40 posts tagged “food”

Because I don't make New Year's Resolutions. They tend to be made with the mindset that they're going to be broken anyway. I'm changing my life but not because it's a new year - it's because the holidays are over and it's time to get my eating under control.

Today was Day One of the re-diet. As I've talked about [extensively] on this blog, over the last year I've gone on the South Beach Diet, and I've lost 20 pounds! I'm quite proud of that accomplishment, because it's not often that I have the stick-to-it-iveness that a diet requires, as I'm easily bored. As it turned out, the first few carb-addiction-breaking days were tough, but once I got through those first few days it went pretty well...and actually, overall we ate better than we've ever eaten. Ever.

[Aside: It bugs me when people hear that we're doing SBD and get all freaky about it. "What? You're giving up carbs??" It's only for two weeks - sheesh. And then you phase back in GOOD carbs.  It just seems like I can't eat anything because everything in restaurants is made with white flour / pasta. On SBD you eat constantly, and it's not weird stuff, it's just stuff that's somewhat outside the typical American diet: whole grains, fresh fruit & veggies. Things that are actually good for you.]

Anyway.

Over the Thanksgiving / Christmas break, I gained back 5 of the pounds I'd lost.  Funny story about that, on Brian's side of the family we'd set up a weight loss challenge, and the two of us joined thinking we'd continue to work on those last few pounds. Yeah, that didn't happen. So now in addition to those "last five" I have five more to work on.

Today was Day One back on Phase 1. It went well. I was hungry for a while but was able to do ok. I drank lots of water. We went to Sam's after work and stocked up on veggies, eggs, & other stuff we can eat. We're locked & loaded. Now we just need to stay motivated. [Which is another nice thing about SBD - you see weight loss almost immediately, and no, it doesn't come back on as soon as you bring carbs back in because you're bringing in the RIGHT carbs.]

Wish me luck! I'm sure you'll be seeing fairly regular updates on my progress.

I have had one productive day!  And apparently being productive is tiring when you're not used to it.  I spent all day in the kitchen, making Swedish meatballs, making spritz cookies, and making potatiskorv, or Swedish potato sausage.  Just because I felt like it, I thought I'd document the process.

Actually, the process started yesterday when I went to the grocery store and bought ground pork, potatoes, onions, and casings.  (Holy crap, but casings are expensive!  Twelve-something for half a pound of them - half of which I didn't even use.  I mean really, how many cows do they butcher in a day?  Casings cannot be in short supply.  Fortunately, they freeze.)

So the process started with me chopping four onions and crying my eyes out.  Usually onions don't bother me too much but one of those suckers was really potent!  After chopping them I fried them up - in butter, of course, as is the Swedish way to cook.

 

After the onions were done, I peeled the potatoes and put them through the grinder.  I use the grinder attachment for my Kitchen-Aid mixer.  (As a side note, there's no way in the world I would ever make sausage without my Kitchen-Aid.  I love that thing.)  I then mixed the potatoes, onions, and pork with the seasonings (allspice, white pepper, black pepper, and a LOT of salt) and a litle water.

Next I had to get the casings ready.

 

In the above picture, I've already rinsed them from the outside, but I also have to rinse them throughout the inside.  When my grandma taught me how to make this, she said that the easiest way to rinse is to wrap one end around the nozzle of your faucet and then just let the cold water run through it.  It sounds gross, but it works really well. They're very slippery and like to try to go down the drain, thus the plug.

Finally, it was time to stuff the sausage.  Again I used my grinder attachment, only there's an attachment to the attachment specifically for stuffing sausage.  Basically it's a big long horn that you put your casings on and go to work.  (Have you noticed that making sausage is not a glamourous job?)

Finally, the finished product:

I cooked a shorter link for lunch for us - had to do QC like a good laboratorian - and the rest went into the freezer.  Yay! 

I loathe:

• That there's always cleaning to be done.  It just never ends.

I love:

• Having taken today off work because the window guy needs one more day where he needs to get into the house.  I'm working toward getting motivated to do lots of homework today.  (And I wonder why I'm always behind...)  I'm buring through my PTO like crazy, but I do love me a day alone here & there.
• That I only have two tests left for school, and the chemistry one is open book!  I'm hoping to get the closed book one (on instrumentation & QA, bleh) done next week and then the open book one shortly thereafter.  I plan to prepare as little as possible for that one.  I already can't get any better than a B overall in chem (b/c I didn't do as well as I thought I might've on the last test), which is what I have now, and if I can't get a B on an open-book test, then I'm a moron.
• Getting to go down to my parents' house TWICE this month.  I like my family - and I'm lucky because not everyone can say that.
• The Swedish Christmas dinner I'm going to make for Brian's family.  I hope they like it. 
• There will be Swedish meatballs to fall back on if there's absolutely nothing else they can eat.  Which reminds me - I should make the limpa (rye bread) today as long as I'm home. 
• There will also be potiskorv (potato sausage, which we will make because the bought stuff is never very good),
• Rice pudding w/lingonberries (again, I'll make the rice pudding b/c the bought stuff is disgusting),
• And some kind of potatoes.  I haven't decided yet whether I'll do something like boiled red potatoes, rotmos (pronounced "root-moose"), which is mashed potatoes & rutabaga; often you boil this in the same water as the potatiskorv), or au gratin potatoes which are not Swedish but I associate them w/Swedish food since my grandma always made them as part of the smorgasbord she used to make every Christmas. 
• I'm also planning to make some spritz cookies (again, homemade are way better than bought) and pepparkokkar (those really thin ginger snaps - I think I'll buy those b/c they're a pain to roll out and the bought ones really are just as good as the made ones). 
• And finally, some cardamom coffee bread for them to have when they first get to our house. 
• I bought some Swedish Christmas decorations & paperware at IKEA a while ago so it should be fun!

All right, onward & upward.  Gotta get some homework done.  I was waiting for the window guy to show up so I didn't have to stop my lecture to go let him in, but it's almost 10:30 and he's not here yet.  I can't wait any longer or I will get nothing done.

• I'm making baked oatmeal for breakfast tomorrow.  You mix up the oats with craisins, raisins, nuts - whatever you want basically - and bake it with stuff like eggs & milk.  It ends up with a slighly cakey but slightly oatmeal-y texture.  You can eat it with fruit and/or milk over top.  Yum!
• It's 8:30 pm and I have to get up for work at regular time.  Brian, the kids, and the inlaws are picking me up at work at noonish for our trip to Wisconsin for Thanksgiving.  I have not packed a thing yet.  It could be a long night.  I might need a glass of wine.
• Speaking of wine, I got a bottle from a friend.  It's a grape called Nebbiolo.  This particular wine is from California but evidently (since all I know about the grape I learned from the back of the bottle) it's an Italian grape.  It's a red and from what I've been told by my friend, it's similar to a cab or other "big" red.
• Just overheard from Joey while getting ready for bed: "I just weighed myself and I weighed 96.5 pounds, and then I went and brushed my teeth and then I weighed myself again and I was 76!  I don't get it!"
• I went into Little Caesar's tonight to get a pizza for supper, and while I was waiting for it, it occurred to me that the guy working behind the register bore a striking resemblance to John Belushi.  Then I looked at the Little Caesar guy and thought, how cool would it be if that guy put on a toga!  The things I entertain myself with.
  
• All the new windows are in except the basement ones.  They look FABULOUS!  Tomorrow he's going to finish up the outside trim.  He's going to come back after Thanksgiving sometime to do the basement ones.  They're inside the cinderblock foundation, and apparently those can be quite a bit of work.  And knowing that we're going away for the weekend, he didn't want to get them only partially done.  This guy is the absolute man.  Ask for Kyle if you ever need your windows replaced.

OK, I think that's it for now.  Time to go pack!

....that I'm sitting here eating the second half of a bag of Kraft Caramel Bits?  Yeah, the kind that are intended for baking?  It's just about as bad as gorging on chocolate chips because you just. need. something. 

How about "Unwrapped for Easy Gluttony?"

Darn you anyway, Kraft.

How convenient that on a day where I have not much to say and not much time to say it, it just happens to be a Tuesday! :)  I'm only going to do one of each.

I like love:

  The meal I had tonight at Timber Lodge.  Parmesan-encrusted chicken breast, garlic mashed potatoes, and wild rice soup.  Definitely not SBD friendly, but MAN, was it an awesome treat.

I don't like:

  Studying.  But I'm taking my test on Thursday, ready or not!  I think I have acid-base balance down (which is amazing in and of itself), now I just have to learn about vitamins, electrolytes, & trace minerals.  I so can't wait until I'm done w/school.

And that's it.  Short, sweet, & to the point!  :)

Real quick, since I have stuff to do:

I do not like:

• Green eggs and ham.  (Just kidding.  I've actually never had them.)
• Homework that never ends.
• Being cold!
• Having to watch my weight.
• Being bored at work.
• This nasty cold that everyone around here seems to have.

I do like:

• People who take the time to be encouraging.  Too many people don't give a crap about others.
• Getting 2 shirts & a skirt for me, and a shirt for Bailey, all for $21 at Kohl's.  Yay for new clothes!
• Cheese.  Mmmmmmm.......
• Have I mentioned that Joey gets to skip ahead a grade in math?  I have?  :) 
• Thinking about future job possibilities and realizing that maybe this dog isn't too old for some new tricks.
• Glenn Beck moving to FOXNews!  Sounds like in addition to having his own show he'll be a regular on O'Reilly.  Good times!

Short & to the point.  I have to go read about competency testing now. 

That was a happy, contented sigh.  My tummy is full, my house is warm, and I had a good day.

First of all, there was no homework.  There should have been, but that'll be tomorrow.  If I can get some reading & lectures done tomorrow, I don't think I'll be too far behind.  Instead I spent the day getting the house ready for Bible study tonight (which just ended) and doing some shopping.  It's the life I look forward to when school is done, when my time is my own again instead of it belonging to UND.

We had a nice night last night too, although it wasn't really too Halloween-ish.  My sister-in-law and her kids decided to come to town this weekend since my brother-in-law was at a conference.  They, along with my inlaws, came over for supper last night and then the kids slept over.  It was certainly chaotic but the kids had a ton of fun.  There were three boys, who spent the night acting like boys, and two girls, who originally were handing out trick-or-treat candy but then decided that it looked like too much fun and that they needed to go trick-or-treating themselves.  That was all we needed, more candy in the house.  But again, they had a good time.

I was going to dress up for Halloween.  I was going to put on a suit, wear my hair up, put on my glasses and go to work as Sarah Palin.  It would have been subtle and I thought it would have been fun to see how many people noticed.  But I ended up not doing it because I didn't like how the suit looked on me, and also because I had to do new employee orientation yesterday and I didn't want these people's first impression of their new job to be this freak who wears costumes to work.

So this morning I got to sleep in a little and woke up feeling like my head was going to explode.  I've been fighting a cold all week and I guess it caught up with me.  After some Claritin, Sudafed, Advil, and coffee I felt better.  I got stuff ready for tonight, which included checking on the pumpkin cheesecake I made last night and making a shopping list for the Election Night party we're having on Tuesday.  After lunch we took the kids over to my inlaws' so that they could sleep over there tonight, and then we went shopping.  I want to make this snack mix for the party on Tuesday and the recipe calls for Bugles.  Now, who would think that it would be hard to find Bugles?  Target didn't have them, and also didn't have the Crispix I needed.  (Huh? Who doesn't carry Crispix?) So we went to Wal-Mart, who had Crispix but not Bugles.  Sheesh.  Has no one ever heard of Bugles?  Finally we stopped on our way home at a grocery store that had them by the shelfload.  But that was only half the frustration of the shopping day.  We were also looking for a decorataive basket to put a large potted plant in but couldn't find one at Target, Wal-Mart, or Hobby Lobby.  I didn't go to Michael's today because it was back across town, but if I can't find one there, where else am I gonna look?

The Bible study went really well.  The pumpkin cheesecake went over fabulously, and I also made some caramel apple cider that people seemed to like.  We had the fireplace going and the discussion was great.  It was a nice night.

Ooh yeah, and I get an extra hour of sleep to boot!  Life is good.  :)

Every morning at work we have a conference.  It starts at 8:30 and lasts about an hour, and while I usually don't play an active role, I try to attend for the educational content and the interesting patient stories.  This morning, for no particular reason, about midway through conference I had a strong craving for cottage cheese.  I knew I had some at home, but I hadn't packed any in my lunch today.  I had yogurt, but it's just not the same.  So I decided that I'd walk over to the cafeteria and get me some cottage cheese, and maybe I'd even add a little red pepper if there was any on the salad bar.

So I walked over to the cafeteria and looked around.  The salad bar had been torn down from breakfast but not yet set up for lunch, so it was empty.  There are a few refrigerated cases that contain various salads, etc. that might have worked on any other day, but today a chef salad was not going to cut it, especially not at 10 am.  They even had some sushi, but not at 10 am (not to mention my first time trying sushi was not going to be prepackaged stuff from a cafeteria!).  But there was no cottage cheese, and nothing else would do.  I needed that creamy. lumpy goodness.

But wait!  I looked over and there was a lady with a cart, setting up the salad bar for lunch.  At the bottom of the cart I saw a container of it.  There it was, all white and yummy, even garnished with a bit of leaf lettuce for aesthetic value.  So I walked up to the lady and said, as kindly as I could, "Excuse me, but will the salad bar be open as soon as you're finished putting everything out?"  I guess I should have been a little more assertive because I was hoping that she'd say, "You can have something now, what do you need?" 

But no.  She gave me this glare like I was asking her to remove her arm and throw it into the blender and said, "Yes.  It will be open when I'm finished."  Sah-ree!  I didn't mean to ask you for a favor!  I debated sticking around until she was done and being really obnoxious about it, but I decided that it wasn't worth my time.  But man, I wanted that cottage cheese.  I paid for my diet Pepsi and left, dejectedly, to go back to my desk.  Fortunately, lunch came not too much after that episode and I at least got something to eat.

But NOW, now that I'm home, I can eat cottage cheese to my heart's content.  It's still a bit chilly for me, so I'm letting it warm a bit to room temp so that it can enjoy all if the flavor to its fullest.

Cheers!

PS - by the time I reread this prior to posting it, my cottage cheese was gone.  :)  And was it ever good!

Loathe:

• Politics.  A month ago I loved them, now I just have a sick feeling about it.
• Ditto the sick feeling on this whole bailout thing.  Let me tell you, I'm going to be pretty ticked off if I have to pay for someone else's irresponsibility.  Especially on this grand of a scale.
• That I'm still up & wide awake when I should be in bed.  I'm going to feel this tomorrow!

Love:

• The good kind of visibility at work.
• Buying 5 dozen eggs at Sam's.  And we will eat them all!  We love eggs, and they're perfect for our diet.
• That yesterday we went back to Phase I of SBD (because our eating had gotten slightly out of control) and I feel GREAT!  I haven't had carbs in 2 days and I feel great?  It's true.  I guess my body likes me eating like this.
• Not being crabby now that my eating is under control.  Seriously - look at the size of my love list vs. my loathe list.  It's a physiological (not psychological) thing - less wavering of my blood sugar, I guess.  I feel more like my real self (except the sarcasm; that will probably never go away).  And I had a good run this morning.  I just really feel good about myself today - who I am, what I look like, and what I can accomplish.
• The big bag of red peppers I just bought.  I plan to eat at least some of them with cottage cheese (the best thing ever in the world - try them together if you never have), and will also dip some of them into the spicy hummus I made the other night.
• My heated mattress pad.  Way better than an electric blanket.  And perfect now that the 40-degree overnights are settling in.
• Eclipse mints and Orbit gum.  I'm infatuated with all of the Orbit flavors (many of which aren't featured on their website, strangely).
• This wine we had on Sunday night.  Only ours was from 2002.  This was from one of the places we visited when we were in Sonoma last year.  I never keep track of price, but I'd have guessed it was way more than a $15 bottle as the website suggests.
• Discovery Health Channel.