A scale and a non-scale victory!

First of all, since starting my low-carb diet two weeks ago, I’m down 15 pounds!! I realize some of that is water weight, but not all of it, cause my pants are loser, so I’m thrilled! I plan to continue this through thanksgiving, take a few days off, and then go till Christmas. My goal is to start the new year at 225 pounds, which is completely reasonable, I think. That would be only another 17 pounds to go. I definitely think I can do that in a month and a half!

My non scale victory today was amazing to me… I changed my own flat tire on my car this morning!! ALL BY MYSELF!!

I’ve had flat tires before but, quite frankly, at 400 pounds, there was no way I was getting my fat ass down to the ground to raise up my car, lug heavy tires back and forth, and look like a gross, sweaty, grunting beached whale floundering around beside my vehicle. No way.

But today, I didn’t even think twice. I was strong enough to do it all, and I didn’t even sweat! Not even a tiny bit! (granted, it was about 45 degrees out, so that helped, but still!)

So yeah, something that most people can do without a second though because a huge victory for me today. I feel so great about myself today. :)

Almond Mushroom Green Beans

This is a great side dish for when you find really nice, firm, fresh, whole green beans in the produce section of your grocery store and want a simple recipe that will really let the beans shine through.

If you need to use frozen beans, I recommend a different recipe or sauce, as this one is very minimalistic and won’t cover up any bad beans.

Don’t even consider trying this with canned beans. That’s just kitchen blasphemy.


Ingredients…

1 lb fresh green beans, stem ends removed
¼ cup slivered almonds
6 oz mushrooms, sliced
2 tbsp butter
4 cloves garlic, pressed or finely minced (adjust garlic more or less to your taste is desired)


What to do…

1. Blanch the green beans – drop your green beans into a pot of rapidly boiling water and allow them to cook for only 3-4 minutes.


2. Remove beans from boiling water and IMMEDIATELY drop them into a bowl of ice water to shock the beans (this helps them keep their beautiful bright green color) and stop the cooking process so they don’t turn soft. At this point, your green beans should still be fairly crunchy, but not raw. Now you can drain the beans so they have a chance to dry while you're preparing the sauce.



3. Toast your almonds – lay them out on a piece of foil on a baking sheet in a single layer. Bake at 350 for about 5 minutes until just golden brown. Don’t let it go to long, they go from golden to burnt very quickly!



4. In a nonstick skillet, melt your butter over medium-low heat.


5. Add your garlic, continue cooking over LOW to give the garlic time to permeate the butter without burning. Stir frequently. Cook for up to five minutes ensuring garlic doesn’t start looking too brown (burnt garlic = BITTER!)


6. Stir in your mushrooms and cook until soft and brown.


7. Stir in Almonds and green beans.




8. Mix thoroughly and serve with my delicious mushroom topped, cheese-stuffed chicken!




Nutrition info for 1/6th of the recipe...

Mushroom topped, cheese-stuffed chicken

The name pretty much says it all! Chicken breasts pounded out flat, topped with cheese, rolled up and baked, and topped with a mushroom cream sauce.

This was served with some really delicious Almond Mushroom Green Beans.

Take note, this chicken is a two-day recipe. Day one is the stuffing and rolling, and then you need to let the chicken rolls sit overnight so that they hold their shape when you cook them on day two.

Hope you enjoy!

Makes six servings… recipe can be easily multiplied or divided depending on your needs.

Ingredients…

Chicken rolls:
6 boneless skinless chicken breasts
1 tsp each of salt, pepper, garlic powder
12 oz of your favorite cheese (I used 6oz gouda and 6oz muenster)

Sauce:
3 tbs butter
12 oz mushrooms, sliced
Pinch salt
1 can chicken broth
½ cup heavy cream


What to do…

Day 1: Chicken prep

1. Pound your chicken breasts to about ¼ inch thick. Normally I see instructions to do this between two sheets of plastic wrap, but I don’t think it works well that way – it all kind of moves around, the plastic wrap sticks to itself, it’s just a mess. The easiest way I’ve found to do this is to lay each chicken breast on a cutting board, top with a gallon-size ziplock bag and pound away. No saran wrap sticking to anything when you go to move it!



2. Prepare/portion your cheese – slice up your cheese into finger-size pieces a little smaller than the width of the pounded chicken. Split into six equal portions so you can easily grab each portion as you prepare each chicken breast.


3. Top each chicken breast with a bit of the salt, pepper, and garlic powder, and 2oz of the cheese and roll up. Your chicken breasts may not look perfect or be shaped well, but don’t worry! Just wrap it all up as best as possible and tuck all the ends under.



4. Roll the chicken up tightly in foil. This will help it hold its shape during cooking.


5. Refrigerate overnight.

Day 2:
Part 1 – Cook the chicken

1. Unwrap all the chicken breasts and place in a greased baking dish. Lightly salt and pepper the tops of all breasts.



2. Place under the broiler in the oven for about 10 minutes to brown the tops.



3. Continue baking at 350 degrees until a thermometer inserted in the center of a rollup reads 155 degrees.

4. Remove chicken from the oven and let rest for at least 10 minutes before serving. The temperature will continue to rise as it sits, and can be served after it hits 160 degrees.



Part 2 – Make the sauce

1. In a skillet (either stainless steel or nonstick, it really doesn’t matter), melt butter over medium heat. Add Mushrooms and a pinch of salt, cook until softened, but not fully cooked.




2. Stir in chicken broth, simmer until reduced by half.



3. Stir in heavy cream and continue simmering until again reduced by half.





Part 3 – Serve

1. Top your chicken with your mushroom sauce, serve with my Almond and Mushroom Green Beans, and enjoy!!!



Nutrition info for a full chicken roll with 1/6th of the sauce. Bandsters with good restriction will probably only want half, especially with green beans on the side!

Cookware Cleaning Product Recommendation: Barkeeper’s Friend

Hey ya’ll!!

I’ve been doing SO MUCH cooking lately and otherwise staying super-busy, that I’m behind on about three or four great low-carb recipes I want to post. I’ll have some yummy cheese-stuffed-chicken for you sometime soon, I promise!!

In the meantime though, with all that cooking comes a lot of dirty dishes...

I was standing at my sink tonight cleaning out a severely burnt stainless steel skillet (Pan-Seared Pork Chops gone wrong!!) and had a deep, sudden urge to post about my favorite cookware-cleaning product EVER: Barkeeper’s Friend!


I bought this stuff from the grocery store a couple years ago on the recommendation of a friend and it’s been the best cleaning-product discovery I think I’ve ever had. Or at least very close! I use the Original BKF – it’s a powder that comes in a can similar to comet. Pour a little on any stained, burnt, or otherwise tortured piece of cookware, add just a tiny touch of water, scrub lightly with a brush, rag, or sponge, and viola!! It comes totally clean and looks brand new.

I use it on my high-shine, special occasion cookware, my stainless steel pots and pans, my Pyrex and Corningware baking dishes, EVERYTHING. It will make any piece of cookware look brand spanking new. No more burnt-on brown spots on baking dishes, perfectly shiny skillets… I love it.

I wish I had thought about it before I did dishes tonight or I would have taken before-and-after shots to show you proof.

Anyway, for any of you that have a hard time keeping your bakeware and cookware as clean and pretty as you would like, I highly recommend you try this product. You can find it in any general grocery store or Walmart-type place in the cleaning aisle, usually on the bottom shelf since it’s unglamorous and cheap (less than $3 for a can).

Try it! I swear on my LIFE you will love it. If you don’t, I’ll give you a $5 check straight out of my own pocket to make it up to you!

:) Cheers!

Pork Chops with Creamy Mushroom Sauce

Tonight I made a super decadent and delicious, yet very low-carb dinner of pork chops with mushroom cream sauce that I found on recipezaar.com.

The sauce uses heavy cream, which is something I’ve been deathly afraid of ever since middle school when we were taught the concept of calories translating to weight gain. But the joy of a low-carb diet is that you’re actually allowed to eat fats (good fats, anyway), so I decided this was my chance to try something crazy. And let me tell you, I’m SO GLAD I did!

It was SO, so, so delicious. Rich, superbly creamy, and the mushrooms and fond from the pork chop gave it a wonderful meaty taste. It’s hard to describe. It’s a recipe that you absolutely have to make to understand.

The good thing is, once you break this recipe down into a proper bandster-size portion(about a half pork chop plus sauce), it’s really not too calorie-laden – comes in at only around 200 calories!

I hope you try, and love, this recipe!


Ingredients…

4 pork chops, 1 inch or ticker (I used three chops since that was all I had thawed and they were abnormally large)
1 tsp dried thyme, finely ground
1 tsp dried rosemary, finely ground
1 tsp salt
1 tsp fresh ground black pepper
1/2 tsp garlic powder
2 tbsp olive oil
8 oz mushroom, sliced
1/2 tbsp olive oil
Pinch salt
Pinch black pepper, freshly ground
Pinch garlic powder
1/2 c chicken broth
1/2 c heavy cream


What to do…

1. Combine thyme, rosemary, salt, pepper, and garlic powder.


2. Apply to chops on both sides. Make it thick, the entire mixture should be used.


3. Let your chops sit out on the counter for 30 minutes.

4. Heat your olive oil in large skillet (NOT non-stick! You want cast iron or regular stainless so that you build up a fond (the brown bits you get when searing meat) in the bottom of the pan to use for the sauce.) until you see little wisps of smoke.


5. Set chops in the pan, and leave them alone. Don’t move things around, or you’ll tear the herbs off.


6. Turn the heat down to medium and cook for about 4 minutes on each side.


7. Turn off the heat, cover the pan with a tight fitting lid, and let it sit for 10-12 minutes.

8. While chops are cooking, add olive oil to a non-stick skillet and begin sautéing mushrooms. Sprinkle with salt and pepper, and add the garlic powder. When mushrooms start to soften, remove from heat (don’t wait for them to cook through fully, this is just the start of the cooking).



10. Remove chops to serving platter, cover to keep warm.


11. Add mushrooms and chicken broth to the pan the chops were cooking in, turn the heat to medium. Scrape up any brown bits from the bottom of the pan.



12. Continue cooking until Mushrooms are cooked through.

13. Add heavy cream, and simmer until reduced by about half.


14. Return the chops to the pan to reheat briefly.


(^^I only returned two to the pan because I was only serving two. The other went into the fridge for leftovers)

15. Serve!



Nutrition info for 1/4th of the recipe - one full pork chop:

A soon-to-be Thanksgiving side dish tradition in my home: Crustless Spinach Muenster “Quiche”

I was looking around for a nice, low-carb veggie dish the other day and came across a Spinach Muenster Quiche recipe on allrecipies.com. It uses an entire block of cream cheese, so I was on board instantly!

With a few tiny adjustments (using Neufchatel cheese instead of full-fat cream cheese and a little less spinach, since I only had 1½ packages in my freezer) it turned out absolutely DELICIOUS! I was a little confused by the name at first, since this was named “quiche” but only had two eggs in it. After making it, I don’t think the name “quiche” fits, but that's okay. It wasn’t eggy at all, it was just cheesy spinach, totally yummy!

Spraying the cooking dish with butter spray before assembling ensured that nothing at all stuck to the dish. It came out very, very easily.

Since this is pretty rich, it will easily make 9 to 12 side-dish servings.

I plan on making this dish for Thanksgiving, and starting a new family food tradition. There are certain dishes that we’ve ALWAYS made for Thanksgiving since I was little, and I plan to add this to the roster.

You must try it, and I hope you enjoy as much as I do!!


Ingredients…

8oz sliced Muenster cheese
1½ - 2 10oz packages or frozen chopped spinach, thawed and well drained
2 eggs
1/3 cup grated parmesan
8oz package 1/3rd less fat cream cheese (Neufchatel cheese)
Salt and pepper
Garlic powder
4oz sliced Muenster cheese


Directions...

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

2. Spray a quiche dish, pie pan, or square baking dish with butter-spray.

3. Line your baking dish with the 8 ounces of Muenster cheese slices.

4. combine drained spinach with eggs, parmesan, neufchatel, salt, pepper and garlic powder and mix it really well.

5. Spoon mixture into pan and top with remaining cheese slices.

6. Bake at 350 for 35 minutes (Instructions say to decrease oven temperature by 25 degrees F if using glass pie dish).

7. Once it’s out of the oven, let it sit for 10 minutes before serving to firm up. I recommend slicing nice slices with a knife, rather than digging in with a blunt spoon, so it won’t mess up the cheese on top.

Enjoy!!




Nutrition info for 12 servings...

Highly recommended tool: Recipe Nutrition Analyzer from about.com!

I just found the COOLEST tool for nutrition planning: the Recipe Nutrition Analyzer from about.com.

Whenever I’ve wanted to know how many calories or other nutrients are in a recipe I make, I’ve always had to add everything up and divide it out by hand or on thedailyplate.com, which always takes a while and ends up being more effort than it’s worth.

So today, in searching around for a better method, I came across the Recipe Nutrition Analyzer and found that it’s SUPER-sweet and easy.

You can just copy and paste an entire recipe into one box, put in your number of servings, click “Analyze” and viola! It understands the entire recipe, no matter how it’s written and gives you an entire breakdown that looks just like a food label you would see on any packaged food:


It takes less than 15 seconds to get nutrition info on an entire homemade recipe!

I love it, and I hope someone else can get some use out of this too! I suspect I’ll be using this for all future blog recipe posts.

Enjoy!