Spiral slicing: 101

Monday morning, I bought a spiral slicer at Bed, Bath and Beyond and after on what felt like a cruel prank by my GPS, I picked it up at the store.

Luckily on my way to the store I passed a Wegmans, so I bought an eggplant and three zucchinis along with some lunch at their delicious hot food bar, haha.

My plan was to make some delish "zoodles" when I got home, but that didn't happen for a few days, because well, life happens in between, and at least this time when I tried something in the kitchen I remembered to take pictures, lol.

So a couple days ago I decided to finally make the zoodles. I had seen many Pinterest pins for zoodles and recipes that use them instead of regular pasta and it always intrigued me and just made sense for low-carb living instead of depriving myself of pasta dishes altogether.

Basically, the slicer works similarly to a mandolin whereas the blade stays still and the vegetable moves across it to create uniform, thin slices. The spiral slicer has a crank arm with a spiked disc to grab onto the veggie in question and another "grip" on the blade side.

After washing your veggies cut a slice off of both ends to create a flat surface for the grippers to grip and then press one of the flat ends onto the side with the spiked disc and slide toward the blade.

Once the zucchini is up against the blade you can start cranking and in no time you'll have a plate full of long green ribbons!

The noodles are going to be very long spirals and I think next time I'm going to cut the zucchinis in half before I spiral them so they're shorter and more manageable noodles.

A quick side note, I tried to spiral slice the eggplant but it didn't work so well. I think it was just a bit too dense or big and just ended up bruising one side of the egg plant. I want to keep experimenting with the eggplant idea because who doesn't like eggplant parm?

Anyway, so after I had a plateful of noodles, I boiled them for a few minutes to make them tender, which I only slightly regret doing afterward because I ended up sautéing them anyway, so the boiling was unnecessary.

I cubed up the eggplant and sauteed it with some olive oil and garlic and some cherry tomatoes. In another pot I browned up some ground turkey and when everything was cooked I mixed it all together and added the remainder of a jar of pasta sauce to it.

Overall, it was a pretty tasty dish, and I'd totally eat it and make it again and obviously I have plans on using my slicer so much more.

Do you have a new gadget that you're in love with?



Spiral Slicing: 101 by Ana M. Ferrer is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
Based on a work at http://analovesfood1.blogspot.com/2013/09/spiral-slicing-101.html.

Back to basics

WARNING: THIS POST MAY SOUND WHINEY. CUE YOUR VIOLINS.

O.K. so, going paleo didn't exactly pan out for me. Or rather, I didn't exactly pan out going paleo, if that makes sense. After a month I lost some weight as I shared in a previous post, but I couldn't stick to it.

I worked out with a trainer twice a week for three months and felt stronger, but didn't lose any weight because my diet was out of control. And when I say "out of control" I don't mean I was washing down 18 super-sized value meals with a carton of ice cream. Mainly, I go out to eat a lot with The Boyfriend which usually includes appetizers, wine (on my side of the table at least) and restaurant-sized portions.

I told myself that I'd get back on track during the summer - get really focused and concentrate on getting fit while looking for a job. But of course, that didn't happen.

I've been freelancing for my old newspaper writing about local restaurants where I interview owners and/or managers and generally I test out the food, so naturally, I choose places with delicious food which isn't always diet-friendly.

Nonetheless, I didn't stick to paleo because in the end I found it to be a bit too restrictive with the exclusion of grains and some dairy, I can't give up cheese, I just can't do it. haha.

I have no one to blame but myself for my short-comings while trying to lose weight and I make a lot of excuses:

Excuse: "My mom buys garbagey foods and I don't have any money to buy my own stuff all the time."

• Translation: I'm lazy and have no will power. 

 Excuse: "I worked out today, I can treat myself to some (a lot) of fro-yo."

• Translation: My fro-yo ends up as a huge serving, mostly with fruit but there's usually some kind of chocolatey bits on there. 

Anyway, I like the idea of the paleo diet, whole natural foods and basing your diet on unprocessed items, but like I said, the lack of grains is just a bit too restrictive for me and it made me feel like a scumbag with every .

I follow so many people on Pinterest who live healthy lifestyles that I envy and the term "eating clean" kept popping up so I decided to look in to it for myself and I'm pretty much sold.

The two pyramids have the same basic elements: fruit, vegetables and lean proteins. The twist is the clean eating pyramid shifts focus from proteins to plant matter and includes grains, legumes and dairy.

I think clean eating is going to be a better situation for me, it's essentially eating an overall healthy diet which just makes sense.

So let's see what happens. Maybe I'll be bold enough to post some before measurements and pictures. ..or maybe not. I'll wait until I see some results maybe.

Until next time!

Broccoli that I'll actually eat, and maybe you will too!

So I was watching the Rachael Ray show the other morning and Daphne Oz was a guest, along with Bob Harper from The Biggest Loser, and Shaun T from the Insanity workouts.

It was some fitness day episode, so healthy recipes were featured on the show including Daphne Oz's "pizza" broccoli, which I actually tried.

Her recipe is basically you steam some broccoli florets, then drizzle some olive oil, oregano, crushed red pepper and peccorino romano cheese over top before sticking them in the broiler to get super toasty and melty.

I used frozen florets and added more spices to mine before baking it with the stuffed fish I had for dinner.

Generally, I use the foil pouch method of cooking my frozen veggies when I'm baking them, since for the most part they just steam and suck up any flavoring I shove in the foil pouch.

So in this pizza broccoli pouch, I had about a handful of frozen broccoli florets and six or eight fresh cherry tomatoes.

I seasoned them with crushed red pepper and oregano like in Daphne's recipe but I added onion powder, garlic powder, salt and black pepper and I threw in like a tablespoon of peccorino romano and a pat of butter instead of the olive oil.

I baked it along with my fish according to the fish's directions which were 400 for 15-20 minutes and they came out fantastic.

The pizza broccoli wasn't exactly the best pairing to my crab-stuffed fish, but I really wanted to test out how delicious this broccoli was.

...and it was delicious.

It legitimately tasted like I was eating a slice of broccoli covered pizza, which I'm not opposed to. The addition of the fresh tomatoes was the clincher for me I think. They pretty much oozed out their tomatoey goodness and mixed with the butter and cheese and got everything pretty saucy, which again, I'm not opposed to.

All and all, I'll make it again, I may try it Daphne's way and put them in the broiler and maybe they'll be more of a kale chip texture.

I'll more than likely use the same combo of spices to make some pizza kale chips one of these days.

The never-ending zucchini

I've been cooking up a storm this week! ...not really a storm, maybe there was a slight gust of wind and a few rain drops.

But anyway, a week or two ago my dad brought home a zucchini the size of The Boyfriend's forearm and put me in charge of doing something with it.

And so I got to Pinterest-ing.

I searched for some zucchini bread recipes and came across two that I liked- a double chocolate loaf and regular cinnamony muffins.

Both recipes needed like two cups of shredded zucchini each but alas there was still like half of the zuke left when I was done baking.

The double chocolate loaf was so delicious and moist and tasted so chocolatey I almost felt bad eating it everyday. And I mean almost because there was zucchini in it and I used agave instead of sugar so it was "healthy." (Haha)

This past Saturday I decided to bake some more muffins so I found another recipe from Sew Creative and made some tweaks, like switching out half the flour for almond meal and I used agave instead of sugar, etc. 

Here's the final recipe which produced some of the most tasty muffins that were also really filling and they're also egg-free, but full of carbs and probably not enough fiber, so maybe I'll work on it to make it healthier.

Zucchini Almond Flour Chocolate Chip Muffins 

• 1.5 cups All Purpose Flour
• 1.5 cups Almond Flour 
• 1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips
• 1/2 cup Agave Syrup
• 1/2 cup Vegetable Oil
• 1/2 cup Applesauce
• 2 cups Shredded Zucchini
• 1/4 cup pecans (or nut of your choice)
• 1/2 tsp Baking Soda
• 1/2 tsp Baking Powder
• 1 tsp Cinnamon
• 1 tsp Vanilla Extract

This recipe is enough for a 12-cup muffin pan. 

1. Preheat your oven to 350. 
2. Get some bowls
3. Mix all that stuff up in there
4. Scoop it into the muffin pan cups
5. Wait patiently

Mine were done at like 40-45 minutes, the recipe I tweaked said 50 minutes in the oven and she used two loaf pans so use your better judgement and do the toothpick test. 

Nutrition per serving (according to My Fitness Pal):

Calories: 274 Carbs: 34g Fat: 46g Protein: 6g Sodium: 89g Sugar: 20g

Personal training will be the death of me..

...and the rebirth of a totally ripped, shredded, She-Hulk version of my former self.

 As a new member of my gym you're entitled to one free personal training session to see if you want to sign up for a various assortment of packages that they offer.

I used up my free session last Monday and I don't regret a thing. I will say that the way they get you to sign up is HIGHLY EFFECTIVE, and coming from a retail background, I can't fault them for it.

After essentially telling you that most of your body is weak and puny (insert Arnold accent to that last part) and letting you know that they can show you a much more effective way of working out in less time, they put you to the test.

After about a 20-minute conversation about my goals and my normal gym routines, we did a 30-ish minute workout using pretty much my own body weight, which "lesbi-honest" (Pauly D voice) is plenty, and some basic circuits of exercises.

Once the workout was over and I was sweating more than I ever have at the gym in such little time, he sat me down and brought over the shiny, laminated package list, in all its expensive glory and outlined what he felt would work best for me and my goals of losing 50 pounds and beating The Boyfriend in our bet.

He suggested two sessions a week for anywhere between six months to a year, but since my internship is over at the end of May, that's the only income I definitely have.

So to the very LOUD tune of nearly $400 per month for the next three months, I will be at the gym with a trainer for 30 minutes twice a week.

Driving home from the gym my eyes opened, my sweat dried, my muscles ached and reality set in to what I had just committed myself to financially and physically.

I've forgiven myself for essentially putting myself into somewhat financial ruin for the next three months and am trying to look at the bright side of it. These sessions will undoubtedly give me a leg up on winning the bet, and will show me exercises that are far more effective than anything I could have ever done on my own and now I don't have to worry about documenting my measurements or my weight loss because someone else is getting paid to do it for me. haha.

Recently my weight loss had stalled at about seven pounds and I can't really blame anyone but myself, I'd fallen off track and splurged a few times too many but now that I'm making it a point to be at the gym at least four times a week and will be perpetually sore everyday from getting totally ripped, each achy muscle will be a reminder to put down that illegal food item and push myself toward winning the bet.

So until next time I bid you adieu.

And so we joined the gym

Crunch Fitness to be precise.
A gym by any other name would still smell as sweet sweaty... or however that saying goes.

The Boyfriend's boss bought himself, my boyfriend and their co-worker gym memberships a couple weeks ago so now he's got gym buddies, which is more than fantastic.

If he doesn't use the membership his boss pays for he'll feel guilty, ergo he'll use it. Not to mention that every time he works with them they all go to the gym and become total bros. 

Over the past few months of eating mostly meats, veggies and as little grain and dairy as possible, he's lost about 25 pounds. I still have only lost about seven.

However small that amount is and has been for weeks now, I do feel a change in myself. I want to be healthier. I want to eat good, whole foods. I generally like working out. Although I will say this about working out, I have yet to feel the endorphin rush or burst of energy afterwards as so many people claim happens. Mostly, I'm so exhausted that I end up sweaty and asleep on my couch.

Physically, I feel smaller, which is a pretty sweet.

In a previous post I mentioned a little wager between The Boyfriend and I. We outlined the terms and have been steadily working toward our respective weight loss goals.

Here are the terms thus far:
His goal weight loss is 100 pounds.
My goal weight loss is 50 pounds.

Essentially whoever reaches their goal first wins. What do we win you ask? Well let me break it down for you.

If he wins, I'll buy him a Playstation 4 when it's released. If I win, he has to buy me accessories or a lens for my DSLR. Monetarily we will try and keep it as equivalent as possible.

We've yet to take any measurements, or starting photos which I definitely regret so for now, we'll have to put our faith in our clothes and the numbers on the scale.

Rainy day

It's fairly yucky out this morning, and as the Queen of wearing weather-inappropriate footwear my feet are pretty much wet and nearly soggy. Lovely.

On the bright side, my pants are awesome. They're dark purple with a black scroll-work pattern. Best part about them? I got them for like $13 at Target.

In other news, I lost the weight I gained back last weekend after Superbowl and various food celebrations, so that means I'm down seven pounds this month. Not too shabby. If I keep this rate going by May I should be like 30 pounds lighter.

I've been making time to go to the gym after work and maintaining focus on my diet (for the most part), so I feel pretty good about where I'm at right now.

The Boyfriend and I have decided to make a bet with each other to see who will reach their goal weight first, but we haven't decided on the terms yet. Once decided upon, there will be a new post to be on the lookout for.

But for now the basics are this:
He wants to lose 100 pounds, I want to lose 50. He's already lost around 20 pounds and I've lost seven.

The difference in weight loss between us doesn't discourage me really because I know that as a man, he will lose weight faster than I will, which will just make it that much more gratifying when I beat him in the long run. :)

Either way, win or lose we'll both be healthier, happier and fitter versions of ourselves and that's fine by me.

Seltzer has become my new best friend

I remember the first time I ever tried seltzer water. I was under the age of 10 and at some meeting with my mom. I was thirsty and saw the clear, fizzy liquid on a table with other refreshments and went at it.

Obviously, I was expecting this clear and bubbly bottle to be Sprite. It was not, I was sorely mistaken and disappointed and probably disgusted.

Now that I'm older, I love the stuff. I don't know what happened, but now, and especially with the dieting, I reach for zero-calorie flavored varieties just for the illusion of drinking a soda.

Kudos to me for making wise decisions during my day!

It's the small victories that add up to the big ones.

In other news, I went to the gym yesterday and fully intend on going again today after work which are both fantastic steps in the right direction.

Paleo-a-go-go

With every new year comes new year's resolutions and my resolutions for 2013 are probably the same as 99.9% of Americans -- lose weight, be financially responsible, be a better person, etc.

The Boyfriend and I have made it a point to lose weight this year, we both feel like we've put on too much "happy fat" and needless to say, it's not making either one of us happy.

We've both been on diets before separately and together. Counting calories, counting carbs, low-fat, low-cal, fat-free and taste-free have been staples in our vocabularies for varying amount of unsuccessful tries.

This time around we're doing it caveman style.

We're both doing the Paleo Diet or at least doing our best with it.

For the past three-ish weeks we've been eating nothing but lean proteins, veggies, fruits, nuts, berries and twigs (just kidding. there have been no twigs).

Giving up bread hasn't been as horrible as it was the last few times that I tried a low-carb diet and I haven't figured out why and I don't know that I care enough to figure it out. What I do know is that it's been working for us and this diet is one that we've actually been able to stick to for the longest amount of time.

Many of the other low-carb diets restrict fruits for either a certain amount of time or just don't allow fruits at all which just always seemed strange to me. Yes I understand that fruits have sugars in them which are carbs, but fruits are also full of so many redeeming qualities that I find it hard to stick to a diet that doesn't encourage eating them.

Granted, many of the paleo websites, blogs and books say that if you're trying to lose weight stray away from too much fruit and nut intake.

So anyway, after the first couple weeks I lost about seven pounds. YAY!

And then this past weekend happened. I wrote an article about a restaurant (which obviously required some research), dinner for The Boyfriend's mother Saturday night and then Super Bowl Sunday. OH THE FRIED, STARCHY, CARBY FOODS... and wings. There were wings too. 

I just about gained any weight back over the weekend and have been kind of slow-rolling getting fully back on track. 

The Boyfriend and I have started a bet with one another. Whoever reaches their goal weight first wins. What they win, we haven't decided yet, but they'll win. He's looking to lose 100 pounds and I'm staring down 50... well 55 including those five I just gained back. 

It's a long road ahead, but I'm going to give it my best and be satisfied in the fact that I'll we'll inevitably be healthier in the end.