Weekly Low Carb Wrap Up - Week Ten

This should actually be week thirteen but I've been bad and not done a weekly wrap up for four weeks now! But I'm going to get better because as you can see from my previous post I'm killing my Sugar Crush addiction and focusing more on blogging and napping! My two favorite things!

But...just because I have not been posting a weekly wrap up does not mean I've gone off the low-carb wagon! Oh no...I've been doing good, well maybe not good but I've been trying.

I've always been a believer in only weighing in once a week on Friday mornings. For the past couple of months every single Friday I have weighed exactly the same! I was getting so frustrated because no matter what I did I wasn't losing weight!!!

So two weeks ago I decided I was going to weigh myself every day to see if I could detect a pattern...see how scientific I am? What I found out is that I was defeating myself. On Friday's I would weigh myself and then that evening I would go out an eat just a few chips with salsa (ok, maybe a whole bowl).  Then on Saturday I would go out shopping with my mom and I might eat a few more chips and salsa, maybe a frozen strawberry margarita, then Sunday I usually make a nice meal for my mom and my kids and I might have just a smidgen of mashed potatoes or some Doritos casserole.

I found that all those little cheats made me add 3 to 4 pounds by Tuesday and then even though I was good and ate low carb the whole week all I was really doing was losing the weight I gained over the weekend and therefore by Friday when I weighed in I was still at the same weight! Silly me! Defeating my own self! Grrrr!

So this weekend I have stayed true to my low carb plan and have not partaken of any carbs! At least not more than the 20 to 25 allotted during the induction phase of Atkins. This weekend we have had a heatwave, so yesterday morning, before it got too hot I made some tuna salad, some chicken salad, some guacamole and some turkey, cream cheese and pickle roll-ups  Plus I made some detox water. 

Turkey, Cream Cheese and Dill Pickle Rollups, Guacamole and red pepper strips for dipping! Recipe for the roll ups can be found at http://www.kalynskitchen.com/2011/02/easy-recipe-for-ham-and-dill-pickle.html

My son found this wonderful video for me, three ways to cook eggs in the microwave, here's a picture of the ones I made and the video is posted below.

Scrambled Egg in a Cup in the Microwave

I also mentioned that I made Lemon Detox Water yesterday and I've been faithfully drinking it today. It's so simple to make, just slice lemons into a pitcher and fill with water then let sit in the fridge overnight. I also added a lime and I wanted to add cucumbers and fresh mint, but I didn't have any. I found information on detox water at fitsugar, but I've seen it all over pinterest too! 

Again this morning before it got too warm I made a turkey roast tenderloin and a pork roast tenderloin. I buy the Jennie-O Turkey Roast Tenderloin, the Savory Roast flavor is below, they have several different flavors, the one I made today was Island Marinade and it had a sweetness to it that was excellent!

I cook it exactly as I do the roast tenderloin, you can go HERE to see how I do it. 

I hope that my detox water and careful planning of food and snacks for this weekend helps me to finally start showing some results! 

If you have any good low carb meals you make feel free to share them with me. I'm always looking for new things to cook. Have a great week everyone!

      

Weekly Low Carb Wrap Up - Week Five

     This has been a tough week for me! But even with all that has happened this week which I'll detail more about in another post to follow later this week, I managed to lose one pound! Yay!!! 

     I know, it's not a lot, but imagine if you were to lose one pound per week? How many pounds would you lose in one year??? I can see you all doing the math. Let me make it easy for you...it would be 52 pounds!!! Amazing when you realize slow and steady wins the race!

     The bad thing about deciding to lose weight and eat better is that as human beings, we are a very impatient bunch! We are used to getting everything now! We don't stop to think that we didn't put on 30 extra pounds in a week, it took us a good 6 months to a year or more, so what makes us think we can lose it in a week?

     That is my mantra...slow and steady wins the race. I'm not just learning how to lose weight, I'm also learning how to cook and eat delicious food that can be eaten by me and my whole family alike. As I get older and realize that I want to avoid diabetes, which runs in most families, I know the only way to do it is to eat better and exercise.

     With that being said, let me tell you that while I stuck to my eating plan this past week, I really didn't have much time to try new things. But thank goodness for my co-worker, who decided to try to make a cookie using almond flour and coconut. I believe she found the recipe on the blog, I Breathe...I'm Hungry. These cookies are called Almond Joy Cookies and they are low carb and gluten free. 

Almond Joy Cookies

     We both discussed the fact that they were good, but could have used a little more Splenda to make them sweeter. We realize that would have upped the carb count, but as long as we are only going to eat one every once in a while it really wouldn't kill us. She too felt that maybe it would have helped to add some cinnamon for flavoring, but all in all, they were pretty good and went well with our morning coffee. She also made some cheesecake which I forgot to photograph.

     I usually like to try to make a nice meal on Sundays. It's a throwback to my mom and dad who always used to BBQ on Sunday. They would make enough food to feed an army! Last Sunday I made another Pork Tenderloin, but this time I made it the way my sister does, kind of like a pot roast. I loaded it with veggies. It look beautiful and tasted pretty good, but my familia is not big on the baked veggies and I myself like them only slightly steamed and still crunchy. But it's a pretty dish, don't you think?

     For this pork tenderloin I used a very simple dry rub, just salt, pepper, garlic and onion powder, then I braised it in a cast iron skillet, added the raw veggies and into the oven it went.

     This Sunday was Easter Sunday. I was going to BBQ but it was windy in our neck of the woods and a bit chilly, so I decided to just make my famous (well famous to my family) Taco Bell Teriyaki Hamburgers with Guacamole for my son and daughter, and then for myself I decided to try a couple of new recipes that I've pinned on Pinterest. 

     The first was an Easy Cajun Chicken from...you guessed it, I Breathe...I'm Hungry! I just love her blog, so many wonderful recipes that are super easy to make. So easy that even I can do it!

     I did it exactly like her recipe except that I did not have any dried thyme so I just didn't use it. I had bought a huge pack of chicken drumsticks at the store the day before and I washed them, dried them, rubbed them with olive oil and then made the dry rub of salt, pepper, garlic and onion powder, cayenne pepper and dried oregano and tossed them in that, placed them on a foil lined cookie sheet and baked them at 400 degree oven for about an hour. 

     They were soooooooooooo good! The skin was crispy and spicy as heck! And the meaty part of the drumstick was juicy and delicious. I made the whole pack which was about 5 pounds so I will have plenty of leftovers to carry me through the week.
     

     To go along with it, I tried another Pinterest recipe which I found at Linda's Low Carb Menus and Recipes called Broccoli Slaw. This was very similar to my Broccoli Salad  except it didn't call for bacon and onions, so I improvised a bit and added onion salt and when I served the slaw on my plate I added bacon bits. 

     I also added some guacamole that I made for the burgers. I froze some of the guacamole as a test as I have been seeing on Pinterest that you can freeze avocado and they are really inexpensive right now. I bought these for 50 cents each! So here was my Easter Sunday Dinner...yummy no?

     So that's it for this week's wrap up. I didn't get a chance to exercise as I had hoped, but I did stay busy doing other things, which again I will post more about later this week. I'll try to exercise this week, but again...not sure it's going to be possible since I'm a pretty busy gal lately. Have a great week!

 

Weekly Low Carb Wrap Up - Week 3

     Darn it! I have to get better at this! I've been doing this low carb wrap up for a few weeks now and I'm not getting any posting done during the week. I think I'm going to have to start posting this stuff on a daily basis for two reasons: 

1. It will make for more posting throughout the week. 
2. I forget what stuff I made during the week and comments I wanted to make on it.

     I'll do the best I can during the week since it is American Idol season and I love them and won't miss it for anything in the world!

     Have you all been hearing about the health benefits of Kale? I know I have, and aside from the health benefits I've been told that Kale Chips are the next best thing to Tortilla Chips. May I just tell you right now that is  a big fat lie  a bit far-fetched! Yuk! Kale Chips are not the thing for me! Now those of you that love them, don't hate me, they are just not for me, just as Seaweed Chips are not for me even though I know those that love them.

     The photo above is where they are all washed and dried and seasoned and ready to be baked. I used the recipe from the very excellent low carb blog, I breathe...I'm hungry...

     I'm pretty sure it's not the fault of the recipe or the blog or the blog creator, Mellissa Sevigny, it's just that kale chips are not for me, just like I don't like mushrooms, it's just a matter of personal taste.

     I baked them just as she instructed and tasted the ones that burned a little bit and tasted the ones that were perfectly crisp and nope...not for me. I want to think that maybe it was the Soy Sauce or the Sriracha Sauce so I am going to try to make it one more time with a different recipe that just calls for olive oil, salt and pepper. I'll let you know what happens.

     One new item I did try this week is the new Atkins Frozen Meals. I tried the Crustless Chicken Pot Pie. I gotta say, it wasn't bad. It didn't taste like a pot pie, but the chicken was fresh and delicious white meat with a very nice tenderness, not dry at all. The veggies were pretty good and the sauce was rich and gooey. It didn't seem like a lot at first and I didn't know if I was going to get full, but it was very filling due to the fact that there was quite a bit of chicken and the pieces were pretty big. I would definitely recommend this and I will be buying it again. Right now Wal-mart is the only store carrying them and of course, they don't carry them at the store I go to!

     Atkins has a whole line of them and I also purchased the Italian Sausage Primavera which I will probably try for lunch tomorrow. You can see their whole line on the Atkins website. 

     I tried another new thing this week, I tried making Buffalo Roasted Cauliflower. I used a recipe from a new blog I've found via Pinterest. The blog is called Closet Cooking because the blog owner, Kevin is "Cooking in a closet sized kitchen".

     Again, I don't blame Kevin for my not being thrilled with the recipe, I think that I just don't like roasted Cauliflower. I love Cauliflower, but just not roasted. I may try it steamed as I did like the flavor of the buffalo sauce.

     I served the dish alongside a favorite dish of mine that my mom makes, you can see it below. She chops up steak and pan fries it in oil and when it's done she adds chopped tomato and jalapenos and it's almost like a steak fajita except there is no onion as mom can't stomach onion (I love, love, love onion!). See those burnt parts on the cauliflower? Those parts are supposed to have a delicious nutty taste, they just tasted burnt. You can't see the buffalo sauce very well, I actually added more later.

     That night I went to bed wondering what to do so I wouldn't waste the rest of that cauliflower. Voila! Overnight a wonderful idea came to me, why not fry it up with some scrambled eggs? Hence is born my Scrambled Egg Buffalo Roasted Cauliflower! 

     The egg really cut down on the burnt taste and the marinating overnight of the cauliflower with the Franks Red Hot Sauce made for a spicy delicious breakfast. It made enough for two servings and I put it in plastic containers and enjoyed it two mornings at work. The office smelled awful, but we opened the door and aired it out and it was ok. I recommend this dish if you love spicy. Just make Closet Cooking's Buffalo Roasted Cauliflower and chop it into bite-sized pieces and heat it in a pan with some butter and olive oil, then throw uncooked scrambled egg in and cook to your desired egg consistency. Yum!

     Now...let's see, what else did I try this week that was new and exciting? Oh yeah! I made a pork tenderloin that was to die for!! I almost killed my mom making it but she said the flavor was almost worth it. I used a cast iron skillet on the stove top and seared the whole tenderloin while it had the dry rub on it. Because of the Cayenne Pepper in the dry rub, it makes it noxious to breath. It didn't bother me but it drove poor mom out of the house!

     I've actually made this dish before and blogged about it here. My daughter found this recipe a while back and asked me to make it for her. The original recipe was adapted by a recipe from the blog, Little B Cooks: Chronicles from a Vermont foodie, quite a title!

     The first time I made it I used the exact recipe as Little B posted on her blog, but when I went to go get the recipe out of my little personal cookbook where I write down recipes I like, I noticed that I had jotted down some notes. I said my family didn't care for the cinnamon and to leave out the glaze if making low carb as it does have brown sugar....so I did that, it was smack your mama delicious! I believe I served steamed broccoli with it, but I don't remember now.

     And my co-worker, who loves to cook and try new low carb dishes made a tasty little dessert for us and she brought them to work and we had one every day for our 3pm break. They are these delicious  creamy little bites of heaven! It's called No-Bake Jello Cheesecake and it has just 3 carbs each! Really satisfies a sweet tooth! She found the recipe on a really excellent low carb website, Linda's Low Carb Menus. I love this site!

         Can you believe they are made with just 4 ingredients, one of them being water? Unbelievably delicious!

       So that was my week! Hopefully I can do even better in trying out new things this next week. I'm also going to try to cut down on my carbs from 20 -24 to 17 -20 carbs per day as I'm stalled right now and haven't lost any more weight. I feel lighter and my clothes fit better. Health wise I feel great! No indigestion or that yucky bloated feeling after eating, but it's always nice to see that scale drop too. So wish me luck and if you have any low carb ideas for me, I'd love to hear them!

     Oh yeah...my co-worker and I also started walking during our lunch hour. She can walk for miles, but then again she's the same age as my daughter. I made it almost a mile and then told her she had to go get the car...hahaha. No I made it back to the office but I guess I bit off more than I can chew and need to ride my stationery bike more before I tackle a mile again...but it's a start!

     Have a great week all!



 

Island Pork Tenderloin Dinner

 love pork tenderloin, but honestly had not made it since the 1990's when I was married. My daughter found this recipe and emailed it me asking me to "pretty please" make it for Sunday dinner. So I read it and thought, "Hmmmmm, this sounds weird." But I bought a pork tenderloin and put it in the freezer and forgot about it for a couple of weeks. This Sunday I decided to give it a try.

 

 

 

Doesn't that look delicious? First let me say that I used a cast iron skillet. I love cast iron skillets and I remember all my tias (aunts) cooking with them, but myself had never really used one. It just made me feel like I was channeling all the wonderful cooking skills of all my tias, even though I'm sure not a one of them had ever used a cookbook, let alone recipes from the internet!

 

This recipe was adapted from Gourmet Cookbook and my daughter found it at Little B Cooks: Chronicles from a Vermont Foodie. It's super easy and if you read it you might just wonder how these different ingredients could go together as they don't really seem to make much sense, but ohmygosh!!!

 

The only change I made from Little B's recipe is that I used Cayenne Pepper instead of plain ole chili powder cause we didn't have chili powder. I'm glad I did because it gave the the dish a great little spicy kick!

 

I think though that using the Cayenne made for a little bit of drama in my kitchen because you take salt, pepper, cumin, cinnamon and the cayenne and stir it all together for a dry rub. Then after you get all up-close and personal with your pork loin you braise it in your skillet with some EVOO (extra virgin olive oil). This process created an aroma that I didn't personally like although my son and daughter did. This process also created some smoke that had all of us coughing! My mom coughed so bad she had to step outside for fresh air! So be sure to turn the fan on over your stove. You have been warned!

 

 

Once you've braised it on the stove then you stick it....cast iron pan and all into the oven. Once it's done you take it out, cover it lightly with foil so all the juices can soak back in and slice and serve. Delicious. I didn't think about it at the time, but there were some delicious drippings left in the pan which I should have pour over the top, but still great even without! We had mashed potatoes and green beans as side dishes. I'm planning to make pork loin sandwiches with coleslaw with the leftovers...if they make it through the night!

 

ISLAND PORK TENDERLOIN

For Spice Rub:

2 tsp salt

1/2 tsp pepper

1 tsp cumin

1 tsp cayenne pepper (or chili powder)

1 tsp cinnamon

2 pork tenderloins (2 1/4 - 2 1/2 lbs total) trimmed

2 tbsp olive oil

 

For Glaze:

3/4 cup packed dark brown sugar

2 tbsp finely chopped garlic

1 tbsp Tabasco

 

Stir the spice rub ingredients together in a small bowl and rub all over the pork. Heat oil in ovenproof 12 inch heavy skillet (or a cast iron skillet if you are fortunate enough to have one) over medium high heat. Brown pork, turning occasionally, about 4 to 5 minutes total. Remove from heat, but leave pork in skillet.

 

Stir together brown sugar, garlic and Tabasco in a small bowl. Pat the mixture on top of the pork. Place skillet in the over at 350. Roast until thermometer inserted diagonally into the center of each tenderloin registers 140 degrees, about 20 minutes (I didn't have a thermometer so I just left it in the oven for 30 minutes to be safe and it was perfect!). Loosely cover with foil and let stand in skillet for 10 minutes then slice and get ready to be delighted!