Oh yeah. Sore-bought are pretty bad in what they contain... and also they aren't considered kosher/halal since many contain lard from pigs! I should just overstuff! I had planned on 2, but then I realized Ammar was cooking for himself so i had eaten two then i was still a big hungry, so i ate two more. Then I ate again LOL. I should have just cooked something! I probably eat tacos like 2-3 times a year.

There is a bad version of this -- it's online for a few more days until I close out!

http://www.little-birdie.net/julianna/2006...is_totally.html

PS--my Dh says that Lebanon is famous for it's plastic surgery.

He did but hasn't gone on to the masters level due to believing he will be over here before he could finish.

I'm looking around for something to eat until Mom and I can go for Thai Food and a movie tonight! I love curry with tofu!

My husband has a friend who's a plastic surgeon but his practice is in Canda, not Libya. I've never asked but I always assumed it's because plastic surgery isn't as popular there as it in the west.... I could be wrong.
Anyway, it works out good for me because Canada is closer and I get the friendship discount!

So lunch today is:

8 pieces of pumpernickel cocktail size bread, with sugar free seedless rasberry jam, la vache qui ri cheese and oven roasted turkey. I had some cottage cheese with pineapple for breakfast and dinner is going to be chicken breasts with panko and baked with some veggies.

We have a new cafeteria company downstairs. Their salad bar rocks! I had their lettuce which is a combo of iceberg and spinach (LOVE that!), a few pieces of sliced marinated fresh mozzarella (def not ff! lol), marinated mushrooms and teensy chopped celery pieces for the all too needed CRUNCH. I used real dressing since I cannot stand fat free but I used a small amount. Topped it off with a diet Pepsi and even walked down a few flight of stairs on my way there. (up is non-negotionable...not gonna happen )


That should offset the coffee roll from DD that I had for breakfast.

I've been munching on jelly beans today (I know, i'm not to good at this diet thing at the moment ) But I figure 10-20 jelly beans are much better than wandering into the pastry cooler for a jumbo cookie

she said la vache que ri... haha!!! (sandwich sounds good though)

all the big arabic stars are loaded with plastic surgery! not sure how common it is among "normal" people though..

Isn't Casablanca a major hub for transexual surgery?

Whoa, that came out of no where! I wouldn't be surprised though!

Well, it is a kind of cosmetic surgery, no? Don't ask me why I know this!

That's just one of those facts that I never knew about Casa.

This is a sure way of losing weight very rapid. I have been eating like this since Oct 23, and I have lost 30!!! I didn't do any excercise but I am sure that if I had that I would have lost more.

Best wishes to all that are doing it

Haha Mahmoud calls it le fromage qui rit (well... that's what he would say if he could speak French)

OK I dont speak french, what is this cheese?!

It's the "laughing cow" soft cheese. It's kind of like cream cheese. They eat it a lot in Morocco and France. It comes in the round container and usually the cheese is wrapped individually in triangles. It's good!

OK gotcha I never heard the french name for it. My son was obsessed with that cheese, especially the little cube versions of it, so I put it in his lunch all of the time. Some kid must have made fun of it or something because now he thinks its yucky. There are a few things that he eats (like smoked salmon etc) that other kids dont eat and might make fun of so I am now afraid to put it in his lunch. I mean like what, if his friends were going to jump off of a bridge, would he?

YES

Yes it's "Laughing Cow" brand cheese -- it's very popular in MENA as it does not contain any pork products.

But Mahmoud can't remember the name right and always calls it "Laughing Cheese" which always makes me

We had an all meat chili for dinner. Well...I should say I had the all meat chili (Hicham added some spicy chili beans to his). It is really good and better than using the prepared mixes as it has no sugar in the recipe. What I did not tell Hicham is that I substituted 2 pounds of ground turkey breast for the ground beef to reduce the fat content. This recipe is really good and you can add what you like to make it more spicy. For instance, I doubled all the spices and added some cayenne pepper for good measure (yes...we like things hot around here). It cooked all day in the crock pot and was delicious!

Twila


All-Meat Chili (6 servings)

2 pounds of ground beef
1 chopped onion
3 cloves garlic, crushed
1 can (14.5 oz) tomatoes with green chilies
1 can (4 oz) tomato sauce
4 tsps ground cumin
2 tsps dried oregano
2 tsps unsweetened cocoa powder
1 tsp paprika

1. Brown the meat and drain. Add the onion, garlic, tomatoes, tomato sauce, cumin, oregano, cocoa, and paprika. Stir to combine.

2. Turn the burner to low, cover and simmer for 30 minutes. Uncover and simmer for another 15 to 20 minutes, or until the chili thickens a bit. Serve with your favorite toppings.

oooooh cocoa powder, antioxidants, me likey!
we are off wine for a while so i need other sources of antioxidants. although i probably had enough antioxidants thru wine in the past year to increase the longevity of an entire country

where do you get tomatoes with green chillies?

Looks yummy, Twila ! We love chili, and we always make it with ground turkey. I add dark red kidney beans -- sometimes even some cooked macaroni (bad bad bad if you're avoiding those carbs), served with grated cheese and maybe some sliced green onion on top.

Chaishai -- you can usually find them in the canned tomato section, alongside the plain diced tomatoes. They're just called "Diced Tomatoes with Green Chilies" -- Ro-Tel is a pretty famous label, also Hunt's and some other brands make it... and down here in South Texas the large grocery store chains have their own brands. If your local grocery store doesn't stock them, try a place that caters to the Latin market. You can get them in mild or hot... according to your tolerance....



-MK

ate chicken noodle soup, 1/2 bag of milano cookies and some jarlsberg cheese for dinner. I feel like my avatar.




I'll be good tomorrow I promise. I'm making this for supper and can't wait! I'll let ya know how it is once I've had it.

http://www.foodnetwork.com/food/recipes/re...6_37299,00.html

Thanks! Our supermarkets usually have everything, I probably just never noticed this!

Chaishai-- pure red grape juice has the similar levels of antioxidants as the red wine! My father doesn't drink alcohol and when his doctor recommended the red wine for his heart, he stated that and the doctor returned with the red grape juice. To get the same levels he was told to drink a full 8oz glass instead of the obviously smaller ammount of red wine. Apparantly sparkling red grape juice by welches also has high levels and is a bit more concentrated than regular red.

Yesterday, Ammar wanted an omlette which he ate in the form of 3 sandwiches. I ate some saifun, an egg, some mushrooms, onions, soy sauce, olive oil, summer squash, cabbage, and spinach. Still feeling tired and run down. I have no idea why i am feeling so tired this past week-- it's like I cannot get it together. I am worried I may be coming down with something, or it could be PMS or both I guess.

PMS makes me super tired
what is saifun?
i made what i said i was going to make last night but then got distracted by something upsetting and burnt it. we ate the veggies that survived on the top of the pan but oh well.
tonight is mediterranean sea bass cooked in a crust of kosher salt and salad, maybe quinoa too. and some grape juice! yum!

Saifun are asian noodles made from bean and potato starch... sometimes called bean thread. It's 170 calories per bundle, and 1 bundle is definately enough for one person. I hate burning food. I did that 3 times in a row last week with the rice!

How do you cook and crust your fish?

i dont know how my husband is going to cook and crust the fish
ill let you know tonight or tomorrow though!
he has done it before i didnt watch him, and we were watching anthony bourdain (love him) in sicily and they did it there so we said oh we should do that again! we meaning he. so tonights the night, cant wait!
your noodles are sorta like shirataki noodles, tofu noodles 40 cals per bag and a bag is more than enough if you are making with veggies or whatever. they are the best!

Great, thanks! Dhs are great for doing that kind of cooking i made the grape leaves last week, and by *I* I mean him. He was watching me and then said he'd do it. Worked for me.

My husband is such a control freak about stuff like that he does the same thing. So basically if I want something and he doesnt feel like cooking but he sees me doing it and knows he can do it better i KNOW i can get him to do it. Its funny how being together for a long time teaches you how to work each other

He made the salt fish today. he mixed kosher salt with enough water to make a paste, covered the fish and baked it for 20 mins in the oven i dont know at what temp. it was sooooo moist. but we had it with a quinoa mix that had dried veggies and stuff in it and that kind of sucked and took away from the fish. oh well.
i have an AMAZING recipe that im going to make for dinner tomorrow night, ill post it tomorrow am. if anyone likes chilean sea bass.... look out!

OH and does white wine have antioxidants?

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0NA..._32/ai_92283893

Ommmmmmmmmmmm. I'm on cloud nine from an intense meditation session I had and maybe that piece of carrot cake I shouldn't have had. lol

So far so good on the diet. Still haven't started exercising yet.

*burp*

The weather is so nice and I got out and walked about 4 miles today! I know my bad foot is going to be cussin me tonight! Now...if the weather will just stay nice so I can do this everyday!

bump!

how is it going peeps?

I have kept it up sort of this weekend. My eating wasnt so bad except for wine indulgences (but I didnt go overboard). I didnt work out yesterday, took a very much needed break but I worked out enough for two days this morning. I actually weighed myself before and after this workout because I was curious and I lost 1.5 lbs (I guess in sweat) during the workout! Whoo-hoo!

Well, this week i gained a bit of weight (2lbs) but lost thigh inches. Everything else was the same. I'm in bloat time of the month so this isn't surprising to me.

i haven't been able to work out at all since the first day i did because i got a bad cold right after. (excuses, excuses, i know!) but today i'm feeling mostly better so i'll drag my arse to the gym!

Just finished 3 10min dance workouts, eating better (except for those few chocolates - can't wait til their gone!). Having sauteed greens for lunch... num num num!

After a couple weeks of very slight indulgences and maintaining, I woke up this morning and was down almost 2 pounds. Losing weight gives me the encouragement to just keep doing the good work.

breakfast: turkey bacon (organic with no preseratives...I swear the best stuff)
1 c. mixed berries

lunch: lemon chicken

snack: handful of cashews

dinner: some kind of chicken I have yet to decide what yet and broccoli (my fave)

This was AMAZING but BEWARE...if you are not used to cooking with jalepeno's just skip it unless you want to risk the burning sensation of your hands and face and of course the soothing feeling of fire being administered to your eyes when you take your contacts out with the burning hands that touched said pepper.

Charred Chili Relleno with Green Rice Recipe courtesy Rachael Ray, 2007
See this recipe on air Wednesday Jan. 16 at 2:30 PM ET/PT.



4 cups chicken or vegetable stock, divided
1 bay leaf
2 cups white rice
4 large poblano peppers
6 ears corn on the cob or 3 cups frozen corn kernels
3 tablespoons corn, peanut or vegetable oil, divided
1 red onion, chopped
1 jalapeno, seeded and chopped
4 cloves garlic, chopped
1 (15-ounce) can fire roasted diced tomatoes, drained well
1 1/2 teaspoons ground cumin, 1/2 palm full
1/2 teaspoon dried oregano, eyeball it in your palm
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
1/2 cup fresh cilantro leaves
1/2 pound spinach leaves, deveined and coarsely chopped
4 scallions, coarsely chopped
2 limes, zested, juiced
1 cup shredded Chihuahua cheese, Asadero or Monterey Jack


Preheat broiler or grill pan to high.
Heat about 3 1/2 cups stock in a sauce pot with a bay leaf to boiling. Add rice, cover pot reduce heat to low and simmer 18 minutes until tender.

Place poblanos under broiler or on hot grill and char evenly all over, 15 minutes.

While peppers and rice are working, scrape the corn off the cobs or defrost frozen corn and dry by spreading out on clean kitchen towel. Heat 2 tablespoons light oil in a skillet over high heat. When the oil smokes or ripples add corn, onion, jalapenos and toss until the vegetables char at edges and onions are tender, 4 to 5 minutes. Reduce heat to medium-high and add in garlic, fire roasted tomatoes and season with cumin, oregano, salt and pepper. Cook another minute or 2 then turn pan off.

Place the cilantro, spinach, scallions, lime zest, half a cup of stock and a tablespoon of oil in food processor and process into coarse green paste. Stir into your rice pot in the last 3 to 4 minutes of its cooking time.

Sprinkle the lime juice over the corn mixture.

Split the charred peppers open but not in half with small sharp knife then scoop out the seeds with a small spoon. Place peppers in a shallow baking dish and stuff each split pepper with lots of the corn mix, top each pepper with 1/4 cup cheese and place back under broiler to melt and char the cheese.

Serve peppers on beds of green rice. Yum-o!

I always cringe at cheese in recipes. I've been cooking lowfat for nearly 10 years now - if I start loading up cheese on stuff, I end up getting myself a nice stomachache. o.o

What I do:

- Add flavor, not fat. Cheese is basically ... a big old block of pure fat - use spices & good prep, not fats (mayo, butter, oil, cheese = bad)
- Trim as much fat as you possibly : cut fat off the meat - you just chopped off loads of calories. Making burgers? Press down with that spatula - not only are those big ol' flames on the grill pretty cool looking - but a ton of calories just got burned ... quite literally.
- Don't be afraid of bread. Bread's good. So's pasta - if you prepare it right (like, without butter & cheese.)
- If you *must* fry, fry with less oil/fat, or preferably, no added oils/fat.
- Remove fatty toppings ( cheese, oil, mayo, bleh )
- Watch out for those so-called "sugar free" and "low-fat" items in the store. LoL! Read the ingredients & nutrition facts for em. When they take out one thing, they replace it with another. Don't trust it.
- Packaged baked goods are EVIL. All of em! EVIL! EVIL! No exceptions! Put the danish down! (Even the so-called "low fat" ones - do't be fooled! They substitue sugar for fat. The calories are *almost* identical. No difference. )
- And finally, I like this one the best - if you read the ingredients, and you feel the need to ask yourself ... umm, what's this "partially hydrogenated monoglyceride riboflavinomine xanthanine gum of esther"? Then it's probably best that you ... ... don't eat it.

It's worked great for me.

Great advice!!! I only used a sprinkling of the cheese, not a whole cup as it calls for and to be brutally honest that recipe is so good it really doesn't need the cheese and that's coming from a cheese addict!!!




So you all have inspired me to exercise. I just purchased this http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000B5XPFQ which should arrive thursday so I can start it on Friday. I used to have a pilates tape but I ditched my vcr player a while back so time to get a dvd of it. This one is geared towards people like me I think so we'll see what happens. Got a mat too but that won't be here till next week I think. It's 3/8" thick so that should help since I have hardwood floors where I'll be doing it. Can't wait!

Both my VCR and DVD players died at the same time! And DH doesn't think we need additional ones. I have a friend mailing me an extra one she didn't want-- she offered at the perfect time! I love to do videos but I can't since my machines died

Yay Bridget! Tell us your rating on the thing!

I'm all engulfed in seed catalogs right now, looking for open-pollinated heirlooms. I'm looking for high vitamin selections with great taste and true to parent reproduction Thinking about growing veggies in Jordan! Does anyone else have a love for heirloom tomatoes? I really enjoy a good mix of colors and acordian shapes, and I've found the taste to be far superior raw or in cooking.

I have a black thumb but my sister just *looks* at anything and it grows like crazy! You're going to Jordan? I must have missed that one! Are you staying for a while since you're planting tomatoes?


I made another resolution this morning. Instead of my morning ritual of either a coffee roll from DD or an apple fritter from Starbucks I'm having cinnamon roll flavored oatmeal for breakfast AND I am drinking 2 32oz containers of water while at work.

Rome wasn't built in a day but it only took two weeks of carefree eating for my FAT JEANS to barely button.

Breakfast is sooo important, and oatmeal is one of the best breakfasts you can have when on a diet Even the boxed, flavored kind. I know that the steel cut, make it yourself kind, is even better, but I don't have the patience and the other is almost as good for you It also fills you up for longer so that you don't have that snack urge before lunch

That is a good switch in your morning routine. if you're like me, you've got to kind of ease out of some things... like for me it's soda I have to ease out of.

My fat jeans were totally 2 sizes too small for me and I was like, OK, no, I can't deny this any longer!

We were always moving back to Jordan. Ammar's immigration was always a temp plan-- he wanted to work on some schooling or do some teaching to beef up his background in Jordan, and we needed to pay my student loans and try to make some money for a house there in jordan. We had a pretty specific plan, and we're aiming at 5 years or less. We're on track at the moment, which is good. We're doing some house-hunting in his village, keeping our eyes out-- and also some land shopping. It's just the income there, even for the "good" jobs, is not enough to ever save up and get your own place. Once you HAVE a place, you can do it-- but we needed to get to that point, and there is no way we could have paid off my loans living there either. So first we're dumping money into loans, then saving, then leaving-- that's the plan. He's a good money-saver too-- we're looking at less than 3 years until we can pay off 60k!

The seeds he wants to bring back are all flowers with a few veggies like cucumbers. I'm basically all veggie-based awith a few flowers like zinnias. When I braid my hair he calls me "felaha" and the other day, when we were looking at plants, he kept calling me "felahti" over and over until I complained. He said he didn't know why, that just because he was working at a university didn't cover up the fact he was a "felah." I think i like katkoot better than felaha though as a nickname.

great resolutions bridget
btw, trader joes sells steel cut oatmeal frozen that is soo delicious.
also its good to snack before lunch - healthy snack! 6 small meals a day is the way to do it it keeps your blood sugar regulated.

Also....don't by anything that says "enriched." Means they've taken all the good stuff out. I've even found some supposed whole wheat bread that is enriched. Bad stuff! I'm all into whole wheat pasta. Love the stuff. The hard thing in my house is the rice. My husband is convinced he had enriched rice in Egypt. I'm like...."honey.....I helped clean all that rice, picking out the stones and such and there is no way that rice is enriched!!!! So....what I do. (shush....don't tell him) is that I cook with a little of "his" rice and more with "my" rice. He's never noticed the difference.

I absolutely love heirloom tomatoes.