Today's Dinner

I love chicken eaten over glutinous rice. The combination is very good in terms of the contrasting textures, and you don't have to add gravy or butter to the rice because it will take on the flavor of the meat that you make with it if you eat them both together.

The ground chicken was seasoned only with salt and pepper and was cooked in a cast iron skillet. Using cast iron lends meat a nicer flavor than using a non-stick pan. I also threw in some garlic cloves and fried them up with the burger, though I used a very scant amount of oil in the process. One other nice aspect of cast iron pans is that they can work with little oil after they are seasoned.

The burger was perfectly cooked (still juicy) and the texture of the ground meat went very well with the rice. I mashed and cut up the garlic with the side of my fork and ate it with bites of chicken and rice. It may be a bit strong for some people, but I really enjoyed it. The garlic was softer and mellower because of slow cooking in the cast iron skillet.

I had hot tea and water with this, and the chocolate was "dessert". I usually don't eat sweets right after dinner, but I had had a low calorie day and was in the mood for it. The chocolate was two small squares of a large bar of hazelnut milk chocolate (chocolate with whole nuts in it) that I bought a long time ago and have slowly been eating over a period of months. It has been in a Ziploc bag my refrigerator, buffeted around as other food is shifted around it, for quite awhile so it looks a little bruised. It was delicious though. You can compare the squares to the size of the grapes to see just how small they were.

I took a multivitamin with this meal, as I try to do every night with dinner.

carrot salad (1 serving):

• 1 carrot, peeled and grated (25 calories)
• 1 tsp. oil (any type you like) (40 calories)
• 1-2 tsp. freshly squeezed lemon juice
• 1/2 tsp. whole grain mustard
• salt, pepper, parsley to taste
  total calories: 65 calories
  

Add the lemon juice, oil, mustard, and spices to a bowl and whisk together. Stir in the grated carrot with a fork, cover and place in the refrigerator to marinate for an hour or so. You can eat it fresh, but it's nicer is you let it sit for a bit. The flavors combine much more smoothly and the carrot gets a little softer.

chicken burger (4 oz.) = 142 calories
garlic cloves = 14 calories
1 cup glutinous rice = 168 calories
grated carrot salad = 65 calories
3.4 oz. red grapes = 66 calories
hazelnut chocolate = 90
total = 545

Today's Lunch

I have no plans to become a blogger who posts every meal I eat as I don't need that sort of motivation to be accountable at this time. I also do not have the time, but I will occasionally post a meal and the recipes involved in case anyone is interested.

Today's lunch was egg salad on half a toasted onion and poppy seed bagel, 8 oz. homemade tomato soup, half a 500 ml. bottle of Coke Zero and an orange. This was quite a bit too much food for me to eat all at once though so I ate about 3 orange wedges and had to set the rest aside for later. I also took a Calcium supplement with the meal.

Here are the recipes and calorie breakdowns for this meal:

egg salad (this makes enough for 2 meals)

• 3 medium eggs, hard-boiled (188 calories)
• 2 tbsp. reduced calorie mayonnaise (60 calories) or use 1 tbsp. full fat mayonnaise and 1 tbsp. non-fat unsweetened yogurt (100 calories)
• 1 thin slice onion, finely chopped (4 calories)
• salt, pepper, garlic powder to taste (any other spices you like, I sometimes use dill or add in a little yellow or whole grain mustard)
  

Place the diced onion in a bowl. Peel the eggs and pop the yolks into the bowl with the onions. Add the mayonnaise and sprinkle on the spices. Mash the yolks and mix until the yolks and mayonnaise are well incorporated into a paste-like mixture. Chop the egg whites and stir into the yolk mixture. Spoon half of this onto a toasted bagel and refrigerate the rest for tomorrow.

I will provide the recipe for the tomato soup later when I have more time to write it up and offer all of the calorie information. The soup is mainly pureed vegetables (tomato, onion, and carrot), spices, and water so it is not densely caloric and is nutritious. Of course, preparation is a big part of what makes it so delicious and much better than anything you could buy in a can.

1/2 bagel = 160 calories
egg salad (1/2 of above) = 126 calories (add 20 more if you use full fat mayo and yogurt)
soup = 50 calories
orange = 86 calories
total: 422

This was such a satisfying lunch. The bagel (from Costco) was crispy on the outside and chewy on the inside. The egg salad was creamy and perfectly spiced and the soup was tangy, warming, and just salty enough. I'm not a huge fan of oranges, but I was in the mood for them today and the juicy wedges were really lovely when I slowly squeezed them in my mouth. :-)

I deal with the bagels by slicing them in half and wrapping each half in plastic and freezing them. When I want them, I can just take out a half and toast it in the toaster oven while still frozen.