Week-in-Review & Low-Carb Italian Meatloaf

Well, this week nearly kicked my butt with crazy work hours.  My only workouts this week were sand volleyball Sunday and Thursday, and a very quick interval run at the gym, yesterday. However I can report that as of today (end of week 2), I'm down 7.5 lbs.

We'd been having some very Spring-like weather - storming one day, warm and sunny the next (hey! The clover and dandelions are growing where grass should be!).  So, I spent way more than planned on a yard crew to prep my lawn - seeding and aerating, plus all the hoses and sprinklers and timers I bought to keep those seeds damp and happy in the yard, I decided that this weeks' meal plan needed to feature what I already had in my freezer/pantry to try to make up a few dollars.

I had bought ground beef and Italian sausage that I was going to make into a squash lasagna, but never did.  So I thought I'd instead make an italian themed meatloaf since it's half Italian pork sausage, and because I happened to have some Classico Tomato & Basil pasta sauce in the pantry.  I could have found a lower-carb pasta sauce (Hunts makes a no-sugar added one that's pretty low), but this has small enough quantities in it, and it's already pretty low (6 g net per 1/2 cup). Just know you could cut part of a carb per serving out by choosing a lower-carb sauce.  

So now that I have all that equipment to water the grass seed, of course it's now raining for the 4th day in a row.  But that means its a pretty good day to hide in the kitchen and cook. I'll be serving the meatloaf with a salad made from a mix of chard, kale and spring greens - just to make sure to offset this high-fat; high-protein entree and power up with some good antioxidants, and chard happens to have an antioxidant that helps to regulate blood sugar. Double-low-carb bonus!  (Nutrition for the meatloaf to the left).

Ingredients:

• 1 lb 85/15 ground beef
• 1 lb Italian pork sausage
• 2 eggs, slightly beaten
• 1 tbsp minced garlic
• 60 g chopped yellow onion
• 50 g chopped red bell pepper
• 1/4 cup almond meal
• 1/2 cup Classico tomato & basil pasta sauce (divided in 2)

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350°
2. Spray a loaf pan with non-stick spray,  or else line with easy-cleanup foil
3. Mix all ingredients except 1/4 cup of the tomato sauce by hand - careful not to compact too much.
4. Pat the loaf evenly into the pan, being careful not to compact too much
5. Top with the remaining sauce
6. Cover with foil and bake for 1 hour and 15 minutes
7. Remove the foil, turn up the heat to 400° and bake another 15 minutes  - if you wanted to, it might be good to sprinkle on some grated parmesan just before you put it back in.  I wanted to, but was out :( 
   
8. Ensure the internal temperature has reached at least 145° - it will continue to cook a bit after you take it out of the oven and will likely reach 150-155° or so. (I know FDA recommends ground beef to 160°, but in my opinion, any more on the meatloaf dries it out too much and overcooks it).  Let cool at least 15 minutes before trying so serve (be sure to pour off the fat that will have pooled up around the outside).
9. Serves 6.

Turtle (or Mud-Pie) Gluten-Free & Low Carb Cheesecake

Well, I made it through the first week of low-carbing.  I hit that "keto-flu" wall on Wednesday - major headache and achey body (although that may also have been attributed a little bit to my run on Monday and swim on Tuesday).  But, I felt better by Thursday - which was a good thing, because 2 hours of sand volleyball in the miserable cold was hard to take when I felt okay.. I can't imagine how bad it would have been had I been flu-y also.  So far, I'm down 4 lbs.  I love that mega first-week loss that comes with low-carbing as your body flushes the fluids your carbs have been holding onto.  I know this rate of weight loss won't last, but for my long-term motivation it's nice to start off on a high.

Tomorrow I'm going to an Easter lunch with the family of a good friend.  As I'm intending to keep low-carb, and my friend's dad is diabetic, I'm bringing a low-carb (Sugar-free) and also gluten-free cheesecake (recipe below).   They're serving smoked ham (which is nice instead of honey glazed), scalloped potatoes, brussels sprouts with pecans, deviled eggs and corn on the cob.  I'll skip the potatoes and the corn, but I should be able to keep low-carb with the rest.  Don't get me wrong, it'll be a high-calorie meal, but as long as I'm not rained out on volleyball tomorrow night, I'll more than burn it off.

You want this - chocolatey, coffee, caramel
and pecan cheesecake.  Low-carb (& gluten-free)
and 12 net carbs and 431 calories per serving.

Anyway - on to the recipe.  I've made a variation on this once before and it is YUM.  The only thing I'm really adding this time is a bit of caramel drizzle, since I found Walden Farms has one that is zero calories and zero carbs, and some coffee flavoring into the cheesecake.  So instead of this being just my chocolate swirl cheesecake, I'm calling it mudpie.  Although I guess it could be turtle too. Using the pecans in the crust (this is my recipe crust when I make key lime pie too, but I haven't attempted a low-carb one of those yet), makes sure this can be gluten-free.  Splenda in place of sugar, and some specific SF products that I've bought (the chocolate syrup and the caramel syrup) make sure I can keep it sugar-free.  This is going to be a high-calorie and rich cheesecake, so small portions are plenty - This serves 12 pieces.

Ingredients

Crust

• 1 1/2 Cups pecans (6 oz)
• 1 Tablespoons granular sugar substitute (sucralose), divided
• 1/2 Teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 2 Tablespoons unsalted butter, melted

Cheesecake

• 3 packages (8 ounces each) cream cheese, softened (I used Philadelphia 1/3 fat neufchâtel)
• 1 tub mascarpone cheese
• 2/3 cup Splenda
• ½ cup heavy cream
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 3 eggs, lightly beaten
• 1 packet of instant coffee (I used Taster's choice)
• ½ cup sugar free chocolate syrup (Hershey's makes one, but I used Best Choice)

Ganache on top

• 6 ounces bittersweet 60% baking chocolate (I used Ghirardeli)
• 1/3 cup heavy whipping cream

Garnish

• Walden Farms sugar-free caramel syrup (Smucker's makes a SF one too, but it has more calories and a few carbs, and the texture is probably a bit thicker).
• A few toasted pecan halves

Directions

1. Combine pecans, 1 tablespoon Splenda and cinnamon in a food processor. Process until finely ground. Toss with butter; press onto bottom of a 9-inch spring-form pan, with foil on the outside of the pan to ensure that the seam is covered. Bake until golden and set, 8 to 10 minutes. Cool completely on a wire rack. 

   

   This part of the process smells incredible.

2. In a large bowl, beat cream cheese, mascarpone and Splenda until smooth. Beat in heavy cream instant coffee and vanilla. Add eggs; beat on low speed just until combined.
3. Split ½ batter into another bowl.  In the mixer bowl, add ½ cup chocolate syrup and beat until combined.
4. Add the coffee mix to the bottom of the spring form pan in dollops, then add dollups of the chocolate-coffee mix in between and on top.  Spread the top layer to ensure it's an even thickness, and then drag a knife in a swirl pattern to swirl the flavors.
   
5. Bake at 325° for 65-75 minutes, set into a water filled jelly roll pan (but staying below the height of the foil, until center is just set and top appears dull. Cool on a wire rack for 10 minutes. Carefully run a knife around edge of pan to loosen; cool 1 hour longer. 

   

   Too bad you can't see the swirls

6. For topping, place chocolate in a small bowl. In a small saucepan, bring cream just to a boil. Pour over chocolate; whisk until smooth. Cool slightly. Spread over top of cheesecake and add toasted pecans before the ganache layer sets. Refrigerate over night.   

   

   The ganache will dull a bit when it's cooled,
   and this will look much better once it's out of the pan.

7. Drizzle with sugar-free caramel syrup before serving.  
   

Beating the Blerch

As I mentioned in my First Post, I've signed up to go to Seattle and run the Beat the Blerch 10k in September with one of my girlfriends.  To say that I'm an aspiring runner would imply that I enjoy running or look forward to it, but notsomuch.  Mostly I just aspire to want to run.  The Oatmeal (aka Matthew Inman) wrote a comic blog post, and later a book about running, wherein he describes the Blerch as

"a fat little cherub who follows me when I run.  He is a wretched, lazy beast.  He tells me to slow down, to walk, to quit. "Blerch" is the sound food makes when its squeezed from a tube."Blerch" is the shape of my tummy after a huge meal.  If I am sedentary at a time when I have zero excuse for being sedentary, I call this "Blerching."  The Blerch represents all forms of gluttony, apathy, and indifference that plague my life. "

So I can get behind a run that is all about beating that feeling.  I actually ran tonight for the first time in forever - probably about a year.  And by run, I mean I put the treadmill at a 0 incline and dance/wobbled to a very slow 2.7/3.7 at first and then 3/4 mph interval pace.  But I did it, and I burned about 400 calories in the process.  If I can just do that 3 days a week for the next 3 weeks, I'll be able to finish a 5k in under an hour.  Woot.  Yeah, so I signed up for the Corporate Challenge 5k about 5 weeks ago, thinking that it'd be perfect - I'd have trained my 8 weeks and I'd be ready to RUN THE WHOLE THING.  Except: the Blerch and my allergies and some travel and some other Blerchy excuses. I'm going to pay for that apathy come May 3, but at least I finally started.  By Father's Day, I ought to be ready to run a real one.  Then I'm going to try to run one a month until the 10k and see if I can actually get to a point where I'm really running - not that "wog" thing I do. (walk-jog).  That's the plan anyway.  As long as I do something every day to beat the Blerch, it'll be successful though.

"White" Chicken & Spinach Lasagna Recipe

So jumping back on the low-carb bandwagon, I made a low-carb lasagna; substituting the zucchini for the pasta noodles and leaving out the tomato sauce.  This will give me 4 very hearty dinners this week - which I'm a huge fan of.

Not very diet-y, but filling and one serving has
only 14g net carbs, 73g protein, and 679 calories

The key to this is slicing the zucchini into strips that approximate the lasagna noodles, and then baking them to soften them up before putting them into the dish.

Slice zucchini to "noodle" thickness, and season and pre-bake

This dish is super cheesey, and very high in protein, thanks to almost an entire rotisserie chicken.

This lasagna has no tomato sauce and becomes low-carb
when substituting the zucchini for the noodles

Low-carb White Chicken Lasagna (Serves 4)

Ingredients

• 1 ½ large zucchini (about 1 lb sliced into long, thin strips)
• grapeseed oil spray (or other spray oil)
• ½ tsp lite salt
• ½ tsp fresh cracked pepper
• 1 tbsp Italian seasoning
• 12 oz package frozen spinach, thawed and drained
• 18 oz chopped skinless roasted chicken (I deboned one smallish rotisserie)
• 8 oz shredded part-skim mozzarella (finely shredded)
• 15 oz tub of part-skim ricotta
• 45 g shredded Parmesan
• 1 large egg
• 15 g unsalted butter
• 4 oz yellow onion, chopped
• 13 g minced garlic

Directions

1. Preheat the oven to 350°
2. Slice zucchini into long horizontal strips to resemble lasagna noodles. They should be thin, but still have some weight to them. Spray a lined baking sheet with foil with the grapeseed oil – just enough to keep the zucchini from sticking. Lay out the strips on the sheet and spray the tops with grapeseed oil and season with salt and pepper. Bake for 12 minutes, then flip the strips over, re-spray, season the new side, and bake for 8 minutes.
3. Mix together the ricotta, the egg, the Italian seasoning, the parmesan, and 1 handful of the mozzarella
4. Mix together the chopped up chicken and spinach.
5. Sauté the onions in butter until they turn translucent, add the garlic and sauté a few more minutes.
6. Assemble with 1/3 zucchini on the bottom of the dish, ½ of the chicken & spinach mixture next; then ½ of the sautéed onions and garlic, then ½ of the ricotta mixture, repeat with another layer of everything.  Top with the last 1/3 of the zucchini and then cover with remaining mozzarella.
7. Cover with foil and bake for 55 minutes.  Remove the foil and let bake another 15 minutes.  Let cool for about 15 minutes before cutting and serving.

Week in review: Eats in San Francisco and the perils of travel

What a week!  It was crazy busy, and I spent a good chunk of it in San Francisco for a marketing conference.  Today I'm curled up on the couch, laptop on lap, coffee at side, and looking at recipes.  In other words, a normal Sunday morning.  Although if I could quit sneezing, I might also have a cat in my lap.  Oh, Spring.

The beginning of the week was tame - the only thing really noteworthy is that on Tuesday I was voted in as a board member for the Kansas City Direct Marketing Association.

Wednesday, however I got up at the crack of dawn and flew to San Francisco. And it was beautiful, weather wise, although I hardly left the hotel except for dinners.  'Hazard of staying in the same hotel as the conference and having a Starbucks in the lobby and breakfast & lunch paid for by the conference sponsors.

Upon arrival Wednesday morning, my feet were killing me.  Apparently even though I travel just enough to earn A-List, I've not yet learned that cute shoes do not justify themselves in airports, even if they are slip on/off.  (Especially since I was TSA Pre-check and didn't even have to remove them).  I had packed running shoes thinking that I might actually (ha!) find a treadmill, but had only packed one pair of socks (a by-product of packing, uncaffeinated, at 3:30 in the morning).  I immediately put on my sneakers after I checked in, and since I'd noticed a Target across the street from the hotel, that was my first stop to buy another pair of socks since I assumed I'd need to wear my sneakers again before the week was out (urban Target, but still it made my heart hurt a little that the South of Market had gone so suburban - there was also a Ross, a Marshalls and an Old Navy.  I kept telling myself that the drag queens in this neighborhood needed affordable clothing too, but I digress..).    Anyway, I found a little burger joint for lunch called "Super Duper Burger" and apparently the local chain had won 7x7's best burger and Eater SF's top 10 milkshakes.  It was a pretty fine burger and milkshake - although I kept running that scene from Pulp Fiction in my head.  Anyway, then since I'd been up since (local time) 1:30 am, I headed back to the hotel for a nap.

Got up around 5, showered and headed to the conference kick-off: a cocktail reception at the rooftop bar.  I hate these things, hate them.  I am no good at networking - especially since nobody had name tags on, but my friend Erin was to arrive a little later and we were going to go to dinner afterwards.  It was a full host bar, so I took advantage of the hospitality and had a Maker's and diet and stood around awkwardly in the periphery.  A tall lanky guy, who was there as a vendor for a video content company, walked up and introduced himself.  I was clearly not in the market for his product, so I was thankful he stood around and talked to me anyway.  Maybe he hated networking events as much as I do (although clearly he was much better at it).  We chatted for nearly an hour - while I sweated - the room was crowded and HOT and I was wearing a suit jacket that I regretted most of the evening.  I also found out he was at least 15 years younger than me, as we were discussing Millennials' impact on marketing and he admitted that he was one.  So, me: sweating so much my carefully flat-ironed hair was going full bush, feet hurting in my 'proper adult business shoes', and now add to that feeling a bit like a relic.  I'm sure Erin felt attacked when she finally arrived, because it meant I could leave soon.

Anyway dinner was the nearby BlueStem Brasserie - I had a chicken confit that was very yum, along with some croquettes of potato and olive nicoise and, to drink, an old fashioned.  The next night Erin and I met up again after the conference and pulled up Open Table, looking to venture away from the conference, and picked a little mom & pop place called Il Borgo.  It was so charming, and our waitress was definitely Italian (I suspect she was the chef's wife) - in that she let us linger forever and then scolded us to finish our dinner before dessert. (It was a lot more charming than it sounds, being scolded in very Milanese accented English) Dinner, for me, was a fettucine primavera with some fresh spring peas, prosciutto and little tomatoes, and the house chianti - and Erin and I split a light and creamy tiramisu for dessert.  It was what I pictured exactly when hitting a little neighborhood restaurant in lower haight.

It feels like it took all day to get home on Friday - flying from the West Coast is such a drag - between time changes and no direct flights.  I spent a great deal of time frustrated, at the conference and at SFO, with either painfully slow or no internet access. But the conference was fantastic, lots of good discussion and exactly on the subject I was interested in.  So there's that.  I also engaged quite a lot on Twitter and got a few new followers - and folks to follow.

Yesterday, I lounged around the house most of the morning, and then got out to run errands - including a stop at Lane Bryant for some shorts.  I have apparently gained more weight than I wanted to admit since none of my summer clothing seems to fit, and I refused to go up 2 sizes at Lane Bryant.  I wound up only buying a dress; which doesn't solve my casual summer wear needs, but did have me with the grave realization that I cannot keep fucking around.  Back to Low Carb and exercise today.  

So instead of baking the cherry, almond-amaretti cupcakes I'd picked out last week, today I'll be making a white chicken & spinach lasagna with zucchini in place of the pasta.  And putting together my meals for the rest of the week.  But, I do get to plan some fun cooking for next weekend:  I'm invited to Easter Lunch and have been tasked with dessert.  My hosts are diabetic, and since I'm doing low-carb, I will be making a turtle cheesecake with a pecan nut crust.

First Post

Caramel Macchiato Cupcake - 6/2012

So for my first post, I decided to use one of the most photogenic baked goods I ever made.  This was a dark chocolate cake, with a caramel core (the caramel sauce was store-bought I'll admit), coffee buttercream frosting schmear underneath a regular whipped vanilla buttercream, drizzled with more caramel and sprinkled with bit of sea salt and raw sugar.  The inspiration for this was the Starbucks Caramel Macchiato.

Now that that's out of the way.. I bake things and I often take photos of them.  If you want to see an ongoing album of things I've made, visit my album on Facebook.  I also pin things I want to make, and you can view all my boards on Pinterest.

In fact, my favorite Sunday morning activity is curl up on the couch with my laptop and a good pot cup of coffee, a lap full of kitten, and look at things on the internet that I want to bake - either that or research trips I want to take.  At the moment I'm planning a trip to Seattle in September to run "Beat the Blerch" and a family trip with my parents at Christmas to spend the holiday in Puerto Rico.  And eyeballing an almond, amaretto and raisin (Blech to the raisin, but it would be SO good if I substituted dried cherries) cupcake from The Caked Crusader.  Although its not always baked goods - sometimes it's just food in general.  I'm supposed to be cohosting a dinner party in a few weeks with a friend of mine who brings out my super competitive nature to be the best cook - so I think its safe to say our dinner guests will be the ones to come out winners.  

I'm also planning a whiskey tasting party this summer for my birthday as an excuse to hire the fabulous team from Julep to lead the tastings - and as an excuse to add a bunch of bourbons, whiskeys and ryes to my bar collection.  I'm really geeked for this party.

Otherwise, I'm a 40ish single female with 2 cats and I work in the advertising industry combining my passion for data and customer experience into some cool projects for cool clients and with some pretty awesome coworkers.  I play sand volleyball 7 months out of the year and the "LoneStar" part of the blog name is related to the fact that I'm originally from Texas and some little part of my heart will always be in Austin.  Fortunately, my parents live there and I have every excuse to go back a few times a year.  I also just bought a little tudor home, in an area of town known for Dible tudors, so I'm also constantly plotting (and plodding) through home improvement projects.

So now that you know what I'm up to, you can assume I'll be writing about all these things. So if you want to read about food, bourbon, travel, parties, nesting, marketing, cats, sand volleyball, and sometimes technology, you've come to the right blog.