Anniversary Dinner!

Today is my wife and my 14th Anniversary, and in celebration I cooked a fancy dinner!

Pork Tenderloin and Filet Mignon seared on an iron skillet and then finished in the oven with olive oil, salt, pepper, and garlic.

Roasted mushrooms and asparagus with balsamic vinaigrette reduction.

Seared green beans in sesame oil and soy sauce.

And because it's a special occasion, dark chocolate dipped strawberries.

While it's not 100% on plan, it's very close, and it's on a rare occasion!

I just need to make sure to drink my water and really hit it at the gym tomorrow.

Back in the Kitchen!

After eating out two days in a row (oh, the luxury!), I was surprised to see I'd lost weight again! But, we can't keep eating out every day, so I hit the grocery store and spent some time in the kitchen tonight.

Today was a stay home and clean house day for most of the day, doing laundry, cleaning the bathroom, organizing some board games for Geekway to the West, cleaning the kitchen, putting away boxes, that sort of thing, but I did get out this weekend to buy groceries and go to The Container Store and Target.

The Container Store allowed me to pick up an extra shelf for our Elfa unit that is now 'Medifast central'. It also let me pick up a dozen little containers perfect for Medifast-sized almond snacks. We re-organized the unit and got more cereal and crunchy snacks in there, and have a lot of ready-to-go almond containers as well.

Target, I got two new pairs of jeans in a smaller size... they should end up being too big, but they were on sale so they will do for now. We also picked up a bunch of plastic shoe boxes to try to increase our organization some.

But, this blog post is about getting back in the kitchen! I made Ginger Orange Chicken with peppers, seasoned white mushrooms, and baked Medifast Reese's Cup Brownies.

The mushrooms were tossed into a pan with water, rice vinegar, hot mustard, garlic powder, cayenne pepper, and soy sauce and boiled until they were well seasoned.

The chicken, I diced it and tossed it in a large bowl with soy sauce, ground ginger, orange peel, and green bell pepper, and then stir-fried it in olive oil with a dash of sesame oil

While it was missing rice, dumplings, and eggrolls, it was still excellent. I baked the brownies in the oven while cooking and let them chill in the fridge for a couple hours.

At some point I'm going to have to start taking pictures when I cook, so I've got something interesting to show on the blog posts!

Finally, tonight I made some edits to my blog layout... I added my HabitRPG character (just an image capture for now, I'll have to manually update it until I find a way to automate it). I also edited my World of Warcraft banners so that if you click them it takes you to their Armory pages. Now you can see just how much I ignore my poor Horde Druid compared to my Alliance Warlock.

Getting bored with chicken...

So, nearly nine weeks in and chicken is getting tiresome (interestingly enough, mushrooms? still awesome).

We eat a lot of chicken. We eat some ground turkey, and my wife has beef and I have seafood on occasion, but the vast majority of our 'lean' is chicken.

• Chicken cooked in Honey Mustard.
• Chicken cooked in Italian Dressing.
• Chicken cooked with Taco Seasoning.
• Chicken cooked with Ginger and Soy Sauce.
• Chicken cooked with Tomato, Basil, and Oregano.
• Chicken cooked with BBQ Sauce.
• Chicken cooked with Buffalo Sauce.
• Chicken cooked with Mrs. Dash.
• Chicken cooked with Lemon Pepper.
• Chicken cooked with Shawarma Seasoning.
• Chicken cooked with Fajita Spices and Peppers.
• Chicken cooked with Ranch Dressing.

Chicken. Chicken. Chicken.

Turkey is more limited. We get 99% fat free ground turkey. It's mostly in an Italian sauce or in taco seasoning, and while it's a good change of pace, it's just not as good as chicken.

Beef and Seafood is pretty rare in general, since I don't eat beef, she doesn't eat seafood, and cooking two leans is a pain in the butt.

We have a lot of variety in our chicken, but it is still chicken nearly every day. It may be time to start exploring some new recipes.

Funnily enough, I don't really get sick of my Medifast meals, even when they have a similar level of overlap.

Anyone else have any ideas on how to stop the cycle of endless chicken boredom?

Valentine's Dinner - On plan (almost!)

For Valentine's Day we normally do dinner, roses, and a big box of Godiva chocolates. However, this year we're really serious about losing weight and staying on plan, so we modified things.

First, the dinner plan: We did 5 Medifast meals, as usual, and the Lean and Green. The Lean and Green was the key though, to feeling like a Valentine's Day dinner.

Entrees:

• 5 oz Filet Mignon, Medium Rare
• 7 oz Saltwater Scallops, pan-seared

Sides:

• 2 cups French Cut green beans, steamed then lightly sauteed in a teaspoon of sesame oil
• 1 cup sliced White Mushrooms, sauteed in gourmet steak sauce
• 1 cup Romaine Lettuce with light Ranch Dressing.

Dessert: 

• 4 Dark Chocolate dipped Strawberries

2 Strawberries... 93 grams, for about 130 calories and 8g of carbs!

My wife had the salad, green beans, and filet, while I had the mushrooms, green beans, and scallops. We each had 2 strawberries.

Even with the off-plan strawberries, I came in under 100g of carbs and in a decent spot on calories, fat, and protein. Combined with an hour at the gym for 30 minutes of weights and 30 minutes of cardio, I think the day worked out well. I woke up this morning  down a couple of tenths of a pound, which is good enough considering it was a day after a strength workout.

Cooking on Medifast

Yesterday I talked about how to make the Medifast packaged meals palatable, but today I'm going over how I'm eating my Lean and Green Meals when I generally hate all leafy green vegetables.

 First, my proteins:

• Boneless, Skinless Chicken Breast
• 99% Fat Free Ground Turkey Breast
• Shrimp
• Egg beaters 

And my vegetables:

• White mushrooms
• Romaine Lettuce
• Jicama 

That's the extent of everything so far. A pretty pathetic list. I plan to add more protein options as we continue... especially more fish. I also hope to add some wild game in the future as well. Vegetable options are my weak spot. I love mushrooms, which is good since they are on the approved list, but other stuff is not as likely to get eaten.

My strategy is to keep adding a little bit of romaine until I'm able to tolerate a salad, and then hope to branch out a little bit. I've got some pretty severe tast/texture issues with nearly all green vegetables, but I'm hoping I can train myself to get past those visceral responses and actually taste the food.

Now, what about the actual cooking? Here's what I've been doing:

Chicken: pan sauteed, baked, broiled, sliced into a stir fry. I use a touch of olive oil and then marinate the chicken in something: Taco or Fajita seasoning, Mrs. Dash, Dale's Seasoning, Lemon Pepper, BBQ rub, Sriacha, Ginger,  Shawarma seasoning. Keeping the flavor profile varied is a good thing, but my basic default is chicken in a touch of oil with soy sauce, Worcestershire, and a big blast of sriacha. I haven't gotten sick of this yet and it pairs really well with the mushrooms.

Turkey: seasoned and formed into patties, with a touch of steak sauce and some laughing cow, I can wrap this in a romaine leaf and eat it like a pseudo-burger. As a burger it leaves a LOT to be desired. It's not beef, it's not fatty, it doesn't taste like a burger, it's not dripping with cheese and bacon, it's not on a huge soft bun. Don't eat this thinking 'burger'. For hat it is it isn't bad. However, my standard for turkey is to ccok it with either taco or spaghetti seasonings and mix it with my mushrooms. It's pretty awesome this way.

Egg Beaters: For a change of pace, I will cut half my primary protein out and add a cup of egg beaters. I cook them 'hard' and hit them with a ton of pepper and some garlic salt and they're a good 'now and then'. I also use egg beaters as a pre-workout extra protein.

Shrimp: lightly sauteed in olive oil and spices, or peeled and thrown into a stir-fry. Shrimp are awesome and you get a ton of them for your 7 oz.

Mushrooms: throw them in a pan with a dash of Worcestershire and some Mrs. Dash, and some water. Get them soft and some flavor cooked in, then mix them right in with your protein.

Jicama: I've only had this once and it was a fail. I sliced it into long french-fry shaped chunks and threw it into a stir-fry. It was slimy on the outside, a mild crunch on the inside. It was pretty awful, but it tasted like sriacha so I was able to stomach it. I ended up falling back on an OCD method of eating, which was to eat nothing but jicama until it was all gone, then mushrooms, then shrimp. I hadn't realized I was doing it until I got to the shrimp. I'll try another preparation of this and try to get it crisper, so there isn't that floppy slime texture and see if I like it. If not, then it can go... it's not like there's a ton of jicama options out there in restaurants for me to choose as a healthy alternative.

Romaine: so far, I've only eaten this as a lettuce wrap. I expect that will be my primary method for a while, and once I'm happier with that I'll try it as a taco salad or something.