Beef

April 4, 2012

Burger Salad!

I have discovered something about myself these last few days with my quest for trying to finally get fit, I’ve decided that I can’t really handle Jillian’s face within five minutes of waking up saying “That’s fear leaving the body!”

So I went on Exercise TV on demand to find something else to do before work.  Only one problem.  All of my exercise programs on demand are gone.  I have AT&T.  I even had Tony look for them last night in case they just moved the line up, and they are no where to be found.

So I went to the menu, searched “stretching” hoping to find some exercises on demand, and stumbled upon Classical Stretch with Miranda.  It just happened to be starting so I gave it a try.

Mind you, this is somewhat of an “old-fashioned” workout.  This woman is probably in her late 50’s, the music is kinda like dentist office music, but guess what?  I loved it!  It was 30 minutes long, it got my heart rate going and more importantly, it really stretched me out.  This may be part of my new morning routine – it was a great way to start the day.  Party smile

While I have praised Helen’s Paleo Breakfast Casserole, when I was cleaning the fridge I realized I had a Chobani that was a couple days past expiration and I didn’t want it to go to waste.

I sauteed 1 apple and 1 small banana with 1/2 teaspoon olive oil and 1 teaspoon of brown sugar for my fruit filling. Then 1/3 cup of my fruit puree granola (check back to that post – I added the nutrition) and apple cinnamon Chobani.   Breakfast comes in at 502 calories, 9 fat, 94 carbs, 8 fiber and 18 protein.

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I love how crunchy this granola is. Open-mouthed smile

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Check out my new lunch bag.  I had a gift card to Bed Bath & Beyond.  This is what Tosh.O would call “high fashion!”  I just love that it’s deep, insulated and I can stuff a boat load of food in there.  And don’t you love my empty office photo shoot setting?

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I had company for my walk at lunch today.  Hannah!  She got to my office around 12:30 and we got our walking shoes on.  We walked for 45 minutes – it was actually hot out – about 79 degrees!

me and hannah

I made my buffalo chicken chili night before last.  Except I failed to follow my own directions.  Usually I brown the ground chicken by itself, but I thought “why can’t I just throw all the ingredients into the pot and let it cook for a couple hours?”  I’ll tell you why.  The ground chicken kind of boiled in the tomato sauce, so the texture wasn’t that great, even though the flavor was.

Tony had a great idea to add some pasta to it – I added about 1.5 cups of tiny pasta shells and let it cook down.  That turned it around!  So I may have added a few slices of fresh jalapenos to mine and I had an ounce of tortilla chips on the side for dipping.  Lunch comes in at 533 calories, 20 fat, 64 carbs, 5 fiber and 23 protein.

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When I got home, I snuck in Jillian’s 30 day shred.  I was wide awake by then to kick Jillian’s ass! Open-mouthed smile

For some reason I have all warm/comfort foods on our weekly menu.  Since it was so warm out, we weren’t feeling anything I had on the menu just yet, so I ended up making burgers.  But I made myself a burger salad.  My 5 ounce 90% lean burger, over mixed greens, cucumber, carrots, red pepper, pickled jalapeno and celery.  My dressing was 1 tablespoon of light ranch with 1 tablespoon Frank’s hot sauce.  The top of my burger?  A 35 calorie wedge of light blue cheese Laughing Cow.  Dinner comes in at 423 calories, 14 fat, 32 carbs, 8.4 fiber and 40 protein.

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That salad was a winner.  I loved all the spicy bites because of the Frank’s hot sauce.

Stats for Day 3 of 30 Operation Bad-Ass

  • 30 minutes classical stretch
  • 5 minutes abs (holding a side plank for 30 seconds a side for 5 minutes – not easy!)
  • 45 minute walk at lunch
  • 30 day shred before dinner
  • 1458 calories, 43 fat, 191 carbs, 21 fiber and 82 protein
  • 27% of calories from fat
  • No wine! Martini glass

Can I just say I am glad that Wednesday is my rest day?!  Alright, off to put my food together and get in the shower.

How are your goals going so far this April?  Make it a great day!

p.s.  I promise to post the White Bean and Bacon Soup recipe tomorrow! 😀

March 29, 2012

Spicy Taco Black Bean Burger (or what my husband would throw up if given to eat)

Another morning of getting up at 6:30 without hitting the snooze!  This is in preparation for my April challenge.  Aren’t you all on pins and needles just wondering what it is?  Ha!  You’ll just have to wait until Saturday’s post.

I made quick breakfast tacos – I love this bag of tiny peppers that I got on my $1 rack last week.  It’s already Thursday but they are still nice and fresh.  Usually when I get something off the dollar rack I need to use it up within a couple days.  I think I’ll make tiny stuffed peppers with some of them. 😀

  • 2 corn tortillas, 1/2 cup egg beaters cooked with 1/8 cup salsa, sauteed peppers, baby spinach and an ounce of pepper jack cheese

Simply filling points would be 5 – I tracked yesterday, so it was 6 WW points.

I was more than ready to get out for my 10 mile bike ride.   The weather was perfect – about 67 degrees and sunny.  But what I wasn’t prepared for was the wind!!  On the second half of my ride the wind was at my face the whole time.  I even stopped pedaling at one point and the wind just rolled me back.  It took me 63 minutes to ride 10 miles.  Not sure if that’s good or bad, but I was spent by the time I got back to my office.

I made a quick stir fry yesterday morning for lunch.  While I know a lot of you think these noodles are gross, I happen to love them.  I just rinse them really well and I sauteed them in 1 tablespoon of chile paste – they were nice and spicy!

I used 4 ounces of leftover chicken, the noodles, broccoli, carrots, zucchini, 1 tablespoon of peanut sauce, 1 tablespoon of chile paste and 1 teaspoon of sriracha.  If you folow Simply Filling it would count as 3 points, tracking was 5 WW points for this whole delicious bowl.

Tony has had a jones for a good burger all week.  I decided to make a black bean burger for myself.  After I formed my patties and brought the burgers out to the deck, Tony took one look at my burger and I think he threw up in his mouth a bit.  No worries – this was delicious and a great way to get a big, low point burger.

Spicy Black Bean Burger

  • (serves 1 – 5 WW points, 3 Simply Filling Points, 270 calories, 7 fat, 29 carbs, 8 fiber and 20 protein.

Ingredients:

  • 2 ounces ground sirloin
  • 1/2 cup black beans
  • 2 tablespoons bread crumbs
  • 1 clover garlic
  • 2 tablespoons chopped pickled jalapenos
  • 1/2 teaspoon cumin
  • 2 tablespoons taco sauce

Mix everything together and form into a patty.  Grill about 3 minutes per side, depending on desired doneness.

With the cheese and bun, dinner comes in at 10 points.  I never even made a side dish!

This burger was so tasty – it was tender, juicy and packed with lots of spicy flavor thanks to my jalapeno peppers.  Sam, I think you’d love this burger!

I plan on running at lunch today, another gorgeous day!  What’s your exercise going to be today?

Make it a great day!

March 5, 2012

BSI – Beef Round-Up and Winner!

I’ve always liked red meat.  Growing up, one of my favorite meals was steak and baked potatoes.  We would always have our Dad fix our baked potatoes – he would cut them open, add the butter and salt and pepper – it always tasted better when he made them.

So I am really looking forward to trying some of these beef dishes!  Here is the round up, in no particular order: (and I hope I didn’t miss any!)

Renee from My Kitchen Adventures made a Beef Vegetable and Barley Soup:

Lisa from Fink Girls Cookbook has tips (get it!) on using Tri-Tip:

Farihah from Spice’s Bites made Crockpot Barbacoa Beef:

Jane from the Healthy Beehive made Pho in a Crock pot:

Jacky of Jax House made Cocoa Rubbed Ribeye Steak:

Brianne of Cupcakes and Kale Chips made Crockpot Beef Pot Roast with Mushrooms:

Veronica made Vinegar and Garlic Glazed Flat Iron Steak:

Sara Made Tacos de Barbacoa:

Rhonda made Asian Salisbury Steak:

My entries this week:

The Sandwich King’s Meatloaf Sandwich with Hot Gardiniera:

And our dinner from last night:  Short Rib Potpie (adapted from Simply So Good)

I basically halved her recipe, left out the pearl onions and bay leaf (not a fan), left out the beef demi-glaze because I didn’t have that, and instead of puff pastry (why does this never go on sale?!) I made my own pie crust for the top.  Each pot pie comes in at 11 Points Plus (9 for the pot pie and 2 for the pie crust).

Short Rib Pot Pie

  • 1 pound boneless beef short ribs, cut into 1 inch chunks (I bought 1.5 pounds but a couple were really fatty so I trimmed them a lot)
  • 1 teaspoon olive oil
  • 2 pieces of bacon
  • 1/2 cup mushrooms, chopped fine
  • 2 tablespoons butter
  • 1/8 cup flour
  • 1/2 cup red wine
  • 2 cups beef broth
  • salt and pepper to taste

Preheat the oven to 325.  Season the beef with the salt and pepper, and cooking in batches, brown the beat on all sides – about 8-10 minutes.  Transfer to a large bowl.  Reduce the heat to medium – I blended these two steps and next cooked the bacon and musrooms together, about 5 minutes until the bacon got crisp.  Scooped that out and added that to the bowl with the meat.  Next I added the carrots and potatoes, and cooked for 10 minutes.  Then I removed them to the beef bowl.

Add the butter and when it melts, add the flour and whisk for 2-3 minutes.  Add the red wine and start deglazing the pan.  Slowly add the beef broth in and stir about 5 minutes until it starts to thicken.  Throw everything back into the stock pot, taste for salt and pepper and cook for 2 hours, or until the beef is fork tender.

Heat oven to 350.  Divide the beef veggie mixture into six servings.  Top with the pie crust, brush with an egg wash, and bake for 30-40 minutes, until the crust is golden brown.

The picture above is right before it went into the oven, this picture below is how it looked after two hours:

You know when your pie dough is ready when it just starts to not stick to the sides – I used 6 tablespoons of cold ice water.

l put one cup of the beef mixture into each baby casserole dish:

Topped it with my pie crust:

And then wait for the goodness to finish cooking:

This was so delicious – the mushroom base gave it an added meaty flavor (and I normally don’t like mushrooms!), the meat was tender and the potatoes and carrots were cooked perfectly.  Yum!

So the winner of this weeks BSI?

Jane who made the Crock Pot Pho!

Shoot me an email at mybizzykitchen@gmail.com with your mailing address so I can have Joy send you her handcrafted yoga mat carrier.  Congrats!

Renee from My Kitchen Adventures is hosting this weeks BSI – once she has her post up, I’ll update the secret ingredient and let you know what the prize will be this week.

Happy Monday!

March 4, 2012

The Sandwich King’s Meatball Sandwich with Giardiniera

Remember the bagel I talked about on Friday that was giving me the stink eye?  I caved and after WW swung by a bagel shop and picked up bagels for the house.  While the jalapeno cheddar is high up on the list – my all time favorite bagel?  The everything bagel.  I toasted that bad boy up and schmeared it with a little butter and it was worth the 10 points.

So after seeing The Sandwich King’s meatball sandwich with giardinera, I knew it was quickly going to the top of my “must make” list.  But I decided to make my own ciabatta bread.  Um, turns out most of the recipes called for a “biga” which is a starter of flour, yeast and water that needs to sit up to 24 hours in advance.  So I was thrilled when I found a recipe for Cheater’s ciabatta at Two Spoons.

Instead of making loaves though, I ended up making six sandwich size breads – each one coming in at 5 WW points.

Cheat’s Ciabatta – from Two Spoons

  • 1 1/2 cups warm water
  • 3/4 tablespoon yeast
  • 1/2 teaspoon of salt (perfect amount, reduce if you are sensitive to salt)
  • 3 cups white flour

Mix the water, yeast and salt together.  Add flour and mix with a wooden spoon just until all the flour has been incorporated.  Let it rise for one hour.  After the hour is up, I placed a piece of parchment paper on my counter, liberally dusted it with flour and divided the dough into 6 mini loaves.  The dough is super sticky – probably the stickiest dough I’ve worked with but try to avoid using too much flour if you can to mold your loaves.  Let rise for another hour.  Heat oven to 450 with a broiler pan on the bottom rack and a pizza stone on the middle rack if you have it.

Transfer the parchment paper to the stone – add 2 cups of water to the broiler pan and shut the oven door quickly.  Bake for 20 minutes.

The dough doesn’t rise all that much:

See how sticky the dough is?

Here’s how they look after resting the second hour:

Hanging out after they come out of the oven.  Um, Tony and I may have split one with a bit of butter.  You know, for quality control. 😀

While these were delicious, Tony and I both concluded that it didn’t taste “ciabattay.”  Yep, I made that word up.  I will definitely try making this again using a biga starter.  The inside was super tender while the outside was crunchy.  Love.

I did adapt The Sandwich King’s meatball recipe just a tad – his original recipe called for five pounds of meat for 8 sandwiches!

Meatballs:  (makes 6 sandwiches, 5.3 ounces each before cooking – 7 WW points)

  • 2 eggs
  • 1/3 cup grated pecorina romano
  • 1 tablespoon Italian seasoning (didn’t have fresh parsley)
  • 2 cloves minced garlic
  • salt and pepper
  • 1.5 pounds meat loaf mix (my store sells this together – 1/2 pound ground pork, veal and beef each)
  • 1/2 cup panko bread crumbs

In a mixing bowl, whisk the eggs, romano cheese, Italian seasoning, garlic and salt and pepper.  Add the ground meats and bread crumbs.  Mix with your hands (or God-given hands as The Sandwich King states) and combine, careful not to over mix.

I cooked mine in about 1 teaspoon of canola oil on medium-high heat – you want to form a crust on the bottom.   So with my ciabatta roll, the slice of mozzarella, giardiniera – my meatball sandwich comes in at 13 point.  Totally worth it!  I made a simple marinara on the side with 1 can of diced tomatoes and 4 roma tomatoes – it cooked down for an hour and I pureed it and added a touch of olive oil, Italian seasoning and salt and pepper.  Winning!

Tony had asked for German potato salad and I planned on making it.  Until I got to the store and was in the check out when I reached into my purse and realized I didn’t have my wallet.  Fudge.  So I had to drive 15 minutes back to our house, get my wallet, drive 15 minutes back, then 15 minutes back home again, and ran out of time.  So I quickly made some onion rings on the side.  I had just cleaned out my deep fryer and these turned out so good – there isn’t a lot of breading on these, but 1 ounce of onion rings in WW eTools comes in at 3 points, so I’ll stick with that.  That wonderfuly plate comes in at 16 points.  All in all though I had 34 points for the day – and still have 41 flex for the week.  Nice.

Don’t forget to submit your BSI beef recipes before 9:00 p.m. tonight.  The winner will be announced tomorrow.  Blog reader Joy has donated the prize this week – a handcrafted yoga mat carrier!

Enjoy your Sunday!

February 29, 2012

Refried Bean Soup for One and Steak Diane

Thanks for all your comments yesterday about Tony making me dinner.  And yes, that does mean he’s feeling better.  He’ll feel even better when he’s not plugged into a wall anymore though!  The home health care nurse came by Monday to change his sponge, and his wound looks “pink” which is a good sign.

Even after I told Tony that each slice of his delicious jalapeno corn bread came in at six points, he said “will you eat any more of it?”  Hells yes!  I just need to make it work in my meal plan.

So yesterday I made a 1/2 cup egg white (2) omlet with spinach (0) with a slice of corn bread (6) and a cup of fresh fruit (0).  A lovely 8 WW point breakfast.  Tony said the recipe suggested reheating it in the microwave for a few seconds and it tasted as if it had just come out of the oven.  So fricken good!

While Tony is more than willing to make dinners so I can get to the gym, I plan on saving those days when I know the weather is not going to cooperate.  Yesterday, while cold (23), it wasn’t windy.  So I had a nice 45 minute walk at a pretty fast pace – I kept skipping the slow songs on Pandora to keep the momentum going.  I’ve found that I feel better when I run every other day – it gives my legs a chance to rest in between.

The only thing I hate about the end of February?  Dirty snow – when I am really done with winter and want it to be spring and 50 degrees so I can put up my gazebo again and watch baseball. 😀  Most of the snow is already melted and I think we have rain in the forecast, so it shouldn’t be around too much longer.

I have a bad habit.  I open cans of stuff, only use a little bit, then put them with the lids still in tact.  I just hate to waste food.  But then invariably I’ll be looking trying to find something and realize I have:

  • 1/3 of a container of chicken broth
  • 1/2 a can of tomato sauce
  • 1/2 a can of chipotle peppers in adobo
  • 1/4 can of canned black beans
  • 1/2 can fat free refried beans

The light bulb went off as I stared at these half used cans of food.

Refried Bean Soup – Makes One Generous 2 1/2 cup serving for 7 points

  • 1 cup chicken broth (0)
  • 1 cup tomato sauce (0)
  • 1/2 cup fat free refried beans (2)
  • 1/3 cup canned black beans (2)
  • 1 tablespoon chipotle peppers
  • 2 ounces of shredded chicken leftover (2)
  • 1/2 ounce of cheddar cheese on top (1)

I just mixed everything but the chicken and black beans with my stick blender.  Dumped that into my container, then added the black beans and chicken and then heated it up at work and topped with the cheddar cheese.  Spicy, slightly thick from the refried beans and delicious.  Anytime I can get 2 1/2 cups of soup for 7 points I am in. 😀

I had steak on the menu, and wanted to do something a bit different – a quick Tastespotting search brought me to Kevin’s site – should have known he’d have a great recipe for Steak Diane.  I did make a few adjustments – because even though I halved the amount of Dijon mustard, it was a bit too much for Tony, so I added more beef broth.

Steak Diane Sauce (makes 3, 1/3 cup servings for 3 points each)

  • 1 tablespoon butter
  • 1 clove minced garlic
  • 1 cup sliced mushrooms
  • 1/4 cup brandy
  • 1 teaspoon Dijon mustard
  • 1/4 cup fat free half and half
  • 1/2 cup beef broth
  • 2 teaspoons Worcestershie sauce

I melted the butter over medium high heat and added my 4 ounce steaks.  I seared for exactly 2 minutes per side – Tony and I like our meat on the rarer side.  Kevin left his steak in, I removed it to rest.  In the same pan I added the garlic and sauted for about 20 seconds.  I added in the mushrooms and 1/4 cup of the broth and sauteed the mushrooms for about 2 minutes.  I added the brandy, and sadly since I have an electric stove, couldn’t ignite it as Kevin’s directions stated.  Next I added the mustard, fat free half and half, the rest of the beef broth, Worcestershire sauce and the juices that collected on the plate from the removed steaks.  I added the steaks back in and reheated the steaks for about 30 seconds while stirring the sauce.

I served my steak (4 points) over 3/4 cup mashed potatoes (3) and 1/3 of the mushroom sauce (3), with 1 cup of green beans (0).  A delicious 10 point dinner.

I love these little cups I got at Sam’s Club – I got 10 for $5 in the restaurant supply aisle – each cup holds 1/4 cup – it was nice to have everything ready when I needed it.

Alright I have to get going and get in the shower – make it a great day!