Monthly cooking plans

Well, all the food that I cooked during the first week of the year is almost gone. We have about 5 bags of taco meat (4 servings each), 2 Caribbean Jerk chicken breasts and 4 servings of soup left. That means it's just about time to plan another massive crockpot cooking adventure for another month to month and a half's worth of food. I can't tell you how convenient it has been to just pull something out of the freezer to heat up and only need to make quick sides like rice, potatoes or veggies! So, what's on the menu for the next cooking excursion? I know that there will be:

• Vegetarian chili
• Texas style beef chili
• 3 Meat Jambalaya x2
• Honey & Orange Tofu x2
• Shrimp Etouffee x2
• SBD Savory Chicken Saute x2
• Pork & Shrimp Wonton x3 (should make about 180 pieces)

I've got to look around for some new crock pot recipes to try out, maybe 3 of them. Once I figure out the new recipes that should be enough food to get up to the end of next month all done.

Possible new recipes to try:

• Crock pot Flank Steak Fajitas
• Salisbury Steak and Carmelized Onion Gravy (Crockpot)
• Crock pot BBQ Ribs (YES!)
• Crock pot Pork Chops
• Crock pot Lasagna (for carb loading weeks)
• Crock pot Spaghetti (for carb loading weeks)

If you have any to die for crock pot recipes that you think I might be interested in trying, just leave the recipe in the comments please! I likely won't be cooking until the weekend or next week.

100 Days Challenge:

• 1½ mile walk with the grandpup in 20 minutes
• Turbo Sculpt video workout 39 minutes

What I Ate Today:

• 8 chocolate chip cookies
• 12 oz non-fat, lactose free milk
• 3oz beef tips
• ½ cup white rice
• 1¼ cup steamed broccoli
• 32 oz iced tea with 6 packets Splenda (in 2 servings)
• 1½ cups cheddar & broccoli soup
• 20 oz G2
• 1 bag microwave popcorn

Alkalete Review Day 9:

So, after running 13.22 miles yesterday I expected to be sore quite a bit today, but that wasn't the case. Granted, the first day after a long run I'm not usually very sore so we'll have to wait to see if I'm walking tomorrow! I feel pretty good...took the grand pup to the park and walked around a bit. Got ready for Aqua Zumba but class was cancelled due to only 3 of us showing up (the other 2 ladies just swam, but since I don't swim...well). If I'm not sore tomorrow I'll be impressed, but for now I'll just have to wait and see...

(Slow) Cooking frenzy...

I'm not quite sure what's been going on for the past three weeks or so in regards to my using the crock pots to cook our meals. Usually I truly hate to cook, whether using the crock pots or cooking on the stove/oven. But things have been different lately. Since there's only the two of us we usually get several days worth of food from each recipe that I make. I don't think I've ever used the crock pots as much as I have in these past weeks! Sure, I'd use them every once in a while, typically for chili or stew and the occasional pot roast; but this time around I'm making soups, other new recipes, the usual comfort food and even candy!! In my efforts this time around I discovered that the slow cookers I had were smaller than I thought. I now have the following sizes:  2½ quarts, a 3½ quarts, 5 quarts, 6 quarts and 7 quarts. I even had two 3 quart slow cookers that I am giving/have given to each of the kids. There have been days when I've had 4 crocks going at the same time...which would have included today but I made the mistake of sending the old man to get some ingredients for me and of course he either couldn't find them or got the wrong thing. Oh well. That means I'll be cooking on Monday since we'll be out of town most of the day tomorrow.

So, what have I made in the slow cookers?

Chili (my own cheater recipe, made 3 times)
Old Fisherman's Grotto Clam Chowder (3 times)
Balsamic Chicken
French Onion Soup
Skinny Broccoli Cheese Soup
Granny's Slow Cooker Vegetarian Chili (3 times)
Zucchini & Chicken Ziti
Crock Pot BBQ Chicken
Crock Pot Sugared Cinnamon Pecans
Skinny Chocolate Fudge
Skinny Glazed Sweet Potatoes

All those recipes have been supplemented with some oven/stove based recipes such as Pork & Shrimp Won Ton Soup, Flounder with Shrimp Sauce, French Bread Pizza, Easy Nachos and Swedish Meatballs; side dishes such as Hasselback Potatoes, Ultra Crispy Roast Potatoes, Oven Roasted Veggies and Swedish Boiled Dill Potatoes.

On the books for Monday I have planned Skinny French Toast Casserole, Skinny Rosemary Potato Soup & Skinny Chocolate Turtles. Geez, looking at this list I just now realized that I haven't really cooked this much since I stopped doing my Once a Month Cooking (OAMC) years ago when I'd spend a whole weekend cooking enough food to last a month. With just the two of us I always manage to have enough to put some food up in the freezer so we always have a supply of food available so I'd say we have at least a week's worth of food in the freezer at present. Well, I guess we won't be starving anytime soon!! lol!

A moment (or more) of gluttony

**Side Note: Oh buggers! (Reverting to my days living in England.) I fell asleep early last night and missed my blog post for the day, so here is my catch up post...lol!**

Well, last night I finished off the last of the Old Fisherman's Grotto clam chowder that I had made on Tuesday night. This is a recipe from the restaurant of the same name on Fisherman's Wharf in Monterey, California. I spent three days there last month to run the Big Sur River Run 10K (my very first 10K) and ended up eating at this place three times in as many days...well, actually two days because I had to go do the race on the third day then drive back up to Oakland. Anyway, it is THE best clam chowder anywhere...even better than stuff I had while in Boston! This recipe is very, very close to the restaurant's own chowder...it should be, as it's supposed to be the actual recipe they use!

The recipe resulted in about 12 nearly two cup servings and I must confess that I ate 11 of those servings!! I finally finished the last two servings in one sitting last night, along with almost half a loaf of sourdough french bread. This morning I've awakened several times because my stomach wasn't very happy with me. Evidently eating that much (I think especially the bread) is not a good thing just before falling asleep...within 20 minutes of eating. I'm finally feeling better after my meal having made it's way through the digestive system.

So now I sit here wide awake anticipating my stress level to begin increasing in anticipation of my next big fundraising event on the 19th...a six hour Zumbathon. T-shirts to be ordered today and aside from filling goodie bags with the shirts I really think that that's all I need to stress about. Hopefully. So here I go to begin the day by having to clean the kitchen once again and at some point this morning throw together the crockpot BBQ chicken that I'm going to try for lunch. So farewell for now...