Makeover Mania

There’s no turning back now; as you can see I started giving my blog a makeover. I was playing around with WordPress and decided to enable the Thesis theme that Dustin installed awhile ago. One thing led to another and I decided to just keep moving forward with it. What you see now is only the beginning, I’m still working on a new header, a zillion other pages, new features and other design changes. So far I love the new theme! It’s extremely easy to use and saves me (and Dustin) a lot of time — YAY! So you’ll notice a lot of cosmetic changes and new things popping up around here, which I am totally stoked about and hope that you will be, too. My reader base keeps growing and growing, so here is a little thank you to everyone that visits my blog, you guys rock my socks!

I’ve been concentrating on revamping the blog and reorganizing the kitchen in between everything else, so I haven’t spent too much time cooking. I’m trying to use up everything in the freezer/cabinets, but it’s sooo hard because I keep adding on to it and then I end up throwing a lot of things out. Ugh, horrible habit that I’ve been trying to kick for the longest. Ah well, I’m working on it… a little.

I defrosted boneless pork chops the other day, then baked them with apricot fruit and minced garlic:

On the side: (over)steamed asparagus and a fresh baby spinach salad with 1/2 tsp EVOO (20 cal), red wine vinegar, 7g gorgonzola (leftover from New Year’s, hope it’s still good?) and 10g dried cranberries (30 cal)

I didn’t measure any of it, but I baked the pork chops on 425F, then towards the end drizzled Polaner apricot fruit spread, black pepper and minced garlic, that I microwaved to melt, over them and baked for another 10 minutes. I didn’t eat the fat around the edge, so they were a little dry but we still liked them.

The next day I made a huge batch of meatless chik’n salad with Quorn chik’n tenders and a package of seitan that I bought at Mother Earth’s. I heard that the texture of seitan is most like regular chicken, so I gave it a try. I processed the seitan, Quorn, celery, carrots, and onions in the food processor:

It needed more green, so I added 2 more stalks of celery and mixed it with 150g of Hellmann’s olive oil mayo (500 cal) — sounds like a lot, but the whole batch made at least 10-15 servings.

It turned out AWESOME! Almost identical to real chicken, yum! It ended up being lunch and dinner after I made it, but not picture worthy. There’s lots leftover and that will be making an appearance tomorrow or the next day.

Today was a 2 meal, 3 snack day. I finally tried the Field Roast slices for lunch. I put 2 slices (70 cal) of the lentil sage flavor in a wrap with hummus, avocado and red onion:

• 1 Gourmet tortilla (120 cal)
• 1 TBSP Cedar’s original hummus (30 cal)
• 20g avocado (40 cal?)
• Red onion (10 cal)
• 2 slices Field Roast lentil sage meatless slices (70 cal)

Calories: 270

On the side: 1 Chobani vanilla yogurt (120 cal) with 1oz Trader Joe’s 3 berry granola (100 cal) and 10g dried cranberries (30 cal). Calories: 250

I don’t think I used the right flavor combination, the onion really overpowered the wrap so I didn’t really get to taste the Field Roast very much. Next time I’ll try it with milder components. Filling lunch for 520 calories, though.

Dinner was simple: Hamburgers, boiled potato and steamed brussels sprouts

• 5oz 96% lean ground beef burger (175 cal)
• On a Martin’s 100% whole wheat potato roll (100 cal)
• With red onion, 7g blue cheese crumbles (25 cal), dill pickle chips, Heinz no salt added ketchup and no salt added mustard (~30 cal)
• 12 brussels sprouts (90 cal) with a splash of Fifty50 fructose maple syrup (10 cal)
• Smallish boiled potato (~120 cal) with 2oz Fage Total 0% yogurt (35 cal)

Calories: ~585 calories

The brussels weren’t as good as the roasted ones I made the other day but still yummy. I love them! These were a bag of frozen ones, that I may have overcooked a bit. Next time I’ll defrost them ahead of time and roast them. I was also surprised to see that they have a good amount of protein: 3g for 6 sprouts, so 6g for my serving. Not bad for a little green leafy thing, huh?

I’m up WAY too late right now. I actually have to be up in 6 hours to start on Sunday dinner. My cousin, Tricia, is coming over and I haven’t even shopped yet. Thankfully we have a live-in personal assistant, aka Rinks! Time to catch a few Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz’s!!!

Question of the day: What is your favorite green vegetable?

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Tagged as: brussels sprouts, chickn, hamburger