Happy Thanksgiving!

I won't lie to you; I am not going to try to stick strictly to my diet on Thanksgiving. I am, however, going to bring some healthy things myself, and I will try to avoid super unhealthy things (unless I really want to eat them, like stuffing).



My office is going to do a Thanksgiving potluck on Monday, so I am going to make a batch of Chicken Shawarma for that. I am going to be making a lot of Chicken Shawarma this week; that is also one of the items I will be bringing to my family's Thanksgiving celebration on Thursday. I will also be bringing a batch of delicious Tomatillo Sauce and my famous Chicken Popovers. What a lucky family.



I also found a couple of recipes for low calorie stuffing online; I may try one of these out for Christmas this year instead of Thanksgiving, since I've already committed to what I'm bringing. One is a Weight Watchers Recipe with only 2 points per serving, and the other is an Herby Stuffing Recipe with only 82 calories per serving. Not bad; I wonder how they taste.

A Conversation

Belly: I'm hungry.

Ashley: I have a muffin you can eat. I'm on my way home; you can wait until dinner.

Belly: Noooo! I hate muffins, and we have to work out before we eat!

Ashley: You can do it.

Belly: No! Stop at CVS, it's right there. Don't you want some Chex Mix? Maybe a Diet Dr. Pepper?

Ashley: I do, but I'm not going to do that.

Belly: Don't you need shampoo? And maybe... some chex mix?

Ashley: No!

Belly: Um, finger nail polish? Gum? And maybe... chex mix?

Ashley: That can wait.

Belly: Oh! I know! You're out of garbage bags! Ahahaha, now you have to go!

Ashley: Damnit, you're right.

Belly: CHEX MIX!

And so I stopped at CVS. I bought garbage bags, nail polish, some gum, a Diet Dr. Pepper, and... that's it! No Chex Mix!

Belly: Nooooooo! I hate you! Damn you, muffin!

In this story, my belly is a 5 year old, which is pretty much accurate.

New Rules

I had to lay down the law and give my students some new rules today, and I've decided that I need to do the same thing for myself.


Alcohol

1) If I'm going to be serious about my diet this time (again), then I need to give up one more thing - alcohol. I don't drink often, but I do sometimes have a few when I'm out with my friends for happy hour or over at someone's house playing Rock Band. I can't bemoan the fact that I'm not losing weight if I work hard all week long and then reward myself with a Margarita or two on Saturday. Alright, so, that's it - no more alcohol. Not even a little bit.


Cheating

2) Another thing - no more weekly cheat days. I will sometimes let myself have a cheat meal or a cheat night (this is usually accompanied by the previously mentioned Margarita), and that has to stop. If I'm going to see results, I need to stop cheating and stick with the plan. If I go out to eat, I need to go somewhere that has awesome salads or good, healthy, low carb alternatives. I hope that I won't have to make a "no eating out" rule, but that will be next if this doesn't work.

That being said, I'm totally going to cheat a little on Thanksgiving and Christmas Day. Come on now, don't be silly. My extended family has a pot luck meal that is absolutely delicious (unless my mother is making the stuffing - sorry Mom!), and I'm not going to miss out on that. I will try to exercise some discipline and portion control, and I probably won't let myself eat any pie, but I am definitely going to stuff my face with stuffing (obviously that's what it's for) and some of my grandmother's delicious chicken dumplings.


Oh No!

3) One more change; this one doesn't really have to do with weight loss per say, but I am considering giving up carbonated beverages for awhile. I love Diet Dr. Pepper, and I have at least one a day. My boyfriend Gary is always harping on me about how unhealthy they are; they have "no nutritional value" and can, in the long term, lead to osteoperosis. Gary doesn't often read my blog, so I feel pretty safe in posting here that giving up Diet Dr. Pepper will be one of his Christmas presents. That means that I still have a little over a month to continue to enjoy them. Then, I switch to coffee so I can increase my caffeine addiction!

This isn't a New Year's Resolution. In fact, I can guarantee that I will give up on my "no alcohol" rule to celebrate New Year's Eve. I will at least stick to these rules for the rest of 2010, and reevaluate once 2011 hits.

Low Calorie Leftovers

Three factors came in to play tonight. 1) When I got home from the gym tonight, I was tired and absolutely did not want to cook 2) I'm a little tired of Eatzi's, and 3) Ming Place just opened, finally.

Ming Place is an Asian Bistro that has been threatening to open for months now. They put the sign up long before it was kind to do so. It has been taunting us. We have been dying for decent Chinese food out here, and we pass this restaurant every time we go to and from the gym. Tonight when we drove past, I saw the open sign and actually squealed with excitement. We were too smelly to go inside on the way home from the gym, so we went home and looked up the menu. Yes! Take out.

Chinese take out is absolutely not the healthiest thing one can order. Fortunately the restaurant offers brown rice as a substitution for the steamed white rice, and we ordered Edamame on the side. I ordered the Mandarin Kung Pao Chicken (fortunately they don't fry it here - ew), and Gary ordered the Hunan Chicken.

One trick that has worked for me with this kind of food is portion control. I ate enough, and left half of the rice and half of the chicken mixture alone; I set it aside for my next project.



I was feeling super lazy. At first I thought I might try to cook some Chicken Shawarma tonight to bring for lunch tomorrow at work, but that requires a little bit of actual cooking. No dice. After all, I still have to make some diet muffins for the rest of the week. I'll make Chicken Shawarma tomorrow night after my run. Instead I decided to alter my leftovers.

I am not a huge fan of bell peppers, and that seemed to make up about 50% of my leftover kung pao chicken - ew. I stuck a few in the food processor to make them more palatable, and tossed the rest.



I decided to add more healthy things that I actually do like, and fill out the dish a little bit. I cut up an onion and threw it on the stove with some garlic. Yes, Squeeze Garlic.



I also decided to add some matchstick carrots and some extra water chestnuts. Clearly these restaurant people didn't know what they were doing - they didn't add nearly enough water chestnuts.



I put the bell pepper mixture on top of the onions and let that cook for a bit. I added a couple of teaspoons of low sodium soy sauce and some low sodium, low fat chicken broth to the pan. I threw the chicken on top, added the carrots and water chestnuts, and stirred it all together to let the flavors mingle.



Because I'm one of those people who likes to mix everything together so that I can get a little bit of every flavor in each bite, I went ahead and mixed the rice in with the rest and made a kind of stir fry, minus the "fry". Suddenly I had a nice, big, healthy serving for lunch tomorrow that just barely fit into the tupperware.



Super Yum.

Update: Kind of burned my muffins because I finally watched last week's Grey's Anatomy. :(

Eatzi's-Level Salad Making

The best salad in Dallas can be found at Eatzi's on Oak Lawn, between Lemmon and Cedar Springs (Warning: that website will play music at you). That may be, in part, because they have a salad station where they will prepare the salad for you, using whatever ingredients you want, and then mix it together with just the right amount of dressing everywhere.



I've tried several combinations, but my ultimate salad contains the following ingredients: half spinach, half romaine lettuce, croutons, bacon, a boiled egg, a grilled chicken breast (diced), carrots, parmesan cheese, pumpkin seeds (I think?), and Greek dressing. I buy one of these at least one night a week because they are so very, very delicious. I've asked myself many times why I am going to an eatery and paying $8.50 for a salad that I could easily make at home.



The answer is that I cannot make a salad that good, no matter what I do. I bought salad tongs and a really big bowl, and I still can't do it. However, I did manage to make a pretty delicious salad, and I'm pretty sure it has fewer calories than the Eatzi's salad.

Ingredients:
1/2 a Romaine heart, chopped
2 cups baby spinach
3 slices turkey bacon
1 small chicken breast, diced
1 Tsp Rosemary
2 Tbsp Kraft Free Zesty Italian fat free Dressing
1/4 cup Weight Watchers Mexican Mix Cheese
1/4 cup croutons
1/4 cup matchstick carrots

I didn't manage to find any fat free Greek dressing at my local Kroger, so the Italian will have to do.



I cooked the turkey bacon, and set it aside on a paper towel.



I cooked the diced chicken breast in the bacon grease with some rosemary. That was basically the only real cooking involved.



It's a pretty delicious, low calorie salad.



However, I will still be getting myself an Eatzi's salad this week.

No Fish

Ideally on a diet I should be eating the healthiest and most low calorie foods I can get ahold of. In the protein department, that means I should be eating fish. You may have noticed that roughly 90% of the recipes I've posted involve chicken in some form. That's because I hate fish; not just fish, but anything that once spent the majority of its life in the water. It's not just that they taste bad; I think I actually have a psychological aversion to fish.

I've tried it a few times. Fish like Mahi Mahi and Talapia are supposed to be more subtle, with a less fishy taste, but I can't stand them either. Tonight I went to Eatzi's for a salad and picked up some sushi for Gary, who does not share my crazy. I decided to try Gary's Hawaiian roll, per his suggestion (read: incessant bothering).



It kind of looked like this, but less pretty; I didn't have the foresight to take a picture of it. I put it in my mouth and chewed it and thought, "That's not so bad." Then I began heaving and nearly threw up. I have no idea why, it didn't even taste that fishy, but somehow it creeped me out enough that I was physically sick at the very idea. I managed to keep it under control, though, and now there is raw tuna hiding somewhere in my tummy, which is also pretty creepy.

Fortunately I had my Diet Dr. Pepper, a delicious Eatzi's salad, and hummus to clean the fish taste out of my mouth and restore my sanity. I've discovered that a good way to eat hummus, which is actually pretty good for you if you don't add a bunch of oil to it, is to dip baby carrots in it instead of pita bread.



So delicious. That is actually a picture I took myself (in case you couldn't tell), so it is much less beautiful and slightly phallic. Anyway, carrots are a pretty good substitute with hummus or with tuna or chicken salad. With chicken salad I use carrot discs instead of crackers. Yum!

Tomatillo Sauce

Am I the only person who thought that tomatillos were just small, green tomatoes? I went to the grocery store planning to buy the ingredients for tomatillo sauce, and while discussing this plan with my boyfriend Gary in the produce section, I was interrupted by a helpful woman who pointed to the real tomatillos in their odd green husks.



Gary glanced up from my smartphone, where he was looking over the recipe just long enough to laugh at me. I bought the ingredients last weekend, but luckily they held out until this Sunday, when I finally put them all together. This was a surprisingly simple and delicious recipe. I altered the ingredient list a little, in part because I hate cilantro.

Ingredients:
4 Tomatillos
1/2 White Onion, chopped
1 Tbsp Lemon Juice
1/4 Tsp Sugar
1 Serrano Pepper, stemmed, seeded and chopped
1/4 Tsp Salt

I cut the tomatillos in half and set them face down on a sheet of foil on top of a cookie sheet. I baked them at 350 degrees for 7 minutes. I chopped them up and added them to the rest of the ingredients in the food processor. Whir!



I served it on top of baked chicken breasts with brown rice and lentils, with some steamed broccoli on the side to add a little more to the veggie meter.

For once Gary was actually willing to eat something that I cooked, and he loved the tomatillo sauce. I'm a good cook, I swear, but a lot of my diet dishes either 1) contain cauliflower, which Gary hates, or 2) have so few calories that his hummingbird metabolism cannot survive. Tonight, for example, he added a baguette to his meal in order to up the calorie count. If I had the foresight to take a picture of my meal before I devoured it, I would post that. Instead, let's pretend that the dish I made was this pretty:

E-Reader Please

Hyperbole and a Half <-- This is why I need an e-reader. I have fallen in love with this blog, and I have been going back and basically reading everything she has ever written EVER, and now I feel nauseous. I took out my contacts, and that helped a little bit, but apparently reading things online for any length of time makes me seriously ill. I don't know if it will help with websites, but an e-reader without a backlight will definitely be superior to something like an iPad, which would most likely cause me to vomit and die.

Gary has promised to get me one for Christmas, which is the only reason I haven't tried to get one for myself already. At that time I will have 1) a Desktop PC, 2) a Smartphone (G1), 3) a netbook, and 4) an e-reader, all of which connect me to the internet. Is that too much technology for one person? Am I super greedy here? I guess I'd better enjoy this while I can, as I will probably never buy a new thing ever again after I have children in a few years.

This has nothing to do with losing weight or with my diet, so let me add that I am not having much luck in that arena. I lost one pound last week, but I may have gained it back already. We'll see.

Chicken Shawarma?

"What smells so good?"

Music to my ears. The answer was my latest attempt at imitating Prince's chicken shawarma recipe. My boyfriend works in Arlington, and whenever I have a Friday off and he doesn't (ie: all summer), I head out there to have lunch with him. There is a Lebanese restaurant there called Prince's that has the most delicious chicken shawarma. The problem, of course, is that real chicken shawarma requires a spit and who knows what else, so I've done my best to imitate the flavors and spices in the recipe.

First, I cut up an entire onion, because, hey, that's what I have. When it comes to recipes I generally look at the ingredients and view the measurements as suggestions. Even the ingredients are, well, open to interpretation, especially since I'm such a picky eater. So, hey, a whole onion, and a whole serrano chile.

I would like to note here that, for the first time ever, I actually teared up while chopping up an onion. I thought this must be a myth, or that everyone else was just a wimp, but no, it really happens. Maybe I was using the wrong (right?) kind of onions before.

Anyway, a ton of onions.



Lots. Then I have to add some garlic, and OMG, Squeeze Garlic.



I freaked out when I saw this in the store. How is it possible that no one had ever thought of this before? Brilliant.

In the background you may notice my lovely knife holder called "The Ex", a present from my friend Michelle.

Anyway, after many attempts on my own, I did a little bit of research, and ultimately sought the wisdom of someone experiencing the same predicament that I was suffering through, Gary's boss's wife Kelly. She actually has had training as a chef, although I think most of it has been as a pastry chef, but still, she should be better than I am at identifying mysterious spices. She tried to imitate Prince's Shawarma recipe also, and posted her efforts on her cooking blog called Evil Shenanigans. She did a recipe with Beef Shawarma Meatballs, and I wanted to do it with chicken, but I figured the spices would be about the same. I went to the store this weekend and bought Allspice, Cardamon, and ground Coriander. I had been using curry and paprika before, and saw no reason to stop, so my dish is super-spiced.



I threw a little bit of curry powder in with the onion, chili, and garlic, stirred it around, and threw the diced chicken in (1 small breast). I added the other spices to the mixture, and threw the tomatoes on top. Oh, right, yes, I chopped up two small tomatoes to cook with it. I let it simmer a little while.



I had cooked brown rice and lentils earlier and set them aside; my sister showed me a great trick for cooking them at the same time. If you use minute rice (brown rice in my case), you can throw the lentils in with the rice; they take the same amount of time to cook. After the mixture had simmered for awhile, I mixed in the brown rice and lentils and stirred the whole thing around. I had used about two servings of each so that I would end up with two servings of the shawarma mixture at the end.



Nearly everything I make is stuffed into tupperware so I can bring it to work the next day, but if you're serving this at home you can (and probably should) put the rice on the side. I like to eat this with a small side of hummus (sans the oil, for the sake of calories), which is how they serve it at Prince.

For those of you who are more structured, the ones who like lists, here are the
Ingredients:
1 Chicken Breast, diced
1 Onion
1 Serrano Chile
2 Tomatoes (small)
2 Cups Brown Rice
1/2 Cup Lentils
1/2 Teaspoon Allspice
1/2 Teaspoon Cardamom
1/4 Teaspoon Coriander
1 Teaspoon Paprika
1 Teaspoon Curry Powder

I'm too tired to calculate the calories for you right now, but I may come back and update this later.