Lemon or Lime?

Day 3:

Protein shake: protein scoop, cup of fruit and cup of milk …blend…delicious

Chicken salad: Remember that I cooked 3 breasts last night, we only ate 1 and a half, so I am using the other half to make our chicken salad.

6 oz of chicken, 1/3 cup of celery, 2 tbls Caesar dressing (you should use low fat mayo but we did not have any so I went to the closest thing), ½ tbls mustard, pepper, and celery seed. The book calls for dill but I am not a big fan of dill because it’s too potent, so I used celery seed. Cut up the chicken mix it all up and waaala.

Because I used Caesar dressing I am counting this as my fat…this means no oils for dinner tonight…oh boy. And because I made this the night before the flavors really blended together overnight. It was delicious. Check for another thing I will have again. Along with this I had a cup of carrots. Boring and tasteless yes but I had to get my full serving of veggies in at lunch. And of course I had my string cheese for a snack J

Another thing to add to the list of hard things to do is using the foods you have in your kitchen. We had 2 chicken breasts and a bunch of veggies so what does that call out? Yup, stir fry. Usually you throw a bunch of soy sauce, teriyaki, maybe one of those seasoning packets into the mixture but all that screams fat. So I looked in my fridge found a lime, some garlic and used some honey to make a sauce. One thing I learned at the end is to use more limes, you need a lot of limes when cooking stir fry so you get their real flavor. Unlike last night when I cooked the lemon for 45 minutes with the chicken you really tasted the flavor. Anywho, I marinated the chicken for an hr in the sauce. During that time I chopped my veggies (mushrooms, broccoli and red pepper). And I cooked the broccoli, my friend Lexie makes the best broccoli hands down, living with her brought a lot of interesting yet delicious meals, she adds chopped garlic and some red pepper flakes to her broccoli to give it some extra flavor. Steam for 4 minutes and there you go, cooked delicious broccoli.

Round 2 for brown rice: this time around I cooked it longer and it still did not taste good! I even added some lime juice to give it at least something aaaaaaand nothing. If someone can cook brown rice and actually like it please tell me what to do because I am dumbfounded by this food…

Once the chicken is done marinating, add it to a pan and cook through. Do not add any oil or stock, the juices from the marinade will be enough. Add the veggies once the chicken is cooked and let simmer on low (covered) for about 10 minutes, so the mushrooms and peppers cook.

All in all this was an ok meal. I would attempt it again but with a different sauce or more limes. Justin made the comment that he liked the chicken last night a lot better, unfortunately for stir fry you will not get the moistness you got with the lemon chicken. Baking whole for 45 minutes is much different than in a pan chopped for 10 minutes over the stovetop, or at least from my experience.

Day 4:

Protein shake: protein scoop, cup of fruit and cup of milk …blend…delicious

Also had 2 slices of turkey bacon...thoughts??? eh…because I can not have bacon its an ok substitute, of course no bacon is real bacon without a little syrup and I could not have that, so although filling it was not satisfying. But a serving of protein so I will take it.

For lunch I wanted to make something around cheese and crackers. My carb for the day will be crackers (you are allowed 12 crackers, I have 8 for lunch so I can have 4 later on if I want them, weird maybe but I like crackers and they are filling so they will make for a nice snack later). I will have 1 oz goat cheese with the crackers. You are probably thinking 1 oz is not enough, but you will be surprised how much it really is. Oh yea, we bought a scale. I think in the beginning its important because I had no idea how much 1 oz of cheese or 3 oz of tuckey really is, its best to make sure at first then you can measure by eye as you become familiar with the weights.

This is where it gets interesting, we had no chicken and no turkey left so I could not go to my traditional salads. So I made tuna…yes chicken of the sea tuna…I mixed it with a couple of pieces of ham to get 2 servings of protein. Note: I will have 4 servings of protein by lunch, leaving only one for dinner. I think it is important to get your protein out of the way during the day because at night you do not really do much after dinner, so having protein throughout the day gives it time to break down and store as energy for your next days workout. Atleast that is what I am told, and it works so I believe it. Back to tuna...i mixed the ham and the tuna with 1 tablespoon of honey mustard so give it a pasty feel. You can make this into tuna salad, by adding celery, apples, pickles, or any kind of veggie you want. But I decided against that because I will have this on top of my crackers and cheese, kinda like a pâté, I have no idea what a pâté really tastes like, but from the texture of the tuna this is what I believe is a pâté. With this I will have a cup of celery sticks and cucumbers.

After all that all I can think of right now (and have to think about) is how I am going to cook my fish tonight…