Cutting down on sugar

I consume WAY too much sugar through pop and other means. I've undertaken a 90 day challenge and decided cutting down on sugar intake is one of my sub-goals. This whole cutting down on sugar thing is difficult, but hopefully it'll encourage me to find better breakfasts and be more conscious of what's going into my body.

I'm starting by not adding sugar to my daily coffee. I've already started drinking black coffee at work because I don't have time to grab sugar and I need to be able to explain coffee unaltered by cream and sugar. It's actually not a very difficult switch for me because I already like things like plain espresso and more "bitter" drinks. So if its already not necessary AND I get good quality coffee from work, this is an easy switch that can stand to save me about 1-1.5 tablespoons of sugar per day! My only caveat is that if I go somewhere with bad coffee and I absolutely need coffee, I can add whatever it takes to make that swill drinkable. :-D


The rest of this goal should be helped by cutting down on my soda consumption. There is a lot of sugar in Sprite (my go-to beverage).So between the 1 T I'll save not adding sugar to my coffee, I should save another 3.5T of sugar per day not drinking pop.

Homemade Beef Stew

2pm: Preparation, Cooking, Thoughts

 Today it's a little rainy and dreary so I decided it'd be the PERFECT day to try out a new recipe I found for Beef Stew. I've never made it before, so I am looking forward to seeing how it'll turn out.

I tweaked a recipe that I found on allrecipes.com (Beef Stew)  I set it up in the crock pot, and then started reading the bad reviews. I'm a little nervous now. Although, I'm always nervous in trying a new recipe that it'll fail and I'll have wasted money and time on a dud.

In reading the reviews, it sounded a little bland so I added more Worcestershire sauce and a couple drops of balsamic vinegar. I was also worried that 1.5 cups of broth/stock wasn't enough so I used more. I figured that I can always add corn starch or more flour to thicken it as dinner approaches. Pre-taste tests tell me that I may have too much salt in there. I also did not have celery to add, nor did I add bay leaves. Right now it's really watery. Hopefully 4 hours of cooking on high will thicken it and make it the right amount of flavorful.

I'm also worried about the vegetables cooking as they are supposed to.  I do not have luck with potatoes cooking fully in recipes. I'm hoping the 15 minutes of boiling that I did in order to remove the skins (check out this neat way to remove potato skins) will help the potatoes be more cooked. *crosses fingers*.  If I'm ever making this in a hurry, I may use canned carrots and potatoes.


7pm: The reviews are in

Ok for a first attempt. Branden felt it was a little too onion/carroty and not enough beef. I thought it was pretty flavorful but the meat I used was subpar.

Improvements: 

• use 2 lbs better quality meat, not 1lb stew meat (too fatty, blah for cooking)
• sear meat first, deglaze with stock. could result in better flavor
• chop vegetables better (smaller pieces of onion)

Will I make it again? Yes, with aforementioned changes.

Peeling Potatoes

A few weeks ago, a friend sent me a link featuring Dawn Wells (from Gilligans Island) giving you instruction on an easy way to peel potatoes. I do not have the opportunity to make/peel potatoes very often so I filed it away for the future.

Today I am making beef stew (see next post) which would involve peeling potatoes, thus giving me that opportunity.

Impressions: Should be easy enough, right? Looks like it involves minimal mess and effort.

Reality: the skin was definitely easy to remove, but it didn't come off QUITE as easily as the video leads you to believe. Mine came off in shreds and I still used my knife to get sections of the skin off. My hands were defnitely covered in slimy, boiled potato and potato skin residue by the time I cleaned 3 potatoes.

What went wrong? Maybe I didn't boil them long enough, or maybe they needed longer in the ice bath? I'm just not sure.

It was still significantly less effort, so I will give it a whirl again someday. If you hate peeling potatoes, this is definitely worth a shot.

What's for dinner 3/11/10

So I took a hiatus from this post, but I'm back!

Tonight's menu is......

• Crock pot hot beef on wheat buns (see previous post)
• Baked potatoes
• salad

Crock Pot Hot Beef Sandwhiches

Make ahead meals are great... when you have the forethought to actually plan ahead and make them. Crock pots are awesome for the make ahead meals. Not that it's a secret or anything. One of my favorite recipes to make in the crock pot is shredded beef.

Recipe:

• 1 can Campbells French Onion Soup
• 1 package Lipton Beefy Onion soup mix (dry)
• 1 beef chuck roast
• 1 soup can water

This is how I fit it into a working schedule:
PM: Mix all together
Cook on low overnight.

AM (before leaving): shred beef
put in fridge for finishing later

After Work: remove from fridge, cook for 2 hrs on high.

Serve on buns.

Homemade Pizza Dough

My fiance and I love to make our own pizza. It's a lot of work to make the dough by hand, but the end result is worth it. We still haven't managed to make a good thicker crust pizza, but our thin crust rocks.  So we stick to what we know. :)

Recently, I became the proud owner of a food processor.  A food processor, I bought my mom for Christmas two years ago that she decided she doesn't actually use, so she gave it to me. So I guess in a way, I bought myself a food processor before I ever even knew I needed one.

One of the things I heard I could make in it is dough. So tonight I decided to give our fabulous pizza dough recipe a shot in the food processor. I have to say that I had my doubts that it would work.

It did! .... kind of. It wasn't a 100% success, but it did cut down on the time standing around with my hand on the mixer. It mixed things well, but my 7c food processor wasn't quite powerful enough to finish the job, so I had to remove the dough and finish with the hand mixer. Removing the dough from the food processor was a bit of a pain as it's quite sticky. I nicked a spatula on the blade and cut off a chunk of that. After pouring some oil on the remnants stuck in the bowl, I was able to extract them and finish the job with a hand mixer.

Another post as we actually bake the dough.....

Salad, What's for Lunch 2/10/2010

I have a very love-hate relationship with salad. Up until about a year or two ago, I wouldn't even touch salad, mostly because of the lettuce. I grew only exposed to Iceberg lettuce. That stuff makes me vomit just thinking about it. Since then I've been more apt to try new things and I've given salad a shot. I'm still pretty picky about lettuce and even go as far as being picky about the appearance of my lettuce.

My must haves for lettuce:

• Romaine or spring greens
• Fresh as absolutely possible
• a healthy green appearance (not wilted looking or fading)
• Not too much of the white crunchy stalk area
• Not too big of pieces.

Yes. I'm psychotic. I get that, which is why my fiance has given up trying to sort out the logic behind all my food issues  It is also is why I don't partake in restaurant salad too often. I used to only like caesar salad loaded with super-bad-for-you caeser dressing and parmesan cheese. I  rarely ate it because I knew just how bad it was calorie-wise. I mean, what's the point of getting a salad for the health benefits if you just slop it full of unhealthy dressing, right?

Somewhere along the way, I discovered I loved italian dressing, specifically a Roasted Red Pepper and Parmesan dressing. My favorite salad morphed from Caesar to:


Roasted Red Pepper and Parmesan salad:

1. Spring green mix or Romaine
2. Dressing
3. croutons
4. carrots
5. red cabbage

 I have since tired of this salad and have discovered a new one that is my new lunch obsession:


Asian Toasted Sesame Salad:

1. Romaine
2. Dressing
3. croutons
4. carrots
5. red bell pepper
6. (Chow Mein noodles)-- didn't have any of these, but would like to get some for this salad

So this is a combo post as that and a Cara Cara orange were for lunch today. I feel so healthy!