So let’s get back to food, shall we? Actually I sort of wanted to talk about kitchen gadgets. Gimmicky kitchen gadgets. Do you own any? I’m talking about silly things like Slap Chops (I own one! It’s collecting dust.), avocado slicers,  mango splitters and the like. Basically anything that a good ol’ knife would do FASTER. And then there is a whole new level of ridiculousness with the likes of egg poacher + english muffin toaster combo, andmarinade express tabletop unit(it’s $300!!). The good news is that some gadgets are AWESOME… even if you can in fact use something simpler to get the job done.

You are going to laugh at me but I love my strawberry stem remover. Yes, I can use a knife but it’s honestly so much fun using that little guy (and no, I will not be buying the strawberry slicerthat Amazon recommends with it… I do have my limits). And I recently purchased this cupcake corer. It looks gimmicky but I hate doing the job with a pairing knife. I’ll let you know how it goes.

Why am I even talking about kitchen gadgets anyway? Because the shredder attachment to my food processor rocked my world the other day. I sort of want to shred every single food item in the house now just to watch this beast process it into perfect little strips. Three pounds of potatoes processed in less than 1 minute. Box graters are so last year!

The recipe I used my favorite new gadget for was for kugelis, which is a Lithuanian potato dish reminiscent of a large hash brown cake. It took a little work (I wish those potatoes peeled themselves!) but the end result was a beautiful potato bake with a golden crust on the outside and tender potato on the inside. Adam and I both enjoyed it for our “restaurant meal in” (our new thing since our going out budget is tighter… there are no tvs, no computers, just the two of us enjoying a more indulgent meal together – catching up on random stories from the week)… but this would be a great dish to serve for brunch as well. I hope you make it and let me know how it goes!

Kugelis – serves 6-8 (recipe is largely based on the Please to the Table cookbook)

Ingredients:

• 3 lbs potatoes
• 4 oz bacon
• 3 eggs
• 1/2 cup cream
• 1/2 cup milk (if you want a richer dish, use all cream)
• 3 tablespoons butter
• salt and pepper, to taste

Instructions:

1. Preheat oven to 375*.

2. Fry bacon in an oven safe 10” skillet. Pour out most of the bacon grease, leaving enough to coat the pan. Blot bacon on paper towels then crumble.

3. Peel potatoes, coarsely grate.

This is where the food processor is your friend!

4. Wash grated potatoes in several changes of cold water, then place in a kitchen towel to squeeze water out.

Nice and dry! Watery potatoes are no good.

5. Combine potatoes, bacon, milk, cream, and eggs. Add salt and pepper to taste.

6. Transfer back to the pan and dot with butter.

6. Bake at 375* for about 1 hour, until the top is golden brown.

Crusty on the inside…

…soft and buttery on the inside:

These potatoes were definitely the star of our steak dinner. I also used these Green Giant green beans for a super quick side veg (*Disclaimer: I received a coupon for a free Green Giant product through the Foodbuzz Tastemaker program).

Quick steam:

Then a 2 minute sautee with some EVOO and garlic.

Perfect

What are your favorite kitchen gadgets?

SO, if you’ve seen my post on Russian Bites, or my facebook/twitter you may have known that I had my parents and parents in law over for dinner last night. It’s been long overdue and I’m really excited that we finally had a change to do it. It was really fun! So fun, in fact, that I totally forgot to take pictures of all the food (namely the appetizers) so I’ll you’ll have to use your imagination if you’d like to pretend you were at the Healthy and Sane household last night.

This was the smoothest and least stressful dinner party I’ve ever had. Here is why!

• I took shortcuts! Pre-dinner nibbles included green olives marinated with lemons and garlic (purchased from the Whole Foods deli department), aged gouda (just cut up), mozzarella/grape tomato skewers (super simple – Adam assembled them!) and hummus with baby carrots and crackers (hummus was the only thing I made from scratch for the apps).
• I made dessert the night before (I had to given the recipe, but I just LOVED not worrying about that course at all the day of the dinner).
• Despite my overambitious self, I stuck to “just” one main course (which I’ve made before <- I knew what to expect!!). I did make a side of greens, although I accepted help (my mom washed the escarole and helped me with dessert the night prior; Adam made the mozzarella/tomato skewers). Thanks guys!
• I invited guests a few hours prior to dinner being served. This gave everyone time to chat, drink and munch… and gave me more time to prep (I always stress about having everything ready when people arrive! No need this time!!).

With all the wine our guests brought in and additional desserts (see below), we certainly had no shortage of food and drinks. So here we go, last night’s (pictured) eats!

My father in law LOVES Italian and happens to be the pickiest eater of the bunch (although I think my mom sometimes tries to give him a run for his money ) so choosing an Italian main entrée was the easy choice. I decided that spinach, artichoke and feta stuffed shells was a fun and impressive enough dish for a family dinner. It fed a crowd too! I made 1.5 times the recipe and it made two large pans (we hardly finished one of them so there were plenty of leftovers… not complaining here ).

This was carby, cheesy and comforting. A simple side dish of escarole and pine nuts (doubled) nicely broke out the richness of the main course.

There was also garlic bread which apparently broils within seconds (ok, more like 2 minutes… but still) – hey, fire and smoke with the price of admission

My mom saved the day (scrapes them off and I reapplied the garlic/EVOO paste – crisis averted!).

See, all good!

I think I can safely say everyone really enjoyed the main course!!

I left plenty of room for DESSERT!

My mom brought granny smith apples wrapped in puff pastry dough (like a lazy apple pie) – yum!

Jane, my mother in law, made chocolate covered strawberries. Just in time for Valentine’s day!

And I, with the help of my mom, made my very first gorka cake!!!! Check out Russian Bites for the recipe. You’ve been asking me for it for years, so now it’s your turn to make it. SOOOOOO good.

Happy bellies = happy guests… and a happy hostess.

Do you have any dinner party tricks? I’m really happy with how smoothly everything went last night. And now, if you excuse me, I have gorka leftovers to devour (ok, that’s a joke… I already had some after breakfast )

My latest post is for vinegret which is a pretty healthy yet hearty salad. I bet you’d like it!!

[The whole recipe was 18 points plus… I ate half for 9 which is an awesome deal!]

Oh and my weigh-in is later today… this is the first week ever that I actually followed the program to the T and stayed within my points allowance (no $20 penalty… wheee). Hope the scale is my friend!

So I wanted to get a little personal around here again. Here is the deal – I’ve been overeating lately but for some reason I stopped caring about that. Not in a “I’m letting myself go and I don’t care” way. I just feel like it will even out. I am SO passionate about healthy living that I know that those few extra cookies (or pieces of bread with baba ganoush, whatever) will just not matter in the big scheme of things. Something tells me that if I don’t put so much pressure on eating “right” that I eventually WILL eat right… because naturally I crave healthy things majority of the time. I care about eating high quality food, mostly organic and/or local produce. I want to be proud about all of that so following my heart in that respect will just make me happier.

So hopefully that made some sense. Here is the “BUT.” I’ve gained a few pounds. Again, somehow I just don’t really care. I went shopping yesterday and bought myself a whole bunch of new clothes that make me feel fabulous (the jeans could/should zip a little easier but that’s just one glitch we’ll overlook for the purpose of this post). Seriously, I was just beaming for the rest of the day after that “shopping therapy” session at Anthropology… and then I saw these before an after pictures and started thinking again…

Am I settling for a pudgy belly? Is that really the answer to happiness? Janetha looks incredible and maybe I should too. I LOVE lifting weights which is what the Body for Life program is all about. I actually used to have the book and did the workouts my senior year of college and really really loved them. What I’m struggling with here is this desire to change things up again at the same time as I feel like I am getting close to accepting myself the way I am today. I stopped judging my food choices, my body. I seem to have come to peace with all of that… yet I want Janetha’s hard abs. How can these two conflicting thoughts co-exist? Better yet, which one should I listen to? Obviously just accepting myself seems like the right (and easier) answer…. but I want Janetha’s hard abs. Oh, I said that already, huh? Ok, enough of this non-sense. Feel free to decode any of this. Moving on to yesterday’s eats.

BREAKFAST

Coconut/almond crusted french toast with fresh grilled pineapple and oikos with maple syrup + coffee

LUNCH

Leftover miso glazed cod + asparagus

Sorry, I know this picture is atrocious, but the meal was really yummy!

SNACKS

+ COOKIES, lots and lots of cookies, which I got in a thank-you package from Erin and Pete. The cookies were all crushed so I didn’t take a picture (would do their taste an injustice)… but let’s just say I ate my share’s worth (and some) and wasn’t really hungry for dinner after that.

DINNER

… was at my parents’ house. They got take-out from Erik’s pizza & wings. The twist is that they ordered off the secret Georgian menu.

Traditional khachapuri

Chicken tabaka with rice

Pork “kebabs” with rice

Tomato/cucumber salad (onions on the side)

Lamb kebabs with rice

My plate:

+ some vino (I had another glass or so)

The pork was waaaaay too salty (although the spices were nice) but the rice was great and the salad + khachapuri were awesome. The salty cheese and chewy dough was so nice. I had a little more of both.

My parents then served some Russian “paska” for Easter. I wasn’t hungry to begin with and certainly didn’t want more dessert but I had a taste.

This is basically the same as the Italian pannatone, except this loaf was super dry. I had a tiny bite and that was it.

This guy was store-bought. My mom later made her own fresh version. Here is a picture she emailed me. Looks much better!

Have a great weekend!!! Any thoughts on my non-sense above?

The morning started with a pre-run snack. I always eat toast with nut butter + 1/2 banana before long runs. This time I had a little extra time so I made 1.5 toasts to last me through 8+ miles. It was the perfect amount of fuel!

So in case you missed it, I ran EIGHT miles on Saturday. My sister was the special guest on our weekly run with Molly. It was really fun to catch up with my girls! We don’t care about speed on those runs – it’s all about chatting and having a good time. Somehow this always translates into a 10 minute/mile. Fine by me. I’ll work on the speed during my shorter runs. This time I was just happy to finish this distance. It’s been months!

POST-RUN SNACK

LUNCH

I stretched and showered as quickly as I could because I decided that Flour was the perfect place for my recovery lunch. Flour bakery is one of my favorite bakeries in Boston, and they are not only famous for their pastries (the owner Joanne Chang won the Throwdown with Bobby Flay with her sticky buns!) but also for their super fresh sandwiches.

Apparently I was not the only one who had this brilliant idea on a Saturday afternoon. The place was packed!!

Oh yeah, my kind of place

I really wanted the tofu, olive-red pepper tapenade and grilled veggie sandwich but it had onions pre-mixed in the veggie medley. I thought I was being safe with my choice of the roast chicken, avocado and jicama sandwich but after waiting for nearly half hour for my sandwich I found out the hard way that the avocado was actually guac with pre-mixed red onions. Eek. Thankfully I took the sandwich out of the bag to take a picture and discovered this right away. The nice people at Flour offered to make me any other sandwich and I chose the (onion free) smoked turkey, cheddar and cranberry chutney

The bread was so fresh – it was definitely the best part. I liked the rest of the sandwich as well but it was nothing too special. I guess it was all about the simplicity of the ingredients. I’d still order it again.

I also couldn’t go to Flour without ordering the “granola bar” pastry – oats, honey, walnuts, cranberry-apricot-apple jam

I love absolutely everything about this pastry – the jam, the strudel topping, the fact that it’s gigantic so I can enjoy it for hours. Love it!!

After a lovely lunch (I ate the sandwich and the pastry btw throughout the day – it was in my purse and I was taking little bites here and there while running errands) we went to Ikea to buy door handles for our kitchen. Oh our life is just so exciting, isn’t it? At some point, it was dinner time and we headed to my parents’ house to enjoy a meal with them, my sister and her boyfriend.

DINNER

Lovely berries were the perfect appetizer

I had a few organic strawberries – so flavorful! I can’t wait for strawberry season in Boston!!!

Then I got to picture taking. There was a lot of yummy food, all requested by my sister.

I didn’t eat the above 2 dishes, so here are the highlights for me… plov – rice pilaf with organic chicken, cranberries and carrots

Sinii – roasted eggplant + tomato puree

Pickles – sour and half-sour

Korean spicy carrots (we get them at the Russian store)

Fresh Russian bread

Everyone had something different to drink – there were fancy beers and red and white wine. I had 2 glasses from this bottle:

My plate…

x2

Then it was time for dessert. GORKA!!

My sister was on slicing duty. We were both giddy with excitement. It is my sister’s favorite dessert and definitely one of my favorites as well!

Sour cherries, pastry tubes in sour cream frosting – what’s not to love?!!

This was a giant piece and I had no problem polishing it off. In fact after an hour or so I picked at another little slice. SO good!!

Now that you are all back on regular schedule (and catching up on blogs, right?) – how was your Valentine’s day weekend? Was it as full of indulgences as mine? Any highlights?

So here is today’s brunch (looks very similar to yesterday’s linner):

Mmm, buttery homemade crepes with condensed milk…

Organic strawberries + raspberries (my parents also got organic Maine blueberries which I have yet to eat):

1 orange for some natural vitamin C (I don’t like juice because it’s just full of sugar and calories)

Yummy! Thanks, mom and dad

Now onto something a little less awesome… did you hear that Jillian Michaels has a new weight loss pills line (thanks, Kelly, for bringing my attention to this)? I really thought she was above all of this. I KNOW people have asked her in the past about diet pills and she said they were crap. Obviously there are no shortcuts. Well I guess there may be shortcuts but if you want long term results, then you have to do your homework and really make permanents lifestyle changes to be able to lose and maintain that lower weight. Very disappointing, Jillian! What are your thoughts on this?

Thank you all for your get well wishes! I really appreciate them.

Last day to enter my Israeli goodies giveaway!

An enormous amount of food was consumed over a 2 weeks period. I wanted to highlight these 5…

1. I made Self’s zucchini bran muffins that I found through Lara’s Thinspired.  She was raving about them so much, I couldn’t wait to make them (apparently it still took me forever, but whatev )

I doubled the recipe, divided it into 8 muffins (instead of 6) and halved the oil. I think I burnt them slightly They were pretty delicious but a little too sweet (I think since the raisins I used were very sweet, I could have cut the sugar amount by at least 1/3) and a little too dense. I definitely learned a lesson with these – cutting down on oil without any substitutions is not a good idea. I usually sub nonfat yogurt for oil (1 for 1 of regular yogurt – not greek) and that works well. I was out of yogurt and decided to just do it without but I think you really need all the fat in the recipe to make these moist (they are from Self so they are already healthified). Lesson learned.

Oh yeah, and I also made a zucchini chocolate cupcake with one of them by using some leftover frosting from this cake. This was good!

2. For the entire 2 weeks we were really low on fresh produce and groceries in general. I had to get creative. What to do with the pork tenderloin that’s in the fridge? Stuff that baby! It was my first time attempting to stuff a pork tenderloin but Kath’s recipe for pork tenderloin stuffed with blue cheese, dates and pecans inspired me (I hate blue cheese so I used goat cheese instead) and I was ready for the challenge. It turns out it’s really easy and it came out absolutely amazing! My husband ‘supposedly’ hates goat cheese and dates and he loved this! Said it had to get on our regular recipe rotation (hmm, I don’t think we have a recipe rotation yet). Note: pictures were updated in Jan 2012 (this remains to be one of our favorite recipes!!)

3. Remember my fun day with lots of packages?  These Buitoni wild mushroom agnolotti (ok let’s be real – ravioli) came very handy during our grocery trip ban (we maxed out on our grocery budget mid-month).

I wanted to make a creamy healthy sauce and tried to use a plain chobani as a base. Apparently yogurt curdles under heat. Oops! Plan A went straight into trash, so I steamed some asparagus and spinach, sauteed it with a tiny bit of EVOO, then added a drop of truffle oil (which transforms basically any food into a divine meal) and shredded some parmesan cheese over the whole concoction.

Both me and my husband absolutely LOVED this!! I’ve seen this all over the blog world with bloggers mentioning the high sodium content and high calories for the amount of food you get, but we thought they were amazing! I would say, without any hesitation, that this dinner turned out to be restaurant quality. I didn’t find it to be too salty (I guess the sodium is on the higher side but at least it didn’t taste it) and the veggies bulked up the whole thing. The mushrooms tasted so fresh and the cheese filling was nice and creamy. Of course adding the truffle oil didn’t hurt either! I savored every bite and was very satisfied. No need for dessert even. That’s huge! Needless to say, I’d buy it if (when?) it were sold in stores. Perfect quick meal!

4. I really hate throwing away food. We bought a whole baguette to made steak and cheese sandwiches (pictured in the bottom of this post), and of course had lots of baguette leftovers. I’m sure you know that stuff is completely dry and hard even on the next day and we forgot about the leftovers for days! Again trying to conserve the small amount of fruit we had, I went to the freezer and found some frozen berries. Perfect! I decided to make use of both of these, and made Ellie Krieger’s peach french toast bake (I substituted berries for peaches). Here it is the all together the night before:

And the next morning, post baking:

And my portion:

It was delicious! The brown sugar browned up nicely – it was perfectly sweet without being overwhelming. Love Ellie’s recipes

5. It was over 90* last Friday so my husband and I decided to go out for a drink + dinner and enjoy the weather at Burton’s instead of staying at home. I’m becoming less rigid about following “the plan” and it really helps with the sane aspect I tried to make a healthy choice so it really was the best of both worlds!

Bbq chicken salad: lettuce, bbq chicken, corn, black beans, cheddar cheese, tortilla strips, bacon bits and tomatoes (I think). It was so flavorful I didn’t need the dressing. Next time I’ll try it without the cheese too because I couldn’t really taste it much. The chicken was very nicely marinaded, though, and the tortilla strips added a nice crunch. I love tex-mex salads like this!

OTHER EATS

How did this guy get here?

Yeah, I’m a dork!

Phew! So did I make up for my recent lack of food posting or what?

I promised more vacation recaps but there is just too much to write about and my brain doesn’t function well at 6am.  So I’ll give you a recap of yesterday instead.  I went right back on the healthy wagon.  It felt pretty good.  Unfortunately because we’ve been eating so much on vacation, my body wants to continue eating this way, so I still ate a lot more than on my pre-vacation healthy days.  Today I’m back to counting calories.  Hopefully I can really get back on track soon (although these sleepless night have to stop asap!!!).

BREAKFAST

I woke up bright and early on my day off.  We had no fresh produce but I was so happy to find a chobani in the fridge.  I missed yogurt so much!!  This really hit the spot!

WORKOUT

After a few hours, I got dressed and hit the gym (it’s been 13 days since my last workout!).  I took it easy-ish and did a 5K on the treadmill (preset program that changes inclines and speed). On a good day I can do level 3 all the way, but I started with level 2 since it’s been so long (after a quick warm-up walk, this makes you run at 6.6mph, and switches between 0.0-2.0 inclines) and actually after 20 minutes switched to level 3 (7.0 mph).  I was happy that I could run without dying.  Then I did another 30 minutes on the elliptical, and finished off by 15 minutes of the stationary bike.  Not bad for a day after 30 hours of traveling and hardly any sleep!  Workout stats…

• Duration: 1:17
• Calories burnt: 612 (40% fat)
• Ave HR: 138; Max HR: 210 (must be wrong!)

MORE EATS

I was pretty proud of this meal because I used everything out of the freezer and was able to produce a real balanced meal

And then I was still hungry (damn stretched stomach!) so I had one of these babies.  I’ve tried a bunch of kinds in Hong Kong and plan to do a whole post just on these.  Love ‘em!!

Dinner was at my parents. It was very delicous.  My mom is quite the cook   Here is my first plate…

And my second piece of the pie.  Yum!

I also had a bite of a cookie that we brought for my parents (not pictured).  This dinner really stuffed me, but aparently not enough to get me through the night.

I’ll do more vacactions recaps soon.  I promise   There is some really good stuff there…

I came home starving after the apple picking so the plan to hit the gym right away was out of the door. I could not work out hungry and after I ate, I could not work out because I needed to digest. I called my dad to see what the plan for dinner was and he informed me that instead of the bbq he and his friends (from Russia, staying with my dad for a few days) decided to cook lamb instead. I don’t eat lamb. I never liked it. It’s not that I have anything against lamb; it’s just that it has a very strong flavor that I just do not enjoy. He then informed me that that they’ll be making some zucchini “cake” (made with mayonnaise… not sweet) so even the side dish was unhealthy. I was so upset, because I really wanted to be healthy and already incountered a few obsticles in that department earlier in the day and persevered and now I had to deal with more of the same. The plan was to go quickly, have my husband try the lamb and then come home, cook something healthy for myself and hit the gym. Ok, that SO did not go according to plan.

Here are a few of the foods that we were presented with. The table looked beautiful!

This were just some tomatoes with grapes. Very creative!

And this was the zucchini cake. Really they were crepes made with zucchini, layered with sauce (mayo+spices) and topped with pine nuts.

There was also a simple cheese plate and some kind of an eggplant dish (not pictured).

Again, the presentation was just adorable! This woman could work in a restaurant!!! She even placed two napkins in front of me and my husband with our initials in rose petals. This is my “E” for Elina. How very sweet of her…

The whole theme of the night was kind of celebrating our newly-wed status, which is why we had the special napkins.

This was my first plate (one of each):

I had a bunch more of the eggplant dish. It seemed healthy and was so unique tasting. The people brought their spices all the way from Syberia. It tasted almost like Indian food with a Russian spin to it. Very delicious.

Then came the main entree… the lamb. I had to try it to be polite.

The verdict: it was actually not bad, because the spices were so delicious and unique, but I wouldn’t say I’ve been coverted to a lamb-lover This was a tiny portion and I didn’t take any more. I was still trying to be good.

We were all dining for awhile. There was some vodka involved (I didn’t have any) and lots of wine. I think I had about 2 small glasses of red. This all led to some bizzare (but very traditional!) Russian behaviour. At random moments they made us kiss (so awkward!) and kept on being very cheesy with love references and love songs! Seriously, they just could not stop singing in Russian, catching random words and starting songs with them. Oh, and of course they made sure to tell my husband how faithful Russian women are. It’s aparently in our genes, just in case he was worried. Haha! Crazy crazy Russians. It was all good fun, though

I ended up eating another 0.75 slice of the zucchini cake, a few slices of a plum, 2 grapes and 1 Trader Joe’s cookie. And no, I did not make it to the gym tonight Better luck tomorrow…