Tag: Sour Cream

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General Weight Loss Tips

View From the Weekend

My main goal this weekend is to get organized. I have a very busy week ahead of me with two jewelry shows, a little catering, getting jewelry ready to go into an art gallery, freelance work, traveling to NC for a bead show, shipping out etsy orders, plus my normal work, housework, exercise, blogging and somewhere in there: eating. It’s going to be crazy so instead of running around like a chicken with it’s head cut off like I usually am when I’ve got a lot going on I’m being proactive.

This is my first weekend in awhile without travel, or something to do so I decided it would be spent at home instead of our usual outings. I’m in the process of getting the whole house cleaned. Cooking and planning food for next week, so we don’t resort to eating out. And making sure I’m working smarter.

(getting the kitchen cleaned)

I’m catching up on design work, jewelry orders and I’ve got bacon cheddar biscuits and muffins in the freeze. I’ve also got carnitas in the crock pot, salad made, vegetables chopped, rice in the cooker.

Josh has been helping out too. He dug out soil in our raised beds. Wearing Guinness pajama pants.

I made a big batch of cream cheese biscuits. Filling them with one slice of cooked bacon plus 1/2 oz. jalapeno cheese. Freezing for quick breakfasts this week.

I’ve been using my Nook Color to read recipes in the kitchen. No more lugging the laptop into the kitchen! I can even google: “how to make buttermilk” while I’m baking.

Organizing the kitchen drawers. I love having all of my measuring spoons laid out like this.

Enjoying the flowers around our house. Thankful that the previous owners did a little landscaping.

I made a batch of Krissie’s Blueberry Sour Cream Muffins. I used yogurt instead because my sour cream smelled weird. I used wayy too many blueberries, I used three small containers thinking “I love blueberries! I need lots of them!” Wasn’t the best idea I had. I also used evaporated cane juice, white whole wheat flour and sprinkled raw sugar on top.


The flower I’ve managed to keep alive.

And finally…

Our cat Simon came home after roaming the woods for about six hours. Thank goodness.

oh! I lost 7 pounds this week! I’m going to do a Sunday weight loss updates for every new pound that I lose!

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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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Recipe: Zucchini and Feta Griddle Cakes for Two

Have you ever done something that later left you thinking “self, you’re awesome for doing that!”? Well, over the summer people were leaving zucchini at my doorstep and then running away. Not really, but that’s a better story than me feeling sorry for the unloved zucchini and bringing any and all that was offered to me into my home. I’m an adopter, that’s what I do.

I pulled out my food prossor and grated a few large zucchinis then put them in freezer bags for a later date. That later date came and I knew I needed to make zucchini cakes.  I also knew that the recipe should involve feta. Almost every recipe should involve feta in my opinion.

Zucchini and Feta Griddle Cakes (makes two)

Ingredients:

1 C grated and drained zucchini- 20 calories

¼ C crumbled feta – 90 calories

1 egg – 70 calories

½ t salt

1 clove of garlic minced (or garlic powder)

¼ C flour- 114 calories

2 t olive oil – 80 calories

Total calories: 374

Per serving: 187

Directions:

Squeeze excess water out of zucchini. Combine all ingredients except for the olive oil into a large bowl. Mix well with hands or a wooden spoon.

Pour olive oil in griddle and heat over medium for a couple of minutes. Divide zucchini mixture then form into two patties.

Cook on both sides for about two minutes. Or until the feta begins to melt.

Serve with greek yogurt, sour cream, or marinara sauce.

Enjoy! They tasted like fresh zucchini, but cake-like and tangy/salty from the feta. Definitely plan to make them again. Plus Josh loved them which is a bonus.

(pictured here with butternut squash fries and salmon)

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