The Nifty Foodie

A couple of late gifts..

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After a couple of months for no personal purchases, because of the holidays, I decided to put some money towards me!

The great thing is, I got each of these for quite a steal. I saved about $100 alone on these two items!

First gift to me were new shoes for work. I’m a flat shoes gal, thus the reason I chose the moniker of Mrs. Ballet Flat on Weddingbee. My current flats had the sole separating from the shoe, so some new ones were needed!

These retail on Nordstrom for $95, but RueLaLa had them for $45. I would never spend $45 on work shoes, ever. (Yeah, I’m cheap…) However, I had a $30 credit, essentially paying $15 for these! (plus shipping and handling)

For this next gift to me, I love to bake. I get even more excited with pretty kitchen stuff. I’ve been lusting over some Emile Henry bakeware, but again, I just couldn’t justify the $$ to spend on it. These retail for $45 each, but this pie dish was $25 on One Kings Lane. I had a $10 credit for this site, so the pie dish became $15 (plus shipping and handling).

I am so excited about the gifts to myself, but more importantly, I love a good deal, which makes it even more exciting!

I’m sure most of you are members of either sites, but if you are interested, here’s a brief description of each, with a link to an invite since these sites are invite only. 🙂

RueLaLa (invite) sells mostly clothes, but they sometimes sell home decor, kitchen stuff, accessories and makeup for up to 70% off.

One Kings Lane (www.onekingslane.com/invite/joinokl) sells mainly home decor items, but they also offer accessories, and kitchen stuff for huge discounts!

Have you gotten any good deals since the holidays?

Oops!

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Seems like I nearly forgot about today! I’m at a wedding, eating muffulettas and watching people jam to “We are family” which must be the longest song ever..

Oh yeah and people are randomly yelling “Who Dat!”…..seems like you can’t forget an NFL team in Louisiana no matter the occasion….sigh.

Anyway, I won’t be able to write a real post today but I’ll bring pictures here soon!

Oh El Nino!

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I appreciate you for killing the hurricane season of 2009. However, I have a bone to pick with you now.

Winter season…El Nino, you are seriously geographically confused. See, this is Louisiana. Louisiana doesn’t see weather in the 20s, much less hear/see snow almost 3 times in one season.

I don’t want to wait until Tuesday to see lows in the 40s, so if you’d like to send Louisiana a nice surprise of sunshine, that would be most excellent.

Signed,

Lady who only has sleeveless dresses and has to attend a wedding tomorrow

Herb Roasted Chicken Breast

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Since my husband and I are trying to eat healthier, I thought a simple roasted chicken would work well for dinner. I didn’t really follow a recipe at all this time, so I guess you could say this is an original. It does involve butter, but hey, it’s not that much really. The skin does come out super crispy, but I opted not to eat mine. This is for two people, but this can easily be doubled, tripled, whatever. It’s a really flexible recipe and easy to do!

Herb Roasted Chicken Breast

Ingredients:

  • 2 bone-in chicken breasts
  • 2 tbsp. butter (Edit: The second time, I used canola oil instead since butter seemed to smoke up the house. It worked MUCH better.)
  • 3 tbsp. freshly chopped basil
  • 3 tbsp. freshly chopped parsley
  • 2 tsp. salt
  • 2 tsp. freshly ground black pepper
  • 1 tsp. onion powder
  • 1 tsp. garlic powder

Directions:

  1. Preheat your oven to 400 degrees.
  2. Wash and dry chicken in the sink. Add salt/pepper under and over the skin of the chicken.
  3. Knead the butter in your hands until it is fairly soft. Add in the basil, parsley, onion powder and garlic powder. Mix until thoroughly combined.
  4. Add herbed butter to the chicken under and over the skin of the chicken
  5. Bake for 1 hr or until juices run clear on the chicken.

The Skinny (with skin/no skin) – per serving, serves 2:
Calories: 262.9/191.3
Fat: 19.7 g/12.5 g
Fiber 0.5 g/ 0.5 g

Sabotage Attempts

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Wednesday was a real battle. I was saving my calories for a dinner that was going to be pretty calorie hefty, so my lunch and breakfast was pretty light.

Around 2pm, my work had a birthday club meeting, which included fruit pizza and ice cream. Not just any ice cream, Blue Bell’s Homemade Vanilla Ice Cream. That stuff is amazing to me. I walked into the meeting and a few people asked me if I wanted some of the dessert. I politely declined, looked down at my out of control belly and said “I’m just keeping true to my resolution.”

I didn’t want to offend my coworker who graciously made the fruit pizza, but I wanted to be selfish and keep those calories I had been saving for that night. Some of my coworkers offered it again, mentioning that it was just fruit. JUST FRUIT? Just fruit, cookie crust and cream cheese frosting….ugh. So tempting, I promise you, but I just kept insisting, saying thank you, and ended up leaving the room.

That afternoon, I get home and there is a box on my door step. Not just any box, though.

My grandma is such a sweetheart. See, my husband’s cake for the wedding was this.

Image taken by Amanda Meyer Photography

Our wedding was in May, but who doesn’t love king cake outside of the season? And yes, king cakes are traditionally purple, gold and green, but it’s not Carnival season and well, we made it into an LSU king cake instead!

We completely forgot about the plastic baby in the cake, and evidently, my grandma got it! Tradition is, whoever gets the baby buys the next king cake. So, my grandma insisted on getting us a king cake.

So, she got us a king cake on Kings Day, which is the 12th day of Christmas, when Carnival season officially starts. I’ll say this was such a sweet surprise, especially to my husband. Why is that? Well, it was lemon filled and lemon is his absolute FAVORITE. As you can see, the top tier of the (groom’s) king cake was lemon filled.

Guess who hates lemon dessert ANYTHING? That’s right, me. I’ll admit, I tried to get a slice that looked like it had little filling, but even that little bit made me wanna gag. So, while it was a completely awesome gesture of her, this will not ruin my diet whatsoever. We’re going to freeze this cake in individual slices for the hubs though. There’s NO way he can finish this cake!

For now, potential sabotages have been put under control. I can’t wait to see what the scale shows after week 1! 🙂

Darn you, Water!

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I admitted my starting weight to y’all a few days ago and yesterday morning, I was absolutely confused.

264 lbs.

Huh?? How did I go from 272 to 264? I know, I know, water weight, but REALLY? I’ve NEVER lost that much so quickly before! It’spretty solid there too…I was 264.6 this morning.

Odd indeed. I mean, 8 lbs. I promise you I’m not starving myself or working out Biggest Loser style either. I can’t complain though. I’m back to my pre-wedding-diet weight.

Have you ever had such a huge fluctuation in weight when starting a diet/healthier lifestyle?

Out of Control…

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…is a gross understatement.

I tipped the scales at a hefty 272 lbs. as of this morning. (My heaviest before the wedding was 264 lbs.) After holiday baking and holiday cooking, I went way overboard. I was still working out 1-2 times/week, but I never watched my diet.

It needs to change. I feel super lousy, constantly tired and just miserable.My pants are tight, too tight in fact, to where it’s painful to sit in the morning (I wear stretch style pants).

So, I’m not setting monthly goals, weight wise. I’m not setting up rewards. I just want to get healthy and feel better about myself day to day.

I’ll give you guys weekly updates with weight and measurements, though. If I happen to lose a lot of weight on this journey, yay for me! If not, at least I’m trying and at this point, I think an honest effort is definitely in order.

Wish me luck!

101 in 1001 Progress

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It’s been a while since I looked at my 101 in 1001 list. I surprised myself with how many things are done/in progress at this time. I need to get some things done this year though…lots left to do!

Not done – 55/101
In progress – 14.5/101
Completed – 31.5/101

I obviously have a category that stands out with a lot of “not dones” (cough…health and fitness…cough), so I think that should, of course, be a huge focus now. 🙂

Stay tuned for the brutal truth that has really led me to make my health and fitness a huge priority. It’s coming soon, I promise!

Bacon does make everything better..

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Happy New Years everyone! I hope you had a great 2009, and here’s to a truly awesome new year and decade!

After looking through the archives, I’ve found the primary reason for my weight gain since the wedding in May: this blog doesn’t have much “skinny” food anymore! So, I’m really going to strive to bring back the “skinny” recipes to this blog, since this blog’s title, after all, is Skinny Food by Amy. While I’m gonna miss the cheesecake and candy, I think I need to go back to the reason that I started this blog: to lose weight and still enjoy food. I hope you all enjoy the journey! 🙂

Now, here comes a not-so-skinny recipe…sorry folks!

My husband and I have enjoyed the Cooking Light recipe for pot roast for a while now. I was curious to see what else is out there, though. So, I found this pot roast recipe on Epicurious that involves the ever-so-famous bacon! I was pretty excited to get away from turkey bacon for a day, so I bought some thick cut smoked bacon at the store  for this recipe. I totally forgot how much grease is in real bacon…whoa. Needless to say, this recipe won’t be a regular in our diets, but it was a yummy indulgence. Bacon really does make everything better, trust me!

Pot Roast
Source: adapted from Bon Appetit

Ingredients:

  • 2 teaspoons chopped fresh thyme
  • 2 teaspoons Hungarian sweet paprika
  • 2 teaspoons coarse kosher salt
  • 2 teaspoons freshly ground black pepper
  • 1 teaspoon dry mustard
  • 1 teaspoon (packed) golden brown sugar
  • 1 3-pound boneless rump roast
  • 6 ounces thick cut bacon, sliced into 1/2 inch pieces
  • 2 cups dry red wine
  • 1/2 cup low-salt chicken broth
  • 2 large onions, thinly sliced
  • 12 small shallots, peeled
  • 12 garlic cloves, peeled
  • 3 bay leaves
  • 4 large carrots (about 1 pound), peeled, cut into 1-inch pieces
  • 3 medium potatoes, peeled, cut into 1-inch cubes

Directions:

  1. Preheat oven to 350°F. Mix first 6 ingredients in small bowl. Rub spice blend all over beef. Cut 6 slits in beef and insert a clove of garlic in each slit.
  2. Cook bacon in a dutch oven over medium heat until browned and lightly crisp. Using slotted spoon, transfer bacon to paper towels to drain. Pour off all but 2 tablespoons drippings from pot. Increase heat to medium-high. Add beef and cook until browned on all sides, about 12 minutes total. Transfer beef to plate. Add red wine to pot; bring to boil, scraping up browned bits. Boil until reduced to 1/2 cup, about 5 minutes. Add broth and bacon. Place beef atop bacon. Scatter onions, shallots, remainder of garlic, and bay leaves around beef.
  3. Cover pot, transfer to oven, and roast 1 hour. Turn beef over; stir onions. Cover and roast 1 hour longer, adding water by 1/4 cupfuls if dry. Transfer beef to plate. Add carrots and potatoes to pot; stir to coat. Place beef atop vegetables, cover, and roast until beef and vegetables are tender, about 45 minutes longer. Transfer beef to platter. Spoon off fat from surface of sauce and remove bay leaves. Season sauce to taste with salt and pepper. Pour sauce over beef and serve.

Looking back…

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HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYONE!

I can’t believe how quickly the past decade went by. I remember the freak-out of Y2K, and how weird it would be to say the 00s, rather than the 90s or the 80s.

Let’s see if I can remember some highlights of each year…

  • 2000 – made it into district honor band (I might not have mentioned that I played clarinet for 11 years of my life), played my first solo at a concert
  • 2001 – got my hair professionally highlighted for the first time ever (for prom), g0t my driver’s license, played trombone for fun in marching band
  • 2002 – graduated high school, started college at LSU, played clarinet in TigerBand
  • 2003 – became an RA (resident assistant) in the res halls on campus and really faced independence
  • 2004 – changed to a Geography major after falling in LOVE with my meteorology class.
  • 2005 – Hurricane Katrina hit NOLA (not a highlight, but that’s a huge thing that occurred), got promoted to SRA (senior resident assistant), oh yeah and I took my first calculus class…eesh..
  • 2006 – was elected President of LSU’s chapter of Silver Wings, started my final year of college, worked at a news station where I learned about broadcast meteorology (I even made a resume tape!), started dating my husband
  • 2007 – got the LSU Legacy award for leaders, got invited to a swanky leader party at the chancellor’s house, graduated from LSU, got my first job at the Army Corps of Engineers in NOLA (and learned a TON about the levee system)
  • 2008 – started my food blog, got engaged, started a blog for wedding planning and became a blogger for Weddingbee
  • 2009 – lost 20 lbs., got married,started this blog, gained 25 lbs. back (more on this later…ugh)

Needless to say, a LOT happened this decade.

Of course, there are resolutions…there are always resolutions!

  • This month, I’m NaBloPoMo’ing it up again! Get ready for 31 posts, folks!
  • I’m getting back on the weight loss/health train. More on this in another post to come.
  • Drab to (hopefully) fab. Gotta love how cheap I am. I have 5 shirts that I have in constant rotation at work, and they are getting stretched out. My socks have holes, bras are stretched out, pants are wayy too big and fading, etc.  Time for a new wardrobe, slowly, but surely.