self-centered

I'm cooking this week!!!

I feel like my last few trips to the grocery store were to stock up on cereal and soup. I've had so little motivation to actually put thought into a meal! Just celebrated my 27^th birthday this week, so just right as I come down off the holiday “eating around” high, I hit another bump. It's not a bump. More just an opportunity to be lazy and let people feed me!

This week I've got some cooking planned and actually, I've already done 2/3 of it tonight. I made some eggplant lasagna and a spicy thai basil shrimp stir fry, both of which will be lunches for me and a coworker and probably dinner for myself. I'm also planning to make the broccoli cheese soup again... but today is already Monday. Yet another holiday. And the boss is taking me out for lunch tomorrow! That kills two days worth of lunch eating right there.

I lead such an awful, lonely life, huh? HA!

I suppose the concept of this blog isn't really cooking for one... but eating for one. Eating in a self-centered fashion. Not self-centered with the negative connotaion but just focused internally. There are times to be focused on others, many times in fact. But concentrating on oneself is the only way to lose weight. You have to fight for yourself. And if you're lucky enough to have someone fighting right along side of you, well then that's just an added bonus. Don't expect anyone to do that for you though. At the end of the day, you make the choices. You either give in to or overcome the temptations. Allowing yourself to be self-centered about this one thing means taking responsibility.

To be completely honest, I'd love to tell you that I cooked recipes tonight; followed strict guidelines to create delicious meals. But I'd be lying through my teeth. I pulled these ideas out of my ass and just sort of threw something together (I haven't seriously cooked in about 2 weeks, so really, you can't expect too much from me). I haven't eaten any of tonight's meals either, so that'll be a surprise if it doesn't taste very good. It smelled fine, so I'm sure it'll be tasty.

Let's start with the Spicy Thai Basil Shrimp Stir-Fry. I've never cooked raw shrimp before. Ever. It's kind of gross. I had to strip naked a bunch of little critters. Luckily, once cooked, they look nothing like they do raw! Also, I'm putting a day between cooking it and eating it. Katie: 1. Raw meat aversions: 0.

I made this recipe pretty hearty. It comes in at around 415 calories, which is fine for a meal at my current intake goal. Since I've lost, oh, 10.5 lbs since I started this blog, MyFitnessPal took some calories away. I guess I'm okay with that if it means continued weight loss. Here's what you'll need to make this recipe:

About 8 oz. raw shrimp

5 oz package of shitaki mushrooms (oh yum... oooooh yum)

4 oz uncooked rice noodles

1 green bell pepper, sliced

½ red onion, sliced

2 Tbsp low sodium soy sauce

1 Tbsp olive oil

1 tsp Thai chili paste

Basil

Take care of your shrimp however you need to. Try not to think about it too much. Okay, moving on, belly's churning...

This comes together pretty quickly. Toss your shrimp in the olive oil and cook them over high heat for about 1 ½ minutes on one side, quickly flipping them to cook the other side an additional 30 seconds. Bam. Cooked shrimp. Sit these aside.

Add the pepper, onion and mushrooms to your skillet along with just a shot of water from the faucet. Cook for 5-6 minutes or until the veggies are how you like them. I'm not one to judge.

While those are cooking, cook your rice noodles according to package directions. This is usually a quick pop into some boiling water.

Lastly, you'll need your sauce. I used the soy sauce, the chili paste and about 1 Tbsp of my personal favorite, the basil in the squeeze tube. If you have fresh basil, rock on. Whisk (or mix with a fork, like I did...) together in a small bowl.

Now you pretty much just throw everything into the skillet and stir it up real nice. Came out looking something like this...

This made two hearty servings. Of course, split it even more and the calories will go down. But then, you'll lose all of your friends because it's probably going to taste good and you're screwing them out of it by being stingy with your calories.

The nice thing about the two recipes I made tonight is that the lasagna had to bake. So I prepped my lasagna first and let it cook while I made the stir fry. Of course now I'm exhausted... but...

Another first: tonight I tried “oven ready” lasagna noodles. Just from cutting into the lasagna I've noticed that my particular preferences as far as lasagna are concerned might not lend too well to this type of noodle. I don't like a ton of sauce... and it seems like the sauce is what leads to actually cooking the pasta. So... a little on the drier side, but I'm hopeful. Here's how this went down.

For a 4 serving batch of lasagna (about 350 calories per serving) you'll need:

8 oz oven-ready lasagna noodles

1 graffiti eggplant, sliced thinly

2 c. sauce (I love the Ragu Light Tomato Basil)

1 c. reduced fat italian cheese

If you haven't made lasagna before, that's unfortunate. But you can't make it any quicker or easier with these oven-ready noodles. I sliced my eggplant on my mandolin (and I used the guide and didn't take of a layer of my pinky finger... there's a story there) so just take turns layering noodles, eggplant, sauce and cheese until desired casserole is achieved.

Here's where we had some problems. The package says to cook it for 60 minutes. I suppose that's so your noodles can cook in the oven. I covered it, but my top still came out a little dry. I'm thinking though that since it'll be leftovers, that'll soften up a little. Here's what it ended up looking like.

I'll let you know how it tastes... but I'm thinking, all of those things taste good separately, so together they'll probably be fine too.

Birthday week yielded no weight loss, but no weight gain either. Official weigh in for the last two weeks has been at 159.5 (official is always Monday morning). I'm pretty excited about this because, though I can't vouch for every woman of menstruating age, I go through a very specific pattern in my weight loss. In a 28 day cycle, week 2 and 3 usually have pretty modest weight loss, week 4 is a stand still, and then when week 1 comes back around, I drop weight at about a pound or more. This can probably be attributed to water retention, but the exciting part is, week 1 is this week. And if I'm already holding strong at 159.5, what's it going to be by the end of the week? Sort of makes me tingly...

According to MyFitnessPal, which by the way, is so freaking awesome and everyone should check it out that wants help losing weight or just tracking food/exercise, if I continue eating and exercising the way I am, I might see my goal weight in about 7-8 weeks. Of course, that's best case scenario “if every day were like today...” and we all know Katie likes things like dessert... I'm hoping that I'll see 150 by the summer. I'm already looking forward to bathing suit weather. That's a first.

Everyone have a fantastic week. And cook something good. And invite me over to eat it. It was my freaking birthday, after all ;)