0004. biscuits & gravy

Normally, when I make biscuits and gravy, I take the easy way out: I pop open a can and toss them on a cookie sheet. Yes, I'm lazy. What? Making biscuits takes time. And your hands get all sticky when you knead the dough. But there's just something about making them yourself.

Anyway. This morning, we didn't have any biscuits in a can, and I had a

hankering for biscuits & gravy. So, I pulled out the box of Bisquick - the Heart Smart version, thank you very much. ;)

I used 2% milk to mix the dough and managed to keep my hands as unsticky as possible... which wasn't really a great success. What can I say? When you're kneading dough, you're going to get

messy.

I used a little bit of the Bisquick mix to try to keep the dough from sticking to me too much (it didn't work entirely, but it did the job well enough that I made pretty little round circles. The back of the Bisquick box said to roll it into a log and cut it up, but that just wasn't going to happen with my particular set of skills. I figure the way it came out, everything worked out fine.

I tossed the biscuits in the oven and started on the gravy. First, I took out some Armour beef meatballs from the freezer and tossed them in the microwave for a few minutes so they weren't blocks of ice.

I chopped up the meatballs and heated them up the rest of the way in the frying pan I planned to make the gravy in so that I could use the drippings for flavor, then spooned out the meat to a waiting bowl. After, I melted some I Can't Believe It's Not Butter Light! and tossed in some flour to soak up the butter.

Then I poured in some 2% milk, but I ran out of milk. Oh, crap. I called my mom to ask if I could use evaporated milk and lo and behold, you can! Woohoo! You can add water to basically rehydrate it if the flavor is too off, but I liked the way it tasted after I added salt and pepper and tossed the chopped up meatball in, so I let it be.

I cut the biscuits in half, poured the gravy over the top (or in my husband's case, put butter on the biscuit, then put the gravy on top - he does so love his butter) and served while they were steamy hot. I had a big glass of water with mine because I'm on a big water kick. Monkey had lemonade with hers because that's all she wants these days.

I wish this picture were the right orientation. Even though I switched it, it won't show up correctly.

0003. Recipe: Coconut Chicken Curry

There's a blog out there called Paleo Parents, talking about this "awesome" diet called the Paleo Diet (found it through a #twitloss tweet). I think their before & after story is pretty freaking awesome, but looking at some of the recipes in the Paleo Diet menu... I don't know that it's for me, despite their fantastic results. Still, I did find one recipe that looks really freaking good - probably because I'm so in love with curry right now. Seriously. I want it all the time. I crave it constantly. Poor PK & Monkey aren't huge fans of it, so I don't make it too often. But if I had it my way, I'd have either sushi or CURRY every. single. day.

I haven't made this one yet, but I plan to pretty soon. Though I'm not entirely sure where I'm going to find cauliflower rice...

Ingredients

• 4 chicken breasts
• 1 medium yellow onion, finely chopped
• 5 garlic cloves, minced
• 1 red chili pepper, seeds removed and finely chopped
• 1 can coconut milk
• 1 cup chicken broth
• 1/4 teaspoon red pepper flakes
• 2 Tablespoons Curry Powder
• 1 Tablespoon olive oil

Cooking Steps

Chop the chicken into bite sized pieces and brown in a pan with the olive oil. Set the chicken aside in a separate bowl.

Combine the chopped onion, chopped chili pepper and garlic to the pan that was used for the chicken, and let simmer until onion pieces are soft. Add coconut milk, broth, curry powder, red pepper flakes, and chicken, and mix well. Cover and let simmer on medium low for about 20 minutes.

Serve over cauliflower rice.

0002. Dinner - 6 Sept 2011

I didn't want to work too hard on dinner tonight, and I had a turkey breast tenderloin thawing in the fridge along with a pork tenderloin for my neighbor to toss on his grill (since we don't currently have one), but he wasn't home. Boo. So, I tossed the turkey tenderloin in the oven (it was pre-seasoned "Rotisserie"), made some mac & cheese (with Smart Balance butter & non-fat milk), and steamed some "California style" veggies (broccoli, carrots, & cauliflower) with a little bit of butter, oregano, garlic, & basil.

Not entirely healthy (the mac & cheese especially - but I promised Monkey that I'd make some for her, since I made "healthy grown up food" last night), but it was yummy. I didn't put a lot on my plate, and I didn't finish it. The meds I'm on make my appetite really small, so I usually leave a bit on my plate.

0001. I love to eat.

It's no secret that I love to eat. Food is one of my favorite things. This, of course, led me to being nearly 100 pounds overweight. At the height of my weight issues, I weighed in at 246 pounds. I'm 5'4". That is not healthy.

I'm still 5'4", but I've managed to drop 62 pounds by mostly just changing the way that I eat - eating foods that are better for me and not eating nearly as much as I normally do (a single serving vs two or three - I admit, I adopted my husband's eating habits when we first started dating). I did work out for a time, but with school the way it is and working in addition to going to school full time, I no longer had the time or the energy to work out. I have an elliptical set up in the corner of my living room, and I will get back on it at some point... I've been having issues with my knees and other things that are personal that limit me from getting on the elliptical because of pain. I walk as much as I can (and with my program in school, I'm on my feet a lot of the time, training on how to use the x-ray machines in the hospital), and I'm still slowly but surely losing weight.

My friend Lyndie is keeping a food blog with recipes and such that she tries out, and I'll more than likely be "borrowing" a few from her. When she told me that she was starting her blog, it made me think of my old food blog, that is sadly no longer available. And it made me miss it. So, I'm starting a new one. In addition to running MamaKitty Reviews, my personal blog, and my regular Friday spots on the Women of Twitloss blog, I'll be posting here. Hopefully it'll be more than I updated my other food blog (which was extremely rare). Ultimately, I'd like to post pictures of whatever I ate for breakfast, lunch, dinner, and snacks every day, but with my schedule (and my memory), it probably won't be feasible. I will, however, be posting my favorite recipes and pictures of when I make them. That is what a food blog is about, right? :)