Anyhoo -
So - Today I cooked WOMAN food!!!! Food that my boys and my boyfriend LOVES! Food that *I* love!!!!! And that's what really matters, right??? RIGHT!
So, I started off by cooking some boneless, skinless chicken breasts a few nights ago. So I had those as a base. I had also purchased a bunch of tomatillos the last time I was at the grocery store. (What in the heck are tomatillos, you ask?? Basically a green tomato with this weird husk on them. VERY good!)
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| Tomatillos, ready to prepare! |
So, as the Enchilada Suizas were cooking I finished up another recipe I had started the other day. I bought several eggplants and oven roasted them the other night. Then today I finished up the recipe for Eggplant with Tomatoes & Chickpeas. SO DAMN GOOD!!!!! I'll also post this recipe after I have a chance to take a picture of the finished product. I packed it in the fridge already without taking a picture. Oops!
Well, I ended up with some leftover chicken from the Enchilada Suizas, so I whipped up some Chipotle Chicken Salad for my lunch. WOW!!!! First time I ever made that - and it was SOOoooo good! I served it on a HUGE bed of arugula & spring mix, chopped up an ounce of fresh mozzarella cheese. Yum!
I tend to be a whirlwind in the kitchen. In the span of about a hour I prepared 3 separate meals. I'm prepared - and that is SUCH a good feeling! I got a babysitter for tonight so I'm ready for Zumba. I feel in control!
The reason the second title of this blog is "Don't be scared of new things" is for this reason - It is VERY easy to get in a rut. A rut of cooking - a rut of exercise - a rut of using the same bathroom stall every... single... time.... (Well - the bathroom stall thing might not be an issue, but I think doing the same thing every day is NOT good for you!)
When you join Weight Watchers you get free access to e-tools. E-tools is a tool (duh!) that you can use to help you be successful with weight loss!!!!! You can track your meals (which I do, religiously, every SINGLE day). You can track your exercise, create recipes, look up recipes, get ideas for exercise, etc.... I'm sure I haven't even used e-tools to my full advantage.
The reason I mention this specifically in this post is for the recipes..... It's easy to climb out of your rut when you cook different foods OR if you cook the same foods - differently!!!! Here's what I mean.....
I was speaking with a friend yesterday about Weight Watchers. She was asking me how I was doing it because she is struggling. The first thing I asked was if she was tracking. She's not. But she showed me this space-aged scale that I could NOT figure out! Supposedly you can track your entire day on the scale, but apparently you need an advanced degree in mechanical engineering to figure the damn thing out! So, she has this kick-ass scale that she DOESN'T USE!!!! So, because of this she doesn't track. So, the second thing I mentioned was e-tools. It is such an easy way to track. You don't need any fancy tools (just a computer, some measuring spoons / cups & a scale - a LOW-TECH scale!!!). If you happen to have a smart phone you can track on that instead of on the computer. I have an iPhone, so all of my tracking happens pretty much as I'm putting the food in my mouth. The days that I slack, and track later, all hell usually breaks out and I go over on my points.
Back to the topic.... e-tools & recipes. My low-tech scale just shows me ounces. I then plug in the weight of the food I just had on the scale into e-tools. It miraculously calculates how many PointsPlus in the food. Couldn't be easier! E-tools & my low-tech scale also makes it very easy for me to create my own recipes. A lot of the recipes I've posted in this blog are just recipes I've modified from foods I like to cook. Others are from my extensive collection of Weight Watchers cookbooks. Others I've found on e-tools.....
So, back to my conversation with my friend. Just for shits & grins we got onto her e-tools and I showed her around a little bit. She'd mentioned that she made Shepard's pie that day and we looked it up on e-tools and she was shocked to see that a serving was 10 PointsPlus. So, to see if her recipe was similar to the recipe we found in the Weight Watchers list of foods on e-tools we created her recipe - and sure enough - it was 10 PointsPlus. I don't think she was very happy about this.
I then logged onto my e-tools & my blog and showed her the Shepard's Pie recipe I'd made the other day. It was 5 points (and was delicious, I might add!!!!). She noticed that it had a lot of veggies and immediately thought that her family (a BUNCH of boys) would NOT like it. I have a few boys (not as many as her!!!) and my kids ate it and LOVED it! I've pretty much figured out that if I cook it, they'll eat it - because if they don't - they're going to bed hungry! I also started them off with lots of fruits & veggies when they were little - so eating Shepard's Pie with spinach, carrots & corn wasn't a very big deal. In fact - Grayson even asked "How do they make it so you don't taste the spinach?" I answered that *I* made it, and I didn't know!!! He just kept cleaning his plate and was so satisfied! :) Makes me feel pretty damn good!
So - really - I'm finally to my point of Don't be scared of new things!!!! Don't be scared of new things!!!!! :) Feed your family the SAME FOOD that you eat! Modifying your food choices does NOT mean you have to cook completely different meals for you as you do for your family! Eating right is a FAMILY affair. You owe it to yourself AND your family to cultivate some seriously good eating habits for ALL of you! I don't care if you've been feeding your kids hot dogs & mac 'n cheese every day for the past 5 years. SWITCH NOW!!!!! Trust me - they won't starve!!!!! I read somewhere that it takes something like 2 dozen tastes of a new food for you to acquire a taste for it. (I wish I could find the reference - but here is a link to how to learn the foods you don't like instead!) http://summertomato.com/learning-to-love-foods-you-dont-like/
So, I ALWAYS require that my kids try the new food on their plate. Sometimes they surprise themselves and like it right off the bat! Sometimes they struggle, and I'm ok with them just eating 1 bite of whatever they're REALLY not liking. BUT, that doesn't stop me from offering it to them again and again and again and again - until I hear "Wow, Mom, this is really good!". Trust me - IT WILL HAPPEN!!!!! :) There are very few foods that my boys won't eat. They're pretty adventurous little foodies. Grayson LOVES seafood, and Preston will usually eat everything that is offered to him without much of a fuss. If they're REALLY struggling I'll squirt some light ranch on their plates and tell them to dip! It really works!!!!
So - how do YOU start liking new foods?!?!?! COOK THEM!!!!! You might look at the tomatillos at the grocery store and SERIOUSLY not want to eat them - but have you tried them? Have you tried Jicama yet in the Sesame Crusted Chicken breasts with Jicama mango salsa? WHY NOT??!?!?!? Stop being stuck in the rut of the SAME OLD FOODS. Browse through a cool cookbook at the library. Check out a foodie blog. http://foodblogga.blogspot.com/2008/10/this-mac-n-cheese-tastes-like-doritos.html Look on e-tools. Try one of the recipes that I cook! Try something new!!!! Hey - you just might like it! :)
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