Turkeyzilla- The Feast!

I like to have an annual Turkey dinner sometime between Thanksgiving and Christmas. It's kind of an early Christmas celebration and a late Thanksgiving, or an On-Time American Thanksgiving. I am American after all. And Canadian. I do enjoy celebrating the holidays of both my home countries! I also just really enjoy cooking and feeding a crowd. If I had a bigger place I would invite more than I do and cook twice as much food. With this bigger place I also request two ovens and at least a 6 burner stove. Please? Thank you in advance for donations to the "buy Selina a bigger kitchen" fund. :)

I also enjoy challenges and have a friend who is religiously fasting from meat and dairy for Advent. This provided the challenge of making all of the regular Turkey side dishes less meaty and buttery, and dessert less eggy and milky and buttery. On certain days he is able to eat fish so that helped some because I didn't really feel like trying to make turkey flavored tofu and tofu gravy, and I wasn't sure what to do for protein. Haddock answered my prayers.

I also gave my first ever official cooking lessons to three friends this weekend. I had SO MUCH FUN! I definitely love teaching and without a doubt I adore cooking. Why did I not think of this before? Another thing to add to my list of dream jobs/millionaire jobs- friendly neighborhood cooking instructor! 

So myself and three 'students' prepared a turkey/haddock feast for 10. I actually had to write down the recipes in my head so that I could create a small cookbook for them to use in the future. I am going to be nice and share those recipes here. The only think I am sad about is that in the heat of the kitchen and excitement to eat, I did not snap any photos of our feast or the 7.775 Kg (17.5 lb) Free Range Windsor NS Turkey (Yay  Lovely and Local!) .... Sorry!

To cut down on the length of this particular post, and to help make me less crazy with editing and formatting in Blogger, I have created pages for the recipes that are linked below. Also, this way you get to see the menu and pick and choose which recipes you want to look at if you don't feel the need to view them all. 

Roast Turkey and Gravy
Lemon Dill White Fish
Roasted Smashed Potatoes
Glazed Carrots
Rhubarb Apple Cranberry Sauce
Caramelized Onion Cranberry Apple Stuffing
Berry Lemon Tart

Something great about these recipes is that many of them are versatile in that they can be made vegan friendly or not, and more or less healthy based on using alternatives. For instance, the olive oil on the potatoes is definitely a healthier choice than bacon fat, and still very tasty. Most of the recipes that call for sugar can use agave, honey, maple syrup or maple sugar instead for a less processed and easier on the body sweetness.

I also served condiments and bites with the meal such as pickled onions, gherkins and green tomato chow for those that don't care for cranberry sauce or might just really like those little onions (my fiance is one of those people :) ). And we had green beans. No recipe. Just good old canned french cut green beans. They are one of my favorite veggies. Also, some of the guests brought biscuits, fruit, juice, ginger cake and chocolate chip cookies to add to the feast. All of which were delicious and led to much fullness and a lack of desire to move. It was fantastic.

Happy Eating!

Groceries, Holiday Treats and Wedding Gowns

Tuesday was supposed to be day 1 of cycle 1.5 for me. HA. It was a fail. I ate way too many carbs (but at least I got rid of the leftovers...) and not enough vegetables. Yesterday was much better. I had two slices of toast and two poached eggs for lunch before going to work from 4 until 8. Those two slices of multigrain are not natural starches from the food list. But they had whole grains and are less processed (in my mind) than if I had had two slices of white bread or a heap of white macaroni. So I am not going to beat myself up over it. Especially considering I don't think I would have made it and been nearly as cheerful at work if I hadn't eaten them.

One of the problems that I and a lot of others have is grocery shopping. Sometimes we just have to wait until payday to go to the grocery store and that leaves the produce sections of our homes quite bare. I realized this yesterday when I was eating the last of the salad and thought the only veggies I have left in this place are starches (peas, corn, potatoes) or aromatics (onions and garlic). While onions and garlic are two of my favorite foodstuffs, they are not exactly fillers if you know what I mean. Thankfully grocery shopping should get done sometime today.

I am even going to buy some things that aren't on the food list to make a holiday surprise. I would try to take the sugar out of it, but I don't think the recipe will work with Agave or Maple syrup (although that would be a neat experiment) and it requires too much sugar to replace it with Truvia, Kresida, or Splenda without nasty aftertastes and massive headaches caused by these ingredients (to me anyway).  I also don't feel bad for this because its a holiday treat. I made it through Halloween without having one single piece of candy, chocolate, or sugary substance. I damn well intend to have a few treats at Christmas. I also acknowledge and accept that usually at Christmas I cook for others and others cook for me, and I can't control others but I can control what I cook and how much of everything else I eat. It will all be about moderation and not overindulging when I'm at home. I'll save the 'biggest' or 'worst/least healthy' cheat-treats for when I am out with others.

I have also come to recognize that I haven't mentioned WHY I am revamping with the healthy eating thing. I noted before that I was going wedding dress shopping soon and I didn't want it to end badly. Well it didn't end badly but I was disappointed that some very pretty dresses would not fit over my bum. Bridal shops have the best intentions when they order samples is a variety of sizes but I really felt that the two shops I went to carried a number of designers that made dresses my size, but still only had those dresses in a size 12. It was disheartening. I also think that bridal shops should order multiple sample dresses including the BIGGEST size. Have a smaller size, a middle size, and the largest size possible. You see teeny tiny size 4 brides swimming in a size 10 or 12 dress with the corset done up really tight and the big plastic clips holding it together in the back. It might not be a big deal for them (or it might I don't really know), but think, just THINK of what an amazing boost it might give some of the bigger girls to try on a size 28 or 30 dress that needs to have clips put on the back because it's too big! It would be stupendous! That beautiful girl's day would be MADE. Instead, we get poorly placed modesty panels, bunchy and buckled waistlines, and bulges in all the wrong places. Which, FYI bridal peeps, makes it ALOT harder to fall in love with a dress because we can't actually see the real shape it will give us when it actually fits.

I have always dreamed of having a wedding business if I won the lottery and needed something awesome to do with my time. I would definitely have dresses in a wider range of sizes than 8, 10, 12, 18, and 20. Even if it meant ordering multiple of the same dress. That way the true variety of a bridal shop would shine.

But for now, I am back on the healthy living plan. I am eating paycheck to paycheck. I am continuing to search for a wedding dress. And I am trying to drop another dress size or two so that I can get a better picture of what two favorite dresses from the salons I have already been to will look like on me in the right size. Minus the tummy bulge and buckled sides. 

 

Jumping Back on the Bandwagon!

I am going to go through the cycles of the 17 day diet again, but a little differently than before. I am going to follow Cycle 1.5 rules. I made them up myself.

In cycle 1 of the diet you eat all the lean protein you want form a very restricted list, along with all the veggies you can eat from a slightly restricted list, 2 servings of fruit from a restricted list, and 2 servings of probiotics.  No starches.  I found this cycle hard to follow. I felt I was starving to come off the sugar and starch that I was overdosing on every day.

In cycle 2 of the diet you can eat liberal amounts of protein from an expanded list, all the veggies form the first cycle, 2 servings of the fruit from the first cycle, 2 servings of the probiotics from the first cycle, and every other day you get to eat 2 servings of a natural starch form the approved list of foods. The list of starches does not leave me wanting for carbs although 'natural starch' means no processed carbs like bread and pasta. This cycle was better, but I found it hard to switch between no starch and starch days. I usually ended up eating one serving of starch on accelerate (cycle 1) days and two servings on activate (cycle 2) days. It worked well.

So what does cycle 1.5 entail? Well, I'm hoping after the first few days it will entail less hunger and jittery feelings once I re-adjust to eating less carbs and get back off some of the sugary stuff. What will I eat? To give others a bit of variety I have left on a lot of the ingredients from the second cycle even if I won't eat them. I did take out some of the harder to find probiotics or the ones that I don't care for. I left all the proteins alone even though I won't eat salmon, flounder, catfish, or any of the shellfish because it's just not my taste. 

PROTEINS- LIBERAL AMOUNTS

Fish

•       Salmon

•       Sole

•       Flounder

•       Catfish

•       Tilapia

•       Canned light tuna

Poultry

•       Chicken breasts

•       Turkey breasts

•       Ground turkey, lean

•       Eggs (2 eggs = 1 serving)

•       Egg whites (4 egg whites = 1 serving)

Shellfish

•       Clams

•       Crab

•       Mussels

•       Oysters
•       Scallops
•       Shrimp

Lean Cuts of Meat

•       Flank Steak

•       Top Sirloin Steak

•       Top Round

•       Eye of the round

•       Beef round tip

•       Lean Ground Beef

•       Pork Tenderloin

•       Pork sirloin chops or Top/Centre loin chops

•       Pork boneless loin roast

•       Lamb shanks

•       Lamb sirloin roast

•       Veal cutlet

NATURAL STARCHES- 1 SERVING DAILY!

Grains (1/2 cup= 1 serving)
•       Amaranth

•       Barley, pearled

•       Brown rice

•       Bulgur

•       Couscous

•       Cream of Wheat

•       Grits

•       Longer grain/Basmati rice

•       Millet

•       Oat Bran

•       Old fashioned Oatmeal

•       Quinoa

Legumes (1/2 cup= 1 serving)

•       Black beans

•       Black eyed peas
•       Butter Beans

•       Garbanzo beans/chickpeas

•       Great Northern beans

•       Kidney Beans

•       Lentils
•       Baby Lima beans

•       Navy beans

•       Peas/split peas

•       Pinto beans

•       Soy beans

Starchy Vegetables

•       Breadfruit (1 cup)

•       Corn (1/2 cup)

•       Potato (1 medium)

•       Sweet potato (1 medium)

•       Taro (1/2 cup)

•       Winter Squash (Acorn, Butternut, Spaghetti, etc.) (1 cup)

•       Yam (1 medium)

CLEANSING VEGETABLES- ALL YOU CAN EAT

•       Artichoke

•       Artichoke hearts

•       Asparagus

•       Bell peppers, any colour

•       Broccoli

•       Brussels sprouts

•       Cabbage

•       Carrots

•      Cauliflower

•       Celery

•       Cucumbers

•       Eggplant

•       Garlic

•       Green beans

•       Green, leafy vegetables (beet greens, turnip greens, collard greens)

•       Kale

•       Leeks

•       Lettuce, all varieties

•       Mushrooms

•       Okra

•       Onions

•       Parsley

•       Scallions

•       Spinach

•       Tomatoes

•       Watercress

FIBROUS FRUIT- 2 SERVINGS DAILY- Before 2 pm!

•       Apples

•       Berries, all types

•       Grapefruit

•       Oranges

•       Peaches

•       Pears

•       Plums

•       Prickly pear cactus

•       Prunes

•       Red grapes

PROBIOTIC FOODS- 2 SERVINGS DAILY

•       Yogurt, any type, including Greek-style, sugar-free, low fat (6 oz. container = 1 serving)

•       Kefir: similar to a drinking-style yogurt; great for making smoothies (1 cup = 1 serving)

•       Breakstone LiveActive cottage cheese (1/2 cup= 1 serving)

•       Reduced salt miso dissolved in low-fat, low-sodium broth (1 tablespoon – 1 serving)

•       Tempeh (4 oz. = 1 serving)

FRIENDLY FATS: 1 TO 2 TABLESPOONS DAILY

•       Olive oil

•       Flaxseed oil

CONDIMENTS

Condiments and seasonings are allowed in moderation:

•       Salsa, low-carb marinara sauce, lite soy sauce, low-carb ketchup, fat-free sour cream, Truvia (a non-caloric sweetener made from natural ingredients), sugar-free jams and jellies, vegetable cooking spray, fat-free cheeses (i.e. Parmesan), fat-free salad dressing, salt, pepper, vinegar, mustard, herbs, and spices.

Substitutions for vegetarians:

·         One-half cup of tofu (any type)

·         1-2 vegetarian or black bean burgers (made from textured vegetable protein)

·         2-4 ounces any vegetarian cheese, including soy cheese

·         2 vegetarian “sausage” links (great substitute for eggs!)

·         Any type of vegetarian meat substitute made from textured vegetable protein (see package for serving size)

What do I want to get from this? I am hoping to continue towards my weight loss goals. I will also be exercising at least 17 minutes each day and hopefully more. I don't know how long I will stay on this revised cycle. Maybe 17 days. Maybe 20. But I will probably switch it up eventually and go to cycle 2 or 2.5. I will, with any luck, keep you posted with results (hopefully positive ones!). 

Hankering.

han·ker  (hngkr)

intr.v. han·kered, han·ker·ing, han·kers

To have a strong, often restless desire.

I am hankering for some Domino's Buffalo Chicken Kickers. Deep fried spicy chicken. Gooey creamy ranch dipping sauce. *drool*

I have been left alone for almost two days, and I have been rebelling against healthy eating by stuffing my face (and, I sadly realize, probably my waist) with chips, chocolate, thai food leftovers, cheese, bread (and butter) and fruit juice. And I might just have a beer a little later. And now I really want to order delivery for the first time in months. I could make myself something, but the cupboards are pretty bare and grocery money is post-dated for payday, which is tomorrow, so I am out of luck. I don't even have milk for macaroni and cheese.  I could have leftover thai food, but I already had one meal of that today, and I want to save the rest for tomorrow maybe. I dislike these dilemmas.

 In other fascinating news, I have discovered David's Tea!   I liked tea before and I had experimented with it a little bit. Blueberry tea here, green tea with mandarin orange there, and of course, regular black King Cole tea. But I was mesmerized by David's Tea. The first sample got me hooked. It was of a tea called Northern Lights. Its appley, minty, junipery, and just delicious. Each sip brought forward new lovely flavors and a soothing feeling spreading through all of my being. I also tried Cream of Earl Grey. Its a basic black earl grey with a hint of vanilla and luxurious richness. It is like the naughtiest of unhealthy frappuchinos in healthy tea form and tasted delicious black and unsweetened (when I get milk, I plan to try that too...). Next on my list are Mom's Apple Pie flavoured green tea and Hot Toboggan green tea. The pie flavored one smells in dry form like the best apple pie in the universe, waiting to be brewed. The hot toboggan tea is similar, with apple and cinnamon and almonds and a caramelesque scent. I definitely recommend finding a davids tea near you and smelling and sampling some of their delicious products!

I haven't been writing for a while.....

Because I thought I hadn't been dieting. I finished the 17 Day Diet, or at least, the 3rd cycle of the diet. So I was on to the "eat good during the week and enjoy your favorite naughty treats on the weekend" portion of the diet where you don't usually lose any weight. And it was around my birthday and I just decided that I wasn't going to go overboard, but that I wasn't going to be so manic and worry about every morsel I ate. And then I weighed myself. I had lost 5 more pounds. I was happy. I was motivated. I have lost 27 pounds. I had to take my dress pants to the tailor and have them taken in (FYI, more expensive than I thought it would be and the tailor shop is now in charge of altering my favorite dress pants so if it doesn't work out I will be devastated. I am trying to have faith.).

When I started this whole diet thing, it wasn't just about losing weight. It was about making better, healthier choices and creating a new lifestyle of healthy living. It seems to be working for the most part. When I started losing so fast at the beginning I was super duper excited and had huge dreams and goals that might have been unrealistically high. I thought it would be great to lose 50 pounds in 10 weeks. Well I've lost almost 30 pounds in 9 weeks and I actually think that was more realistic. I am not disappointed, but I am worried that I won't fit into the sample size 20 wedding dresses when I go dress shopping next weekend. I hope that I can sausage myself into them enough to get a general idea of what I will look like as a bride. I hope and pray [desperately] that this will not end in tears.