3.5 pounds since Monday. I have absolutely no idea why. I was not doing anything particularly different. I ate about 1200 calories a day in five meal increments. I didn't have alcohol, I didn't eat within three or four hours of bedtime. That is it. I woke up Saturday thrilled about the level I had dropped down to but I was a little leery of it at the same time. A rapid weight loss like that could mean a rapid weight gain might soon follow. And that is exactly what happened, no thanks to my eating habits for the next two days.

I woke up craving chocolate frozen yogurt. This was thanks to Men's Health online magazine. I know I am not a man (duh) but I do subscribe to Men's Health because I find the nutritional and weight loss sections to be very informative. Women's Health is strongly leaned towards running and the recipes do not have the low calorie qualities I look for. Men's Health has this REALLY cool feature called "Shop once, eat for a week". This shows a list of things you can buy at the grocery store for under $50 total and then it gives you recipes that will feed you all week long with what you bought! Buuut I digress, back to frozen yogurt. Men's Health had an article about the 12 best smoothie ingredients. They offer ingredients that will boost weight loss, heart health and build muscle while tasting good at the same time. Since I teased you this far I will share the ingredients with you but I will let you go to the website yourself to find the reasons why they are so good for you.

12 Smoothie Ingredients:

Peanut Butter
Fat Free Milk
Blueberries
Raspberries
Low Fat Vanilla Yogurt
Pineapple-Orange Juice
Cherries
Bananas
Whey Protein (this is the manly ingredient0
Frozen Mangoes
Ice
And.....Fat Free Frozen Yogurt!!

The fat free frozen yogurt, they say, adds calcium and phosphorus with none of the guilt. That set me off on a need for chocolate frozen yogurt.

Before I set out on my search for frozen yogurt, I had a quick breakfast because I never want to leave the house without having my most important meal of the day. I had a poached egg on a piece of toast. As a special treat, I added a couple drops of white truffle oil to the egg. It was wonderful. For those who do not know how to poach an egg, I shall give you the simple instructions.

Poaching an egg:

What you will need:
a pot of approximately two cups of water
1 or 2 tbsp of vinegar
an egg

Heat the water to simmering. Add the vinegar. The vinegar keeps the egg from dispersing into the water giving you a nice lump of egg in the end. Crack the egg into a bowl (this will make pouring it into the water easier). Swirl the water with a spoon. This will help clump the egg together. Slide the egg into the swirling water.
Cook on simmer for about three to four minutes. Remove the egg with a slotted spoon making sure to get as much water out of the egg as possible. Placing it on a dry paper towel or dish cloth will help drain the egg of water too.
I like to add a little more vinegar to the water because it adds a little vinegar flavor to the egg which I like and it keeps me from adding too much salt to flavor the egg later. One tablespoon of vinegar will suffice though.

Armed with a good breakfast I headed out to find my chocolate frozen yogurt. I know nothing of frozen yogurt save for what Men's Health said so I didn't know what to expect. I have not had frozen yogurt since I was about ten years old. I used my trusty Android and found a TCBY. Before I entered the store I saw a sign on the door that read "Everything we serve is at 96% fat free or more". I was impressed and encouraged by the sign. Inside there were about 8 different choices of yogurts, all of varying amounts of fat-freedom. To my delight, the chocolate variety was Fat Free! I did a bit of research on TCBY's yogurts and found that a half cup serving of the "Double Dutch Chocolate Fat Free Frozen Yogurt" has 110 calories, 4 grams protein, 0 grams fat, 3 grams fiber, and 24 grams carbs. I had the Kiddie Cup which is only 1/3 of a cup so I was enjoying even less of all those carbs and calories. A poster on the wall in the store said that there are also seven active probiotics in the yogurt as well which they say enhances your immune system and assists in digestion.
The person I was spending the day with was hungry and we ended up at Subway. He bought a foot long sandwich because, after all, they are only $5 as we all know. I said I would have just a bite. I ate half the sandwich. I couldn't help myself! According to their commercials, Subway CAN be low calorie and low fat but we got the sandwich with the salami and pepperoni and provolone cheese. I am sure that wasn't all that low cal. In fact, according to the Subway website, I consumed 500 calories and 21 grams of fat. Oh well! then I watched a movie so I was just sitting there for a couple hours. After that, I kept on with my over-eating and went to sushi with friends.

Sushi, itself, is not a terrible food to eat, but I ate until I was stuffed. At least I got the rolls with the multi grain rice instead of the regular white rice. I was with a bunch of friends so we ended up at my house and like a good host I served some nice red wine. I had a couple glasses of that...now you can see my calories are adding up.

I went to bed stuffed and feeling a might bit guilty. All of the foods I ate were healthy, if eaten alone, but I stacked large portions on top of large portions. Sunday was Easter and I didn't stop the over eating for the rising of our Lord from the dead. Ohhh nooo....We had brunch at an Italian restaurant. I had a whole serving of polenta (which is actually very good for you) smothered in butter and mushrooms and topped with truffle oil. I also had a whole serving of spinach ravioli stuffed with sausage and topped with tomatoes and cheeses. Oh woe is me!

To summarize my weekend mistakes: I ate food that was relatively healthy for me, I just at WAY TOO MUCH of it all. This week I need to make up for it with lots of fruit smoothies and lean proteins. We shall see. I have 15 pounds to lose in 53 days.

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The Experiment - Grazing my way to Weight Loss

8:25 AM AirplaneFoodCritic 0 Comments


I have done tons and tons of research on various diets trying to come up with my own, personal weight loss plan. A lot of the things I am doing are just an culmination of existing diet plans. I am not a scientist, oh, wait, I am!...OK, I am not a nutritionist or a weight loss expert so all the choices I am making are just trials. I would like to think of them as informed decisions but there are so many fad diets out there and false claims. My method of research is to look at as much data and as many articles and first hand accounts (like blogs) that I can. I have a tendency to lean towards information that is repeated often and towards information that makes sense to me. For example, I am now trying out the 5-meal-a-day diet method. I have read a lot about it, mostly from people who promote the method. I have found one article denouncing it's weight loss effects. That article interested me because I like to see both sides of the story. What I concluded after reading all sides is that this method, which I will go into detail below, is a relatively safe and effective. The only article against it didn't say there was the possibility of gaining weight, just that there is no evidence of losing weight.

What is the 5-meal-a-day diet? It is just as it sounds. Instead of eating three large meals a day you eat 5 smaller meals. This is supposed to make it so you are constantly giving your body the fuel it needs and not going hungry. If you are not hungry then your body won't ever think you have the need to store fat. I imagine, then, by eating all day long, your body is burning up the foods as you provide them and no fat is stored up. Thinking along the same lines, you can control the calories that you are taking in to either maintain your weight (feeding yourself the same calories you are burning up) or lose weight (taking in slightly less calories than you are burning).

This isn't a responsibility free diet though. You can not just eat whatever you want so long as you are eating it in small portions. I have chosen to eat only very low fat and high protein foods. My largest meal is still in the morning and my smallest is still in the evening and I am still not eating 3 or 4 hours before I go to bed. This week marks the first week I am trying out this method. I have a little freedom to try out different diets week by week and then tweaking them to what works for me because I still have 57 days before I leave for Maui.

Sunday I 'cued up some giant chicken breasts. They must have been 8 ounces each. All this week my meals have consisted of the following. For breakfast I had a cup of the turkey chili at 5am. At 8am I had one of my easter eggs with a little mustard.
At 11am I had half of my chicken breast and half a fruit. At 2:30 I had the other half of the chicken and fruit. And when I got home at about 5 I had a hand full of granola and/or some crackers with almond butter and raisins.

The chicken and fruit thing was borne out of necessity. I was sitting there at my desk, staring at a dry piece of chicken. I didn't want to eat just a plain piece of chicken so I took my nectarine and sliced it up and mixed it up with slices of my chicken breast. It tasted pretty good! The next day I was faced with the same problem but I was out of nectarines by that time so I only had a plum. It wasn't as good but at least it provided some moisture and flavor to the chicken.
This method...so far....seems to be working for me. I have lost a pound and a half this week which has always been my weekly goal. Last night was family dinner night and I have leftovers of it today. Mom made chicken tostadas. Last night I had just the chicken on a plate (no tostada shell) and topped it with shredded cabbage, salsa, scallions, black olives and a tiny bit of sour cream. Today I have a tupperware bucket full of just the shredded chicken and shredded cabbage. I thought I would just graze on it all day long because it is a huge amount. I found it to be pretty plain, once again.
Luckily, I work in a mostly Hispanic company and I knew we had hot sauce somewhere in the break room. I figured, if I am going to do something to punch up the flavor of my meal, why not use spice that is proved to increase metabolism? I headed down stairs and started searching around. Some coworkers told me that they are out of hot sauce for now but there are some fresh peppers in the fridge. I grabbed one pepper that was about three inches long and looked like a skinny jalapeno. My coworker told me that they are pretty mild and I should probably grab another. I did. I came back to my office, used my trusty Swiss Army knife, sliced up the peppers and tossed them into the chicken and cabbage mixture. It was then that I realized....today is April Fool's Day.
Is it possible that I have just been swindled into putting crazy hot peppers into the only food I brought to eat today? It was too late to worry about it. I closed my eyes and dug in. It was pretty spicy but not unbearable. Perhaps for some people, but I have such a high tolerance to spice that even if this was meant to be a joke on me (which I do not think it was after all) I was able to handle the heat.

Guidelines to the 5 meal a day diet: I try to give myself guidelines because when there is a regiment to follow, I find it easier to continue with a diet. I found a website where you can enter a little of your physical info and it will tell you how many calories you should be consuming every day to maintain your weight and how many you should consume to lose weight. I was told that I should be having between 1200 and 1350 calories a day if I want to lose weight. This means that I can have three 300 calorie meals and two 150 calorie snacks every day. This is basically what I am going to try to do with a slight modification of having more calories in the morning and less at night.

People have been asking me exactly how much I have lost so here is my breakdown so far. This YEAR I have lost 19 pounds. This MONTH I have lost14 pounds and since I began this blog I have lost 12 pounds. I have lost 2.5 pounds in the past week. I aim for losing a quarter pound a day or approximately 1.5 pounds to 2 pounds a week.

Today's weigh in shows me that I have 57 days to lose 13 pounds.

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