Good Start

11:33 AM AirplaneFoodCritic 0 Comments


I thought I would drop a wee note here because I wanted to share my good start. I feel that if I share it, it inspires me to continue. Perhaps, it inspires someone else too but who am I kidding, I am pretty selfish. I will blog if it makes me thin whether or not people are reading this...even though it would be nice if people read it.

Here is why I am dropping a wee blog today. I have been sticking to my plan. For the past few days I have been eating a relatively large breakfast with carbs and protein. There is a reason that eggs are known to be a breakfast food. They are great! For lunch I have been eating farm fresh lettuce salad with cherry tomatoes. How easy is that to make in the morning to bring to work? Once at work I add a little olive oil and vinegar and season with a little salt and pepper. As a morning and afternoon snack I have peaches and plums even though I have learned I do not like plums.
Evil Plum

Rant:
How did plums become a fruit anyways? I love prunes but I do not understand how they come from plums because plums are watery, flavorless balls wrapped in a sour skin. Am I eating them wrong? I don't know.

Last night I made a meal that used up my celery. I dislike celery as well. I decided to make a soup. I plopped some potatoes, an onion, the whole giant thing of celery and some garlic in a pot. Then I added some broth and a little soy milk. I added a bit of salt and pepper. Then I went into the refrigerator and found a few things I wanted to get rid of and tossed them in too. What the hell, right? I added two peaches, one plum and an anchovy. I cooked it all up, put it in the vita-mix and blended it away. It was pretty good.

This week I have gotten myself back into a situation where I need to lose a pound a week for the next 13 weeks. We'll see how much junk food I can avoid this weekend.

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Rotisserie Flavor from Healthy Skinless Chicken Breasts

9:26 AM AirplaneFoodCritic 14 Comments



The chilly, foggy weather we have been having this summer made me crave something hearty for dinner. I went to my freezer and routed around for some ideas. I came across the bag of frozen chicken breasts. I began to crave rotisserie chicken. It has to be one of my favorite aromas. When I go to the store and they have those whole chickens for sale I stick my nose up to the little slots that let air out and I inhale deeply. I made the decision to attempt to get that rotisserie aroma and flavor out of my skinless, boneless, frozen chicken breasts with out adding a ton of grease or butter. It is a strange combination of things and I didn't measure anything but the result was so fantastic that I am going to attempt to share what I did here with you.
Make this....
...taste like this!

Healthy Rotisserie Flavored Chicken Breasts

4 boneless, skinless chicken breasts (defrosted if frozen)
2 tbsp olive oil
4 sprigs fresh rosemary
1 tbsp dried Sage
1 tbsp marjoram
1 tbsp thyme
Juice of half a lemon
2 tbsp honey
sprinkling of seasoned salt and pepper

1. Wash and pat dry the chicken breasts and place into a casserole dish so that each breast lays flat

2. Coat each chicken breast with the olive oil and herbs, rotating the breasts to cover both sides.

3. Squeeze juice over and top with the honey. Season with a light dusting of salt and pepper.

4. Bake, uncovered, in the oven at 320F for 10 minutes then use a bulb turkey baster to cover the breasts several times with the juices in the pan.

5. Repeat this every 10 minutes for a total cooking time of 40 to 45 minutes or until the center is not translucent.

6. Remove from the oven and baste one more time. Cover the breasts with tin foil and let sit for 10 more minutes to allow the juices to settle.

The aroma and uber-juiciness of the chicken will blow your mind. I think I huffed the tinfoil after lifting it off the casserole dish. Serve with a side of your favorite veggies and enjoy!

All photos from wikimedia

14 comments:

Let's Try That Again...

8:34 AM AirplaneFoodCritic 0 Comments

I have changed my weight goals. I always have aimed for a particular goal weight my whole life. Today I have decided to LOWER that number. I may sound crazy but here is my reasoning. I have never reached my goal. Well, not since I was 20. I am always two pounds away. I have lowered my goal weight by three pounds in hopes that I trick myself into at least reaching my original goal. It may sound silly or petty but I figure, if you want to hit hard, you have to aim beyond your target. That is a little lesson I learned from a self defense class years ago.
As you may recall from a couple weeks ago I am already counting down to my next trip to Hawaii. I am taking it pretty easy on the diet front, trying to just stay healthy more than lose weight but I have failed miserably. What is it about this time of year that makes me crave junk food?? In the past two weeks I had planned to lose two pounds. Instead I lost a half a pound. This is amazing considering the fact that in those two weeks I had a pizza and cake party two nights, ate at A&W two nights, had Taco Bell and Chinese take-out and went to a 5 course fancy dinner on a train.
I ate a lot at Taco Bell

I ate a lot at A&W

And what is the point of going to A&W without getting a Root Beer Float?

I am astonished I managed to lose any weight at all but what I am really unhappy about is how I feel. Junk food makes you feel crappy. Period. I am not sleeping well AT ALL. I am grumpy, lethargic, irritable and I still feel hungry only hours after gorging out.

So I am trying again. Luckily, I have a long time before my trip to start over. I still have no plan other than to eat healthy, drink water, TRY to get a lot of sleep, do some mild exercise and control my portions. I got my veggie box yesterday and I took only fruits and veggies for lunch today. For breakfast I had a protein and carb packed meal of eggs and rice with truffle oil and a baked hash-brown patty. For dinner I am having a peach, toasted almond, feta and chicken salad.

My new goal is to lose around a pound and a half a week. Let's see how that goes.

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Recipe: Asian Style Lettuce Wraps

8:05 AM AirplaneFoodCritic 0 Comments


In my veggie and fruit box this week I got some lettuce, among other things. There are lots of easy ways to use up lettuce, specially in mid-August. But because this year's mid-August has been so cold and gloomy I wanted to make something that was a little more "stick to your bones" than the regular summer salad. The box from Farm Fresh To You always comes with recipes and one of them was for the Swiss chard I was given that involves stuffing the chard with meat and cooking similar to how you would make stuffed cabbage. The idea of stuffing the lettuce came to mind. My mind then wandered to the idea of making lettuce wraps.

I had the ingredients laying around my house so I figured it would be a good semi-summer meal. I looked up about a million recipes but in the end I ended up winging it to give it the flavors I like the best. The recipe is below.

Asian Style Lettuce Wraps

1 cup dry brown rice cooked in 2 cups water or broth
3 or 4 large cloves of garlic, minced
1 1/2 Tbsp fresh ginger, ground or minced
1 tsp ground coriander
1 Tbsp sesame oil
1 pound ground turkey
1 onion, chopped
1 fresh hot pepper, or two dried hot peppers, or 2 tsp chili paste
1 1/2 Tbsp honey
3 Tbsp soy sauce
3 Tbsp fresh basil, shredded
2 Tbsp toasted sesame seeds
1 head or bunch of lettuce

1. Heat the sesame oil on medium-high heat and add the garlic, ginger and coriander for one minute.
2. Add the turkey and onions and cook for another 5 minutes.
3. Add the hot pepper, honey and soy sauce and stir in until the turkey is cooked.
4. Remove from heat and stir in the basil and sesame seeds.
5. Remove individual leaves from lettuce head, wash, dry and lay them out
6. Fill each lettuce wrap with the turkey filling and wrap
Taken with my phone at work, sorry for the poor quality.

I like to serve with a little siracha sauce but it is pretty spicy on it's own. Makes 4 servings.

Per Serving: Calories: 292, Fat: 11g, Fiber: 3g, Protein: 27g


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Too busy to be healthy?

8:26 AM AirplaneFoodCritic 0 Comments


I have been thoroughly enjoying summer this year despite it being the coldest year on record for the past 60 plus years. My life is like my job, split up into different phases throughout the year. I have different focuses for different purposes. I am in a transition right now. I am heading out of summer and into Harvest. Because of my job, I have to cut my summers short. I begin a crazy work schedule that is dictated by the ripening grapes and fermenting juices that are constantly coming into the winery. Harvest is a two to three month period of total chaos and the most important part of the year for a winery. If we mess up here, we ruin the entire year's worth of wine. It is long hours. I work at least six days a week, I am up at 4am and I get home around 8pm. It is so busy I have little time for thinking about anything else like eating, sleeping, drinking, friends, family...you get the idea. It is a bit like the military I guess...eat when you can, sleep when you can because you don't know when the next chance you will get will be.

Immediately following harvest is my favorite time of the year, Autumn. It begins with my birthday in October, then about 5 of my friends and family have their birthdays, then Halloween, Thanksgiving and my annual November trip to Hawaii.
One of my favorite views.

Vacations: my raison d'être.
As I have mentioned before, I enjoy having something to look forward to, to plan. This year I am going to try to keep a healthy lifestyle through Harvest using Hawaii as my light at the end of the tunnel. It is going to be difficult. Very difficult. I will have absolutely no time to cook a proper meal. I will be provided with lunch at work but that lunch will be a greasy burrito or pizza as it always is. I am looking at this as a challenge. I need to find a way to continue on a healthy track when I will mostly be eating cheesy, oily foods, have no time for exercise and will be running on 6 or less hours of sleep a night. Pretty big challenge, yes?

The Plan
I have no plan. Not yet anyways. I do, however, have a bit of guidelines laid out in my head. You see, tomorrow is exactly 15 weeks from when I leave for my trip and it just so happens that I would like to lose exactly 15 pounds. That comes out to a pound a week which seemingly isn't a very difficult goal. From my experiences though, I usually gain a couple pounds during Harvest and then a couple more during the multi-birthday month of October.

Learning to adapt will be the key. This will be a whole new experience for me. Some ideas I have are to make large batches of fruit and veggie smoothies which I can easily grab as a breakfast on my way to work. I can also set out to find some pre-packaged, easy to prepare foods.
My Goals:
Exercise - Get as much physical activity as I can while working
- Get as much exercise as I can BEFORE Harvest hits (about two weeks)

Nutrition - Fit as much fruits and vegetables in my diet as I can
- Continue to avoid overly processed foods and trans-fats
- Find a way to make meals in advance
- Find natural, healthy, pre-packaged foods that are easy to prepare
- Continue to drink two liters of water a day

Tomorrow is the beginning of the first week. I will weigh myself and every Thursday after to see if I am making progress or if it is getting fat as usual.

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Radishes - Taco Salad

9:52 AM AirplaneFoodCritic 0 Comments



Radishes are my veggie of the week

In my box this week I had a bunch of fresh radishes. Another vegetable that I have never cooked with. I wasn't even sure if I liked radishes or not. I was uncertain of how I would feel about them so I decided to use them in a big, fresh salad where they could either hide among the other ingredients or they could be little shining stars. Turns out I love radishes and they went so well with this dish that I wished I had put more in. I also got to use up other vegetables from my box like a stray carrot, onions, tomatoes and lettuce.

I wanted to make sure the dish stayed healthy so I used ground turkey instead of beef and yogurt instead of mayonnaise or sour cream. I used feta as the cheese not because it is healthier than cheddar but because it was all I had in the house. And my taco salad was born:

Healthy Taco Salad with radishes

1 pound ground turkey
1 tbsp cumin
1 tbsp chili powder
1 tsp salt
1 tbsp lime
1 tsp cayenne pepper
1 tsp smoked paprika
1 clove garlic

1 bunch of lettuce, chopped
3 small tomatoes, seeded and diced
1 onion, diced
1 can of kidney beans, drained
1 avocado, diced
1 carrot, diced (optional)
6 small radishes, sliced
1/2 cup feta cheese, crumbled

For the dressing:
1 cup plain greek yogurt
Juice of 1 lime
zest of 1 lime
1 pickled jalapeno, chopped finely
Hot sauce to taste

1 cup of tortilla chips, crushed.

1. Add turkey, cuminm chili powder, salt, lime, cayenne, paprika and garlic to a frying pan and heat on medium high until the meat is cooked through.

2. In a large salad bowl combine the lettuce, tomatoes, onions, beans, avocado, carrot radishes and cheese.

3. Top salad with cooked meat mixture.

4. For the dressing, combine the yogurt, lime juice and zest, jalapeno and hot sauce in a small bowl and blend.

5. Top the salad with the dressing and gently mix the salad until every thing is covered.

6. Add the crumbled tortilla chips and blend one more time. Serve.

creamy taco salad

This salad is great to have on a hot or cold day. It is easy to make and is packed with vegetables and lean proteins. The radishes added a nice, cool, sweet crunch to the salad. I am hungry just typing about it!


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