Cheeseburger In Paradise
Victor was supposed to fly out to Dallas this afternoon. I usually eat like a slob when he's gone. My favorite meal is a chili dog with raw onions and cheese. Pure bachelor heaven.
He didn't make it out today for reasons beyond our control, so I had to think fast for dinner. What's better than a good ol' cheeseburger?
Fresh sesame kaiser rolls, bacon, avocado, heirloom tomato, dill pickle slices, alfalfa sprouts, havarti cheese, mayonnaise - and a hamburger. OMG was it good! And what a mess to eat!
Just trying to slice it in half was a chore - and taking a bite and having everything slip-and-slide all over the place was a treat. The second half was such a mess I ended up eating it with a knife and fork. We went through LOTS of napkins.
I am now really, really stuffed - and really glad Victor didn't leave today!
Tomorrow I work late, but Wednesday?!? I see a chili dog in my future...
Moore's Marinades
I've been visiting an online forum based in South Carolina. I've never really spent any time in South Carolina - and am fairly ignorant about the state. I know about Hilton Head Island and I've spent about 20 minutes in Charleston, (and know that they rank #1 in the country in dirty politics) but that's been about it. And then I started talking to the locals...
Food is the great equilizer and I started asking a few questions and reading a few entries. I spied one post that was talking about Moore's Marinade vs Dale's Seasoning. Having never heard of either, I went online to check them out.
They both sounded good, but Dale's would only ship full cases - $48.00 plus shipping. That's a lot of marinade - especially since I don't know what it tastes like!
Moore's, on the other hand, offers a 6-pack - 2 bottles each of Original, Teriyaki, and Buffalo Sauce for only $25.27 including shipping. I figured what the hell - I'd be bound to like at least one of them... I ordered online and they arrived within a few days. On the credit card receipt was hand-written: "Timothy warmest thank you." When was the last time you were thanked in person for a purchase, let alone for a purchase made online? They've made me a lifetime customer!
So far... I really like two - and that's because I've only tried two! Victor's mom was over today so I asked her if she wanted to stay for lunch. I was doing burgers with the Moore's Original following the recipe on the bottle: 1 lb beef, 1/4 chopped red onion, 1/4 cup Moore's. Easy enough.
DAYUM! Those burgers were good! Nonna ate the whole thing! (And that's unusual for Nonna!)
So tonight for dinner, I decided I wanted to try the Buffalo Sauce. I cut up some chicken breasts, breaded them with panko breadcrumbs, and fried away. Then added the Buffalo Sauce as directed. REALLY reminiscent of the Anchor Bar in Buffalo - with just the right amount of heat to allow for LOTS of them to be consumed. It's another winner.
I think tomorrow night I'll have to try the Teriyaki. I'm thinkin' it's going to be three out of three for winners!
I really do need to take a trek south!
Self-Rising Flour
I've gone all my life without using self-rising flour. Until today, that is...
A while back a great couple I know gave me a recipe for a quick beer bread. Really easy. Very basic. As is typical with me, I get a recipe, and then file it away for weeks or months, and then finally decide to make it.
I'm making a pot of Mulligatawny Soup today and thought that the beer bread would be good with it. That, and there's actually beer in the house from the party last Saturday. (The Asinine Socialist Pennsylvania Liquor Laws force one to go to a 'beer distributor' to purchase beer - by the case only. No single bottle or 6-pack sales allowed. That, somehow, promotes responsible drinking. Needless to say, we don't often have beer in the house.) But I digress...
I have beer in the house. I don't drink it, often, so I might as well cook with it, right?!?
First thing I did was pull out the recipe and notice that it calls for self-rising flour. Now... I can make my own self-rising flour (2 tbsp baking powder and 2 tsp salt per pound of four) but I also just got my first issue of Gourmet magazine (a freebie from Amazon.com) and it's all about Southern cooking - and lots of the recipes call for self-rising flour. So, during my weekly shopping trek today, I bought some.
I must admit I am intrigued! I've gone from never, ever having it in the house to seeing how many recipes I can now use it with. Thank goodness it's wintertime! the oven is going to be going full-tilt-boogie!
Cook Books Galore
We donated several hundred cookbooks to our local library book sale last year. The books were literally just collecting dust downstairs. We kept about a dozen of them - Lidia, Julia Child... more classic than trendy. figuring we might actually use a few books if they were upstairs, rather than a lot of books stored downstairs. It was a wise choice.
I've been really good. I haven't bought a cookbook in several years. Once upon a time I bought then constantly - hence the several hundred we donated - but I just didn't use them enough to justify buying more just to have them collect more dust before giving them away, again.
Santa, (and Leah and Ross) this year, decided I had been too good for too long and brought two new books into the house. The first, from Santa, is a fun book titled Celtic Folklore Cooking. Just my kind of book! Not only is it full of fun recipes, it has great stories to go along with them! It lists what foods to eat with which holiday and delves into the history behind them.
My first recipe of the new year is Chicken with Almond Rice - a dish that is associated with several holidays, including Yule and New Year's Eve. (I'm less than 24 hours late...)
Chicken With Almond Rice
- 1 cup uncooked rice
- 1 chicken, cut in pieces (I'm using breasts - it's what I had in the freezer.)
- 1/2 cup ground blanched almonds
- 1 tbsp butter
- 1 tsp sugar
- 1/4 tsp ginger
- 1 tsp salt
- 1/8 tsp cardamom
- 3 tbsp slivered almonds lightly browned in butter
Rinse rice in water; drain. Cover with cold water and leave to soak. In another pan, cover the chicken pieces with salted water and let simmer over low heat for one hour. Skim off the fat and measure 3 cups of the water into a separate saucepan. Add the ground almonds to the liquid and let steep about 10 to 15 minutes. drain the rice and cook it in the broth until tender. Remove the skin and bones from the chicken and cut into bite-sized pieces. Add chicken to the rice mixture along with the butter, sugar, ginger, salt, and cardamom. Cover and cook over low heat about 15 minutes, or until meat is thoroughly heated. To serve, garnish with the slivered almonds.
The second book is already a favorite of mine!
The Philadelphia Italian Market Cookbook - a Christmas present from Leah and Ross who just bought a house within walking distance of the market - is not only a great cookbook, but it's a fantastic history of South Philadelphia! It's loaded with fun food and stories about the Italians from the first immigrants to the neighborhood today! It's especially fun for me since I'm not from here. This is all new. I see many great meals coming soon!
Oh... and I was on the Barnes and Noble website looking for post-holiday cheapies and ended up with two more cookbooks - 100 Great Risottos and 100 Great Tapas.
Winter... Risotto... Yum...
Turkey Croquettes
Here's another recipe from Mike! Bein' that I still have some leftover turkey in the freezer, I may just have to make these this weekend!
Back just before the year 2000 there was a business plan that made the papers where a company would be formed to buy the leftover food from the world’s great restaurants and freeze it for shipping to gourmets around the world. I don’t know whether it worked or not, but it was a novel approach to the question of what to do with leftovers, especially after the holidays.
Here is a good idea for something to get rid of a little more of the Thanksgiving Monster. They are especially good to make and freeze for a quick meal later when you’ve had a long day at the office.
Any poultry will work, and you get a whole new flavor if you substitute crab meat for the turkey. If you bake these, they are low in fat, high in fiber, and addictive. They have more flavor fried (OK – so what doesn’t?) which is fine if you can stand the calories.
Turkey Croquettes
Mike Amason
Makes about 24 croquettes 2-1/2” diameter. Leftovers freeze well.
Ingredients:
- 2 pounds leftover turkey (or 2 chicken breasts, cooked)
- One large onion, any color
- 2 medium carrots
- 1 stalk celery
- ½ green bell pepper
- One whole green chili or jalapeno pepper or ½ tsp cayenne
- 2 Tbsp Olive oil
- ½ tsp thyme
- 1 tsp salt
- 1 tsp black pepper
- 1 Tbsp paprika to sprinkle the patties if baking them
- ½ cup sour cream or mayonnaise
- 2 eggs, beaten
- 1-1/2 cups SR flour
Baked: Preheat oven to 375° and grease a cookie sheet with Crisco
Fried: Preheat ½” of your favorite vegetable oil in your favorite frying panRun chicken and vegetables through a food processor one item at a time and combine in a two quart mixing bowl. Adding the olive oil to the carrots makes them chop better. Mix sour cream, beaten eggs, and spices in well before adding flour. You will end up with a bowl of sticky paste that can be formed into patties that will hold their shape.
Scoop out balls of the paste to whatever size you like. The quantity mentioned above assumes balls slightly larger than a golf ball flattened into patties roughly 2-1/2” in diameter by ½-3/4” thick.
Arrange on cookie sheet, sprinkle with paprika, and bake 30-35 minutes, or fry in oil and turn when edges turn brown. They are done when brown on top and bottom. Drain on paper towels before serving. Baked croquettes will not get as brown as the fried ones, but that doesn’t hurt a thing.
These are wonderful served with a pot of large dried lima beans cooked with a ham hock, zucchini strips salted and peppered and sprinkled with parmesan cheese and roasted in a 375° oven for 15 minutes (Why waste the heat when the oven is hot? You have two racks in there for a reason), steamed broccoli, or just a plate of fresh biscuits. These make outstanding leftovers and are a good finger food hot or cold.
A good red pepper sauce or a hot pepper vinegar is a great accompaniment for these as is a good chow chow.
Mike's Crusty Cornbread
I have been having a great time chatting with and getting recipes from a friend down in South Carolina. His name is Mike and has a great wife, Barbara, who bakes - and wins all sorts of ribbons and such. Lots of them. I admire folks who have the patience to create recipes and enter contests. It's a lot of work. And I really love recipes with a story. Real food with history.
I won 2nd Prize in a Cherry Pie Bakeoff once - and the People's Choice Award for my White Bean Chili when I was on staff at UCSF. Neither were State fair-type competitions, but they were fun. But I digress...
This recipe (as all great recipes do) comes with a great story - and pictures!
Crusty Cornbread
Mike Amason
Rural South Carolina during and after the Great Depression was a lot like a third world country. There was little to eat if you didn’t produce it on the farm. Everyone had a few chickens and a couple of hogs, both very efficient animals at producing meat from whatever could be foraged. Lots of farms had a single cow for milk and butter. With chickens came eggs. The only groceries that were purchased were coffee, flour, salt, corn oil, and on occasion a bag of sugar. Everything else was grown at home or done without.
Many farms had small patches of corn of a variety suitable for grinding at the grist mill for grits and cornmeal (My grandfather grew a white corn called “Hickory King” just for this purpose). The miller ground and bagged your corn and kept a portion as his payment which he later sold. Biscuits ruled at breakfast, but cornbread was the staple quick bread for lunch and dinner. Many a child in the South in the 30s and 40s went to school carrying a pint jar of buttermilk and a large slice of cornbread for lunch, with a slice of fried fatback if times were good.
The secret to the crust:
This is the way all six of my great aunts and my grandmother made it, baking it in a cast iron frying pan which gives it a crust like no other bread in the world. Cast iron holds heat better than anything else, and that is really the secret of this bread. You can make suitable cornbread in a roasting pan or a casserole dish if you have to, and some modern cookware may be up to the task, but I have never been able to get this crust from any other cookware I have owned. Other materials simply lose too much heat while you are pouring the batter into the pan. If you don’t have a cast iron pan, you can pick one up at a junk store or thrift shop for a couple of dollars. I use a 7” pan for mine, but an 8” works just as well. My Mother still uses a 6”pan she bought in 1944 for fifteen cents, and her cornbread beats mine every time. But I think she cheats.
Serves 6-8 Quick breads are only good the day they are baked. Leftovers don’t freeze well for reheating to eat, but should be frozen to use later in pan dressing to go with chicken or turkey. If you already have a freezer full, toss the leftovers out for the birds. They love it.
Ingredients:
Preheat oven to 450.
- Two cups self-rising white or yellow cornmeal, or add 3 tsp baking powder and 1 tsp salt to plain cornmeal
- 1 Tbsp sugar
- One egg, beaten
- 3 Tbsp vegetable oil or melted fat
- 1-1/4 cups buttermilk (or plain milk with 2 tsp vinegar to sour it)
- 1/4 cup vegetable oil to coat pan
Take the 1/4 cup of the vegetable oil and put it in the frying pan. Turn the pan to coat the bottom and sides well. Too much is better than not enough. You should be able to see a shallow pool of oil in the bottom of the pan. Put pan in oven to heat.
Put dry ingredients in a bowl and mix well. Add the wet ingredients all at once and stir to make the batter.
When the oil is HOT! (smoking slightly), pour the batter into the pan and enjoy the sizzle. Return it to the oven for 20 minutes. It is done when a knife inserted into the top comes out clean.
Turn out of pan upside-down onto a plate. Stand and be amazed at the reddish brown crackled crust approximately 1/8” thick covering it. Do not sample at this point if you plan to serve for dinner. You may not have any left by the time everyone gets to the table. It slices better when it cools for a few minutes, anyway.
Outstanding with any vegetables (especially a thick vegetable soup!) or by itself with butter.
WARNING: South of Pennsylvania it is illegal to serve collard or turnip greens or any type of beans without cornbread.
It is a capital offense in some states to serve black-eyed peas and collards with pepper vinegar on New Year’s Day and not cook a cornbread to accompany them. And it well should be.
Variations:
1) Any type of onions are great chopped and sautéed for a couple of minutes before adding to the batter. The result is like a hush puppy but not as greasy.
2) A chopped jalapeno pepper added to the batter improves any bland side dish.
3) ½ cup whole corn makes a good addition. Drain whole corn well if you use it. For creamed corn, use ¾ cup, reduce the milk to 3/4 cup and reduce sugar to 1 tsp.
4) ½ cup finely chopped broccoli florets gives the bread a flavor that surprised me the first time I tried it.
5) Cracklins. Many people have never heard of them. These are bits of pigskin (cured bacon rind) that have been chopped and cooked and are available in groceries all over the South. ½ cup of them make a cornbread you will talk about for years.
Chicken with Leeks
I stopped by the Farmer's Market this afternoon after my Saturday workout. And after the 45 minutes of steam room and jacuzzi that followed. The steam and jacuzzi are my reward to my protesting muscles after their workout. I like it. too. Quiet, peaceful, relaxing... I just kinda melt. It's great. But I digress...
I headed over to the bank after to make a quick deposit, and the Farmer's Market is 20 feet away. Saturday and Shopping usually do not mix for me, but I was in the neighborhood - literally.
I really didn't need anything, but I did want to see what was available, and maybe pick up a few rolls for sandwiches. Walking by one of the two main produce stands, I spied a leek. Not just any old leek, mind you, but a 24" (at least) beauty that was all "white and pale green part.' It was perfect. 99 cents. Sold. I had no idea what I was going to make for dinner, but that leek was going to play an integral part.
I picked up a few rolls, some German Bologna and then stopping by to say HI to my friend Michael, I spied a great Santa in his display. It was a cast iron door stop that just screamed "take me home." Not only was the price right, Michael gave me an additional discount (it's his store, afterall!) and happily home I went.
Off to check recipes, I came across one from Gourmet Magazine a few years back:
Braised Chicken Breasts on Creamy Leeks
- 2 lb medium leeks (white and pale green parts only)
- 4 boneless skinless chicken breast halves (1 1/2 lb total)
- 1/2 tablespoon vegetable oil
- 2 1/2 tablespoons unsalted butter
- 1/3 cup dry white wine
- 1/3 cup chicken broth
- 1/3 cup heavy cream
Halve leeks lengthwise, then cut crosswise into 1-inch pieces.
Pat chicken dry and season with salt and pepper. Heat oil and 1/2 tablespoon butter in a 10-inch nonstick skillet over moderately high heat until foam subsides, then brown chicken on both sides, about 4 minutes total. Transfer to a plate.
Add wine to skillet and deglaze by boiling over high heat, stirring and scraping up brown bits, until reduced to about 2 tablespoons, 1 to 2 minutes. Add leeks and remaining 2 tablespoons butter and salt and pepper to taste, then simmer over moderately low heat, covered, stirring occasionally, until leeks are wilted, about 10 minutes. Stir in broth.
Top leeks with chicken breasts and juices from plate, then gently simmer over low heat, covered, until leeks are tender and chicken is just cooked through, about 8 minutes .
Transfer chicken breasts to a plate. Add cream to skillet and boil over high heat, stirring occasionally, until thickened slightly, 1 to 2 minutes. Add salt and pepper to taste.
Serve chicken on top of leeks.
Okay. That was their recipe. I changed it just a bit.
I floured the chicken breasts, used 1/2 cup wine and 1/2 cup broth and omitted the heavy cream altogether, and served the leeks on top, rather than beneath, the chicken breast.Otherwise, followed the recipe fairly closely.
I steamed some asparagus and made a brown rice dish by sauteing a bit of green onion, celery, garlic and mushrooms in a bit of olive oil, added 1 cup of water and 1 cup of chicken broth and 1 cup of brown rice. Cooked for 40 minutes. Dash of S&P.
My stomach is smiling, we have a new Santa, my muscles aren't aching quite as much as they were, and we're supposed to get snow tomorrow.
Life is good.
The 20 Worst Foods in America
I just read an article in Men's Health magazine that lists the 20 worst foods in America. My first thought was "Who eats this junk, anyway?" and then realized I am the abnormal one, here. People eat this stuff every day. While we just went over the top with our Thanksgiving dinner, that's not the norm around here.
The worst food in America was determined to be:
Outback Steakhouse Aussie Cheese Fries with Ranch Dressing
- 2,900 calories
- 182 g fat
- 240 g carbs
Not bad for a side dish, eh? Some of the other ones were pretty interesting, too.
Folks tend to think that ground turkey is much more healthy than ground beef. Not so. In the supermarket it can be the same as 85% ground beef, but in a restaurant?
Ruby Tuesday Bella Turkey Burger
- 1,145 calories
- 71 g fat
- 56 g carbs
Or, how about a lovely kid's meal?
Macaroni Grill Double Macaroni 'n' Cheese
- 1,210 calories
- 62 g fat
- 3,450 mg sodium
That's a kids meal, alright. And I want dessert, mom. And a Coke.
And it's not just dining out. The worst supermarket meal was:
Pepperidge Farm Roasted Chicken Pot Pie (whole pie)
- 1,020 calories
- 64 g fat
- 86 g carbs
The nutritionals on the label call for it to be two servings. Sure. It's like the can of Coke being two servings, or the premade burrito being three servings. Anything to confuse the consumer.
You can decry the food industry all you want, but if people weren't buying this crap, they wouldn't be making it. And they wouldn't be introducing more and more and more of it every day.
Chicken Soup for the Soul
I was at the farmer's market Wednesday to order my 32+ pound Thanksgiving Turkey, and picked up a stewing hen while I was there. There is just nothing more flavorful than soup or stew made with a stewing hen.
Into the pot the bird went with carrots, celery, onions, garlic, bay leaves, and about 3/4 bottle of white wine I've been using for cooking. I simmered it all day Wednesday and Wednesday evening, strained the broth and removed the chicken. After cooling, they both went into the 'fridge.
Yesterday afternoon, the fun began - clean out the 'fridge! The broth went into the pot along with celery, carrots, fresh peas, green beans, 2 different leftover cooked brown rices, chopped up mustard greens, and a bag of tortolini - and a goodly amount of chicken. (There's at least one - if not two - other meals from the chicken!)
It was sooooo good! Really rich, chicken flavor and lots of good vegetables. I almost licked the bowl. And the garlic bread was the perfect accompaniment.
Lambs, Yams, and Red Peppers
This was a fun one, today! I dirtied FIVE pots and pans on a weeknight dinner. It's a new record for me, I think.
I had a few nice lamb chops, so I just marinated them in a bit of olive oil, garlic, rosemary, salt and pepper. The basics. Fried 'em up in a bit of olive oil. I made a quick red pepper sauce by pureeing a jar of red peppers with some olive oil.
I boiled the sweet potatoes and fried some onions, adding just a bit of thyme. I then used my handy-dandy immersion blender and whipped the potatoes and onions together, adding juuuuust a pinch of cloves, salt, and pepper.
Frozen Peas.
Dinner took more time to clean up than to cook. It was great. And we ate one of the fruitcakes for dessert. Dayum, they're good!
John Grogan and Shameless Self-Promotion
No food today - just shameless self-promotion.
Both of us have always been avid 'letters to the editor' writers and have had scores of letters published over the years.
About four years ago (former) Inquirer columnist John Grogan came across one of my letters, happened on to ourtimandvictor.com website and, intrigued, emailed me about doing a column on us. Being the shy, quiet person I am, I immediately said "YES!" and a few days later found John at the house, notebook in hand. The following column is the result of those couple of hours sitting at the kitchen table drinking coffee.
John went on to become famous writing "Marley and Me" (now being made into a motion picture) and we went on with our lives.
Yesterday, Victor got a call from a woman he works with out west. She had picked up a copy of John's latest book "Bad Dogs have More Fun" a collection of his Inquirer columns and was reading about us! What a surprise!
**NOTE: We just found out the book was put together by the Inquirer - not John Grogan. The Inquirer owns his past columns... It doesn't change the fact hat we're in the book (pages 164-167) but John had nothing to do with the publication...
So... we're currently #34 on the NY Times best seller list!
We're also wondering who we should get to play us in the movie. I think George Clooney and Brad Pitt would be fine - and Cybil, of course, would play herself.
Here's the original column:
John Grogan | Ordinary people vowing to marry
By John Grogan Inquirer Columnist
In many ways, they are a typical suburban couple.
They spend their weekends remodeling their tidy three-bedroom house, which sits on a quiet street in the Main Line community of Strafford. They enjoy gardening and cooking and spoiling their dog, Cybil.
They both come from large, traditional Catholic families, and they dote on their 17 nieces and nephews.
Now in their early 50s, they prefer quiet nights at home to going out on the town. They pay their taxes on time, look in on sick neighbors, and vote each election.
They are ordinary in all ways but one: Tim Dineen and Victor Martorano, a couple for nine years, are homosexuals. And that puts them squarely in the middle of the national debate on same-sex marriage.
They are not the ones protesting on courthouse steps or trying to force change by seeking marriage licenses where they know none will be issued. As the debate rages, they have written letters to newspapers, but otherwise go quietly about their suburban lives. It was for this reason - their very ordinariness - that I sought them out last week. I wanted to see for myself just how different from the heterosexual majority a gay couple in a long-term relationship is.
Marriage of the minds
They give me a tour of their house and show off improvements they have made
- new tile, enlarged kitchen, hardwood floors. On the table is a vase of pussy willows brought in from the garden. Outside, a pile of rain gutters sits in the yard, next weekend’s project.
In their own minds, Dineen, a demonstration chef at a market in nearby Wayne, and Martorano, who works in the travel industry, already are married. On their first Christmas together, they privately exchanged gold bands that have remained on their left ring fingers ever since. Still, says Dineen, “we will get married the day we legally can do it.”
Some of the motivation is practical. If one is incapacitated, the other right now would need a written power of attorney to make medical decisions - a precaution they already have taken. And as Dineen pointed out over a cup of coffee, “If Victor died tomorrow, I would have to pay inheritance tax on his half of our house.”
Adds Martorano: “The law does not recognize me as his next of kin, and that is wrong. It’s just wrong.”
But more important to the couple is what marriage stands for - a public acknowledgment of a couple’s love and lifelong commitment. “Marriage is a stabilizing force in society,” Dineen says, “and we want to be part of that stabilization.”
After all, they consider themselves solid members of the community. And so do their neighbors. As Peg Schwartz, 73 and a registered Republican, told me later: “I can’t say enough about them. They really could not be better neighbors. They are delightful. They’re just nice, kind, caring people, and that’s what you want in a neighbor.” Having them next door has softened her position on gay marriage, she said. “If that makes them happy, then that’s all that counts.”
Battling stereotypes
And yet, for now at least, Dineen and Martorano will remain the one couple on their street for whom the civil contract of marriage is not an option. Until that day comes, the two men believe stereotypes and prejudice will continue.
“Gay people have a reputation for being extremely promiscuous,” says Dineen, whose full beard and wire-framed glasses give him a professorial air. “Well, not all gay people are.”
Some of them lead their lives not much differently from the straight people on their streets, sharing the same worries and joys and dreams. And that brings Dineen to his main point.
“If we were married tomorrow, the only thing that would be different would be the piece of paper that grants us our rights and responsibilities. Nothing else would change. We would still be here just as we are today, putting new gutters on the house, going to work, grocery shopping, taking the dog to the vet.”
He adds: “I think that’s what so many people fail to realize. We’re here already. We’re a couple already. For all intents and purposes, we are married. We just lack the legalities.”
Pomegranate Chicken
I worked up an appetite today! I actually went to the gym. Yes. Me. A gym. Not only did I go to a gym, I saw a personal trainer. Yes. Me. A gym AND a personal trainer.
I just quit smoking and decided I just didn't want to gain 60 pounds - again. I've lost 35 pounds this past year just by watching what I eat, making better choices -and smaller portions. I haven't done any excersize. None. Nadda. Zip.
The way I like food, I'm going to balloon if I don't do something drastic - and for me, there's nothing more drastic than walking into a gym. Until three days ago, I had never been in one in my life! Oh... I've done my share of luxury hotels with their health spas. I head directly to the massage table and then to the steam room and sauna.
Times have changed.
So I'm starting a regimine that should start to get this old out-of shape body back into shape. And I hate to admit it, but I felt good after leaving today! Granted, this was only session one of the program - the easiest - I'm looking froward to going back for more.
But all the working out in the world will be for naught if I don't eat better.
Tonight's better choice was Chicken with Pomegranate Sauce. (Better doesn't have to be boring!)
I took two huge chicken breasts and cut them in half, pounded a bit and dredged in seasoned flour (King Arthur White Whole Wheat.) I browned the chicken in a bit of olive oil and removed it from the pan. I added a cup of chicken broth and a couple of tablespoons of sherry and then about a cup of pomegranate seeds. A bit of S&P.
I cooked it down a bit and then added the chicken back to the pan to finish cooking and to help thicken the sauce a bit.
Meanwhile, I cooked up wild rice and steamed a big bunch of broccoli.
I was a good boy and didn't clean my plate! (But I sure wanted to!) I had to leave room for dessert! (Baked Apples!!!)