Wading through life

Thanksgiving dinner party for small group tonight. Good stuff…though I got full WAY too quick. Just one plate…and a fairly small plate at that. Of course some dessert as well. But still; one plate is rather weak.

I took a stab at doing some real cooking for the first time in a while. Scott and I volunteered to take care of turkey, ham, mashed potatoes and gravy. So, I scrounged up some recipes and did my best. Didn’t follow any of the recipes to a T…especially the mashed potatoes, which morphed into a double-recipe-inspired concoction.

The turkey was a South Beach Roast Turkey with Herbs. Brined that bad boy and everything. Variations included cooking it in a bag and not being able to track down some fresh sage for the herb bundle inside. Think I couldn’t find the ancho pepper as well.

Mashed potatoes started with this recipe from NapaStyle for Roasted Garlic Mashed Potatoes. As it turned out, I couldn’t track down garlic paste, let alone roasted garlic paste. So, having purchased lots of butter and cream already, I tracked down another recipe to make use of those. I found this one at cdkitchen.com for Creamy Whipped Potatoes.

After it was a bit too late, I realized I didn’t have the cream cheese it called for. So, I began to improvise, taking a little direction from them both and basically made it up as Scott mashed. Ended up pretty garlic-y, but tasty. I enjoyed them. Went pretty well with the herb-y turkey.

Gravy came the closest to the recipe. Nabbed it from ReluctantGourmet.com for basic Turkey Gravy. Sadly, I didn’t take on the challenge of their Thanksgiving Turkey Gravy recipe. It was a bit too complicated. Homemade turkey stock??? Not gonna happen. The basic one seemed hard enough at first glance, though it ended up being pretty simple.

I think the food turned out ok. I got some good feedback. Most importantly, I keep reminding myself (since, of course, I’m not living my life to earn the approval and affirmation of others), is that I enjoyed both the work and the result. And I look forward to the leftovers.

Well, I wasn’t as strict this time…and I’ve indulged a couple times already since the 2-week sugar fast, but the South Beach Diet seems to like my body and sheds pounds when I abide by it’s ways.

I weighed myself for the first time in a couple weeks and found myself 10 pounds lighter. I was 206, which is only 3 pounds heavier than the weight I bottomed out at when on the diet last summer. I don’t feel nearly as lean this time, though, and I think that’s because I had a bit more weighty muscle mass than I do now. Scott and I haven’t been working out as much lately, so I could be down some lean pounds and up some body fat percents.

Either way, I’m pretty pleased and am inspired to continue eating better. And now that Fitrex.com is back up and running, and Scott and I are starting up our new program, I’ll just be compounding the effects exponentially and be back in summertime-shape in no time.

Come to think of it, the suit pants I wore today were a little loose around the waist…