So for Thanksgiving, I’m going to make this recipe for Mashed Sweet Potatoes in Orange Cups. It turns out so pretty and so delcious… mmmmm!
Lots of thanks given to the folks at Epicurious.com .
Is it next Thursday yet??
Food
something to chew on
So I had my appointment with the nutritionist last night. She reminded me that I am a hormonal mess, which is what is contributing mightily to my weight gain (plus, the fertility drugs do that too) – and I found her words comforting.
Just a few things I learned during our brief session:
- Calories count, so count calories. Interestingly, while she encouraged eating foods high in fiber, she basically said the nuts and bolts of weight loss come down to calorie consumption. Not surprising, but you hear so much about gimmicky diets, it’s refreshing to hear it said so plainly.
- Exercise does not burn as many calories as they would have you believe. Exercise is important in maintaining weight and metabolism, but is not the primary reason people lose weight. Elliptical and treadmill machines overstate the calories burned.
- Writing down what you eat is the cheapest, most effective way to lose weight.
- If every day you eat 100 calories more than what your body needs to maintain its weight, you will gain 10 lbs in a year. Americans have slowly been gaining weight – and it’s because of this simple fact. That’s basically cutting 1 can of regular coke out of a diet.
Anyway, it was a good conversation. I am starting to write down my eating habits. Hopefully it won’t be too atrocious!
healthier, happier, sweatier.
So, today I kept to my points (for Weightwatchers) and went for a very strenuous brisk walk on the treadmill. Tomorrow I might try to go into work early so that I can go for a walk on the treadmill and maybe do some free weights. We have two treadmills and a full locker room (with showers) at work, so this might actually work.
And I have to say, I was pretty happy today.
I got a LOT of work done today, just really booked through it. I have a pretty fun meeting tomorrow after work, so I am looking forward to that.
God is so good.
follicology
Otherwise known as the study of follicles.
I get to spend a delightful 20 minutes with my favorite ultra sound tech tomorrow. She is so kind. Every time I see her, she reminds me that she needs to lower the table before I try to jump off. If that doesn’t say “customer service,” then I don’t know what does.
We’ll find out tomorrow where we are with the growth and development of follicles. Once we see how my garden is growing, my doc will be able to tell me what’s next. Please pray for us!
In other news: this is the time where I really start my diet and exercise plan. For real. Serious. No messing around.
Onward!
doing better
today was a little bit better than yesterday night.
Frank was amazing. I came home from a reception after work and was so hungry that I didn’t know if I wanted to eat now, order food or go out to eat. On the way home I changed my mind three times. While Frank may have been tempted to throw up his hands and say “screw this!” – he didn’t.
We went to a nice Mexican restaurant and then stopped at Dominicks and rented He’s Just Not That Into You. Oh, goodness – all of the mistakes I made in my dating life!! If only I had that movie back then. But I have to say, I think it all worked out perfectly. But man – I was an idiot.
Moving on.
I decided to go with snuggling on the couch and renting a rom-com instead of going to the theaters and watching The Time Traveler’s Wife because, well, I sobbed when I read the book. And considering my fragile hormonal state, why risk it? Maybe Friday. Maybe.
The upside: I’ve been drinking more water, so the crying isn’t dehydrating me. I mean, silver lining on everything, hey?
sweet home, chicago
Well, we are back from our Vegas extravaganza. We came out ahead of the casinos (by about $50 – hey, better than in the hole $50!) and had a delightful time together.
I will write up a detailed, day-by-day report as soon as I get pics back from Frank. Some things just can’t be explained with mere words.
General thoughts:
- I would definitely go back to the Grand Canyon. The pictures do not do justice to what it feels to be a tiny human standing at the edge of this natural phenomenon.
- The Bellagio is lovely, but over-rated. More on that later. Suffice to say: Frank and I did not think that it was worth $100 to pay to work out. Seriously, the gym was not included as part of the stay.
- Buffets are awesome.
- O (Cirque du Soleil) was amazing. The imagery, colors, stunts, choreography, athleticism, music and overall experience were mind bending. I have been practicing touching my toes and hopes that I might be able to stand still with the same grace and poise (unlikely, but worth the effort).
- Grand Canyon – awesome.
- Flight to the Grand Canyon – not as awesome. Small Plane + Hot + Bumpy + Thunderstorms = Not happy times. I did not puke, I will have you know. The girl in front of me was not so lucky.
- Learned, during our Grand Canyon aviation experience that when Frank says, “Are you sick?” and I say, “Yes,” and he says, “Do you need a sick sack?” and I say, “No,” that we are miscommunicating. Sick to me means feeling nauseated and having a head ache and the world is spinning. Sick to Frank means “I am going to vomit.”
- In sort of a experiential cliche, I sat next to two musicians/wannabe musicians on the way home from LAX. Dude.
- Grand Canyon – still awesome. If you haven’t seen it, go see it. Stop reading this post and start driving/flying to it.
- I’m serious. Grand Canyon. It is both Grand and Canyon-y.
- I always smile when I end a trip without exposing my dirty underwear at the baggage claim. It stems from a childhood incident wherein my family’s luggage ripped apart en-route home from Orlando. Our bag rounded the corner of the carousel, underwear laid out for the world to see. At first we chuckled, not realizing it was our bag. And then, horror of horrors, we realized that those panties hanging out were OUR panties. NO! Dad yanked the bag off of the carousel and tried to remedy the situation by taking off his belt and wrapping it around the suitcase. Too small. I don’t know what he eventually did. I just know the car ride home was silent as we were all stricken by the experience. So to say that I managed to end yet another vacation without sharing my blue and white polka dot undies with the fine folks at ORD, that is a big deal.
It’s good to be back home. Thanks to Andy for the ride home tonight. You’re a fabulous brother. (who I convinced to go on a 2 mile run with me at 9:30 am Saturday).
amazing bread.
Ok, in the vein of recipes I LOVE, you have to make Pastor Ryan’s bread. Stop what you are doing, go into the kitchen and make it. You only need 5 ingredients, all of which you should have. And if you don’t have these ingredients, you should leave the house, go to the store and get the ingredients. Taking the time to put shoes on is simply unacceptable.
I would direct you to Pioneer Woman for this recipe , however, I feel the need to warn you that making this required several modifications on my part to the recipe and so I would feel better telling you how I make this recipe rather than having you make the recipe on her website. Ok? Ok.
First, I gather the ingredients:
- 3 cups of bread flour (you can use regular flour, I just don’t know how it turns out… read: don’t blame me if you screw this up)
- 2 tsp of salt
- 1 tsp of Red Star (or whatever brand you prefer) Active Dry Yeast
- 1 cup of water (room temp)
- 4 tbsp of butter, melted
- 2-3 tsp of herbs (thyme, Italian seasoning, Basil, garlic – whatever you want to put in the bread… it’s your bread. own it.)
- Olive oil. And lots of it.
Pre-heat the oven to 450 degrees.
Put the flour and salt in your mixing bowl. Use the bread hook attachment. Or maybe you are a flower child and you want to knead this by hand. Again, own this bread. Work it. Become one with it.
In the cup of water, add the yeast to get it all “activated” and stuff. Add the herbs to the melted butter. Dump the yeasty-water and herby-butter into the salty-flour. Marvel at your amazingness.
Turn on your mixer and watch it mix. The dough should ball up around the dough hook. The dough should be loose and not clumpy. After about 10 minutes of kneading on the dough hook, you can pull off a piece of the dough and see if it is stretchy and transparent without breaking (window pane test). Or you can do what I do, which is pray. While you’re praying, let the dough sit and rise for 1 to 4 hours, until it doubles in size. Knead the dough a couple of times to, as Pastor Ryan says, “redistribute the yeast.” Make it into a cute ball of doughy happiness. Cut a deep X into the top of the dough.
Coat the bottom of a castiron or metal dutch oven with olive oil. (Make sure that your dutch oven doesn’t have any plastic handles!! They will melt in the oven which will ruin your dutch oven AND your bread. And you definitely don’t want to ruin this bread!) Please your dough ball in the center of the dutch oven, douse it with some more olive oil (about a tbsp or two), sprinkle with coarse/kosher salt.
Put this bad boy into the oven with the lid on for 30 minutes. Then take the lid off and let it brown up and get real pretty for another 15-30 minutes. REMEMBER TO USE OVEN MITTS WHEN TAKING THE POT OUT OF THE OVEN. I say this more for myself than for anyone else. But just in case you are like me – do as I say and not as I do.
The bread should have an internal temperature of 200-220 degrees.
Let it cool down a bit (which may take lot of will power). Then slice it up and devour it before your guests arrive. Err. I mean, thank goodness it’s such an easy recipe, you can make two loaves!
All credit for this recipe goes to Pastor Ryan and Pioneer Woman, Ree. Enjoy!
shoppin' and bakin'
Today was not as productive as I had hoped. I sort of recovered for the morning and then went out into the world
Stop one: Chase.
This was the part of the day where I confessed my idiocy to a complete stranger. Somehow (I am vague on purpose cuz I know how) I wound up with 3 debit cards. An old one and two new ones. I activated one of the new ones, which in turn, deactivated the old one. But I didn’t have the pin for the new one. So I went up to the fine tellers at chase, laid out my three cards and told them all of my troubles. They fixed it and even lied to me, saying, “This happens all the time.” Right. Nice.
Stop one and a half: Dominick’s
Since the Chase branch is IN the Dominick’s grocery store, I figured I’d pick up a few missing essentials – cotton balls, razors, bread, two pints of Fro-Yo (Frozen Yogurt) and Magic Shell. Have I mentioned that I am having a roughish day?
Stop two: Bed Bath & Beyond.
And this was the part of my day where I resisted mightily purchasing something for myself. I wanted some air-tight canisters for my flour and sugar. I wanted a rug for the office in the basement. I wanted a new TV stand. I want, I want, I want… But I stayed the course. I only purchased the gift I needed for the shower tomorrow… oh, and a pack of gum. And now my dear friend’s registry has Dentyne on it – cuz the cashier put it on her registry. So it should say, “Dentyne Gum. Wants: 0, Has: 1” What’s going to be the real bummer is that I have no plans of giving her the gum. Hey, you can’t have everything.
Stop three: Valli’s.
This was one of those stops where Dorothy sort of veered across three lanes of traffic (not really) and squealed into the parking lot saying, “Guys! Since we’re here, just gotta get a few things.” Like we’d say no to that. (we = Kristin H-J and me). The produce at Valli’s is SO cheap. SO. Cheap! But again, I resisted the urge to make any rash purchases and instead just bought some bread flour. Yum.
Stop four: Dorothy & Erik’s
Okay, I haven’t made this stop yet because I am patiently waiting for the durned bread to be done. “C’mon bread, you can do it!”
Addendum to Day 1 Post:
Talked to La Doctor today. She is upping my Clomid (seriously, if everyone is suddenly busy in August, I understand. Heck, I want to avoid me too!). I don’t really have any more to say about that. I have to be home on Monday to receive my meds, so I’m not sure I’ll make it to the Wisco State Fair. Grrr! All hope is not lost yet, tho…
Too Much Sugar!
So yeah, have a little bit too much sugah over here. Probably won’t eat dinner due to overload! 😀
Frank is home–woohoo! It was a happy reunion, even if I was a bit snippish at first 😉 (what can I say? I missed him!)
Anyway, gotta go for now…wheeeeeeeeeeeeeee
Hot Rolls
I got this in my inbox & it made me chuckle:
URGENT NOTICE REGARDING POTENTIAL FIRE AND SAFETY HAZARD IN RECIPE FOR ICEBOX ROLLS ON PAGE 154 OF THE APRIL 2004 ISSUE OF SOUTHERN LIVING
Please DO NOT USE the Icebox Rolls recipe. Combining the water and shortening as described in the recipe may cause the mixture to ignite, is extremely dangerous, and could result in fire and safety hazards. The correct recipe is currently available on our website, southernliving.com. It will also be reprinted in the May issue of Southern Living. If you have any questions, please call 1-888-836-9327.
emmy kay and co. 