Carnitas

I stopped for groceries on the way home after another long day, and was happy to find packages of seasoned Carnitas on sale, two for $7, a nice deal.  I picked up some veggies, the ingredients for the dinner the family was making, and headed home.

Instant Pot, high pressure, 40 minutes - 13 minutes release
2 lg green peppers diced
2 sm onions diced
3/4 large bag baby spinach
1 huge zucchini
1 32oz can crushed tomatoes
1 pkg carnitas
Shakes of Mrs Dash Table Blend, Chipotle Blend, Oregano & Cumin

Serving method:  glass container on scale, spoon out chunks of meat into dish, then flake off pieces until 4oz is left on the scale; repeat for five servings. One by one the containers go back on the scale and I use a slotted spoon to scoop out veggies until each container has 7oz veggies. Why 7? Because even with the slotted spoon there is still a lot of liquid. I ate one for dinner and have four left. Plus the 2nd package of pork for another meal in the fridge.

It was great having a big tub of salad veggies prepped from the weekend in the fridge, making it so easy to throw together a salad while waiting for the last 15 minutes to count down on the instant pot. And dinner was so delicious; spicy and juicy and filling. Usually I have my entree first because it's quick and easy to pop in the microwave after work. And then I struggle to eat the big salad. So tonight it was nice to switch it up and get that lovely full feeling after my carnitas was gone.

Because yes, I love to feel full. And I will remember this feeling as I lay in bed tonight feeling my tummy grumble about being empty. It's sort of nice to bounce back and forth between the two instead of being "always hungry and never satisfied."

I also picked up Triscuits, bananas, apples & oranges. Staples of winter!

(b) Ezekiel toast, PB, strawberries
(l)  lentil\ham veggie soup, orange
(d)  Carnitas, stewed(?) veggies, shopped salad

C has a tent in my room lately, and is hovering watching Paw Patrol on the 'big' tv while I type. He  has also discovered popcorn and has a cup of it with him. I am glad I am full and not tempted!

Tomorrow's food is planned, but I still have dinner dishes to do, so I am off to go tidy up. What a day it was, and what a week it has been so far. No, what a year! I need a raise! It would be nice to be able to buy organic again. Someday.

Food Log on the Blog

Did I ever mention why I have added my food log to the bottom of my blog? At Kaiser when getting cortisone injections for my trigger fingers the kind and helpful nurse (she is wonderful) mentioned that Kaiser is now promoting a plant based diet. She also mentioned that keeping a log to be accountable is a tried and proven tool for weight loss. I am guessing she noticed I am fat, it would not take Sherlock Holmes after all to deduce I have rolls where there should be none. I tried going back to PeerTrainer which was helpful once before, but couldn't find someone with eating habits with whom to make a connection. Paleo (the new sexy high protein unhealthy diet) has temporarily taken over the world. So I gave up and decided to just post my food here and blog everyday so I would 'see' it from a separate perspective than the lies my brain tells me. I think it may be helping, at least I am slowly losing weight and thinking more about the choices I make.

This morning I wanted eggs and toast, so off to the market and home again with supplies. I also picked up carrots, asparagus and spinach to balance out the rest of the day's meals. I also picked up a small decaf coffee while out so that I would have the gumption to finish up the tasks I want to complete today. A small but terrible habit caffeine, but it could be worse! Not that I swallow that rationalization easily, and know I must end it eventually. Of course there is my mother, who has apparently been told to have caffeine each day - but she is 23 years my senior. I am not there yet.

The rest of the day disappeared, and there was not much noteworthy to post.

Breakfast: Decaff, 2 slices  of TJ's sprouted multi-grain bread toasted w\ butter and 2 eggs fried over easy

Lunch:  salad w\ beans

Snack:  toast with motz

Dinner:  last of black eyed pea mix

Potato Salad - makes two servings
1 russet potato cooked and cubed
1/8 to 1/4C diced red onion to taste
1/2C ea diced cabbage and cauliflower
1/8C raw sprouted pepitas
Mayo to lightly dress tossed veggies, leaving a rather dry finish

Even though it's a foggy cold weekend morning I was not feeling inspired to cook, so I threw together a potato salad full of crunch. Filling and satisfying. I am down to 230, so 3 1/2 pounds total in the past 16 days. Not great, but in the right direction so I'll take it.

Back to watching a morning DVD with the girls and Alice discovering her muchness! Love that movie, and so happy a sequel is in the works, Alice through the Looking Glass.

Errands have been run, the second load of wash is churning away, and Grimm is keeping me company while I putter in my room. So glad to be at home, to be warm, to have A chattering in the background.

Caught a nice pic of Kaylee this afternoon. She loves sitting on top of her crate where she can see out our bedroom window while keeping an eye on me.

Puzzle time with A. More laundry. Some Solitaire. A couple of games of crazy eights and finally a sit down dinner with all four of us together per A's request. I was trying out a Qrunch burger that I had toasted up and it was a light and crunchy addition to my salad and cauliflower. Upon review of the label I once again come across the way labels tend to mislead us. If you do the math, 100/190 = 52.6% of the calories are from fat.  When I plug the numbers into my spreadsheet I get 8% protein (good), 51% fat (at least it's organic coconut oil) and 41% carbohydrates (from veggies and whole grain). So not a total disaster and the flavour was nice. The best part was being able to throw it in the toaster to heat it up and the lovely crispy texture on the outside of the 'burger'. Oh, and 150g of sodium is not bad for a processed food.

A nice day off, and I'm looking forward to another one tomorrow.

Breakfast: Decaf tea and potato salad

Lunch: grilled cheese (sargento thin slice, 1) on nine grain bread with half an avocado

Snack: last of the morning's potato salad with added Kalamata olives

Dinner:  Qrunch burger, tossed salad, cauliflower "rice"

Happy New Year's Eve Day!

And Bah Humbug - spending a weeks budget of grocery money on one night of splurging really doesn't make sense when the next day one intends to begin eating in a more healthy manner and lose weight! But I did it anyway, and my lunch driving home was hard salami and a bakery baguette. Yum.

I will probably be spending the evening alone, but just in case there are snacks; wavy potato chips and caramelized onion dip, spinach dip, artichoke jalapeno spread and multi grain baguette. There are Aussie Bites and an apple pie from Sprouts. I've been wanting this last since the past summer so I am squeezing it into the end of 2014. Not rational thinking, but that is not my forte so I beg no forgiveness.

The light traffic to and from work has been splendid, the wind has been biting and at times ferocious, and I am glad to be home and ready to settle in for a long evening. I may even assemble firewood for later to add a little ambiance to celebrate the transition from old to new year.

Dr. Fuhrman, I am yours for the next six weeks! I have the books, but this link is to a favorite blog (fatfreevegan by Susan) who lists the basic elements of his program.

So sugar and processed foods are mostly out the window tomorrow. I will use oil to roast veggies and if there are any leftover new years spreads I can use them to top potatoes.And I am trying flax milk as an alternative to flax meal since I haven't been making smoothies and my attitude misses the omega 3's. I will also continue to use honey sparingly in my evening tea - I just love it too much and will not deprive myself of that pleasure. (I will buy local organic honey as the price for this indulgence.) But the rest of processed foods and unhealthy fats are out - for me this means no bread, butter, cheese or mayonnaise in the house. Those are my comfort foods that are killing me. Literally. How comforting is that!?

One pound each of cooked and raw veggies each day, 3oz of healthy fat (nuts, seeds, avocado) and at lease a cup of a bean or legume or wild rice.

There are several others in my office who will be losing weight beginning in January so there will be support in all quarters which is good.

Time to have A "do" my nails - Happy New Year!

Ginger Cookies

I did not need to know that Trader Joe's makes triple ginger cookies that are amazingly wonderful. Now all I want is to light the fire and cozy in with a book and the whole tub of cookies. While I did pick up an eco friendly fire log and have a bookshelf of friends I could visit, I know that if I do my back will be worthless later and I have a bathroom to clean. But having a few for a snack was awesome.

I was at the store with a fresh decaf gingerbread latte in hand at 5am this morning; I would rather play obstacle course with those wonderful people stocking shelves and their pallets of goodies than with a hundred other shopping carts. No bueno. Home by 6am and groceries put away, then back to bed and another episode of The Red Band Society.  R was ready to go and out the door at 8 for her trip across town to TJ's (hence the presence of the aforementioned ginger snaps) while A and I tore apart the beautiful lego set that we had just finished last night. AND I ruined one of my nails doing it. I don't often splurge but it is relaxing to have a manicure and while running errands yesterday I stopped and indulged myself. A turned down both breakfast options of pumpkin pancakes and egg on toast and instead requested a cinnamon apple. Good Girl. So I chopped a honey crisp apple, sprinkled cinnamon over the top, and nuked it covered in the microwave for a couple of minutes. She ate every piece. No I did not use plastic in the microwave.

So the brined turkey is in the fridge surrounded by lots of awesome ingredients and there is just the Costco run to make tomorrow at lunch. I love that they won't be opened on Thanksgiving - no one should have to work that day. Hmmm. Could we function if that happened? Lets see, we have self serve gas stations for those in need; dinner might not be perfect if someone forgot to pick up rolls or flowers or wine but it would still be wonderful - it's about the people remember - and everyone would be well rested for the craziness called Black Friday. While at Lowe's yesterday I noticed there was a small section largely labeled as Black Friday specials; marketing strikes again. I will admit to having browsed through their Christmas section, and was able to resist everything with the exception of one beautiful pink poinsettia. $7, couldn't pass it up.

Time to plug in my audio book and rotate another's day worth of dishes. I won't be cooking for the next four days, I picked up a jug of Kale Blazer by Naked to sip on throughout the day and there are veggies in the fridge to make fresh juice if I feel so inclined. After take out last night I am swollen and grumpy about it.

One last thought; we are excited about the sweet potatoes this year. Organic Garnet yams roasted and then blended with butter and a little brown sugar, then topped with a crumble of diced pecans, cranberries and TRIPLE GINGER COOKIES, then covered with mini marshmallows. Who needs pie after that? Well, we do and the pumpkin is already in the freezer.

Maybe one more cookie before doing the dishes...after all, I did not drive through to get breakfast this morning. Another Good Girl - Me this time!

So much to do, so little motivation

I guess it's Saturday and I can take a nap if I want. Maybe when I get back up I'll feel like working around the house. It's been raining on and off for days, which no one in California is used to anymore, and it's put a damper on my enthusiasm. And of course no decaf this morning; I shouldn't have had any this week so my energy would be back, but no, I indulged.

I did make it to Lowes this morning for a lightbulb, a poinsettia and other odds and ends so I did accomplish a little bit. Oh, and loaded up the dishwasher and put away the dishes I had set to drain yesterday, putting the juicer back together so it's ready for the next go around. And I made more ginger water and infused some honey with cinnamon.

I suppose that if I feel the same way tomorrow I can have a cup just to make sure I get things done. Thanksgiving is just days away and there is so much to do. But no matter how much gets done, there will be a wonderful meal, a visit from my sister, and much to be thankful for, even if one of those things isn't a totally clean house. (Love & Light up to you Erma Bombeck for your words of wisdom.)

Later: After my nap the kids left for the movies and A and I worked on a new lego kit. Not a bad way  at all to spend a lazy afternoon. Now R is off picking up asian food for dinner; while chow mein is not necessarily my friend it is easy. I could do worse.

I almost forgot we threw together the grocery lists for Thanksgiving. Well, R did it while I threw out ingredients here and there. Tomorrow at o'dark thirty I'll hit Safeway for a Claim Jumper pumpkin pie, dressing mix (celery, onions & herbs) and herb packets. And potatoes and heavy cream. Oh, and gingersnaps for the sweet potato casserole. The brined turkey will come from Trader Joes along with sweet potatoes and I'll grab the cabbage\brussels sprouts salad mix from Costco on Monday.

Roast Turkey and homemade gravy
Sweet Potato Casserole
Mashed Potatoes
Boudin Sourdough dressing \ half with artichokes and sausage
Hawaiian Rolls
Cabbage salad w\ poppy dressing

Then homemade whipped cream on two kinds of pie, one homemade and purchased from Windmill Farms - probably boysenberry, maybe apple.

Dinner's here and now I'm hungry! Who says Thanksgiving isn't about the food. Okay okay. I know.

Pumpkin Pancakes - the good and the frustrating

Trader Joe's has pumpkin everything right now. Very tempting. So I picked up a box of Pumpkin Pancake mix to make a warm cozy breakfast on what was suppose to be a rainy Saturday morning. The rain arrived as promised, and I mixed up a batch of pancakes. The whole box so there would be leftovers to freeze and toast later for easy weekday breakfasts for A.

At Peertrainer I had decided to dust off my old tracking spreadsheet to guide me back to better choices. This morning for instance, the pancakes were especially delicious as I had added in a quarter cup of freshly ground pecans to make their texture more like the 'harvest grain' pancakes from IHOP. Were they the best choice I could have made?

Here is the label from the box of pancake mix. I have tried plugging in the numbers by percentage, by listed grams, by listed calories - nothing adds up to the 300 calories per serving noted for the prepared pancakes.

Can you? Keep in mind that my spreadsheet is intended to calculate grams of macronutrients by their calories (Px4, Cx4, Fx9) to get the caloric result. I haven't trusted labels in a long time. If you don't know why click HERE

Finally I read the small print and used the figures from there and ended up at least close to the 300 calories listed as a serving of pancakes. And here are the figures plugged into my spreadsheet that is set up to keep me within a certain range of macronutrient percentages to encourage nutrition. My goal notated as calories is the top row in green.

The calories on my tracking sheet are based on these percentages:

Plant Protein 10%

Unprocessed carbs 65%

Healthy Fat 25%

This is my sweet spot where I feel good, lose weight and have energy. This is years of research, trial and error, and personal experience. For me this works. 

So what is wrong with these pancakes?  33% Fat for starters, that is just the unhealthy butter, I forgot to factor in  my ground pecans. The protein is too high and with them being pumpkin pancakes I would have expected more fiber. (I'll have to be careful later about the lunch of leftover beans I have planned - it's going to push me over the top.)

THIS IS WHY WE COOK FROM SCRATCH! That being said it was EASY to mix up the ingredients and as previously noted, they were delicious, smelling and tasting like fall. Which is why we often don't cook from scratch, there are too many seductive products out there that speak to our pleasure centers. I am going back to my 'everything I needed to know I learned from Dumbledore' philosophy! 

Scroll down to number 9 on the list     Then think about making a choice that is not necessarily the one that is easy, but better than that, the choice that is right.

Once again I am reminding myself that if it comes in a box, it may be easy, but it's not the right thing to choose.

Another Salty Tale

Going back to work after vacation I picked up a couple of packaged items from Trader Joe's - OMG - check out this Satay noodle bowl.

The stats looked great in the store (no reading glasses) but upon closer inspection the serving size was 'almost 2' so the above is twice what I expected. Rats.  But it will be fun to have something different and I know now not to pick up that particular box again. I know to stay away from packaged foods, and dinner will be all about the veggies.

Bittersweet going back to work; I don't want to be there - I want to be home finishing up projects and riding my bike while it's cloudy. The 90's are hard to face after beach weather! I had always thought coastal living was off my retirement list, but cool cloudy mornings for exercising and warm afternoons for hanging out on the beach would actually an awesome combination.

Hi Ho, Hi Ho....

Juicing for 60: days eight, nine & ten

I am so laughing at myself. I haven't juiced in almost a week, or had any to drink in almost as long. Today I bought a fruit and Kale juice blend at the store to try since my sleep pattern is messed up from vacation and I'm not waking up early enough to juice before work. After work I am tired and there are too many other demands on my attention.

For instance, tonight we had to paint a wooden pirate ship. It's important stuff!

I have 50 days left and I suspect they will be closer to what I originally intended; sort of juicing everyday for two meals and eating one crunchy big salad each day for the third.

The tomatoes we are eating off the plants out back are divinely sweet and dense, such a delight after the grocery store fare.

I also brought home baby romaine heads (mostly dark leaves), a big bag of baby power greens, raw sprouted sunflower seeds, a large bag of frozen blueberries, and black bean burger patties to throw in my salads to change them up.

I am calm, focused, and on my way out to the front of the house to work on cleaning it up. There is a party planned next door for the 26th and I would like it to look nicer than it currently does, which is not at all. Spilled broken pieces of chalk, a broken flower pot with dirt everywhere, an old discarded hose...sigh, I came from better. I need to try harder. In all things.

With The Golden Compass in my ears for company, I am a force of one with which to be reckoned. See, I can end a sentence without a preposition.