up all night

I’m Still slogging away at these photos!  It’s a lot of work, but I’m enjoying it.  Unfortunately I’m not sleeping much. 

Wednesday morning I had to wake up at 4:50 to take Dan to the airport and then on Thursday morning I went to sleep at 1am (editing photos) and then woke up in a panic at 5:30 terrified that I was late to work. 

I went to turn on the water and nothing came out, thankfully that snapped me out of it and I went back to sleep.  Unfortunately, the water was still not on when I woke up! Boo.

But aren’t the pictures worth it?
 
I know these might seem basic to some of you, but I need to read things a few times before they sink in, so for any of you

1. Vegetables and croutons must be roasted flat and can not be stacked.
 
2. When roasting a whole chicken you need to truss the bird or else the legs and wings will spread out and dry out.

3. Roast poultry at higher temperature than beef to brown the skin.
 
4. Roast a turkey for 10-15 minutes/pound at 375.




do you ever wake up confused about what time it is/disoriented?

Seven tips for the perfect sauté

I’ve also decided that I’ll leave you with some cooking tips.  I haven’t done this in awhile, but I have them typed up so here you are.

Today’s tip is all about sautéing!

1. When sautéing always completely dry the meat (or fish) first.
2. Never cover something you are sautéing
3. When sautéing always use the least amount of oil possible.

4. When you sauté you do not need to stir very often.
5. When sautéing onions, you know they are ready when they are translucent.
6. When you sauté something absorbent (ex. mushrooms) add extra oil since it will drink up the oil more readily.


What tips do you want to share on sautéing?

Roast chicken recipe

Has anyone noticed that most roast chicken recipes are called “perfect roast chicken?”  Before Thanksgiving, Dan was a little intimidated by cooking an entire bird, now that he has successfully made a delicious 12 pound turkey, a teeny roast chicken was no big deal!  And boy did he rock this recipe.  It's adapted from the Naked Chef and it a delicious and really inexpensive meal.

 

Ingredients:

• 1 3 lbs chicken
• salt and pepper
• handful of basil
• .25 c olive oil
• lemon
• 4 bay leaves
• 2 sprigs of fresh rosemary

 

Instructions:

Preheat oven to 375.

 

Wash the chicken inside and out and dry completely.  Rub salt on the inside of the chicken.  Grab the end of the skin on the chicken breast.  While holding the skin slowly slide your other hand underneath being careful not to tear the skin.  Sprinkle salt under the skin and then add the basil.

 

Stuff the cavity of the chicken with the lemon some bay leaves and some rosemary.

 

Truss the chicken by taking 100% cotton twine and wrapping around the wings bring under the bird and tie the legs together.  Rest the bird on the roasting rack breasts down(never rest it directly on the roasting pan-this will cook the bird too quickly).  Cook it for about 20-22 minutes then flip it to it’s side and cook 20 or so minutes longer (slide tongs into the cavity to get a good grip).  Flip the bird one last time so it’s breast side up and cook for the last 20 minutes.  Once the bird is fully cooked and the temperature in the thigh meat reaches about 170 degrees, let the chicken rest on the counter for about 10-15 minutes. 

 

I wish I were a good enough writer to describe the carving process.  Alas.  I am not! 

Nutritionals(4 servings): Cals: 389, Fat: 20, Carb: 1.3, Fiber:.02, Protein: 48.7

making sausage dishes

The weekend went by so fast!  Every time I thought that I was done Christmas shopping, another idea, or needed recipient popped into mind. 

 

My college roommates and I exchange ornaments every year and since 2009 had been a momentous year for all of us (Dan and my first year married, Rachel got engaged to Mateo and is getting married Jan 2, Melissa and Roger got engaged and Married, and Jessie and Kit (and owen) added Adelaide to their family).   I wanted to find something special and I didn’t see something halfway appropriate until today.  Yay.  Oh and guys if you are reading this, I’m going to bring the ornaments to Goshen :)

 

Today started with yet another trip to Panera, our friends Brad and Tina were in Denver and so we met them for breakfast.  Since I had the power sandwich yesterday, I had the everything bagel with low fat cream cheese.

This hit the spot and totally fueled my run!  After the run I wasn’t very hungry so I waited a minute and then had some leftover sausage and polenta from lunch yesterday.

I also had some clementines but their picture didn’t turn out.  I also finished up the not even half of a whole serving of peppermint ice cream that has been sitting in our freezer.

A little later I got peckish and snacked on a few rolos.  This aren’t allowed in our house anymore.  Dan doesn’t really like them and I like them a little too much!

Dan made the sausage and bean casserole for dinner(this was a LOT of casserole for one weekend! yikes).  I was still hungry so I ate an entire serving and was really satisfied.

We have just finished cleaning the apartment and making sure that Dan is ready to fly to Baltimore tomorrow.  We’re wondering if he is going to get bumped or not.  Flights are definitely not on regular schedules back east!  I just heard that they have the day off tomorrow.  Man! We get that amount of snow, and don’t even get to go home early!

 

Cooking Tip:  To easily get the skin of the garlic push down on the clove with your palm until you hear the crack and the skin will fall right off!

Seasoned Chef pt. 2

Dan and I had our last class cooking class on Wednesday.  And boy was it delicious.  One of our tablemates had actually run across the blog when she was googling the recipes :)  During this class I got to practice my knife skills while Dan got to make ice cream and Ceaser’s salad.  The menu that night was delicious and filled with butter :) We learned a ton of new tips that I will be sharing with you going forward!  Our menu was like so:

 

Southwestern Black Bean Soup and Cilantro Pesto (I helped with this! Cilantro pesto is so delicious.)

Classic Caesar Salad(Dan helped on this one)

Pasta with Roasted Tomato Sauce (probably the best tomato sauce I’ve had in a long time!)

Perfect Roasted Chicken with Marsala-Sun Dried Tomato Veloute.  I didn’t really taste the veloute, but the chicken was perfect.

Asparagus with Hollandaise Sauce

Wine Poached Pears with Homemade Cinnamon Ice Cream.

If anyone in Denver is looking for cooking class, we highly recommend the Seasoned Chef.  In fact, we are thinking about signing up for some more classes for our birthdays.

fitted wardrobe

I have this pair of trouser jeans that are just a hair too short.  Andrea suggested that the hem was long enough that I could easily get them let down.  Why didn’t I think of that first?  I chewed on that for awhile.  when I first bought the pants they were just a little too snug so I figured that when I lost some weight, the pants would get some length. 

 

(Just Pineapple, All bran bran buds, and Just Bunches)

Well, I’ve lost the weight, they are getting baggy and the pants are still not the right length.  I also realized that in my mind clothes are temporary.  My entire life I have cycled either up or down between sizes.  This kept my wardrobe pretty small and meant that whenever a button fell off or I’d like them hem lengthened, I didn’t bother.  The clothes wouldn’t fit in a year anyway.  I don’t own any “investment pieces”  sadly enough the longest living items in my closet are my sweatshirts. 

(a yummy red grapefruit)

I am bringing all of this up because it is something I am most looking forward to in that mythical maintenance place.  I want to own nice pieces of clothing and build my wardrobe up each year, not replace items that no longer fit. 

(leftover round tip beef with mushroom ragout)

How about you guys, do you have investment pieces of clothing?  Do you save clothes from each size?

(more round tip beef)

Cooking Tip:

Never fill the blender more than half full of hot liquids.  It could be a painful experiment if you do!

(minted spaghetti squash)

Photoshop Tip:

No matter which photoshop you use, don’t let the preset standards stick around.  You can adjust which tools show up on the right hand side of the workspace.  I have added a histogram, a navigator, layers, color swatches, and undo history.  Which tools do you use?

(a handful or so of rolos throughout the day….Ooops)

SpringPad

Things are going to be changing around here!  I’ve been realizing that posting my daily foods at night is too tough because of a short time frame.  To rectify this I’m going to switch my posts around.  My daily updates will go up in the morning and recipes at night. 

 

Speaking of recipes, I’ve recently teamed up with Springpad to make it easier for people to save and organize the recipes on Fat Buster!  You may notice the Spring pad button appearing on a number of recipe posts.

 

All you need to do to save a particular recipe is click on the link, it will direct you to sign in to your springpad account or register for one.  Then the recipe will be added to your springpad without taking you away from the recipe page.  Springpad will help you organize recipes or other items you find online and to make weekly menus and shopping lists.  I’m still exploring all of the capabilities, so if you do join, friend me and see what I have saved to my account!

Cooking Tip:

When you make a mayonnaise always use regular olive oil, not extra virgin olive oil (EVOO).  In fact, Chef Dan says not to use extra virgin olive oil unless you are making a vinaigrette.

Photoshop Tip: 

Create a system.  I have started a system in my organizer that goes through all the pictures and labels them by food groups that I designate.  (Carbs, breakfasts, sides, desserts, protein, products).  I use starts to indicate pictures that I want to use in the post or submit to tastespotting or whatnot.

How do you organize your images?

Broken phone

My pile of to do’s are piling up!  I use the coffee table to store items that I need to look at or read at night.  It’s  overflowing and I can’t find anywhere to place my computer!  Guess I need to write this blog post! 

Holiday season is in full swing, and one of our contractors sent us a package of Harry & David treats.  Don’t they know that I’m on a diet?  At one point I looked over to the area that it was stored and saw three of my male coworkers sitting around the treats table with large pieces of chocolate fudge on their plates.  They were shooting the breeze and munching away without a care in the world.  A few hours later Andrea and I found ourselves at the treats table and spent a few minutes debating calories and cheating etc. etc.  Isn’t it funny how different people can be?

Breakfast today was a little bit different.  We’re out of Mix 1s, so I had some all bran bran buds, Just Pineapple, 2% milk and Just Bunches-from Honey Bunches of Oats.  Overall it was a very tasty.

Mid-morning snack was three Clementine's.

Lunch was leftover shrimp pot pie.

And of course, some rolos.  And I know you are thinking, didn’t she say she had a Harry and David Treat?  The answer is yes.  I had both.  I split a cookie with Andrea and I had four rolos (hangs head in shame).

While I was walking home I dropped my blackberry and broke it!  The roller popped right out and I lost the piece that held it in.  Guess I need to get a new toy.  I have the best husband ever since he’s probably going to give me his new every two so I can get another phone.  Isn’t he fantastic :)

Dan did his cooking class homework for dinner and made Round-Tip Beef with Ragout.

It turned out fantastic!  Best husband ever!

Cooking Tip of the Day:
When you are boiling water at altitude it is impacted at the rate of 2 degrees for every 1,000 feet.  At 5,000 feet water boils at 10 degrees colder than at sea level.
Photoshop Tip of the Day:
Want an easy way to correct the white balance?  Use the camera raw function, take the eyedropper and click on something you know is pure white.  The white balance will automatically change.

Sorry for the late post again, I had to work late today :(

Holiday Cheer

Happy Monday All!  After an extra long day I came home to a lot of holiday cheer, best of all was a super sweet letter from our favorite fluffy sheep, Simone.  Thanks Simone!  And here’s my link to the mushroom pizza just for you(go halfway down it’s between the first two pictures of the pizza).

 

Breakfast today was my usual but it was not enough for me.  I was hungry before lunch, so when you see my lunch pictures remember that!

 

So, for my usual breakfast, I had  Mix 1 

Some all bran bran buds and Just Pineapple.  Funny story about these, I’m apparently pretty messy when I eat them at my desk and I looked under my desk at one point and thought I saw mouse droppings.  Alas it was just a few bran buds.  oops!

My mid-morning snack was three Clementine's, they are so sweet and delicious.

We went out to lunch today for a coworkers birthday.  This is where things got dicey.  I was super hungry and when I saw Shrimp Po-Boys on the menu, I couldn’t resist.

 

I also had a few French fries.  Not a great lunch!

Dinner was a pasta and chickpeas concoction.

I added a ton of red pepper flakes for aesthetic beauty.  It was SO SPICY!

 

But C’mon, isn’t that pretty?

 

Well, sorry about the late post!

 

Cooking tip of the day: Don’t eat the skin of the fish, the skin and the fats right under it hold all the mercury.  So be sure to avoid!

 

Photoshop tip of the day: Use the Photoshop organizer, in Photoshop elements 7 press F11 for full screen.  It’s a fantastic way to see actual pixels and make sure your picture is sharp before you bother with editing.

Holiday Party Survival

Happy Sunday Morning!  I woke up still sleepy even after a long and well-deserved sleep last night.  The entire day yesterday was fabulous.  I’m just left with some things to think through.  The major piece is my eye-fi.  It isn’t compatible with RAW images.  My class yesterday was so interesting and my teacher convinced me that RAW is the way to go when shooting because it doesn’t compress any of the pixels like jpegs do.  So, what to do!  He also caught a glimpse of my photos and is convinced that I should upgrade to full Photoshop.  No one tells you how expensive this whole camera thing is AFTER the purchase of the camera.

My eating was pretty good yesterday.  I had a kinda heavy breakfast(2 servings of honey bunches of oats and all bran bran buds)

which held me until a pretty late lunch at Panera with my classmates.



Class didn’t get out until 5, and we had not one but two holiday parties to go to last night.  I came home, changed, and walked right out the door.  Dan made me a turkey burger and I had a few Clementine cuties in my bag. (not pictured) 

I found that it was easy to survive the holiday party food if I didn’t get too close to the tables with the food or at least face them.  Party #1 was a glass wine, a brownie, and two (homemade!) caramels.  Party #2 was a glass of sangria type drink, a beer, 4 or 5 tortilla chips, and 4 or 5 pieces of chex mix.  Those were our only holiday parties and I totally aced both (eating wise, I failed food photography wise).  

I did get to meet another girl who went to my college.  This is unique because I went to a VERY small (1500 student) school in Mass. It’s not every day you accidentally meet someone from there!

Photoshop tip of the day:
This one is easy, if you can, shoot in RAW, you will have so much more control over the picture!

Cooking tip of the day:
Risotto is the anti-rice.  Rice should not be stirred but risotto needs to be constantly stirred!