Grocery Find: Frozen Greek Yogurt

I've heard people sing the praises of Greek yogurt, but when I tried it I found it way too tart for my tastes.  Too bad, since Greek yogurt has more protein than regular yogurt.  But my problem has been solved by this food find from Costco - Yasso Frozen Greek Yogurt bars!!!

What a treat during these crazy 100+ degree days that seem like they are never going to end!  And only 70 calories with 6 grams of protein and 15% of your daily recommended calcium.  The boxes at Costco contain both blueberry and strawberry flavor.

Check them out!!!

Farmer's Market Loot

I made my first trip to the local farmer's market yesterday morning after my Weight Watchers meeting. Behold the loot!

Here's what I got:
-Farm fresh eggs. Even though I am from Iowa, land of the farm, I have never in my 40 years of life eaten a farm fresh egg. I had been told they are exponentially tastier than what we get in the grocery store. After eating a couple of these over easy with absolutely no seasoning of any kind, I have to say I agree! The yolk was so much richer and more flavorful than anything I've ever eaten in the past. I plan to try to make it to the farmer's market weekly to get these tasty eggs, even if I get nothing else! They were that good.

-Organic, farm fresh blueberry Greek yogurt. I just took a quick taste of this yesterday and it was lovely, creamy, and fresh. I plan to have some for a snack today.
-Organic, farm fresh swiss cheese. Not sure I was loving this. I found it to be very very salty.

-Cucumbers. I love cucumbers. These were cucumbers like I'd never had before. First of all, they were nice and firm, unlike the spongey somewhat bendy ones I always seem to find at the grocery store. Second, they smelled and tasted so fresh! That fresh cucumber-y smell and taste is what I have always loved about this veggie. I've even bought cucumber scented candles for my house before I love the fragrance so much. Yummy, yummy, I'll be back for more next week.

-Tomatoes. Haven't tried these yet. But they look tasty, don't they?

-Strawberries. Is this what strawberries are supposed to taste like? It was like I was eating a strawberry kicked up several notches. The grocery store ones are flavorless compared to these.

-Unidentified greens. I have no idea what kind of greens these are. I felt dumb asking what they were. Can anyone identify? I've never cooked greens before. I bought these in an attempt to expand my horizons. I'll be googling greens recipes today, but if anyone has suggestions, I'd love to hear them. I admit I am a bit leery about eating cooked greens....especially ones I have cooked!

-Organic chicken breast. On the menu for today.

-Organic, grass fed beef sirloin. Probably the least diet friendly of my purchases today. This in my freezer currently. Am looking forward to seeing the difference between grass fed and corn fed beef. I am being completely disloyal to the homeland (Iowa) when I say this, but I was fairly horrified when reading about corn-fed beef production in Michael Pollen's The Omnivore's Dilemna. It pretty much put me off beef. I won't get on a soapbox and I know there's a food chain and all, but this practice is horrifically cruel and unnatural. Enough said. You can read the book yourself if you want to know more.

I am planning to make it a habit to swing by the farmer's market each week after my Saturday morning WW's meeting. I am really looking forward to seeing how the offerings change as the seasons do.

How Does Your Garden Grow?

I'm trying my hand at a new hobby - gardening. Since I don't have a yard to speak of I'm going to do a little container gardening. I have a notoriously brown thumb so I am starting very small with just a few things.

In the egg cartons, I have bell and sweet peppers in one and cherry tomatoes in the other.

In the pots, the larger one has basil (what is better than fresh basil? NOTHING!). The smaller one has cilantro.

So far, only my basil is sprouting. Wish me luck. Well, wish these little seeds and seedlings luck...they are the ones who will need it! ;-)

Why Haven't I Done This Sooner?

I roasted veggies for the first time Sunday night. Oh my God. So simple. And SOOOO tasty. And even better reheated tonight for dinner. This is going to become a Sunday night staple for me and I plan to make an even bigger batch to keep me in veggies for all my meals throughout the week.

This mixture includes red potatoes, red bell peppers, onions, and zuchini. I seasoned it with salt, pepper, cumin, and chili pepper. Very yummy. And I'm anxious to try other combinations.

Anyone care to share their favorite roasted veggie combos?

What's Cooking? - Black Bean Salad

Are you sick of turkey and sick of cooking in general? Here's a tasty dish I created myself that contains no turkey and required no cooking at all....well, except for nuking my Steamfresh brown rice (the greatest invention known to man).

I had been buying a black bean salad at Whole Foods and decided it didn't look all that complicated so I decided to try to replicate it at home. I adore the combination of black beans and corn. I literally just threw this together by eye, so I don't have measurements:

• Canned black beans, drained and rinsed


• Frozen corn


• Chopped bell pepper - red, yellow, and green


• Chopped onions


• One chopped jalepeno (seeded)


• Garlic powder


• Fresh cilanto


• Juice of one lime

I served it with a side of brown rice and, my friends, this was delicious. Light, easy, and healthy. Next time I will probably add an extra jalepeno, chopped tomatoes, and maybe red onions instead of white.

It was best served the second day after the flavors had time to meld in the refrigerator. Yummo!

What's Cooking? Butternut Squash Soup

I'm finally getting around to posting some of the creations I came up with after buying various winter squash at Whole Foods.

For the butternut squash I decided to do a soup. I got this recipe from Food Network. Yeah, it has heavy cream in it, but not much considering the number of servings it makes.

I was suprised I liked it as well as I did. Many times squash is just too squashy-tasting to appeal to me so I was a bit afraid of a soup made nearly entirely from squash. I was pleasantly suprised to find that I liked it alot. If I made it again, I would probably try it with a little heat by adding a shot or two of tabasco. Might go nicely with the sweetness from the honey.

That said, it's unlikely I will actually make this again unless I find a good trick to getting the squash out of the skin. It took me forever because the darn thing was so hot. But I was afraid if I let it cool it would be hard to scoop out of the skins. Yes, Alton Brown says this recipe was easy, but for the squash newby...not so much!

Squashed at Whole Foods

Here is my haul from my latest trip to Whole Foods where I tried to take advantage of the seasonal produce. Here's what I got:

A couple small butternut squash - looking for good soup recipes for these.

An acorn squash - will be roasting this. I don't think I've ever had an acorn squash before.

Delicata squash - I was feeling adventurous because when I picked the yellow and green striped squash because I had no idea what it was. Thanks to the magic of Google, I now know it is a delicata and I found a recipe to try.

Pomegranate - This is my first pomegranate purchase. I think I'll try the seeds in my next salad. Not sure what else to do with them.

Doesn't Get Any Easier Than This

This is my dinner from last night. It was delicious. Things cooked by someone else always are. I got the grilled salmon and a big container of julienned veggies (zucchini, red bell pepper, carrot) from the Whole Foods deli counter. I will definitely be going back for more of the veggies. I would never be able to make veggies like this and I need all the help I can get getting my veggies in. In the meantime, I have plenty left to pack in my lunch the next couple of days.

What's Cooking? - Black Bean Pasta Cancun

I finally have my kitchen set up (for the most part) so I am ready to get back to cooking a little more than I have been. I found a great website called Eat Better America which has lots of good recipes including the Black Bean Pasta Cancun I made. People, this was DELISH! I highly recommend trying this recipe. It's pretty easy and it's vegetarian for those who don't eat meat.

The only thing I did differently than the recipe is that I used the entire can of black beans because I wanted more protein in this dish. The cilantro and lime zest really gave this a fresh flavor even though the ingredients were canned.

You can check out the recipe here. If you try it, let me know how you liked it.

What's Cooking? - Buffalo Chicken Breasts

In trying to come up with something to do with chicken breasts that wasn't boring, I decided to try to make Buffalo Chicken Breasts. When I was in my 20's there was a little neighborhood bar I used to go to with my friends on Thursday nights to drink beer and eat Buffalo wings (shout out - Pat and Mike's at 93rd and Maple in Omaha!)

They were mighty tasty but mighty fatty too. I think my Buffalo Chicken Breasts were just as tasty and alot healthier. My lips were on fire and my sinuses were cleared....just like Pat and Mike's wings! And the flavor brought bake lots of memories...mostly of all the cute softball boys who would come in for beers on Thursday nights after their games. ;-)

I don't have a recipe. I just kinda made this one up. I sprinkled the chicken with salt, pepper, and a little paprika, and cooked them in a skillet with a bit of olive oil. For the sauce I just heated a 2 oz. bottle of hot sauce and a tablespoon of light butter. Once the chicken breasts were done cooking I smothered them in the hot sauce mixture and served them up with some carrots, celery, and light ranch dressing.

What's Cooking? - Black and White Angel Food Cake

I went to a cookout yesterday afternoon where it was my job to bring a dessert. I used to love to cook and bake things back when I had more time so I decided to break out my Cooking Light cookbooks and see what I could find. I ended up making this Black and White Angel Food Cake (although, as you can see, it ended up being more of a Brown and Slightly-Less-Brown Angel Food Cake). That said, it looked pretty good when it was finished and it tasted great too.

I need to spend more time in the kitchen. I enjoy it and it's so much tastier to eat freshly prepared food. I don't have tons of time during the week so I think I am going to aim for spending some time on Sundays experimenting with new recipes.

Because You Are Worth It

I am a fairly frugal person. I make good money, but I live well below my means. I drive a reliable but unremarkable car. I own a modest home. I am not in anyway extravagant. But I have finally decided that some things are just worth spending the money on, especially if they are going to make my life better. There is no point to my working so hard and earning a good salary if I am not going to spend some of it to make my life better. So here are some things I have started spending more money:

From Whole Foods:

• A big family-sized delicious salad of dark greens, strawberries, mandarin oranges, blueberries, and walnuts to keep in the fridge at work and eat on all week for lunch instead of fast food.
• A tray of pre-cut fruits for snacking - strawberries, kiwi, grapes, pineapple.
• Some pre-cut carrot sticks and cucumber slices for easy snacking.

Yep, this all cost a more than if I had bought everything separately and prepped it myself. But I just don't have the time right now so it is worth it to me to spend the extra money if it helps me to eat more healthfully during the week. Besides, all this cost me not much more than a week's worth of trips to the drive-thru.

At home:

• Set up bottled water delivery service for my home. It's really no more costly than buying water at the store and lugging it home. I never seem to bother with that so I had been drinking way too many diet sodes because our city water tastes yucky.
• Am interviewing cleaning ladies. I used to have one and got rid of her because she was doing a half-assed job and therefore I thought it was a waste of money. I thought I could do it myself, but it turns out I can't. I just do not have the time. So I am in search of a really good cleaning service to help me keep my home clean and orderly so it can be the haven of peace and rest that a home should be.

What about you? Is there anything you can be doing for yourself that you are not? You are worth it too!

Day 11: Two Purposes of Food

OK, it's time to get back on track with 100 Days of Weightloss by Linda Spangle. The first 10 days of this program was all about Setting Up For Success. If you want to catch up, you can find my posts for days 1 through 10 by clicking the "100 Days of Weightloss" label on my sidebar. These next 10 days are intended to help us Put Food In It's Place.

For Day 11, the author gives us two purposes of food:

1. To fuel your body
2. To appreciate flavors

She says that anytime we find ourselves eating but not satisfying one of these two purposes, we are likely eating emotionally. The focus of the Day 11 reading is on fueling your body. She tells us to always fuel our body when it needs its, recommending fueling/eating at least 3 times per day with a couple of mini-fuels/snacks in between. (As a side note, I have heard Jillian Michaels in her weekly podcasts come out against the idea of 5 or 6 small meals a day in favor of 3 larger meals and one snack. She says that the 5-6 meals a day thing originally started with body builders who were trying to put on muscle mass and needed to consume a calorie surplus and thus needed to eat several times a day in order to get all their calories in. She feels that eating several smaller meals while tryin to maintain a calorie deficit leaves you feeling never quite satisfied. My opinion about this is to start listening to your own body to find out what works best for you. Some of us may feel more satisfied eating several times throughout the day while others do better eating fewer but larger meals. It seems to me what is most important is to fuel your body when it needs it.)

So the assignment for Day 11 is to make note of the times of day that you eat, to try to plan so that you have fuel stops every 3 to 4 hours, and to note of what effect having regular fuel stops has on your energy and focus.

I have been tracking what times I am eating for a couple of weeks now. In general, on a day I am eating on plan and only for the two purposes listed above, I tend to want to eat/refuel 5-6 times per day. A typical weekday for me looks something like this:

breakfast - 7:00
snack - 9:30
lunch - 11:30/12:00
snack - 2:30/3:00
snack - 4:30/5:00
dinner - 7:00

This exercise seems simple and obvious for those of us who are professional dieters but I recommend you do it anyway. I thought it was silly at first but what it really helped to remind me of is that it's NORMAL to get hungry and to need to give your body fuel on a REGULAR BASIS. Again, seems obvious, I know. But the years and years of dieting, disordered eating, gaining, losing, and beating myself up has left me a bit messed up about food and eating. I can't tell you how many days I have thrown in the towel because I ate breakfast and then was hungry again at 10AM. In my messed up way of thinking my thoughts would go, "I am always going to be hungry." "I can't stand this." "There is no way I can stay hungry for long enough to lose all this weight." "What is wrong with me that I am always hungry?" And then this would lead to a state of near panic and frenzied eating.

Kinda nutty, I know. That's why I say I am a disordered eater. This is how messed up you can get after years of dieting and this is what I have to work on changing if I am to finally be successful at permanent weightloss. By stopping and writing down the times that I felt hungry and ate, it helped me to realize that NOTHING is wrong with me because I keep getting hungry over and over. Our bodies need consistent fueling. It helped me realize that I don't need to STAY hungry in order to lose weight. I can fuel my body with what it needs and still lose weight. I have even become more aware of what exactly it is my body is craving for fuel. Sometimes fruit and a yogurt will do it. Other times I know I need more protein and I have lowfat cottage cheese. Other times I have actually noticing my body craving veggies, mostly big salads.

It feels really good that I am becoming more self-aware and, hopefully, less F'ed up about food. Give this exercise a try....even if you think you don't need to. You might be suprised what you learn.


ps
Thanks again to Natalia at Embracing the Weighloss Journey who introduced me to this book.

Organic Schmorganic: A Case For Pesticides

I can never eat raisins again. They have been ruined for me forever.

Lately I have been trying to eat more organic foods. I had read that grapes and berries are some of the worst as far as being loaded with pesticides. Then when you dehydrate the grapes into raisins, you just concentrate the pesticides. So, I decided to only purchase organic raisins. Today I opened a box to find raisins......and WORMS!!!! Ewwwwwwww.

I am now a firm believer that pesticides have their place in this world. And I don't think I will ever be able to bring myself to eat a raisin again.

Mr. Bento: My Portion Control Savior?

I have really struggled the entire month of August with my eating. Maybe I shouldn't use the word "struggled" here as I feel this implies that I was actually making an effort to eat well but found it difficult. Truth be told, I wasn't even trying. I pretty much soothed every emotional bump and bruise this month with food and lots of it. And I soon found myself overeating even without an emotional impetus. Eating crap quickly became my daily habit, especially when I was hitting the fast food joints everday for lunch and sometimes for dinner too.

Today that changed because yesterday my Mr. Bento lunch jar arrived.

A friend of mine told me about Mr. Bento and I decided to order one to see if it would help kickstart me into packing healthy lunches again. What do you know? It worked! I was really excited last evening to try and put together a healthy lunch to pack in Mr. Bento. Even though one of the reasons I bought it was to help with portion control, at first I thought it seemed small and that any lunch packed in it would never satisfy me. I was wrong as I ended up with a lunch so filling I had to save some over to eat as a mid-afternoon snack. It was nice to enjoy a fresh and healthy lunch today. I ended up feeling nourished and sastified rather than sick, greasy, and bloated.

Just to give you an idea of what my Mr. Bento was able to accomodate, my lunch today included:

• turkey rollups made with a whole wheat tortilla, roasted turkey, Laughing Cow cheese, greens, and a tiny splash of Newman's Own oil & vinegar dressing
• carrots and cucumbers with a dab of hummus for dipping
• yogurt with fresh blackberries
• a handful of walnuts and almonds

I am learning that Mr. Bento is very big in some circles as I was able to find a flickr group dedicated to presenting their Mr. Bento lunches. It's been fun checking out the pictures to get ideas and inspiration for my own lunches.

PS

Don't forget I am going private at 9PM tonight. If you haven't emailed me yet have access to my private blog please do so soon. I would prefer my blog to be public and I hope to go public again in the future. For right now, I feel best taking it private.

Changing Tastes

Sometimes I feel like I am doomed to be fat simply because I have a sweeth tooth. I have often lamented, "If only I didn't like ice cream so much." Or M&M's......or Little Debbie's.....or Godiva truffles.....or Dove dark chocolate squares.....or Reeses' Peanut Butter Cups......or....or...or....the list goes on.

But last week I was forced to consider that it is possible, probable even, that I can change my tastes and seriously reign in my desires for sweets. You see, last week while I was away with my family I ate some Raisin Bran for breakfast. My aunt saw me fixing my bowl and said, "Aren't you going to put sugar on that?" I said "No." She was dumbfounded. "You really don't put sugar on your cereal?" I repeated, "No, the raisins make it sweet." She looked at me like I was speaking a foreign language.

I dismissed this conversation and it wasn't until several days later I remembered that growing up we learned to put sugar on any non-sweetened cereal we ate, like Cheerios or Raisin Bran. I had forgotten all about that. I remember how the sugar would sink to the bottom of the bowl and it was like a treat at the end of my breakfast to get to scrape up the soggy sugar sediment at the bottom of my bowl. How could I have forgotten this? And how and why did I stop eating my cereal this way? I don't really remember stopping this habit. But somewhere I did stop. And my tastes changed. Now I can't imagine piling sugar on my Raisin Bran when the raisins make it sweet enough. And I can't imagine Cheerios with sugar either. I like mine with sliced bananas.

So, if I stopped liking added sugar with my cereal, if I actually began to PREFER my cereal without added sugar, well, doesn't that mean it is possible for my taste for an entire pint of Ben & Jerry's to go away too? It's time to stop indulging my every desire for sweets and desserts and start to train my taste buds to prefer healthier foods. Maybe one day my dessert of choice will be the apple rather than the apple pie.