Wednesday, February 26, 2014

FOOD....nom nom nom

Bud and I like to try new recipes from time to time and last night we tried a couple that turned out DELISH. They are healthier than most of the recipes we typically try out and were very easy to make….even on a week night….when KB was running around like a mad man….taking every utensil out of the kitchen drawers….along with every piece of Tupperware…..and banging his juice cup on our glass table…..and shaking lamps….I digress. I found them both on Pinterest, my go-to for new recipes. The recipes are a cheesy zucchini bake and creamy mushroom chicken. Here is how my evening went down….

First, I got my ingredients ready for the cheesy zucchini bake. Here is the list of the ingredients:

  • 2 medium-sized zucchinis
  • 2 medium-sized yellow squash (side note: I typically don’t like squash)
  • 2-4 TBSP of fresh basil (our grocery store is bush-league so they didn’t have any fresh basil. I just used a crap ton of dried basil that we had at home and it was still good)
  • 2 TBSP of thinly sliced green onion
  • 1/2 tsp of dried thyme (I’ve got too much thyme on my hands….no, you don’t like?)
  • 3/4 tsp of garlic powder (to ward off vampires)
  • 1 cup of mozzarella/romano/white cheese (I used a blend of white cheeses)
  • 1/2 cup of coarsely grated parmesan cheese (I used the stuff you put on pizza instead)
  • Salt and pepper to taste
Now, pre-heat the oven to 350 degrees. Spray an 8x8 inch pan with some Pam (did you say your name is Pan?). Wash the zucchini and yellow squash (not with soap Amelia Bedelia) and cut them into 1 inch, half-moon pieces. If you have fresh basil, wash that up and cut it.

Combine the squash, zucchini, basil (if you have dried basil instead of fresh basil just sprinkle as much as you like in the mixture…I think I put in about 3 TBSPish), thyme, garlic powder, 1/2 cup of the white cheese, and parmesan cheese. Mix thoroughly until everything is evenly distributed. Add the mixture to the baking dish and sprinkle with salt and pepper. Open your oven and stand back for a few so you don’t burn your eyelashes and eyebrows off. Put that baby in the oven for 25-30 minutes or until squash and zucchini are tender.

Add the rest of the white cheese over the top and put it back into the oven for an additional 15 minutes or until its golden brown on top. YUMMO!

In the midst of making this dish, as if I wasn't already multi-tasking enough, I started the creamy mushroom chickens. The chickens took about 15-20 minutes total to make, so time it out accordingly if you want everything to be ready at the same time. For the chicken dish you will need:

  • 2 chicken breasts, about 5 oz each (I had 3 chicken breasts that were probably a bit bigger than 5 oz and it was still good)
  • Salt and pepper to taste
  • 1 tsp of canola oil
  • 1 shallot, chopped (since we have a bush-league grocery store, I couldn’t find shallots and substituted with a small yellow onion)
  • 1 cup of shitake mushrooms, sliced thinly (mine were pre-sliced and felt I could have added more than a cup)
  • 2 TBSP of white, dry wine (I bought some pinot grigio and pretended I didn’t only need 2 TBSP and got the jumbo bottle….booyah)
  • 2 TBSP of heavy cream
  • 1/4 cup of chicken broth
  • 2 TBSP of thinly sliced green onion
Cut off the gross fat from the chickens and season both sides with salt and pepper (SHOOP!!). Heat the canola oil on medium in a frying pan and add the chickens. Cook for 12-14 minutes, only flipping the birds one time. Transfer the chickens to a plate and cover so they don’t get chilly. Add the shallot/yellow onion to the pan and heat for about a minute. Add mushrooms and cook until tender, 2-4 minutes. Add white wine and stir until reduced and scrape up those brown bits in the pan, adds to the flavor. Pour in the chicken broth and reduce by half, about 2 minutes. Add the green onion and heavy cream and return the pan to a simmer. Add the chickens back to the pan and coat with mushroom mixture until everything is heated up and ready to shove down your hatch.

And there is our dinner from last night. Add a glass of wine and the meal with be complete! :)


If you want to read a recipe that is not written by an immature adult, click here for the chickens and here for the zucchini bake.

Bud and I both liked this meal and I even took some leftovers for lunch today. Still delish.

Welp, that should do it for today.

PEACE OUT!

Monday, February 24, 2014

La Update

We’ll we’ll we’ll…look what we have here. Damn autocorrect!!!! (I totally stole that from some meme I saw on FB or IG or Pinterest or…I am crazy. Probably the last one.) Anyhoo, I am just popping in for an update since I have finally been spared some free time at work.  HALLELUJIAH!
In my last post I told the internet that I was going to put myself through 14 days of hell. I made it through those 14 days and worked out 12 of them.  I was pretty proud that I consistently worked out and only skipped a couple days; however, my weight didn’t budge at all!! Annoying.


After those 14 days were up I took a mini break from working out mostly because we were busy, but also because I was just over it. After my week hiatus, I decided I needed to do something to bust through this damn plateau I have been stuck in so I coaxed my family into a diet bet.  Muahahahahahahahahaha. I honestly think that is exactly what I needed.  Friendly competition and fresh doll hairs dangling in the distance. We are mirroring the actual website with our bet (dietbetter.com) and are all competing to lose 4% of our bodyweight in a month.  We decided that the person who loses the highest percentage will get 25% of the pot, and those who reach a 4% loss will split the remaining 75%. We started our bet on February 12th and will end on March 12th.  Within the first 4 days I miraculously lost 5 pounds by saying “no” to chips, treats, grease (all the delicious stuff) and saying “yes” to fruits and lots of water. Pee City. That put me at 1.2 pounds away from reaching a 4% loss.  Since then, I have gone up a couple pounds and lost them again (damn female cycle), but am still sitting a couple pounds lower than my pre-pregnancy weight. BOOYAH! Honestly, I haven’t worked out as much as I planned, but I am eating a gazillion times better than I normally do, and have cut way back on the vino intake. Sad times.
All in all, I haven’t made any huge changes, but I really think my little swaps are making a difference and are helping me break through my plateau. I definitely need to pick it up in the work out department though, so I can coast into victory at the end of our bet. J I am sure I will do another update in a week or so with some more progress (hopefully).
In other news, my son is still a huge daddy’s boy and while that’s cute in all, it kind of hurts my beat maker. I mean, I BIRTHED HIM, after all. Hoping it’s just a phase (for my sake and sanity) and that he will want to cuddle with his mama again soon.
Dear Winter aka Polar Vortex aka Hell on Earth,

            Are you serious? 40 degrees BELOW zero? It’s almost MARCH!!!! WTF!!??? I would love to blame Canada for this one, but I am sure they are pissed off too. You suck! Go away and don’t bother showing your face again……EVER!!!!!!
Not Sincerely,
Disgruntled Wisconsin Resident
This last weekend our family decided to take the kiddos to Monkey Joe’s in Appleton and they all loved it! If you haven’t heard of it, it’s basically a cross between Chuckie Cheese and Discovery Zone. It’s a place full of inflatable slides and bounce houses. I was really looking forward to getting KB out of the house since we have been pretty much on lockdown all winter long with this DAMN COLD WEATHER!!! (See above) He did really well on all the slides - even the big ones! This kid has no fear so far and I am glad he is just up for anything. I look forward to taking him back when he is a little older so he can run around like the big boys. J
 
On the way home
Speaking of kiddos, Kamden is starting to get a little naughty streak and I find it kind of funny. I know I will be “that parent” that laughs when I shouldn’t, but I can’t help it! He doesn’t really understand that what he is doing is wrong yet, so in the meantime I will be giggling under my breath.  Like for instance, we have this tall floor lamp right by our couch. We (my husband) are constantly doing laundry so our hampers are in our living room about 99% of time because that’s where we (my husband) fold it. Well, our wicker hamper usually also serves as a side table right by the floor lamp at the end of our couch since we haven’t purchased an actual table to put there yet. Don’t judge. Kamden is obsessed with shaking the floor lamp and it scares the bejesus out of me every time because I don’t want him to knock it over and have it fall on him. Well, yesterday he was also all about getting into the back room where the elliptical and treadmill are, but we have a little barricade we made out of a little cubby, a plastic slide, and some pillows, that has previously kept him out. Real classy up in this B. KB figured out how to crawl over our very high-tech barricade so all day yesterday we were chasing him from crawling over it. Once KB was tired of us pulling him away from the barricade he somehow came up with a diversion. I am sitting in the living room, playing with KB, until I notice him starting to slowly back-up towards the hamper and floor lamp. He waits for me to notice him, makes eye contact, gets a little grin on his face, and then whips around to knock over the hamper. Then he starts scurrying towards the lamp as if he is going to start shaking it, but his hand barely grazes it before he bolts in the other direction down the hall and towards the barricade. It was as if he was trying to slow me down from catching him before he made it to the back room. This went on a few more rounds until we could distract him with snacks and cartoons. Yikes. 

And because my post is all over today, here is an interval treadmill work out that I will be doing to switch things up a bit. I did this yesterday and was sweating buckets (nothing new). So if you are like me and like running (psychos), but need to switch things up a bit, give this a try: 
I found this on Pinterest but modified it a bit. A lot of times with running routines I go as fast and as long as I can that day. It doesn’t mean I follow the routine to a “T” but I try to.  Some days I do more, some days I do less, and some days I just do it la du it. J
And now I am cutting myself off from rambling even more.
PEACE OUT BIZZOS!