This Week's Tastiness Part Two

I loved the Chile Verde recipe I made last week so much, that I decided to make it again this week. I hope that makes it a strong enough endorsement for you to consider adding this recipe to your arsenal of favorite recipes. I know I've added it to mine. It's so easy.  It takes about ten minutes of chopping vegetables, but then you just dump it all in a crock pot and let it cook for eight hours and you're done!

Mom and Dad were here this weekend and while they were getting packed up this morning, I went ahead and started making my meals.  This gave Mom the chance to taste a fresh tomatillo and Dad the chance to correct my pronunciation of it (he doesn't like tomato-like products).  It also gave me the chance to impress Dad with my ability to cook two meals simultaneously.  He's a great multi-tasking cook, and he was proud to have passed the skills on to me.

My second recipe I found on the Bell Plantation web site.  Bell Plantation makes PB2, a powdered peanut butter product that I've heard lots of people rave about on various diet/healthy living blogs.  It is just ground peanuts with a bit of salt and sugar, so it is much healthier for you then the peanut butter you buy in the store. You can either mix it with water to make peanut butter or you can use it in the various recipes they have on their site.   If you've been reading the blog, you know I love peanut butter, and I thought this would be both a healthier way to eat it and a simple way to control it (you only mix up enough peanut butter for one serving at a time.)

I decided to order some this week, because I've been curious about it.  Mixing it with water actually makes pretty tasty peanut butter, but I also wanted to try some recipes. So I found  PB2 and Pasta Bake on their website and set about making it. It wasn't until I was done that I realized the recipe never told me when to put the PB2 in!  It has it listed in the ingredients, but never told me what to do with it, so it ended up being a regular old pasta dish, with no exciting peanut buttery twist.  Oh well, it's still pretty good.

Here's a picture:

This Week's Tastiness

This week I made two recipes. One was recommended by able-bodied girl in one of her recent blogs and can be found online at the Year of Slow Cooking. It is called Chile Verde, and it involves chuck roast, tomatillos and diced tomatoes.  I was interested to try it because of the tomatillos.  Tomatillos are from the tomato family, but are smaller and green.  I had seen them in the produce section back when I was regularly searching for new fruits and vegetables to try for your reading pleasure, and thought they looked interesting. Plus, I love the green salsa at Moe's, and I think tomatillos are what makes that so tasty.

It cooked all day in the slow cooker today and it was DELISH! I'm not the best at describing flavors, but this had a sweet, almost tangy taste. I highly recommend it.  I served it with crushed tortilla chips on top.

These are tomatillos.

My second recipe was Chicken and Broccoli Casserole.  Despite it  receiving rave reviews on Sparkrecipes.com, I was not sure it would be good.  I've made a similar casserole before that I did not love.  I swapped the recommended Cream of Mushroom soup for Cream of Chicken, basically because Cream of Mushroom is gross.  I also thought about reducing the cheese to make it lower in calories and fat, but I'm glad I didn't.  It was super cheesy.

Enjoy!

Saying Goodbye to Diet Pepsi??

Lately, I've been feeling a pull to give up diet sodas. You know how much I love Diet Pepsi; I wrote a whole post about it.  

I don't know, I guess I've just been seeing a lot lately about the evils of diet soda and how it helps you hold on to pounds, even though it does not have calories.  I'm not really sure how that works, except I know it is supposed to make you crave sweets.  I know that when I eat certain foods, like Moe's, BoJangles, and popcorn, I have to have a diet drink to go with it or I feel incomplete.  Also know that when I have one, I always want to have another, and once I start drinking diet pepsi, it's hard to switch back to water.

Even though I've been drinking it for years, caffeine still affects me. I start my day with one every day, just like some people do coffee, to get me started.  I feel incomplete without it.  If I drink it too close to bedtime, it keeps me awake.  

Also, I am hopelessly addicted, so the idea of giving it up means a few days in pain. It will feel like my brain is being ripped into thousands of pieces for at least two days.

I don't think I can go to a strictly water-only drinking regimen, and I don't drink any form of tea, so I guess that leaves just a little bit of Crystal Lite now and again?  I can't think of any other low-cal drink.  Suggestions?

Honestly, it sounds horrible to even think about giving it up. I love the pop and fizz sound that comes when I crack open a can. I love the crisp taste, especially when it comes from a fountain. However, as I'm trying very hard to close in on my goal, I could use any kind of extra help I can get. 

But then sometimes I think, I'm already "giving up" a lot to lose weight, cutting down on my eating out and eating chocolate.  Why should I have to give up one more thing, especially when it has ZERO calories?

As you can see, I'm of two minds about this. I'd love to know what you think. You can vote in the comments section below.  Have you ever been addicted to caffeine?

Time for a Clementine

Life has been a tad stressful lately. Work has been bustling, crazy busy. It's  the kind of week where I have a million things to do, and they all have to be done at the same time.  Yesterday, I never took the time to stop and heat up my lunch (though I did eat all of my snacks). In other words, my current location is stress-city.

However, today in the midst of the stress and busyness, I was feeling hungry. Actual hunger, not just "hmm, I'm kind of bored, wouldn't it be nice to eat something tasty," which is what is usually happening when I say I'm hungry.  I was going to keep plowing through what I needed to do, thinking I would catch a few minutes to grab a bite later, but I stopped and thought, "No. I'm going to take the time to have a clementine."

I liked that rhyme so much that I stopped, peeled and ate two clementines and then decided it sounded like a good blog post.

After all, what does it take to peel a clementine or two?  30 seconds or a minute, tops?  That 30 seconds gave me not just a no-longer-hungry-belly, but some nutrition, some vitamin C, and some breathing room to evaluate what I was working on at that moment and to reevaluate whether or not I needed to be doing it or something more pressing instead.

Luckily, I'm not stressed very often and even when I am, it is not dire stress, not life and death stress. In fact, I feel like I read about stress in magazines and in random online articles more often than I actually feel it.  What about you? Do you get stressed? What stresses you?  How do you deal with it?  May I suggest you take some time for a clementine?  (I think this could be come a new catchphrase. I really do.)

Oatmeal

Do any of you eat oatmeal?  Every thing I read these days seems to say that it is great for you and great for keeping you full all morning.  Also, my friend Stefanie recommended it when she visited me in November.

Anyway, I'm asking because I would like to be an oatmeal eater, but the instant kind I've bought is just gross. Probably it's not the healthiest option either, although I tried to buy the healthiest of the instant kind.   Am I buying the wrong thing or should I just stay away from the instant altogether?  I'm thinking most people add tasty stuff to their oatmeal like fruit or nuts, and this must make it taste better.

I really want to be an oatmeal lover, and would like your help. If you have any tips or thoughts to share on oatmeal or oatmeal toppings, please comment below.  If the comment box intimidates you, please email or facebook me!

Prepped and Ready

I am better today.  Sorry for the numerous mopey posts of late. You should know by now that I am kind of a moody person. I'm either sunny or cloudy, but, thankfully, most of the time I am sunny.

Anyway, after a gorgeous weekend here in good ol' South Carolina, I'm feeling more like myself. Yesterday, I took some extra time at the grocery store deciding on my snacks for the week.  I want to eat within my calorie range each day, but I also want to be full and excited about what I get to eat.

I ended up buying those Sandwich Thins, which are 100 calories, and pimento cheese, which is one of my favorite foods. Two tablespoons is 80 calories, so it's not a horrible amount for a snack. If I make them in advance, I can measure out the pimento cheese to make sure I don't overindulge.  A problem I've been having is being starved by 10 a.m., and then feeling defeated when my snack of a banana or almonds doesn't fill me up.  So I think this pimento cheese sandwich will help keep me full through the morning and give me a snack to look forward to.

I also finally found edamames, a soybean that was recommended as a snack by Amie and seconded by Alyssa.  The ones I bought are roasted and salted, and I think that robs them a little of their natural flavor, but they are still pretty tasty.

I also bought some strawberries, which I haven't been able to buy for several months.  I usually just use them on my cereal, but I think this week I will stick with blueberries on my cereal and use the strawberries for a delectable snack.

Last week, due to a number of dinner invitations out with friends, I ended up not eating my sausage soup. I froze it, so I have it to eat this week. My second meal is Coca-Cola Chicken with brown rice.  This is one of the easiest recipes ever: put chicken breasts, a can of coke and a cup of ketchup in a skillet.  Cook on medium heat for 40-45 minutes. I use Diet Pepsi, of course, but it's the same thing. The cola and ketchup make a barbecue-like sauce.  I serve over brown rice.

Anyway, I feel much better and prepared mentally and practically for the week.  I also started the first day of my triathlon training today, and it felt really good. More about my training later this week.

My Perfect Day

My friend Abi, who just had her second baby in August, was feeling overwhelmed last month with all she needs and wants to accomplish on a daily basis.  She came up with a plan to write out her perfect day, including everything she hoped to accomplish, and then try to live it daily. 

She suggested I do the same, and I think it makes a lot of sense for me.  I love lists and checking things off. Plus, this kind of planning helps you visualize what you need to do, which makes you more likely to actually do it.  I made mine just as it applies to diet and exercise. Here's what I got:

Make cereal with almond milk and fruit topping for breakfast.  Savor each bite of the sweetness. Drink a glass of water with breakfast.

Go to work. Start in on my first liter of water within the first half hour. Be refreshed by the cleanliness of it. Finish the first liter by 10 a.m.

Eat snack of fruit (banana or clementine) at 11 a.m. Remember that God made this fruit specifically to nourish our bodies and give us energy. If hungry earlier, eat two morning snacks, one at 10 and one at 11:30 a.m. Be glad that I brought an extra snack to work for this reason, and not upset that I am extra hungry for no reason.

Finish second liter of water by 12:30.

Go workout at 12:30 p.m.  Either run, swim, elliptical or walk with a friend for 45 minutes. Be thankful for the time away from my desk to clear my head and re-energize.  Remember and appreciate the physical changes of the last year that allow me to move this way.

Return from gym and eat lunch brought from home that includes one veggie at about 1:30 or 2 with half a liter of water. Be glad that I took the time to prepare for the week properly on Sunday by cooking and packaging my meals.  Feel relief from the water after my work out.

Eat snack of almonds or protein bar at 3:30 or 4. Finish third liter of water. Recognize the full feeling that comes from protein.

After work two nights a week, go to weight room for 30 minutes. After work once a week, Turbo Kick! Take note of my new-ish muscles and have fun kicking and punching to awesome music.

Get home from work and eat prepared meal with at least one veggie, a glass of water or Cystal Lite and a second fruit or veggie if needed about 6:30. Unless it's a TurboKick night and then eat when I get home at 7 p.m. Be thankful for veggies and their naturally low calories, yet surprisingly filling, and enjoy the tasty meal.

No snacks after dinner. Because I have goals!

Planks before shower if I have not done them in the weight room that day.  Note how I have improved in form and time with these planks since the beginning of the year.

Reflect on the day and bible reading before bed. Remember that weight loss is not all about what I eat, but a lot about mental preparation.

I maybe need to print this out and put it somewhere I will see it a lot so I remember all of this. But right now, I want to know - What's your perfect day look like?

Hungry, Hungry Jill-o

Today I am hungry. I've eaten the same foods I usually eat, I'm not starving myself, but I don't seem to ever be full.  It happens from time to time, but it's exasperating.   It makes it just that much harder to stay on track if you're hungry all day. It's why a lot of people give up on diets after just a few days, cause they cut down on calories so much that they are starving.

In one of the books of the Hunger Games, the main character refers to it as a "hollow day," because no matter what she eats she knows she will still be hungry. I totally know what she means.

So how should I deal with it? Eat extra snacks? I would've if I'd brought them to work with me. As it was, I had an extra clementine, which was not much.  Drink extra water? Working on it.  Distract myself with other tasks? I've got work up to my eyeballs and a sister who was possibly having a baby today, four weeks early. (She did have it by the way, Natalie Grace.) That gives me plenty to think about, but it has not erased the gnawing in my stomach.

Do you experience the hollowness from time-to-time too? How do you handle it?
I'm about to go eat a slightly larger-than-average dinner and see if that takes care of it.

Today's Tastiness

I've had some requests recently to share more recipes. I thought maybe I could make it a weekly thing, where I share the recipes I make?  We'll see. This week I made two. Click the recipe title to see the full recipe.

Black Bean Chicken
This was super easy. It was an open and dump it in the slow cooker kind of meal.  I added a package of frozen corn and a package of frozen peas to up the veggie content, although next time I might replace the peas with some other vegetable..  I left out the rice and was going to cook it separately, as I saw a lot of comments on the recipe that said that made it mushy.  However, when I sat down to eat it, there was so much food to a portion I didn't think I actually needed the rice. It was really good. Here's the finished product:

Crustless Spinach, Onion and Feta Quiche
Now something you may not know about me is that I hate eggs. They are revolting to me.  They have always grossed me out, especially the smell. Mainly this affects breakfast, especially when you're getting fast food (Of course, I don't do that so much any more) because every bloody breakfast sandwich has a disgusting sheet of egg on it. But I digress.  I'm trying to be a bit more grown-up in my approach to egg, plus eggs have a lot of protein, so when I saw this recipe and the picture looked pretty tasty, I thought I'd give it a whirl. I added green peppers to the spinach and onion to up the veggie quotient. It was pretty good hot, but rewarmed today for lunch was not the greatest thing.

Here are some pics of the progress.

Egg. Gross.



Added the veggies.


  

Finished product.



Run for Your Life

So just when I was on the verge of a serious pre-race panic, today I had the best run (physically, mentally and emotionally) of the last few months.

Hold on to your seats, folks, this is where it gets exciting. Cindy and I did 6 miles today in one hour and 8 minutes, which included only 4 minutes of walking! I still can't believe it myself. That means we logged over an hour of solid running time!  AND, wait for it, much of it was on snow and/or mud!  I can not tell you how hard it is to run on either of these surfaces.  When running through mud, your feet get suctioned in and you have to pull a little with each step to keep moving. Plus, the whole time you're thinking "gross, gross, ick, ick." (There was a lot of squealing out of both of us.) Snow, while not as slick as ice, can still be slippery; you have to constantly brace yourself so you won't fall on your bum (neither of us did).

Basically, the above paragraph could be summarized by saying: we are hardcore.

Prior to today, the longest I've run since October was when I did 3.5 miles the day after Christmas (and blogged about it.) The day after that I started getting sick, I ended up taking a week off and then when I got back into it, I had lost a lot of stamina.  Since then I've only been doing  a few miles at a time and even then I've been walking a lot instead of running.

But it helps to have a partner. We both agreed today that we would not have gotten far without the other to keep us company ( in the beginning) or push us when we wanted to quit (nearer the end).

Cindy is also my partner for the Hot Chocolate 10k (6.1 miles) in Asheville next Saturday. Asheville, as most of you should know, is considered mountainous, but this race is billed as "Asheville's flatest 10k!" This is exceptionally good, since I kind of refuse to train on hills.  I've looked at the course online and it appears to be mostly flat with one sweet downhill at the beginning and one horrific uphill right at the end.

Today's run was a big confidence booster, and I feel ready to take on the 10k!

PS It is beautiful to run in a snowy setting. See below.

Today's Challenge

So after turning a small corner yesterday and actually feeling some positivity, today I got smacked with a challenge first thing.  I walked out the door this morning without my lunch.  The weird thing is I also forgot my snacks. I remembered them while I was putting my gym bag in the car and went back in the house for them, but completely forget the lunch until I got to work and went to put it in the fridge.  Crazy!

Anyway, I had four options:

1. Go out to lunch (boo! I would not be able to eat my lunch from home like I had promised myself I would.)
2. Go home for my whole lunch hour and skip the gym altogether (boo! I had also promised myself five workouts this week and skipping today's would set me back)
3. Skip lunch and try to exist only on snacks for the day. 
4. Make a mad dash to the house to get the lunch and then go to the gym for 35-40 minutes.

I ruled out #1 and #2 pretty quickly. I think writing yesterday's post helped with that.  It just made me better prepared mentally when the challenge came up. I was seriously considering #3; there are days when that would be a valid option. (Although, please note that I do not advocate skipping meals, nor do I hardly ever skip a meal.) Today, however, I was starving by 11 a.m., and I had already had one of my precious snacks, which means I would've never made it without lunch. That left me only with option #4.

So, I did it!  I raced home and back in 15 minutes. Bonnie (my beautiful Golden Retreiver) was highly confused to see me home in the middle of the day, but she didn't seem to mind. I went over to the gym with Monica, my regular lunch time work out partner, and got to walk for 10 minutes before hitting up the weight room. 

Hooray for mental preparation and will power! 

Cookies 'N Fruit

Two updates:
1) I did pretty well on the cookie baking this weekend. I made the PB blossoms on Friday and only ate two! I put the rest in the freezer, and feel pretty confident that I won't be touching them. I ate a few more of the Hershey Kisses as I was unwrapping them than I should've though. I did slightly less stellar with the cut-outs I made on Saturday. I ate a few...only the broken ones, but I'm not exactly sure how many.  Maybe about five or six?  That sounds like a lot, but I did exercise some restraint and I refuse to feel guilty about it. I mean, I did make them because I like to eat them. I just don't need to eat them all at once. I put the rest in the freezer.

The whole time I was making both of these, I was thinking: "Why am I putting myself through this?"  My family would live without Christmas cookies, and really be better off for it. No one asked me to make them; I took it upon myself.  But as I was rolling out the cookie dough Saturday afternoon, I remembered. It's because I love doing it. It's so much fun, trying to get the cookie cutters to fit together so you get the most use out of your dough. I know how to do every step of it so well, because my mom did such a good job teaching us to bake. I am so lucky for that.  Making these cookies makes me feel close to her even when we're six hours a part.

Here's a pic of the finished product:

My roommate, Jen, is a cookie decorating
artist.  All of the best ones are her designs.

2) I've decided that pomegranates are a super-powered fruit.  Ever since I first tried them a couple of weeks ago, I've been adding a spoonful or two to my traditional breakfast: Kashi cereal, blueberries (or strawberries) and almond milk.  This little difference has been keeping me full until lunch time daily.  I no longer need a mid-morning snack. Before I started adding the pomegranate seeds, I would be starving by 10 a.m. Also, the second time I went to kill and skin the pomegranate was MUCH easier and I only had minimal clean up involved.  

I've also been enjoying kiwi somewhat regularly since I first tried it on the blog. I have not had any more grapefruit, okra, or cranberries since I first tasted them for the blog (although I'm not ruling out okra).  Wait a second, that's not exactly true. At Thanksgiving, my brother and sister and I dared each other to eat the fresh cranberries a few times, because they are really that disgusting.

The Cookie Challenge

When December rolled around, I had this incredible urge to bake.  I never bake. Cookies, brownies, muffins, breads, I make none of it.  Primarily because if I bake it, I will eat it. 

But it's Christmas time and Christmas time means baked goods to take to parties, to share at work and to enjoy with family. Of course the longer I fought off the urge to bake, the more I wanted to do it.  I adopted this attitude, of "Why shouldn't I be able to make and enjoy my favorite cookies this holiday season? What's wrong with me that I have to outlaw all of my favorite foods from my house?"  I was really being pretty rational about it thinking that I could bake the cookies and enjoy a few, but then take some home to family, take some to a few parties, etc.  I really don't have to eat all that I bake. Isn't the best part of baking about sharing anyway?

There are two cookies that are my absolute favorite in the month of December (and really any other month), peanut butter blossoms and Christmas cut-out cookies. 


Peanut Butter Blossoms






My mom has always baked these at Christmas time, and I have great memories of helping her roll out the cookie dough, cut out the shapes and later, ice the cookies.  Mom won't be doing as much baking this year because of her need to live gluten-free, which gives me even more of a reason to bake n' share with family. 

I made the dough for both last night and will bake the cookies this weekend. I'm a little nervous and unsure about whether I can bake these delicious cookies in my house and not gobble them all up.  I succeeded in not taste-testing any of the dough, but that's not nearly as difficult as resisting the smell.  I suppose we shall wait and see.

*To be clear, these pictures are not pictures of my cookies. I stole these images from the internet.

Over-prepared and Under-prepared

I was super prepared for this week. I had written this post last weekend about the food challenges I could anticipate in the week ahead. This turned out to be a great thing. It got me thinking and planning about how I would tackle each event; it gave me a game plan.  I did great food-wise this week and made it to 97 pounds lost at my weigh-in on Thursday.

The weird thing was that this week I thought so much about Monday through Thursday that when Friday came, and I hadn't thought about it at all. So today, when I was kind of tired and not feeling the mid-day work out and suddenly* found myself thinking that I needed to eat lunch out, I had no defense against this train of thought because I had given Friday no advance thought. (Note, I did have a prepared meal for today's lunch available.) An unscheduled lunch out on a Friday is a particularly poor choice because I usually eat dinner out with friends on Friday and eating out two meals in one day makes it virtually impossible to stay within your calorie count for the day.  

Anyway, I went to Moe's with a friend and suddenly* found myself thinking, "Well, if I'm going to eat out, why not 'go all out' and order the Billy Barou." The Billy Barou is their nachos, which I love, but are practically a full day's worth of calories. I came so close to ordering them, I really did. The guy at the counter even had to wait while I had an internal battle with myself about. He was seriously staring at me for like 30-45 seconds while I was debating about it. (This is after debating it the whole time I was waiting in line to order.)

In the end, I ordered the Joey Jr. burrito, which is one of the better options, calorie-wise.  Victory #1 of the day.  I was still certain I would eat dinner out though, just because I always eat dinner out on Fridays.  However, after work I decided to do my weekly grocery shopping early to get it out of the way before a busy weekend.  After spending 45 minutes shopping for healthy food, I decided to go home and eat the chicken dish that I was supposed to eat for lunch today and didn't, instead of going out with friends.  Victory #2 of the day.

Against all odds, I met my regular food goals today: I stayed within my calorie count, ate all five servings of fruits and vegetables and I drank all of my water. I didn't work out, but I think my body deserved the rest. It was a successful day, even though it was a battle. Now I'm beginning to think about the week ahead. I want to be as dedicated in the upcoming week as I was this past week, because even though I have no big events on my schedule, there are no easy weeks. I need to be ever vigilant as I close in on my goal!


*I love how I use the word "suddenly" in this blog. I am very good at sneaking up on myself!

Galloping Grapefruits!

So this week's fruity challenge was a grapefruit.   I needed no help knowing how to eat it.  My mom used to eat this for breakfast all the time when I was younger.  I'm sure she offered me some from time to time, but something about it having pulp the color of flesh kept me away.  Plus, I never ate any citrus for most of my childhood.

It's also thanks to mom that I had this particular grapefruit to eat.  She had purchased some band fruit (note to non-band people, this is when the band sells crates and crates of citrus to friends and family to raise money for uniforms, trips, etc.  We sold a lot of citrus in the Stuckey house during the late 80s and 90s.), and suggested I take a grapefruit back with me from the visit at her house to try as a future fruity experiment.

Anyway, it was a lot like an orange, except slightly lighter in color and slightly larger. I sliced it open and dug into it with a spoon. It was SUPER juicy.  Each little divot I made with my spoon produced a flood and/or geyser of juice.  It was a good thing I was wearing my protective eyewear (i.e. my glasses instead of contacts), cause that sucker could squirt.  It made me wish I had just stuck a straw in it from the outside, like they used to show in the Tropicana commercials.

Also. it did not taste like the flesh it looked like.  It tasted very similar to an orange, but even more acidic.  I ended up just tipping it up like a cup and drinking a lot of the juice.  I don't know if they're all like that or if I just got an extra juicy one.  Anyway, I think that if I'm going to choose a citrus for a snack, then I will choose clementines.  No fuss, no muss, no eyewear needed for clementines.

Did you know there is a whole crash diet scheme built around grapefruit? From Web MD:

The premise of the Grapefruit Diet is based on an alleged "magical" ingredient in grapefruits, that, when eaten with protein, theoretically triggers fat burning and causes weight loss. The diet is designed to promote fast weight loss; unfortunately, the weight lost is primarily from fluids and not fat and generally returns as soon as the dieter goes off the diet.


Anyway, you have to eat half a grapefruit with every meal, so I don't think I'll be trying that any time soon! Just kidding, I know that the best way to lose weight is through a well-balanced diet and exercise.  

Time to Put Down the Peanut Butter

Another edition of memory Mondays...

Man, I love peanut butter.  It's such a rich flavor with a lovely aroma. It's creamy goodness. While peanut butter is high in fat, it is considered a healthy fat and because it is also high in protein, it is often a key ingredient in diet plans.  Many diets suggest a TB of peanut butter on a slice of bread, sticks of celery, an apple, etc. for a quick snack idea. It's one of the many reasons I love PB. It's so versatile, and it goes well with so many things, not just jelly.

This summer I adopted sort of an unhealthy addiction to peanut butter.  I was using it as a topping for my individual servings of ice cream or just eating it straight out of the jar.  I often had enough calories left at the end of the day for a spoonful of peanut butter to be an okay end to my dinner, and I told myself that the protein in it would help me stay full so I wouldn't snack at night.  The problem was that it was never just a spoonful (Betcha Can't Eat Just One could also be a great peanut butter slogan.).

I was telling my friend, Abi, about this one day on the phone when I was lamenting a weight gain.  I told her I knew what the problem was, it was the peanut butter. I was overindulging with it.  She said right then, "You've got to take the jar you have, throw it away and don't buy any more."

I don't think I really even tried to argue with her much, because I knew what she said was true.  I knew I was abusing it, and it's not low in calories so it was really packing a punch on my diet goals.  We both agreed that I could still have peanut butter if it was at someone else's house or as part of a meal out at a restaurant, but I haven't bought another jar to keep in my cupboard since.

It's kind of sad that I had to take this extreme measure, but .it was causing me to stumble on my way to achieving my goals.  Abi and I also agreed that when I make it to 100 pounds lost I can buy another jar as a reward.  Hopefully, I will have learned from my mistakes and won't let my relationship with peanut butter get out of control again.

Pomegranate

So this week's fruit experiment is a pomegranate!  I was inspired to try this when my friend Kati mentioned she was going to a Pom party and then I saw that the display at the store included a brochure devoted to teaching you how to eat a pomegranate.  I thought a brochure was perfect as I'm never really sure what I'm doing when it comes to eating strange fruit and brochures are really comforting to me.The brochure, as it turns out, was pretty essential, as there were six different steps included in the brochure before you could eat it.

Brochure? Yes, please.

Okay, I could not get the picture to rotate, but here's the brochure, so you can catch my drift. Basically, pomegranates are all about the seeds. You cut the litle guy open and there are hundreds of seeds nestled inside.  The seeds are called arils (see what having a brochure gets you?).  It takes a while to pry them all from the clutches of the pomegranate.  Also, as you're prying them out of it, you accidentally smush a bunch, which sprays juice everywhere and makes your kitchen sink look like a small animal was killed and skinned in it.

So, the whole thing took me about 10 minutes, between the cutting and the prying, the straining out the extraneous bits and the cleaning up. At which point I was thinking it was a lot of work, plus I was overwhelmed with a bowl full of pomegranate seeds. There was no way I could eat them all tonight.  Thankfully, the helpful brochure told me "the juicy arils can be enjoyed for 7 to 10 days after opening the pomegranate. Just make sure you store and refrigerate them in a sealed container. Pom appetit!"

I'm trying to show you how bloody a process this was...

So I went ahead and chowed down on a few.  I really liked the flavor, very sweet without being too sweet. They're seeds too, so they're kind of crunchy.  All around, a pretty great snack.  Sparkpeople tells me a whole pomegranate is only 100 calories, but I would never eat all those seeds at once.  I only had a few spoonfuls, and I'll add the rest to my cereal for the next few days.

The whole bowlful after completing the process

Have you ever tried pomegranates?  Did you think it was worth the work?  I kind of think I would rather try buy just the juice next time...

Those Crazy Cranberries

At the store this week I could not figure out what to try for my fruity/veggie experiment this week.  While last week's okra strut turned out way better than I could've expected, it kind of scared me off trying vegetables.  They just don't look very appealing, when compared to fruits, and take a bit more work in preparation. 

This week when I saw a bag of cranberries at a reasonable price, I grabbed them. Have you ever seen cranberries? They're pretty cute little red balls. They look pretty tasty and I enjoy dried cranberries when they top a fancy salad, so I thought the fresh ones had to be pretty good.

Boy, was I wrong.  These little guys pack an incredible punch.  They are pucker yo' face tart.  The kind of taste that takes you about 30 seconds to physically to recover from.  I tried a bunch of them, thinking at first that I was just eating ones that were not good/ripe or whatever.  But, no, they all tasted like that.  Now that I'm thinking of it, I should've videoed it for you.  It would probably have been pretty funny to watch.  

So then I was thinking, "Well, great, now I'm stuck with a whole bag of these painful-to-eat little guys" when I noticed a recipe for cranberry sauce right on the bag. It was basically water, sugar and cranberries, all of which I had in my cupboards, plus I figured adding sugar to these berries was the only way they'd ever be edible.  

Now, you'll have to forgive me, but I'm not very familiar with cranberry sauce.  My mom doesn't make it for Thanksgiving.  So I got this liquid red stuff and then I wasn't sure what to do with it.  It wasn't thick like jello, but liquid. Was I supposed to eat it like soup? I felt like it should be put on top of something, like maybe ice cream, but I don't keep ice cream in the house any more.  So I put it over Cool Whip, and I'll tell you what, it was pretty tasty! No longer tart and not too sweet, but just right. However, I would appreciate it if someone could tell me how you're actually supposed to eat it.  Let me know - or if you have any suggestions on how I should cook the other half of the bag.

Okra Strut

 I lived about one third of my life in a town called Irmo, where every fall they celebrate the Okra Strut. This two-day street festival celebrates all things okra, but mostly the fried kind.  We went every year. Between the Friday night block party or the Saturday morning parade it was a big deal in my young life.  They always had an okra-eating contest, but in all those years I never once tasted any okra. A typical kid, green vegetables were not exactly my favorite food.

So I was excited to try okra until I saw it in the grocery store (actually, mom had to point it out to me). I didn't know what it looked like, and when I saw this knobby little thing I was not eager to cook it. First, with the fruits I've been trying lately, I've only bought a couple. With with the okra, I had to buy a whole carton. It was intimidating.

Tonight armed with not one, but two, suggestions on how to cook it, I sliced up the whole carton. Half I sauteed with a little extra virgin olive oil (a suggestion from April) and the other half I baked on cookie sheet (a suggestion from Britt).  Let me tell you, it was really good both ways.  The baked ones tasted really fresh, while the sauteed ones had a different flavor.  It's hard to say which method I found tastier, but I think it would be the baked variety.  I ate almost the whole carton, which is not bad since each pod is only two calories.  

Here's what they look like, in case you don't know either.

Kiwi, please

So, I got a lot of response to my fruity experiment last week. Several people suggested kiwi, including my granny, so I decided to give it a try. In all honesty, I have had kiwi once or twice before, but I've never bought it and cut it up for myself so there was still some adventure to it.   They are super sweet fruits that are brown on the outside and green with lots of tiny black seeds on the inside.

I had two of these little guys tonight for dinner.  I had two recommendations from readers on how to eat them.  Meghan suggested I cut them in half and then scoop out the delish green stuff with a spoon, thus creating a bowl out of the brown hairy shell.  I tried this with the first one. It was so easy! Some fruits take a lot of effort to get at the good stuff, but this was simple. Here are a few pictures:

Here it is, mid scoop.

Here are the cute little bowls after they've been scooped clean!

There was also a recommendation that I eat the peel from Jess, and while I thought I would likely choke when the brown hairy stuff hit my throat, I have to say it was not bad.  It actually was kind of a nice complement to the super sweetness of the inside of the kiwi.  I ate it like an apple and it was definitly easier to bite through the brown hairy skin than the shiny red skin of an apple.

I ate the whole thing like an apple.

For some reason, I didn't eat the white part at the center on this one,it just tasted funny and I wasn't sure if I was supposed to eat it.   But then later I realized I did eat the white part of the other one that I had  scooped the bowl clean on.

Okay, so other suggestions I got include: okra, collard greens, avocado, and egg plant. Stay tuned for next week to see what I try next!

In other news, I decided to switch my daily snack of one banana this week.  I've just been getting really tired of them.  So after my race on Saturday and the delicious post-race snack of orange slices, that's what I decided to eat. They've been great and perfect for fighting this slight cold I have.  Only problem is the tangerines I bought are full of seeds.  Any recommendations on a seedless citrus?