Caprese Salad

How great is Pinterest? It's an endless deluge of one great idea after another! I've gotten inspiration for so many projects and recipes from that site. I rarely copy the ideas exactly, but I followed the instructions on this blog pretty closely to make a tasty spin on a Caprese Salad. It was SO DELICIOUS!

My mouth is watering!

It was so quick and easy to make. I left about a tablespoon or more of the olive oil out and put in about that much balsamic vinegar in instead. It added a lot of flavor and subtracted over 100 calories from the dish. I also left out the parsley, salt, pepper, and optional baguette. I thought it was plenty flavorful without all of that. Each of the 6 servings came to right around 260 calories, almost 10 grams of protein, and 6 grams of carbs. Not bad for something that was so flavorful, protein-packed, and easy to make! This would be great to put with some grilled chicken.

Pollo Asado and Low-Carb Cheesecake!

Henry's is probably my new favorite store. I love how inexpensive and fresh the produce is, but I had never really looked through the rest of the store until recently. Today, I spotted some fresh, inexpensive pollo asado at the deli counter, so I picked some up for dinner tonight.

How can something that looks this nasty before cooking be SO DELICIOUS after cooking?

I slapped this magnificent marinated meat on Jorge, my good ol' George Foreman grill. I've been meaning to get a grill pan so I can control the heat better, but this girl is really poor at the moment, so Jorge had to do. The flavor was better than any pollo asado I have ever had, and I'm basically a connoisseur after trying it at so many places. I will definitely be going back to Henry's for more soon!

My attempt at gourmet plating. I'm glad I didn't go down this career path, haha.

On the side, I put some of my favorite tomatillo salsa that  I had just whipped up. I'll try to include a recipe next time I make it, but I keep forgetting to take the accompanying pictures! Bad blogger. :/ Here's a sneak peek of part of the process, though...

Roasting ingredients for tomatillo salsa!

So, after my delicious chicken and yummy salsa, I was craving something sweet. Sticking to my diet, I decided to try a low-carb cheesecake recipe I saw online a while back. Luckily, we had all the ingredients so I didn't have to go to the store after a long day. This was my first time making it, so there are a few things I'm going to tweak next time. It ended up tasting pretty damn good, though!


Low-Carb Cheesecake Ingredients

Cheesecake filling

• 24 ounces cream cheese
• 3 eggs
• 25 grams Splenda
• 1 Tablespoon vanilla extract
• 1 teaspoon almond extract

Cheesecake Crust

• 2 1/2 cups ground almonds (pecans would also work)
• 2 Tablespoons Splenda
• 4 Tablespoons melted butter
• 2 Tablespoons cocoa powder (for a hint of chocolate in the crust)

 I started off by making the crust. I dumped the almonds, splenda, and cocoa powder into my trusty food processor.

Making the crust

 Then I processed the crap outta that shizz!

Mmm! Dirt!

Then I added the melted butter and processed again.

It should start to clump and climb up the sides.

Then i packed it down into the pan.

Messy, but totally worth the deliciousness!

I baked the crust for 10 minutes on 350 before I filled it with the delicious cream cheese concoction. I just plopped the cream cheese, splenda, and extract into the kitchen aid until it was soft. Then I whipped the eggs into the mixture until it was smooth and lump-free.

Smooth and lump-free indeed

The filling went into the crust that had a 10-minute head start.

Not perfect, but it'll do.

This liquidy lake of cream cheese went into the oven at 350 for 30-35 minutes.

Hot out of the oven

It came out all cracked and puffy, but when it cooled, It was nice and flat. It was pretty darn delicious while it was warm, but I can't wait to try a nice chilled slice tomorrow! Best of all, it's around 6g of carbs per slice! Not bad when I'm really craving a bad treat, but still want to be good :) I think I may go have another bite!

Gold's Gym Challenge Week 1

I recently signed up for the Gold's Gym Challenge. It's a 12-week competition to lose weight and body fat, and there are big cash prizes at stake! Before I started this challenge, I had lost 35 lbs on my own and with only two training sessions a month. When I started on Thursday, January 12th, I had 80 lbs to lose. Today, 6 days later, I have already lost 4 lbs!

So, to keep this weight loss going, I am going to have to go to the gym twice a day and eat healthy meals. I figured I should share my progress and recipes with others who are interested in leading healthier lives.

I usually follow a moderate carb diet. I typically keep my carb intake between 30 and 50 grams of carbs. My meals usually consist of mostly protein (especially chicken) with sides of veggies or a salad. Last night, I made shiitake soy ginger chicken and stir fry. It was pretty damn easy. Here are the ingredients:

- 8-10 boneless, skinless chicken breast or thighs
- 2-4 bell peppers, sliced (I used one of each color-red, orange, yellow, and green)
- 2 large yellow or white onions, sliced
- 8-10 mushrooms, sliced
- Asian marinade (I used shiitake soy ginger sauce)
- Soy sauce

I put 8 boneless, skinless chicken thighs (breasts work just as well, but my family prefers dark meat) in a casserole dish and covered it with Annie Chun's Shiitake Soy Ginger sauce from Sprouts or on Annie Chun's website. I used enough to come about halfway up the chicken and kept turning it to get both sides evenly covered.

 

 

 

 

 

Delicious Sauce!

While I let the chicken marinate for about an hour, I sliced all the veggies with my awesome new food processor. What would have taken me half an hour only took me a minute! I highly suggest getting a food processor! It's my new favorite appliance!

I set aside the veggies and started on the chicken. In a deep saucepan, I arranged the chicken and all of the marinade. It takes longer to cook it in the liquid than to just grill it after being marinated, but this way makes for really moist chicken! After all the chicken was cooked, I kept the sauce on the heat to reduce it even further to be a thicker, more delicious sauce.

This picture is making me hungry again! YUMMY!

For the vegetables, I sauteed the onions in a wee bit of olive oil from my Misto Olive Oil Sprayer. I love how I don't use as much oil when I use this awesome invention! Then I poured in some soy sauce. Probably a couple tablespoons. When the onions were getting soft, I added in the mountain of peppers and mushrooms. Then I added a bit of the reduced chicken marinade to the veggies and cooked them until they looked like this:

So delicious!

I plated the chicken on top of a pile of stir fry, but I totally forgot to take a picture because I was STARVING! Here's a pic of the same thing (I made this last week at the cabin for my bithday) with a big helping of whole wheat couscous on the side. Couscous has about 1/2 the carbs as the same amount of rice. It's my go-to when I'm craving rice, but I don't want to sabotage my diet too badly.

The BF and I LOVED this easy meal!

When I entered this meal (without the couscous) into my favorite weight-loss app "LoseIt!", it was under 300 calories and had about 20 grams of carbs. The carbs in the ginger sauce and veggies really added up, but it's definitely still in my carb range and definitely in my calorie range!

So, that's my first official blog post! I definitely want to use this as a place to share my yummy, healthy meals and my weight-loss progress! Now, I'm off to the gym in a bit! Gotta work my tummy off!