One of my favorite bloggers hosts a themed haiku on Fridays. This week’s topic is New Year’s resolutions. Here’s my ditty:

 

After losing gobs of weight
(80 lbs!) in ’10,
my renewed goal is: Healthy.

 

I don’t usually set formal New Year’s resolutions, although I have general goals in mind. Now that I’ve overcome the one challenge that has nagged at me for years and finally gotten most of my excess weight off, I think I will focus on staying healthy. I’d like to achieve my weightloss goal (It’s in sight – less than 20 lbs to go!) by exercising regularly and solidify these new eating habits into lifelong practices.

 

I usually have a goal to get organized around the house, and that is still on my mental checklist. I’ve made strides this year with the purchase of the backpack cubby table and labeled baskets for school papers, but progress certainly could still be made. I did get a new wall calendar that will help me keep track of five boys’ school programs, assignments and extra-curricular activities, so that ought to help.

 

A thought just occurred to me! I think that I will sit down with the boys today and help THEM work on some New Year’s resolutions. Perhaps I can encourage them to write down things like, “Don’t provoke fights;” “Don’t whine;” “Do my homework on time;” etc, then it will benefit all of us. Why yes, Ferb, I think that is one way that we’ll spend our day today! (I’ll let you know how it goes later.)

One of the things that I tell people when they ask about my low-carb eating plan (I try not to say “diet” anymore, because it’s a lifestyle change that I intend to keep) is that I enjoy finding alternatives for my favorite flavors. I don’t crave sweets (pastries, to be specific … I’ve never been much of a hard candy eater) like I used to, but during the holiday season, there are certain foods that have become a tradition in my family.

 

I’ve already shared with you about my crustless buttermilk pie attempts and my eggnog. There are two other desserts that are standard favorites in my family: German chocolate cake and coconut meringue pie.

 

Thanks to Dana Carpender’s awesome low-carb cookbook, I discovered recipes that I think will be the perfect solution to my tastebuds’ holiday cravings! The first one, German chocolate pie, was a big success (I didn’t even use the whipped topping, and it was amazing!). I’m going to work on the coconut crème pie (perhaps I’ll make my own meringue with Splenda & egg whites) later this week.

 

Both recipes call for freshly grated coconut, not the sticky-sweet bagged stuff that you buy at the grocery store. Well, I remember watching a guy with a small machete (or was it a cleaver? I don’t recall) in Thailand make short order of a coconut, turning it into a self-contained coconut milk beverage with a few whacks of his weapon. How hard could it be, right?

 

*Note to self: STOP saying, “How hard could it be?”!

 

First, we nailed some air holes through the eyes of the coconut (after washing the nail to sterilize it, I should add), then used the nail to gouge out a hole on the other side to drain the coconut milk. It had about a cup’s worth, which made a great liquid base for my breakfast smoothie the next morning!

 

We tried hacking it open with a cleaver, but that didn’t work, and I was afraid one of us was going to lose a finger. So, my husb took the coconut to the driveway and slammed it onto the concrete. He brought the two pieces back to me, and I pried them open by hand from that point. I tried using a vegetable peeler to grate the coconut flesh out, but that proved too difficult, so I just used a paring knife and cut it out. In retrospect, I should have put the chunks into the food processor to break them up a bit more, but I was too excited about making the pie. My next attempt won’t be quite as chunky. :p

 

Now that I know how to a) drain, b) bust open and c) peel a coconut, the next one should go a little easier. Or, I may check and see if the grocery store sells freshly grated, unsweetened coconut and take the easy way out. 😉

 

I don’t know how many years that Thai gentleman had to practice in order to chop those coconuts like he did, but suffice it to say that I won’t be doing that anytime soon!

Mrs. Claus unabashedly bought herself a present under the auspices of getting one for Mr. Claus: two tickets to the Texas Bowl! Our Baylor Bears [finally] made it to a bowl game, and Yours Truly will be cheering them on live and in person! What an exciting football season it has been for our Bears; they have worked hard and overcome the odds.

 

Plus, my bff and I have a little contest going between now and the bowl game. We discovered that as of last week, we weighed the same! This is a huge accomplishment for Yours Truly, and it set the stage for some friendly competition. We agreed on a certain number of pounds, and that is our collaborative weightloss goal for the month. While I’m in town for the bowl game, we are going to meet for lunch at our favorite Greek restaurant and share a bottle of Greek wine. Loser has to buy the wine! If we both reach our goal, then we’ll split the wine. Either way, I say it’s a win-win scenario. 🙂

 

Tonight, I de-carbed an eggnog recipe from one of my Food Network idols, Alton Brown, and if I may say so myself, the finished product is nom nom nom. The original recipe calls for sugar and whole milk, both of which are replete with carbs. Whole milk has a whopping 13g per cup. Sugar has, logically, 1g per gram … or 200g per cup. I aim for no more than 210g of carbs per WEEK, and those aren’t sugar-carbs, either, so this recipe needed some tweaking if I was going to get my holiday fix of eggnog!

First of all, I don’t own a stand mixer, but I used a hand mixer, and it worked out fine. I substituted Almond Breeze (unsweetened vanilla, net carbs = 1g/cup) for the milk and Splenda (store brand, net carbs = scant) for the sugar. Eggs have about 1g apiece. Bourbon/whiskey has ZERO carbs.

So, instead of 12-14g of carbs per cup (mostly sugar) in the original recipe, the overall carb count per serving in my tweaked version is negligible! Furthermore, the de-carbed version turned out a bit thinner than regular eggnog, so people who don’t like the sticky-sweet texture of thick eggnog might actually prefer the healthier kind!

It’s so guiltless, I do believe I shall pour myself another cup.

What’s the best part about being on doctor’s orders during Thanksgiving? Not having to cook OR clean! Most of the boys pitched in a little here and there with various dishes that we took to my mom’s house, which is always fun because they feel like they’ve really helped to cook. I even puttered around the kitchen for a few minutes until I got tired of being on my feet and had to sit down for a bit, but mostly I stayed out of the hustle & bustle and enjoyed being on mandatory rest.

 

My folks and the guys had a fairly traditional menu of green bean casserole, pumpkin/zucchini dressing, turkey that my stepdad fixed on the grill (Yum!), fresh cranberry sauce, mashed sweet potatoes and a choice between pumpkin or blackberry pie.

 

I really didn’t have any problems de-carbing my dinner portion. I took my grilled turkey with a side of hydrocodone, LOL! Seriously, though, we reserved some of the blanched green beans and tossed them with roasted pine nuts & bacon – yum! – and I didn’t feel deprived from the dressing at all. To top it off, I had some surprisingly low-carb walnut sandies for dessert. I never liked how sandies got powdered sugar all over me, anyway, so I didn’t miss having them dusted. They were lightly sweet and perfect with a scoop of low-sugar vanilla ice cream. 🙂

 

I also made a small batch of mock cornbread dressing (since I figured I would be the only one eating it) using texturized vegetable protein (TVP), and I was pleasantly surprised how well it turned out. My usual cornbread dressing is made with chicken broth and includes chopped celery, onion and hard-boiled eggs, along with shredded chicken. Besides the obvious substitution for cornbread with the TVP, I also used onion powder instead of chopped onions to save on carbs. The poultry seasoning, sage and salt & pepper gave it just the right seasoning that I was aiming for, so all in all, my tastebuds were happy with the result.

I made a fairly successful, low-carb, crustless buttermilk pie a while back. It turned out more like a custard, and the flour substitute that I used rose to the top, forming something like an upside-down pie. It tasted yummy, though, so who cares how it looks?!  😉

Since that experiment, I started thinking about how to modify a pie crust so that I could make a “real” pie to take to holiday potlucks, etc. I’m happy to report that tonight’s experiment was another success! I’ll share the crust recipe with you first, then explain the changes I made to the pie filling:

Low-carb crust:

1 c. Bob’s Red Mill Low-Carb Baking Mix
1/2 c. flaxseed meal
1/2 tsp. salt
1/2 c. shortening
4-5 Tbsp. water

Sift dry ingredients (I stirred with a fork). Cut in shortening until size of small peas. Sprinkle water 1 Tbsp at a time until mixture is moist. Form into a ball. Flatten on floured surface (I used another couple of Tbsp of Bob’s mix) & roll. Rolling didn’t work too well for me, so I just transferred it to a pie plate and pressed evenly to shape.

Bake at 425 for 5 minutes; set aside.

Pie filling:

My original buttermilk pie recipe only calls for 3 Tbsp of flour, but I was distracted tonight (I have five boys who kept peppering me with questions while I was trying to bake; cut me some slack! :p ), and I accidentally measured out the same as the crust. I didn’t realize it till after I had added the Splenda (which was all I had on hand!), so I had to figure out what to do. I measured out 1/2 c. of the Bob’s mix/flaxseed meal/Splenda and set aside the rest to make a batch of low-carb muffins in the morning. I also completely forgot to add the baking powder, but I think Bob’s Baking Mix compensated, because it didn’t seem to matter. So, with that caveat for my Oops, here’s what I ended up using (approximately):

2 Tbsp. Splenda

1/4 c. Bob’s Red Mill Low-Carb Baking Mix

2 Tbsp. flaxseed meal

1/2 tsp. salt

1 tsp. vanilla extract

3 eggs

1/4 c. butter (softened)

1 c. buttermilk

Sift dry ingredients; whisk in eggs, vanilla, buttermilk and softened butter. Pour into partially baked pie crust (see above). Bake at 350 for 1 hour.

I’m not kidding y’all … the crust was dense enough but flaky and very flavorful. The pie fluffed up like a “real” pie, and even though I didn’t use as much Splenda/sugar as the original recipe, I found it pleasantly sweet. (I ate two slices tonight, if that’s any indication!)  :p

I hesitated to write this post, because I can count on one hand the number of people who know my starting weight on April 1, 2010, and some of you are smart cookies who can reverse the math from earlier posts and figure it out. You know what, though? If sharing my journey encourages someone else, then I need to suck up my pride and humble myself, because this is such a doozie of a milestone, I simply can’t keep the joy inside.

Ready for it? … I am in the one hundreds!!!

199.2, to be exact. Just looking at that number seems so foreign; I’ve only seen triple-digits beginning with “2” for more than a decade. I’m happy, happy, happy! This also puts me less than 20 lbs away from my goal weight, which is another tangible Hooray for me.

Some “ideal weight” charts that I’ve seen put my would-be goal at 140-160, for my height but I’ve had my sights set on 180 from the beginning. I know that’s a healthy weight for me, and I would be will be pleased as punch to see it again. Heck, I weighed 135-140 when I graduated high school, and I’m not sure that would be an optimal size for me at this age; I wasn’t underweight back then, by any means, but come on – seriously? – I’ve borne three children. Stretchmarks preclude me from EVER wearing a bikini again, and besides, I’m happy to have a few womanly curves.

Last week, I met a couple of colleagues who I knew via email but had never met in person. It occurred to me after our meeting that they have never known the “before” Me, just the “after-in-progress” Me! 🙂

I haven’t been able to jog for a few weeks, thanks to my aforementioned complications. Unfortunately, the problems just got worse the more I tried to exercise, so I finally went back to my doc. Long story short (and to spare you the TMI), it looks like I’ll be having surgery the week of Thanksgiving.

I’m not upset about it; on the contrary, I’m very glad that my docs were in agreement about what needed to be done and the expediency with which they’ve arranged the procedure. I’m doubly grateful that it’s over the holiday weekend, because I don’t have a lot of sick time built up, so I’ll save a few days’ worth. Doc says I need to stay home for a week, so that should work out swimmingly.

The added bonus is not having to travel or cook for Thanksgiving! :p  Is that selfish? Oh, well.  I joked with my husb that he and the boys could go visit family, and I’ll stay home and recuperate. He laughed at me. The nerve! 😉

For years, I wouldn’t touch buttermilk pie. I had smelled buttermilk from the carton, and it was disgusting. I couldn’t imagine voluntarily eating something made with it! I kept that stubborn attitude until one unsuspecting Christmas dinner, when I helped myself to a slice of something that looked like baked custard in a pie shell. I couldn’t believe it was buttermilk pie!

I’ve followed a family recipe for years, but seeing as it calls for a “heaping cup” of sugar and some flour, I wanted to figure out an alternative, low-carb version to fit my new eating plan. After a few trials and error (and several brave taste-testers!), I’m happy to share my recipe, below.

Something odd happened during the baking process, and I’m not sure how, but I call this an upside-down pie because the “crust” rose to the top, while the “custard” layer is at the bottom of the pan. I thought it was interesting, because I set out to make something like a souffle that would taste like buttermilk pie without the crust, and it ended up being more pie-like than I anticipated … just upside-down! LOL – go figure.

1 heaping c. Splenda
1 c. buttermilk
1/2 c. butter or margarine, melted (I’ve used both and honestly can’t tell the difference.)
3 Tbsp flaxseed meal (I used Bob’s Red Mill brand.)
3 eggs
1 tsp vanilla extract
shake of salt

Whisk all ingredients in a mixing bowl until thoroughly combined, then pour into a greased pie pan. (Do not use a crust; pour directly into the dish.)  Bake at 350 for 50 min (or until golden brown on top and a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean). Let set for 10-15 min before slicing. I prefer my buttermilk pie warm, but it’s also good chilled.

Hope you enjoy! I would love to hear how yours turns out and what you think of the low-carb version.

I don’t remember exactly when my love affair with chicken wings began, but I’ve been head-over-heels for them for years. Since I started my low-carb eating plan earlier this year, I love them even more because they can be a scrumptious, guiltless option. For that reason and others (namely, that it is so conducive to a table full of boys!), I’ve mentioned before that Buffalo Wild Wings is our favorite family restaurant. On occasion, I’ve also gone to Wing Stop, and it’s fine for a weekday lunch but not really big enough for us to go as a family.

Anyway, I went to Wing Stop today for lunch and got a combo order of lemon pepper wings (dry seasoning = low-carb WIN!), and I asked if I could substitute celery for fries. I thought it might cost extra (as substitutions sometimes do), but the enthusiastic gal at the register informed me that I could sub either two orders of celery or one celery plus an extra dip instead of fries! Woot! I got a basketful of celery – more than I could even eat – and didn’t even use half the serving of ranch dip that came with my wings, so it was a marvelous lunch. I love the crunch of celery as a side dish to wings – it tames the spiciness when I get hot wings, and it’s a good texture mix.

I will definitely be going there again … and maybe grab a to-go order for dinner sometime!