Mmmmmm...pasta

Normally, I'm not such a big pasta fan but, as you will see later in this post, I enjoyed a lovely pasta dish this evening. First things first. Breakfast.

Yesterday I really wanted French Toast but no one else did so I waited until today to satisfy my craving. It was well worth the wait.



One beaten egg, a splash of cream, mixed with a generous amount of cinnamon and a sprinkling of vanilla and nutmeg. Add to that three slices of bread and you have breakfast for one mom and one kid. Ryan had cheese and crackers instead. He's not real big on breakfast food!

For lunch today, I had a hot dog with mustard and a handful of chips with a glass of organic lemonade. Yummy!

Dinner. It's always a challenge for me. Sean gets home so, so late and, if he hasn't called me by 7pm, I'm just about ready to give up on cooking at all. However that has been leading to some bad eating habits lately (I'm back up to 192) so I think I need to cook dinner early and just let him eat leftovers when he gets home. Tonight was my first journey down that path and I created a really delicious meal.

First, I took a cup and a half to two cups of penne pasta and boiled it. At the same time, I put 1 Tbs butter and a cup of half and half in a small saucepan over medium heat. Once the butter had melted, I added about 1/2 - 3/4 cup of parmesan cheese, a handful of Monterey Jack cheese, some dried rosemary leaves, freshly ground pepper, and a pinch of nutmeg and left all that to simmer over Low heat. Then I chopped some baby bella mushrooms and cooked them in a Tbs of butter. When they were ready (soft and slightly browned) I added them directly to the sauce. Then I cooked 1/2 of shrimp in 1 Tbs butter with one clove of finely chopped garlic and a splash of vermouth. When the shrimp began to get pink, I added the entire mixture to the sauce as well. I combined the sauce with the pasta (DRAINED) and then put it in a casserole dish, topped it with some Italian breadcrumbs and put it in a 425 degree oven for about 10-15 minutes. Since I was cooking the dish in the oven I didn't cook the shrimp in the pan all the way through. It's better for the shrimp to be slightly underdone in that instance.

When it came out of the oven, it looked like this:



Oh, and like this:



And when I put it on my plate it looked like this:



Like I said, I don't usually like pasta but this was really darn good! There was no recipe, just throwing some stuff together at the spur of the moment.

In other news, I got a new food processor today. My old one called it quits after my mom helped me make bread the other day. My new one is a Wolfgang Puck monster, 900 watts and 12 cups. Hopefully it will last me a long time. Good night sweet cuisinart...you were good to me.

Today's Eats

I greeted the morning with 15 minutes of yoga and a small, simple breakfast of French Vanilla organic yogurt, with a sprinkling of homemade organic granola.



It was an incredibly lovely way to begin the day. Later, the boys and I ran to the Fresh Market to pick up some things for my lunch with my friend Krista tomorrow. When we got home, my dad ran by to swab my cheek for HIV, part of the life insurance process. A little weird? Perhaps. After he left, I fixed lunch with simplicity again being the theme of the week. Leftover tuna salad on whole wheat bread, topped with organic romaine lettuce, along with an organic orange.



So good!!

I want to say a word here about mayonnaise. Recently I was reading on a blog that I like and the author, who lives in a town close to me, mentioned that Southerners favorite mayo is a brand called Dukes. Well, I must be even less Southern than I thought because this brand is one I absolutely detest. Can't explain why, but it just tastes gross to me. My personal favorite is Hellmann's which I believe on the West Coast goes by Best Foods brand. I have had fancy mayo, homemade mayo, and Hellmann's is still at the top of my list. Just curious...do any of you have a favorite? Please let me know, I'm really interested! Maybe you hate mayo all together. Tell me that, too.

Check back later for the dinner update!

DINNER

Tonight we had tuna and it was good! I seared it in a pan in which I had heated some canola oil, sesame oil, a pat of butter, some minced garlic, and freshly grated ginger. I did not season the tuna because I think it's easy to overpower the delicious delicate taste that tuna has to offer. Also, it was important to be sure it wasn't overcooked because we like it rare. With the tuna I served my favorite haricot verts which I had cooked in the same oil, garlic, and ginger combination, topped off with a sprinkling of salt and a couple of grinds of black pepper. It was really, really tasty.



I was trying to copy the taste of the tuna we had the other night and I did not accomplish that but our dinner was good in spite of that.

See you tomorrow!

First Dinner - August 23, 2007

With all apologies and respect to the Pioneer Woman who has inspired me to track my progress in this fashion, please allow me to welcome you to my new blog. It's purpose is to record my journey to a healthier, happier me. I don't want to look like Paris Hilton but I would like to feel good in my clothes and be comfortable in a bathing suit, neither of which are happening in my current state. Let's begin. Tonight's dinner was simple. Having a new puppy means I can't have all my attention focused in the kitchen so I was doing something quick and easy this evening. The menu was Chicken Saute, Haricots Verts, and Mashed Baby Red Potatoes or Chicken, green beans, and taters. Carry on.

The mashed potatoes are comprised of salted butter, sour cream, potatoes, and kosher salt. You can use any form of salt that you like I just prefer kosher because it's hard to over-season with it.

So I placed the potatoes in my trusty pot and covered them with water and waited for them to come to a boil. Once that happened, I turned the heat down to about 8 and let them gently boil for about 10 minutes. While these were boiling, I prepared the green beans as you will see below. Once 10 minutes had gone by, I poured everything into a colander to strain the water then placed the potatoes back into the pot and covered it. I set it on an unused burner covered for 15 minutes. The potatoes will be perfectly cooked and ready for mashing, I promise.

See?

Using my trusty potato masher because I like them slightly lumpy, I start to mash up the chunks of potato. Now comes the fun part, I add a Tbs of salted butter per person plus a heaping Tbs of sour cream. Are you still with me? Yes, I really do plan to lose weight eating like this. I'm not crazy, I promise.

You can keep the potatoes in a warm oven if you fix them first or you can cook your chicken while the potatoes are steaming in the pot pre-mashing.

Here are the ingredients for my haricots verts. They are French green beans and they are delicate and sweet and oh, so good. Oh yeah, there's more butter....stay with me people.

The haricots verts come with part of the stem still attached so, unless you like eating woody things I suggest you cut them off....

Like this

Fill a good sized pot with water, throw in some kosher salt (1 tsp) and wait for it to come to a rolling boil. Below is a rolling boil.

Add your beans and cook them for 3-5 mins TOPS. Usually I would tell you to blanch these which would require you to put them in an ice bath after they boil but I personally find that step to be a real pain in the ass. It doesn't really make a difference in this recipe anyway.

Once your 3-5 minutes are up, pour the contents into a strainer. See how beautiful and green they still are? I love southern-style green beans too but these are to die for.

Take 1 Tbs of butter and place in a saute pan set on medium heat. Once the butter melts, add your beans and stir to coat with the butter. At this time I generally take a small pinch of salt and toss over the top of the beans as they cook. I cooked them in the pan for 10 minutes, while my taters were steaming.

And this is the finished product. Lord, they were sooo good.

Here are the ingredients for my chicken. The seasoning I use is called Spice Delight and man it is good. Some local guy makes it and sells it at one of our grocery stores, The Fresh Market. I go through this stuff like crazy because I use it on everything. Yum! Also, I use the thin cut breasts. I prefer my chicken to have little boobies. Saves me the time and mess of having to flatten them myself.

Season the chicken liberally with spice of your choosing. I do one side while it's on the board and do the other while it's in the pan.

Heat a Tbs of olive oil in a pan over medium high heat.

Add the chicken once the oil is hot enough and turn the heat down to medium. All you turkeys out there who have a gas range will notice your heat change quickly and, I'm mad at you about that. Anyway, I could only cook two of these at a time and it took about 15 minutes start to finish to cook 4 of them.

This is what they looked like when they were all done.

Now, here is my dinner plate, being held by my little sausage fingers. My plate is a 7.5" square, much smaller than the average dinner plate and I put small portions on it. I took small enough portions that I thought I would need to go back for seconds. However, by eating mindfully and slowly, really savoring the flavors I was tasting, my dinner took about 20 minutes to consume and I felt more than satisfied at the end. I had planned to have a tiny scoop of ice cream for dessert but found that I didn't need it after all.

About 3 oz of chicken, 1/2 cup of mashed potatoes and 1/2 cup of beans. To drink I had about 8 oz of whole milk. Mmmmm. Does a body good.