Flashback to Summer

The unseasonably warm weather we're having makes me feel like it's okay to share this ridiculous recipe with you. It's one of those recipes that makes you wonder why you eat out...ever.

Our CSA is still carrying (most) of the ingredients, though a lot of these veggies are wrapping up for the season. If you make it and love it as much as we did, let me know!

Grilled Vegetable and Fontina Pizza

2 portobello mushroom caps
1 tablespoon chopped garlic
1 large red bell pepper, cut into 1/2-inch strips
1 medium zucchini, cut diagonally into 1/2-inch-thick slices
1 red onion, cut into 1/2-inch wedges (root end intact)
5 teaspoons extra-virgin olive oil
1/4 teaspoon kosher salt
1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
Cooking spray
8 ounces refrigerated fresh pizza dough
4 ounces shredded fontina cheese (1 cup)
1/4 cup thinly sliced fresh basil leaves

Preparation 

1. Preheat grill to high heat.
2. Remove brown gills from undersides of mushrooms with a spoon; discard. Combine mushrooms, garlic, bell pepper, zucchini, onion, and oil in a bowl; toss to coat. Sprinkle with salt and pepper. Arrange vegetables on grill rack coated with cooking spray; grill 8 minutes or just until tender. Slice mushrooms.
3. Roll dough into a 12-inch oval on a lightly floured surface. Place dough on grill rack; grill 2 minutes on each side or until lightly browned.
4. Sprinkle cheese over dough, leaving a 1/2-inch border around edges. Arrange vegetable mixture over cheese. Grill pizza 3 minutes or until cheese melts. Sprinkle pizza with basil leaves and serve.

BluePrint Cleanse Review

You can read part one of my review here, also known as why the hell I did this to myself.

I'm not going to spend too much time reviewing the company itself or their juices, but if you're interested in reading more about that, this is my favorite BPC article. The writing is brilliant and it's pretty spot on. Although I never received any of the motivational emails before or during the cleanse that the company touts and this article discusses. 

I chose to purchase a cleanse instead of buy all the produce and make juices myself because, let's be honest people, time is not a commodity that I have an excess of and I thought that shelling out the cash would be motivation enough to keep me from cheating and/or quitting (and I was right). I opted for the Foundation cleanse because I eat pretty clean, but I'm not above leveling a bag of Tostitos just because. 

Much of the process in completing a juice cleanse involves your preparation into the cleanse itself and how you come out of it. While I only did a three day cleanse, my journey (so to speak), was closer to three weeks. Prior to cleansing I cut out coffee and caffeine of any kind, meat, and processed foods. In the days right before the cleanse I also phased out any grains and starches. And the day before the cleanse I ate only raw fruits and vegetables. Literally, as in nothing was cooked. 

I think my cleanse, on the whole, was pretty easy because I really eased into it. I didn't experience any of the side effects of cleansing like breakouts, slimy tongue, extreme fatigue. Day one of the cleanse was pretty easy. Day two was also a breeze, and I actually felt quite satiated and extremely hydrated. By day three I woke up feeling like I was going to faint and, I'm not going to lie, I ate a banana and then stuck to juices for the rest of the day.

Some people say day three is the worst day, but if you carry it out to five days you get a burst of energy. I'm not sure I believe them. I attribute much of my faintness on day three to the fact that I did a spin class and infrared sauna session on day one, I nursed through the whole cleanse, and I chase three kids daily. I was definitely expending more calories than I was taking in. 

Once the cleanse was complete I went back to eating raw for a few days and then slowly integrated cooked foods. By the end of that week I added whole grains back in. I stayed dairy free for four months following the cleanse, which I'll get to in a moment. Breaking the fast was harder than starting it for me. Chewing was just weird and things like breads tasted and felt funny in my mouth. So there you have it, a roughly 20 day program.

So, about nursing during the cleanse. Almost everything I read advised against doing this for reasons ranging from your body detoxing and passing those toxins on to the baby through your breastmilk to cleanses not being enough calories to sustain breastfeeding. The BluePrint Cleanse is roughly 1100 calories a day, but those are 1100 nutrition packed calories. So I went for it. My thinking was that she is getting any "toxins" my body had through my milk anyway, and if I needed to be cleaned out then maybe she did too.

Unlike some other juice fast reviewers, I actually liked the green juice. I thought it was really fresh and kind of citrusy. The PAM juice was fantastic, although it felt more like a treat than a cleanse thing. The nut milk (yes, you read that right) was okay. Kind of gloppy even after shaking it like crazy. I don't really like chewing my liquids, so I could have skipped this happily. The one juice that freaking sucked my will to live was the Spicy Lemonade. It didn't taste like lemonade, as in the awesome stuff that comes in a 1 gallon plastic cup at the New York State Fair. No this was some toxic acid with cayenne pepper that hit the back of your throat after each gulp and made you beg for death. If you've ever done the Master Cleanse you know what I'm talking about. Nutritionally, I didn't understand the point of this juice, or believe its claims of speeding up the metabolism. In my head it was a way they could make a profit off of lemons and water. But for $11 a bottle I wasn't about to skip it, so I drank it daily and suffered in silence. 

The effects of the cleanse were unreal. Lola has crazy eczema, had a significant case of cradle cap, and generally pretty sensitive skin. The juice fast cleared all of that up and made me realize that the kid is super sensitive to dairy, which is why I stayed dairy-free for the months following the cleanse. And it is why I am getting ready to cleanse again (I fell off the non-dairy wagon and I want to clean house for her and for me).

As for the effects on me those too were unreal. I know the thing everyone wants to know about first is how much weight I lost. The answer is four pounds over 20 days. I didn't really loose a ton of weight on the cleanse itself (a lot of bloat, not a lot of weight), but I started off being a pretty small person to begin with. I never gained a single pound back, and actually lost another five pounds in the months that followed. My skin looked great, and any dryness or blemishes cleared up. And I slept like a daddy (because we all know, babies don't really sleep, but their daddies somehow do).  And in the category of things you never wanted to know about me, all of the backend problems that I've suffered from over the years have gone away. In my life I have never been, ahem, regular. I haven't had a problem since.

Now that I have done a cleanse, I am honestly more inclined to do the whole thing myself. Here are all of the recipes for the BPC broken down for anybody interested in DIY'ing a juice fast. I plan on doing my next cleanse -- five days -- this summer. This time I'm making all of my own juices. Cleansing, for me anyway, seems to be a way to keep my health in check and to kind of regroup after a few months of frenetic, on-the-go eating. The nice part about the process is that it forces me to make a commitment to myself and my own health. Something that I'm not always good at doing.

Feel free to ask me anything about this, I'm happy to share more details or answer questions. If you are able to comment through Disqus, I ask that you do so instead of emailing so that if someone else has the same question they can see the answer too!

For anyone that is interested, here are some fun to read reviews of BPC here, here, and here. I think I'd be BFF with two of these bloggers. I bet you can guess which two...

All About the Juice

Juice cleansing is nothing new. In fact, I would say it's reaching a point of yuppy chicness these days. I mean seriously, where else but in America will people voluntarily shell out $65 a day to starve themselves on the recommendation of hungry starlets and idosyncratic bloggers? Nowhere.

So I joined the masses in January and did my own cleanse. And like all things that happen in my life, it took me a while to sit down and actually write about it. I can tell that there's a fascination with juicing now, because in the weeks and months following my cleanse I have received a lot of messages and emails from friends wanting to know more about what I did, if it's possible to do it on your own (without a pricy program), and how I felt before, during, and after. So here goes. I chose to do a cleanse...

• Because for the better part of the last three years I've injected myself in the arse and the gunt with hormones.
• Because my life is a little out of control and this is a place where I can exert control (and yes, I am in therapy for this too).
• Because I was feeling kind of physically and emotionally heavy.
• Because I wanted to see if I could avoid having a tummy tuck if I just lost "a little more weight".
• And because when I was in college I smoked and drank and may have snorted everything but my shoes.  I'm pretty sure that sticks with you, so I thought this might reverse some of the damage I'd already done to my body.

I was not new to juicing or drinking green juice before the cleanse. In fact, I owned several books on it before cleansing (like this one and this one) and I keep a Pinterest board for new recipes. A few years ago I scored a ridiculous deal on a juicer in Marshall's, of all places, and that was the catalyst for my conversion. But I had never done an actual fast. Now fasting companies will call this a feast. Do not be fooled.

So following the birth of Lola (my third child if you're new around these parts) I hit an emotional low and I felt the need to exert control over my life and that manifested into my first three day juice cleanse. My research on this consisted of a quick google search on a hasty night in January. I selected the company, BluePrint Cleanse (BPC), because it was one of the few that offered nationwide home delivery and because I liked the clever copywriting and the clean packaging. What can I say? I'm an easy sell.

In an effort to keep this post from getting out of control long, I'll be back tomorrow with my full experience and some resources for anyone that's interested.

Life Changing

Do you ever read something that literally changes your life? A few weeks ago I came across a post by Edie over at Life in Grace, and I'm not joking when I say it was life-changing. In this post Edie describes managing her household with four young children and running up against dinner time nightly, scrambling to get something on the table while everyone (including her husband) is fussing up a storm.

Before I had kids I LOVED cooking. I thought of it as free therapy. I loved grocery shopping and list making and planning our meals. In fact, I even shared recipes and reviews on this blog for a while!

I have come to loathe it. Part of that stems from my kids being pretty big pains when it comes to trying new food. I'm seriously still scarred from their food throwing phase, which lasted several months. But my lack of enthusiasm is even bigger than that. In a day, I make a million decisions and manage a million crises, I don't have it in me to take on meal planning and coupon clipping and cooking on top of it all. I'm worn out. My brain is fried.

Weekly, I found myself flopping into a chair at our kitchen table, frustrated and exhausted, and feebly trying to put a list together. The list never seemed to come together quickly and before long the kids were up from naps and I was trying to keep them from coloring on my list and making it rain coupons like we were recording some twisted suburban rap video. All the while, I was on the verge of tears trying to imagine up food that was both healthy and had a chance of possibly being consumed by these tiny terrorists.

Then, already mentally exhausted, I'd cart my clan to the grocery store where the chaos that ensued usually caused me to forget half of what I needed (even the stuff written on my list). Between my kids not wanting to be in a cart, tossing things out of a cart, eating the food I put in the cart through the skins and packing and people stopping me to tell me that my I have my hands full or to ask me if Reese and Ryan are twins... Oh lord, it's too much.

What I'm trying to say here, people, is that when it comes to meal planning, I've been a hot mess.

Edie's solution is so simple -- stick your meals into a google calendar and set each meal to repeat.

I'm going to let the richness of that simplicity sit with you for a second. When you're done smacking your head against the table come back to me, okay?

Stick your meals into a google calendar and set them to repeat. After a few months, an entire year's worth of meals should be planned out for you. If you get to a week and you're not feeling the plans, change them up. But I love the idea of not having to guess "what's for dinner?".

A full explanation of her solution can be found here. And instructions on how to set up your own menu-planning google calendar can be found here.

As part of my effort to simplify, simplify, simplify, I also tried having our groceries delivered. It was a horrible experience. We had bad experiences with crazy and inappropriate substitutions, which was bad enough. But the straw that broke the camel's back happened one night when I left Joe home alone with the kids.

Our groceries were supposed to be delivered between 1 and 3 pm. At 4 pm, when they still had not arrived, I called the store and they told me the driver had just left. Not ideal, but at least the food would get here before Joe needed to cook dinner. The driver arrived at our house at 7 pm WITHOUT OUR GROCERIES. Did I mention that we had no food in the house and the items Joe needed to make dinner with were part of that delivery?

Apparently they had forgotten to load our groceries on the truck. How someone whose sole job is to deliver groceries, leaves the store without said groceries, I have no idea. The driver came back with our order and rang the doorbell at 9:45 pm. You know, that awesomely quiet time when all the children are sleeping? Yes. She rang the doorbell then. To say that the store manager got an earful the next morning would be understatement. I'm not sure how Joe survived that day without killing someone or himself.

Honestly, the whole relinquishing control to someone else wasn't working with my personality type anyway. We have a new grocery store opening up here and I'm really excited about it. It's no  Wegmans, but it will do. I'd move back to Syracuse just for Wegmans in Dewitt alone. True story.

Anyway, I hope this helps someone else. I'm still working out some of the kinks with my own menu and how often to repeat things, when to set seasonal recipes and the like. But its saved my sanity in a big way.

Waking up too early

I'll make you strawberry pancakes, pretend like it's the weekend now. Well, it is the weekend, but Joe is on call which means that it may as well be a Tuesday. I started off the morning with this strawberry pancake recipe and I will never buy pancake mix again. Ever.

As a family, we're moving away from the grocery store more and more. I've found local resources for dairy and meat and our farmer's market is stocked with all of the fruit and produce we need. We have a few green grocers that have bulk dry goods and I'm trying to navigate the world of understanding flours and grains. I want to learn more about preserving food. As it is, I'm so sad that we only have a few bags of strawberries left in the freezer from our berry picking adventure.

Our farm offered up an opportunity to go raspberry picking in late August and after the kids went nuts over strawberries in June I jumped on the chance to take them. My kids rarely eat raspberries, but the ability to pick them off the bushes blew them away. They probably ate two pints. I joked with the farmers that they should have weighed my kids before and after we picked so that we could have paid our fair share.

A few weeks ago I took a sewing class from a woman opening up a small business out of an old rectory who plans to teach home ec-based classes within the community (find out more about her courses here). Our CSA Coordinator left her position with our farm to focus on her work with From Scratch Club, an organization dedicated to sustainable, local living. And while looking at course offerings through FSC, I stumbled upon a bevy of culinary arts programs through a local arts center (some of the courses are a perfect option for date night).

There seems to be a growing trend toward getting back to the basics and living closer to home. My kids eat more when I use fresh ingredients and make their food from scratch. I've tried so many times to get them to eat mac and cheese (they love mac, they love cheese -- should be a no brainer!) but the only time they'll eat it is when I make my own sauce. And who can blame them, this tastes so much better and cooks in the same amount of time.

Rebekah, from Wild Ink Press, just posted a recipe for homemade pasta with a roasted tomato sauce. How good does that look? I remember being a little girl and going to my Great Aunt Blanche's house and seeing pasta drying all over the place. Literally on tables, furniture, kitchen counters. She'd have to move pasta so you could sit down and I thought this was SO weird. Now I wish I would have asked her to teach me her secrets.

The new house has a sunroom that will double as a playroom for the kids. It's all windows, with southern exposure. I cannot wait to teach the kids about plants and start seedlings for our garden with them this Spring. We have a hill on our property up away from the house that is going to be perfect for raised planter beds. Grace, from Finley and Oliver, graciously posted information on her (spectacular) raised planters earlier this year and I've had it bookmarked ever since.

Puff has shown so much interest in the kitchen and every chance I get I let her climb up on a chair and help me. A fun side effect to doing so much at home cooking is their involvement in our meals. I saw these learning ladders and I'm thinking it has Christmas or 2nd Birthday written all over it. Seriously though, is there anything sweeter than a toddler helping in the kitchen?

Engaging the kids in our meals and actually having them eat (rather than throw) what we make has been an amazing, but unexpected, side effect of our shift to local food and home cooking. 

My Children Have Hollow Legs

Joe is out of town on business (again) which means I am on my own with the twinfants. And let me tell you it is survival of the fittest here in our household. In addition to trying to shrink the list of things to do to get the house market ready, securing our financing and going to contract on the new house...I'm also managing the kids, the dog, the laundry, the groceries, the cooking, the cleaning. I'm freaking beat. Thank goodness my kids nap.

Yesterday, in my effort to win the title of supermom, I went to two grocery stores to get all of our food for the week...with the kids in tow. Then I made them lunch, cleaned them up and tucked their little tushies in for a nap. And while all I really wanted to do was take a nap myself, I set about cooking lunches for the entire week and dinner that night. I made the kids homemade macaroni and cheese and roasted zucchini. They love macaroni and they love cheese and zucchini is one of their favorite vegetables. I thought dinner was a slam dunk.

Ryan literally threw every godforsaken morsel on the floor. I'm not even sure he put a bite into his mouth. I was so pissed, I cleaned him up and put him in the ball pit without dinner. Reese ate two elbow noodles (do you know how freaking small an elbow is?), four small pieces of zucchini and a handful of strawberries. Defeated I cleaned up the table, and the floor, and set about putting everything away when I was struck by a wave of guilt over letting my 14 month old "go to bed hungry". So I grabbed Ry out of the ball pit, sat him in my lap with a plate full of strawberries. And do you know what that little SOB did? He threw them on the floor. Done. Nail in his coffin. No soup for you!

We played in the basement and then moved upstairs for bedtime. (Which couldn't come soon enough.) And then I did what any good wife would do. I bawled my eyes out while folding four loads of laundry.

So tonight, when I set about making dinner I braced myself for another night of table tossing and promised myself I wouldn't a.) raise my voice or b.) cry. Ry took an extra long nap today, so my sous chef and I set about prepping dinner until he joined the land of the living.

Then we played for a bit outside until I got too cold (I swear my kids are part labrador, they are impermeable to cold). I made the kids beef and mushroom sloppy joes. Joe and I make this recipe often, but this was the first time I attempted to serve it to the kids. And dear lord was I surprised when they ate THREE WHOLE SANDWICHES. I'm talking full-sized hamburger buns stuffed with sloppy joe. And then a whole oven potato and a pint of strawberries.

Success.

Successes like these are hard to come by, so I figured I'd share the wealth. Or in this case, the recipe. The best part is this recipe is from Cooking Light, so you can cook it without guilt. Hopefully your family makes you feel like supermom at the dinner table too.

Tomato Soup and Grilled Cheese

Once upon a time, a long time ago I used to love to cook. The husband and I cooked often. Date nights consisted of going to gourmet grocery stores and whipping up a meal together in our kitchen with a glass of wine in hand and Train on the iPod.

Cooking is something so different now. I'm constantly trying to expose the kids to new foods while feeding the adults as well. Shortly after the babies turned 11 months being a short order cook was wearing on my last nerve and we (the adults) were eating takeout at 10 p.m. too often. I decided that the kids were going to start sitting with us at dinner and eating what we eat. What a godsend (and seriously, why didn't I think of this sooner?).

I usually prep for more detailed dinners during their nap and once Joe gets home he takes over while I finish getting dinner ready. Or I start the meal the night before (after the kids go to bed) and finish it the next day. I've also mastered the art of the twenty minute meal. Tonight we put a ridiculously easy and yummy one together, so I snapped off a few iPhone photos before serving my screaming mimis.

Pesto grilled cheese with mozzarella and tomatoes based on this recipe. I say based on, because I make a pretty mean pesto so I didn't use the recipe for that, and the rest isn't rocket science :) These sandwiches are really rich. The kids and I shared one, and Joe managed to eat one all by his lonesome. They *loved* it. Add pesto to the list of things my kids will eat. Sweet.

And tomato basil soup. I followed this recipe to a T. After eating this I will never eat tomato soup from a can again. This recipe took under 15 minutes to put together from pulling stuff out of the fridge and cupboards to ladling into a bowl. So easy and SO GOOD.

Enjoy :)

Going Dairy Free

After housing a pint of ice cream for dinner last week, I realized very quickly that my daughter has a milk protein allergy. I had thought maybe she was allergic before. But just after her morning, mid-morning and afternoon feed the next day my suspicions were confirmed. The kid turned into Linda Blair.

After 15 weeks of EBF, there was no way that milk was going to derail me. So I've given up dairy. At first I thought this would be really easy. That was, of course, until I opened our refrigerator and saw 20 cups of yogurt, 7 puddings and a dozen assorted cheeses. I guess I didn't realize how much dairy I ate...

I spoke with a few of my mommy friends about giving up dairy and learned about something called "hidden dairy" (here and here). I didn't even know such a thing existed. For three days when I thought I had given up dairy, I apparently had still been eating it (and in relatively large quantities). My sandwich bread had hidden dairy, as did my cold cuts, even freaking PITA CHIPS. I was at the end of my rope. Seriously.

As though life with twins isn't hard enough some days, now I am having to label read like a mad woman. Thankfully, learning a few key dairy words (casein, caseinates) has really helped me find what will and won't work. To circumvent the problem I've decided it would be easier if I cooked the majority of my meals. Then I could control what was going in my food and still ensure I was taking in enough calories to sustain nursing and enough nutrients to sustain myself.

The key with cooking is that the recipes had to be quick - both to shop for and to make. Below is a sample day of food for anyone that is interested. I make my breakfast for the week and my lunch for the week at night while Joe is home, this way he can cover the kids. We switch off who cooks dinner and who is on kid duty. I definitely don't feel like I'm missing out on anything and so far all of the recipes have been great.

Breakfast (before giving up milk, my breakfast was two packets of Quaker Weight Control Oatmeal - has hidden dairy - and a cup of coffee with half and half)

• Coffee with almond milk and agave syrup.
• Oatmeal (either steel cut or traditional oats), prepared with water. After it is cooked I portion it out and top each portion with 1/4 cup of almond milk, 1/4 cup of almonds and 1 tablespoon of organic honey. 

Lunch (before giving up milk, my lunch was a Dole salad kit. Most of the dressings and/or ingredients contain dairy)

 { Lemon Dill Couscous with Chicken and Vegetables }

This took about 15 minutes total - prep time, cooking time and cleaning up. And I ended up with four lunches from one recipe/cooking adventure.

Dinner (before giving up dairy this could have been anything from tuna sandwiches to pizza to roasted salmon with brussel sprouts)

{ Arctic Char with Blistered Cherry Tomatoes }

We made this with a side of quinoa cooked in Organic Mushroom Broth. Dinner was on the table in 15 minutes. We had three pots to clean, plus our dinner dishes. So clean up took about ten minutes. I cut the recipe in half to just feed two. But this could have easily been kept for a second night/leftover dinner if the full recipe was made.

Snacks (before giving up dairy were fiber one bars, yogurt, pita chips with hummus, string cheese and crackers...)

• sliced vegetables (roasted red pepper, yellow squash, zucchini, carrots, etc.) with hummus
• fruit (peaches in cling = guilty pleasure, apples, bananas, pears, etc.)
• nature valley granola bars

If anyone would like more information feel free to email me or leave a comment. I'm happy to help. I'll try to update my spark page with each week's food for anyone going through similar issues. Any not obvious foods (i.e. hummus, red peppers) are recipes that come from Cooking Light and can be found here.

If you don't subscribe to Cooking Light

You can get all of the magazine's recipes each month here. 

I wish I would have known this before I paid $24 for a subscription!

Weeks 14-17 Resolution Recipes & Review

Oh man, I've been a slacker. We cooked weeks 14 and 16, but I forgot to log it and I don't even remember what we made. I know it was a lot of repeater recipes. Week 15 was IVF week and we ate takeout a lot.

So on to week 17 where we cooked a TON of amazing food. I love trying new recipes and and actually loving them.

Grilled Steak with Baby Arugula and Parmesan Salad

Amazeballs. So good we made it TWICE last week. The key to this is going to a butcher (not the grocery store, a real butcher) and buying skirt steak. And don't skip the grilled lemon halves. Oh my god. You'll thank me, I promise.

Lemon and Sage Chicken

with

Orecchiette with Roasted Peppers, Arugula, and Tomatoes

The chicken was just a basic grilled chicken, but the marinade was super yummy and very versatile. I'll be using it all summer, definitely. Buy skin on bone in chicken, as it grills better.

The pasta salad was hands on for about 30 minutes. But worth the effort. Super hearty and so fresh. We've been shopping only local ingredients lately so this salad really let the veggies shine. Good, good, good.

Swordfish Kebabs with Orange Basil Sauce

with 

Risotto Primavera

This is basically just grilled swordfish, but the dipping sauce is amazing. Don't taste it on it's own, it's kind of weird as a standalone sauce. But on the fish it's superb. We'll be using this sauce all summer, definitely.

The risotto was another chance to use up some local veggies and it was REALLY good. I'm not normally a risotto fan, but the veggies got me.

Veggie Grilled Pizza

Another fabulous excuse to use up veggies from our local farmer's market. I used store bought whole wheat pizza dough. Instead of grilling the dough, I greased a cookie sheet with EVOO and baked the crust in the oven. Then we put the finished pizza on the grill to melt the cheese. Bad idea because I had oiled the dough, it burned on the bottom. Next time I will just melt the cheese in the oven.

The key to this is good fontina cheese. We went to our local COOP and bought amazing cheese and it made this dish. Otherwise it would have been just a burnt pizza with veggies.

Pan-Seared Scallops with Bacon and Spinach

Meh. This was just okay. I am not a big fan of bacon. And I have about 1000 seared scallop recipes that I like much better than this one. Of note, if you are in the Capital Region, Two Cousins has the most amazing scallops in store right now. They were delish. I will make scallops again this week just to buy those again. HUGE and sweet. Yum.

Weeks 12 & 13 Resolution Recipe Review

Barbecue Shrimp and Sugar Snap Pasta Salad

I love it when the weather gets warm and we can break out the grill. This is a favorite recipe for warmer weather. It's super quick and easy to make and ridiculously low cal and filling.

Shiitake and Sweet Pea Risotto

This recipe taught me that I don't like the texture of shiitake mushrooms. Oh well. Husband made it so I can't speak to the ease of cooking. It tasted good, but was calorically dense. I ate more than I was supposed to (what else is new?). As with pasta dishes I just don't get enough out of rice dishes (as a main course) to love them. I like to eat and feel full, otherwise I'm a pretty salty little girl who is out of calories and has too many hours left in the day.

Lemon-Grilled Chicken & Bulgur Salad 

We made this recipe for the first time in Week 6. It didn't do so well without the grill, but made for a great recipe with the grill. I don't know if you're familiar with Clean Eating Magazine or whathaveyou, but it's a total piece of shit. I mean terrible editing, typos everywhere, and jacked up recipes that say this dish is X number of calories when it's really X to the third power.

This is one of those recipes. If you actually enter all of the ingredients into a calorie counter (which I did, because I'm OCD) and the divide by four the total number of calories is 318, not 280. The recipe also calls for a total of 8 oz of chicken, says it's serves four but also says a serving is 1 cup of bulgur and 4 oz of chicken. But you've only made 8 oz. of chicken so 8 divided by 4 is 2 - already makes no sense. Oh and the recipe doesn't make 4 cups of bulgur it only makes three.

So basically there's no rhyme or reason to this and if you just eat to eat you will like this recipe, but if you're like me and you like to control your food all this recipe will do is make you crazy.

Chicken Tacos

{ my lazy suzan is open and my kitchen is a hot mess. welcome to real life }
This is actually a little recipe the husband and I cooked up ourselves. We use romaine lettuces leaves (whole) as taco shells. We marinade our chicken in Goya Mojo and then grill it, then I put out a bunch of little dishes filled with taco toppings (i.e. avocado, kidney beans, cheese, tomatoes, salsa). Super yum, filling, low cal. And it forces us to eat in a dining room rather than in front of the TV which makes for a nice meal.

Rounded out the week with a homemade greek salad with chicken. For this we just marinade chicken in lemon juice and extra virgin olive oil. Dice it up over romaine lettuce and throw on some reduced fat feta, kalamata olives, cucumbers, tomatoes and a light vinaigrette.

I didn't cook quite as often as I was supposed to over these last two weeks, but we ate well so I can't complain.

Weeks 10 & 11: Resolution Recipes and Review

Week 10 we were in Paris so I think, as resolutions go, that gives me a bye week. Last week was an epic failure of extreme magnitude in the kitchen. Here's what we made.

Mushroom Stuffed Chicken

This recipe only called for 3/4 tsp of salt, yet it was so salty. 

The whole thing was just yuk.

Saffron Fish Stew with White Beans

Bland and boring with a weird texture.

Turkey Reuben Panini

Needed more thousand island, and not the fat free, sugar free variety either. I mean seriously, can fat free, sugar free thousand island taste good anywhere? I don't think so. Oh, and do I really need a recipe to make a reuben? Probably not…

Bacon, Ranch, and Chicken Mac and Cheese

This just is a dish that didn't reheat well and I made it for the husband as his lunch for the week. I think he may never eat ranch anything again. He was pretty sick of it by day two. And it wasn't that good to begin with.

Quick Lamb Kofta with Harissa Yogurt Sauce

There was nothing quick about this dish. It tasted very heavy and there was a lot of fat that cooked off the ground lamb. Oh, and we're still burping it up a week later. FAIL.

Resolution Recipes: Weeks 8 & 9

Week 8

We repeated the Mongolian Beef recipe. I used a bad cut of meat, it wasn't as good this time. Boo to that. Does anyone understand steak? I don't . It's all red to me. Sometimes I buy a good one, sometimes I buy a bad one. I need to figure this out.

I made the husband this Slow-Cooker Turkey Chili as his lunch for the week. It was super easy to make and he loved it. I didn't try it because 1.) I don't eat spicy food and I tossed a whole jalapeno with seeds into the crock pot for him and 2.) I don't like chili (yes, I'm a heretic).

Last  meal of the week was Turkey Burgers and Oven Fries which does not come with a pretty picture or from a cookbook, but it's fast and easy and really yummy after a long day.

Week 9

We repeated the Soy-Glazed Tofu. I don't understand why I don't cook tofu more. We really like it and it's so low in calories. Note to self, eat more tofu.

We tried this Antipasto Style Penne recipe from the December issue of Cooking Light and while it was good I don't think we'll make it again. There are a ton of jarred ingredients which created two issues for me. The first issue I had was that this recipe got really expensive, I think all the ingredients cost us about $40. Now granted it made 6 servings, but that still averages out to almost $7 per meal. I'd rather have sushi (true story). The second issue I had was that all the jarred ingredients needed to be packed in oil which means that you didn't get to eat a whole lot before you were really high up in calories. I ate 1.5 cups of this dish which is equivalent to 606 calories (or one spin class). I've come to realize that pasta dishes just aren't worth it if you are trying to watch your waistline.

This last recipe is one of my favorites: Arugula and Pear Salad with Toasted Walnuts. It serves four, but it's so calorically light that the husband and I just split the salad in half. It's quick and easy to make. Satisfying. We add 1/4 cup of gorgonzola cheese to our salads too which really gives it a yummy kick. This is our definition of fast food.

We're off to Paris next week so in lieu of my cooking recipes I'm just going to photograph the crap out of everything we eat over there and let you know how (hopefully) amazing it was. Wish us luck, so far there's lots of rain in the forecast. Boo.

Weeks 6 & 7: Resolution Recipes and Review

Combining weeks here. I actually forgot to post about this last week, but I did remember to cook. Life has been crazy trying to track down the last bit of insurance money we have, fighting various bills that should have been paid on and generally working and trying to breathe. But I have been cooking. Go me.

Last week we tried two new recipes, and then remade the Halibut Meunière which is a recipe we both love because it's yummy and FAST. Fast is key in our household. One thing worth nothing, thin filets are better for this than thick ones.

Oh and does anyone know how to get the fish smell out of your house after you cook dinner? It's amazing while you're cooking, but when you walk into the house on Thursday and still smell dinner from Tuesday night, not so cool. When the weather is warmer we keep the windows open, but it's still in the 30's here…

Turkey Pho


This was a pain in the butt to make, lots of little ingredients and steps. Husband was like this is not a keeper while we were cooking. Too bad it tasted awesome and kept really well. Keeper. Just don't add the noodles to the leftovers (they swell). Worth all the hands on time. So good.

Turkey and Wild Rice Salad


One thing worth noting. I picked recipes from the November issue of Cooking Light. Great idea, if you have Thanksgiving leftovers. I ended up buying really odd ingredients and having more than I actually needed (like a whole can of cranberries…in March). Anyway, this recipe is really great. I portioned it out for lunches for the week and it kept really well. I'm making it again this week (um, because I have cranberry sauce to use up). Another keeper, but I'll save this for when it's November and all the ingredients are on hand from the holiday.

Last Week
Two other recipes that are amazing, we've made them before, but I made the mistake of making out of season are Lemon-Grilled Chicken & Bulgur Salad and Moroccan Grilled Chicken with Cherry and Bulgur Salad (enlarge picture for recipe).



Notice the key word, grilled. Someone needs to tell Niki it's not summer yet. I used an indoor stovetop grille and smoked out the whole house. The dog was all Lassie and Timmy had fell in the well. Which is a lot of fun when you're cooking and being herded by a 75 pound animal. For round two I decided to bake the chicken and I ruined the dish. These will have to wait until June.

Chicken Breasts with Tomatoes and Olives



This was just meh. Easy to make, it didn't taste bad, but it wasn't anything wonderful. I think we'd make it again if we were in a pinch for something healthy because it was so darn quick.

Parmesan and Sage-Crusted Pork Chops


And with this recipe I can say I saved the best for last. So freaking good. And let me tell you I hate pork, pork loin, pork chops. All of it. Hate. But this was GOOD. I had left over pork in the freezer from a pot of tomato sauce (grandmas) that I had made and I needed to use it up. This recipe was quick, it was easy, it was delish. Secret is butterflying the chops and then pounding them out with a meat tenderizer. Served it with polenta and broccoli rabe (notice the trend?) dinner was ready in 30 minutes. This was even good as a leftover.

Week 5: Resolution Recipes and Review

I had grand plans to cook three times this week, really I did. But then I had surgery. And then a fever, completely (thank God) unrelated to the surgery. So one night I ate cereal for dinner, and another I ordered Chinese food, and a third time I ordered a pizza. Reality bites. 

Thank goodness tomorrow starts a new week.

Ranch Steak Bruschetta Salad

This was a lot of hands on time, a lot of work, and guess what? The salad sucked. Lots of wasted calories in the form of bread and ranch dressing. And I was still hungry afterwards. This salad left me wanting to kick someone's ass. Mostly my own, because I went to bed hungry.

Pecan Crusted Trout

Another DELISH fish recipe. I love eating fish and so I'm happy that my arsenal of recipes is increasing with this resolution. Husband cooked dinner, but he said it was really easy to make. And cheap. Trout is so cheap! Who knew? We served it with grits (dry) and broccoli rabe (blanched first, then sauteed in 1 tbsp of olive oil with minced garlic). Amazing. It was even good reheated.

Week 4: Resolution Recipes and Review

Okay so I slacked on Week 3, but really we've been cooking at home. And we've eaten some amazing food. I can hear myself getting skinnier.

Again, I'm tracking everything, so if you're interested you can see what a week/day/meal looks like here.

I thought that I'd never take off my IF weight, but so far it's coming off. I'm hoping after this week's procedure that my hormone levels resetting will help too. My goal is to be back down to my pre-IF weight before we cycle again. It's lofty, but I think I can do it. And it's nice to feel healthy again.

The husband even took off three pounds so far, and that's without hitting the gym! This is a super good thing because as I tell him all the time, love isn't blind. It is honorable, patient and kind, but just because I married you, it doesn't mean my eyes have suddenly stopped working. I may be going to hell for telling you all that! Look, he knew what he was getting into when he married me...

All the recipes we use for dinner come from Cooking Light magazine. I recently bought this special issue at Barnes and Noble, but all of the recipes featured in this publication are online at myrecipes.com.



This first recipe is from Clean Eating Magazine, I've been making a double batch and packing them as either breakfast or lunch. Each recipe creates 6 turnovers, and they can be frozen for later use. They're super yummy and easy to prepare, I think my total hands on time is about 35 minutes and so far we've kept them in the fridge for up to a week with no issues.

Ham and Egg Turnover

Nutrition Information

Halibut Meunière


If you only make one recipe from my blog ever, this is the recipe to make. It was so easy and so good. We found these little bags of cleaned and cut fresh green beans at the grocery store that you pop in the microwave for 3 minutes and they steam. And I quartered 4 fingerling potatoes and tossed them with 1 tbsp of EVOO and threw them in the oven on broil with salt and pepper for 25 minutes. By the time the potatoes were ready so was dinner. And it was amazing.

Soy-Glazed Tofu


We made this with 4 oz of rice noodles (1 serving each). With rice noodles you boil water and then take it off the heat and cook the noodles in the hot (but not boiling) water for 10 minutes. I also threw sugar snap peas (in the pod) and sliced mushrooms (left over from the turnovers) in the hot water with the noodles. The sauce doesn't look like it will cover this much food, but it does. I topped the cooked noodles and veggies with 1 cup of chopped red bell pepper. Husband added Siracha to his, but he likes things spicy. Me, I'm a plain jane, so I loved this without the heat. So good, even if you are tofu skeptical.

So that's it for Week Four. I'm back in the saddle again and I'm totally going to make this resolution work for me, even if life throws me a curveball or two.

Week 3: Resolution Recipe Review

Well y'all (I used to be from Florida and actually said y'all A LOT, I just felt the need to whip it out of the archives specifically for this post), Week 3 was an EPIC FAIL. I'm exhausted and the beta thing had me wrapped around the axle, so I never really made it to the grocery store.

I did cook three times, so *technically* I met my "goal", but I only made one of the recipes from last week. And I can't even tell you too much about it because *technically* the husband cooked and all I did was eat.



I can tell you that this recipe for Tilapia in Mustard Cream Sauce was really yummy. Although I think everything tastes better when somebody else makes it.

Oh well, I tried.

Week 3: Resolution Recipes

Southeast Asian Fried Rice



Steak Tips with Peppered Mushroom Gravy



Tilapia in Mustard Cream Sauce