Shrimp and Squash Vindaloo and Quinoa

Hello mid summer and your sweltering heat!  I bet some of you thought I jumped off the weight loss bandwagon.  I bet some of you thought I had gained all I had lost and was too embarrassed to show my little face around these parts.  Well,  Since I last blogged I FINALLY made it to my first major goal.  I lost 10% of my starting weight!  


Now I am stuck.  Been stuck for a while.  I thought I was so good at this WW thing that I could just count points in my head.  HAH!  While I haven't packed on the pounds,  (Save gaining 2lbs which I choose to blame on my July birthday and also a mission trip in which we had a Professional Personal Chef making things like "Bread Pudding French Toast".  Just being honest!  I ate 2 GIANT slices.  FEW, glad to get that off my chest!  AND I LOVED EVERY BITE!  I digress.)  I haven't lost anything!  It's very frustrating considering how busy I have been.  I will be sharing what I have been up to in a future post so check by often!


In an effort to get back on the WW bandwagon and to continue succeeding in my ultimate goal I am making a new WW recipe for dinner.  In 5 days I have had 5 friends tell me they are expecting in the spring.  If that's not motivation I don't know what is! (Girls, save your hand me downs because hopefully I am not far behind!) Now, on to the recipe and the review!

Shrimp and Squash Vindaloo


2TBS White Wine Vinegar
2TBS Curry Powder
1/2 TSP  EACH Cinnamon, ginger, cumin
1/4 TSP EACH salt, cayenne (I used a little less because my hubby isn't so much into spicy)
1 Med. Acorn Squash
3 Med shallots
2 cloves of garlic
2CUP vegetable broth
1 LB Shrimp


In a small bowl mix spices and vinegar to form a paste and set aside


Cut squash in half along the equator.  Peel and seed.  Cut into cubes


In sauce pan spray a little cooking spray and add onions and garlic minced.  Once they are translucent add paste and mix for about 20 sec.  


Add squash and mix for 20 more seconds


Add broth and bring to simmer.  Cover and let it simmer for about 40 min or until squash is tender.


Add shrimp and cook until pink.  About 3 minutes.  ALL DONE!  11/4 cup per serving and only 5 pts!  


I made a side of Quinoa (KEEN WA)  to set it on.  1 cup of cooked Quinoa is 5 pts.  1/2 c is 3 pts.




Now for the REVIEW:


WW rates this as a recipe that is medium difficulty.  I don't agree.  I think it's pretty easy.  It's just not going to be done in under 30 minutes.  Right off the bat the old olfactory senses are telling me this is a fall recipe.  Between the acorn squash (which I got in my Appleby Community Farm share) and the cinnamon it gives a wonderfully fall aroma.  Now for the taste.  It's pretty good!  It is very fall.  I am going to tuck this recipe away when the weather cools.  If you are serving your whole family I would suggest to cut the cayenne completely.  The curry is enough spice.  I think the squash could have cooked a little less possibly making this a 30 min recipe! It needs something...OHH...I added craisins!  Now it's TOTALLY thanksgivingy.  Not a word but is now!   I bet some shreds of unsweetened coconut shavings will do the trick too.  The quinoa makes it more like an etouffe than a gumbo.   I think I will be replacing my rice for quinoa!  It's very high in protein!  It is very good but it didn't pass the husband test!  Too weird for him!  DARN! 


That means more for me!  

Over Half Way There!

Tonight I just finished Week 5 of Couch to 5K (C25K)!  I feel great!  I never thought I would claim to be a runner but I am really enjoying it.  This was the first time we ran 20 minutes straight.  I am still in shock that I was able to do it!  I more than did it!  I CONQUERED IT!  Now, now, don't get me wrong I wanted to stop.  My body was telling me that this is hard but it also celebrated when I finished!  I like that feeling, could it be a runner's high?  I feel like making it to 35 is nothing now.  (We will see if I am still saying that by Week 9)  Training for the 5K does cause me to wonder, why in the heck did we not run this way in school?  What I remember of running in middle school was that you had to run a mile.  There was no real warm up or training for that kind of thing.  I think if there had been I would have been more successful in gym class. 

On a weight loss note,  I am struggling to officially get to my first 20lb loss.  I have been hovering right under it for a couple of weeks now.  I think I am at 19.6!  I haven't tracked my food as well as I should and boy that makes all the difference in the world!  My goal is to track my food every day this week and see what a difference that makes on the scale on Thursday!  (I know the answer already!  It will.)  Do you remember this picture?

Here I am with my husband in the same dress.  I know it's not the best picture of me in the dress but let me tell you I could zip it up without the help of SPANX!  Do you see the best part?  It's right there above the dress.  The average eye wouldn't even notice it.  It's a neck!  I have a neck, people!  Go ahead.  Scroll back up and look at the first picture (it is beyond me why the dad gum thing isn't centered) you know you want to.  That's right.  No neck.  Neck.  No neck.  Neck.  It's a beautiful thing!

Stay tuned for my first Top 20 List!  Hopefully this week will be my week! 

Happy Eating!

It was the Cookies!

Thanks for all those who played my the game.

Sarah was the first to guess correctly on my fb and Kristin was the first one to guess on here. 

GOLD STARS FOR BOTH! 

The hot dogs are Carl's.  I bought only fat-free cheese.  Let me tell you, no temptation there!



Couldn't help the Dave Matthew's song reference!



See we have this little space between our cheese drawer and veggie drawer, it only holds junky foods.  I was cleaning out our leftovers when I saw them.  I restrained and only baked 8 cookies but within 24 hours all 8 found their way to my belly!  I didn't go over too many of my points and luckily Weight Watchers (WW) has added Flex Points to their plan.  It allows for a Weight Watcher to get through events like Spring Break, a wedding or say PMS without having to dump the whole program and feel like a failure.  I used some of those points to have a mini binge on Toll House chocolate chip walnut cookies.  I have made a connection between me NOT having my daily green smoothie the other day and my weakness. (More on Green Smoothies soon as I take some pictures)  I will say I am proud of how full our veggie drawer has been lately.  I can't wait to share what I did yesterday to ensure my veggie drawer will stay over flowing!  But for now I must go make a green smoothie or bake more cookies....

What Did I Eat?

Let's play a  little game called, "What did I eat to make me go over my Points* today."

This is a partial picture of my fridge.  The culprit is in the picture.  If you can tell me which food item caused me to go over my WW Points* you get a gold star!

*Weight Watchers (WW) has a point system.  The scientist that work for WW came up with a formula using a person's sex, weight and age to determine how many Points a person of said criteria can use to eat in a day.  All foods have a certian Point value.  The same scientists sketched out another formula using fat, carbs, fiber and protien to assign a Point value to each morsal of food.  I don't ask too many questions on their theories.  I trust they are smarter than me.  So anyway, a Weight Watcher, such as myself, uses their assigned Points to determine what to eat in a day.  I have 36 Points I can use in my day. 

It's What's for Dinner

Turkey Burger:  lean ground turkey seasoned with salt and pepper only, potato bun (it's only 1 more point than those Deli Flats and I would rather have the bread), Spinach and mustard. 

Pickles:  My dad pickled these bad boys from his own garden.  I believe these are "Mrs. Wages Dill Pickles"

Butternut Squash Fries and Ketchup:  These were super easy to make! Peel and cut up the neck of the squash into "fries" add a little salt and olive oil spray and stick it in the oven at 450 for 20 min. 

It was very filling and not for very many points!  Only 8 points to be exact.  I can use up to 36 points a day for meals and snacks.  An 8 point dinner means I can have dessert!  The best part about this meal is my husband didn't even notice that he was eating butternut squash.  I asked him if I should buy more of those kind of fries and he said yes.  It wasn't emphatic but it was a yes!  I am counting it as a win for the WW team!

Thursdays=Weigh In Day

At 5:15 I had my sixth weigh in with Weight Watchers (WW). 

I gained.  Ugh.  Are you ready for this number?  Are you?

.2 lbs.  Did you even see the tiny little dot before the two?

That's right I gained two tenths of a pound.  Do I sound depressed?  I'm not.  I forgot to pee before I weighed in.  Yeah, that's it. 

SIDE NOTE: To all my math teacher friends:  Are you proud of me?  I did the math on that one!  Now that I think about it, it's surprising how many of my friends are math teachers.   Disgusting really, since I get nauseated at the sight of a #2 pencil or a TI 82 calculator.  But I digress.

This is the Weight Watchers Record Keeper.

For those who are not familiar with Weight Watchers(WW), every Thursday I go weigh in at the only WW meeting in town.  I stand in line with a bunch of other hefty people wearing an inappropriate amount of clothing considering the chilly weather.  We all have our Weight Records and Monthly Passes in our hands and wait for our own turn to stand on a giant scale in front of one of the former fat ladies (FFL) that is now working for WW.  (There will be a future post on WW meetings, talk about the ultimate place to people watch!)  The FFL then writes in our logs whether we lost, gained or stayed the same.

As you can see, I have a bit of a pattern going on.  Loss.  Loss. Gain.  Loss.  Loss.  Gain.   I am not upset about it.  The gains are tiny in comparison to the losses.  I am actually running at the suggested -2lbs. a week.  I just do it 4 lbs. at a time and then take a break.  I don't even mind if I keep this pattern.  That is only if the gains are all .2lbs and the losses are 4lbs! 

Oh, just in case you were wondering, the awesome gold star is for losing 5lbs.  I should have another one, because I lost 5 more but I forgot to get it tonight.  I have lost exactly 10lbs total to date. Wow, there are a lot of mathy sort of references in this post.  I am shocked.  My middle school math teacher was right, you really do need math skills in everyday life! 

Off to count how many points I have left for the day.  HA, more math!  Who knew.

Making Better Food Choices...

...While Eating Out.

As a preschool teacher I am always asking my toddlers, "Did you do the right thing?".  For the last month or so I have asked my self the same question about food.

Today we ate at our favorite restaurant, Posados.  I love to eat Mexican or Tex Mex or Southwestern fare.  It's all tasty. (Who am I kidding, I love to eat, cuisine can change and I will still eat it)  In the past I would get a big platter with a chicken tamale, cheese enchilada, a cheese chili relleno, rice, beans, and 4 flour tortillas.  Now to be fair I would take half of it home.  I haven't even included the chips, queso, salsa, guacamole and the free sopapilla!  No wonder I am fat?!?!?!

This was my meal today:



Authentic Chicken Fajita Tacos with Black Beans and Rice



What is the difference?

My old meal was about 50 points.

The new meal is 15 points.  That is including the corn tortillas I ate before the meal!  That is a HUGE difference.  It tasted just as yummy and I was just as full.  (Really I was less full but all that meant was I could move after the meal, which is a good thing.)

Oh,  just so you know I get 36 points (as of now, the more weight I lose the less points I will have to eat with) a day.

All this talk about food has made me hungry.  I'm out.

Kalena

-6.0

I am down 6 lbs!  I also got my first sticker!  The five pound star!  It's all very exciting.

I will admit it hasn't been easy.  I am hungry.  I have been able to see stuble changes.  I know that my Route 44 water with lime is my lifeline.  I can tell a difference a HUGE difference in my hunger level on whether or not I've had my water.  I've been drinking a Sonic water every work day for a year and a half now.  I just never noticed my snacking habits until this week. 

The other observation I have made in the last two weeks is that fruit is just as sweet as, say, a cookie.  Or maybe, I just can't remember what a cookie tastes like. 

Either way,  I am 6 lbs lighter and a little more hungry.