I’ve decided to post my weigh-ins every Monday to give me motivation to not gain a ton of weight during the upcoming holiday season.  My goal is to be 155 by January 1.  I think that is completely possible!  Last week I weighed in at 166.  Today. . .

I love this scale! After you stand on it for a few seconds, it blinks to let you know its locked in the weight.  Then I can actually take a decent picture of the number!  So I am down –2.6 for the week. 

For breakfast this morning I had a honeycrisp apple that I nuked in the microwave.  I actually pushed the “fresh vegetable” setting and it was nice and tender.  I put 1 ounce of 50% reduced fat Cabot cheese on top and broiled the cheese, then sprinkled with 1/2 ounce of granola.  HOLY YUM!  Loved the sweet/salty combo of the apple and cheese, and I liked the added crunch of the granola!

Since i had a lot of chicken leftover from our chicken tostadas last night, I decided to make a chicken quesadilla.  My tortillas were low carb, only 50 calories each and a whopping 7 grams of fiber for each one!

I put 1 tablespoon of refried beans on each side, 3 ounces of chicken breast, 1 ounce of Cabot reduced fat cheese, then Pam fried it.  After it was cooked I added the lettuce and red pepper.  It was messy to eat but delicious!

Over the weekend I made low cal taco soup.  Wondering why it looks orange?  That’s because the peppers I put in the broth were too spicy, so I ended up adding 1/2 cup of fat free half and half to bring it down a notch.  So while it doesn’t look too appealing, it tasted good!

I have to show my snowman bowl I have at my desk.  It’s an all season bowl, and I always make sure the snowman in season is facing me – here is November . . . soon to be December!

I decided to try a pork chop recipe that called for a dijon mustard cream sauce.  It was kind of a flop.  While the flavor was there, the sauce never thickened properly and I overcooked the pork chops.  My rosemary new potatoes were delicious though!  it helps to start with fresh rosemary.

My plate:  I ate 1/2 of this pork chop – it was 6 ounces total.

And like most nights, I usually spill something either on me, the floor, or the counter!  I was staining straining the mustard sauce to a gravy boat, and didn’t even realize I had spilled while I was doing it!

After dinner I made pumpkin pancakes for my breakfast tomorrow!  Here’s a sneak peak – you’ll have to come back tomorrow for the recipe!

Stats for the Day:

• 1238 calories
• 43 fat
• 130 carbs
• 100 protein
• 31 fiber
• 10 minute AM walk with the dog
• 45 minute walk at lunch

Check out my friend Shelley!  She made it into Woman’s Day magazine for her weight loss blog!  You go girl!!

See you tomorrow!

It’s so weird to see Christmas decorations in stores when it feels like the beginning of summer!  But, true to Chicago weather, I predict in three weeks we’ll have a measurable snow – that’s just how it works in the midwest!

While I had pumpkin pancakes on my brain, I decided for 1/2 bagel egg sammie with 50% reduced fat Cabot cheese, 1 egg, 1 piece of bacon and 1/2 a jalapeno bagel (which I found in the deep freeze – score!)

Hannah had to work today and Tony met Joe for the Bears game.  I was alone in my house!  This hardly ever happens, even with just three of us living here!  My first thought was to just veg in front of the t.v. and watch FoodTV.  But then I knew I had to straighten up the living room, dust, vacuum, laundry, etc.  I decided to give myself one hour of blog reading and FoodTV watching, and then I had to get going! 

By the time the chores were done, it was almost 1:30!  I wanted to take our dog on the trail today.  He gets so excited driving in the car!  Sadly, all the trails I normally take him to are closed due to deer shooting.  One weekend in the fall and one weekend in the spring the nature preserve thins out the deer population.  As we passed each trail Ed was whimpering louder and louder!   So I basically took him on a 10 minute car ride!  I did walk him around the neighborhood for 20 minutes – that made him content!

When I got back from the walk, I was HUNGRY!  I remembered I had leftover pizza dough, so whipped up a quick red pepper pizza.  I ate half which was 4 ounces of dough, 1/4 cup sauce, 1 ounce of mozzarella cheese.

And of course no Sunday could go by without some Bizness in the kitchen!  My friend at work is coming back from a long weekend in Paris – lucky girl!  I thought she might not have had a chance to go to the store, so I am bringing her and her husband my spicy chili.  I wondered what I could make to go with it, and cornbread seemed like a simple solution!

Easy Cornbread

• 2 cups corn meal mix
• 1 1/3 cup milk
• 1/4 cup vegetable oil
• 2 eggs

Heat the oven to 450.  Grease a 9×9 pan and put it in the oven.  Once the oven comes to temp, add the mixture to the sizzling pan.  Bake for 20 minutes.

Then I made stuffed shells for a dinner later this week.  I love coming home and just popping something in the oven!  I’ll post the recipe the day we eat it!

Chicken breasts were on sale for $1.29!  I decided to make chicken tostadas when I saw these in my grocery store:

They were really light and crispy!

I marinated the chicken in the juice of one lime, 1 tablespoon olive oil, 2 tablespoons taco seasoning and garlic.  I fired up the gas grill since I knew they wouldn’t take too long.  The only downside of grilling in the dark is you sometimes can’t tell if the meat is done!  Happily, they turned out perfect – nice and juicy!

My plate: 2 tostadas, 2 ounces of chicken, 2 tablespoons guacamole, 2 tablespoons refried beans, lettuce, taco sauce, banana peppers (added at the table!) and diced red pepper.  At the table I nibbled on about 1 more ounce of chicken and 3 tortilla chips!

Stats for the Day:

• 1272 calories (+ about 200 calories for licks and tastes while cooking!)
• 47 fat
• 144 carbs
• 74 protein
• 18 fiber
• 20 minute walk with dog
• chores! (yes, I am counting that as exercise!)

I had a great grocery shop weekend!  It feels so good to be prepared for the week!  Between two stores I spent $124.

Breakfast:

• pumpkin pancakes
• stuffed apple with cheddar and granola
• taco egg burritos
• herbed goat cheese potato and zucchini frittata
• Biz classic egg sammie on tiny whole wheat bagels

Lunch:

• pumpkin soup with romaine salad
• ham and spinach grilled cheese with veggies and hummus
• spaghetti squash chili
• taco soup with chicken cheese quesadilla
• veggie pizza on low carb wrap

Dinner:

• pork chops with scalloped potatoes
• chicken breasts stuffed with prosciutto and fresh mozzarella with garlic mashed potatos
• super stuffed shells with spinach salad
• teriyaki turkey tenderloin with steamed broccoli and brown rice
• party pizza Friday??!!   I think I may make a Mexican Pizza on Friday if Tony isn’t sick of pizza!

Check out Errign’s Giveaway – A Bead of Love Bracelet and a Bag of Goodies!

Hope everyone had a great weekend like me!   See you tomorrow night!

This weeks hostess is Julie at Savvy Eats and she chose Maple Syrup as the Blogger Secret Ingredient!  I cheated slightly because since I am diabetic, I chose to use sugar free maple syrup – but if you decide to try this soup, I recommend using real maple syrup if you can!

Biz’s Spicy Pumpkin Bisque

• 4 cups chicken broth (I use chicken soup base)
• 3 cups pumpkin puree (not pumpkin pie mix)
• 1/2 tsp. cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
• 1/4 teaspoon allspice
• 2 tablespoons honey
• 2 tablespoons maple syrup
• 1 chipotle pepper in adobo sauce
• 1 cup fat free half and half

Heat chicken broth to almost boiling.  Add pumpkin through the chipotle pepper, reduce heat to low and simmer for 20 minutes.  Using a stick blender, blend until smooth.  Remove from heat and add fat free half and half and stir until incorporated.

Makes 8 one cup servings:  99 calories, 1 fat, 18.5 carbs, 2.6 fiber and 3.5 protein

I love this flavor combination!  It’s sweet and savory at the same time, and I love the extra kick the chipotle pepper gives the whole soup.  Although, I had my neighbor try it and he wasn’t too enthused!  But he’s never had pumpkin soup before, and I think it was a tad spicy for him.  Um, Tony and Hannah won’t touch it so its all mine!

Make sure you buy 100% pure pumpkin, and not the pumpkin pie version.

Garnish with salted, toasted pumpkin seeds!

Hope everyone is enjoying their Sunday!  See you tonight!

Holy cow – this weather is AMAZING!  Seventy degrees and sunny all day!  Tony bought me a big container of Pumpkin Pie Spice creamer – perfect way to start the day!

Even though it felt like summer, I had to use my snowman mug!

Since this creamer isn’t sugar free – I only used 1 tablespoon with a splash of 2% milk.  So good I had two cups!

I diced up the leftover baked potato from last night and made hashbrowns.  And I made a fried egg with cracked pepper and sea salt.  I don’t like runny eggs, so I leave it like this until I am ready to flip, then I crack the yolk.  I remember when Hannah was little and had a friend sleep over.  When I asked her what she wanted for breakfast she said “eggs sunny side up!”  I had to have her explain to me exactly what that was!  When she said “the yellow has to be messy to put your toast in” I figured it out!

Tony and I only had one thing planned this weekend – THE YARD!  We had a downed tree that needed to be cut up, and leaves were everywhere!

I was a bad ass with the saw!  I wished I would have put these gloves on earlier – I got a blister from raking!

Tony is the master on the riding mower!

Two hours later – clean lawn!

These sticks are really dry, so it will be fast and furious!  We (I) was starving so I picked up lunch.  While I had gyros on the brain, I ended up getting the taco salad.  It turned out not to be too bad calorie wise!  My dressing was 2 tablespoons of sour cream with Taco Bell sauce.

Tony and I did a quick grocery shop.   Tonights dinner:  Grilled Whole Chicken with Sage Butter and Asparagus Parmesan Risotto.

I mixed 3 tablespoons soft butter with 2 tsp. minced garlic, chopped fresh sage and lemon zest.  Then I put the sliced lemon in the cavity.  My co-worker Rob brought me the last of his sage and rosemary from his garden – how lucky am I?

The rub:

I found these at Target – silicone cooking bands!  You can use them on gas grills, in the oven.  I am not good with kitchen string so this works well!  I just tied the legs together before putting on the grill.

About an hour later on a screaming hot grill.  I love the carmelization on the lemon!

Our side dish:  Asparagus and Parmesan Reggiano Cheese Risotto!  I watched my MIL make it last year – and while time consuming, totally worth the effort.  Tony shouted to me at one point “don’t skimp on the butter!  Now is not the time to skimp on the butter!”  it helps that I have good rice.

The first sauté is “a small glass of white wine.”  That’s what the directions said!  I guess I had about 6 ounces of chardonnay.  The rest of the liquid is chicken broth.

Below is my plate – 4 ounces of chicken breast – I kept the skin on for the photo, but ate only 1/4 of it! 

It was delicious!  The chicken was tender, the risotto was creamy.  I have no idea how many calories was, but I had about 700 to spend, so I consider it a wash!

Then we cleaned up the kitchen and headed out to burn the sticks.  Um, turns out they sticks weren’t as dry as we thought!  But about 1/2 a gallon of tiki torch we were good to go!  Tony getting the party started.  I have no idea what those orbs are – maybe we have ghosts in our back yard!

It got pretty hot at one point! 

The perfect ending to a perfect day!  Thanks Tony for all your hard work in the yard today – we make a good team!

Come back tomorrow for BSI – Maple Syrup!  You’ll just have to come back tomorrow to see what I made!

I accidentally erased my breakfast pics!  They were spicy oats with a fried egg: 355 calories, 28 carbs, 19 fat and 19 protein.  I had every intention of hitting the gym hard at lunch today, but I forgot about a work luncheon!  It ended up being sandwiches and salad – not too bad, except for some odd reason after I ate 1/2 of a sandwich and a bit of salad . . . I went back and ate another half of sandwich! 

I didn’t need it, I was full, but for whatever reason, I ate it.  I felt so full all afternoon!  I have to start eating intuitively – had I waited 20 minutes after the first round, I never would have picked up the second sammie.

To make it worse, on the second sammie, I just ate the insides and put the bread to the side! 

I am guestimating the calories on this – it may have been 100 calories more?

Luckily dinner was solved – Tony took the reigns!  I sometimes forget what a great cook Tony is because I am usually the one hogging the kitchen!  Tonight was Pure Man Food!  He got a great deal on t-bone steaks – three giant steaks for only $9!

It’s supposed to be very warm in the midwest this weekend – tonight was no exception.  Probably around 60 degrees!  So even though it was dark out, that didn’t stop Tony from grilling!   The grill was screaming hot when he put the steaks on!

And he also made seasoned baked potatoes in the oven.  He rubbed them with a little olive oil, coarse salt and pepper and baked them at 450 in a cast iron skillet – I loved the fact that the skin touching the skillet was nice and crispy, while the inside was fluffy!   Below is my steak – I didn’t eat it all!  I had about 4 ounces of the meat and half of my baked potato.  The steak was a perfect medium rare and so juicy!

Dinner came in at 355 calories, 32 carbs, 11 fat and 31 protein.   So when I look at my stats for the day, it isn’t too bad, but I need to include more fruits and veggies into my diet, as well as more complex carbs.  I am footloose and fancy free for several hours on Sunday, so a good grocery shop will be in order!

Stats for the Day

• 1342 calories
• 52 fat
• 139 carbs
• 79 protein
• 12 fiber (another thing to bump up!)
• no exercise

We are just about to watch a documentary about Mike Tyson.  He is so crazy!  Tony was actually at the fight where he bit off the ear of Evander Holyfield! 

Have a safe Friday night all – see you tomorrow night!

There is a theory that you should eat this way.  Breakfast being your biggest meal, then a lighter lunch and even a lighter dinner.  I believe my day went like this:

Breakfast like a Prince, Lunch like a Pauper and Dinner like a King!  In the whole grand scheme of things, I met all my goals except going over in the grams of fat department by a mere 9 grams.  But I am not sure it makes sense to have such a high meal at night, when hours later you are just going to bed! 

Breakfast was my typical egg sammie – 1 Arnold thin, 1 egg, 2 pieces center cut bacon and 1/2 ounce of Swiss.  I’ve been trying to drink more water and filled up a big glass with breakfast!

In trying to clean out my fridge with what’s left, I had three of my chicken potstickers left.  Then I noticed in the back of the fridge I had these:

It’s a love/hate with these noodles – either you love them or hate them!  I give them a brisk rinse under cold water and they are good to go.  I had 1 jalapeno pepper left, some broccoli slaw and bean sprouts – a spicy Thai soup was born!  Only problem?  This whole bowl comes in at only 217 calories!!  The base of the soup was this:

Mixed with 2 cups of water and then I just simmered everything with the sliced jalapenos for about 10 minutes.

This took me forever to eat!  It was nice and spicy!  We had food leftover from a meeting and I did sneak in a small slice of sausage pizza for about 161 calories!

I had no clue what to make for dinner so we decided to go out!  I had a buy one get one 1/2 off entree.  Just so happens they had a beer special – Sam Adams light for only $2! 

Tony got a draft beer and I really wanted to steal this glass!

I ended up getting the chicken fajita plate – I had 3 corn tortillas, all the guacamole, 1/3 of the refried beans and none of the rice – and about 3/4 of the chicken pepper mixture – happily with no onions!

See that pickle at the top of my plate?  Every time we go out, Tony gives me his dill pickle because he knows I love them so much! 

No exercise today, but I plan on hitting the gym hard tomorrow!  (Any pep talks would be greatly appreciated!)

Stats for the Day

• 1463 calories
• 71 fat
• 119 carbs
• 94 protein
• 21 fiber
• no exerise

Gotta scoot – the Office is on!  See you tomorrow night – only one more day til the weekend!

Seriously, where did the time go?  I distinctly remember me and my sister looking at Hannah sleeping in her crib when she was about six weeks old.  We were still living together when I had Hannah at the age of 23.  We had every intention of continuing to live together until I lost my job the day I got back from maternity leave!  Luckily we hadn’t renewed our lease on our apartment yet and my one year of moving back home turned into five years. 

But I digress!  I remember us wondering what Hannah was going to be like when she was three.  You can have conversations with three year olds, and we just wondered what kind of person she would become.  Well, tonight we went to the open house at our local community college.  The first 250 applicants did not have to pay a registration fee (we were 10th in line!).  They currently have a grant going on as long as you maintain a 2.0 GPA and agree to do 16 hours of community service a semester, your tuition if free for two years!

Since she’s not exactly sure what she wants to do yet, its a great way to get all her core classes out of the way.  We got to walk around the school – they had tons of tables about activities, math department, music department, etc.  You can bet my first choice was to see the culinary table!  They had beef tenderloin with a horseradish sauce, pork wrapped in bacon with sage and dijon mustard, pan fried shrimp and a boat load of desserts!  I had to be discreet with the camera so as not to embarrass her too much!

So she’s all set.  They’ll send out more information in the spring for her to pick her curriculum, but she plans on taking at least 12 hours.

But let’s talk about breakfast!  2 ounce french bread, 1 ounce deli ham, 1 pam fried egg and 1/2 ounce swiss cheese with raspberry applesauce – I loved the applesauce!  It was no sugar added and just slightly sweet – yum!

The other day when I was at The Fresh Market buying the shrimp for our shrimp cocktail and buying escargot, I saw this really white fish and noticed it was Chilean Sea Bass.  In the course of over 14 months of blogging, I believe you have seen fish about 5 times!  I don’t like tilapia because it has a weird after taste.  I don’t like salmon.  When I asked the lady at the counter if the sea bass was “fishy” she said no.  So I asked for the smallest fillet – which happened to be 4 ounces.  I wasn’t even paying attention to the price until I got up to the register – the sea bass was selling for $24 a pound!  I silently hoped I liked this so I didn’t throw six dollars down the drain!

I ended up marinating it in 1 tsp. Thai peanut sauce and a splash of soy sauce and I planned on having stir-fry veggies and yaki soba noodles on the side.  This is one of the reasons I love having a full kitchen at work!  I heated up my pan with about 1 tsp. smart balance oil until it was really hot.  I then put the fish in, put a top on until the bottom got nice and crispy and cooked half way through.  I flipped it and cooked it about another 4 minutes – removed to a plate and made my veggies and noodles.

My friend Kim who likes this fish was in the kitchen with me – I had to ask her how to cook it!  She said “make sure its white in the middle” and it was so I was good to go.  OMG, it was SO GOOD!  Not fishy at all and almost had a meaty feel to it.  And it was flakey at the same time!  Wouldn’t you know I would find the most expensive fish to like!

I found a new stir-fry sauce too!  Panda Express Kung Pao Chicken – look at the stats!

Since I didn’t know how long Hannah and I were going to be at school I had nothing planned for dinner.  And you know what happens then – fast food!  I thought I made an okay choice – we went to Arby’s and I got their turkey bacon sandwich with extra lettuce and no mayo and a small curly fries.  Heaven help me those are the best fries ever – crunchy on the outside = tender on the inside.

Imagine my surprise when I entered it into www.sparkpeople.com and my dinner came in at 788 calories, 88 carbs and 28 grams of fat!   And the sandwich wasn’t even that great!

After dinner Hannah and I went to the library – for days I could not find a book I checked out and was searching high and low.  Until I moved a stack of papers on my computer desk, the one I sit at EVERY night and there it was!  I was reading some food blog the other day (can’t remember which one now) and she was talking about The Joy of Cooking.  This is a cookbook I have never even opened!  They had the 75th anniversary version so I checked it out.

And I think some of my friends at work (thanks Cassie and Kim!) know my addiction to magazines and both supplied my habit greatly the past couple days!

And thanks to my MIL for her homemade banana chips!  She sent a whole container to Tony today – these bananas are from her back yard in Florida!  They are sweet and wonderful!  Knowing Tony these won’t last long in the house – he loves them.  Thanks Bonnie!

Stats for the Day

• 1516 calories
• 48 fat
• 164 carbs
• 102 protein
• 11 fiber
• no exercise

Off to watch Modern Family – have you seen that show yet??  It’s our new favorite!   See you tomorrow night!

There.  I said it!  While everyone around me knows that I am NOT a morning person, somehow I convince myself each and every night that I am!  But all was not lost.  While I didn’t wake up in time to go to the gym, I did get up in enough time to do Level 3 of 30 day shred AND take my dog on a 20 minute walk.  It’s better than watching the inside of my eyelids!

Now I know I am going to want Gina to chime in on this one!   I woke up with a blood sugar of 143 – a bit high but not too bad.  I decided not to take insulin, I ate 1/4 of a kashi bar before working out.  Usually I take insulin without eating anything, then my blood sugar tends not to spike.  After the dvd and walking my dog, I waited 45 minutes and tested my blood sugar – it was 274!  I quickly gave myself enough insulin to bring that number down as well as to take enough insulin to cover my breakfast.  First pics of my walk!

There were actually people fishing in this cold November morning – with winter coats sitting on lawn chairs by the river!  Ed loves being outside – so many smells!

Breakfast was a Thomas high fiber English muffin with 1/2 being 1 egg with broccoli and 75% reduced cabot cheese and the other half 1 tsp. no added sugar peanut butter with 1/4 of an apple.  Um, I may have put some Tabasco on my eggs!

So fast forward to right before my 45 minute walk at lunch.  I tested my blood sugar.  It was 183 – I was fine with that, but after last weeks low blood sugars, I reached into my Halloween candy bowl – mind you this is my first taste of Halloween candy!  Um, I think Tony loves peanut M&Ms as much as I do!

So my friend Natasha and I walked at lunch – the time goes by so much faster when you talk the whole way!  We do 2.2 miles in about 40 minutes.  There are a few tiny hills, but neither of us is ever out of breath.  Which is why I am perplexed by this number:

Yep – 47!  Luckily I had the other 1/4 of my apple at my desk and munched on that in order to focus on putting my lunch together.  I made a romaine salad with cucumbers, carrots, radish, diced apple and Annie’s Goddess Dressing – on the side was 1/4 cup of chili.  It was a HUGH JASS salad!  (Yes, I like to think I am 20 something sometimes!)

There was construction on my way home from work.  See all the red lights?  This road is normally 50 mph!  It took me 65 minutes to drive 7 miles.

Tony puts up with all the food related shows I like to watch – thank you for that Tony!  But one show we both enjoy watching is Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives.  We watched an episode last night that we had DVRd and they showed a Cuban Sandwich.  Holy cow – it looked amazing!  Then my mind started thinking “we have leftover pork tenderloin” and a quick stop at the store on my way home to pick up deli ham and low fat swiss we were good to go!

I also had 3 lone potatoes in my pantry – I made some potato chips while I was putting together our sammies.  I like to slice them very thin.

I sliced the leftover pork.  Then built the sammies – the last of my Milwaukee pickles!  And lots of mustard of course!

I pan fried the sammies in just one pat of butter – a little goes a long way!

The secret to a good grilled sandwich is low and slow.  Once the butter melts, I put the sammies in the pan.  At medium-low heat, I put a top on so that the inside melts while the bread gets nice and crispy.

First flip:

Done!  This one was Tony’s – just a bit bigger than mine.  See how melty the cheese gets when you don’t rush it?!

My plate: chips and My sammie: 1 ounce of French bread, 2 ounces pork, 1 ounce of deli ham and 1 ounce of low fat swiss. 

The combination of the tender pork with the salty ham and cheese and bite of the dill pickle and mustard = priceless!

Stats for the Day:

• 1338 calories
• 39 fat
• 137 carbs
• 73 protein
• 28 fiber (nice!)
• Level 3 – 30 Day Shred
• 20 minute walk with Ed
• 40 minute walk at lunch

Thanks to Foodgawker for publishing my shrimp cocktail picture – I hope everyone makes this soon!  And its nice to know that not all my pictures are “dull/uninteresting!”

Biggest Loser tonight – can’t wait to see what Tracy will do!  See you tomorrow night. 

Yep.  I faced the music this morning.  I stepped on the scale after a couple weeks of not weighing in and the number was 166!  I was 160.5 the last time I weighed in!  I know a lot of that is water weight – I ate more and had more cocktails over the weekend, so I can imagine my weigh in tomorrow will be around 163.5.  But this is not the right direction people!  I need to take Jen and Marissa’s lead and catch myself before the whole holiday season is in full swing!  Luckily since I am diabetic, I did not eat one piece of Halloween candy!

This morning was leftovers – 4.5 ounce baked potato diced, 2 ounces lean pork roast and one egg.  Believe it or not I did not add cheese!   On the side a very ripe pear!

For our Halloween party last week, I was planning on bringing a big pot of chili.  I am chili challenged, so I decided to get a mix.  It came with a spice packet and the directions said “for a little heat, add 1/3 of a package to start.”  Mind you, this makes a GALLON of chili and it was so spicy it was almost too much for me – and that’s saying a lot!  So I have a ton of chili leftover only I can eat – I may just bring it to work and see if someone else can tolerate it!  To help cool the heat, I served mine over 13 ounces of spaghetti squash and topped it with an ounce of cheddar.  You didn’t think I could go two meals in a row without cheese, did you? (I don’t know why this picture is so tiny?!)

And since I didn’t do my normal grocery shop – dinner was quite different!  I had a thin steak, about 1.25 pounds.  It had a lot of fat on it, so I picked off most of the fat and put the meat on skewers.  I just seasoned with salt and pepper – four minutes later – done!  I made a blue cheese fondue to drizzle over the top.  I saw it on Michael Chiarello’s show:

Blue Cheese Fondue (adapted to leave out onions and substituted fat free half and half for the heavy cream)

• 1 tablespoon butter
• 1 tablespoon chopped rosemary
• 1 teaspoon minced garlic
• 2 cups fat free half and half
• 4 ounces crumbled blue cheese
• salt and pepper to taste

Melt the butter, garlic and rosemary and cook about 2 minutes.  Add cream, simmer until it reduces (ABOUT 20 MINUTES).  Remove from heat and stir in cheese, salt and pepper.  The original directions gave me no time frame so the sauce I drizzled over the meat was kind of thin.  After I came back into the kitchen, it was nice and thick!

My plate had 4 ounces of sirloin with about 2 tablespoons of cheese sauce – it was really thin so it looks more than it really was!

While that was going, I had Tony’s puff pastry and snails cooking in the oven at 400 degrees.  The Fresh Market near my house sells these snails for ,89 cents a piece, with the herb butter already in it!  I’ve kept the shells in the past, rinsed them and bought canned escargot and made my own herbed butter, but for the cost (and taste!) these are better!

But I forgot to mention that I made our shrimp cocktail first thing!  You haven’t made our best shrimp cocktail yet?? What are you waiting for??!!

Best Cocktail Shrimp Ever!

• 1 pound shrimp, peeled and deveined (ours were tails on)
• Juice from 1 lemon, reserving the rinds
• 5 sprigs of parsley (I didn’t have any so I left it out)
• 3 sprigs fresh tarragon, plus 1 tablespoon chopped tarragon leaves
• cracked ground pepper
• 1 tablespoon of sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon salt

Put all the ingredients into a big pot over medium heat.  With a temperature gage, once the water hits 165 degrees, you need to put a lid on and let sit for 2 minutes.  Quickly strain and put into an ice bath.  Once the shrimp are cool to the touch, put on a paper towel, dry and put in the fridge until ready.  This is so quick and easy – maybe 15 minutes tops??

And these are not expensive shrimp – they were on sale for $5.99 a pound! (Normally this size is around $10 a pound).

PERFECTION!  Second time we’ve done this recipe and I will never make shrimp cocktail any other way again!

Tony’s plate with snails – he ate a late lunch so Ed got most of the meat!

I bake my snails in a mini cupcake tin – you don’t want to lose any of the herbed butter!

The shrimp was my favorite part!

Since Hannah didn’t come home from work until after dinner – after I saw Natasha’s Macaroni and Cheese Round Up – I knew I would make macaroni and cheese for Hannah!  At first she balked at the blue cheese, but I added about 1/2 cup mild cheddar to the mix and it resulted in the perfect combo – I especially liked the hint of fresh rosemary!

I have to give a big THANK YOU to to Errign for my applesauce giveaway that I won!   I got nine containers all together in a cute lunch tote!  Best part though?  No Sugar Added and each one is only 70 calories and has 3 grams of fat!

Can’t wait to try this flavor!

If anyone is still reading this far down. . .

Stats for the Day

• 1286 calories (plus about 100 calories of licks of Hannah’s mac n cheese!)
• 43 fat
• 108 carbs
• 113 protien
• 18 fiber
• 45 minute walk at lunch

I am going to try to get my ass to the gym in the morning to do some strength training – wish me luck!  See you tomorrow night.

We had the best night downtown last night! We left the house around 2:00 and stopped at a place called Moretti’s for lunch. The place was huge and practically empty! When we asked the bartender if it was going to be a busy Halloween night, he shrugged his shoulders and said they’d be lucky to get 5 customers in! Tony said this place used to do a booming business back in the day and would fill up two parking lots!

I ended up getting a grilled avocado sandwich in a spinach wrap – no mayo, so it was a tad on the dry side, but the avocado made up for it!

Then we continued our drive downtown – the traffic wasn’t too bad!

First we settled into our hotel!

Whenever we do priceline, we end up at this hotel – we got a King room for $79! I love the old world charm of this hotel!

After relaxing a bit, we headed out to dinner. While our go to restaurant was Smith & Wollensky, we decided to follow Chef Hans over to Trader Vic’s. The weird thing is that Trader Vic’s used to be in the Palmer House! But a 10 minute cab ride got us where we needed to be – its now in the lobby of a condo building on State Street!

One of the other things we knew we would miss was the bartender who always took care of us. He’s an Irish guy named Jerry and he always has the best stories about Black Hawks and other celebrities he’s taken care of.

So imagine our surprise about 20 minutes into our first drink when we hear this Irish voice and its Jerry! He moved over to Trader Vic’s after being with Smith & Wollensky for 14+ years! So we got the best of both worlds – best bartender and best Chef!

We started out with appetizers – I had the best crab rangoon of my life! Not greasy and the filling was so flavorful – you could really taste the crab! They came on this tray that had a candle underneath it to keep them warm!

Tony got the oysters – I’ve tried oysters in the past – I even worked for a chef that made me eat one against my will! I nearly threw up! These had a yuzu vinaigrette drizzled over the top!

That’s when our server came over and said that Jerry the bartender wanted to buy our next round of drinks – nice! Tony was drinking a cabernet sauvignon – I had pinot grigio – so light and crisp!

We listened to the most eclectic Hawaiian music during dinner – I loved the salt and pepper shakers!

And when a bowl of different kinds of breads was put on the table, it came with the most interesting spread – it turned out to be a combination of peanut butter, worchestershire sauce and Tabasco! Thank you Tony for being the perfect hand model!

Tony asked Jerry for a recommendation for dinner, and he didn’t hesitate to suggest the bone-in ribeye. I have to admit, having been in the restaurant business as a server for many years, its not uncommon to suggest the most expensive thing on the menu – or if someone just asks for a “glass of red” you bring them the most expensive one by the glass (and I’ve worked in places where a glass of pinot noir sold for $22 a glass!).

But holy cow this was THE best steak I have ever had in my life! It was a 20 ounce bone in and the seasonings on the top mixed in with the perfectly cooked marbled meat – one bit and all I could do was close my eyes and enjoy every savory bite! And had we not been going back to the hotel, pretty sure our dog Ed would have loved that bone!

I got this: The Beef and Reef

I actually thought the sauce was going to be really spicy, and while it wasn’t – it was so flavorful. Mine had a lobster tail in the shell mixed in with the tenderloin – and had I not eaten a bite of Tony’s steak, this would have been a great choice – still good – but not like Tony’s amazing steak!

The secret to the amazing steak is that it was cooked in a wood burning stove – a guy would stand on some sort of ladder on the back and open it up – I am guessing there is a huge grate on top? It was at this point Chef Hans started coming to tables asking how everything was. When he reached our table, I told him that Tony’s steak was even better than any other steak I’d had at Smith & Wollensky. He thanked us for coming in and next thing you know, our server is bringing us a round on the Chef!

We finished our dinners and headed back to the bar. I noticed that Chef was sitting at the bar, and asked Jerry if he would mind me getting a picture with him. He said “of course! But I need to put my chef jacket on!” A few minutes later, and we took pictures!

This one is with Chef and Jerry!

And Jerry took this picture of me and Tony – which I love!

It was then that the server whispered in my ear – is it your husband’s birthday? And while Tony’s birthday was last month last night was the first time we were able to get away. A few minutes later, she brought this huge bowl of vanilla ice cream with toasted coconut and caramel. And the plate said “Happy Birthday” in chocolate!

Thanks to everyone at Trader Vic’s who made our night out wonderful!

Since it was Halloween night – we saw this couple in the lobby – kind of drunk – but I asked if I could take their picture – within 1 second Wonder Woman was ready for her close up!

We hopped into a cab and headed back to the hotel – belly’s very full! Um, I don’t think Tony trusts Chicago cab drivers too much!

It was an awesome night – and a nice leisurely drove back home. We drove over the bridge to where my old office used to be on North Michigan Avenue – this is right before you get to the Wrigley Building and about 6 blocks before Water Tower.

Hope everyone had a great Halloween weekend – thanks Tony for a wonderful night out – I always have the best time with you – I love you!

See you Monday night!