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Saturday, June 14, 2008
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Casserole Spaghetti
posted at 11:25 AM  
The other night I made this recipe from my 501 Delicious Heart Healthy Recipes cookbook. It took a very long time--after mixing the ingredients on the stove I had to let them simmer for an hour, then mix in more ingredients, put it all in a casserole dish, and bake. So this recipe maybe isn't something you do on a weeknight...but Sean says it's definitely worth the wait. He had three helpings. "You have to make this more often," he said.
1 1/2 pounds ground round
1 1/2 cups chopped onion
1 cup chopped green bell pepper
1/2 cup chopped celery
2 garlic cloves, crushed
1 (10 3/4 ounce) can reduced-fat, reduced-sodium cream of mushroom soup, undiluted
3/4 cup water
1 (14.5 ounce) can no-salt-added whole tomatoes, undrained and chopped
2 tablespoons chili powder
1/8 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon pepper
1 (8 ounce) package spaghetti
2 ounces reduced-fat sharp Cheddar cheese, cut into 1/2-inch cubes
2 tablespoons chopped pimiento-stuffed olives Cooking spray
1/2 cup (2 ounces) shredded reduced-fat sharp Cheddar cheese
1. Cook first five ingredients in a Dutch oven, stirring until meat crumbles; drain well, and return to Dutch oven. Stir in soup and next 5 ingredients. Bring to a boil over medium heat. Cover, reduce heat, and simmer 1 hour, stirring occasionally.
2. Preheat oven to 325 degrees.
3. Cook spaghetti according to package directions, omitting salt and fat; drain.
4. Stir spaghetti, cheese cubes, and olives into meat sauce. Spoon mixture into a 13x9-inch baking dish coated with cooking spray. Cover and bake at 325 for 20 minutes or until thoroughly heated. Sprinkle with 1/2 cup shredded cheese, and bake, uncovered, 10 additional minutes. Yield: 8 servings.
Notes: I didn't use lean beef; I used ground chuck. I did not use olives at all. Also, I didn't have any shredded cheddar cheese, so I didn't do the last part. And finally, I used minced garlic from a jar rather than fresh. Regardless of all this, the casserole still tasted great.Labels: food, life, photos
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Saturday, April 12, 2008
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Recent NOM NOM NOM
posted at 7:59 PM
 Teriyaki flounder, stir-fry veggies and rice  Salmon croquettes and grits, Boll Weevil  Fried grouper sandwich and fries, Palmetto House at Seven Gables  Vegetable quiche and curry noodle soup, New Moon Cafe  Eggs over easy with hash browns, sausage and toast, Waffle House (Atlanta)  Kari (curry) Pop at the best restaurant on Earth, Penang in Chamblee (Atlanta)  Spaghetti at Sbarro (Atlanta)  Spicy beef, Zyka (Atlanta)  Chicken salad sandwich and fries, Cotton Patch  SuperSonic Breakfast Burrito, at my desk  Leftover spaghetti, salad, fruit, and yogurt, at Riverwalk  Seared ahi tuna appetizer, PF Chang's  Dali chicken, PF Chang's Labels: food, photos
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Tuesday, March 18, 2008
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My freezer is ridiculous
posted at 6:51 PM
So today I went and bought a zillion frozen dinners. Healthy Choice, Lean Cuisine, and Smart Ones. If it looked remotely appealing, it went in the cart. I tried to keep them below 600 grams of sodium, but that was impossible in some cases. I also got some frozen Indian dinners...chicken tikka masala, etc. I was pretty much out of luck with those in terms of sodium, but right next to them were some vegetarian dinners that had 350 grams...so I got both.
I also picked up a bag of frozen chicken, because I had the niggling feeling that I hadn't been able to find any lately.
When I got home, I took everything out of the freezer in order to make things fit. I stacked the frozen dinners in the back and juggled most of the frozen veggies into the door. Then I started trying to fit all the meat back in.
I discovered during the course of all this that I already had three bags of frozen chicken in there.
One bag only had one chicken breast left, and it looked pretty crystallized so I threw it away. I also tossed a mostly-empty carton of ice cream and a mostly-empty tub of Cool Whip. Then I rearranged and rearranged and rearranged, trying to make it work. But no matter what I tried, I couldn't get the door to close.
Finally I gave up and I threw away the oldest bag of chicken. It looked pretty crystallized anyway. As for the rest...well, let's just say that tonight's dinner will consist of:
- Hella frozen french fries
- Hella steamed veggies
Labels: food, life
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Saturday, March 1, 2008
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Brookie's here!
posted at 1:05 PM
And here she is.
She and David and I met for lunch at the Boll Weevil. I ordered the exact same thing I had a week or so ago with a group from work: chicken salad sandwich (they make it with honey mustard and horseradish!) and potato soup. Then, of course, I had to have dessert...a piece of chocolate raspberry rhapsody cake. (This was different from the other day, when I had the 7th Heaven chocolate cake...)
Anyway, enough about the food. It is so great to have Brooke back in town. Now I just need to make sure I spend as much time with her as possible! She has already dedicated next Wednesday to me, and hopefully we'll do all sorts of fun things and maybe even take a half-day trip somewhere...but one day is not enough! I still miss the days when I could call her after work and say "What's up?" and just go to her place to hang out. My evenings are very quiet these days, except for those occasions when I get to go out with work peeps.
They're making plans to move back to the States someday, maybe in two years, so by the time our next lease is up at this apartment, I might have my best friend back ;>Labels: brooke, food, photos
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Thursday, October 4, 2007
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The most annoying kind of limbo
posted at 7:39 PM
I'm having kind of a rough day, for reasons, annoyingly enough, I cannot explain to you! I will explain them eventually, though, so don't worry.
My mood made me want to be anywhere but work for most of my shift, which is not a fun feeling to have when you're trying to get things done.
One good point was that I went to Boll Weevil with Brooke and had the Curious George sandwich and potato soup, which was yummy. Also, their tea was good today. As a further bonus, Brooke is coming over a little later to hang out. Maybe we'll watch the Detective Conan movie. I understand lime sherbet will be involved as well.
Right now I'm just going to veg out on the couch, read some manga, eat some cottage cheese, and try to relax.Labels: brooke, food, life
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Tuesday, September 18, 2007
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R. Gabriel's is gone :(
posted at 4:49 PM
Not long ago, I met up with Mari and Jeannie at a little cafe on Davis Road for lunch. We had sandwiches and desserts, and I tried a smoothie.
"It's all right," I told my friends, "but next time I want a smoothie, it'll be R. Gabriel's. Best smoothies in the CSRA."
It's true. I have never found anything to match the smoothies at R. Gabriel's. Not too runny, not too thick, great flavors...I can hardly think about them without wanting one.
Little did I know the next time I wanted a smoothie I would look in the window expecting the cheerful coffeehouse ambiance I've grown to love and instead see...racks of clothes.
What?
It's been awhile since that perplexing day. I kept meaning to call them and find out what happened, but I kept forgetting. Today I got a smoothie at Sonic, and...well, it's just not an R. Gabriel's smoothie :/ But having it with me at least reminded me to make the call today when I got to work.
"Your call cannot be completed at this time," said an odd recording, which told me nothing. Their website still exists, too, with no mention of a closure or move.
Finally I decided to email the guy who does the business segment on our morning show, and he confirmed my fears: R. Gabriel's was forced to shut down due to the ridiculous construction on Davis Road. He doesn't know if the other two locations are still open, but the main one is gone. Not moved...just gone.
Life just isn't fair ;_;Labels: food, life
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Friday, August 24, 2007
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4 o'clock fluke
posted at 7:08 AM
On Wednesday I woke up at 4 o'clock. I was able to cook breakfast and dinner, as well as get in a workout and do some freelance work as I'd done the day before.
I tried to do the same yesterday, because I planned to go to my freelance job earlier and I wanted to get some sort of workout in before that, but I ended up getting up at 5:30, which didn't seem like enough time to work out properly and still manage to feed Sean. I did go to the grocery store instead, though, and on my way back I got Sean a couple of breakfast biscuits from McDonald's. But I barely had time to put anything away, I didn't cook that night's dinner, I was only able to pack a lunch because there were still some leftovers from Wednesday, and the kitchen was a mess.
This morning I woke up even later, at 6:30. I called the guy I'm doing freelance for and told him I couldn't make it today. The purpose of getting up early was to get in a workout, get my meals prepared, and spend time with Sean, not to have time for a second job. While I will appreciate the extra income, the other things take priority. I'm still easing into this, as evidenced by my inability to get up ridiculously early on a consistent basis, but I don't want to let the important things slide.
Disenhearteningly (which is apparently not a word), I awoke with that same raspiness (also not a word) in my chest and throat. Lovely.
(I'm enjoying Firefox's spell-checker. But come on, I think it's past time for spellchecker to be all one word.)
I've been feeling pretty good this week, overall.
I did get the lab results back from the doctor, and I'll go and talk with him about them on Tuesday. My cholesterol is high. My thyroid is borderline. The endocrinologist called me back to ask that I add a complete metabolic profile to the labs she requested, which I will be having drawn sometime next month (I have to start the progesterone on the 1st, and then have the labs done on day 2 or 3 of my period).
In response to the cholesterol I am trying to figure out ways to include more veggies in my diet, and less meats. It turns out I can steam frozen veggies in the microwave at work pretty easily, so if nothing else I can always grab a bag from the freezer to put in my lunch. I'd love to eat more salad, but it seems like when I buy bagged salads they go bad before I eat them. Now I'm considering the tried and true head of lettuce method.
Today's lunch is going to be a BLT, I think, because I have leftover bacon from Wednesday and I just bought tomatoes. No lettuce though...
As far as my productivity, I feel that it's up, but there are still things I need to deal with, like getting the desk in the second bedroom disassembled so a work friend can take it, dealing with the weird smell in that room, finding a smaller desk to put in there, and assembling our second media cabinet for the living room. I'm also planning to rearrange my office at work soon, which has kept me thinking. It's really an awkward space with awkward furniture; hopefully the idea I have in mind will work out.
Speaking of working out (har), I'd better get outside for my walk before it gets too much hotter.Labels: exercise, food, health, life, quality of life
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Wednesday, August 22, 2007
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New schedule
posted at 8:15 AM
I woke up this morning at around 4 o'clock. Due to a combination of not really feeling tired and Sean's talking and laughing floating through the door, I couldn't get back to sleep. I'd set the alarm for 6, thinking that if I woke up earlier I'd go ahead and get up, but when I thought "earlier" I was thinking 5 or 5:30, so this seemed a little ridiculous at first.
Still, I got up, and went ahead and put on my workout clothes and put up my hair. (It's long enough now that I can do those goofy pigtails on either side of my head, which I do in order to lessen the sweatosity. Sure, sweatosity's a word.)
Then I cleaned the kitchen, which just involved getting everything in the sink into the dishwasher.
I asked Sean if he was hungry and if he wanted breakfast or dinner. Even though for him this would be his last meal of the day, he always wants to have breakfast in the Circadian morning. So that's what he asked for. This sort of put a crimp in my plans to make a dinner and then pack up my half for lunch, but I improvised and cooked breakfast and dinner at the same time.
Breakfast consisted of eggs, bacon, and pancakes made from the batter I'd made a couple days ago. I thinned the batter out with some milk and the pancakes seemed to turn out better. Does my batter need to be left in the fridge for awhile and then thinned, or is this just due to the Bisquick being a little old? In any case, I also considered grits, but I decided the preceding was plenty of food.
For dinner, I found a recipe in my Taste of Home cookbook for meatloaf, so I whipped that up, even chopping an onion for it. I used part of the onion in the eggs and put the rest in a Ziploc bag in the fridge. Unfortunately I don't have a loaf pan so the meatloaf went into a cake pan...hope it's not too dry.
I also made some sour cream and chive scalloped potatoes a la Betty Crocker, starting them later than the meatloaf (they take less time to cook--though I guess I don't really need to have everything come out at the same time when I'm cooking in advance. Habit, I suppose).
I'll top all that off with broccoli. Sean says he doesn't want to take his dinner to work, so I'm taking frozen veggies with me to steam in the work microwave, and I'll make his veggies tonight when I get home so he'll have them when he gets here at 11:45.
As soon as the sun came up I went on my walk. It was longer than I thought it was; I got back at 7:30, which meant either I would have to leave things unfinished or go to my freelance work late. Freelance took the hit because I wanted to have time to dress, pack lunches, and finish this post.
After the freelance work I'll head to regular work, just like yesterday.
This seems like a pretty decent schedule. The rush towards the end isn't great, but I'm trapped by the time the sun comes up and the time the freelance place opens. Then again, I won't be doing freelance work every morning, so I suppose it'll be okay every once in awhile. Weather.com says the sun rose at 6:55, which is later than the 6:45 I was assuming, so that explains the rush a little. I don't guess this is going to work as well once fall gets here.
Another issue is that I'm really not all that hungry in the morning, so most of my lovely breakfast remained uneaten. Then again, I suppose that's good for my diet ;> I think I'll shift to cooking breakfast just for Sean tomorrow (it'll be good to ensure he's getting at least two square meals) and grab a bowl of cereal or Slim-Fast for myself.Labels: exercise, food, health, life
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Monday, June 4, 2007
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Trying a couple new things
posted at 11:20 AM
I parked at a shopping center and walked from there to work this morning. It was a little warm to be doing that, plus it was all uphill, but I feel great.
The walk only took about 15 minutes, rather than the 30 I was expecting, but that's fine, since I was huffing and puffing by the end. I'll work my way up to 30.
I'll either walk to my car and bring it back up here at lunchtime, or wait until after work to do so, since it's usually daylight when I get off now.
Hopefully doing this will keep me getting at least a little exercise every day. Actually having a destination for a walk makes it much easier to commit to, so I'm thinking I should be able to keep this up.
I also packed my Fujiyama leftovers from last night into a new bento box I bought from Asian Art Mall, then wrapped the box up in a kitchen towel my mom gave me. It kind of looks authentic! Maybe the unique presentation will inspire me to cook/assemble a lunch more often.
I've been getting fond memories all morning of sitting at the low table with my Yatsushiro host family, eating breakfast--rice, eggs, vegetables, and various small items--and watching my host sister pack things from the table into her bento.
I'll add pictures of the bento to this post when I get home from work.
Update: Here they are. Out of focus, boo!
Labels: exercise, food, health, life
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Monday, May 7, 2007
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Endless ribs
posted at 9:35 PM
For those of you who don't pay attention to my Twitter, or who may be coming across this post in the distant future when my Twitter will obviously either say something else or no longer exist, I went to Tony Roma's for dinner tonight.
I did not know it was Endless Ribs night.
I happened to be coming out of the Payless next door when the devastatingly delicious scent of ribs wafted over to me. I had been looking for some workout sneakers, but no luck. My plan had been to get shoes, go home, and go straight to bed, then get up in the morning and either bike or go to the gym.
The ribs smelled so good...but I had planned not to eat again today, so I wrenched myself away from the siren song and got into my car, thinking I'd head to Sears in the mall.
I happened to notice Sports Unlimited on my right almost immediately, and changed my mind. This would be faster, and I could get home and go to bed.
They had plenty of shoes, but the ones I wanted didn't seem to come in the right size, and I couldn't find a salesperson to save my life. Never around when you actually want them, are they? ;P So I left and got in my car again...and my mind immediately turned towards ribs. I was in a sour mood because I was hungry, I reasoned. I'd be able to find shoes on a full stomach. And, well, ribs.
That did it. I turned around.
I had ordered a sweet tea and was poring over the menu when my server, Theresa, said, "You know it's Endless Ribs tonight, right?"
No. I had come here specifically for ribs. Maybe a half rack. Maybe with some coconut shrimp. Not endless.
It was like they knew I was coming, and hauled out their most devastating attack.
"Baby back or St. Louis, if you buy a full rack you can have as many ribs as you can eat for the same price."
Oh dear.
I pretended to ponder some more while Theresa looked after other tables. But I knew I had already decided. I was going to eat a zillion ribs, and then blog about my conquest. Oh yes. It would be glorious.
I foolishly ate most of the crusty bread and garlic butter that came out before the meal, and then I ate a few bites of baked beans--delicious--and loaded mashed potatoes before finally tearing into the baby backs.
Oh my word they were good. I wouldn't be surprised if someone told me it only took me five minutes to eat that rack of ribs. I downed them like they were my only hope of ever living in Japan ;)
Then I nibbled at the rest of the food on my plate and took long draughts of tea, waiting for Theresa to come back so I could order more ribs. I can do this, I thought. If I eat a half rack, that's getting 50% more food for free. I doubt I can do another whole one, but it's something to shoot for.
But I was already starting to feel a little full, and by the time I had ordered the next rack I was wondering if I was going to be able to eat any of them.
When they came, they looked huge. I don't know if I just had smaller ribs before or if she accidentally brought me St. Louis ribs the second time. I have no idea what St. Louis ribs are, so there's no way for me to know.
I had to use my knife to saw off the ribs, too, which furthers my belief that they were the wrong kind.
Anyway, I nibbled the meat off two ribs and was working on a third when I realized that if I ate any more, I was probably going to throw up.
So I stopped.
I sat there for a long time, forcing myself not to eat any additional food. This is hard for me. If there's food in front of me, my tendency is to eat it, regardless of how hungry I am. I gave in and took another bite or two of bread, and kept drinking tea, like a moron.
By this time I could actually feel my stomach sitting in my lap.
Ugh. I was feeling worse and worse. Theresa brought me a box for the rest of the ribs and a to-go cup of tea and the check, and I paid it and collected my things and "debouched", to borrow a word from Robert Penn Warren, from the booth. (Proposed synonym: Jabbaed)
Ugh, ugh, ugh. "I used to enjoy this," I said aloud as I fought to shove the front door open without putting any additional strain on my overloaded gut. I was only mildly successful, and I felt myself burp. Please, don't let me throw up, I pleaded.
I made it to my car by walking as slowly as possible, and once I had managed to get myself and the leftovers inside, my first priority was undoing the pants. And oh, that felt good. Where before I wasn't certain I could manage to get home, now I felt that I could at least hold out a little longer.
"And my DVDs should be here," I said to myself as I exited the Augusta Exchange and turned onto Wheeler. My Case Closed 1.2 and 1.3 would probably be in the mailbox. "But I'll have to rebutton my pants to get them..."
This idea didn't please me...and fortunately it wasn't necessary. Upon parking at the mailboxes, I discovered that my shirt was just long enough to cover the open buttons.
"Don't look at my pants," I quietly advised the woman sitting in the car next to me (not that she could hear me). Then I got out, opened the mailbox, and lo and behold, there were my DVDs.
I made some sort of noise, a grunt of strain and impatience and fatigue, as I got back into my car and drove the short distance to my parking space in front of the apartment. Then I juggled everything in the car into my arms--there was no way I was going back out there once I made it inside--and wrestled them out and up the front stoop.
"Gnah," I said as the box of DVDs I'd slid into my pink backpack kept banging into walls and corners, jostling my full belly. I threw everything down in its approximate place and bolted for the bathroom...and then, blissfully, I unzipped.
"Ahhhhhhhhh," I said, sitting on the toilet. I made all sorts of ungodly noises as the tea decided to beat a hasty retreat, relieving even more pressure. Finally I was able to change out of my work clothes into my shorts and T-shirt, and then I was comfortable enough to put the leftovers in the fridge and settle down at the computer.
I feel so good now, but it's only because I felt so bad just moments ago.
So. Was it worth it?
Well...that first rack of ribs was damn good...
...but ugh.Labels: food
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