Black Belt Living

Any Questions?

Remember this old classic PSA from the 80's?

Well this is my brain after three full days of carb detox and hard exercise:

Any questions?
(just pass me the Aleve already!) 

* * * * *

Today we might actually have a working microwave and later tonight Ginger and I are seeing Michael Buble in Columbus. It's going to be a brilliant good day!

This Week's Layover, Weight Watcherville

There is no denying that I've had the good fortune to visit some really great places in the past few months, and I've eaten my way through them. From dessert at The Plaza in New York City, to cocktails in Miami, to seafood in Palm Beach, I've been able to sample the best of some really great food and drink. 

But as we know, all good things must come to an end. In my case, it's a big REAR end, and today we travel to the kitchen for our latest tourist destination, South Beach Diet City with a layover in Weight Watcherville. Because like these ladies, eating Cheetos and drinking pina coladas at the pool is doing it wrong, and I've got enough junk in my trunk to prove it. 

So armed with motivation instead of a margarita, all three of us will be charging forward starting today with healthy eating and a recommitment to exercise. Since retiring from taekwondo last year, I've struggled to find a workout routine that really motivates me. At this point, I have just resigned myself that I probably never will, but I must just suck it up and get it done anyways. Right now the current plan is to get back on track doing something different every day, combining my P90x DVDs, other cardio, bike riding, roller blading, weight training, and yoga (but not the P90X yoga). I'd really like to try to start running, but at 95 degrees and rain-forest humidity levels, I might push that effort off to the fall, when I'm lighter and so is the air. So I'll be getting it done, 5 or 6 days/week, no excuses. 

As for food, we picked our first ripe tomato yesterday and that's a real treat. It's a whole lot easier to eat right with loads of fresh produce to choose from. I've got meals (well, dinners) planned for the whole week. Here they are:

• Monday: Grilled Pork Chops w/ portobello mushrooms, grilled corn on the cob
• Tuesday: Spicy stir fried tofu w/ edamame and purple cabbage, wild rice (no rice for me!)
• Wednesday: leftovers (I'll be out of town for the evening, so the gang will be on their own)
• Thursday: Barbecued turkey drumsticks, fresh green beans, some other side dish
• Friday: Grilled Salmon, roasted cauliflower, cowboy caviar
• Saturday: Chef Salad (a healthy version)
• Sunday: 4th of July BBQ elsewhere

So that's the plan. I'm also motivated to try new things, which means new recipes here on the blog. I have never cooked with tofu before, so if you have any suggestions or recipes, I'd love it if you'd share them with me. My family is very adventurous when it comes to trying new things, so bring it on!

By the way, I use Meals Matter to keep track of my meal planning online and it's super easy. Check it out.

Recipe Tuesday - Grilled Portabello Paninis

I had such good intentions for this week's Recipe Tuesday. I took photos of the portabellos and the peppers being grilled, but got so carried away with actually EATING my panini, that I forgot to photograph the final results.  Oh well.  I found something that looked similar on the web, so you'll just have to use your imagination. Sorry about that. The real thing looked SO much better (tasted good too for the little time it was in existance.)

Grilled Portabello Paninis

• 4 large portabello mushroom caps, cleaned
• 2 large red peppers, seeded and cut into large pieces
• your favorite marinade (I used balsamic vinaigrette dressing)
• 8 slices sourdough bread
• 4 slices provalone or havarti cheese
• dijon mustard
• softened butter or Non-stick Cooking spray

 Wash mushrooms and dry well.  Cut peppers. Put all veggies in a ziplock bag with the marinade and let sit for about an hour. Remove veggies from the bag and grill either on your barbecue grill, or on your indoor grill. (For our sandwiches last week, I was planning on having them done on the big outdoor grill, but the weather didn't cooperate, so I grilled them on my George Forman Grill - oh baby do I love that thing, I have the "360"!).

 Grill portobellos for about five minutes on each side, and peppers until they get some nice black grill marks on them and they are no longer firm.  Butter the outsides of the bread slices or spray with cooking spray (if you want to save the calories, it works great). Remove from the grill and start building your sandwiches, layering the mushroom, some dijon mustard, slices of red pepper, the cheese between hunks of bread. I know that I don't need to tell you this, but make sure that the butter/spray is on the outside, and grill your sandwiches either in a panini press, cast iron skillet, or in your Foreman grill (or whatever way you choose to make grilled sandwiches). Grill them until you get some nice marks like in the photo below. If the cheese is starting to melt out of the sandwiches, you're done!

 So, so, so, so tasty, people.  Try switching up the cheeses if you like.  I personally love some dill havarti or horseradish cheddar.  Mmmm.....

Oh, and just because it's THAT time of year.....

 Let's Go Red Wings! Just sayin!

Recipe Tuesday - Spicy Shrimp and Edamame

Last week I was busy with activities almost every night, so there wasn't much time to cook. Other than the occasional pizza night, I'm not big on carry-out. I'd always rather cook than pick something up, so those are the "whip something out of nothing nights". On top of being short on time, my local "go-to" grocery store is closed for several months for remodeling, so for a while, the quick trip to the grocery store opportunities are gone and that forces me to be more creative. That's a good thing.

On Wednesday, I pulled some things from here and there and ended up with a great dinner!  I made a stir fry using frozen shrimp, edamame, red and yellow peppers, and purple cabbage. We love stir-fried cabbage. If you haven't tried it, you should, it's great! 

Anyhow, this dinner was simple, and simply DELICIOUS! I swear, I would have eaten the whole pan if I could have. It was that good.  It was super colorful too. I like pretty food, so that was a plus. Who am I kidding. I love all food...pretty, ugly, or pretty ugly.

Spicy Shrimp and Edamame Stir-Fry

 

• 1 lb. fresh or frozen shrimp (I used tiger shrimp w/ shells) peeled and deveined
• 1/2 large purple cabbage, shredded
• 1/2 red pepper, diced
• 1/2 yellow pepper, diced
• 1 pkg frozen edamame seeds, thawed
• 2 cloves fresh garlic, crushed
• 3/4 C bottled Szecuhuan Stir Fry Sauce (easy, but if you want to make your own, check out Jamie Oliver's recipe)
• 1/3 C oil (I like peanut oil for stir fry, but it really doesn't matter. Chili oil could kick things up a notch!)
• hot cooked brown rice (optional)

Thaw, clean, and devein the shrimp and set aside in a bowl of icy cold water.  Prep veggies and set aside. Heat oil in your wok or large, deep pan, until a piece of pepper tossed into the pan sizzles when it hits the oil. Add garlic and stir fry for about 30 seconds.  Drain the shrimp, and pat it dry with a paper towel (if it's watery, the water will splatter and burn you when it hits the pan, trust me!).  Stir fry the shrimp a few at a time until all shrimp are added to the wok.  When the shrimp have all turned pink, add all of your veggies, including the edamame, and continue to stir fry for about two minutes.  Add your Szecuhuan sauce and continue to stir fry until all contents in the pan are well coated.  Serve over hot rice.

I really like having this bottled sauce in my fridge. It's low in sugar and adds a good bit of spice and heat with little fuss and muss. There is a Korean version and a Chinese version, and I love them both. Making your own sauce is super easy, but I like knowing that if I've got some veggies in the fridge and some of this sauce, I've always got a quick meal that my family is going to love.

 

That's it for today, tomorrow I'm talking chicken, and not in the way you might think after reading a post about food.  As for tonight, we girls might just be strapping on the hockey skates and taking to the ice at US Bank Arena. That's a blog post just aching to happen right there.....

Recipe Tuesday on Thursday - Caesar Salad a la Jason

Before we get down to the serious business at hand today, FOOD, I want to thank everybody for popping in over the last two days and reading my thoughts about the concert. It was fun being "out there" and expanding my blog horizons a bit.  

Anyhow, it's good to be back blogging about food again. And given that I'm all about bloggers spotlighting others this week, for this week's recipe, I'm putting my friend Jason in the spotlight with his stupendous Caesar salad.

Jason is a great friend of our family. He's an engineer by day, and a fantastic singer, creative cook, photographer, parent of a 13-year old, and a sports nut when he's not in the office.  Hey, wait a minute ~ he's the male version of me! Seriously, we have so much in common. I guess it never really hit me so obviously until I wrote this right now!

Jason is married to lovely Kris (whom we also adore) and they have a 13 year old son, a beautiful 14 month old boy and another one due in about five weeks. I had the honor of photographing their birth experience last year and I'm so excited to be repeating that adventure very soon!  On a serious note, there is no greater honor than to be invited to photograph the birth of a new life. Thanks J&K for trusting me with your special moments.

Jason and Kris not only put up with us on home turf, but have vacationed with us a few times too.  We just have entirely too much fun when we're all together if that's even possible. And if vacationing together wasn't enough fun, J & K always ramp it up foodwise when we're all together. They are both stupendous in the kitchen and really enjoy serving up some seriously tasty food. I can thank Kris singlehandedly for convincing me that guacamole really IS good, and doesn't have to be just a tasteless gloppy mess. I have been enlightened. In fact, I could go on and on about all the GREAT food that these two have created and fed us over the years.

One of those yummy, tasty treats is Jason's Caesar Salad. He's agreed to share his recipe with me and with all of you today. It's well worth it, trust me.  If I remember correctly, and I could be wrong, this recipe is a modification of his late uncle's recipe. I love how food traditions live on even after people have passed. Food really IS love people!  And with that, here we go:

Caesar Salad ala Jason

 2-3 heads of Romaine lettuce, washed, cut and dried
8-10 inches of Anchovie paste
1/3 C olive oil
2-3 cloves garlic minced
2 1/2 Tbsp Red Wine Vinegar
2 eggs, coddled
juice from 1 lemon
Worchestershire sauce
Parmesan cheese
Fresh ground pepper
Salt

Add minced garlic to olive oil at least 2 hours prior to making the salad. (I usually do this in a glass measuring cup and cover with plastic wrap)

Coddle two eggs. (place eggs in pan with water just covering, put pan on high heat. At first sign of boiling, take eggs off and run under cold water to stop the cooking process.)

In a large wooden salad bowl, squeeze 8 to 10 inches of anchovie paste into the bottom of the bowl. Spread the anchovie paste around the bowl with a fork.

Add olive oil to the bowl by pouring it through a strainer to ensure no raw garlic gets into the bowl. Mix anchovie paste and oil in bowl until uniform color.

Add red wine vinegar and mix.

Add the two eggs. *these coddled eggs should have just the edge of the white set with the rest of the egg basically raw. You can almost soft boil the eggs if you want, the main thing is to ensure that the yolk is not set.

Add the juice of 1 lemon.

Mix thoroughly. Add W. Sauce until color is appropriate for Caesar (a light tan/brown color). I usually use as much as 1/8 cup of W. Sauce and sometimes more depending on taste.

Add 1/2 of the parmesan cheese (I use shredded, but you can use grated as well). Season with salt and pepper to taste.

Finally, add ingredients until the flavor is correct (lemon/W sauce add tang, oil can cut vinegar flavor, anchovie paste can add salt along with richness... really a balancing act at this point)

Once all ingredients are balanced, toss the lettuce with the dressing, add the rest of the parmesan. Add croutons if you like them and add some fresh pepper. Serve immediately.

Finally, some notes from the chef.....
 
I realize that most recipes for vinegrette add the oil last. This is just how I always make caesar, the exact order doesn't matter that much. Mainly I add the ingredients because of what flavors balance each other (oil/vinegar, eggs/lemon).

I also note that not everyone likes anchovies... trust me when I say that this recipe DOES NOT WORK without them. I have tried it, it doesn't work. sorry.

Finally, find out how you like the eggs for this salad and cook them accordingly. If you do not feel comfortable with an egg cooked as lightly as described above, cook them more. I've never gotten sick due to this method, but for all I know, I'm just lucky.

Recipe Tuesday - Cranberry Pork Loin

Okay, so it's Wednesday, but since I have been so bad about blogging lately, I didn't think you'd mind if as long as I posted SOMETHING! 

I tried creating something new last night and it was a huge hit. I actually thought there would be tons of leftovers today and there were basically NONE (much to Olive's dismay!). 

I was browsing some pot roast recipes the other day for new ideas. Frankly, I'm not a huge fan of pot roast, so I was looking to change things up a bit.  I found a cranberry variation, but I decided to switch things around a bit and use pork loin instead. My guess is that this would be good with beef, pork, chicken or turkey ~ anything goes! I think this would be fabulous in the crock pot as well!

 
 Cranberry Pork Loin

• 2 cans whole berry cranberry sauce
• 2 cans beef broth
• 1/4 C red wine
• 2 T cornstarch
• 1/2 onion, diced 
• large pork loin/pot roast
• olive oil
• baby carrots
• small round, red potatoes

Saute the onions in a large dutch oven in olive oil, then add the meat and brown it on each side. Remove the meat from the pot and set aside temporarily.  

Add broth, cranberry sauce, and wine to the pot, turn up the heat, and bring to a boil. Keep stirring so that the sauce and liquid melts into each other well.  Add cornstarch and continue to stir until thickened.  

Add meat back into the pot, along with carrots and small potatoes. Bake in a 325 degree oven for about two hours.  

This was a great dinner that was delicious, easy to make, one pot, and super easy to clean up! It doesn't get much better than that. Next time I'm going to try it in the crock pot, I'm sure it will be great. 

Try it out!

Bragging Rights

Yesterday was our annual Chili Cook Off at ACME.  It was a blast. I'd say that it would be fun to do something like that every day, but I suppose that there is such thing as too much of a good thing. And there probably is such thing as too much chili as well, especially at a place where people are actually expected to get work done in the afternoon.

 

But Holy Firehouse, Batman...that chili was GOOD!  There were eight entries and they were all great, and really different.  Mine was the only chicken chili, but we had other chilis that included yummy ingredients like bacon (what isn't better with bacon and why haven't I ever thought about adding bacon to chili?), italian sausage, olives, and even beer. And of course, a pepper or two. All pots had some kick to them, but none of it was too hot, just right. 

But in the end, the year-long serious bragging right went to a fellow contest rookie, Rick, and his "Italian Stallion Chili". Hopefully I'll have the recipe up here next Tuesday. It was seriously good!

I am not kidding you, we ate at noon, and I wasn't even remotely hungry for the rest of the day. I did have a tiny bowl of my leftovers at about 8pm last night, but it wasn't because I was hungry. 

 

If you're interested, here is my chili recipe:  White Chicken Chipotle Chili

I also made the mistake of counting my points for Weight Watchers, ha!  Earlier in the day I gave it an estimate, but last evening (while watching The Biggest Loser of course), I decided to look everything up and crap!  That was a heavy lunch.  Literally.  Eight samples of chili, a piece of cornbread, and a piece of key lime cheesecake.  [burp] Good thing I went for a run last night. Unfortunately, I'm only on week one of my "teach the fattie to run" program and I didn't run to Chicago and back, which is probably what I would have had to do to burn off all of those calories. 

Have a great day and have some chili today! Me? I think I'll have some salad.

Loserville

So did you watch The Biggest Loser last night?  Man, my heart goes out to those people. They're so inspiring!

I know that I'm taking that inspiration and putting it to some good use. Yeah, like everybody else, I jumped back on the wagon to better fitness and weight loss after the holidays, only I decided to start the Monday before New Years instead of after. 

A friend asked me why I decided to start the Monday before the new year when I had a big party to go on New Year's Eve. I guess I figured that if I started on the 29th, I knew I could be down a few pounds by Monday, January 5.  If I waited until the 5th, chances are my weight would only be up. That could quite possibly be a seven pound swing if I was really bad at the party.  So I started, and I was good at the party. When I weighed in on Monday, I was down 4 pounds and I only started moving my arse on Sunday. 

Yeah, I've been embracing my inner sloth for the entire month of December.  Lack of time, being slammed with holiday planning and events, and having no time off from work kept me hopping. Unfortunately, not hopping in the way that burns off all of the Christmas crap that I ate. I haven't been going to taekwondo, I haven't been walking or riding my bike. All I've been doing is running to the fridge and lifting a fork to my mouth, and it hasn't been with healthy food. 

Sunday I jumped on the hated recumbant bike and rode for 75 minutes. I had forgotten why I hate it. I hate it because my feet totally fall asleep and go numb at about the 15 minute mark. When your feet go numb at 15 minutes, it's hard to ride for an hour and fifteen, but I did it!  

Then on Monday I started doing what I never thought I'd do, and that's get up before roosters to work out with Andy. He gets up at 4:50 am to workout and has done this for years (only it used to be even earlier). I am certainly a morning person, but I never thought I could take it to that extreme.  But guess what?  On Monday morning, I got up at 4:50am to work out ~ with Jillian Michaels, no less.  She'll get you going in the morning, let me tell you.  And I got up again yesterday, and again today.  There hasn't been a day that I wanted to get out of bed at that time, but by 5:30am, I'm happy about it!  I get a lot of stuff done, starting out with a good old fashion ass whooping. 

I'm doing Jillian's 30-day Shred program. You do her super intense, 25 minute workout every day for 30 days. It's got three levels, and every ten days, you move up a level (if you're ready to do so).  The reviews are just great and so far I really like it.  It's not fancy or dancy, it's simple and HARD interval training.  The first day I wanted to quit after about two minutes (I didn't) and I think I'm pretty tough about workouts, even if I am out of shape. But despite being SO sore yesterday, it was easier. And it was easier again today, and I think I might just be ready to move up to that next level in seven more days ~ imagine that!

If you're a Time Warner customer, you can find these workouts at Fitness On Demand, or you can pick up the DVD at Amazon for less than ten bucks for all three workouts.  That's a lot of fitness on the cheap, people!

So.  I'm sore. I admit to using the handicapped stall at the office bathroom yesterday, so that I could use the bars to pull myself off the loo.  I know, I know. Pathetic, isn't it?  What hurts?  Well, only my calves, quads, hamstrings, glutes, back muscles, biceps and triceps.  My shoulder that was scoped only a few short months ago? It's the only thing that DOESN'T hurt!  I have to say, I am SO pleased with how that surgery turned out, I really shouldn't have waited so long. It really did contribute to derailing my fitness and weight in 2008. It's not an excuse, but it certainly didn't help. Anyhow, despite being outrageously sore, I continue to push through it and hopefully by next week I'll be back to walking normally again, and back to doing taekwondo training in the evenings in addition to my morning dates with Jillian. 

So that's the deal. I've made a deal with myself to get it done this year and I have a lot of work to do. My short term goals are to:

• be down 15lbs. by the time we go to Las Vegas with friends on March 8
• complete the 30Day Shred program without taking a day off

I'm down 6lbs. so far, I think I can make the first one, I hope I can make the second one. I really want to. In March, or when I hit that 15lbs. I'll get new goals.  

So, are you in the same boat? I know a lot of my friends and faimly members are, even Oprah. What's your plan? I'd love to hear about it!