Month: February 2011

Categories
General Weight Loss Tips

Token Fat Girl Cook Along: Gyros

Welcome to the second installment of the Token Fat Girl Cook Along! This week we made gyros. And the challenge was to make one ingredient from scratch. The typically gyro consists of meat, such as chicken, beef or lamb, tzatziki sauce (yogurt with cucumbers and dill), and pita. The rest is up to you.

I really cut it close this week with my gyro making them last night and finding myself at the grocery store around 8pm. The gyros were served around 10pm last night so my challenge was making gyros with meat and yogurt sauce from scratch in a limited amount of time.

I couldn’t find a lot of lamb and I am weird about buying ground meat from chain grocery stores so I decided to buy lamb chops and steaks instead. I knew that I would have to puree the meat anyway and figured I could skip having ground meat.

I used this recipe as a base. But skipped all of the refrigeration. I placed the meat (pulled from bone) into the food processor with four slices of thick-cut bacon, 1 medium yellow onlion, marjoram, oregano, salt and pepper. Processed until it became a puree. Which honestly, is kinda gross looking.

I spread the meat puree into a bread dish and baked at 350 degrees for about an hour. During that hour I would take the meat log out and drain the fat. I did that about three times.

Once the log is done, let it sit for about 10 minutes before cutting into thin slices. I then browned these slices on the skillet. I found the slicing part difficult as the meat was falling apart.

On to the tzatziki sauce. This was another area of short cuts for me. I could not find plan unflavored greek yogurt at my local grocery store. Nor could I find plan full fat yogurt. How annoying is that? My local Food Lion has about a million flavors of crap-tastic chemical yogurt, but not one container of full fat yogurt. I remembered that I had some plain full fat yogurt at home, at least a cup left and some cream-top sour cream and decided to make that work.

I didn’t have time to strain the yogurt, so I just left it as is. 1 C full fat yogurt, 3/4 C full fat sour cream, 1/2 t (plus more to taste) garlic powder, 1-2 T lemon juice, fresh dill, chopped english cucumbers and salt and pepper. This came out delicious. I’ve made tzatziki sauce many times before and found this just as refreshing.

Tzatziki sauce.

Store bought flat bread.

Finished gyro! The verdict? Delicious! Josh really liked it a lot too. I am not set on this being the best gyro meat recipe. It was great with everything, but not flavorful enough on it’s own. I liked it though. The process grossed me out a lot. I think I’d like to try this with a rotisserie oven next time.

I’m also pleased with how good it was on less time. I skipped a ton of steps and the results did not suffer. This could easily be made on a regular week night in about an hour.

Thank you so much to those who participated!

Caroline: My Fascinating Life

Rachael: Treadmill Truth

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February 4th Challenge!

Post Date: February 10th 2011

Details: We will have one week to complete the recipe and then post (with photos) our results on the same day.

To make the recipe a little more fun I will post a challenge for the recipe such as: you must use an artichoke in your recipe, or use one local ingredient, or it must be made bento-box style. I encourage us all to make the recipe your own and find ways to make it work individually. For example: making it vegan, gluten-free, made with whole wheat pasta, make it miniature, deconstructed, change the filling, make it low calorie etc.

All you have to do is leave a comment in this post letting me know you’re in and I will link to your blog on reveal day!

Our  assignment begins Thursday January 27th, making the following Thursday (the 3rd) is reveal day! You can make the recipe at any time during the week, just make sure you schedule your post for Thursday.

Here is this week’s recipe:

This recipe (and photo) comes from Best Recipes Evar.

Challenge: Make 1/2 or 1/4 of the recipe as is and use the rest of the dough in an inventive way. Make pizza crust, cinnamon rolls, calzones…you name it! Make it your own.

Time to fire up those ovens!

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Categories
General Weight Loss Tips

Cook-Along post is coming!

Cook-Along post is coming!

I decided to  wait until the last minute cook my gryos for dinner tonight. I will post my update sometime before midnight if I’m lucky. Can’t wait to see everyones posts!

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1 Comment »

  1. Rachael
    says:

    Mine is done. This was great! Can’t wait to see what’s next.

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Categories
Weight Loss Exercise

Endocrine Disruptors

Endocrine DisruptorsI have seen a bit of info lately on the concept of Endocrine Disruptors and thought it would be a good idea to do a little environmental awareness of this issue

What are Endocrine Disruptors?

Endocrine disruptors are naturally occurring compounds or man-made chemicals that may interfere with the production or activity of hormones of the endocrine system leading to adverse health effects. Many of these chemicals have been linked with developmental, reproductive, neural, immune, and other problems in wildlife and laboratory animals.

What does the Science say about Endocrine Disruptors?

Over the past decade, a growing body of evidence suggests that numerous chemicals, both natural and man-made, may interfere with the endocrine system and produce adverse effects in humans, wildlife, fish or birds. Scientists often refer to these chemicals as “endocrine disruptors.”  These chemicals are found in many of the everyday products we use including some plastic bottles, metal food cans, detergents, flame retardants, food, toys, cosmetics, and pesticides.  Although limited scientific information is available on the potential adverse human health effects, concern arises because endocrine disrupting chemicals while present in the environment at very low levels, have been shown to have adverse effects in wildlife species, as well as in laboratory animals at these low levels.  he difficulty of assessing public health effects is increased by the fact that people are typically exposed to multiple endocrine disruptors simultaneously.

So What Do We Do Now?

Endocrine disruptors are essentially pollution in the air and water systems. The only way to avoid these is to live in a clener atmosphere which for many of us living in or near cities is close to impossible. Follow these tips whenever possible and remember that hte cleaner your diet is the better anyway.

  • Educate yourself about endocrine disruptors, and educate your family and friends.
  • Buy organic food whenever possible.
  • Avoid using pesticides in your home or yard, or on your pet — use baits or traps instead, keepin your home especially clean to prevent ant or roach infestations.
  • Find out if pesticides are used in your child’s school or day care center and campaign for non-toxic alternatives.
  • Avoid fatty foods such as cheese and meat whenever possible.
  • If you eat fish from lakes, rivers, or bays, check with your state to see if they are contaminated.
  • Avoid heating food in plastic containers, or storing fatty foods in plastic containers or plastic wrap.
  • Do not give young children soft plastic teethers or toys, since these leach potential endocrine disrupting chemicals.
  • Support efforts to get strong government regulation of and increased research on endocrine disrupting chemicals.

The science and society are still at odds with the issue of endocrine disruptors but this does not stop us from being more careful in the way that we eat and live to minimize their effects.

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