Bryant's fries

About two weeks ago I took the kids grocery shopping.  Bryant stayed home because he was working.  While we drove home, my phone beeped several times, so Scooter grabbed it to see what was going on.

She said her Dad had texted a bunch, so I asked her to read them to me.  The following is a direct quote from his texts, except where noted.

Text 1: Bryant got hungry.

Text 2: Put fries in oven.

Text 3: Went back to work.

Text 4: "What's that beeping?"

Text 5: Smoke alarm!   (Scooter paraphrased) "Bad word, very bad word"

Text 6: Black fries.

Text 7: Smoke.

Text 8: Laughing at stupidity.

Text 9: Still hungry.

Hasselhoff Potatoes?

It's no secret that I love potatoes.  Passionately and without reserve.  I often say that I've never met a potato I didn't want to eat.


Boiled, baked, fried, mashed or really, any way you can think of them, I love them all.   But, I live with six other people and they don't all share my love of all things potato.  So I try to come up with different ways to serve the humble spud.

I happened upon the phrase, "Hasselback Potato" not too long ago and I was intrigued.  A quick Googling later and I had a recipe.

So here's how I did it...

Preheat your oven to 425 - 450, depending on the oven.  Mine cooks hot, so I set mine to 425.  Start with six or seven decent sized russet potatoes, scrubbed clean, but not peeled.

                                     


Carefully slice a very thin layer off the bottom of the potato so it will sit flat on the cutting board.  This step is important, because next we're going to make very thin slices in the potato and it'll be difficult if your spud is rolling around the counter!

Using a sharp knife, make slices about 1/4 inch apart for the full length of your potato.  You don't want to cut through, though.  Leave about 1/3 - 1/2 inch uncut at the bottom.  I had a hard time eyeballing it, so I used the handle of another knife as a guide.  I simply slid my knife through the potato until it hit the handle of the other knife.  Easy peasy.

Repeat these steps for all the potatoes. They should look like this...

Now the fun part!!  You want about 2 cloves of garlic, peeled and very thinly sliced.  Or, about 2 tsp of jarred minced garlic will work, too.  You also need about 3 Tbsp of butter, chilled and cut into tiny cubes or slices. 

Spacing the butter and garlic evenly, wedge it into the slices.  I put a bit of garlic and butter in every other cut of each potato.  The butter kept wanting to pop back out, so I used a dull knife to push it back in.  After you've stuffed all the potatoes, drizzle 2 Tbsp olive oil over all the potatoes evenly.  A generous sprinkle of coarse sea salt and fresh ground black pepper tops it all off. 

Pop those beauties into the oven for 60 minutes.  Every so often, two or three times total, baste the melted butter/olive oil back up onto the potatoes.  That will help the skins to become crisp and golden - YUM!

When they're done, place them in a serving dish and, if you like, drizzle the remaining oil/butter over the top.  I opted not to, but it could be delish!

I served these plain alongside a grilled steak and steamed broccoli with excellent results.  The garlic became very soft and sweet, the potato was crisp on the outside, but tender on the inside.  All in all, our family called this one a winner!

The serving size depends on the number of potatoes you use.  I made 6 potatoes and fed 7 people, but Midge isn't a big potato fan and I was already close to my WW points limit for the day, so we shared a potato.  Speaking of WW, these bad boys are 7 points each, but totally worth it, especially served alongside a low point entree and steamed veggies. 

The name Hasselback potato comes from the Hasselbacken Hotel in Sweden where the recipe originated, as far as I can tell (Google hasn't led me astray yet...) and today's post title comes from my silly desire to call them Hasselhoff potatoes. 

Time Waster

There is a place near here that I love.  It's a historic pond/park called Mayfield.  Outside of home, Mayfield is my favorite place to be.  I'm often reminded of Shakespeare when I'm there - "I love this place and would gladly waste my time in it."

A few of the reasons I love Mayfield:




There's a pond that's perfect for learning (and teaching) how to skip rocks.





Frogs and their eggs



Lots of interesting and beautiful creatures



Gorgeous flowers



And lots of walking paths!

 So where do you gladly waste your time?

Peach Cobbler

I haven't made this recipe yet, but when I mentioned it to my Mom yesterday, she was mucho excited to try it.  Pibb and I will be making it this weekend, so I'll update the post with my review and at least one picture then.  For now, here you have it: 

EDIT:  Photo added 7/19/2011

Peach Cobbler
Serves 8
WW PPV = 4

6 medium peaches, peeled, pitted and sliced
6 1/3 Tbsp sugar, divided
1 Tbsp cornstarch
1 tsp fresh lemon juice
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
1 C all-purpose flour
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp table salt
3 Tbsp reduced calorie margarine
1/2 C fat free milk

Preheat oven to 375.

In a large saucepan, combine peaches, 1/3 C sugar (5 1/3 Tbsp), cornstarch, lemon juice and cinnamon; toss to coat peaches.  Set pan over medium heat and bring to a boil cook until mixture thickens, about 1 minute.  Remove pan from heat; transfer mixture to an 8 X 8 baking pan.

To make topping, combine flour, remaining sugar, baking powder and salt in a large bowl.  Work in margarine with a fork until mixture resembles coarse crumbs.  Add milk and stir until flour is evenly moistened.

Drop 8 Tbsp of topping mix over peaches.  Bake until topping is golden brown and filling is bubbly, about 25 minutes.  Cut into 8 pieces and serve.


My notes so far:

Life is too short to eat reduced calorie margarine in baked goods.  I will recalculate the points on this to include real butter.  3 Tbsp divided by 8 servings isn't much, but I'm betting it will greatly improve the flavor and texture of the topping.

Also, I've made a few cobblers and crisps and they all have one thing in common - if you fail to put a baking sheet under them in the oven, they will bubble over and you'll have burned fruit stuck in there until you finally get sick enough of it to scrape the oven out.  I'll be putting a cookie sheet under this when I make it.

EDIT:
Pibb and I made this cobbler last night and I only have one thing to say about it - make this at your earliest convenience!!  It was crazy good, but even more than that, it was super easy!  The hardest, most time consuming part of it was pealing the peaches.  And even that was pretty quick - we used the boiling water/ice bath method and it was pretty smooth sailing.  I had one peach that wasn't quite as ripe as the others and that one needed to be boiled/iced twice.  Everything else was easy peasy. 

The fruit was tender and sweet, but not overly so.  The flavor of the peaches really shines here because of the small amount of sugar and spices.  The biscuit topping was tender and crumbly, but had a little crunch on the top - it was perfect.  Oh, speaking of the crust, I didn't scoop the topping in 8 individual bits, as the recipe called for.  I just used my fingers to kinda spread the topping around, mostly covering the fruit.  It worked out very well!

I served this with a bit of sugar free Cool Whip and those of us that enjoyed it, really enjoyed it.  Scooter doesn't care for cooked fruit, so she wasn't thrilled with it, but she's an odd duck. 

Changing the reduced calorie margarine to real butter increased the points plus value to 5 per serving, but I think it was well worth it!  If you're going to splurge, why not make it the best splurge you can?  I'll leave you with one final picture to help motivate you to make this NOW...

Watching

For the past six or seven years, my weight has stayed pretty steady, except when I was pregnant.  I'd bounce around the same 5 lbs or so and  my jeans size didn't change in those years.  I'd pretty much accepted that this weight was where my body was comfortable.  I was pudgy, but not overly so and my health didn't seem to be suffering, so I wasn't really worried about it.  I'd occasionally get upset with myself for being out of shape, but most of the time, I just accepted that this who I am and what I look like.  No biggie.

This past year or so, I've put on a few pounds, gone up a pants size and lost some flexibility.  At first, I just attributed it to getting older and being less active over the winter.  But as the weather warmed up and we started walking the nature trails near here, I realized just how out of shape I'd gotten; for the first time in years, I was having to stop and take a rest every time we hiked and I was feeling a little like The Blob.

So about a month ago I did something I told myself I wasn't going to do.  I joined Weight Watchers.  I'm not a joiner by nature, so the idea of going to meetings and being forced to participate really didn't appeal to me.  Then someone showed me the WW online program and it looked like something I could really do.

They happened to be having a really good deal on the day that I was checking it out, so after talking to Bryant, I decided to go for it and sign up for three months.  I'm a couple of days from one month in and so far, so good.  Sure, there have been a few times when I wanted to give up, but since those feelings are hormone related, I'm finding ways to plan for and deal with them.

Someone recently asked me what a typical day looks like on WW and I wasn't sure what to tell her.  The plan is so customizable that my typical day may not look anything like someone else's.  But, in an attempt to answer that question, here's a rundown of my food choices from one day last week:

Breakfast: (4 pts)
1 egg + 1 egg white omelet, filled with onion, bell pepper, mushroom, 1/2 slice ham and 1 slice low fat American cheese with a handful of fresh raspberries and a large glass of water.

AM Snack: (3 pts)
Fiber Plus Dark Chocolate and Almond bar

Lunch: (9 pts)
1 thin slice of turkey breast, mixed greens, red onion slices and mustard on a homemade bagel sandwich with a handful of baby carrots and more water.

PM Snack: (1 pt)
1 string cheese and an apple, sliced.

Dinner: (13 pts)
4 oven-fried chicken tenders, 15 honey barbecue potato chips, veggies from a veggie tray and 2 tablespoons of salad dressing for dipping and more water.

I always keep a bottle of water with me and I drink quite a bit more than the WW Healthy Checks recommendation, but it's an amount I'm used to and comfortable with.  I've also found that drinking so much more water, my "need" for Diet Pepsi has dropped pretty significantly.  Yay!

When I first started WW, I wasn't sure how to organize my points so that I'd get enough food all through the day (I do not deal well with hunger), so I began planning my day ahead of time.  Each morning after breakfast I sit down and plan out my food for the next day.  Doing it this way gives me time to figure out how many points will be in the foods I make from scratch and let's me choose my menu when I'm not ravenously hungry.  When it comes time for snack, I simply grab my notebook, flip to the appropriate page and all the decision-making has already been done!

There's wiggle room in there, too, so if my day takes an unexpected turn, I know I can play with the point distribution and adjust for real life. 

So there you have it.  My WW experience so far. 



Oh, and I've lost just barely shy of 12 pounds already!