Three Weeks Down!

Posted on by Jordan

Today marks the end of three weeks in the Goals In Motion ‘Challenge’.

That leaves six to go, and I am counting 🙂

The interesting thing is that I rather enjoy the workouts, I just don’t like getting up that early, or what getting up that early does to my evenings. In case I haven’t mentioned it, we get up at 4:20 in order to make the 5:15 workout.

Beyond the changes to our sleep schedule, our eating changes have been more significant than expected. Heather and I did another challenge a while back that included an eating program, although it was self moderated. With the current program we have an assigned coach / mentor. She has been incredibly helpful! We already had the basic principals from before, but she has really helped us fine-tune it. One of the tools we have been using is a website called “The Daily Plate,” that provides a nice nutritional tracking tool.  To be honest, the site is clunky and less than user friendly, but it’s free and gives us and our coaches access to the information we want.

Because of our nutritional goals, I have been really looking for new things to cook. I tried a few noteworthy things over the past few weeks.

First up was “Stickless Shish-Kabab“only I cut back the oil in the marinade, and made it with chicken.

I discovered a number of things that were somewhat exciting in the process. First up is the fact that our oven, although lacking the traditional gas oven broiler pan, has broiler settings to ether turn the top or bottom heating element on constantly. This gave me a lot more control when broiling than I have ever had with an oven before. The option to just turn on the bottom element will come in to play once pizza is back on the menu. The second thing I discovered is that the stores have yellow squash in stock, and that Heather and I both rather like them grilled. We have grilled them a few times already, after ‘discovering’ them in this recipe.

The second thing I tried was “Whole Wheat Pasta with Asparagus.” I don’t really think I set out to modify this recipe, I just didn’t quite have the right stuff on hand. I don’t know if the kind of sausage called for was what I used, but it was really hard to skin, so I just chopped it up and did slices instead. Beyond that change I think it was basically what the recipe called for. The results were really good, and I think I may have converted Heather to liking Asparagus.

The final new item we tried was a notable strikeout. After our success with grilled squash, we were eager to try to expand our arsenal of grilling options, so we thought eggplant might be a good thing to try. Normally I would have avoided eggplant, but i figured we were on such a role with new things that it might be really good. (pictured here, hot off the grill)

It wasn’t terrible… but it wasn’t great ether. I know there are recipes that dress eggplant up a lot more, and I think we may need to look into those. Heather mentioned having really liked eggplant in Spain, but that it was breaded, fried, and drizzled with honey. Hopefully we won’t have to go to those lengths, but as it stands now eggplant isn’t on our veggie good-list.

-Jordan

Pizza!

Posted on by Jordan

One thing I can say for certain, is that it is January here.  The past week has felt almost tropical, when the temperature slipped above freezing for a few hours during the day. The piles of snow around our apartment are so large you cannot see over them anymore. To put it gently, there isn’t much to make you want to go outside.

With that in mind I have been looking for interesting cooking projects.  One I found was for a Chicago style pizza that looked interesting.

I ended up using a recipe my mom gave me for the crust instead of the one listed, used normal sauce instead of the diced tomatoes, hamburger instead of sausage, and an electric oven instead of gas. So pretty much I only used a small fraction of the guys idea, but still….

Anyway, the dough covered a much larger area than I really needed, so it kind of flopped over the edges. I figured I could deal with that later, and added quite a bit of hamburger.

This is about the time I realized I hadn’t really planned out how closely I was going to stick to the advice online, because I didn’t want to try the diced tomatoes track. I figured some garlic couldn’t hurt though, so I chopped up a few cloves and dumped them in. I sprinkled in some oregano too for good measure. Then I topped that with *a lot* of cheese and some mushrooms.

There was still room left in the skillet, but I didn’t think it would be a good idea to use any more mushrooms. I still had a little hamburger left though, so I used the last of that. Then I added the remains of a can of Prego red sauce. I was really afraid this would make things too runny, but the hamburger and mushrooms seemed to be soaking it up really well.

Again, I realized that I wasn’t planning too well. The pseudo recipe I was using appeared to use pepperoni to kind of shield the top of the pizza from burning. I think the comment said something about the top getting “crispy like bacon” but at the same time it wasn’t going to seem very pizza-like if I didn’t at least put cheese on the top. In hindsight, the one time I had pizza in Chicago, they clearly baked the pizza, then added the sauce right before they brought it out. That pizza was different than what I was shooting for here anyway. I ended up adding some cheese.

As you can see, I also trimmed off the extra dough around the edges. At this point I used the tip somebody posted later on in that pizza thread I was using as a recipe, and placed the pan at the bottom of the oven, and a cookie sheet on a rack clear at the top. Then I set the oven for 500, waited for it to get up to temp, and backed it off to 400. The only thing I did that may have changed cooking conditions was I swapped out the top cookie sheet for one that had bread stick things from the extra crust for a few minutes after I turned the temp down. The final result looked promising.

The crust had a lot of structural strength, and didn’t stick to the pan at all (did I mention I had aggressively  rubbed butter on the pan before I started?). I was able to lift and slide the pizza out without any problems.

Cutting it up was a little difficult, due to the fact that it was a little soupy. I was initially afraid that was from too much sauce, but it turned out that was just because the cheese was still melted.

After just a few more minutes things began to set a little more, and we ended up with nice thick pie-like slices.

I was quite happy with the end result. It took way longer than I had planned, partially due to the prep time on the dough for the crust, and partially due to the cook-time being a lot longer than the ~40 minutes I was expecting (pre-heat takes more than 10 minutes when you go up to 500). The crust was good, but nothing like the “pan” pizza from say Pizza Hut. I shudder to think how much oil I would have to use to get that effect. I think I am happy with the effect I got, and I don’t see a reason to pack a ton more fat into what isn’t really health food as it stands, I was just expecting something different.

So to summarize:

  • Grease the skillet, but don’t expect a fried-bread crust
  • Electric ovens seem to work fine, if you use a blocking sheet for the top element
  • Cheese only works as a topping, although I would like to try pepperoni next time
  • Plan ahead so you have 2+ hours to make this before you want to eat

-Jordan

Its Been A Little Over A Week…

Posted on by Jordan

And…

  • Heather and I are home
  • The apartment is 99%  cleaned up
  • We have unpacked and stowed every gift and item that recently entered the apartment.

The process of cleaning up and putting away everything did cause some stress between Heather and I. As much time as we were spending together before the wedding, we somehow never really came to terms with our approach to planning chores. We both just took care of things like cleaning and laundry when we weren’t together.

In the end, it was a great week, and everything that we wanted done got taken care of. The process though… 🙂 I don’t want it to sound like we had huge fights over anything, we just had to figure out priorities and planning styles some. I can’t imagine what it would have been like having to move one of us into the apartment over the weekend, much less moving both of us into a house.

Thank you writing will be a challenge we have to tackle soon, and we are just starting to address how meals get taken care of. Laundry and managing the budget are still in there too… Lets just say we still have things to figure out, but the first week has been really great! Not always easy, but not hard ether, just felt like something that took a little thought and effort.

Speaking of food, one of the many great items we were given was a crock pot. I have all kinds of plans for that puppy, and happened to have stumbled upon some fairly straightforward “quick” recipes for them today. Posting them here so I can find them again:  (All shamelessly stolen from The Simple Dollar)

  1. Combine all of this into a crock pot.
  2. Add salt and pepper to taste.
  3. Turn it on low and walk away for eight hours.
  4. Add a quarter of a cup of water for every additional two hours you intend to cook it.

Creamy Chicken Casserole

1 can condensed cream of chicken soup (chicken & herbs if you can find it)
1 small can mushroom pieces (a 4 ounce can, drain off the water first)
1/2 chopped red onion
1 1/2 pounds skinless, boneless chicken breasts (cut into strips if you’d like)
1/4 cup white wine (optional)

Crock Pot Chili
1 large can tomato sauce
1 pound lean ground beef
2 cans beans (kidney beans are fine, but you can use whatever you like)
2 tablespoons chili powder
1/4 cup diced onion (or onion salt)

Simple Pot Roast
1 2 to 2.5 lb. roast
2 cups chopped carrots
2 cups chopped potatoes
1 cup chopped celery
3 cups beef broth or beef stock

Ham and Potato Casserole
4 red potatoes, sliced
2 red onions, finely chopped
1 1/2 pounds cubed ham
1 can condensed cream of celery soup, diluted according to can directions
2 tablespoons flour

(This one is very good with cheese on top just before you serve it.)

Shredded Beef Sandwiches
2 pounds beef brisket
1 tablespoon olive oil
2 1/2 cups beef broth or beef stock
2 cloves minced garlic
1 chopped red onion

(Serve this on buns – magnificent!)

Breakfast Apple Cobbler
4 medium-sized apples, peeled and sliced (try Honey Crisps)
1/4 cup honey
1 teaspoon cinnamon
2 tablespoons melted butter
2 cups granola cereal

I hope to try one or two of these, there are a ton of recipes for slow cookers / crock pots out there, but fast and simple are really good attributes!

-Jordan