I got home from work and Tony was in the kitchen with me while I started putting dinner together and said “a lot of people had questions about the polenta fries!”  Didn’t know they would be such a hit!  And Errign was correct – the deep fat fryer was involved! 😀

It takes a little planning!  Remember my shrimp and tomato basil suace on polenta the other night?  Well, it all started out with baking polenta.  When i saw the recipe at first, I thought that it called for too much water, but it worked out perfectly!

Baked Polenta

• 8 cups water
• 3 tablespoons olive oil (probably could have left this out)
• 2 teaspoons salt
• 2 cups polenta (I got it out of the bin the last time I was at Whole Foods)

Heat oven to 350.  Mix everything together in a 13 x 9 baking dish.  Bake for one hour, remove and let cool.  I then just cut it into squares, but my co-worker had a great idea to use cookie cutters to make cool shapes! 😀

There is no pepper in this dish, but the top kind of came out like it had pepper on it!   Since it made so much I decided to cut them into fries and deep fry.  My first batch didn’t go so well.  I put them in the deep fryer, put the lid on, and walked away – two minutes later they were one giant pile!  So I put less in the second time around and fried each batch for about 2 minutes, and repeated until I was done.  I kept the deep fryer on and right before serving, I added them all to the basket in one layer, and gently submerged the basket so they would all be hot at the table.

Remember when we went to the soft opening at The Lucky Monk earlier this month – the place with the amazing burgers??!!  Well the following week the chef was on our local t.v. station, and the only seasoning they put on their burgers is salt and pepper!  The perfect ratio?  4:1 – 4 tablespoons of salt mixed with 1 tablespoon of pepper.  I now have a mixture next to my stove and have been using it on lots of things – including the fries as soon as they came out of the fryer.  The best part?  These were not greasy at all – the fryer keeps a constant temperature so the oil never cools and gets absorbed into the food. 😀

Off to take out my Chicken Alfredo and Spinach Lasagna out of the oven – its semi-homemade – I cheated and used jarred Alfredo sauce!  See you in the morning 😀

Yesterday’s lunch was so good!  You’ll have to wait to see my breakfast though! 😀

Breakfast was a zucchini frittata – the bottom layer being sliced canned potatoes, then 4 ounces of shredded zucchini, topped with1 egg, 1/2 cup of egg whites and 1/4 cup reduced fat Colby cheese.  I put it in an oven safe frying pan and baked it for 30 minutes at 350 degrees.  This was so filling!

Lunch was another recipe out of January’s Bon Appetit magazine – Pork Meatball Bahn Mi.  When the recipe called for 1/4 cup fresh basil, I thought it was too much, but it was perfect!  And the addition of sriracha sauce really kicked it up a notch!

I used my melon baller and got 24 meatballs out of the 1 pound mixture – or 6 meatballs per serving.

Then just Pam fried them (with about 1 tsp. sesame oil)

To assemble – I used greek yogurt mixed with sriracha sauce instead of mayo.  The only thing I should have done was used a soft bun, this one was a bit too crunchy.

It was so flavorful!  This one is definitely a keeper!  Dinner was leftovers – I had to use up left over roast beef so I made cheezy beef sammies with polenta fries. 

I had mine on an Arnold thin, 1 oz. of mozzarella cheese, 3 ounces of beef and 3 ounces of polenta – I really liked how the fries turned out!  I had trouble logging on the internet this morning, so I don’t have the exact stats for the day, but it was around 1450.  I also did a 35 minute Firm DVD at lunch with a 10 minute run after that and 5 minute cool down.

Wow, I have exactly six minutes to get ready for work – good thing I am low maintenance! 😀

I’ve decided to write my blogs in the morning before work – it makes perfect sense!  It’s quiet, I can enjoy a cup of coffee and listen to the news on the t.v. in the background.  It’s a balmy 9 degrees this morning! 😦

For full disclosure, here is my scale picture from weigh in Monday.  Thanks for all your kind words on agreeing that 2.2 pounds is not a big deal. 😀

My sister gave me a CleanEating cookbook for Christmas, and I adapted their black bean breakfast burrito:

•   1 low carb tortilla
• 1/2 cup egg wites
• 1 ounce reduced fat colby cheese
• 1/4 cup canned black beans
• diced orange bell pepper
• 3/4 cup canned potatoes, diced

This was so filling and good!  I also added Tabasco after this pic was taken! :D  343 calories, 6 fat, 44 carbs, 36 protein, 13 fiber

Since I was off of work the week of Christmas, I had some gifts waiting for me!  First up – probably the cutest snowman ornament ever!  Thanks Kathy!

Then I got a beautiful green fruit bowl – the bottom said it was hand made in Portugal!  Thanks Genette!

And then my boss gave me a 4.5 quart All-Clad soup pot!  Thanks Nancy!

Then it was time to get to work – upon booting up my computer, I was greeted with this:

Thankfully only 30% were actually work related, but it took me a good hour to get through them all. 

Lunch was a ham and reduced fat swiss lorraine sandwich on an Arnold Thin, 3/4 cup mixed fruit, carrots, orange pepper, 2 tablespoons jalapeno hummus with 1 ounce of pita chips.  This took forever to eat – I made a dill spread on my sandwich – 1 tablespoon Greek yogurt, 1 tsp. spicy mustard and 1/4 tsp. dill – it tasted like a dill pickle! :D  495 calories, 17 fat, 55 carbs, 30 protein, 8 fiber

Later in the afternoon, I had one ounce of dry roasted peanuts: 166 calories, 14 fat, 6 carbs, 7 protein, 2 fiber

Does anyone subscribe to Bon Appetit Magazine?  January 2010 issue is AMAZING!  I wanted to make everything in it this week!  I settled on two though – first up:

They had this as a side dish, so I decided to kick it up a notch and pair it with scallops/shrimp and a small steak on the side.  Recipes can be found on page 82 of the magazine.

I marinated the shrimp for about 20 minutes in olive oil, oregano and minced garlic:

I baked the polenta on Sunday and tried to pan fry it to get a crispy outside, while the polenta is tender.  It just didn’t get as crispy as I would have liked – I may have to bring the deep fryer out! 😀

Dinner comes in at 490 calories, 17 fat, 40 carbs, 62 protein and 1 fiber.

Stats for Monday:

• 1,493 calories
• 54 fat
• 145 carbs
• 134 protein
• 24 fiber 😀
• 45 minute The Firm DVD at lunch

I was happy to learn that my co-worker didn’t work out over the holiday either – wow, we both felt it yesterday after that tape!  I thought I would be sore today, but I am not, so that’s a good thing!

The second recipe I am making from the magazine is a Pork Meatball Bahn Mi sandwich for my lunch – hopefully mine will look like this!

Have a wonderful Tuesday! 😀

Being off of work all week, I had every intention of going to the gym every day, but that dream pretty quickly faded on day 1!  My co-worker and I are definitely hitting the gym at lunch this week – no excuses! 😀

It will be nice to get back into a routine and have some normal “Biz” eats.  I haven’t used Calorieking all week, but managed to do pretty good managing my blood sugar – my weekly average was 102!

Saturday afternoon Tony brought me a package.  One of the gifts he got me for Christmas was backordered, so I thought it was that, but it was a lovely gift from Sophia of Burp and Slurp!   She sent me zesty nuts(spiked with Tabasco!) and the best granola I have ever had!  I am not kidding!  So while that previous link goes to a link on her page to the recipe, Ms. Sophia is moving on up and has a new domain!  She is a wonderful writer, recovering anorexic (which no longer defines her!), student at USC and all around just a wonderful person trying to find her path in life.  If you haven’t read her blog, you are really missing out!

It’s crunchy, slightly sweet.  Although granola is high in carbs for me, I will use this as a topping for Greek yogurt – YUM!  And she wrote the cutest note with my name!

Thanks Sophia!  And speaking of loot, I got Val’s giveaway last week and have forgotten to say thank you in my last few posts!  I got some Vegan cookies, some cinnamon mints and TONS of Stoneyfield yogurt coupons, all wrapped up in a reusable bag.  Thanks Val! 

This morning we woke up to about another two inches of snow – we ended up getting 11 inches in total!  I always like how pretty clean snow looks, but sadly it doesn’t stay that way long! 😦

I made Hannah a pizza when she got home from work on Saturday, and had some dough leftover.  I actually left it on the counter overnight and actually loved the flavor of this dough!   I decided to make Tony and I breakfast pizza!

I’ve learned to roll the sides of the dough up just a bit so the egg whites won’t run off:

While I don’t like a runny yolk, I don’t mind a soft one.  My half of the pizza”

I hadn’t gone to the grocery store yet, but yesterday was Football Sunday and I had no man food!  I quickly looked around and discovered I could make Tony a steak sandwich on a croissant!  Not bad for thinking I had nothing to fix 😀

Then the rest of the day was menu planning, grocery shopping, laundry, etc.  and snuggling with Tony on the couch.  The perfect ending of a wonderful holiday week!

So today is weigh-in day, and while I am not surprised, I actually thought it could be worse!  My camera is charging, so I’ll post the picture of the scale tonight, but I weighed in at 163.0, which is a gain of 2.2.  I am looking forward to getting back on track this week!

Off to finish getting ready for work – have a great Monday!