Thursday, 4/21/2011

I sang at this evening's Maundy Thursday church service, which started at 6pm.  I made up a pound of taco seasoned ground beef before I left for church.  Ben had some of the beef with hot sauce and cheddar cheese melted on top for his dinner.  Katie had a little burrito with cheese and beef..  I waited until after the service to have my dinner.  I made a taco salad.  I used chopped iceberg lettuce, shredded cheddar cheese, some of the ground beef, hot sauce, and chipotle ranch dressing.  It really hit the spot. 

Wednesday, 4/20/2011

Tonight was my chicken sausage do-over dinner.  With the carbon scraped off of the grill cover and the gas still on when I put the sausages on, they came out great!  I put the sausages on the grill as far away from the main source of the gas as I could.  Ben mentioned that the grill is hotter on that side.  Sure enough, they didn't burn like they usually do.  Fantastic!  I also grilled asparagus for a side dish.  The sausages grill on indirect medium while the asparagus goes on direct medium.  They are perfect companions for maximizing the grill. 

When we shot Spencer and Kate's engagement photos at Pike Place Market, one of the produce vendors told us that asparagus is actually sweeter and less stringy when it is bigger.  He said that the outer, woody part is what develops first and just stretches out to cover the sweeter insides.  So, the thicker the stalk, the less woody the outside is and the sweeter the inside.  Finally, after two months, I listened.  He was right.  The thicker stalks were sweeter and easier to eat.  I have just purchased my last bunch of skinny asparagus.  Thanks produce guy!

Tuesday, 4/19/2011

Our PEPS group gathered at Barb, Tadd, and Ronan's house for dinner tonight.  Before we ate, we got to check out their new chickens.  Raccoons got a couple of their chickens; so, these were the replacements.  They were still small, but past the cute fluffy stage.  Katie DID NOT want to touch them.  She eventually stepped into the coupe with me, but never got up the courage to touch one.  

Barb made pulled pork sandwiches for the main dish.  We knew that there were more carbs in the sauce than we were allowed, but decided not to sweat it.  We avoided the buns (which we brought for the potluck) and skipped the salad croutons and dessert.  The nuts in the brownies made it pretty easy to resist the dessert temptation tonight.  Unless we are talking Reese's peanut butter cups, I find it rare to really like a dessert with nuts in it.

Monday, 4/18/2011

I purchased a pre-marinated pork tenderloin at the grocery store this morning.  As usual, the grilling instructions on the package left out an important detail.  The package said to grill the tenderloin on Medium heat.  It didn't say if it was supposed to be indirect or direct.  I turned to our Weber cookbook for general guidance.  I followed the instructions in the cookbook and went with indirect heat.  Well, it was still too much.  The pork was VERY charred on the outside.  Thankfully, once we were pasted the burned part, the inside was still tender.  

We had roasted broccoli with garlic as our side dish.  After spending many frustrating nights scrubbing the charred broccoli off of my cookie sheets, tonight I covered the sheet with foil first.  I don't think the broccoli charred as nicely as it would have directly on the sheets, but it was still pretty good for broccoli.  And, the smoke detector still went off, so it felt like I was doing something right:)

Sunday, 4/17/2011

I made Buffalo Chicken Fries tonight without the carbs, and it turned out better than I expected.  I didn't dredge the chicken in flour; I stuck with just salt and pepper.  For the buffalo sauce, I left out the honey and just used the hot sauce and butter.  The sauce didn't stick to the chicken quite like it does when the chicken is coated in flour, but it stuck enough.  I poured some of the extra sauce into a bowl and used it to dip my chicken fries in.  By the way, this recipe makes far more sauce than you need for the amount of chicken it calls for.  You can easily half the sauce recipe or double the amount of chicken.

For a salad, I combined mixed greens and mushrooms with a chipotle ranch dressing.  I think I am starting to really like mushrooms in my salads.

Saturday, 4/16/2011

One of our biggest concerns about maintaining a low-carb diet has been potlucks.  We participate in at least three potlucks each month and carbs are a big part of them.  Our monthly church potluck took place tonight at Hilary, Kurt, and Esme's house.  In order to stick with the Mexican theme, we decided to bring a taco salad.  We brought chopped iceberg lettuce, diced tomatoes, corn, ground beef with taco seasoning, chipotle ranch dressing, and hot sauce.  I really enjoyed my salad and think I'll make it again.I had everything except the corn and also added some hot salsa that someone else brought. 

Friday, 4/15/2011

My plan was to cook chicken Italian sausages on the grill and serve them with a side salad.  Well, when I went out to turn the grill down from high to medium, I must have turned off the gas too.  I don't remember doing it, but when I went out to turn the sausages, the flame was out.  Geez...talk about a dinner fail.  The other thing that was weird was that the sausages were sprinkled what I thought was paint flakes from the inside of the grill.  Not wanting to risk ingesting paint, I brought the sausages inside, took the casings off, and browned the ground sausage in a frying pan.  

After the sausage was cooked, I added a couple eggs and cheddar cheese to make a large omelet.  Ben did some research after dinner and found out that the black flakes on the inside of the grill cover were carbon and not paint.  We've brushed the rest of the flakes off and will resume our normal grilling. 

Thursday, 4/14/2011

I browned a pound of ground beef tonight and seasoned it with taco seasoning.  Ben and I each had a good serving of the beef and then melted cheddar over the top.  We added a caesar salad to round out the meal.  I definitely would have enjoyed the meal more if the meat and cheese were over tortilla chips, but this wasn't bad for a low-carb meal. 

Wednesday, 4/13/2011

We had baked, marinated mahi-mahi from Costco with a side spinach salad for our meal tonight.  Ben had a bad headache most of the day and stayed home from work.  Although the thought of fish didn't sound good to him, he was able to eat it and felt much better by the end of the day.  I thought Katie wouldn't like the fish since it is kind of spicy, but she ate half of a fillet with no hesitation. She did dip each little piece of fish in ketchup.

Tuesday, 4/12/2011

Today Ben and I officially cut caffeine and most carbohydrates from our diet.  We are avoiding artificial sweeteners other than Splenda, sucralose.  According to the Atkins diet plan, aspertame can increase hunger.  We also have to give up alcohol for a while.  The absence of caffeine and chocolate in my diet may be difficult to deal with.  

I made us a chicken caesar salad for dinner.  I sprinkled chicken tenderloins with a little seasoning salt and then pan fried them.  The salad consisted of romaine lettuce with black pepper and caesar dressing on it.  Parmesan cheese isn't allowed at the stage of the diet and croutons are definitely a no-no.  While not mentally satisfied with our food for the day, we survived our first day without any major temptation issues.  Fixing Katie's food without sampling it is going to be my biggest challenge.  

Monday, 4/11/2011

Ben took today off to extend our vacation a bit.  Even though I had to work a couple hours this afternoon, it felt like an extra day of vacation with him home.  Tomorrow Ben and I are going to start an Atkins diet.  I'm addicted to carbs right now and need to cut back.  I can only seem to cut back when I follow a strict plan.  Since Atkins worked for me before, I know I can do it.  I am thankful that Ben is willing to try it with me.  It would be hard to follow it while making him foods I can't eat.  Since tomorrow we will have to cut out almost all carbs, we went out for the last carb-loaded meal we will have for a while.  

We finally had a meal at Jak's Grill.  We've heard nothing but great praise for this restaurant.  We got there just after 5:00pm and were seated right away.  Ben and I each had a burger.  I went with pesto mayo, bacon, and cheddar on my burger.  Ben stuck with the standard red pepper mayo and added bacon and blue cheese.  The burgers were outstanding.  The Seattle Metropolitan magazine ranked them in second place behind Zippy's Giant Burgers for the best burger in Seattle.  We do not agree.  Jak's should be #1.  There really is no comparison.  We both opted to upgrade from french fries to potato pancakes.  The pancakes were good, but I preferred the fries I swiped from Katie's plate.  Katie had chicken strips and fries for her dinner.  For dessert, Ben and I each got a chocolate mousse layered cake a la mode.  Yes, we could have shared, but I didn't want to.  Katie had a single scoop of vanilla ice cream.  

I am sufficiently STUFFED.  I think I will be ready to cut out carbs tomorrow:)

Sunday, 4/10/2011

We spent our last day in California shopping and browsing in Downtown Disney.  The first order of business was to take a few family photos.  The rest of our photos can be found here: http://www.ackersphotography.com/Travel/Disneyland-2011/16580396_QktbM

We ate lunch at the John Wayne airport. Our meals were big enough that we didn't need to eat dinner when we got home. Ben and I each had a french dip with fries. Katie and Jennifer shared a grilled cheese sandwich.

What an amazingly fun vacation! 

Saturday, 4/9/2011

This was our third day at Disneyland.  I'll start with what we had for dinner and then give a quick summary of what we did today.  We had dinner at the Naples Ristorante e Pizzeria in Downtown Disney.  Our family, all six of us, shared a 1/2 meter, thin crust, pepperoni pizza.  When the pizza was brought to the table, we were all sure we weren't going to be able to finish it.  Well...we did:)  It was huge, but the thin crust made it easier to eat the whole thing.

While we were dining, we watched as two guys entertained by making balloon sculptures and hats for the people around us.  Their creations were amazing.  When one table was finished and the balloon artist was starting to walk away from us, Kate yelled "Hey, balloon boy!"  That got his attention.  While older than a boy, he didn't seem to be upset by being called "balloon boy."  He came right over to our table and made Katie this lovely princess crown. 

And now, back to the beginning of the day, which started n Disneyland California Adventure.

*We spotted Pilot Minnie within a couple minutes of entering the park.

*Jennifer, Spencer, Kate, and I went on Soarin' Over California while Ben and Katie walked around.  They heard drumming and found the green army men from Toy Story putting on a great drum show.

*Jennifer, Spencer, and Kate rode California Screamin' while Ben, Katie and I waited in line to meet Jessie and Buzz from Toy Story.  And, as we were finished going through the line, we found out that Woody was on his way to replace Jessie.  So, we got back in line to meet Woody who was then joined by a couple green army men.  She was beside herself with excitement!

*After we finished the Toy Story meet and greet, we met back up with the rest of our family. Jennifer took Katie on the Toy Story ride while the rest of us went to ride California Screamin'.

*After lunch, we went back to the Disneyland Park. Ben and I waited with Katie to meet Tinker Bell. Jennifer, Spencer, and Kate rode the Matterhorn at the same time.

*We all took a ride on the Finding Nemo Submarine Voyage. 

*We finished our day by seeing the World of Color show at the California Adventure park.  What a spectacular water and light display.  We all loved it. If you decided to go on a trip to Disneyland, you really do need to include this in your plans.  Let me know before you go and I'll give you a couple tips on how to get the most from the experience.  In this photo, you can see the water spraying and fire spouting during the show.

*And then, we went back to our hotel to get some much needed sleep.  I must point out that Katie has been going for three days with no naps and very long days.  She's been a super traveler and amazingly patient. 

Friday, 4/8/2011

We had a wonderful day at Disneyland today.  Here's what we did:

*Saw Mickey Mouse first thing.  I got Katie her first pair of ears while she waited in line with Ben.

Katie kissing Mickey's nose

*Katie and I went on the Buzz Lightyear ride while Ben, Jennifer, Spencer, and Kate rode Space Mountain.

*We all rode the Peter Pan ride.

*We had our only non-Disney character brush with fame on the Teacup Ride.  Dancing with the Stars couple, Chelsea and Romeo, got on the ride just before we did.  Kate yelled out "I love you Romeo", to which he replied "I love you too."  Pretty cool!

*We waited for about 45 minutes in line at the Princess Fantasy Faire.  Once it was our turn, Katie got to have special time with princesses Ariel, Belle, and Tiana.  What an amazing experience for her!

*We had lunch, and then went on the Jungle Cruise.

*Katie and I met Jasmine and Aladdin, with Ben taking photos, while Spencer, Kate, and Jennifer rode the Indiana Jones ride.

*Ben, Katie, and I watched the Mad Hatter play musical chairs with several park guests, Alice in Wonderland, and Peter Pan.

Alice told Katie that she was cute:)

*We met Cinderella's Fairy Godmother and avoided Snow White's evil Stepmother.  She was one of the only characters Katie didn't want to go near.

*We didn't make it in line fast enough to see Cinderella the first time we spotted her, but we did find her in the same place a little while later.  One more princess crossed off our list!

*We finished our time in the park with about an hour in Mickey's Toontown.

*And then, we had dinner. Ben's Webb classmate, Michelle, her husband Dan, and their daughter, Annalise, met us for dinner in Downtown Disney at Jazz Kitchen. For appetizers, we all had Southern garlic cheese bread with fresh basil and mozzarella.  It was, by far, the best bread I have had in months, maybe this year. Ben and I each had a plate of pasta jambalaya--gulf shrimp, andouille sausage, roasted chicken, spinach fettuccine, Creole seasoning.  I passed on the shrimp.  Katie had carrots and chicken strips.  The mojitos we had were nicely sweet and strong:)  For dessert, we shared a Double Chocolate Bread Pudding.  OMG...I can't even describe how wonderful it was.  What a fabulous dessert!  The meal finished with a glass of port. I am thankful that our friends could join us for this great meal.  It was so nice to finally meet the little girls:)

Thursday, 4/7/2011

We're on VACATION!!!  This morning we flew to California to spend four days at Disneyland.  We flew down with Ben's brother, Spencer, and met Spencer's fiance, Kate, and their mom, Jennifer, there.  We are going to be in the parks today through Saturday, and then spend Sunday morning shopping and playing in Downtown Disney.

Within a few minutes of passing through the Disneyland entrance gates, we found Snow White.  After a short wait, Katie went right up to Snow White with no obvious sign of fear.  We were worried she would be afraid of the characters, like she's been of Santa Claus the past two years. It was wonderful to see her interact with a princess, talking and hugging.  I hope she'll be at ease with the others too:) 

We had dinner at the River Belle Terrace, in Frontierland.  All of the adults in our group had the BBQ pork sandwiches.  I think they were as good as the pork sandwiches we make at home.  Katie had a peanut butter and jam sandwich with apple slices.  I'm glad she was hungry, because she ate well and didn't waste any time.

The best part of the meal was when Katie reached for a bottle of Diet Coke and ended up spilling it all over the table.  It took several seconds for us all to realize what had happened.  By the time we picked up the bottle of coke, it was pooled under each of our trays and took a lot of napkins to clean up.  What made it really funny to us, was that we had just talked about the following video.  Enjoy:)

Wednesday, 4/6/2011

Tomorrow we head off for our family vacation to Disneyland.  We will be there through Sunday, spending three days in the parks.  I can't wait!!!  We, along with Ben's brother, gave the trip to their mom, Jennifer, for her 60th birthday.  Spencer is spending the night at our house tonight so that we can leave for the airport together, bright and early tomorrow morning.  

I prepared another puff pastry pizza for our meal tonight.  I finished using the crumbled sweet Italian sausage I prepared for our last pizza and added turkey pepperoni.  My friend Hilary suggested the turkey pepperoni.  I didn't like it as much as regular pepperoni, but it wasn't half bad.  In fact, I guarantee that I will finish off the bag next week:)  

While I was trying to get the pizza prepped for the oven, our neighbor came over to get the scoop on taking care of our cats, Spencer arrived, Ben came home, and Katie needed to give me updates constantly on The Princess and The Frog, which she was watching in the front room.  Goodness, talk about a bit of chaos. With pizza consumed, it was time to start, and finish, packing for our trip. 

Tuesday, 4/5/2011

I had a meeting tonight which conflicted with our regularly scheduled PEPS potluck.  Since I couldn't eat at the potluck, I finished off the mahi mahi and rice left over from last night's meal.  Our family was in charge of taking a salad to the potluck.  I dropped Ben and Katie off for the potluck with a wonderful caesar salad.  The garlic croutons and caesar dressing from MetropolitanMarket took the salad way beyond our usual Fresh Express, bagged caesar. 

Monday, 4/4/2011

We had long grain & wild rice, grilled asparagus, and marinated mahi mahi for our dinner tonight.  The meal started to come together when I saw beautiful, cheap asparagus as MetropolitanMarket this morning.  I usually don't shop there because the food is fantastic and the prices are outrageous.  I was there to pick up a few things for a potluck tomorrow and couldn't resist the asparagus at $1.49/pound.  The stalks, tossed in olive oil, salt, and pepper, were grilled for 8 minutes on Direct Medium heat.  

My next stop was Costco.  I usually keep beer battered halibut in the freezer, but opted for marinated mahi mahi today.  The cost of the halibut was $19.99 and the mahi mahi was only $12.99.  I'm glad I let cost drive my decision.  The mahi mahi had tons of flavor and no carbohydrates.  Ben and I each had one fillet, and Katie had half of one. I am pleased that I was able to come up with a meal on the fly that ended up being very balanced and delicious.

Sunday, 4/3/2011

Happy 3rd Birthday to my niece Braelyn!

Braelyn celebrated her birthday in Spokane, surrounded by friends and family.  We will celebrate with her over the Easter weekend.  

When I started to think about tonight's dinner, I couldn't remember what was on my menu for the week.  After a quick glance at my grocery list from this week, I could see that I didn't make a plan for tonight's meal.  Oops!  With very little to eat in the house, we headed to Duke's Chowder House on Alki Beach.  We were seated right away and had a nice meal.  Ben sampled all five chowders available.  He said the best was the Cajun Chicken Corn Chowder.  That's the one I chose to have a bowl of for my meal.  Katie had fish and chips, but didn't eat much.  I think she drank too much milk to have room for her food.  The best part of the meal was that our friends Laura and David, and Laura's parents, walked into the restaurant while we were waiting for Katie to finish eating.  We got to chat with them for a couple minutes before they went to their table.  How nice to see friends while dining:) 

Saturday, 4/2/2011

We had our friends Shellie, Adam and Hannah over for brunch this morning. They brought a beautiful plate of strawberries and orange slices to go with the new recipes we tried out.  I really thought I was going to find the perfect recipes on the Food Network, but nothing stood out to me.  Thankfully, Martha Stewart came through with flying colors!  I found both of the following recipes on her website.  I am providing links to the recipes below, since they are very long. 

ITALIAN SAVORY PIE: http://www.marthastewart.com/314356/italian-savory-pie

I think this was my first time making a pie crust from scratch.  It was definitely my first time making a lattice top crust.  I think that I let the pie dough mix too long in the food processor.  It didn't want to hold together.  Ben watched an instructional video on how to make a lattice top while I was in the process of doing it.  The instructions said to chill the dough for 15 minutes before working with it.  That probably would have helped.  My strips of dough kept falling apart and made for a stressful, not-so-pleasant kitchen environment for a short time.  Thankfully, the baking process made it look lovely and hid all of the imperfections.  The pie was delicious.  The only thing I might change is reducing the sugar in the crust.  The recipe called for 1/4 cup of sugar, and it seemed a bit on the sweet side.

MEYER LEMON COFFEE CAKE: http://www.marthastewart.com/281911/meyer-lemon-coffee-cake

Ben and I made this coffee cake last night, after putting Katie down to sleep.  Ben made the streusel topping, which ended up being about an inch thick on the top of the cake.  The recipe said to cut the meyer lemons into paper thin slices.  My mandolin worked perfectly for that task, but the lemons were filled with seeds.  The seeds made the lemon slices less than perfect.  Oh well, they still worked great in the cake.  The lemon slices were put into simmering water for a minute, drained, and then layered in the middle of the batter and on top, just under the streusel layer.  With zest in the batter and lemon slices layered in the cake, the lemon flavor was definitely present, but not overwhelming. 

The recipe called for a 9-inch angel food cake.  When I read through the very end of the recipe, after the cake was already in the oven, I noticed that the pan Martha used had a removable outer ring.  Mine did not.  Thankfully, Ben expertly buttered the pan and it came right out! 

Dinner was nothing special compared to this morning's brunch.  Katie ate yogurt, applesauce, a breakfast cereal bar, and a few bites of hamburger for her dinner while watching Disney's Peter Pan.  Ben and I shared a plate of chicken nachos around 8pm.  

Credit for the beautiful photos goes to Ben:)

Friday, 4/1/2011

A friend of ours mentioned that her family was going to be "spring cleaning" their freezer.  That meant they were going to eat or toss everything in it this spring rather than continue to add to it.  Once it is cleared out, they will start adding things to it again.  It seemed like a really good idea.  I started to work on our freezer tonight and made a pizza.  

I started by defrosted one sheet of Pepperidge Farms puff pastry.  After about 40 minutes, I unfolded the pastry sheet on a lightly floured surface. I rolled the pastry into a 15 x 10-inch rectangle and place on a baking sheet. The directions said to prick the pastry thoroughly with a fork, which I did. The oven pre-heated to 400°, and then the pastry sheet baked for 10 minutes.  Even though I pricked it with a fork, it was quite puffy when I pulled it out of the oven.  I pushed it down a bit before adding zesty pizza sauce, mozzarella cheese, shredded rotisserie chicken, crumbled sweet Italian sausage, and grated parmesan.  I put it all back in the oven to bake for another 10 minutes.  The result was a delicious pizza.  The good news is that we still have some pizza sauce and another pastry sheet to use some other day!

Thursday, 3/31/2011

Happy 31st birthday to my brother, Matt!  

I didn't get to celebrate with my brother today, but I did get a photo of his birthday cake from my dad.  They used lifesavers as candle holders on top of his cake.  What a fun idea!

We marinated and grilled pork chops and had a side of roasted broccoli with garlic for our dinner tonight.  The chops were marinated in Grill Mates Peppercorn and Garlic marinade for half of the day.  They cooked on Direct Medium heat for ten minutes, five on each side. 

Katie was a really good eater today.  She ate the pork I gave her without any complaints and even asked for more.  She tried the broccoli, but ended up spitting it out.  Since Ben and I only started liking broccoli last year, we can hardly blame her.  I was just pleased she was willing to try it.  Perhaps she doesn't like how crispy and charred we make it.  To be honest, I know I couldn't eat it raw or even steamed.  The garlic and charred flavors help me forget it's broccoli:)

Wednesday, 3/30/2011

I got a coupon online to get a pretty good discount on a haircut at my favorite salon, Gene Juarez.  Since today was the last day to get the discount, I made an appointment.  Ben met me at the salon after work, and took Katie out for dinner while I had my appointment.  After I finished, I met them at Gordon Biersch for dinner.  They were already done eating.  Katie polished off her chicken strips and carrots with gusto.  She was ready to leave when I got there.  Ben had a pasta dish with shrimp in it.  He ordered me garlic fries and a Southwest chicken sandwich-- a grilled chicken breast, pepper jack cheese, roasted red peppers, and a chipotle mayo.  

Ben and I didn't communicate very well about the timing of dinner.  I asked him to text me when they decided on a restaurant.  Then it took me a while to reply to his text.  I asked ask him to order me something yummy.  He thought that I meant I was on my way.  I only replied because it was a good time to text during my haircut.  I figured it would take a while for the waiter to stop to take the order and that it wouldn't be out right away.  And, I was okay with knowing it might be a bit cold.  Well, the reality is that waiter stopped to take my order as soon as Ben got my text, and then the food was to the table in a couple minutes, way before I arrived.  They ended up putting my plate under a heat lamp for a while and eventually remade it. I felt really guilty about the waste of food.  But, the waitress was kind and said it gave them something to eat:)  What great service!