Hot off the Grill

Some time has gone by and a lot has happened. I'll start at the beginning or rather the end for my sister.
My little, baby sister graduated from college. She is now a (fairly) mature, young woman ready to use her business marketing degree in her new endeavors.
A hot day in Monterey marked her commencement and what better a way to celebrate than to host a BBQ! Our parents brought an array of meats and vegetables for the grill. There was also no shortage of margaritas and wine. Ed, my father and Kyle, my sister's boyfriend, all took turns MANning the barbeques.
Mmmmm, steak and chicken and mushrooms and sausages. It was a great way to kick off the summer!
Congratulations Jamie, now you have to find a job. The best of luck!

Sizzlin' Shrimp

All of Ed's meals are great but there are some that standout more than others. Previously I have noted his rack of lamb and chicken pesto risotto just to name a few of his fantastic signature dishes. He recently made a batch of his mom's spaghetti sauce, a fairly standard red meat sauce that he makes from scratch. And when I say a "batch" I mean he makes enough to feed a cafeteria of teenagers. It is one of those things like his chili that just gets better with time. We pack medium size portions into tupperware and freeze them for future quick and easy meals of pasta (whole wheat of course) and red sauce.
Recently Ed made a recipe from his Cook's Illustrated magazine that he had been wanting to try for a while, some sizzling shrimp thing. All I can say is WOW! Dude! this was so amazing! I don't care how unhealthy or super healthy it was or even if it had snail's brains in it. It was super good! I sat down and sneaked a quick bite of it and quickly had no intentions of getting up to get my camera to document this meal, I just wanted to scarf it down.
So, if you want some amazing food check out recipes in Cook's Illustrated in association with the PBS show America's Test Kitchen. Then get yourself a man who can cook GOOD!

Free Food!

As part of Ed's infomercial weight-loss program they offered him a free home delivery of food. Who doesn't like free food? So, of course he said yes. We didn't know what to expect but it certainly was not two giant boxes filled with Nutrisystem food. We received the equivalent of a 28 day program in Nutrisystem food to aid Ed in his weight-loss effort.
As you well know we like food, good food, thus the reason for creating this blog. I am not a fan of most prepackaged foods. Which is why I am so luck and so happy to have married Ed who loves to cook and is great at it. Okay, I enjoy some of those Lean Cuisines for lunch because they are easy, cheap and fairly healthy. But Nutrisystem I just couldn't get excited about.

Here Ed displays the thing that sounded most disgusting to both of us; dehydrated scrambled eggs. However, it turned out to be one of the better foods in the pile. I haven't tried too much of the food but the most uneatable item I found was the oatmeal. I normally love instant oatmeal but this stuff was like eating chunky, hot poi or porridge, yuck!
I cannot see how anyone could stay on the Nutrisystem diet. The food is horrible and not even healthy for you. Everything is loaded with sodium and preservatives. It seems the way you are supposed to loose weight on the Nutrisystem diet is through extra large servings of fiber!
Ed has been offered to receive a second shipment of food if he wants it. Maybe we will donate it to charity.

Poultry

Ed was looking for a healthy game hen recipe and found the perfect one in a food and wine paring book my parents gave him a few years back; Cornish game hen with sage and grapes. We don't normally have sage or grapes in the house. The sage was on sale, an herb we don't often use, we went for it for a change of pace. And the grapes are a diet snack-food must-have.
I have become exactly what I hoped I wouldn't. The person who stars a blog then abandons it when she gets busy. I'll try and update at least once a week.
Ed has been doing great on his infomercial diet/exercise program. He has lost 10lbs. to date and he's not yet half way through! I'll have myself a muscular man on my hands come summer!

Fishy Continued

I am very lucky that I love fish. As I have stated before fish is primary diet food and we have been eating tons of it happily. It is also a good thing that you can find fish somewhat affordable. The frozen Mahi fillets have been great and Costco prices them fairly well; Trader Joe's supplies affordable frozen Salmon fillets and Ralphs occasionally has good deals on their fresh or previously frozen fish like the Swordfish we had the other night.
Swordfish is a thick, meaty and tasty fish. Ed does a nice Swordfish Piccata which sounded odd to me the first time he made it a while back but turned out to be very good.
On the diet and exercise front Ed (and I) are proud to report on the beginning of his fourth week he has lost eight pounds. Good on ya Ed!

Fishy Diet

So, about this diet. It all started at the end of February when I saw a posting on Craigslist for free fitness training. A company was looking for people to participate in a workout program that would show weightloss and muscule building results. I forwarded the posting to Ed who figured it wouldn’t hurt him or his career to, at the very least, go to the audition. The quick story is; he went, they liked him, they cast him and he started it March 29^th, two weeks ago today.

As I explained before, the product the company is selling is a piece of equipment that is intended to be used in kickboxing classes. Kickboxing is a great workout for the body but seemed to be lacking a workout for the arms and abs. The “Shadowboxer” solves that problem. To demonstrate the Shadowboxer’s effectiveness Ed and about 20 others are participating in a 12 week exercise and diet program. So if Ed is counting calories and watching his fat, carb and sugar in take, what is he making for dinner?

Health conscious but delicious meals take some creative thinking. I have been pretty impressed with what Ed and I have come up with. We have had several tasty and healthy meals in the last two weeks. The only reason I haven’t yet blogged about them is because I forget to take pictures of them. I am so hungry when I come home from work that I just scarf down the food. Friday night I remembered to pause long enough to digitally capture our meal. I didn’t much care how the images turned out I just wanted to snap a couple and eat!

Ed made blackened Mahi-Mahi fish tacos. They consisted of frozen Mahi fillets (Costco, 2lb. bag), spice rub for the “blackened” flavor, whole wheat tortilla, fat free sour cream, lettuce, avocado (from my boss, Greg’s tree) and hot sauce. Apparently hot sauce is good for diets; spicy foods force you to burn more calories to digest them, or something.

Fish is a wonderful food. Perfect for diets because it is low in fat and has lots of…um…good qualities and is healthy, yeah. Therefore, sushi is prime diet food! Right?
That was our reasoning behind checking out the new sushi restaurant by our place this weekend.

Portion control is a big part of dieting and our portions at Crazy Rockin’ Sushi were completely out of OUR control. First of all the sushi was absurdly delicious, and we have had our fair share of really good sushi. Crazy Rockin’ Sushi has only been open 10 days, they haven’t even gotten their liquor license yet (so they haven’t done any advertising yet) but they are doing what ever they can to impress their few customers. They started by giving us a complimentary appetizer short, special sushi roll, then our combo dinners were made right in front of us (we sat at the bar) with a couple additional pieces of sashimi, then the sushi chef (say that 5 times fast) whipped up a “sushi pizza” for us to share (this was truly unique and amazing) and finally a special complimentary dessert of sliced oranges, whipped cream and chocolate even after we had moaned our delights with full bellies to the friendly chef. In short, we highly recommend Crazy Rockin’ Sushi at the West Hollywood Gateway (where Target is across from our building).

Chili

When my sister and I were kids, I couldn’t have been older than middle school age, I suggested that we make our parents a romantic dinner. I can’t remember if this was just for fun or it was a special occasion but I wanted to show my mom that I could cook. You would think that if a kid was coming up with the menu it would be something like pizza or spaghetti. I, however, even as a child had a gourmet pallet but that still didn’t explain why I chose to make vegetarian chili. I wasn’t much of a chili fan and I never knew my parents to love it either. But my sister and I spent our evening working hard to make this recipe for vegetarian chili. The final product was not exactly my taste but I proudly served it up to my parents in the dinning room among candles and fine china. My mother said she liked it but I think it was one of those moments as a parent that you are proud of what your child has done more than you enjoyed the final product. Mom, it’s okay, you can tell me athe truth now, I didn’t like it either.

For many years I was not a chili eater. Occasionally I would have some on fries or a taste here or there. Then Ed found a recipe in his much beloved America’s Test Kitchen Family Cookbook. The title of the dish is, Stick-to-your-ribs Chili and it satisfyingly lives up to its name. The only problem (which is really more of benefit) with the recipe is servings and serving size. I don’t know how many servings the recipes states but one small bowl and I’m done for the night. Not to mention that any time Ed makes it we eat it for the next 3 days. So, not really much of a problem; the best part is that it is one of those foods that gets better with time. My mom and grandma always say at Christmas, “the clam dip is better the next day”. That is true with Ed’s chili too; and the next day, and the next day and on hamburgers and on sausages and on rice…

True, this is not a diet food. The chili contains tons of calories and carbs but loads of protein too. Truly, it is not that horrible for you, especially when you make it at home and use extra lean beef, chicken, beans tomato sauce; okay so the sodium is probably pretty high too. Well, it tastes great on those occasions when Ed makes it, which was recently but won’t be any time in the near future. Ed was cast in an infomercial. Go ahead, laughing here is acceptable.

Ed started his 12 week course/diet for the infomercial on Monday. Don’t worry it’s completely healthy. It is not one of those diet shakes, pills or electro pulse things. The item the company is selling is called the Shadow Boxer. It is a piece of equipment that straps around the waist with tight elastic from the waist piece to the hands. It is intended to be used in kickboxing classes, which is what Ed is doing every Monday, Wednesday and Thursday mornings from 6:30am-7:30am. He is also following a healthy low fat diet to accentuate his results. More on the “diet” (that I, as the supporting wife, am doing with Ed) to come.