Updates on the New Year's Resolution!

So far so good! Dan and I have been sticking to our diet very well. It's been a little tricky, and we found we are starving ourselves more than necessary but at least we figured it out early :)

Side note: my current snack of pepperjack cheese is way spicier than I thought it'd be and I'm regretting eating a large chunk of it all at once.

I'd like to share a couple things, like our meal plans for this week and the grocery list for it. I've also put all the meals into myfitnesspal if anyone uses that or would like the calorie counts. Breakfast and lunch are simple, 100-200 and 200-300 calories respectively. I am doing a soup/salad combo for lunches. I made onion soup this week, eaten with a mixed greens salad that was topped with cashews and a vinegarette. Lunch was about 300 cal, and we just had coffee for breakfast mainly. That left dinners which were between 500-800 calories. If you're starting to freak out about the calorie deficit (OMG you're staving yourself!) we splurged on New Years Eve. Plus, Dan had quite the surplus of Christmas candy to consume. Saturday's are reasonable cheat days, i.e. not eating at a super low deficit. So all in all, we're hovering around 1500 cal average.

This week we ate the following recipes, which can be found in my previous post:

Sunday: Black Bean Soup
Monday: Bok Choy over brown rice
Tuesday: Roasted chickpeas, broccoli and garlic cloves
Wednesday: Saag Paneer over basmati rice
Thursday: Cod Chowder (quick version)
Friday: Avocado egg rolls (found the recipe after a friend of mine made them for a holiday party)

Grocery List:

*I haven't included everything, as I have a lot of spices and cooking oils, vinegars, etc. already. You may want to invest in olive oil, vegetable oil, various vinegars (rice, white, wine, etc), sriracha, soy sauce, etc. I use these to flavor many things. On top of that, a well-stocked spice cabinet is essential. I'd be happy to give suggestions.*

Week 1

*Black Bean soup recipe has been cut in half.

Bacon

bag of onions

2 heads garlic

1 can of diced tomatoes

32 oz. black beans

cilantro

2 limes

sour cream

bok choy

brown rice

large can chick peas

1 crown broccoli

Half gallon whole milk

1 lb spinach

green chile

heavy cream (½ cup, think about an avocado next time)

1 lb red potatoes

clam juice (8 oz)

12 oz cod (sub in for halibut in chowder)

egg roll wrappers

eggs

2 small avocado or 1 large (enough for 1 cup)

honey

roasted cashews (½ cup)

Results and Discussion:

Sunday: Great recipe, filling and tasty. A small dollop of sour cream on top is a perfect garnish. Fresh cilantro is a must, and adds a ton of awesome flavor. The bacon is soft since it's simmering for awhile. It's still very cooked and yummy. If you like your bacon crispy, you may want to cook it separately and add at the last moment with the cilantro. Crunchy bacon may be a bit weird though with the other textures. This is kind of like a chili rather than a soup due to the nature of the ingredients. If you blend it, you'll definitely get a soup though.

Monday: More than one bok choy is needed. I didn't realize how much it'd cook down. However, it was really good and easy to make. It could also serve as a side dish to some kind of meat but I don't like to eat a ton of meat so I kind of avoid it at times to Dan's dismay.

Tuesday: Holy roasted vegetables from heaven! I saw a post from one of my friends, was inspired and roasted chickpeas, broccoli and whole garlic cloves. I drained and rinsed the chickpeas and patted them dry a bit. Tossed them in olive oil with the broccoli and garlic cloves. Mistake: throwing them in with the broccoli. Broccoli roasted faster so I had to take it out after 30 min (around 400 F I believe for temperature). The garlic varies based on the size of the clove, but another 10 minutes and the chick peas were good to go! They had a crispiness like potato chips, but were soft at the same time. It was a perfect snack as we finished the last season of Breaking Bad then rang in the new year. I made a lot of chickpeas so it was a satisfying meal.

Wednesday: Making paneer is really easy, and Dan actually enjoyed cooking for once ;). The recipe could not be simpler. Only issue with this recipe was the amount of dishes we had to wash afterwards. However, it was really good and spinach-y. I noticed that it tasted more like spinach than the dishes I've eaten at indian restaurants. It was also really green in comparison. I'm talking fresh green veggie green. Maybe the spinach wasn't cooked long enough? It was soggy like cooked spinach though. I'm not quite sure. Also, you need a ton more cream if you want it "restaurant style" so I'm happy I stuck with the recipe. It balanced healthy and unhealthy for us :) FYI: found the cheesecloth at walmart near the jar/canning supplies.

PANEER!

Thursday: Found a chowder that I will be making tonight. Includes bacon, fish and tomatoes. I think it'll be good :) Tip: if you buy milk for recipes and you buy almost the exact amount needed, remind your husband not to use it in your coffee everyday. Otherwise you will be very confused as to what happened to all the milk! This was my mistake, and using the leftover cream I had wasn't an option as I had decided to shake it and try to turn it into butter with no success... A little chicken stock always helps fix these problems though... just not as thick a soup! Thankfully I had some on hand.

Friday: Will edit once it's Friday :)

Holiday Update

I hope everyone had a good holiday, and now it's time to start acting on the amount of self-loathing we've built up over the course of family feasts and gift giving events. Of course, I'm talking about the I-just-ate-3-plates-food and/or oops-that-bag-of-chocolate-is-gone kind of self-loathing. Besides that, Dan and I have been slacking off a little, and we've decided we should start eating a little better, exercise more and la-dee-da it's almost New Year's resolution time. But this year.. it's different (aren't they all?). This year I have made strides BEFORE January 1st. What's that? I've started my resolution (albeit 5 days) early?

It's gonna be awesome this year though, because last year we did this and got a gym membership. We used it for a couple months and I managed to almost run a 5k after only a couple determined weeks. Well then things flatlined, but if you know Dan and I you know we are lazy folk. We never canceled the membership so we still have it. But that's not all!

Today I spent the whole day working on a meal plan. I was inspired by a post on Reddit ages ago that I don't have the patience to find. Essentially, a couple organized their grocery lists and recipes making a menu for each week. They did this for 6 months worth of food. After 6 months, they started over with the same lists. You won't get sick of things if you only eat them twice a year, right? I thought this was clever. They picked recipes from the list for each week, designating certain days of the week soup night, casserole night, etc. Then the associated recipes had a grocery list they could use. 

I decided to follow in their foot steps and come up with something similar. It's difficult though, so I only did about 5 weeks worth of meals. I also put all the recipes into myfitnesspal and tallied up the calories based on the ingredients I use (some brands differ, and some basic spices/ingredients don't add calories). Most of the recipes are from online sources. The servings vary based on the source, but I found most of them were somewhere between 4 and 8 servings. Fortunately, most were also veggie based with small servings of meat so Dan and I could eat 2-3 servings and still be on track. It also helps when you don't add unnecessary carbs into the mix :) I could eat it over rice, but then I'm at risk of adding a lot of calories and more than I want to eat in the first place. 

The home cooking aspect will still be in place as well! I'm going to be making cheese from scratch at some point, and Saturdays/Sundays give me a lot of leeway for home cooked meals :) Prepare for handmade pasta in the near future!

So we're incorporating a healthy diet and exercising. But what about the fun? We'll be skiing a lot (season pass to Stratton!) so that will give us a nice calorie deficit on Saturdays. I think I will gain quit a bit of muscle as I pizza down the mountain too. I've never been the "need for speed" type. I find it slightly terrifying actually but enjoy slowly skiing and watching other people enjoy tempting Death. Other kinds of fun may include alcohol. Beer, wine, drinks. I will put up some recipes with calorie data. It's hard to justify it as just one drink when it has the same amount of calories as my breakfast... :-P 

Anyways, here is the stuff I've been working on. I will update later with calorie counts included. In general, all dinners are between 500 and 800 calories. Happy New Year!

Goal = 1500 Calories a Day

Breakfast – 100-200 calories, coffee or tea

Lunch – Soup and Salad, 300-400 calories

Dinner – 700-800 calories

Snacks – 100-400 calories, based on excess for the day, will mainly be veggies or nuts

Sunday – Soup

Monday – Stir Fry

Tuesday – Roasted Vegetables with sweet potato

Wednesday – Indian or Thai night

Thursday – Fish dish

Friday – Snack Night

Saturday – Eat out or pasta night (within reason...)

Breakfast, Lunch – figure out before shopping that week. Plan on buying a carton of soup from Trader Joe's, one each for Dan and I. Salads will include nuts, cheese and/or berries. Lots of good low cal dressings out now. I am no longer a 10 yr old obsessed with ranch dressing.

Soups

Black Bean Soup - http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/dave-lieberman/black-bean-soup-recipe/index.html

Tomato - http://www.finecooking.com/recipes/meyers-classic-tomato-soup.aspx

White Bean Chili - http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/ellie-krieger/white-chili-recipe/index.html

Lonestar Chili – crockpot cook book

Potato and Leek Soup - http://www.countryliving.com/recipefinder/potato-leek-soup-recipe-clx0312

Chicken noodle - http://www.countryliving.com/recipefinder/homemade-chicken-noodle-soup-3996

French Onion Soup – Joy of Cooking

Stir Fry

Bok Choy with any meat or over brown rice

Spicy Pork Stir Fry - http://allrecipes.com/recipe/spicy-pork-stir-fry/

Thai Veggie Stir Fry - http://thaifood.about.com/od/thaicookingessentials/r/Thai-Vegetable-Stir-Fry-With-Tofu-Vegetarian-Vegan.htm

Beef and Broccoli - http://www.food.com/recipe/the-best-easy-beef-and-broccoli-stir-fry-99476

Chicken Stir Fry - http://allrecipes.com/recipe/chicken-stir-fry-3/

Roasted Vegetables – Combine 3 or more. Try choosing veggies that might be left over from stir fry.

Chick Peas

Garlic

Broccoli

Carrots

Cauliflower

Peppers

Onion

Chiles

Tomatoes

Green Beans

Peas

Corn on the Cob (seasonal)

Squash

Eggplant

Thai/Indian

Saag Paneer - http://newasiancuisine.com/6294-indian-cheese-block-paneer.html and http://newasiancuisine.com/6222-creamed-spinach-with-cheese-cubes-saag-paneer.html

Chick Pea Curry (can add diced tomatoes) - http://allrecipes.com/recipe/chickpea-curry/

Thai Fish Cakes - http://allrecipes.com/recipe/thai-fish-cakes/

Thai Red Chicken Curry - http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Thai-Red-Chicken-Curry/Detail.aspx?evt19=1

Thai Peanut Noodles (add lime and cilantro)- http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Peanut-Butter-Noodles/Detail.aspx?evt19=1

Snacks

Jalapeno Poppers – own recipe, fill halves with 1 tbsp cream cheese then wrap with half a slice of bacon

Buffalo Chicken Wings – using Franks Red Hot wing sauce

Chicken Wings – other sauce

Avocado Egg Rolls - http://www.lifeannstyle.com/avocado-eggrolls-recipe-vegan-rolls/

Crab Rangoons - http://www.food.com/recipe/crab-rangoon-10712

Tabbouleh – Joy of Cooking

Cabbage Rolls

Introduction 
I decided to make cabbage rolls while loosely following a recipe from Joy of Cooking. It was an... experience.

Materials and Methods
PREHEAT THE OVEN TO 400 DEGREES NOW. First off you need these things:

1 lb ground beef                                                                                
1 can of diced carrots

YOU NEED THIS STUFF HERE

1 jar/24 oz can tomato sauce
Mushrooms (diced up)
Garlic (couple of tablespoons)
Salt
Pepper
1 Egg
1/2 cup breadcrumbs
1/2 cup water

Optional, but not used: 1/2 cup rice or bulgur wheat.

Mix it all together in that bowl in the picture.

DON'T FORGET THE CABBAGE

     

Get a really sharp knife. Preferably, one that is long and skinny. Cut around the core (see that round white area, that's the core) until you can pry a good portion of it out. I suggest cutting at an angle so you cut out a cone versus a cylinder.

 It should look like this. Eggcelent. Place it in a pot of boiling water.

It will float. No one mentioned that to me. Also, make sure you don't fill the pot completely with water or it overflows with the addition of the cabbage. Leave it bubbling for 5 minutes and remove it.

Removing a cabbage from boiling water can't be that hard right? Using tools available, remove the cabbage but keep the water boiling. (HA! You can't use a strainer!) Don't damage the outer leaves! You need those to make the rolls. Oh ya. The cabbage will suddenly leak boiling water all over your counter. A dishtowel will not suffice, but will work well as triage for the situation.

Remove (carefully) what leaves you can (carefully) and pile them up (carefully). If you encounter resistance, place the cabbage back into the boiling pot from whence it came. Repeat until most the leaves are removed.

A plate can be helpful. My cabbage yielded 10 leaves and a softball sized core.

 

Take a handful of the meat mixture (like how much would be in those sausages that fit on a hotdog bun) and splat it at the base of the leaf, where the stem is the thickest. Roll gently. Leave some space if you use rice/bulgur since it will expand. Unless you want hulk cabbage rolls, bursting out of the seams. Continue until you use up the meat. I filled ten leaves. I dumped sauce on the bottom of this lovely dish and stuffed the leaves in there. Baked them for an hour! Disclaimer: they're still in the oven, so this could have gone horribly wrong. Results will be added soon.

RESULTS: Very yummy despite the hazards and mess :)

Breakfast in a Muffin tin!

Background
After seeing a bunch of recipes for similar breakfast items, I made my own breakfast to go using a muffin tin. Who doesn't like breakfast to go?

Materials
Eggs
Bacon
English Muffins
Sausage links

Methods
Cut english muffin pieces that fit in the bottom of each well in the pan.

Cook bacon so it's almost done, still flexible. Drain and dab off the grease. Line the edge of each well with one strip, or two if you need it.

Crack an egg into each well.

Cook sausage links and cut in half. Place one or two halves in each well. Dan likes links, but patties are fine too.

Bake until the egg is cooked at 375 degrees.

Results

A happy husband on Valentine's Day :)

They popped right out, and tasted like a nice greasy breakfast sandwich. I added a little shredded Jarlsberg on top and broiled it. Yum!

Optional ideas: Omit bacon, or cut thick rings from a bell pepper. Add salsa, sliced avocado. You can mix and match many ingredients.

Bacon-Wrapped Jalapeno Poppers

Background

Jalapeno poppers are delicious snacks. Usually stuffed with cheddar or cream cheese, breaded and deep fried, they will cure your munchies. This is a take on this beloved junk food. 

Materials

Fresh or canned whole jalapenos

Fresh or canned whole banana peppers

Cream cheese

Half a strip of bacon per popper

Methods

Cut each pepper in half and remove seeds and stem. Using a butter knife, fill the inside with cream cheese. Wrap with half a slice of uncooked bacon. Place the wrapper pepper on an ungreased baking sheet, with the end of the bacon on the bottom. Bake at 375 until the bacon is cooked through and enjoy!

Results

These were delicious! Especially the banana peppers. However, I will make with fresh peppers next time since the canned jalapenos had a weird taste to them. Still good though. I highly recommend bacon from your local butcher. Though it's pricier, it was definitely tastier. I prefer these to breaded, because battering and deep frying is a hassle. Plus, the bacon is about 75 calories a strip. When you add it up, the batter and oil will account for much more than that. Not that this is supposed to be a "healthy" snack, but you can use light cream cheese and turkey bacon too for a lighter option.

Croissants... flaky flaky croissants :)

Background

I have been attempting to bake different types of bread, rolls and other flour based items. So far I've tackled dinner rolls with great success and a cheddar cheese bread (good, but didn't live up to expectations). Since then I've been thinking about croissants. I love the Pillsbury ones you can get at the grocery store. They're flaky and buttery and you can use the dough for a lot of recipes. But depending on where you get them, they're anywhere in the 2 or 3 dollar range. Not bad, but let's see if we can save some money and keep the flavor.

Materials and Equipment
Unsalted butter - about 3 sticks cold, plus 2 tbsp softened in little pieces (little!)
Warm milk - 1 cup, microwaved for a minute
Yeast - 2.25 tsp
Sugar - 1 tbsp
Flour - 2.5 cups, plus some to keep things from sticking to everything imaginable

Plastic wrap
Bowls
Rolling Pin

Methods
I loosely followed the recipe in Joy of Cooking, while adding in my own steps (as usual).

First off, beat the 3 sticks of cold butter with your rolling pin. I did this on my counter, and it worked eventually. Keep the butter cold and keep hitting it until you can mold it into a rectangle. So this takes forever, and I suggest cutting it into smaller pieces since they are easier to smash with your rolling pin into a malleable clump of butter. Shape the butter into a 9x6 in. rectangle, wrap it and put it in the fridge.

Mix the yeast into the milk with the sugar. In a large bowl, mix the flour and 2 tbsp softened butter. Make a well, and pour in the milk. Make dough, wrap and refrigerate 15 min.

Take out the dough, sprinkle flour on it (and your rolling pin) and roll until it's about 16x8 inches. Rolling dough is easy, but getting it into a rectangle isn't so you can kind of roll it into a piece that's roughly 16x8. Sprinkle flour over it. Arrange it so the long side is facing you (this is how I did it, but you can do it in the other direction). Grab the butter and stick it on the dough, with the longest side lined up with the 16 in side of the dough. Move it so that there's an inch of dough around it on 3 sides, and then the dough keeps going for another 6 inches or so. Fold the part of the dough (about 1/3 of it) that's not covered by the butter over the butter. Now you have a folded edge from the fold you just made, and the other short side. Fold the short edge so it meets with the folded edge. Overall it's like folding paper to fit in an envelope.

Orient the dough so the long side is facing you again, and roll it out so it's 18x8 inches. Refold it like a letter, and roll it out again. And now do that one more time, folding after and wrapping it. Put it in the fridge so the butter cools again (we don't want it warm). You'll see the chunks of it in the dough, don't be alarmed. After 30 minutes, take it out. Roll it out again, and fold it.

Roll the dough into a 24x12 rectangle. It should be a 1/4 inch thick. Wait a few minutes, and cut it into 24x6 inches. Here is where I took half and made something with it, and used the other half for croissants. So, for croissants take the 24x6 rectangle place it so the long side faces you and mark 2.25 inches from the left side. Mark every 4.5 inches after that (should get 5 segments). On the bottom, starting on the left side again, mark  4.5 inches in, and continue until you 2.25 left over. You get marks that alternate from top to bottom. Cut from the bottom left corner to the top 2.25 in mark (you'll get a right rectangle, ignore this for now). Now cut from the 2.5 mark on the top to the first 4.5 mark on the bottom. You'll get an isosceles triangle. Hopefully you can see that pattern now, as you cut triangles. You can reference Joy of Cooking for a picture if you need to!

Take the triangles, and roll the base towards the tip. They will look like croissants now. Yay! Place them on an ungreased baking sheet, and bend the tips in so they look like crescents. I fit 9 on a sheet. Let them rise, covered loosely with plastic, for 1-1.5 hours. This is important. For example, if you are hasty and only let the dough rise for 30 min because you're hungry they come out flaky but not as fluffy between the layers (this is what happened to my first half of the dough). Now heat your oven to 375 and brush the croissants with egg. This will brown the tops a lot. They'll be nice and golden brown after 20-30 minutes (depending on how many times you open the oven to check on them...)

Results
I used the first half of the dough in a special snack. Because I didn't let it rise for the full 1.5 hours, it wasn't quite as fluffy. It was flaky, but it the layers were dense, and the outer ones almost crunchy though not burnt. The rolls came out great, but I won't brush with egg. The parts with egg cooked faster, and got a little too dark for my taste.

Cost: $2.13 for 18 rolls or $0.11 per roll. Usually you get 8 rolls in one store bought can, so this about half the price.

Homemade Bagels!

Introduction

Bagels! One of my favorite on-the-go, anytime foods. I simply love bagels. I don't love buying them on campus. For what I spend on one, I could get a whole bag at the store, or make a few dozen myself. You can maybe guess I bought one today on campus, then decided to make my own this evening. I had some time to kill while I was making chicken stock and chicken soup, so I looked up the recipe in Joy of Cooking.  Pretty simple.

Experimental Procedure

I mixed a cup of water with some yeast and sugar, as determined by Joy. Then I stirred in melted margarine as a substitute for shortening, then more sugar, salt and 1 cup of flour. This I mixed on low speed using my KitchenAid mixer (thank you Mom, Aunt Carla and Ashley!). Now I was supposed to gradually stir in 3 more cups of flour and I did. But it was supposed to be smooth and elastic. This dough was dry. So dry, a large portion of the flour was just chilling on the bottom of the bowl. I thought maybe my dough hook was doing it, so I started kneading it. It was just too dry. I added another cup of water, and that seemed to make things better. I let the dough sit to give the yeast time to do its thing, then I rolled some bagels. I made them smaller then normal bagels. I like my carbs, but not too many. They went into a pot of boiling water for a minute, then I coated the bottom in cornmeal. For half of them, I put minced garlic on top. Into the oven and cooked until golden brown!

Results and Conclusions
I'm not sure why my dough was so dry, or why it needed so much kneading (bagel tongue-twister!). This really bothered me because it seemed like something was just really off about how I made the bagels, but I followed the recipe closely. And the dough was very tough, not possessing a ton of elasticity. With my added water, I was able to make the dough at least. The bagels came out really tasty. The consistency was definitely correct for the bagels. I was worried I ruined it somehow since the dough was such a pain! I am convinced something is wrong with the recipe...

I was surprised the garlic worked, too. I just kind of stuck it on the tops of the bagels and hoped that was how it was done. Next time I will try something a little different for flavoring. I love sesame seed bagels, and I happen to have a bottle of sesame seed oil. I may just dribble a little of it into the dough and see if it flavors it like the seeds do. I love the taste, but I don't like how they get stuck in my teeth. I will also try making them with a little onion in the dough and on top. Flavored bagels help me avoid cream cheese, which just adds to the calories. (I AM trying to diet, despite some of the recipes I'm posting). I will keep you posted!

Thanks for reading!