Tomorrow is the much anticipated Bellin 10K Run (or Walk, in my case.) It begins at around 8am for the elite runners. I will probably start actually walking sometime after 9am. I can't run it (due to the previously discussed knee pain) so I won't be starting with the running group. (Speaking of my knee, the MRI and consult with the orthopedic surgeon has confirmed my prediction. I have a bilateral meniscus tear in my left knee. Surgery is scheduled for early August.)
And the cool thing is that my wife, Tammy, will be walking with me! I am excited about that! We are not going to attend the big all you can eat spaghetti dinner for the runners. Instead, we are going to carb load tonight with a bowl of popcorn. Non-traditional, but it is what we want (well, it's what I want, at least.)
Summer classes have started for me, both the class that I teach and a certification course that I need to take. When combined with our planned vacation and camping weekends, this will be a very busy summer. I am already sort of looking forward to the knee surgery so that I have a reason to slow down a bit.
I'm going to follow this post with a recipe for simple Grilled Shrimp Scampi. It was easy, healthy and delicious!
Friday, June 8, 2012
Saturday, June 2, 2012
Sigh.
The anniversary party was nice. And the Italian Fries were good, but not as good as I had anticipated, based on my memories.
Oh well.
Oh well.
A Big Event Today
We are going back to my hometown to visit my parents and to help celebrate their 50th wedding anniversary. That's an awesome milestone.
But that's not the "Big Event" today.
On the way home, we are stopping at one of the greatest pizza places in the world, and will enjoy an order of Italian Fries (with cheese!) That is soooooo not appropriate for weight management. It is nothing but pizza crust, olive oil and garliz, topped with a mound of mozzarella. High sodium. High fat.
High deliciousness, too.
I expect a cheese-induced lethargy by early evening. More later!
But that's not the "Big Event" today.
On the way home, we are stopping at one of the greatest pizza places in the world, and will enjoy an order of Italian Fries (with cheese!) That is soooooo not appropriate for weight management. It is nothing but pizza crust, olive oil and garliz, topped with a mound of mozzarella. High sodium. High fat.
High deliciousness, too.
I expect a cheese-induced lethargy by early evening. More later!
Friday, June 1, 2012
Paella (my style)
This is not exactly the recipe that you will find in Spain, but is it darn good and will be made again!
Paella
Serves 6
3 cups chicken broth (low sodium)
1 1/2 cup brown rice, uncooked
1 bell peppers, fire roasted, chopped (if you use store bought peppers, you will need about 1/2 cup)
1/2 cup frozen peas
1/2 cup chopped shallot (or onion)
15 green olives, halved
1 pound raw shrimp, peeled and deveined
3 boneless/skinless chicken thighs, halved
1/2 tsp black pepper
1/2 tsp saffron
1. In an aluminum 9x13 pan, combine all ingredients.
2. Preheat your grill, place pan on grate. (Or preheat your oven to 350F, and place pan in oven.)
3. When it begins to boil, cover with aluminum foil and seal tightly.
4. Let it bake for 45 minutes.
5. Remove cover and let it rest for 5 minutes.
6. Stir together and serve.
Nutritional data, per 8 ounce serving:
Calories: 322
Fat: 8.2g
Sat fat: 2.1g
Chol: 120mg
Sodium: 231mg
Carbs: 39.1g
Fiber: 2.8g
Protein: 22.9g
This is what it looks like to fire-roast a bell pepper over the stove in your kitchen.
Turn the burner on high, and place the pepper on the grate. Turn occasionally. When charred on all side, place in a bowl and cover with plastic wrap and let it steam itself for 5 minutes. Remove from the bowl and with a butter knife scrape most of the charred skin off. Use immediately or save in refrigerator for up to 2-3 days.
The next time I make this recipe, I will reduce the amount of shrimp and increase the amount of chicken. I might also stir in some smoked oysters right before serving (just an idea.)
Wild Flowers On Our Walk
I mentioned in the last post that Tammy took some nice photos of wildflowers as we walked in the "wild forest" of eastern Wisconsin. Here are a few of them. I know the last one is a lilac, but if anyone knows what the other two are, please comment.
The white flower is about the size of a quarter.
Some sort of purple bells, standing about 12 inches high.
One of Tammy's favorite flowers, these were growing wild in the forest, right off the path. All pictures were taken with her cell phone.
Wednesday, May 30, 2012
Cheese-Stuffed Portabella Caps
Cheese-Stuffed Portabella Caps
Serves 2
2 large portabella caps
2 tablespoons Greek Yogurt
1 ounce goat cheese (or cream cheese), softened
2 tablespoons shredded cheese (your preference)
1 cup baby spinach, finely chopped
1/4 cup bell peppers, chopped
1/4 cup diced Vidalia onion
1/8 tsp black pepper
1. Wash mushrooms caps. Remove stem from mushrooms. With a spoon, carefully scrape the gills from the underside of the cap. (This will give you more room for the filling.) Set aside.
2. Combine remaining ingredients.
3. Fill mushroom caps. At this point, the mushrooms can be kept in a refrigerator for several hours, loosely covered.
4. Preheat your grill in high for 5 minutes.
5. Reduce heat to medium high, and place mushrooms on the grate. Cover and let them cook for 5-8 minutes. When some juices begin to bubble up around the edges, they are done.
6. Serve open faced on toasted whole wheat bread, or half a bagel.
Nutritional data:
Calories: 124
Fat: 5.6g
Sat fat: 2.8g
Chol: 16mg
Sodium: 101mg
Carbs: 10.5g
Fiber: 1.9g
Protein: 9.3g
The First Camping of the Season!
It was a wonderful short weekend camping. It was short because we only stayed at the campground for Friday and Saturday, so that we could get home for the neighborhood gathering on Sunday night.
The weather? Well, at least it didn't snow! It rained Friday night while sleeping until breakfast, so that was fine. Then the rain came back at about 5pm, and rained off and on all evening, finishing at about 4am with a tremendous lightning storm. It was incredible to observe that from our camper.
We had a late start (this was the first camping we did since the summer of 2010) so I was a bit rusty at preparing the gear. By the time we got to camp and were set up, I decided that cooking a meal just wasn't an option. I walked to a nearby restaurant and ordered a 12 inch veggie pizza and some onion rings. Yeah. Pizza AND onion rings! My wife was able to exert self control and ate a proper portion of the pizza (about 1/4) and a couple onion rings. I, on the other hand, ate as if the concept of leftovers was forbidden by law. (The aftermath of that meal was swollen hands and feet from the sodium.) But it tasted pretty good.
Saturday, I cooked a simple breakfast of scrambled eggs (I made two servings, using three whole eggs and three egg whites) with sauteed onions, crimini mushrooms and green bell pepper, topped with some sharp cheddar cheese, and served with an orange and a piece of my homemade bread (beautifully plated on a paper plate!) Nothing fancy, but really tasty. I used an electric skillet, cooking under the awning to stay dry, and that skillet made sauteing the veggies simple.
Lunch was a simple meal of hummus and vegetables (bell peppers, carrots, cucumbers and celery) along with some sweet Bing cherries. After lunch, we found a very relaxing path through the woods, and the three of us walked about 90 minutes enjoying the quiet of the trees. Tammy took some pictures of local wildflowers and when I get them off her camera, I will post some. We have no idea what most of the flowers were, just that they were part of a beautiful hike.
Dinner was burgers (equal parts ground venison and 80% lean ground beef), again cooked in the skillet, again under the awning because the rain had started. Nice symmetry to the day! I went back to the restaurant and ordered a basket of deep fried veggies (broccoli, cauliflower, mushrooms, onion rings, and that Wisconsin standby, breaded cheese curds.) These were not as good as I had hoped for. Maybe by that point I was starting to feel bad about eating all that grease-soaked food (which is really not my usual diet.)
The evening was spent playing cards with Tammy (and getting my ass handed to me! She was on fire!) because it rained constantly. Ozzy spent the evening in a drug-induced haze, because he really does not tolerate thunder.
Don't worry. He was his normal self by the time the really loud thunder started at 4am!
Sunday was spent in the neighbor's backyard. It was a "bring your own meat and a dish to pass" party. We brought Grilled Pepper Poppers for everyone, and Cheese-Stuffed Portabella Caps for us (recipe to follow.) I never made that exact recipe (sort of combined a few ideas into one meal) but it was a keeper!
We'll be camping again in two weeks. Hopefully I will have more exciting food pictures from that adventure.
The weather? Well, at least it didn't snow! It rained Friday night while sleeping until breakfast, so that was fine. Then the rain came back at about 5pm, and rained off and on all evening, finishing at about 4am with a tremendous lightning storm. It was incredible to observe that from our camper.
We had a late start (this was the first camping we did since the summer of 2010) so I was a bit rusty at preparing the gear. By the time we got to camp and were set up, I decided that cooking a meal just wasn't an option. I walked to a nearby restaurant and ordered a 12 inch veggie pizza and some onion rings. Yeah. Pizza AND onion rings! My wife was able to exert self control and ate a proper portion of the pizza (about 1/4) and a couple onion rings. I, on the other hand, ate as if the concept of leftovers was forbidden by law. (The aftermath of that meal was swollen hands and feet from the sodium.) But it tasted pretty good.
Saturday, I cooked a simple breakfast of scrambled eggs (I made two servings, using three whole eggs and three egg whites) with sauteed onions, crimini mushrooms and green bell pepper, topped with some sharp cheddar cheese, and served with an orange and a piece of my homemade bread (beautifully plated on a paper plate!) Nothing fancy, but really tasty. I used an electric skillet, cooking under the awning to stay dry, and that skillet made sauteing the veggies simple.
Lunch was a simple meal of hummus and vegetables (bell peppers, carrots, cucumbers and celery) along with some sweet Bing cherries. After lunch, we found a very relaxing path through the woods, and the three of us walked about 90 minutes enjoying the quiet of the trees. Tammy took some pictures of local wildflowers and when I get them off her camera, I will post some. We have no idea what most of the flowers were, just that they were part of a beautiful hike.
Dinner was burgers (equal parts ground venison and 80% lean ground beef), again cooked in the skillet, again under the awning because the rain had started. Nice symmetry to the day! I went back to the restaurant and ordered a basket of deep fried veggies (broccoli, cauliflower, mushrooms, onion rings, and that Wisconsin standby, breaded cheese curds.) These were not as good as I had hoped for. Maybe by that point I was starting to feel bad about eating all that grease-soaked food (which is really not my usual diet.)
Sunday was spent in the neighbor's backyard. It was a "bring your own meat and a dish to pass" party. We brought Grilled Pepper Poppers for everyone, and Cheese-Stuffed Portabella Caps for us (recipe to follow.) I never made that exact recipe (sort of combined a few ideas into one meal) but it was a keeper!
We'll be camping again in two weeks. Hopefully I will have more exciting food pictures from that adventure.
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