food planning

Recently I was chatting with some friends about how little time I have to cook lately with my crazy study schedule and just life in general getting in the way. I still love to cook (mostly to eat), but I am just not feeling it lately.

But every weekend I try to do some ahead-of-time preparation for the next week or two of cooking and eating and these are definitely strategies I plan to continue using, especially when I move to DC where we will both have real jobs and less time to spend in the kitchen. None of this is earth-shattering, but maybe you’ll learn a fun new tip and maybe you’ll have suggestions for me?

Sharing is caring, folks.

I hate grocery shopping. HATE IT. So I tend to do one “big” shop every other week and occasionally run to the store mid-week to grab something I’m out of or something I’m craving. I tend to plan out 1 or 2 main “dishes” to make that week and put the ingredients on my shopping list. And I always make sure to stock up on some basics for my fridge and pantry:

• Milk (I’m into unsweetened almond milk these days)
• Eggs & egg whites
• Plain yogurt
• Lean protein in the freezer
• Brown rice
• Pasta
• Frozen vegetables (for when you run out of fresh ones!)
• Bread
• Ketchup (necessary)

With the above ingredients, I can always manage to throw together some kind of a meal with the other ingredients I have. Even if it is boring, I make an effort to use the food I have purchased.

As soon as I get home from the grocery store I launch into Crazy Organizer Meredith and my Type A personality really comes out. For example, if I bought chicken breasts, I will open the package, re-package each breast individually, label, and freeze them. I un-bag my produce and put it away in the fruit basket or vegetable drawer. I buy a lot in bulk (dried beans, rice, nuts) and try to keep them organized by transferring them into tupperware or old glass jars that I wash and reuse (pickle jars and pasta sauce jars work best because they’re big!). It takes 10-15 minutes and the organization is totally worth it.

After all the organization of the fridge and pantry, I start some basic prep. If I am planning on a chicken dish, I’ll start to marinade it. I’ll soak some dried beans so I can boil them up later. I’ll hard boil several eggs to keep in the fridge. I’ll throw some rice in my rice cooker to keep on hand during the week.

When it comes to actually cooking, I like to make meals that are easily transported in a lunchbox to school or easily reheated for quick dinners. Some of my favorite dishes to have on hand are turkey burgers, channa masala, pasta salad, grilled chicken to throw in salads, and pizza dough to keep in the freezer.

I tend to make one dish on Saturday or Sunday and then make another, easier one mid-week. Also, remembering to pull things out of the freezer is now a habit for me. I scan it a few times a week. Do I have chili or cooked turkey burgers in there? Pizza dough? I just pull them out in the mornings and by the time dinner rolls around, they’re easily reheated. If you package individual servings before freezing, it makes it much easier to just pull a hunk o’ lasagna out and enjoy it.

Do you do meal planning or do you just fly by the seat of your pants? 

some January motivation

Ahh January… the time of year when gyms are overcrowded and diet commercials abound! Some people take January seriously, and others are totally annoyed by the so-called “January joiners” who invade the gym and produce section. When people roll into the gym with jeans and water bottles full of Diet Coke (bless their hearts), I have to force myself to remember one thing: that was me 3 years ago. Lost, unhappy, 250 lbs, but trying to fix it.

Yep, 3 years ago today I started to change my life on my own terms. As I’ve written about before, my dad died in November of 2008. Here is a picture of me from my mom’s wedding, just a day after his funeral:

Shortly after this, I finished my semester and had about a month of winter break to process things. Slowly, the wheels of change started to spin in my brain and I found blogs about healthy living and weight loss. I investigated my choices. I invested in myself. I started Weight Watchers on January 12, 2009.

I learned about making smarter choices with my food. I liked the burn I felt in my muscles when I exercised. I knew that I had to do something proactive to become a happier person and turn things around for myself. It all started to click.

I started on the elliptical, moved to running (using the Couch to 5k program!), and ran my first 5k! I then ran a 10k and a handful of other 5k’s. I got back into swimming, my childhood sport and first love. I took spin classes. I was healthy.

Over the next year and a half, I lost 80 lbs. I was happy. I was a new person.

In the 1.5 years since I’ve moved to Texas, I gained 10-12 lbs back (depending on what day you asked me). I got a little disheartened after falling out of some new habits and back into some old habits. But since August I’ve been trying to pick myself back up by my bootstraps (because I actually have bootstraps now) and I’ve gotten back on the bandwagon and lost the “moving-weight”. Now, I’m looking forward to getting rid of the final 15 lbs I want to shed. Full disclosure: I’m using Weight Watchers again and have been since November.

So why am I sharing all this with you? I wanted to write it out for myself as some positive reinforcement and motivation for me, as well as anyone out there looking at the calendar and wondering if this year is the year. It is! I did it. And not to sound like one of those tv commercials but… if I can do it, so can you. It wasn’t always easy, and it certainly wasn’t always pretty, but I did it.

My advice: pick some small things you can change and go from there. One change will snowball into another. You’ll be amazed at what you continue to accomplish. Find yourself a mantra (the one I’m using these days was 100% stolen from the Minute Maid orange juice slogan, but it works): “Put good in, get good out.”

Are you using this January to change things up? Are you looking for ways to get healthier? Did you already find a better lifestyle? I want to hear everyone’s stories! I need the motivation and I know other people want it, too!

 

gettin’ ripped

To change subjects entirely, I would like to redirect your attention to my muscles.

In addition to training for a half marathon (read my story here and consider donating here!), I am currently enrolled in a good old fashioned PE class through the institution where I am studying for my Master’s degree. This has been an amazing class and I can feel my body changing every day. I have definitely gained muscle in my arms, back, and legs, and my abs are getting stronger each day.

We start every day with a brief overview of the workout and then we are led in an intense warm up, followed by our workout. If you are interested in doing a more structured weight training program, here’s what I do twice a week in class and once a week on my own:

Warm up:
15 crunches
30 penguins
15 leg lifts
10 zulus <— my own personal hell
25 flutter kicks
15 reverse crunches
30 bicycles
10 bird dogs (per side)
10 standard fire hydrants (per side)
5 forward loop fire hydrants (per side)
5 reverse loop fire hydrants (per side)
10 Superman pushups <— I can’t actually do the pushup component
10 push up plus
20 mountain climbers
10 donkey kicks
10 sky divers
10 back divers
30 second side plank (per side)
die in a pool of sweat

Weight training (sets x reps):
1 x 10 bench press warm up, 45 lbs (just the bar)
3 x 5 bench press target, 60 lbs
1 x 10 bench press warm down, 45 lbs

1 x 10 squats warm up, 45 lbs (just the bar)
3 x 5 squats target, 70 lbs
1 x 10 squats warm down, 45 lbs

3 x 10 bicep curl with dumbbell,  12.5 lbs
2 x 10 (per side) dumbbell row, 15 lbs
3 x 10 French press, 15 lbs <— do this for fierce arms
3 x 10 tricep pull down, 15 lbs
3 x 10 overhead press (with bar or dumbbells), 35 lbs

3 x 10 leg press, 150 lbs
3 x 10 calf raises (toes pointing in, toes pointing out, neutral stance)

**If you don’t know what some of these are, a quick Google search will get you images of them all!

Before starting any weight training, remember that I am not a professional, I am not your doctor (so talk to your own!), and that you shouldn’t try for the weights I am lifting if you are not capable of lifting them! For bench press and squats, you will need a spotter to help you (so modify and do traditional squats with hand weights if you don’t have a rack or lie on a bench and use dumbbells for bench press).

Do you have a weight training program? Or do you just do a few standard exercises after finishing up your cardio?

refrigerator facial

As I mentioned in an earlier post, a representative from Avocados from Mexico (hi, Ginny!) sent me some avocados to use in a breakfast recipe, which I did when I made a Pineapple Avocado Smoothie! I’ve also used the delicious avocados to top salmon burgers, to top my eggs, and in salad.

But one way I never thought to use avocado? A face mask!

Since a current beauty trend is using natural ingredients and getting rid of all the unnatural yucky chemicals, I figured that avocado had to have more benefits than one can get by simply eating it.

My skin is chronically dry (thanks, thyroid) so I decided to go for the avocado moisturizing mask. While mine didn’t look as pretty as this…

(in fact it looked more like this…)

… my mask did make my skin feel great! The ingredients were totally normal and something you’ll easily find in your refrigerator and pantry: avocado, plain yogurt, and honey!

My skin has continued to feel softer and more moisturized a few days after the facial and I can see this becoming a bi-weekly beauty ritual. Plus, it smells great

Try it, your skin will thank you!

an Austin barbecue secret

I’m going to let y’all in on an Austin barbecue secret. Sure, Salt Lick is amazing and the experience of driving out in hill country and seeing the meat smoked on the open pit is one not to be missed. I plan on taking all of my out of town visitors to Salt Lick still. But if you’d rather stay in Austin and eat the best barbecue I’ve ever eaten, you’re going to go to Franklin’s.

Yes, Franklin’s BBQ. The one that used to be the trailer on the side of the highway. It is now a proper restaurant that just so happens to be nextdoor to my boyfriend’s apartment.

The wonderful thing about Franklin’s is the ritual involved. It is open “11am-sold out” and they mean it. I’ve been twice now and each time, upon getting in line at 10:30am along with several other die-hards, it still took over an hour to get through line. There is nothing like waiting outside in the Austin sun for over an hour and then finally getting inside the restaurant and smelling the food. 

We chose to take the food back to his place to eat this time, but when the weather is nice I recommend sitting outside and soaking in the barbecue. Rahul and I actually went on our second date to Franklin’s so it is his fault I’m so obsessed.

(sorry for the blurry photo!)

I recommend getting the two-meat plate (which we split) and some extra meat on the side to share as well. The pork ribs are my personal favorite, being a Virginia gal, but the brisket (lean and fatty) is out of this world. The pulled pork is good by Texas standards (but not by Virginia standards) and I have yet to try the sausage but it looks great. The pies look delectable, too.

So get your butt to Franklin’s BBQ around 10:30am, prepared to stand in line for a while, and earn yourself the best barbecue I’ve ever eaten.

yeast tutorial

Please note: I’m not an expert. But I can pretend.

Yeast can be intimidating to those who have never used it, but I promise it is not difficult. Recently I passed on a recipe to a friend and she commented that she’s a yeast novice. It seems I have taken for granted the Mama-instilled knowledge of how to work with yeast!

To help my friend, and y’all, I will show you the basic principles of yeast and how it will change your life.

To start, you need to buy some yeast. It comes in envelopes, jars, and (more uncommonly) yeast cakes. I have never laid eyes on yeast cakes as they are more for commercial operations and bakeries. But you’ll be fine with the envelopes or the jar, easily found in your grocer’s baking aisle.

Note: 1 envelope of yeast = 2 1/4 tsp yeast from the jar.

I keep my jar in the refrigerator. Because of this I always proof, or activate, the yeast before using it. Some types of yeast are already active in our times of new fangled food technology, but I follow the school of “always activate the yeast, especially if it was cold in the refrigerator”. It won’t hurt it and will make your dough extra fluffy.

To activate yeast, you need 3 things: warm water, yeast, and a source of sugar. Sugar feeds the yeast so even if your recipe doesn’t call for sugar, adding just a pinch in with the warm water and yeast will really help things along. However, if your recipe doesn’t call for sugar but does call for milk, you don’t need to worry about adding extra sugar since milk naturally has sugar in it.

As far as the water, you can usually run your tap until it is hot and that should suffice; there’s no need to use a kettle or microwave. If you’re worried, buy a cheap candy thermometer and check that the water is within 10* of 115*. Any hotter and you run the risk of “killing” the magical powers of yeast.

Combining the warm water with yeast and sugar begins the activation process and you can sit back and relax for 5-10 minutes. Or you can sit over it and watch it curiously bubble and become foamy, as I do. I’m fascinated by yeast, actually. The above picture was taken after about 5 minutes and you can see how it looks cloudy and bubbly. I ended up letting it foam up for a few more minutes, but as long as it starts looking like I have shown above you’re on the right track to yeast success.

When the time has passed and the yeast is bubbly and foamy, you are ready to add in the rest of your ingredients and bake away! Just follow the recipe’s instructions to form the dough.

When your dough has come together, you should let it rise in a warm place, covered with a dish towel. Do this according to your recipe. If your kitchen/house is naturally cool, I suggest turning on your oven for a few minutes to bring some heat to the area and then you can place the covered dough in a bowl on or near the cooktop.

This,

will become this:

The best part of working with yeast is punching down the risen dough to knead it again!

At this point, keep following your recipe instructions and you’re ready to bake amazing breads! You can freeze yeasted dough once it has risen. It should rise again while thawing in a warm place.

See? Yeast is not that intimidating! And now that you’re a brave, brave soul and are ready to use yeast, check out my recipes and have at it!

can Ramen noodles be fancy?

Yes, America. Those $0.15 noodles can indeed be turned into something fancy with the help of just a few other ingredients.

I’ve been eating this salad for years now and I love it. It is crispy, tangy, colorful, and quite delicious. It takes a few seconds to throw together and can be eaten immediately or kept in the fridge and nibbled at over a few days. And you don’t even have to boil the noodles!

I love to pack this in lunches or take to potlucks. I bet it would be divine as a side dish to some Asian-glazed salmon or spare ribs….

Oh Lord, now I’m drooling. And going to the grocery store.

Oriental Noodle Salad (serves 6-8)
1 (12 oz) bag rainbow slaw (mix of cabbage, carrot, and broccoli slaw)
1 package Ramen noodles, pork flavored (or vegetarian!)
2/3 cup roasted unsalted pumpkin seeds
1/4 cup red wine vinegar
1/4 cup olive oil
Remove the flavor packet from the Ramen noodle package and set aside. Crunch dry noodles up into small pieces. In a large mixing bowl, combine the crushed, dried Ramen noodles with the slaw and pumpkin seeds. In a measuring cup, combine olive oil, vinegar, and the flavor packet from the Ramen noodles. Stir well. Pour about half of the oil and vinegar mixture over the slaw mixture and stir. Add the rest of the dressing to taste (you don’t want it too soggy — I used about 3/4 of the dressing). Toss well and serve.

Single Gal Survival: How to Fix Your Dishwasher (sorta)

I’m getting pretty handy around here, y’all. In my singledom and having lived on my own away from my mommy since August, I’ve learned to inflate my tires, date myself, and I successfully refinished my kitchen table. Now I’m about to totally blow your minds.

Enter the enemy, better known as my dishwasher.

Before I go any further, I’ll just let you know how happy I am that my tiny apartment even has a dishwasher, albeit a decrepit, noisy one the likes of which my parents probably had in their first apartment. But Saturday evening, I rounded up the straggler dishes around the apartment so I could run my dishwasher, something I seldom do since I enjoy hand-washing my dishes. (Don’t y’all stay home on Saturday nights and load your dishwasher?)

So, much to my distress, nothing happened when I turned the knob. Just a clicking, sad noise. The soap was released, but the water didn’t run. I turned the knob a million times and even tried running the water in the sink while starting the dishwasher (this seemed logical at the time).

Then I sat on the floor in front of the dishwasher, praying and kicking it. Percussive maintenance has always been my strong suit.

Then I gave up in a huff and went back to my room to Google search.

I found no answers to help me, shockingly. But I did see a key word in all the dishwasher mumbo-jumbo: “switch“. Apparently most dishwashers have switches somewhere in their vicinity that control master power. Dishwashers, incidentally, require electricity and don’t run on prayers or voodoo as I had assumed. Well reading about this switch jogged my memory and made me remember something that happened earlier this week.

Remember this picture from when I baked muffins a little while back?

And do you see that little light switch behind Oscar (my mixer)? Well I have lived in this apartment for 6 months and had never seen that switch before until I looked at the picture on my very own blog and on a separate occasion from the dishwasher episode. What the heck?! When this happened, I raced to the kitchen to play with the switch, only to be disappointed that it didn’t make a House Elf appear or a mystery pantry light turn on. I gave up and moved on, forgetting all about the switch until Saturday night.

But then, it hit me like a ton of bricks. When I played with that switch, I must have shut off the dishwasher.

The switch is now turned to “on” and the dishwasher is humming away in the kitchen. Problem solved.

Got anything you need me to fix? I’m a real Bob Vila these days.

my newest obsession

Sooooo it has been a while since we talked about going to the gym and staying fit. In light of the macaroni I inhaled this week, I think talking about the gym would be appropriate right now.

I haven’t run in forever because my left leg is just not meant for running and I realized that I simply stopped enjoying it. I’ve been doing other fun things at the gym. I may not be built to run long races, but I’d rather concentrate on having fun while staying fit than trying to do something I just don’t enjoy.

Recently, I emailed some blogger friends of mine who are far more fit savvy than I (Leah and Heather) and they both suggested circuit workouts as a way to switch up my routine. Well, lo and behold my new gym has a built in circuit room!!

It has a timed system of lights and you just follow the order of the machines. Each station lasts a minute (the green light) with 20 second breaks in between (the red lights) where you switch stations and wipe the sweat dripping off your body. Every other station is a step box where you go at your own pace with aerobic steps and then the other stations are weight machines where you get a full body workout.

I’ve drawn you a picture in case you’re confused.

That thing in the middle would be me lying in a pool of sweat on the verge of death. That’s how effective this workout is.

In just 30 minutes, I get a better workout than I’ve ever gotten doing the usual cardio & weights routine. I go pretty fast on the step boxes to get my heart rate up, but that can be done at your own pace and to your own comfort. As for the weights, the instructions in the room suggest 12-15 reps so I lift pretty heavy to fatigue the muscle, but not so hard I hurt myself!

So now I’m obsessed, totally hooked. I do this 2-3 times a week and I can definitely feel the results, both early the next morning when I cannot lift my arms to shampoo and later at the gym when I’m feeling stronger and fitter. If you’re getting bored in your workout routine, I highly suggest trying a circuit workout. You can easily create your own at your gym with a sport watch to keep time, some cardio equipment or step box, and weight machines.

I promise you’ll feel amazing. After you are able to peel yourself off the floor, of course.

Single Gal Survival: Power Tools & Painting

Alright ladies (and gents… I don’t discriminate), I am back with another very important lesson in single living. We’ve already learned how to check tire pressure & inflate tires as well as how to date yourself, so now single gals, I am here to teach you how to refinish furniture.

In 2009 I lived in Argentina for the summer (winter down there) and I was hiking in the highlands in the northwest when I came upon this:

Every time I’ve looked at this picture since, I’ve wanted to use that color to make something pop out like that door does. Well, I bought my kitchen table from Craigslist back in August and, while I liked it, I kept looking at it and thinking about how I’d like to paint it. In October  decided that I was going to go ahead and paint the table. But I waited until I had some time on my hands, so winter break from grad school seemed perfect to me.

So first, you must pick out your color and visualize your outcome. Since I already had a color in mind, I just spent some time looking at the table and deciding if I wanted to paint the whole thing or just parts of it.

Then I had to acquire some important components of furniture refinishing, such as paint, brushes, and a power-sander. Now, you can rent power-sanders from places like Home Depot, but my mom happened to have one in the garage and I’m sure the TSA had a field-day with the stuff in my checked luggage.

The table I was working with was previously finished, so I had to use a power-sander to remove the finish. The table was already smooth, so I used the finest grit of sand paper that fit my sander (240 grit) to sand away the glossy finish on the table. I chose to use a semi-gloss paint to refinish the table since glossy paints are more water proof and clean easily. Also, the parts of the table I didn’t sand would still be glossy from the original finish, so it would look weird having some surfaces matte and some glossy.

I went back and forth on the color, actually. I kept thinking I should go more conservative and have it a bit more green and a little less bright. But at the last minute, I went with my instinct and the inspiration from the picture!

Sanding the table was my favorite part! It was so fun and relaxing. I just sat outside in the sunshine (high of 65* yesterday… I love Texas) and sanded away while listening to my iPod. Of all the power tools available to me, this is probably the safest. The worst that could have happened if I had slipped or dropped the sander was a bruise and maybe scratching myself. That’s more desirable than cutting a finger off with a buzz saw.

After sanding, I moved everything inside and prepped by laying down a drop cloth (cheap plastic sheet from Walmart) and putting painter’s tape on the areas I didn’t want to be blue.

Then I slapped on a first coat and let it dry for several hours.

When painting, follow the nail-polish rule: let the first coat completely dry before painting the second.

After dinner, I painted the second coat and cleaned up a bit, scrubbing sawdust and paint off my hands and legs. Then, I went to bed and woke up this morning to take off the blue tape, do a couple touch-ups, and smile. I’m so obsessed with this table I cannot stop looking at it. It just makes me so happy. I’m calling this “farmhouse chic”.

This project took 1 full day to complete, plus touch-ups this morning. I had time to go to the gym, stop for meals, and even take a nap yesterday in the midst of all the painting. If you have a real job, unlike me, you could easily do something like this over a weekend.

This furniture refurb really brightens up the room and makes me so happy. I know that the color isn’t appealing to everyone, but I love it and I’m so happy with the outcome. I’m also impressed that I did it completely on my own. Including supplies that I can reuse, this whole project was only $25 and totally worth it!

So should you need a room pick-me-up but you aren’t sure you are capable of something like this, trust me: you are. If I can use power tools and brave Home Depot, you can too!