Slipknot's Slope

[Slipknot]

Ha! Thanks, lakegran! It IS an adventure. I know I'm going to make my goal because I'm really stubborn. It's the post-goal part that I want to change this time. I can't keep counting on my aging metabolism to shed weight for me while I beach - I have a feeling it might not be so easy in a few more years. This time, I'm really going to challenge myself to keep this WOE going. I need more flavors, more tricks, more tools and , well, more veggies!

Maybe I'll finally embrace eggplant. Once I do that, can artichokes be far behind?

[Slipknot]

So DW sent me a text around 4:30 to let me know that tonight's would-be steak was still frozen. Yikes! We quickly decided to use the excessively expensive sushi-grade yellowfin tuna that she picked up at Wegman's earlier. I sent her to BJs, but all they had was previously frozen tuna steaks and we didn't want to risk our health eating semi-raw fish of dubious character. Well, the sushi-grade was (ahem) $23/lb at Wegman's. I used this recipe (http://simplyrecipes.com/recipes/seared_ahi_tuna/) and it was good (I substitued 1.5t of ground ginger for 1T fresh grated), but the tuna didn't pick up the flavors of the marinade enough for my taste after two hours in the fridge. All in all, a great experiment, but way too rich for our blood. For $23/lb., I should have had my socks blown off and/or been sent to the spirit world. Neither event occurred, although I do have enough leftover for a second dinner in a day or two. Live and learn!

[Slipknot]

I recall my first P1 experience as being a series of long clock-watching delays until I could eat. There were also some SBD flu symptoms during week 1 that stabilized once I figured out daily beans and milk really work for me. This go round has been like gliding across a well-polished wood floor in my socks. Only with food.

B: 2 scambled eggs with ham, scallions and fresh cilantro; refried black beans; 2% milk
S: Peanuts
L: Whopper Wednesday at Work! I had a broiled chicken sandwich without the 'ciabatta roll' and some of the mayo that stuck to it; side salad with ranch; diet coke
S: Green Tea
S: String Cheese
D: Seared ahi tuna on a bed of brocolli slaw coated with sesame ginger dressing; 2% milk
S: 5 cheddar jack starbursts (~1 oz.)

I posted the ahi recipe in my entry above for the curious. Good, but way too expensive.

I've been just getting hungry when I'm leaving work, so I've delayed my non-tea afternoon snack until I get home. So far, so good. It seems to me that I've been losing water weight just by the number of trips I've had to make to the Gentlemen's. I've been hitting the water, but not that much. My suspicions were confirmed when I hopped on the scale this morning and found myself down 4 lbs! It's nice, but it's just a start and unofficial. I'm only recording "official" weights once per week for sanity's sake.

[Slipknot]

I lived in Mexico for two years and really developed a love for refried beans and even frijoles charros which are almost a bean soup. The bean is pretty darn cool, and fat-free refried pintos became a staple of mine during my first trip to the beach - to the extent that I burned out on them. Don't get me wrong - I still love 'em, but we've been apart for quite awhile. I discovered Trader Joe's canned refried black beans with jalapeno which is a great second option, but they never had the heat I like. Then came this recipe I found after a google search: http://www.suite101.com/content/texmex- ... ans-a23933. This is great stuff if you like a good, slowly building burn of spicy peppers.

The first time I made these, there was a hold on jalapenos due to salmonella concerns, but I hadn't read the news that day. The market I was in was disorganized enough that someone had put serranos in the jala basket. Yes, I lived in Mexico and should have spotted the difference, but in my defense, my last jala purchase was of darker green, more barrel-shaped jalapenos. At any rate, I can attest that using two serranos in place of two jalapenos resulted in a very good pan of refried breans that were too painful for me to eat and had to be dilluted with some Trader Joe's from the can. I like working up a good sweat as much as the next guy, but generally not at the breakfast table.

I made this again last night after dinner and I couldn't wait for breakfast to come this morning. I forgot to get a can of chipotles in adobo on the way home so I substitued quite a few shakes of some chipotle hot sauce I had in the fridge. Definitely a fun way to spruce up your bean intake and it was fun using the hand masher to get the texture that I wanted with some coarser, whole beans included. Yum. Viva el frijol!

[Slipknot]

...my kitchen gave to me: 4 ounces veggies, 3 different meals, 2 drinks of dairy, and a go-round the recipe tree.

You didn't think us guys knew about recipe trees, didja? Well, we don't.

Here's how the day's food went:
B: 2 eggs scrambled with ham, scallions, and fresh cilantro; 2% milk; the best refried beans EVER (see entry above)
S: Peanuts. They are greasy. Dry roasted next purchase
L: The first of probably one million chicken caesar salads (good thing I like 'em); diet coke.
S: Green Tea
S: String cheese. Polly-O regular. The best string peel that I've found, and its great to eat one slowly that way.
D: Grilled Montreal sirloin, onions and mushrooms sauteed in Smart Balance, roasted squash, 2% milk. No salad for two days in a row at dinner!
S: 1 wedge LCL

For dinner, I dipped slices of squash in a mixture of egg white and Frank's Red Hot, then sprinkled them with Parmesan cheese. The shaker was nearly empty, or I would have rolled the squash in it for a more even coating. DW went for seconds so they couldn't have been that bad and DS loved him some rare steak. I put a couple splashes of Marsala wine in the mushrooms just cuz. It was a big batch and I'm certain that the alcohol cooked out and that the retained sugar was a fairly small quantity. I also put a teaspoon full of ranch dressing on my plate to dip the squash in. It was a nice touch with the other flavors going on.

The weekend's almost here and it will present the additional challenge of unstructured time. Will our hero (that's me) be able to resist the call of various processed foods? Stay tuned, intrepid readers!

[Chris55]

It sounds like you are having a blast cooking! I'll have to try coating my squash. DH likes it, but DS doesn't like squishy veggies. He's turning into somewhat of a foodie, but he's still picky.

[Slipknot]

DS is the pickiest. He is a SBD nightmare who prefers white starches (rice, bread, crackers, pasta) but we're making some progress with whole-er grain rices like jasmine and basmati. DD is a foody and pretty aventurous for 6 years, but she wouldn't go for the squash either.

I am having a blast cooking, but I feel like a sprinter in a marathon. I have to get myself into a mode where I can maintain this WOE better. First things first, I know, but I'm also trying to figure out as I go why I get away from healthy habits that seem so easy and natural.

I put an order into amazon for a few new kitchen goodies to help me slice and slaw and grate and grind a little more efficiently. That, and I got really used to freshly ground four pepper blend.

[Chris55]

My oldest loves anything white - bread, cheese, milk, pasta. He's gotten much better over the years. When I sent him off to college I made him promise to drink a glass of orange juice a day and to have salad for at least one meal. He's stayed relatively healthy, is rail thin, and likes to cook now that he's in his own apartment. But I find myself trying to make his favorites when he's home for dinner, and they're definitely not SB friendly - fettucini alfredo with a side of garlic bread is his idea of heaven!

Once you get some go-to meals down pat and develop good habits, it will get easier and a little less time consuming. After a while you don't have to read as many labels in the supermarket, either.

I have a nice shredder/slicer, but one of my all-time favorite kitchen toys is my pressure cooker. If you love beans as much as you say, look into one. Saves major amounts of time. I use mine a few times a week for brown rice, soup stock, black beans (35 min. from dry), soups, stews, etc. I have a Fagor stovetop model that came with a 4 quart pot and an 8 quart pot, a regular lid, the pressure lid, and a steamer basket. Love the thing, but I mostly use the smaller size unless I'm doing something big like turkey bones for soup.

[Slipknot]

I remember my mom cooking sauerkraut in her old pressure cooker and watching the little steam bob rock back and forth on top of it. Frightening times, but I may overcome that fear to try one out. I know Kalyn crows about hers in her blog, so it seems like all the cool kids are pressure cooking.

I have a box chopper, a $20 mandoline, a box shredder and a new pepper mill all coming in the mail. I enjoy knifework, but with classes starting this week and my one hour commute, I need to get chopping and slicing and grating more efficiently. We've been getting by with one of those plunger onion choppers with the ribbon blade (it's really more of a mincer) and a hand-held cheese grater for years. If we're gonna conquer the temptations of prepared foods, we need weapons!

[Slipknot]

It was the salad dressing and the stewed tomatoes, I bet, but I finally dealt with Mr. Hunger mostly by ignoring him.

B: Two eggs scrambled with scallions, fresh cilantro, and black pepper; refried black beans with jalapenos; 1% milk
S: Peanuts
L: Chicken soup minus the pasta, side salad with Russian, chopped sirloin patty with onions, stewed tomatoes, brussel sprout, diet coke.
S: Green tea and string cheese
D: Seared ahi tuna redux with stir-fried squash and broccoli slaw, 1% milk
S: Babybel and zinfandel
S: String cheese (I blame the wine)

I ate lunch at a diner and probably should have stuck with the side salad, but I wanted to get more veggies in. The brussel sprouts were just gross looking and my coworker who also ordered them took one look and pushed them aside, so I followed. I ate a couple of the stewed tomatoes, but I realized this morning after reading a label on the market shelf that canned stewed tomatoes can have up to 8g of added sugar per serving . The salad definitely had too much dressing - need to order that on the side next time. My string cheese was not enough in the afternoon and I had no alternatives up my sleeve since I had to go straight to DD's indoor soccer game after work. So I just kind of ignored Mr. Hunger for a couple of hours.

I had a leftover yellow squash and about a cup of broccoli slaw and a piece of ahi tuna that is apparently worth its weight in gold or cocaine or something, so I chopped up the squash and stir fried it with the slaw in some sesame oil and ginger sesame dressing. It was a nice colorful base for the tuna. Three dinners without salad! I am now going to try to keep lettuce off the dinner table as a rule. Oh, and I watched the DF scarf down their Friday pizza (DW went small helping with a side salad) with something approaching indifference. I like pizza, don't get me wrong, but I love it's convenience more than its taste.

I went to P1 not because of cravings, but because I wanted a good sugar purge. So with nearly a week in the bag and not a craving of note, I had a nice glass (or two) of red zin to celebrate. Or something like that. It made me hungrier than I anticipated, so I had another string cheese. In hindsight, I should have gone LCL and celery, but it was late and I had a cheap buzz going. So - too much cheese yesterday, but I've metabolized worse in the past. Newcomers - do not try this at home. No wine for you on P1, and keep the cheese to two servings a day! Do as I say and not as a I do!

[Chris55]

Wine is tricky even in P2. It brought on a chocolate binge for me last night - a whole large Lindt bar. Had my wine, everyone else was eating ice cream (I craftily bought flavors I'm not crazy about), and I decided to have a little something sweet which turned into a lot of something sweet. But the good news is that all my Christmas candy and cookies are gone, so all I have is my hidden (from the family) stash of Dove chocolates. I have to hide them to keep their paws away, so I'm not likely to eat them when they can see me.

I hope you enjoy your new kitchen gadgets - did you do the buy 3 get one free thing on Amazon?

Pressure cookers are great. My mom had one of those very scary ones, too, and I swore I'd never use one. I did use a crockpot for years when I was running kids around until 6:30 or 7 every day. But I've been home early enough to cook dinner for a few years now and I saw a pressure cooker on QVC and it got me interested. It was this big electric monstrosity, but it still seemed pretty cool, so I started looking at stove top models. I'm swearing off electric appliances as much as possible since burning out a crockpot in under 2 years and going through coffee makers like crazy. Anyway, the new ones are very safe. Mine has a gizmo that locks the lid, a thing that you can turn to release the steam quickly if you want to when you're done, and it has a safety release that supposedly leaks out water and steam if you forget to turn the heat down. It's also pretty easy to clean since I haven't exploded peas in it or anything. I bought a good pressure cooker cookbook at the same time and it walked me through everything. I use mine so much that I should probably just leave it on the stove next to my stove top coffee pot. I would definitely put up a fight if someone tried to take it away. I love the thing!

[Slipknot]

I wish I could just give up wine, but what can I say? At least it's not beer. I love beer. Beer is one of mankind's most awesome of inventions; it's easy to make but impossible to master and has just enough variables so that anyone and everyone can put their stamp on the brewing process. Belgium, England, the West Coast - I can smell them blindfolded 10 feet away. I have totally accepted the fact that beer is this thing that I only get to enjoy a couple of a times of year. I need to do that with a bunch of other things now, like brownies and chocolate cookies with peanut butter chips and gooey mac and cheese. I would hate to have to put red red wine in the pile.

What's the make and model/volume of your pressure cooker? It sounds like one with a lot of safety features and for sure I want that with curious kids around my kitchen.

[Slipknot]

I met DS and DW over at the sports center for DS' indoor flag football game and I could smell at as clearly as I could last night - the scent of starches boiled in comfy fat accompanied the sharp January wind. I'm not having cravings per se, but I am occasionally acutely aware of the general non-beachiness of the food around me. And let me tell ya - there's a lot of it.

I slept in until 9 and woke up to an eggless kitchen, so my food timing got all wacked out:

S: Peanuts
B: Two eggs, scrambled with scallions, fresh cilantro (which is getting wilty, finally) and black pepper; the best refried black beans EVER; 1% milk
L: Pinto Bean and Beef stew redux; salad with TJ's Goddess dressing; diet coke
D: Montreal sirloin with sauteed mushrooms and onions redux; 1% milk
S: Babybel

I ended up having breakfast at 11:00 AM, lunch at 5:00 PM, and dinner at 8:00 PM. I never do this. It was as if for every minute of hunger I had yesterday, I was given two minutes of wondering when I was going to want to eat something today. Ironically enough, now that I have a weekend to plot and plan and cook, I also have a fridge full of leftovers and I'm way too Scotch to not consume those. So today was a look back on the past triumphs of the week - like that sitcom flashback show that has the main characters suddenly reminiscing before they soft fade to a highlight reel of the previous seasons' best bits. Or, more likely, it was just me eating leftovers at strange times when I wasn't watching football, doing homework, or dismantling former holiday glory.

[Chris55]

I've been polishing off the leftovers this weekend, too. Now I have a stack of containers in my drawer again. I finally shredded those broccoli stems last night, added my packaged carrots, a scallion, and some shredded cabbage for my slaw. Had a turkey burger on a ww english muffin and threw some summer squash on the grill - they guys had oven fries, bacon beef cheeseburgers.

My pressure cooker is a Fagor with 2 different sized pots - got it on sale at Macy's. I'd recommend a 6 quart if you intend to do anything more than 3 or 4 servings. You can't fill them all the way, about 2/3 for most things, 1/2 for beans or else they foam up and make a mess. There are lots of other pressure cookers out there and they all have the same safety features these days. I was specifically looking for a stainless steel one (most of the old ones are aluminum) and was ready to buy a 6-quart when I found the set on sale and went with that. It takes up half my cabinet, though, so I've ditched my old spaghetti pot and use the 8-quart pressure cooker pot when I'm making piles of pasta (not so frequently any more). And I'd recommend Lorna Sass's "Pressure Perfect" for a book.

Amazon sells quite a few different Fagors - the newer ones like mine have a pop-up yellow button that tells you when it's up to pressure. Evidently some of the older models don't have that and got some lousy reviews. The button is really easy to see if you're anywhere near your stove, so even if you're not paying 100% attention, you know when it's popped and can turn the heat down. I have an electric stove, so I usually start mine on high on my big burner, then when it comes up to pressure, I shift it to my small burner set very low, just hot enough to keep the pressure going and the button up. With a gas stove, you just turn the flame down.

You have different options for releasing the pressure when your food is done. For some things they recommend running cold water over the pot (I remember Mom doing that), for some you can release the valve and let the steam out (watch out for the kids on that one - I do it next to my stove ventilation), or you can just let it sit and cool down by itself and the pressure will go down. You can't open the pot unless the pressure is down - it has a special lock. The only tricky thing is that if your timing is off and your food isn't done, you have to go through the process of releasing the pressure to find that out. Then you have to reheat it and get it back up to pressure if it needs to cook longer. It usually only takes a few minutes, but it's a pain not being able to check your meat by just opening the pot.

There are lots of options and reviews on Amazon - have fun reading!

[lakegran72]

NO NO NO I WON"T give up my wine. whine whine whine.....The best I can hope for is to limit myself to 1 glass.
Your menus are truly dangerous . It only 7 am and I am salivating and wanting fresh tuna a and oven fried squash...