I find weekends are a good time for me to do some cooking because my work week can get busy and unpredictable. That way I have leftovers for lunch and dinner most nights. I haven't quite mastered the freeze ahead meals yet but I'm sure I will at some point.
I made tabbouleh this afternoon. A bit labor intensive but worth it. I'm grilling up some chicken to go with it. For dinner I'm making salmon and roasted green beans.
Tomorrow is my last day of Wave 1. yeah!! I went out and bought some wine yesterday and I even have a little fruit in the house for my meals starting on Tues.
Hi Petra! Well for one thing I just got the book yesterday (thanks half.com!) and am finding it interesting and inspiring.
I'm having people over for a BBQ tonight so, am making some marinated flank steak. This is one of my fave cuts of meat because it is relatively low-fat, but the marinade is the thing, if you don't marinade it it's chewy. This marinade is Sonoma friendly (I think!!)
Combine half cup of balsamic vineger, 1/2 cup of soy sauce, lots of cilatro and garlic, and one jalapeno pepper in a blender or food processor, then pour in a thin stream 1/2 cup of salad oil while processing, to emulsify the marinade.
This is best done overnight, then just throw the meat on the grill and slice it thin on an angle. My plan is to have 3 ounces of that and fill the rest of the plate with green beans and salad. And have one, as in not two, glasses of wine.
Somebody is making those potatoes with all the cheese and sour cream and stuff in them but I intend to completely ignore them. Uh, the potatoes, not the guest who brought them, LOL!
The marinade sounds fine as long as you use olive oil or canola. I think there is a marinated flank steak recipe in the book and I've used it before. It's good. It has a little kick to it but yours sounds like it does too. I like flank steak too. I bought some today and threw it in the freezer so I would have it on hand.
That Salmon and green beans dinner was amazing. The only thing it was missing was glass of wine but in a couple of days I can have that too.
Well today I wasn't very creative - had leftover BBQ salmon (grilled with herbes de provence, which I assume would be Sonoma friendly!) with salad veggies - romaine lettuce, tomatoes from the garden and cucumber. This afternoon we got really busy so I had a veggie stuffed omelette for supper with whole grain bread and a tiny bit of gouda for taste. Hard to estimate portions with it all mixed up in the omlette (OK more like a scramble) but it was tasty and all Sonoma-friendly.
I got Swiss chard and some summer squash at the farmer's market yesterday so plan on making the Summer squash and chard gratin from the Sonoma Cookbook tomorrow. It sounds yummy - although I'll have to sub. cottage cheese for the ricotta, since I don't have the ricotta. If I mash it up it should be OK. I want to try the eggplant parmesan too - but have to get an eggplant. I like making ratatouille with it so any leftover would be used well.
Breakfast I have had Fibre 1 with milk two days of the three and boiled eggs with whole grain toast the other day. I need to be more varied but it works and it's quick! I tend to use fruit in the mornings so will be more interesting at breakfast once I'm done Wave 1 next Monday (Sept. 3).
Jax
Last edited by jaxjob; 08-27-2007 at 10:03 AM.
Reason: I can't spell!
Well crap I DID have two glasses of wine after all, dang, well it was GOOD~!!!
But, I used to have 2 glasses of wine every single night so....I didn't do too bad. I made a pot of tea after the 2nd glass since somebody opened another bottle, grrr. At least I didn't have bread, potatoes, chips, dessert. etc. etc.
I love the book so far - love the recipes and the philosophy of it. I can absolutely say that when I was in Spain my weight issue went in complete remission, due mostly to the lack of mindless/junk food type eating, walking everywhere and the many flights of stairs to my apt.
It's true that they eat less quantity but better quality of food....and they sit down and savor it. When I was there (late 70's) they still had siesta, long lunch every day, and they would just work a longer day at the end but the main meal of the day was relaxed. And dinner was just a light meal, fish and soup, or cheese and fruit, something like that, then a walk to the square just to check people out and then back home for bedtime sherry.
When I came home the first thing I did was go to Bob's and have the burger combo with a chocolate milkshake and onion rings dipped in blue cheese dressing.
The second thing I did was get sick for two days afterward after I realized my system couldn't process such things as well after being away from them! But alas gradually my old habits returned and with them the chronic yoyo dieting.
I'm really happy about these changes....I love the emphasis on fresh, unprocessed food.
This is a lot like South Beach, but, I like the emphasis on whole grains (banned the first couple of weeks of SB) and I LOVE the recipes in the Sonoma diet book.
When I was in Greece for a summer (1989) I remember eating HUGE amounts of food - but all very simple and unprocessed. I didn't have issues with weight either. I was doing geology fieldwork and walking a lot. We were up early and unless a long way from where we were staying did the siesta thing too - much to hot to work in the middle of the day.
Dinner was usually very late (after 9pm) and consisted of salad (veggies with feta), bread with olive oil and some sort of vegetable & meat/fish dish. Not that much variety either, but really good. Why is it we feel our food is uninteresting unless we eat vastly different food each day? I mean we can eat the same unhealthy food all the time, but people want diets and healthy eating plans to be highly varied because "I'll get bored". I wonder why that is.
I remember going to a restaurant on Rhodes with my parents as a teen, the lady asked what we wanted - fish, then she took my father by the hand, led him to the kitchen, where she piled fish (no idea what kind) onto a scale until he told her to stop. Then she cooked it, served it with vegetable. Yummy! An interesting experience though. Saves money on menus, I guess. I imagine we would have been more aware of what was going on if we spoke Greek, but unfortunately we don't.
Last night we had the marinated flank steak from day two of the wave 1 meal plan. Yum, that's a great recipe (we've done it before)! We'll use the leftovers for steak and blue cheese wraps tomorrow. We're trying to remember to make the most of the grill when we fire it up, so we marinated a couple of big chicken breasts with some bottled marinade and threw them on, too. We'll use them for lunch a couple of days this week. I think tonight is mediterranian pork chops.
Congrats on making it through wave 1, Petra! Wave 1 ends for me on Saturday. I only gained 2 pounds on my cruise and I've already lost them! My family is so jealous!
That is such a great strategy to make extra stuff on the weekends if you cook outdoors!! Leftover grilled chicken is just the best, you can do so much with it....
Yeah, congrats on getting through "Wave 1" Petra!
I'm just starting at Wave 2 since I've been off the processed/sweets type food for awhile now anyhow....as I understand it that's the point of the Wave 1?? I actually did Phase one of SouthBeach Diet a few weeks back and it did really help with that, I even gave up Diet Coke, it just tastes to fake-sweet to me now.
What's everyone cooking?
