Lemon and Sage Salmon

Mmmm… Salmon. Yesterday I previewed a lemon sage salmon and it. was. so. good!

I’ve been trying to simplify our menu-planning efforts by making meals that are repeatable, if not predictable. For example, fish once/week, vegetarian meal, something with beef, something with chicken, something with pork. That gets us through the work week, and then the weekends are usually scavenging whatever is left.

Monday I made unstuffed peppers and that recipe was *really* good. I could’ve skipped the cheese, but why would I? It also came together really easily.. ground beef, bell peppers, seasonings, (cook), pasta sauce, beef stock, pasta, (cook), cheese, stir, serve.

Here’s the recipe, if you can call it that…The salmon was moist and delicious when we had it for dinner last night. I bought a 1.5lb fillet from our local grocer and sliced up 4 portions at home. From there, I drizzled it with olive oil, seasoned with lemon peel, sage, salt, and pepper. Bake at 375 F for 20ish minutes, squeeze fresh lemon over top and serve.

We had ours with frozen veggies and a slice of buttered bread. It might as well be dessert because the Peppridge Farm Whole Grain Oatmeal Bread was delicious. I could probably eat an entire loaf if I weren’t disciplined enough.

The cool thing about this fish (and something I didn’t appreciate until today) is that it actually reheated pretty well. I squeezed fresh lemon on top then zapped it in the microwave for 45 seconds. It didn’t get dried out at all and I actually enjoyed having left overs at work today. Do you like fish? What’s your favorite cut and method of preparation?

Roasted Chicken with Lemon and Rosemary

Please forgive any typos, I’m sure to go back and fix them, but this blog is being written from my phone while the Little Miss sleeps on me.

Monday tacos

The way I see it, if Mother Nature can see fit to drop a bunch of snow on our heads, wreck the Monday commute, and interfere with what was becoming a very nice spring… Then I can make tacos on a Monday morning.

We had a great weekend as we started to choose baby gear and consider lifestyle options:

– Yes, we should have a pro redo the newel post.
– No we don’t need a pro to install the banister.
– Yes we should get the structural issues in the basement repaired.
– No we shouldn’t take out a new loan to pay for the repairs.
– Yes, technically the car seat fits in the Audi, but no, it’s not practical to keep the car.

I swear we need a weekend to recover from our weekend.

The next best thing I could do was to inject a little flavor into our Monday.  I browned ground beef, sauteed some yellow onion, added some orange peppers for color, seasoned with the home made taco seasoning blend (courtesy of Practical Paleo).  I served it all up on soft tortillas, topped with fresh avocado and salsa.

I guess if I have to say one good thing about the snow, it’s that it makes great filtered lighting for taking pictures of food with my phone 😉

Happy Monday, everyone!

Feelings and Free Things

The (guided) physical therapy certainly didn’t last long, did it?  Seems like I get a “first…” post and then it pitters off like it never existed.  It’s like posting about it jinxes it.  Jody called me on Friday to let me know that apparently policies had changed and she wouldn’t be able to handle my training any more.  She said that she’s still open to talking with me about nutrition, though.  She is someone who has recovered from disordered eating, so I think she has an interest in my patterns and potentially helping me with that too.

Lately, I’ve been feeling really off.  During lunch last week, my work-friend asked how I was doing, and I said that I just didn’t feel like myself–and that was enough to make my eyes well up with tears.  So then I’m apologizing and scrubbing at my face, and explaining I didn’t know where the emotion came from, and her eyes are welling up and she’s panicking “don’t cry! You’ll make me cry!”

So I talked to her a little about some of the things that have been stressing me out, and even though it was mighty embarrassing, I’m glad I did, because her reply was priceless.

Never apologize for the feelings that you have.

That was really helpful, and it prompted me to post on my weightloss group to see if anyone had any experience with disordered eating/coping.  One of the girls, Christy, said this:

 I think it’s really important to dig in and really confront your emotions with a compassionate heart and allow yourself to feel them completely, and know that it’s okay. It’s amazing how therapeutic it can be to have a loud, messy sob fest! The key is just allowing yourself, completely free of judgement, to feel everything. Even if part of you is saying you shouldn’t feel what you’re feeling, just tell that part to shut up because whatever you feel is legitimate. It doesn’t mean you have to let that feeling dictate your actions, but you need to let yourself feel it. Are you jealous? Pissed off? Lonely? Scared? Doubting? Self-pitiful? All valid!!

That’s definitely a route I’m trying.

Tonight, Jeff was simultaneously the best and the worst.  I’m a dum dum who decided to pour marinade on my pulled pork, thinking it was bbq sauce.  He burst out laughing, “I’m Megan, and I don’t read the bottle,” meanwhile I’m staring at my plate in mourning. Once he realized I was bummed, he switched to reassurance mode “don’t worry, it’ll be good, I promise.”  Then, as if to make good on his promise, he put the marinade on his own pulled pork sandwich, too.

Today on Facebook, the Guthrie Theater announced that they were giving away free tickets to go see Othello.  I thought for sure it was an April Fool’s prank, (look at the date, after all!) but my co-worker scored a pair so I picked up the phone and called immediately.  Let’s just say I’m going to go to a play tonight for free 😉

I don’t know if I’ll actually *like* the play or not, but you can’t argue with free, can you?

Dedicated to Mentality, My Fitness Pal

Zoe and Zucchini

Which Firefly Character Are You?

More on Firefly.Created by BuddyTV

Is it just me, or are quizzes becoming popular again?  I think I’ve taken a couple in the last week or so, but I know I’ve SEEN a gob of them show up in my friend feed.  I like it 🙂 Let’s bring back the blogging habits from the early aughts.  I feel like bloggers were closer with their audience because there’s a certain bit of ‘audience participation’ when you can share your answers with each other.  Go ahead! Take the quiz above (in a new window) and come back to share your answers…. I’ll wait.

[Firefly theme starts up]

Did you post your answer in the comments yet? 😀

Anyway… The plan for today is to do a lot of cleaning, menu-making, and cooking.  Our last week month has been out of whack with the three of those above, culminating in a desk that the cat cannot sit on, a kitchen that has seen little to no use, and a waistline (I’m sure) that’s expanding from all of the fast food we’ve been eating.

By the end of the day, I’m going to have a menu whipped up for dinners for this whole week, a grocery list, AND a plan to batch cook all of it. Nothing to it but to do it!

Busy bonus day!

I had today off of work, but it ended up being busier than a normal day, even a weekend day.

It started at 5am when I took to the internet to waste time and debate social issues.

From there, I stopped at the chiro with Jeff, chatted with Brittany, said hi to Holly, then of to the coffee shop I went.  I read the paper and studied for a bit, then took my car to get fixed. While I was there, I priced out some pretty sweet wheels for the car.

They’re a bit spendy, so we’ll be saving up before that splurge.  I loved the shop I found, though.  They had a five-star rating on yelp, and from the looks of it, it was well-earned. They were neat, tidy, professional, and fair priced. There was some swearing that I didn’t appreciate, but it wasn’t AT anyone or about anyone, so I’m alright about it. Everyone swears, lol, he probably just didn’t realize I could hear him.

Along the way, I found a Crossfit studio–what!!

They were closed, so I couldn’t check it out.

When my car was fixed, I drove across town (30 minutes northeast) to pick my Mom up. We grabbed lunch, picked up her new glasses, and drove across town (30 minutes south) to pick up the keys to her desk. We traded seats and I let her drive so I could help my brother with an email response to an interview invitation via text and Facebook.  She drove us to the office (25 minutes west) to get her laptop, then we headed back to her house (25 minutes east). We stopped off for some grocery shopping and to off my gas tank ($132 later…), Then I dropped her off at Grandma’s work so they could run more errands.

From there, I drove back to the chiro (25 minutes west) to pick some things up, then went home (15 minutes northwest).

Once home, I played butcher for about an hour cutting the bulk meat down to reasonable sizes and organizing the freezer. I cooked dinner, and now I’m ready to eat. Phew!! I’m tired!

Super-easy short-cut for WW Grilled Fish with Mango Salsa

Ha!

So, WW is super diligent about watching out for copyright infringement, so I can’t post the whole recipe or directions here, but in the book I bought there’s a recipe for Grilled Fish with Mango Salsa.  There are 6 ingredients and the prep time is probably around 15-20 minutes.  I wasn’t in the mood to de-vein jalapeños or deal with slimy mangoes (especially in winter?) so I cheated a little bit.  Here’s the condensed version of WW Grilled Fish with Mango Salsa:

Ingredients:

1- bowl of fruit salsa from your local deli
2- fillets of cod (skin removed)
little bit of lemon juice, plus salt and pepper to taste.

Directions:
Unwrap fish from the paper it comes in, place in a skillet over medium heat.  Drizzle with a little bit of lemon, salt, and pepper.  Depending on the thickness of your fillet, it’ll be ready to flip around 3-5 minutes.  Apply the same techniques to this side – lemon, salt, pepper as desired.  This will be done in about 3-5 minutes as well.  The fish will be done when it can be flaked with a fork and is no longer translucent.  Don’t over-cook the fish or it’ll get rubbery.

Top with spoonfuls of the prepared salsa and enjoy 🙂

Total time – 10 minutes.

Weekly Menu Planning: Week of 10-29-12

Hello readers,

The pictures in my previous post weren’t exactly the best, but the recipe definitely was!  I posted that entry while riding along to the coffee shop with my mom.  We headed out to Caribou to hang out and get some wedding planning stuff done.  The culmination of which amounted to a three-page list and the decision to buy buttermints.  Mmm.. buttermints..

This week’s menu includes a left-over from last week’s menu that never made it into the rotation – Bourbon Chicken.  The recipe itself calls for skillet cooking, but it also says it can be done in a crockpot, so we’ll see how that goes.  Our menu this week also features:

Stir Fry (pork)

Pork Chops w/ Potatoes and mixed Veg.

Eight-Layer Casserole

Shrimp w/ mushrooms, spinach, bell pepper and spicy alfredo

Broccoli & chicken casserole

So, we’ll be doing lots of baking this week and not so much slave-over-the-stove type cooking.  One of the things that I did to help with my weekly menu planning and the facilitation of actually cooking these recipes, is I made a new board on Pinterest and I just repin menu items from my “Foodies!” board to my “Weekly menu planning” board.  If you’re a member of Pinterest, you should check it out for all of the recipes that I’m going to be using this week.  If you have your own “Foodies!” style board, or make your own Weekly Menu Planning board, I’d love to check it out 🙂 Just include the link in the comments.