The Good, the Bad, the Ugly

I'm not dead. Yeah, I know you were thinking I had fallen face-down into a vat of caramel or something and had OD'd but fear not! I yet live. Last week was a rough one though because our house was infected by some kind of ass-kicking cold and I didn't cook as much as I would have liked. However, in spite of eating out a couple of times, really it wasn't a bad week eats-wise overall.

Thanks to my handy dandy menu planning, grocery shopping has been quite breezy and affordable here lately. I'm liking the whole menu thing and fully intend to keep that up. The kids have been enjoying their involvement in the process, too, and I expect that, as time goes on, they will grow accustomed to eating healthier foods. It's not going to happen overnight because they haven't been raised to eat that way but with time I'm hopeful that things will get better.

About me. This morning I had a quick, small breakfast of one Alexia Biscuit. These things are delicious and are so close to homemade tasting it is ridiculous. It's a pricey option but sometimes, I don't feel like standing in the kitchen making biscuits. No, I want to sit on the sofa, waiting for the ovven to preheat while taking in the glorious sights on re-runs of "Third Watch" on A&E. Bosco is yummy to look at, what can I say? But these biscuits are made from all natural ingredients so I feel a lot less guilty eating one of these:

as opposed to eating a McDonald's biscuit. Look for them in your grocer's freezer section. I promise you will love them. And no, I'm not getting paid a single cent to promote them they're just that damn good.

For lunch, my sister took me out to a wonderful little local restaurant and I had an Italian deli-style sandwich with a small side salad. The salad was fabulous because they use nice, dark green lettuce, along with julienned zucchini and carrots. Not that there's anything wrong with iceberg but I enjoy a hearty salad when I go out to eat.

For dinner, the boys wanted to go out for pizza and, since Sean wasn't home for dinner tonight, I was happy to oblige. Here is what my piece looked like:

In the spirit of full disclosure, this picture is of a piece of pizza that I ate last year but I swear, the one I ate tonight looked JUST like this. Except it had yellow peppers instead of green but that was the only difference! It was funny because I really didn't want pizza and did my darndest to convince the boys to choose something else but in the end, that pizza was goooood.

Now, my belly is full and I am finished eating for the night. My weight is actually down another pound to 197. It's slow but I'm good with that. I'm trying to make changes and choices that I can live my life with and not do a crash diet that will send me off on a binge when a stressful moment strikes. Tonight, I'm going to sit snuggled up under a blanket and watch "the Closer" and "Saving Grace". It's nice to feel like I'm on the right track for a change.

I'll be back tomorrow and with better photos! Hope all is well in your world!

Quickly Checking in!

So Wednesday was a crappy eating day. I skipped breakfast altogether because I woke up late and had to get the boys to a dental appointment. After that, I came home and had an egg salad sandwich for lunch and a chocolate chip cookie. Dinner was pitiful. Sean didn't get home until really late so I just popped a bag of popcorn and watched the CSI Miami marathon on A&EHD. It's the cheesiest show. Ever. But I'm so addicted to it, it's ridiculous!

Thursday was a little better. I had two biscuits for breakfast along with a cup of tea. For lunch I had another egg salad sandwich and for dinner well, I can't remember dinner. I know I was proud of myself because this week I have done a great job of using what's in the fridge!

Friday morning, I woke up and had two biscuits and one egg and a cup of tea. At lunch, I made some homemade cream of mushroom soup and it was heavenly!! It's been really cold, dreary, and rainy around here and the soup seriously hit the spot. For dinner, it was leftover night. We still had meatloaf and mac and cheese in the fridge and I had some brussel sprouts that I needed to use. I ended up letting Sean have the meatloaf and mac and cheese and I ate a huge portion of the brussel sprouts. It was delicious!!

Sorry for not keeping up with things for a few days. I'm going to weigh myself on Monday and am hoping to see a 1lb loss. Keep your fingers crossed!

Meatloaf, Beatloaf, I hate meatloaf...not really

Recognize that Meatloaf line anyone? It's from one of my favorite movies of all time. Can you guess it?

Yesterday was another good eats day for me! Yaaaay! I got up and had biscuits again for breakfast and then I had shrimp and grits leftovers for lunch. You know, in my post yesterday, I mentioned that I had fixed the grits with chicken broth instead of milk or cream combined with water and for me personally, I have to say that the milk version is my preference. You try it both ways and let me know which way you think is best.

I snacked on two or three chocolate chip cookies yesterday but that was it as far as snacks went. My sister called yesterday afternoon and we took all the kids down to the park for a walk on the trail. We weren't walking at a breakneck speed but we were out for a while and we were moving and that's what was important.

In a direct response to increasing grocery prices I have been trying to figure out how to better plan our meals so I can utilize the food we buy in the most efficient way possible. A couple of nights ago, I made a big batch of Baked Macaroni and Cheese and froze half of it for another time. Last night, I took the remainder, freshened it up a bit with a couple of splashes of milk and a little more cheese and popped it into the oven with delicious results.


With that I was serving a Turkey Meatloaf. I love Meatloaf and so does my husband and nothing gives me greater pleasure than seeing him enjoy my cooking. I took about a pound and a half of ground turkey and mixed in some chopped peppers and onions, one beaten egg, a Tbs of dijon mustard, a Tbs of Worcestershire sauce, 1 tsp of salt, freshly ground pepper, and a half a cup of bread crumbs. Oh yeah! A generous sprinkle of dried parsley, too! Formed it into a loaf and popped it into a 400 degree oven for 30 minutes. After 30 minutes, I drizzled some ketchup on the top and cooked it for about 20 more minutes. It was pretty good!!


Going along with my goal to cook at least one new recipe a week, I prepared a vegetable that I had never worked with before, broccolini. My sister has sung the praises of this veggie many, many times but I have just never bought it. After last night, it may well become a staple around here. It was freaking delicious! First, I trimmed some of the leaves off the long stalks but I actually think you could skip this. Then, after asking my sister about it, I blanched them for a couple of minutes to make them a little tender before sauteeing them in a skillet with 2 tsps of olive oil, a touch of butter and one clove of garlic put through a press. I think next time I would steam the broccolini instead of submerging it in water but oh. my. god. It was FABULOUS!


For my plate, I had small portions of each and couldn't eat it all. It was a delicious filling meal.


I'm feeling so good about where I am right now but I'm trying not to get too confident. Usually about the time that happens, I flub it up.

Have you ever had broccolini? What is your favorite vegetable?

A good day

Yesterday began fresh, as all days do, with the promise of good food and staying on course. While the kids were sleeping, I fixed myself a cup of tea and warmed up two of the biscuits I made the day before. After topping them with my favorites, butter and cherry preserves, I sat enjoyed and enjoyed the peace and quiet of the house before the day really got started.


Once the kids got up, we spent the morning hanging out, tidying up, keeping busy basically. When lunchtime rolled around I had planned to have an egg salad sandwich but decided on a salad instead. My favorite salad is one topped with chopped egg, bacon, and olives then drizzled with a bit of ranch dressing. Thankfully I had hard boiled eggs in the fridge. I don't know what it is but chopped egg is one of the yummiest things I think you can put on a salad.

This was really filling and really held me over until I had a snack later in the afternoon. Oh and what a snack it was!

One of my goals was to make homemade snacks and not buy any at the store. I bought a new cookbook while I was recovering from my surgery and was finally able to make something out of it! I chose chocolate chip cookies. They were so, so delicious! Thin, with crispy buttery edges and a chewy center. Oh man, they were good! The recipe made a ton of cookies, too.


For dinner, I made shrimp and grits, which you've seen me mention here before. This time though, I did something a little different. Instead of using a combination milk or cream with water to cook the grits, I used some homemade chicken broth that was in the freezer. I thought it would make the dish a little bit lighter. I used 4 cups of chicken broth and maybe a 1/2 cup of cream. That was the only thing I did different. It did change the taste but it was good, and the dish didn't feel as heavy as it usually does.


At the end of the day, I felt really good about how I did. The only thing I didn't accomplish yesterday was doing a workout video but that's ok. Baby steps. It's hard to make changes and if all I can do right now is change my eating habits then that's all I can do. trying to do too much can be overwhelming and self-defeating. Already, today feels like a good day. Like I'm in total control of myself and my emotions. It's a start!

Battling My Commitment

I have to be honest with you. The past two days haven't been fantastic. For some reason, I'm really fighting a battle within myself to get committed to eating right. On an academic level, I know that eating whole, unprocessed food is what's best for me and my family. But there is something holding me back from taking all the necessary steps to be successful at eating well. This morning I started out well with one egg and a cup of tea.



I ate it slowly and really enjoyed some quiet moments with my tea and a new book. It was truly delightful. A little while later, I walked into the kitchen and spied some cookies I'd made for the kids in the cookie jar. well, I felt like I HAD to have one. Errrr, two.



Hey! They were organic at least.

Then, at my sister's house later, I had a bit of the shepherd's pie she had made for dinner last night, which was delicious incidentally. After eating that, I felt certain that I would have no need for lunch. A little while later at home, I went into the kitchen and had some left over corned beef and cabbage.



Hmmmm. Just not doing so well. Nevermind this is the THIRD meal I've had from this! Yesterday morning I made my own corned beef hash.



Last night for dinner I had two slices of White Pizza from a local pizza joint.

I think part of the problem is I'm feeling a little down. My husband has taken on the challenge of getting his MBA. We already don't get to see him very much because he works long hours. Now when he's home, he's very, very busy and it's going to be like that for at least the next two years. I want him to get his MBA and I support him wholeheartedly. It's something he's wanted to do for a really long time. It's just a tough adjustment and we're still trying to hit our stride with it. In the meantime, I'm just finishing up my 6th week of recovery after my hysterectomy, and have a lot of work ahead of me once I'm cleared by the doctor to do it. It doesn't take much walking around my house to make me feel overwhelmed by the scale of the task at hand. Every single room is a mess! Sometimes I feel like putting our most precious things in the car, walking out the front door and never looking back! It's that bad. I know that by doing a little bit at a time it will get done but as I've seen with my weight loss attempts, knowing and doing are two different things.

Sorry that this post is such a downer but I'm just trying to keep it real and honest. Eating right is not hard but making up your mind and totally committing to it seems to be very difficult for me right now. I'm not giving up though. Just venting my frustration about my current lack of willpower.

I WILL be back tomorrow. This blog is a blessing! I don't know what I'd do without a place to vent.

Yesterday's eats - Yikes!

Ok, I'm just going to be honest with you. Yesterday was a terrible eats day for me. I waited way too long to eat breakfast and as a result I was starving. We ran to the grocery store and when we got home I shoved a bologna sandwich down my gullet. Hey, it was good but not the right thing to eat. For lunch, I had....wait for it......another bologna sandwich! We had some friends over at lunchtime and, instead of eating in front of them , I waited until they left around four and I was again ravenous. It's so important to eat when you're hungry!

Then at a dinner I was just feeling plain old lazy and I took the boys to Chick-fil-a. I ate a sandwich, cole slaw, and drank an unsweetened tea. It could have been worse I guess!

Today is better and I'll report on that tomorrow!

I'm not going to freak out about my wandering off the path. I'm just going to keep going!

Yesterday's Eats

All in all, yesterday was a good eats day. Today hasn't started off well but I'm going to take hold of that now and eat well the rest of the day.

Yesterday I had my usual breakfast:



But I added grits and a clementine. One of my friends, MamaPodkayne, had wondered about my earlier complaint about clementines not being as flavorful as oranges. She will be happy to know that the one in this photo was full of juicy sweetness and worth every single bite. It was delicious!

A note about eggs. I try to get organic eggs. Lately I've had some bad luck with a brand sold here called "Be Family". The quality has not been consistent and many times I have cracked one only to be overwhelmed by the smell of fish. As a result, I've stopped buying that brand and now buy my grocery store's Cage Free eggs. For years, I have HATED to eat the yolk and would only eat the white when I fried an egg but the Cage Free and organic egg yolks taste amazing. There's no bite to them as in a mass-produced egg. Also, check this out:


Look how high that yolk sits. A regular egg yolk is much flatter. These are a gorgeous color, too!

Ok, back to what I ate yesterday. For lunch I hit the rotisserie chicken again for what I think is the last meal I'm going to get out of it. After tearing some romaine leaves, I topped them with some chicken, grapes, green olives, and a few chopped pecan pieces. Add to that some bacon bits and a touch of ranch dressing and you have the salad I ate for lunch. With it I had some of those tiny toasts you can buy at the store spread with some herbed goat cheese. My god, that was so good. The cheese was mild and so incredibly creamy. It was a very sensory lunch!


Now, that lunch lasted for a while but by late afternoon I needed a little something so I fixed this:


Hot tea and a Le Petit Ecolier cookie. I think that means "schoolboy" in French. THey're really good. Crisp cookie, not too sweet, topped with milk, dark, or white chocolate. Yum!

By Dinnertime, I was tired and decided to heat up one of the frozen meals my mom had prepared for me, Beef Stroganoff.


I had to cook the noodles but the oven did all the work on the rest!

I splurged a bit and induglged a desire for something buttery and had a cherry turnover with a tiny bit of vanilla ice cream.

Truth be told, I shouldn't have eaten all of it. Half would have been more than enough. Next time, I'll split one with my hubby, but this is all about learning how to eat in proper portions. Now I know better for next time!

Today's going to be kind of crazy because we're having a play date during my normal lunchtime so I may have to eat something earlier than normal but check back tomorrow to see!

Yesterday's Eats

For those of you who are new, let me give a brief refresher on what I'm doing. I read a book called, The Fat Fallacy by Will Clower and it completely changed the way I look at the food I eat. GET THIS BOOK or get the updated version. You won't be sorry. It's all about looking at the French model of eating. Good quality ingredients, rich meals, in small portions. We eat too much and we eat poor quality food and it's really taking a toll on our health. So much of our food is filled with chemicals and we need to take control of what we eat and give our bodies as organic and as wholesome food as we possibly can. This is not easy by any means. With the economy in its current state, food prices have soared which makes organic food that much more expensive. Also, it can be difficult to find time to prepare things from scratch when one leads a busy life. But I say this to you, isn't it worth it to make the time in order to live a better quality life? Isn't it worth the extra expense to buy organic when you can? Start small and pick a few things to buy organic. Work your way into it gradually. Another book I'd like to recommend is To Buy or Not To Buy Organic by Cindy Burke. She has done a lot of research and has comprised a helpful list of the things that are important to buy in their organic form. It's a wonderful guide to organic shopping and I highly recommend you purchase it!

Okay!! Now that I've gotten that out of the way, on to what I ate yesterday! It was a much better day for me eatswise. Breakfast was very simple, a French roll and an egg, served alongside a glass of whole milk. Mmmmmm. Whole milk is the only way to go!



After breakfast, my sister and I dropped our kids off with our mom and went hunting for a cookie cutter in the shape of a beer mug. Bridget at Bake at 350 made some freaking adorable cookies for St. Patty's Day and I thought it would be fun to make them to take to my mother-in-law's party on Saturday. Well, Greensboro, NC is not a hotbed of baking fanatics apparently because I couldn't find one. We had rhinos but no beer mugs. Go figure. After all that walking I was tired and just wanted to fix an easy lunch. There was still some rotisserie chicken in the fridge so I cut off some breast meat and put it between two slices of whole wheat bread and mayonnaise. Easy Peasy.



Later in the afternoon, I did snack on some baked pita chips and roasted red pepper hummus. Yum!

Dinner was delicious. I was finally feeling really good yesterday and I was able to get in the kitchen and cook an entire meal. We had some pork chops that had to be cooked or frozen yesterday and it had been so long since we'd had pork that I decided to cook them. They were loin chops, thick cut, on the bone. I seasoned them with a touch of Lawry's seasoned salt and some fresh ground pepper on both sides and then placed them in a skillet with about 1 Tbs of olive oil. While these were cooking, I boiled some yukon gold potatoes that I had earlier chopped and placed in a boiler with some salted water. When the pork chops were done, I placed them on a plate and covered them with a tent of aluminum foil to keep them warm while I prepared a sauce to go with them. First, I poured about a 1/2 cup of chicken broth into the pan to deglaze it. White wine would be another good choice for that but I didn't have any. Once all the brown bits had been released from the bottom of the pan, I added a tsp of butter, some salt and pepper, a 1/4 cup of cream, and 1 or 2 Tbs of capers. I let this come together over Low heat while I mashed the potatoes. With the pork and potatoes I also served some romaine lettuce topped with a vinaigrette. It was DEEE-lish!



One thing I'm going to have to concentrate on is small portion sizes and eating slowly. I got out of the habit while I was recovering and now it's a challenge. But! I did it once and I know I can again.

Thanks for reading!

Today's Eats

Whew, I had to dust those words off before putting them in the title bar, it's been so long since I posted that here! Well, today was my fresh start, my clean slate and it seemed like I had gotten off on the right foot. Until I ate those Doritos. And that microwave butter popcorn for lunch. BUt I rallied late in the day and saved myself by having a healthy dinner of rotisserie chicken and my favorite brussel sprouts with bacon and cranberries. Not a stellar first day out but I'm not going to punish myself over it. I've spent the last several weeks eating a bunch of junk and it's so hard to stop it cold turkey.

Here is breakfast:


Sean bought some clementines at the grocery store and, while they are blissfully easy to peel, these don't have much flavor. I really prefer the strong, pungent orange.

Lunch was, as I stated above, doritos and microwave butter popcorn. I don't have a photo of that because, as you can imagine, my fingers were covered in Dorito dust and grease from the popcorn butter and I wasn't about to touch my camera with those!

Here is my photo of dinner:



It was simple, easy, healthful, and delicious. I think tomorrow I'm going to make some chicken salad out of what's left of the rotisserie chicken. Also, tomorrow, I'm going to throw away the snacky foods so I'm not tempted to eat them!

Yesterday's Eats

Began with a good breakfast. I had an egg "fried" in Pam Cooking Spray and an English Muffin topped with a lite garden vegetable cream cheese. Along with that I had a small glass of orange juice which provided me an unpleasant surprise - pulp. Ewwww. I really don't like a drink that has "stuff" in it. That really freaks me out for some reason! Anyway, it was a nice breakfast and it felt like a good start to the day.



For lunch, there was leftover mushroom soup in the fridge so I had a small bowl of that with a small salad, topped with a few green olives and some ranch dressing. Bacon bits finished that off and it, too was delicious!



In the afternoon, I hit a major bump in the road. My PMS was in maximum overdrive and I had a colossal meltdown. It was like the PMS perfect storm because certain events aligned and washed over me in a way that left me defenseless. Thankfully though, I just cried it out instead of eating my way through it. It was a rough time but it felt like a win because I didn't try to apply food as the salve to my emotional wounds. By the time dinner rolled around though, I was completely exhausted and just couldn't get off my duff and come up with a plan for dinner. Sean picked up something for me on his way home and, although it wasn't great, it could have been worse! I had a Chick-fil-a sandwich, fries, and an unsweetened tea. Not great, but not horrible.



It was a hard day in the end, and I was mentally spent, but I felt like the victor in the battle which was important. I'm having surgery in a couple of weeks and won't be able to work out or even clean house for up to 8 weeks and it's vital that I get a grip on emotional eating before that gets here. Otherwise my weight situation could be pretty bad by the time my recovery period is up. Keep your fingers crossed!

Ouch!

Got on the scale today, oh boy....(I'm hearing the Beatles in my head) It wasn't a pretty number I saw glaring up at me like the lights on the Vegas strip but it's where I am and where the journey to a healthier me begins. 198. Whew, I said it!

I went downstairs and enjoyed few quiet moments to myself before the kids were up and running around the house like the lunatics they are. After remembering that there were croissants in the bread drawer, I turned on the oven and warmed one up to a beautiful golden brown. Served alongside a small glass of whole milk, it made for a lovely simple breakfast.



For lunch I had settled on making homemade mushroom soup - again. Can't help it! It's my all-time favorite soup. I'd like to introduce you to someone very special to me. They're such a huge help to me and have been a part of my life for about 8 years.


It's my handy dandy Pampered Chef food chopper! Man, I love this thing. It chops onions, nuts, candy, you name it! And, in no time it takes a carton of mushrooms from whole to this:



Which means it takes even less time for me to make and eat this bowl of gloriousness:



Guess what? I'm having it again tomorrow with a salad! I can't wait!

Dinner was also delicious, though there aren't any photos. Sean and I split a rib eye steak which was served with french green beans and mashed yukon gold potatoes. Yum-EEE. For dessert I chewed two pieces of Orbitz spearmint gum. It helps my digestive system. At least I think it does.

All in all, today felt like a great day. The boys and I got out and played tennis with our neighbor and that was awesome. She's in her late 60's and had me running all over the court. I wish we could do that more often!

I'm starting my way back to healthy slowly. It's hard to do it cold turkey so I'm feeling good about this approach. Tomorrow is going to be another good day, I can feel it!

Weekend Grub

This weekend was not one of good eats. Sporadic eats would be more like it! On Friday, I got up and skipped breakfast. Then by lunchtime, the boys wanted pizza so I ordered some from a delivery place. I ate three pieces!! I was really full after that. Shocking isn't it? LOL Friday night we watched the movie, "Transformers", which totally rocked by the way, and I popped some popcorn on the stove. That along with a can of Coke was my dinner. Woo-hoo.

Saturday was much the same. I stopped and got a biscuit and a sweet tea then skipped lunch. Dinner was a small cup of homemade Chex mix. Geez, I knew it was bad but it looks even worse written out!!

Today, was full of hustle and bustle. We were busy taking down decorations, cleaning the boys' room, cleaning out the inside of my car, putting things in our new storage facility and eating was low on the priority list. Skipped breakfast, had a ham sandwich for lunch and then we went out for dinner and I got fish and chips. God, I ate so much at dinner that I'm so uncomfortable.

Tomorrow, I'm getting on the scale for the first time in a while and I'm not looking forward to what it says. But, no matter what the number, I won't let it discourage me. I'm going to take each day one at a time and know that everything's going to be ok. When I put pressure on myself to succeed, I fail. No pressure here. Just living life. Eating good food and getting active. Those are my first steps on the path to healthy living. Stay tuned for tomorrow when I should be back to taking photos of meals!

Today's Eats

Today started out quite well with an egg and two slices of whole wheat toast with a bit of butter and cherry preserves.



It held me over until early afternoon where I had a steaming hot bowl of split pea with ham soup.



This also was great and I was feeling good until - dun dun dun (ominous music sounds). We had a playdate with one of Ryan's friends and he drove me to the very brink of insanity. Thank god there isn't a McDonald's that delivers because I would have really been in trouble! Emotional eating is a big problem for me. I know it and can feel when it's happening but as yet haven't mustered up the courage to stop myself from binging (sp?) when I'm upset. He was here for 2 and half hours and I really did some damage. Leftover mashed potatoes, chocolate, mixed nuts. Random things that I could quickly shove in my mouth to assuage the emotional battle I was feeling in my chest.

Oh how I love these....


As a result, I'm not feeling all that hungry for dinner and will probably not eat again until the morning, at which time I will pick myself up, dust myself off, and start with a clean slate. Whew. I sure am glad I didn't make any resolutions. They would have already been out the window!

What I ate yesterday

Well, in an effort to "do better" eatswise, I got up yesterday and ate my favorite simple breakfast, a croissant and a small glass of milk. This breakfast is so good and so filling that I didn't eat again until much, much later. However, what I ate later was not a great choice, two of my favorite christmas cookies. They tasted delicious though!

For dinner, I decided to try Mama Podkayne's Turkey Tetrazzini recipe and it was delicious. The only thing I did differently was to add some parsley flakes, chopped mushroom, and italian style bread crumbs to the top. Follow the link and get her recipe, it was really quite good! I had a small serving of that along with a salad topped with a tsp of Caesar Dressing.

This morning I awoke with a killer sinus headache, and even after advil it's still bothering me. I feel dizzy and out of sorts, too. Really sucks. Anyway, I had another helping of the tetrazzini for breakfast and the advil makes it feel like it's jus sitting there. Eat first THEN take advil, not vice versa! Otherwise you'll have a lead balloon in your tummy. As a result of that I will be skipping lunch today! LOL

I will try to update later with the dinner meal.

Pics of yesterday's feast

Here's a collage of yesterday's feast which was repeated at tonight's dinner. For breakfast I had some cornbread dressing, and for lunch I had a turkey sandwich and some green bean casserole. LOL Doesn't that sound elegant and delicious?



Gravy, cake in a box, green bean casserole, turkey, and dressing. In the center was my plate last night. Mmmmm good! Even two days in a row!

Unscathed!

WOO! I made it! I didn't overdo it this Thanksgiving holiday and that feels like a real accomplishment. Many times holidays are an excuse for me to overindulge but for some reason, this year was different. Perhaps it is the permission I grant myself on a daily basis to eat whatever I choose thereby defeating any associations with denial. Denial always sets me up for a binge. Also, we didn't spend exorbitant amounts of time with my sister which also seems to be a binge trigger. She and I are not good for each other that way. We each enable the other to give in to our baser desires for food. Perhaps it's a subconscious wish to see the other fail in our respective quests for weight loss. Damn, sibling rivalry is rough!

Thursday, I got up and had a croissant for breakfast. It was a low-key morning because we were heading over to my sister's for Thanksgiving lunch. There, I was quite good about putting a TASTE of each item on my plate and not heaps of food. As a result, I didn't overeat and suffer needlessly. Later, we went to Sean's mom's house and thankfully I was still content from our late lunch so I didn't eat anything there. I did eat something when we got home but I don't remember it being much of anything. The rest of the weekend is a blur eatswise but there weren't any calorically crazy meals. Today, I did actually roast a turkey breast, make cornbread dressing and green bean casserole. We have leftovers but not a ton so it will not be Gorgefest around here.

I feel really good about how I handled eating this week. We did eat out once but I ordered a grilled chicken sandwich. I feel like things are finally under control and like I'm really ready to face this challenge head-on.

Here's to a new week of good eats!



Food at my sister's house.



All my boys on Turkey Day. Don't they look handsome?!

Recent Eats

Alrighty then! Let me try and run down my grub-a-dubs since Saturday for you. Saturday night, I cooked a gorgeous New Zealand rack of lamb, along with some mashed potatoes and tiny green peas. We spent the rest of the evening on our patio, sitting in front of our new fire pit. It was really, really nice.

Sunday morning, I got up and had this for breakfast:



Remember this? It's my version of the Panera Souffle that I love so much. Then, for lunch I had an egg salad sandwich on whole wheat bread. Dinner was a little less healthy, a sub from Jersey Mike's and I was regretting eating that almost immediately.

Monday, I got up and had one of these glorious things for breakfast with some cherry preserves:



I can't remember what I had for lunch but, for dinner I made Shrimp and Grits. Yumm-O!



Today for breakfast I had another croissant. Sooo good. Then for lunch I had leftover shrimp and grits. Dinner was fairly substantial. See, I have taken on the mantle of cooking Christmas dinner for my family and we traditionally have a rib-roast. Well, that's not exactly something I cook all the time or ever so I felt a need to practice before the big show. Last year my mom helped me but she got drunk and gave me some very bad instructions so this year I'm doing it alone. Luckily, the grocery store had roasts on sale this week so here goes.

Here is the roast totally naked. It's okay, I'm not exploiting anyone here, we're all consenting adults...



I placed it rib side down in a roasting pan and then slathered it with olive oil, herbs de provence, salt and pepper. Then I surrounded the meat with some root veggies (carrots and onions) and covered those with olive oil. Here, take a look for yourself:



Then, I put the pan in a preheated 350 degree oven and cooked the roast until the internal temp reached 125 degrees. I took it out of the oven to rest for 20 minutes.



While it was resting, I prepared some mashed potatoes and some baby broccoli. It was fabulous! The roast was so incredibly tender and juicy! I'm not scared to cook it at Christmas at all.

This week, I have really gotten back on "plan" and, with the exception of the Jersey Mike's incident, I haven't eaten any junky food. I'm feeling good about getting through the holidays without going crazy.

Tomorrow's food won't be terribly exciting, it'll just be more leftovers but I'll fill you in all the same. Have a great night!

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.