Teriyaki Chicken

This recipe I got from allrecipes.com from a man by the name of: William Anatooskin. You can find that here: http://allrecipes.com//Recipe/teriyaki-chicken/Detail.aspx

I followed the recipe as it was except I substituted whole chicken for boneless, skinless thighs and had reduced sodium soy sauce.

Chicken Teriyaki

Ingredients

12 boneless skinless chicken thighs (each piece cut into fours)

3/4 cup granulated sugar

3/4 cup reduced sodium soy sauce

1 tablespoon grated fresh ginger

2 cloves garlic, minced

Directions

Rinse chicken, and pat dry with paper towels. Place chicken in a 9x13 inch baking dish.

In a medium mixing bowl, combine sugar, soy sauce, grated ginger and garlic. Mix well, and pour mixture over chicken. Cover and refrigerate for at least 3 hours.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C).

Bake chicken uncovered in the preheated oven for 30-40 mins, basting frequently. Test for doneness, making sure there is no pink left in the meat. Let cool slightly then serve.

For 8 pieces:

Cals: 323 Carbs: 23 Fat: 11

Notes: I added some lemon squeezings as well in the end to brighten the flavors of the marinade up, VERY good addition. This chicken was the first thing to go from everyones plate. Served it up with a side of stir fried veggies, no sauce added to it..

I had to include this cute pic of my daughter getting a load of all her favorite Chinese fixings at home!

This whole plate of food, which is easily a plate and a half worth from restaurant chinese... 805 calories total.

Low Cal Crab Rangoons

I got the original guidlines for the recipe here: http://chinese.food.com/recipe/crab-rangoon-31927

I don't deep fry, so i changed this up and lowered all the fattening elements by eliminating the oil, full fat cream cheese and egg.

Crab Rangoons:

1 (6 ounce) can crabmeat

8 ounces neufchatel cream cheese, room temp

1/2 tablespoon minced garlic

1/4 tsp grated ginger root

1 dash Worcestershire sauce

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 dash white pepper

1/4 c. green onions

wonton skins

cooking spray

cup of water

Change Measurements: US | Metric

Directions:

Prep Time: 20 mins

Total Time: 22 mins

1 Pick over the crab to remove pieces of shell.

Mix together first 8 ingredients then:

2 Use only about 1/2 t of filling for each wonton.

3 Seal edges with water.

4 (Make sure you squeeze out all the air or they'll pop open during baking and make a real mess)!

5 Bake at 350 25-30 minutes or until golden

per serving (2 pieces)

Cals: 233 Carbs: 24g Fat: 8g

I tried different shapes I have seen at restaurants to see which ones held up to baking the best. The pentagon and the ones that look like a drawstring purse are the ones that did the best. The 4 pointed and triangle ones failed miserably. Next time I might allow the extra calories and try it with egg...

My opinion of these are that they are pretty good. In need of some tweaking though as they were bland. I think it was missing garlic and some onion flavor to them. Next time Ill either add onion flakes or minced onion to the mixture along with a bit of garlic powder. I had minced fresh garlic, but maybe not enough for the amount of cream cheese.

A Chinese Food Kind of Day

I LOVE Chinese food. I am a buffet kind of gal. However, the average buffet visit can easily average well over 3,000 cals per plate. Especially when you love all the stuff I do. Crab Rangoons alone, I could eat 1,000 cals worth (about 5).... So yeah... I decided to make some at home myself. I did not fly alone... I kind of wish I had on some of this, but Ill notate what I think needs fixed and you can experiment or wait until next month when I try it again and see if I can get it right.

first the egg rolls... This is via myfitnesspals member lina1131:

Baked Egg Rolls

You will need:

1 Package of Coleslaw Mix
Green Onions, sliced
Sliced Mushrooms, chopped & diced
Zucchini, diced
1 Can Bean Sprouts, drained

Soy Sauce
Oyster Sauce
Fresh minced garlic
Fresh grated ginger

Egg Roll Wrappers
! Egg, beaten
PAM Spray

For the filling:

Add all the veggies to the pot on a medium heat and mix for a few minutes until the veggies are warmed up. Mix the soy sauce, oyster sauce, garlic and ginger in bowl and dump over the veggies and mix well. Set veggies aside to cool for a few minutes.

Once the veggies are cooled, fill your egg roll wrappers with filling and assemble (there are tons of instructions online on how to assemble an egg roll. It is even on the back of the egg roll wrapper). Be sure to use a little egg to seal the wrapper.

Spray a cookie sheet with PAM and line the egg rolls on cookie sheet. Spray the top of the egg rolls with PAM (just a little, you don't want to coat too much).

Bake on 350 for a good 25 minutes. You might want to broil for a few minutes too to get them crispy on top!

Each egg roll is only 73 calories and they are a pretty good size!

These are pretty good. I thought the shell came out chewy hard instead of crunchy fried hard like we know so well. However, it does give the impression of an egg roll. The only thing I would do different is to not add the sauce mix next time. The ones in the restaurant dont have that added. So, next time, neither will I. See if that gives me the complete egg roll feeling. You let me know if you try it without and how it came out for you.

I am going to do separate blogs for each dish so it doesn't get too long...

OMG! I just ran 1/3 of a half mile stint. I know thats not much, but I havent ran since before I broke my leg! I have been terrified of getting hurt again. That my bones would snap and I would go through all that pain again.

I started off walking. I walked one lap which is just shy of a quarter mile. Had to warm up. The old me wanted to quit right then. I was tired and slightly winded. I could feel that old voice in my head telling me it was good enough. That I got out there and walked. That was enough.

Well, the new me reared up at that. In my past life I SO would have quit right there. The new me snapped back and said NO! I am breaking out of my comfort zone. Not just with trying new foods, but with pushing myself past my comfort zone physically too. So I went on to do interval training. I walked from one station (our park has fitness stations) to another, then jogged the next, then walked and so on and so forth. Until I made it to the end. Liberating!

Today I have a jam packed schedule. I have some errands to run, got to take the kids to the doctors and I am going to Peoplelink Staffing and telling them off. They didnt even give me a chance! They set me up for a factory tour and then told me I wasnt employable because of my lack of recent work history. Thats a lot of people. I cant help it my daughter gets sick easy. I cant guarantee that she wont be sick again either! What I do know is that I need money right now. And I deserve an equal opportunity of employment.

I thought since I had good work history with that company that I would be able to get a fair deal. I guess not. And yes there is a lot of bitterness in that statement. Its not fair that I cant seem to get a break anymore. Sometimes, I wonder if God is trying to keep me down and needy for kicks. I know the lowliest and meek are the ones He is going to save first... still, I have a huge electric bill I need to get paid. RIGHT NOW!

Kale For Sale

I tried Glory Brand Kale Greens. Ready to cook in a bag. I thought it would be simpler than trying to process a veggie I have never had before. The whole experiment was a bit unnerving. Kale is one green I have really fought trying.

Its just so WEIRD looking isnt it?

So I tried this wonder veggie plain. I was not impressed at all. It was bitter and kind of grassy flavored at the same time. Kind of on the gross side. Plain, it was horrible. So, I decided to give it another chance and put it in my salad. I find that when odd veggies taste nasty on their own, they are at least tolerable in a salad. Here is a typical salad mix that I use. I portion out all of these ingredients in proper amounts.

I love a good crunchy and flavorful salad. Anyways, back to the kale. I had it in my salad and I could hardly tell it was there. Which is good because if you want to read up on the benefits of kale you can follow this link right here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kale

I am not entirely wild about this vegetable and since I have this giant bag of it, Ill be looking for other ways to eat it up. Not sure if Im getting another one. I guess it depends how the other ways I eat it comes out. Im going to make Colcannon, which is a traditional Irish dish in which they take boiled potatoes and mash kale and butter into them and let the kale just kind of wilt down into it like spinach. The other way is, I made some ham and beans. I heard it is good in soups so Ill try it in a small pot of ham and beans for an extra nutritional kick. I think it might also be able to be snuck into a morning shake pretty easily. If all of these ideas fail, then I will not be buying it again.

One Month Anniversary

I weighed in this morning at 365.6. I am down almost 20 lbs in a month. That was the single best month of weight loss ever. It was effortless and easy as can be. Look tonight for a post on the Kale. Ive decided to put it in the salad and to have it as Col cannon tomorrow... Or I might wait until St Pattys day to do this dish. Im sure it will last that long.

Alfalfa Sprouts

Today is the first day of my food product review. I had Sandra Lee brand Alfalfa Sprouts. I don't mind saying that I have been intimidated by this bit of vegetation my whole life. They are weird looking and come on... SPROUTS?!?!

I tried them today. I have been trying to get into the mindset of being open minded when it comes to new things. I first tried it plain. I have to tell you I was not impressed at all. If you ever chewed a blade of grass as a child, this is something akin to eating alfalfa sprouts. It has a grassy flavor with an earthy (aka dirt) aftertaste. I was about to be turned off of the whole sprouts adventure.

However, I sucked it up and put some in the salad I was eating. Made my salad like normal and tried a bite.... Let me tell you something... These things stink on their own, but as a salad accompaniment, they are amazing. They add extra texture and just an all around better taste to the salad. You could have blown my hair back with how awesome it was.

I have a good size box of this stuff left. So I am going to look up more ways to use them. In other words, this won't be the last you will hear about alfalfa sprouts.

Tomorrow or Monday I shall be trying Kale. Its St. Patricks Day week in my weight loss group and Im fairly certain that my sister is going to post my idea for a challenge. And even if she doesn't, I'm going to still try something new... Every week....

To find out about the health benefits of Alfalfa go here:

http://www.juicing-for-health.com/alfalfa-sprouts-nutrition.html