Casserole

When I think of casseroles, I immediately reflect on the annual Christmas party when co-worker X with questionable hygiene and practices brings in a dish in one pan that is a cornucopia of things.

So today, I followed in Co-work X's track, I made a casserole. It is the Hamburger Alfredo and Broccoli Casserole.

It's a hearty meal, high on calories and low on carbs. It's tasty to say the least.

Read More

Scattered, Smothered and Covered

says the Waffle House waitress.





Waffle House is a fine greasy spoon. I absolutely adore their menu selections but it's not exactly heart healthy. So, it's just a treat.

So, I've attempted a home similarity of the sorts... well the hash brown portion.

Above are two pieces of Circle B Brand of Polish Sausages and Cheesy Hash browns (recipe found on the Linda Sue site).

The Circle B sausages are the best. I should have eaten only one because two was too much. The Cheesy Hash brown (made with cauliflower of course) were ok. I guess I wasn't very hungry this morning. I will try them again though.

That's all for now. It's so hot and I haven't cooked very much. I guess the fall treats will be more exciting.

Read More

Oven Top Pizza

so easy and so good.

I rarely measure anything unless I am following someones recipe. This consists of a bit of ground beef, a bit of Jimmy Dean sausage, a couple of teaspoons of spaghetti sauce with mozzarella and Parmesan cheese. I browned the beef and sausage and added a hint of dry Italian seasoning. After the meat browned, I added the Prego sauce and allowed it to simmer a bit.

Thereafter, I added the mozzarella cheese and topped with Parmesan for greatness.

I actually had this sometime last week but I couldn't get the pics from the phone to the email.

I will get a new cam in August or September...I think.

Read More

Big Dam Bridge...

...RiverWalk Little Rock.

It seems since I have been away from LR, they have come up with this new RiverWalk Project. Now, I have been "home" each year, but I am just finding out about this little number. Whew...last night was the first night that I tackled this little walk. The incline (5%) on both ends is no joke to a first timer. My mom comes here regularly (why she didn't tell me about it, I don't know) so it wasn't an issue for her. It's a peaceful walk with a mix of people. It seems safe too. My only issue is a few nutcases left their dog's poo on the path which is concrete. There are bags on either end so leaving dog poo in the middle of the path is digusting, trifling and rude.

Last night we only did one spin, but we will do two or three from now on... well that's if the bugs don't get on my nerves.

RiverWalk (North Little Rock side)

Read More

Going on Vacation...

wish me luck on low carbing it.

Hey All,

See Ya in 9 days.

Read More

Cauliflower is the new Rice....

and Pasta.

Hey All,


As many of you know, being insulin resistant with PCOS takes a great deal to control. Having my beloved Rice and Pasta are essentially NO NO's but ok on that rare occasion. However, life without rice and pasta is cruel and unsatisfying. So, there had to be a substitute. The sub is cauliflower. When prepared correctly, it's ALMOST the same. I like that it increases my veggie intake and gives me the satisfaction of simulated rice and pasta.

The famous Linda Sue has documented several ways to use cauliflower.





Enjoy!

Read More

Broccoli is my sidekick....

Hey All,

...Just wanna say that I really like broccoli. It's my side on almost every meal.

That's all.

Read More

A few new things...

Hey All,

Since we've last chatted, I've tried a new recipe and gave a 2nd one a try. I found it one Cleochatra's Blog. The new recipe was found on a hair forum that I frequent and it's called Parmesan Crusted Chicken. A poster recommended that I add mayo to the chicken to help the Parmesan to stick. It turn out great. Though the pic looks a bit fizzy, it was absolutely delicious.

Thanks for the recommendation lady!!!

Yeah it's a lil crusty, (burnt-ish) but I like it like that.

Then I decided to give this recipe a 2nd try, but not without incident. I went to Kroger to get some more grounded beef. But to my dismay, I opened the package and it was spoiled. The outer layer was nice and pink, but the inside was dark and funky. So, 'da hell with Kroger and their meat department. This is NOT the first time that I've had this issue with them. What makes it so bad is that it happened in three separate stores. Uggh. Nasty.

So, I went back to my trusty Dekalb County Farmer's Market. They sell organic meat without all the BS additives. The only thing about that place that bugs me is the overwhelming smell of fish. Other than that, it's good to go... with lots of characters to see.

OK, back to food. Below is my 2nd try with the Cauliflower Pizza. It didn't turn out nice the first time because the toppings didn't stick. They did this time and it was a sure delight.

Loved it!

Read More

A Little Ethnicity..so to speak

Minced Beef and Broccoli

Hey All,

Yesterday, I had serious cravings for bad things....namely McDonalds. I fought the cravings due to the heat and gas prices. I had sweet n' sour wings for dinner, chicken salad for lunch and deviled eggs with bacon for breakfast. After the boring spread yesterday, the migraines and burning the midnight oil in attempts to finish my final 3 papers for the quarter, I found a recipe for Minced Beef. From Linda Sue's photo and recommendation, this should have been a real treat.

Well................................. it was just ok. It has all of my favorite spices but it was still a bit bland. Maybe after it sits for a day, the flavors will begin to pop like most homemade meals... or maybe that's just me.

Later today, I will have baked chicken. As a matter of fact, I will have baked chicken for the rest of the week because that's all that's in the refrigerator. I will be vacationing soon so I don't want to have a frig full of groceries while away.

Let's hope that my meal will resemble the one below .

Happy eating and let's hope for a migraine free day.

Read More

Cheetos and Mickey D's.

Hey all,


This is what I want for breakfast, lunch, dinner and snack....Cheetos and Mickey D's.





Why?.. because it tastes great and it's a fast meal.


Being a full time employee and PhD student doesn't leave a lot of time for romantic encounters with my kitchen. I am not a fan of cooking and certainly hope to hire a part-time chef in the near future. But overall, eating healthy is just plain nasty to me. I hate cold food (salads), fruit make me itch and veggies leave a lot to be desired. Maybe I was introduced to the rich tastes of "fun" foods too early and it has tainted my idea of good food. My mother NEVER let us have snacks in the house and we didn't get extra change to purchase either, so I guess this love of "bad" foods extends from living in the dorms.


Anyway... so today... my mouth and soul craves Natural Cheetos. I would also like to engage in a meal of champions. However, it goes over my desired coloric, sodium and carb intake.

Whoa but it is oh so tasty!

So today, I am eating (ate) bacon, deviled eggs, chicken salad, and a hope for something great for dinner.

Some of these pics I "borrowed" from other websites.

Read More

So it's Saturday

Hey All,

Typically on Saturdays my favorite breakfast treat was the Chick-fil-a Chicken Egg and Cheese Bagel combo because it's sorta healthy and oh so yummy. However, I think the grease in the hash browns was making me a bit ill, so I've 86'd the treat for a while. Anytime I am in the airport or on the way to the airport, I will get this combo though.

So instead of the lovely Chick-fil-a treat, I had a home treat of the sorts. Well it was the Cauliflower Hash and Eggs a recipe that I borrowed from the Linda Sue low carb site. Her picture looks a lot better than mine because again I am still snapping camera phone shots. I think I just need a new camera because it literally sucks the life out of batteries with the quickness.

The lighting just took all of the visual away from the cauliflower. :(

For lunch, I am having Chicken Salad. I probably won't snap a photo of that because that's pretty boring.

Read More

Lunch-a-maybe

Today's lunch was a huge maybe. It was ground chicken patties, chopped broccoli, mushroom, 2 tablespoons of cream cheese and Campbell's Cream of Broccoli Soup. Well as you all know, I am a beef girl and the chicken was some kinda bland. I seasoned it with Morton Nature Seasoning, garlic, and dried onions but still no punch. Blah.

I am not sure if I will make this again because it's so bland. However, I am trying to cut back on beef a bit, so I may have to learn to like it. This meal gets 2.5 starts on the likeable scale. Oh yeah, I didn't feel like fighting with my stinkin digi cam, so you all get yet another cell phone foto.

Read More

Earlier in the Week

Hey All,

Since my digi cam was on some random PMS stuff, I wasn't able to post the pics from earlier in the week. So, here are a few pics from Sunday, Monday and Tuesday. I think it includes some fuzzy digi cam pics but oh well. Hopefully I will make a bit of change (i.e. money) from allowing these little pesty ads advertise on this blog and will soon be able to afford a new digi cam. :)

The bacon chicken and cheese wrap comes from a low carb message board. The posters were oooing and ahhing over this receipe, so I decided to try it. It was pretty good but the cheese didn't melt after an hour of baking . The rest of the items were done, so ...yeah.. I decided to eat. It was pretty good, but I was hoping for a cheesey delicious meal and it was just delicious.

I believe the fried chicken and greens was a part of Sunday's dinner. I can't cook either of these items to perfection so... the chicken was from the grocery store deli and the green were from Glory.

You guys will notice a running theme here...beef and eggs. I absoluately love deviled eggs and beef. I've tried ground chicken, turkey and even lamb but they just don't do it like beef. However, I do incorporate them every now and then.

This is a breaded beef patty, which I absolutely love. I incorporate them on occasion because plain beef gets boring.

The deviled eggs were delish.... Just simple boiled eggs, pepper, mayo and musturd. What a treat!!

There are more pics and I will post them later.

Read More

Chicken, Burgers and Coffee

Hey All.... Today started with my usual cup of warm water with lemon before my workout. Now this is no Jackie Warner workout but it gets the job done. However, I will put it out there ... Jackie girl, if you want me to be a Sky Laber, have your people call my people and we can work something out. After my workout of the sorts, I had an orange while my coffee was brewing and bacon cheese burger cooking.

















I had a bit of ground beef left over from some of the previous meals, so I needed to use it before it went bad.

Please excuse the blurry pic.

Cell phone pics don't exactly make one's food look appetizing

Never the less, there's the thick sliced bacon, ground chuck patty, a bit of shredded cheese and swirls of mustard and ketchup.

I will post the lunch pics later.

Read More

Snack Day

Today is snack day because I love finger foods plus it's too hot to cook. I never really understood why my grandmother said turning on the oven makes the house hot (because back then it didn't to me) but I know the difference big time now. So today, since the high is in the 90s and the oven does indeed make the house hot, I shall miniminze my stove usage.

For breakfast I had mini -burgers on Ooopsie like bread.





This is somewhat like Cleochatra's version but I tweaked it a bit with the crust from Linda Sue's Mushroom & Garlic Pizza. I used all of Linda's receipe but added a pinch of Creme of Tarter. It didn't make a huge difference though. The Cleochatra's version is too plain to me so I jazzed it up a bit. I made Cleochatra's version for the first time last week.

The other meal that I've had today was BBQ Honey Flavored Chicken Fingers with Carrots and Ranch. It's not the ideal low carb dish, but a small variety every now and then keeps me on track.

Sorry for the blurry pics... these are from my camara phone because my digi cam sucks the life out of batteries within minutes.

I wanted to start this blog on Sunday June 1 but my digi cam had other plans. As soon as it comes back to life. I will add the dishes from Sunday, Monday and Tuesday.

Read More