Cooking

Recipe Nine: Buffalo Chicken-Blue Cheese Meat Loaf from the Biggest Loser Family Cookbook.

Pretty good, I wish I would have added more hot sauce, but you can do that when you eat it.

Knitting my first sock

Sock in progress! Still have about 2 inches to go on the ankle, then it's onto the heel. This is much easier than I thought it was going to be, at least it is so far. I am very excited excited about making more socks after this.

First attempt at making hummus

Recipe Eight: Garlic Hummus
1 can of chickpeas
5 cloves of garlic
1 tbsp paprika
3 tbsp sesame oil
1 tbsp thyme
1 tsp salt
1 tsp pepper

Crush garlic, add all ingredients to food processor and puree.
Taste OK, I think it will be better tomorrow once it sets overnight and the garlic has a chance to leave more of a taste.

Efforts

I have lost 3 pounds! A week ago I got a Droid, and it has a fabulous Calorie Counter app I downloaded to it. I have been keeping track very diligently, averaging about 1200 calories a day, and have lost 3 pounds! Now I just need to start exercising.

On Saturday I started a three week sock knitting class. Knitting socks is not going to be as hard as I thought. I have the cuff of the sock a little over half done and am going to try and start another one before Saturday. I have to knit down to the heel before class on Saturday, which should be easy to accomplish. I also bought a kit to make a block of the month at the yarn shop, and I'll do this each month through October to complete a 9 square blanket. I plan on using the pattern to make a second blanket out of some yarn Leesa gave me to give to someone as a gift. If I'm really ambitious I'll do two.

I cut up more Kappa Delta t-shirts last night for a t-shirt quilt. I think I have them all cut up now, but when I get home today I'm going to go through the drawers one more time to make sure before I do the layout, then I can start on quilt one for this year! So much to do.... And I'm working late 3 nights this week.

Beer Marinade

Recipe Seven: Pork Chop Beer Marinade

1 can Miller High Life
1/2 cup honey
1 tbsp chili powder
1 tsp sage
1 tbsp salt
1/4 cup lime juice

The pork chops were good. I broiled them. I think lemon juice would have been better than lime, but lime is what I had. I marinated them for 2 hours. Could have been longer, overnight would have been great, but 2 hours still gave them a good taste.

Inspired

I finished At Work by Annie Leibovitz this morning, so it took me less than 48 to read this book, seeing as I finished it by 6:30am today. Great book. I'm now even more pumped for my photography class which I start in two weeks.

Book Four: The Year of Living Biblically by A.J. Jacobs.
Elizabeth lent me this book a while ago. Hoping to have it done in a week or so. Sounds like it will be an entertaining read.

Chili

I modified the chili recipe I normally make a bit, which is my mom's recipe.

Recipe Six: Chili

2 can tomato paste (6 oz each)
1 can kidney beans
1 can black beans
1 can diced tomatoes with jalapenos
1 can diced jalapenos
1 onion
2 cups water
5 tbsp chili powder
2 tsp cumin
2 tsp cilantro
1 lb ground pork
1 lb ground beef

Mix all ingredients except meat together in a crock pot. Warm on medium setting while cooking pork and beef in a frying pan until done, add to mixture. Cook on medium high setting for 2 hours. Add cheese and sour cream to individual servings. Enjoy with Cool Ranch Doritos!

Jon says this is the best batch of chili I have ever made. The main difference is I added pork and more jalapenos to the mixture. The chili powder I have is pretty amazing, not store bought. I got it from one of my interns as a fundraiser for her soccer team. It came to me in a zip lock bag with the word Med on it. There were different levels of hotness in the chili pepper she was selling!

Onto Book Three

Finished Hurry Down Sunshine last night. Good book, very intense description of manic depression.

Book Three: At Work by Annie Leibovitz. We have a reader's club at the Museum and this is the book for next week, so I'm hoping to have it done to participate in the discussion. Should be easy with my three day weekend.

Little Soupy

Recipe Five: Mashed Cauliflower: Better for you then Mashed Potatoes and it taste the same!
Kind of. The texture is slightly different, but it does taste very similar.

One head of cauliflower
1/4 cup sour cream
1/4 cup milk
Salt and pepper to taste

Boil cauliflower until soft (takes less time than potatoes). Mash with mixer, adding sour cream and milk.

This is what I did, but I think I should have left out the milk. Jon thought it was too soupy, and I'll agree it could have been less watery. But it tasted good!

Two more recipes completed

Recipe three: Steak Fajitas from The Ultimate Beer Lovers Cookbook which MaryBeth gave me for my birthday. We marinaded the steak overnight after cutting it into fajita strips. This was apparently wrong due to the fact that I failed to read the whole recipe. We were suppose to marinade the steak as a whole, cook it, then cut it. But our way turned out fine. The marinade was very easy, and the fajitas tasted good. Nothing out of the ordinary though.

Recipe four: As mentioned in the previous post, I made the Brown Butter Pistachio Raspberry cake for dessert. It was very good! I had to make my own pistachio flour because, surprise, surprise! Santa Fe doesn't have any! Making it though was very simple with our new food processor. I also could not find a tart pan in Santa Fe, as the recipe called for one, so I cooked it in a 9in round cake pan, which worked OK.

One book down, 34 to go

I finished I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell yesterday. Good book, I look forward to seeing to the movie. It's quite ridiculous the things Tucker Max does, but entertaining.

Book Two: Hurry Down Sunshine by Michael Greenberg. It's a father's account of his daughter being bipolar. I am reading it for work purposes, but the chances aren't tat high I would have a girl in my program who is bipolar because the symptoms usually start more around 15, older than the girls in my program, but it could happen. Hoping to have this done in the next few days here. I want to read an Annie Leibovitz book by Jan 26 for an event at work, we shall see....

Update to receipe resolution

Seeing as yesterday I tried two new recipes I have decided to set a number of recipes to try this year instead of one each week. And the number is.....
76!

Tomorrow I will be trying two new recipes, well at least two, I haven't worked out the menu yet. Jon and I are having his parents over for dinner for his mother's birthday which was New Year's Eve. So far I have decided on the dessert, the Raspberry Pistachio Brown Butter Cake from The Craft of Baking, which Jon bought me for Christmas. I'm pretty excited to make this cake!

Week 1: New Receipe

Today I tried two new recipes actually, both very simple and good.

Cheese Biscuits:
Heat oven to 450 F. Mix 1 cup original pancake mix, 1/2 cup milk, 1/4 cup shredded Cheddar cheese, and a tbsp garlic powder until soft dough forms. Drop dough by 4 to 6 spoonfuls onto cookie sheet. Bake 6 to 8 minutes until golden brown.

Slow Cooker Cheesy Potato Soup:
1 bag (32 oz) frozen southern style diced hash brown potatoes, thawed
1/2 cup chopped onion
2 medium stalk celery, diced
2 cans (14oz each) chicken broth
1 cup water
3 tbsp all-purpose flour
1 cup milk
1 bag (8oz) shredded American Cheddar cheese
1/4 cup bacon bits
4 medium green onions, sliced

1. In a crock pot, mix potatoes, onion, celery, broth and water
2. Cover; cook on Low heat (I cooked it on setting 1, should have done it on 2) 6 to 8 hours
3. In a small bowl, mix flour into milk; stir into potato mixture. Increase heat setting to High. Cover: cook 30 minutes. Stir in cheese until melted. Garnish each serving with bacon bits and green onions.


Jon really liked the biscuits, they were good. The soup was great, but I wish I would have left it on a slightly higher setting all day so the celery would have softened more. r

Weight loss efforts

I am currently keeping track of my calories via an app on my igoogle page. I've been staying under my limit of calories in order to obtain my goal. I did not end up working out on Monday, the living room was a mess, my luggage from my trip all over and various this on the floor. I straightened it up yesterday (but my luggage is till unpacked) and worked out to my Jilliam Michaels dvd for 20 minutes. Tonight I will work out longer. I don't hurt today like I did the firt time I worked out to this dvd. Maybe I stretched better this time?

Update to Resolutions

Upping the number of books to read to 35. Jon feels I already easily read 25 books, so I'll add 10 more on. So that's a little more than 1 every two weeks.

Book #1 - I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell by Tucker Max.
This book is hilarious! I feel a little bad that I find it so funny and he is terrible to women, but it is so ridiculous they the stuff tat this guy does.

Losing weight - while I weighed myself this morning and gained 5lbs in Michigan! I'm now at 195, so the goal is 155 for the year. I would like to loose 60 lbs, but I'm trying to keep things obtainable. Started off today with a good breakfast of cereal and green tea. I'm currently pretty hungry, but will wait until noon to eat lunch and will be working out tonight to my Jillian Michael's DVD. Stephanie gave me her IPod tracker for running. Once I get 10 pounds off I'll start running outside. It would be awesome to do a marathon, but first I need to see how my knees handle it.

It's a new decade

Am I excited? Eh

Resolutions/Goals:
1. Read 25 books this year.
2. Make 6 quilts, not including finishing the two I made in 2009.
3. Cook a new meal each week.
4. Lose 40 pounds.

More once I'm back in New Mexico on Sunday.