Thursday, August 5, 2010

The infamous BBQ sauce

Ingredients:
2 cups Ketchup
1 small can Tomato paste
1/4cup Brown Sugar
1/2 cup diced/sliced/minced onions(your preference, I like sliced, but I LOVE onions, if its not your forte, go with minced)
3 garlic cloves, minced
1/2 cup diced/sliced/minced red/orange/yellow bell peppers (any of these colors work, but NOT green, it has a different flavor than these)
Salt and Pepper
1 can of beer (no preference)
2tbls butter
Hot Sauce(Louisiana, sriracha,tapatio, whatever you like)

Directions:
Using a sauce pan or dutch oven(no skillet, too shallow), turn your heat to medium(my knob is at 7). While you wait for your pan to heat up, prepare all your veggies.. the onions, garlic, and peppers. They need to all be ready to go before you add butter to the pan. Once all your chopping is done, add the butter to the pan and immediately add all the veggies. With a wooden spoon, gradually stir the veggies until soft and translucent. The onions and peppers should smell sweet and warm. Add your ketchup and tomato paste and stir for a minute. At this point, you will add your hot sauce, depending on your liking, add anywhere from 3-10 dashes of hot sauce. Add brown sugar and continue to stir for 3 more minutes. Increase heat to medium high(my knob is between 8-9) and bring sauce mix to near boiling point(there should be bubbles popping, but not too many). Once it reaches this point, stir in beer, bring to boiling point, shut off heat, and cover with lid. Do not peek inside sauce for 10 minutes! The sauces flavors are melding together and becoming bolder and richer.

Its at this point that I add cooked chicken breast that i have semi-shredded or pulled pork or brisket. When adding meat, you will turn the heat back to medium, and let it warm up the meat and ensure its coated. Once done, add to your Kaiser rolls or hamburger buns. I recommend topping with coleslaw. Consume and enjoy:)

*Brown sugar can be swapped with anything sweet, try different sugars to get different flavors! When I've run out of brown sugar, I've used maple syrup. Honey or orangle marmalade would be excellent substitues, and molasses could give it a deeper, bolder flavor. be creative!

**The veggies are key to base of this sauce, if you really do not like onions and peppers(some don't) I suggest mincing very fine or blending your sauce with a food processor or blender when sauce is completely cool.

Day 64329145

Clearly I did not follow thru with my daily posts of bootcamp. To be honest, I missed more bootcamp than I actually went to. Before you all shake your head and gloat in the fact that I once again(like most things in my life) did not follow thru on something, you should know that my life in July was a wreck.

Many of you know, Cherry's dad has been having heart problems that started the second week of July, I won't go in to details, mostly because I do not understand it and I am no Doogie Howser, but needless to say today is August 5th and Cherry's dad is still in the hospital. So with that said, it is an understatement to say I am exhausted.

The real issue is that I failed, and there really is no one to blame but myself. I didn't follow through on yet another chapter in my life. I can not be consistent with anything in my life. For example, I really wish I could keep a journal, so that I could look back and relive this part of my life. But the only journal I can keep is a bill book, and it doesn't convey any emotion or feeling except getting me excited or disappointed in our living wages from month to month. I know this counts as a journal, but in reality, the way I write, I know it is going to be read versus a REAL journal, I would write the thoughts in my head knowing no one would read them. I just have no discipline. No consistency. I can not be consistent in my weight, or my exercises. I can not be consistent in school, one semester its perfect As, the next semester I am being put on Academic Probation. Living in Sacramento or living in Vacaville? Keeping my house clean, then throwing a party(inevitably causing it to be trashy again).

They say Yo-Yo dieting is really bad for you health, but what about a Yo-Yo lifestyle?

Ahhhhhhhh.... ok so that sad-weeping-depressing-pity me portion of this blog is done...

back to bootcamp success/failure:
So bootcamp is now over, and no i will not be renewing for another month(if I flake out this month, its $200 down the drain, as opposed to my $35 I wasted). Bootcamp was fun, and I felt it was really working, but I am 1 pound less then when I started, my body looks pretty much the same(I took before and after pictures) but my endurance and strength have definitely increased. I find myself moving and picking up heavy things with ease and when I run in the morning, I am running faster and longer. So in the end that feels good, but it just wasn't enough to make a visual difference. Maybe that's the hook to get you to buy more months... I'm not biting, neither is my paycheck.

This month's goal is to stick to my "to-do" sheet that I have taped to my fridge. I have a months worth of exercises and I check it off each day. Maybe this will keep me motivated and on track, also its very public so Cherry and anyone at my house is allowed to give me shit if something isn't checked off. Two days in to my check list, and my calves hurt like a mo-fo. Welcome back sore muscles, I didn't miss you, this time, please work on shaping my body, I don't need so much strength... love, non-fat fat girl.

Thursday, July 8, 2010

Day 2- Loss of Legs

So last night was my second day in bootcamp, and I was totally ready. Ate the protein bar, drank the water, properly stretched, and I wasn't even that sore from the night before. Good to go!

Day 2 was very different, theres jump ropes, cones, and ladders all around. Obviously we are doing a lot of cardio and drills. We start out like normal, stretching, and then to laps. I ended up at the front, leading the run, which was a little ego and esteem boost for me, but at the same time I thought maybe I should slow down and run with the pack. Then my brain turned on and I said fuck it! I am here to get fit, not to unite as a team to be slow and fat. And when I don't lose any weight, these bitches are not going to pay for my liposuction. Yes it sounds conceded but I am in bootcamp for me, not for everyone else, so I get to be self absorbed in this one hour of camp. So once I got my head in the right place, I picked up the pace and finished off the laps first, with C right behind me. I took this as a good sign that we are more fit than had anticipated.

Onward to the drills... lots of "STOP, GO, STOP, GO" of running up and down a basketball court, and stopping to do jumping jacks for 1 min nonstop, seems easy, that is until I finished, we had to immediately run up and down the court again, no break, and then back to jumping jacks. After this inhumane torture time, we were broken up into three groups, one on jump ropes, one on cones, and the other on ladders, rotating as we went along so that we did a total of three sets of each station. Jump ropes, I have to admit, I am pretty pro at doing. A lot of girls struggled, not properly jumping, smacking their legs, cursing(which isn't allowed at bootcamp I might add) and then gave me dirty looks(also isn't allowed) when they heard the sound of my full speed whipping of rope. I sorry that I am not sorry for knowing how to jump rope.
JUMP ROPE
Blee-1
Bitches -0

Everything else was hard but capable of being done. Not until the following morning would i know the amount of pain and stress my legs were enduring doing the workout. Moving from drills, and drenched in sweat, we pressed up against the hot rough school building walls to work out our arms with curls, squats, roman deadlifts(RDL as he kept referring to).
But if you ask me the RDLs should be called TAS for Take A Shit because thats the face most girls make while doing these plus you have to squat, stick your booty out, and arch your back. Similar to this sweet move I am doing on the beach. And I am not going to even start on all the weird noises we were making while we did our 30 reps of TAS.

Finally ending the workout with abs, different moves than yesterday but equally hard.

I woke up this morning moving like Frankenstein. Laughing hurts, walking hurts, I've gone through four pens because they have rolled off my desk and I am too stiff to bend down to get them(my real fear is that I might bend down and not get back up). Today is my third night, and last night for the week, and then I can fully recover until Monday, when I start all over again. Hopefully its not so much leg work today because my legs are stiffer than a..... well you get the point.
Lessons learned:
1)Don't let bitches make you feel guilty for being good at anything
2)Too much stretching doesn't exist
3)Buy more pens for my desk.

Wednesday, July 7, 2010

Recipe: Pork Chops and Apple relish

For Cady- Happy Cooking:)

1/2 lb of pork chop, boneless or bone in(i like bone in, releases more flavor during searing process)
2 tbls of olive oil
1 cup of thinly sliced onions
2 garlic cloves smashed
2 apples thinly sliced(peel or no peel-i like peel, more nutrients)
1 cup of white wine
2 tbls of white wine vinegar
pinch of cinnamon
pinch cumin
pinch of caraway seeds
2 tbls of butter
salt and pepper
2 tbls of vegetable oil

In skillet pan, saute onions and garlic in olive oil until you can smell the onions, should smell savory and almost sweet... and not so bitter(that pungent bitter smell you get when you first cut raw onions) this should take about 2 mins. To prevent burning, I have it on medium high heat(on my numbered knob it is at a 8) and gently stir the onions with a wooden spoon or wooden spatula.
Once onions and garlic are cooked, add apples and stir gently. add cinnamon, cumin, and caraway seeds. cook for another min.
slowly add the white wine, using the wooden spoon to scrape the spices from the bottom of the pan. after 2 mins add white wine vinegar and continue to stir for another min. then add butter. once melted, transfer to bowl or serving platter. do not wash pan.
Season pork chop on both sides with salt and pepper(i like sea salt because its healthier and tastier, and fresh ground pepper because i like the big peppercorns to pop during cooking).
Add small amount of vegetable oil(higher smoke point so it wont burn the meat, but it will sear it) to same pan you used to cook relish in, and turn the heat to high (my knob is at 10). Sear pork chop for 5 mins(DO NOT TOUCH PORKCHOP during 5 mins or meat will stick to pan! simple place meat on pan and let it do its magic) then flip over and sear for another 5 mins. After both sides are seared, turn heat off, cover the skillet, and let the meat sit in the pan, on the stove for 10mins(this is to insure the meat is fully cooked on the inside and that the juices will stay in the meat and not all over your plate). Serve on plate, cut into slices and pour apple relish on top. then take fork and consume:)

Day 1-Death by bootcamp

Signing up for Adventure Bootcamp might be the greatest and worst idea for my body. Let me start out by saying that I know I am not fat, but I definitely am out of shape. And if you know me, you know these four things about my life: I drink diet pepsi religiously, I date a drummer, I love to cook, and I am a health freak. Not only do I eat organic and fresh, but I like to know everything about what I am eating, and then as we eat(most likely something I cooked for you) I like to tell you why its good for you(like did you know cabbage is good for your colon or tomatoes work wonders for you heart?). So this isn't going to be a success story where I changed what I ate and got super healthy, its safe to say I am pretty healthy. But I would say that my body is a little fluffy.

So if I wanted to lose weight and get in shape, I needed a drastic workout change. This is where the bootcamp comes in.

Yesterday was my first day. I got there about 15 mins early and more than 20 people were already there, talking to each other(clearly they had done this before). It felt like the first day of school all over again and I knew no one, so I leaned up against the wall and waited until my friends C and B to show up.

We started out with stretching on our mats. That is when SkinnyMinny laid next to me and I thought why are you here? you weigh 15lbs? but then i realized that honestly, someone bigger than me, might feel the same about me being there. after stretching and giggles between me and C, we ran a couple laps to get our blood flowing and heart rate going. Immediately after the jog, it is my belief that the trainers were intending to kill us. We did push ups, followed by lunges, followed by diamond push ups(the hardest exercise in the ENTIRE WORLD) followed by dips... no breaks, start all over again with push ups, lunges, diamonds, dips, and repeat AGAIN. This is where I realized why SkinnyMinny was here, she had absolutely no strength what so ever, while i was dipping on my 20th dip, she was struggling on dip 7. So maybe she did need to be here, sorry for the quick judgement SkinnyBitch... I mean SkinnyMinny.

After trying to kill us, the trainers has us do a crazy move i will refer to as handfoot clap, because thats exactly what you do. stand on all fours, bend your left knee and cross your right hand and tap them, then do right foot left hand, then repeat until you nearly pass out. we are given a short 15 second break and then on to hand weights. Sure 5lbs sounds like not that much but when you are doing four different moves for 20 reps, 3 sets, no stopping, 5lbs suddenly seems like death. It was at this point were I felt nauseated and contemplated running to the grass to throw up. Drinking a glass of grapefruit juice before bootcamp was a HORRIBLE idea. Lesson learned, only water 2 hours before bootcamp.

Next was abs, which seemed easy, but it was deceiving, after 1 set, I could barely lift my head. A good sign that these moves might finally give me the tight midsection I've always wanted.

Yes this bootcamp is hard, yes I constantly thought of giving up, but the only thing keeping me going was my will to get into shape, i paid for bootcamp, and i am getting my moneys worth, i am determined to look AMAZING in a bathing suit! Day 2 is this evening, and even though yesterday was rough, I am eager to go again. So lessons from day 1:
1. don't judge anyone, even the skinniest of body types
2. diamond push ups might be the death of me
3. refrain from any fruit juice that will increase chances of regurgitation.