Tonight's Dinner...

...was OMFG deLICIOUS steak and zucchini on the BBQ. WOW, did my hunny ever do an impeccable job on this meal! YUM!!



Oh so scrumptious...the fat!!! *droooool*

I'm Tired.

I don't know if it's work stress or the weather, but today I just don't have any energy. Come to think of it, it might have been the crap food we ate on the weekend and for the past week. Birthday cakes, pizza, pumpkin squares (oh GOD were they goooood!). Just plain CRAP.

Last night, however, DH BBQ'd some pork ribs that went VERY well with the apple butter we bought from Downey's Farm Market & Winery (a farm a little North from here).





That provided leftovers for lunch today, and dinner tonight was chicken soup that I made with the chicken dinner leftovers, with some chicken stock and extra veggies added. I simmered this on the stove for about an hour and then we devoured it. There's also enough of this for our lunches tomorrow. Wish we had some corn bread. *drool*

Wait...BAD MOUSE! No bread for you!! lol

Tonight's Dinner...

...is in the oven. Yeah, it's gonna be a late one tonight!

This afternoon we visited two of the local farmers' stores; one had just about everything but meat, and the other had meat. From the first one we bought some pumpkin squares (kind of like butter tarts but with pumpkin) for a treat, fresh zucchinis, yams, green onions and some apple butter for tomorrow's ribs dinner. From the second store we bought frozen homemade chicken stock, a free-range chicken stuffed with apple and dried fruit, and bacon (BACON!!!). When we got home we each devoured one pumpkin square (we were famished after exploring the two stores) and hubby started working on our bacon and egg lunch. Goddamn, that bacon was awesome. We'll definitely be going back for more - and the best part is that both stores are less than 10km away!

Next up is the chicken for dinner. I put a few small gobs of bacon fat in the roasting pan, chopped up the zucchinis, some green onion, a yam and a few carrots, and added a bit of water for moisture. Over top of the veggies went some seasoning (Italian seasoning, Montreal steak spice, seasoning salt, and some roasted garlic from a jar). Then the chicken went on top, coated with a bit of EVOO and seasoned with the same spices as the veggies. Here's what it looked like before going into the oven:



A couple hours later....YUM!



Unfortunately, because someone at the farm stuffed the chicken, that meant that it also contained traditional bread stuffing. Oh well, we ate the shit out of it anyway. ;)

Happy Birthday to Me!

So today is my 36th and I just realized that my entire family knows not to call me before noon just in case I'm sleeping in. Hah!

Hubby and I are catching up on our internet fix while slowly sipping our teas; mine Red Rose with milk (lactose-free) and his Chamomile with a bit of brown sugar.

Yesterday morning I weighed myself and was happy to see 149.5 on the scale. I knew it would only be temporary since our friends were coming over to celebrate my b-day a day early, but it was nice to see anyway. It proved that I could get there after all! I can also feel some muscles on my arms after working with the sledgehammer on Friday!

Dinner was BBQd hamburgers (ground beef and ground pork with onions inside...mmm) and roasted bell peppers and zucchini. YUM! My BFF made me an awesome angel food cake with a pineapple whipped cream icing and OMFG was it good! I think I had 4 squares of it. We were also drinking, of course, so this weekend is pretty much a bust, diet-wise, though how can you not deviate when it's your birthday??! :)

A few reference pics from today...

WOOT!

Weighed myself this morning after (finally) a BM and my weight was....................................149.9!!!!!!!!!!! YEEHAWWW!

I worked from home today, so while on conference calls I put my gloves on and did some swinging of the sledgehammer. I completed two sets, three exercises of eight reps per arm. I can feel it!

For dinner tonight I used the last of the boneless, skinless chicken pieces and made a chicken soup that fuckin' ROCKED. My mom came over and we went for a 45-minute walk while the soup was simmering. When we got back and caught whiff of the soup we had to drop everything and start devouring it. She even said that never in a million years did she think I'd ever cook something that good. Hah! Take that!

The ingredients were as follows:

- 1 can chicken broth (using up the misc. stuff in the cupboard to get rid of it)
- 1 can cream of chicken soup (same as above - getting rid of it)
- several pieces of boneless, skinless chicken, cut up into approx. square inch bits
- 1 can of coconut milk (the magic ingredient!)
- carrot chunks
- vidalia onions (unfortunately, the last of what we had in the freezer), quartered or smaller
- dash of Montreal steak spice
- dash of roasted garlic and peppers spice

Yeehaw!!

- I'm now taking two fish oil soft gels a day; one with lunch and one with dinner. However, they don't seem to help me with BMs at all because prior to this evening's BM I hadn't had one since Monday. :S

- Had a crap day at work today and an even crappier drive home.

- To get myself out of that post-work funk I called up the college that I'm taking a distance learning course through, and finally got my login information to begin the course (it officially started on the 10th but due to waiting for approvals at work I could only register on the 13th). I logged in and started looking around to get situated with the format and such. Ended up spending a few hours on it, also started the first lesson. Woot!

- After I ended up engrossed in the course stuff, Hubby graciously offered to cook dinner, which was delicious baked/steamed salmon with chopped spinach as a side. YUM!!

- Hubby wanted to go browse for a couple things at Home Depot so we walked over together. I wasn't planning on shopping for anything myself, but somehow we ended up in the sledgehammer section and ended up picking out a NICE 6lb one. Now I need to look up that sledgehammer workout video...

Oh, Wow.

Hubby has started dinner (omelet with leftover steak bits) and the sweet, sweet scent of bacon fat just reached my nose upstairs here in our office. WOW.

Insert Post Title Here

I don't know what it is, but sometimes I just can't come up with a suitable title for posts. Realistically, every post could be named 'update' or something just as boring. Enh.

Anyway, yesterday I had worked from home so in between scheduled appointments (phone calls) I had some time to make some almond milk from Nat's recipe. First time ever, and it turned out just fine. I put some in my coffee to see what it tasted like and it was very 'woody'.

Last night's dinner consisted of delicious BBQ'd steak and previously-frozen broccoli. After dinner Rabbit and I went for a nice walk and did some sprints here and there. Boy, did that feel great! I haven't run that fast in YEARS! We also stopped at the playground to see how our pull-ups would go at the monkey bars. Pffft...weaklings! Both of us! Well that will soon change...

Once we got home I started working on Nat's 'pseudo banana bread' recipe (same link above). The recipe HAD said to put the ingredients into a blender to combine them, but the stuff was so thick and dry it wouldn't blend. I damned-near burnt out the motor of the blender (and broke something else by throwing the damned thing) when hubby came down to diffuse the situation. I had added a bit of water to the concoction in hopes of getting it to blend, but it didn't work. I figured by that point that there was probably an error in the instructions (yeah, they meant to say 'food processor' instead of 'blender'), so we transferred everything to the processor and were on our merry way.

Things went a little better in the processor, but since I'd added water the stuff was way wetter than it should have been. Hubby to the rescue again: add more almonds and coconut to it. It helped, but not quite enough. My last attempt at saving it was to grab the bread baking pan and get it into the oven for a bit.

The end result, while edible, wasn't great, but it was alright. The consistency was screwed, of course, but even my co-workers tried it and said it was alright. Next time will be better.

Tonight dinner was pork chops with a tiny bit of honey and cinnamon on them. YUM! The side was previously frozen cauliflower. Unfortunately the apple sauce that was in the fridge had somehow carbonated itself (tasted like champagne lol) so we ditched it instead of slopping it over the pork. Dammit.

After dinner we went for our walk again, with a few sprints. Stopped at the playground again with some gloves to use the monkey bars for (pathetic, failed) pull-ups and stretches.

The recipe to try tonight was batty's blueberry butter balls. These turned out alright (would've been easier if I'd had an ice cream scoop with the little ejection scraper inside it). I guess this snack is something one needs to get accustomed to, since the buttery smooth texture is entirely new to us. One each was enough for now.

Blueberry Butter Balls...mmm.

*Phew*

What a busy day! Slept in a little, after dreaming of spiders and bumble bees wearing crash helmets, for some reason, and started cleaning the house in preparation for Dad and step-mom to come over for dinner. After cleaning a bit we had to go to the grocery store for food and then get started on dinner prepping once we got home.

Tonight's dinner was crispy yogurt chicken with an almond meal coating instead of panko, and veggies (carrots, zucchini, vidalia onions and mushrooms) fried up in some virgin coconut oil. Mmm, mmm, good. It was the first time I used almond meal as a coating so that was an interesting experiment. I made approx. 20 pieces of chicken thighs, mostly bone-in with skin, but also a few skinless/boneless, and there were 5 adults eating. There was 1 piece of chicken left in the end!

For dessert we had a buffet of 5 flavours of Activia yogurt, a bowl of blueberries and a bowl of raspberries. (I won't mention the optional cool-whip or chocolate chips.)

Unfortunately, there are no pics. :(

Sept. 10-11, 2010

Had my 8-year old nephew over last night and that meant a lot of running around with him (tag, etc.). For dinner I cooked up some lamb shoulder chops in bacon fat (yum) along with some onions and mushrooms. It was tasty but I over-cooked the chops a bit. I found that I don't care much for the smell of lamb...oh well, we ate it anyway.

After my nephew went home today I hunkered down to do my burpees. I completed 12 of them in 1:30 (!!) but had to stop because...well...

Warning: not for the squeamish!

DAMMIT! That effin' hurt! Not to mention messy! Immediately ran some peroxide over it and picked the carpet/cat fluff out of it, then showered and had to wait for it to dry up some before I could clip the shredded skin off. Owie. :( Once it was dry I slapped some "new skin" on it and a band-aid. We were getting ready to go to a birthday party so this was crappy timing. The good news is that once I had my shoes on I forgot about it. :)