Picture Of The Day - 09/10/09

For those who don't follow me on Facebook, here's the picture of my Birthday Monster Burger. An excellent shot taken with my iPhone if I do say so myself! Note the ice cold Diet Pepsi with a twist of lime was an excellent accompaniment to this taste treat!

Click on this puppy to see it super-sized in a new window!
It should be noted this picture is a higher resolution than the one I posted on Facebook.

Scheduled Caloric Intake Overage in Celebration Of A Most Auspicious Annual Event Which Commemorates The Start Of My Yearly Journey Around The Sun

Actually this post should have been entitled 'A Scheduled Caloric Intake Overage in Celebration Of A Most Auspicious Annual Event Which Commemorates The Start Of My Yearly Journey Around The Star Known As Sol' but evidently there is a field limitation on the post title!

As many of you know I've been on a Lifestyle Modification Plan for almost 20 weeks now. As some of you know Monday is my birthday, and a Scheduled Caloric Intake Overage in Celebration Of A Most Auspicious Annual Event Which Commemorates The Start Of My Yearly Journey Around The Star Known As Sol is what I call going out to dinner to celebrate my birthday.

I've been averaging lately about 1100 calories a day except for Sundays when I can do 1500. For someone who used to do 1500 calories for lunch it has been quite the change for me. I figure a birthday dinner is a reasonable gift to myself for this event!

I would like to think my birthday dinner would be a classy and refined affair!

I went back and forth on this subject for quite awhile. Finally I decided a couple of weeks ago when I hit the 90 pound lost mark that I deserved a nice meal for my birthday.

There were quite a few choices and places I considered. Over the days I whittled the list down. Right now I am torn between Olive Garden and their infrequent Never Ending Pasta Bowl which is running in this area, or one of the three Chinese places I used to frequent on a regular basis.

One of the Chinese places is the best sit-down restaurant we have been to since we moved to Michigan just over 9 years ago. The other two are buffets, both with their strong points.

Olive Garden's Never Ending Pasta Bowl however is something the kids and I love plus they have 2 new sauces this year. They run this twice a year at most so it seems the timing of this is almost a sign to go there! Scott really loves the bread sticks there as does Danielle. I like them as well in addition to the excellent salad they serve.

However, I am sure my dinner will be somewhat less refined, though still pleasant!

The longest I recall ever being able to maintain a diet has been 3 months. I've passed that by two. In addition I have have never exercised this rigorously for this long. Since I actually started exercising a few days before the dieting started, it's been 140 days in a row of riding the exercise bike. I hate exercising, but always feel good afterward. These days on my normal 90 minute work out I burn about 920 calories.

I'm not calling going out to dinner breaking the diet, because it is scheduled and planned for. I do plan to do a minimum of 90 minutes on the exercise bike both Sunday and on my actual birthday, returning to my normal caloric guidelines after my birthday passes.

Based on this I feel I am justified, and am OK with the decision.

Heck! If I can still move after dinner I plan on taking a nice 2 mile walk to help offset some of the extra calories so long as weather permits.

I can hardly wait for Sunday! In addition to the food it will be so nice to go out to eat. The kids and I have really missed that this summer though I have been bringing in Chinese and Italian food for them at least 2 times a week when they are at my house. I know they prefer dining out though.

Heck who am I trying to kid! My birthday dinner will probably be like this!

On my actual birthday since I have the kids, I'll see if they want to take in a movie or something. They may be a bit subdued as school starts the next day. That's one of the reasons I decided to do dinner Sunday so in the back of their minds they won't be thinking they have school the next day.

More Musings on Taylor Ham

I was emailing with a friend earlier today and decided, as it touched on one of my favorite foods which I have talked about here in the past, that I would flesh it out a bit and turn it into a post. We all know that these days I am so totally fixed on things I can't eat. Below is a picture of this food in one of it's many forms:

Warning: I tend to ramble on and on during this post. Continue at your own peril.

I grew up eating a New Jersey food called Taylor Ham. We had it for breakfast in any way you would expect bacon or sausage to be used. Sometimes with bacon or sausage in fact! It's definitely a Jersey thing and I've been eating it for most of my life, though admittedly a lot less since we came to Michigan since you can't get it here.

Shortly after we moved to Michigan in August of 2000 I tried with the local grocer, and Meijer which is a big chain of stores asking them to carry it, but, they ain't never heard of it so they had no interest in doing it. In retrospect almost 9 years later that's probably a good thing.

One of my fondest Taylor Ham moments back in New Jersey was having breakfast at a buffet that a friend used to be the chef for. They had Taylor Ham and not many buffets in New Jersey ever did! Oh my goodness I was in heaven. They also had home-made sausage gravy and biscuits! When he knew I was coming he would cook extra Taylor Ham and slice it thick and thin because he knew the various ways I would eat it and combine it with the other buffet items. I would eat way, way too much of this epicurean delight those Sunday Mornings!

On one of my Taylor Ham running trips back from a visit to friends and family on the east coast, I brought back a large quantity as described below, and I had a series of lunch time events where I invited about 6 people from work to come to my place for lunch, and I made Taylor Ham, Egg, and Cheese sandwiches on a hard roll. The egg and cheese were optional, but, you had to eat the Taylor Ham. So, I turned on about 18 mid-westerners to this delectable treat and they all loved it! I think if Meijer had stocked this, and fried some up and given it out as samples as they often do with new items, they could have made a killing. Their loss!

For those of you reading this that are not in the New Jersey area and want to try Taylor Ham, fear not! If you look on the right side of my blog I have a link to Jersey Pork Roll, a web site run by a Jersey Girl where I used to have Taylor Ham shipped to Michigan from. I even bought a slicer so I could buy the 9 pound one and slice it up! Their service is excellent and I can recommend it personally.

As mentioned previously my consumption has dropped since moving to Michigan. This is not a bad thing considering my Lifestyle Modification. I have not had Taylor Ham since last summer when I went to Jersey for my Dad's funeral.

I won't be having it in the near future either! With my caloric guidelines I could get away with it on a Sunday or even thinly sliced as a dinner meal during the week with some Eggbeaters. But I would not be able to consume enough of it to make the high price of shipping out here worthwhile. Plus, it's one of those rare things I have little willpower with. If it's in da house, I'm eating it!

Willpower is a funny thing! There are so many delectable things I see at the store while shopping. Things that I used to enjoy on a regular basis. Things I miss. Things I want. Things that if they were in my home, I know I would eat them! So, I simply do not buy them. Weird huh? I never bring them home, so they do not tempt me here, but I know if they were here I would not resist their siren call!

Back to the subject of willpower. Perhaps the thoughts of myself falling on top of 20 bags of chips at the store in a veritable feeding frenzy, followed by the panicked screams of children, large muscled security people beating me as they eject me from the store, and the inevitable blitz of media coverage is what keeps me in check while I am out in public. I do not know for sure.

In subsequent trips back to NJ (except for last year) I would take a cooler with me. My brother and I would hit the Pathmark and ShopRite stores by him and I would buy up to 15 3 pound Taylor Hams. We would put them in the freezer for a couple of days before departing back to Michigan, then put them in the cooler and cover them with ice. Of course I would by more than 15! We would have to consume some! Pretty much every morning my brother and I would start the day with Taylor Ham, Egg, and Cheese on a multi-grain English muffin. One summer, we invented the Taylor Hamburger. This was a 1/4 pound burger, which then had a cooked thick slice of Taylor Ham placed atop it, and this was then covered with cheese! Delicious! And of course oh so bad for you!

Anyway, when running Taylor Ham back from NJ to MI, they made the 11.5 hour trip back to Michigan where they were then consumer over the year. SO MUCH cheaper than having it shipped! And of course the slicer worked fine on the 3 pound ones as well. Thin sliced or thick, depending on the way it is being served. Back in 2006 I even made Mac Cheese with diced grilled Taylor Ham in it. So, so, good!

Whenever family was coming to visit from New Jersey, or whenever the X's folks (after they moved to Michigan) were going back east, I'd beg them to bring Taylor Ham for me with them. To heck with Pride, Taylor Ham is just that good! It's been a life long affair and one I hope to continue down the road but less aggressively.

I am sure I will be at a point in time where I can enjoy some of my favorite guilty pleasures, such as White Castle cheeseburgers (or rats as we called them) and Taylor Ham, served any way you can think of!

Fried Pasta - The Fifth Generation

As I've posted before I remember growing up as a child having pasta with homemade sauce twice a week, and, on the occasions there was leftover pasta, it would get put in a bowl with some sauce, and then sometime later in the week it would be fried in olive oil, garlic, basil, and topped with grated cheese.

This was a very cheap and very tasty meal and I remember one of my parents staying their parents remember getting this served to them when they were growing up. Both my parents are gone but this tradition lives on.

SO, last night I fried up some for Danielle and I, adding in a small amount of meatball, pepperoni, and sausage from the left over sauce and it was awesome. Scott ate lomein from down the street. Sigh! He does not like fried pasta.......I wonder what that mailman was doing around the house on weekends I was supposed to be working.....

Danielle has been eating fried pasta for some time...she is the fifth generation (that I know of) in my family that has enjoyed this simple but delicious meal.

Tonight is pasta, garlic bread, sauce and meat from the batch I made Sunday. It promises to be quite the delicious meal....and somewhat affordable since I got three (maybe four if there is left over pasta tonight....) meals out of it.

Buon Appetito!

Recipe - Lasagna Fried In Olive Oil

Growing up as a child in a low to middle income Italian household, pasta was a staple part of the diet. We had it two times a week with homemade sauce as my mother would have jumped off a building before opening a jar of Ragu! I don't know if any of you remember the Ragu spaghetti sauce commercials from those days, but they had an obviously stereotyped Italian guy taking a taste of pasta with Ragu on it and loudly proclaiming "That's Italian!". My mom said he was a traitor to all Italians because the sauce tasted nothing like her homemade version!

Speaking of 'The Sauce', my mom would make the sauce early Sunday morning, we'd have pasta promptly at 1 PM and the remaining sauce would go in the fridge until Thursday evening. More pasta would be made and the sauce remaining from Sunday heated up. There was always salad with oil and vinegar dressing, and Italian bread and butter as accompaniments.

The sauce was always flavored with some kind of meat, anything from sausage, pepperoni, pork, beef, meatballs, whatever, and each type of meat or combination of meats gave each batch of sauce a unique flavor.

Sometimes we had pasta three or four times in a week as leftovers if too much pasta was made Sunday or Thursday. That leftover pasta, which was put away coated with whatever leftover sauce there was, was then placed into a frying pan with hot olive oil and some spices and fried. As soon as it was taken out of the pan it was served with freshly grated cheese on top of it. Delicious! If you have never tried fried pasta like this, you really should.

So, today I wondered if leftover lasagna could be treated this way, and the answer is a resounding Yes. YES!! For those of you who do not make their own lasagna, I see no reason that you couldn't do this with some store bought frozen lasagna which would certainly improve its taste tenfold at least, in my humble opinion.

Ingredients:
Leftover or heated frozen lasagna, two to three servings
1 tsp dried basil
1/2 tsp dried oregano
1/2 tsp garlic powder
1/2 cup shredded four cheese blend (I use Asiago, Fontina, Parmesan, & Provolone)
4 tbs Olive Oil

Preparation:
Heat leftover lasagna in microwave until warm, for frozen lasagna heat according package directions. Heat oil in frying pan over medium heat. Slice the lasagna in 1 inch wide pieces and add on side to frying pan after oil is hot. Sprinkle with garlic, basil, and oregano. Cook covered three minutes, turn pieces over, and cook and additional three minutes. Turn off heat and top with shredded cheese blend and let sit covered until cheese is melted.

Serve and enjoy!

RecipeChris' Pasta with Hearty Meat Sauce

Ingredients:
3/4 pound ground beef (92% lean or ground sirloin)
3 ounces Hormel sliced turkey pepperoni, diced
4 tablespoons olive oil
1/2 cup diced white onion
1/2 cup diced red bell pepper
1 1/2 cups warm water
4 cloves crushed fresh garlic
1/2 tsp dried oregano
1/4 tsp crushed red pepper flakes
1/2 cup fresh basil (shredded)
12 ounces Deamfield Pasta
Freshly grated Romano to taste
Freshly ground black pepper to taste

Preparation:
Heat olive oil in a large non-stick frying pan over medium heat and add garlic. Once garlic begins to sizzle stir in onion and pepper cooking for two minutes. Add mushrooms and sprinkle to taste with freshly ground black pepper. Cook to desired doneness (I like my onions, peppers, and mushrooms just starting to get brown) and add ground beef and diced pepperoni cooking for two minutes.

Add 8 ounce can of tomato paste and warm water. Stir until tomato paste and water are well combined. Add basil, oregano, and red pepper flakes. Stir, and then cover and simmer on low heat for 20 minutes stirring occasionally.

Have a pot of water boiling when there is 10 minutes left on sauce and prepare 8 ounces Dreamfield Pasta (I used Spaghetti this time) to package directions, drain, and top with meat sauce. Sprinkle freshly grated Romano cheese on top.

Serves three to four.

Recipe - Pasta Samball

Pasta Samball (Serves four)

I had the urge to have some Samball Olek last evening. It turned out so good I decided to share the recipe. It's quick, easy, and tasty and nowhere near as spicy as you might think from the amount of Samball in it.

I was out of tomato sauce and since I already had items cooking on the stove I could not go back to the store, so I substituted Heinz low carb ketchup, and the dish was awesome!

Once again, I must stress that the Conimex Samball is by far the best! If you can't get it locally you can order it online here. In my humble opinion, you have NOT had Samball Olek if you have not had this brand.

Ingredients:
1/2 pound Dreamfield Rotini Pasta
3/4 pound 92% Lean ground beef
1 large yellow onion, sliced thinly
1/2 pound sliced fresh mushrooms
1/2 cup Conimex Samball Olek
1/2 cup Heinz low carb ketchup
2 tablespoons chopped garlic
1/2 cup fresh basil leaves, torn or chopped
Freshly ground black pepper to taste
Freshly grated Romano cheese to taste
PAM Olive Oil Spray

Preparation:
Put on water for pasta and spray a large frying pan with PAM and place over medium flame. Add sliced onions and garlic. Cook until unions just translucent, stirring often.

Add pasta to water and cook to package directions while following rest of recipe. Drain pasta and return to covered pot after spraying the bottom of the pot with olive oil PAM.

Add mushrooms and basil to frying pan and cover. Let cook for five minutes, stirring once or twice. Add Samball and ground beef, cover and cook for five minutes, stirring once midway through and making sure ground beef is broken into small pieces as cooking proceeds.

Season with with freshly ground black pepper to taste and add low carb ketchup; stir to heat through. Turn off heat and stir in pasta, cover, and leave sit for 5 minutes.

Before serving sprinkle top with freshly grated Romano cheese.

Salad du jour

Here's today's $2.64 salad, with lettuce, carrots, peas, broccoli, onions, turkey, jalapenos, banana pepper rings, some hard boiled egg, a couple of slices of peperoni, celery and sliced pickle. not pictures, the Kraft Fat free French dressing.

It was delicious, and such a bargain! Let the lunch time feasting begin!!!