Weight Watchers: I Drank the Kool-Aid

I rejoined Weight Watchers in May. At that time, I also started a private blog where I wrote about my experience. Keeping three blogs going at the same time is ... complicated ... and so I have closed my weight loss blog and imported the posts into Savory Tart. Aside from October's posts ("The Month That Never Was") they're all publicly visible now.

I apologize to feed subscribers who might have been spammed with updates when the imported posts went public. I didn't realize that would happen.

Savory Tart is not going to turn into a weight loss or diet blog. I am not going to start chirping about "diet food" or the terribleness of fatz.

Menu Plan Monday, 28 November

I was all excited to plan Menu Plan Monday, Thanksgiving leftovers edition, because I expected to be buried in leftover turkey! We went to my parents's for Thanksgiving, but I roasted a small turkey for our own Thanksgiving II on Sunday with the intention we would then eat repurposed turkey for most of the week ... except it's only Monday night and it's already clear the turkey won't stretch past Wednesday lunch. Darn. Should have roasted a bigger turkey!

Monday
"Chicken Enchiladas with Salsa Cream Sauce" from Maryana Vollstedt The Big Book of Casseroles (one of my favorite cookbooks) with greens (me) and corn (The Husband). Ingredients: unsalted butter, white whole wheat flour, turkey broth, light sour cream, Green Mountain Gringo roasted garlic salsa, corn tortillas, cubed leftover turkey, green onions, Muir Glen organic diced tomatoes, reduced fat Mexican cheese blend.

Tuesday
Leftover enchiladas with satsuma mandarins.

Wednesday
Grilled chicken sandwich with melon wedges à la Red Robin.

Thursday
Vegetable stir-fry with satsuma mandarins and 0% Greek yoghurt.

Friday
Peppercorn pork tenderloin with parsleyed rice and peas.

Saturday
Leftover pork tenderloin stir-fried with straw mushrooms, baby corn, carrots, celery, onion, etc and served over rice.

Thanksgiving II

While we spent Thanksgiving with my parents and it was delicious, I missed having a turkey of my own! So, on Sunday, I roasted a 12-pounder and we had Thanksgiving II all on our own with mashed potatoes, leftover mashed rutabaga, parsley carrots, and gravy. It was delicious. As delicious as my mom's? Well ... that's not a fair comparison!

I didn't do anything fancy to the turkey -- no brining, no basting, no butter-injection. I just rubbed the turkey with a little olive oil, sprinkled it generously with Penzeys salt-free "Sunny Spain" blend and popped it into a 325°F oven for about 3½ hours. My little hen came out perfectly moist and tender and full of rich turkey flavor.

Honestly, I could have skipped making the fixings -- we would have been just as happy with two knives and the turkey between us.

Weight Watchers: Week 3 Overview

Every week, Weight Watchers gives you a "To Do" list depending on where you are in the program. This week, I was supposed to:

1. Find out what everyday activities you can track
"Housework, low effort" is 1 Point for 10 minutes! So my regular Saturday housekeeping blitz counts for something.

2. Measure three foods you normally "eyeball"
Rice, butter, olive oil -- my "eyeball" turns out to be pretty close!

And yet I have become obsessed with weighing things. Everything goes on my kitchen scale now -- regardless of how confident I may feel about guesstimating, I know the scale will always be more accurate.

(Weight Watchers was selling a set of pretty, metal measuring scoops/serving spoons a few months ago which I did not buy and now see are no longer for sale).

3. Get the scoop on good habits from Weight Watchers veterans
I read the article the question links to ("Community Talks: Advice for Newbies") and it didn't tell me anything I didn't already know, but then this isn't my first time on Weight Watchers.

I'm actually trying to avoid reading unofficial Weight Watchers stuff as I don't want to get distracted from my journey or start second-guessing my choices based on what someone else says works for them.

First, gain a sense of mastery. Then, see what everyone else is up to.

4. Complete your Community Profile
It's as done as it's going to get, I think.

5. Track your healthy checks
I've been trying very hard to do this since Week 1. I'm very good about taking a multivitamin and getting my recommended amounts of water and fruit/vegetable, but dairy and healthy oils are a real problem for me. I can manage yogurt at breakfast, but that's about it. I take a fish oil supplement and usually cook with olive or safflower oil, anyway, and I figure that's good enough for me even if it isn't exactly what Weight Watchers might want.

Little steps.

Overall, this week was okay. Thursday was Thanksgiving, of course, where I ate my Daily PointsPlus and then some, but was back on track on Friday. I don't think I gained any weight, but I also doubt I lost any. Will just have to see what Sunday's weigh-in brings.

No Menu Plan Monday

I was going to plan a menu for this week, but then I came to my senses and realized any menu plan I post this week would be an out-and-out lie unless it says something like:

• Monday we will eat something
• Tuesday I will bring something to work
• Wednesday we will eat something between baking Thanksgiving pies
• Thursday we will feast at my parents's
• Friday we will eat a little something
• Saturday I will come home from work too tired to make something and we will order in
• Sunday we will eat roast turkey, if I remember to thaw the one in our freezer, for Thanksgiving II

And, lo, it is Monday and we did eat something!

Organic beef tacos topped with Green Mountain Gringo's roasted garlic salsa and leftover guacamole. Served with corn and Sylvia's (surprisingly good canned) turnip greens.

A Mix A Week(ish): Barefoot Contessa Brownie Pudding Mix

Alright, so it's been over a month since my last Mix a Week post! No excuse for it, but I haven't bought any more mixes in the interim so I'd say I'm still doing pretty well. I finally decided to get back on track by making up a box of Barefoot Contessa's "Brownie Pudding Mix" that I picked up, ohhhh, last year at one of Stonewall Kitchen's clearance sales.

This mix was extremely simple to prepare and assemble -- all I needed, besides the mix, was two sticks of butter and four eggs. Everything comes together in under ten minutes and bakes for an hour. The cake is ready to eat as soon as it comes out of the oven, which is awesome for us impatient type -- no standing around the kitchen, staring at a cooling cake, and wondering just how soon we can nom it.

Baked in a bain-marie! I feel sophisticated!

Ooey-gooey chocolate decadence.

Yum!

And pretty tasty, too -- crusty on the top with a soft, sweet center -- but it still can't hold a candle to King Arthur Flour's lava cakes which have a richer, deeper flavor.

And, happily, I still have two boxes of King Arthur's mix in my pantry!

Weight Watchers: Week 2 Overview

Every week, Weight Watchers gives you a "To Do" list depending on where you are in the program. This week I was supposed to:

1. Track your weight
I'm pretty sure Weight Watchers didn't mean I should weigh myself every two days, but that's what I did! Couldn't help myself! The charm will wear off eventually, I'm sure.

2. Create a meal in the PointsPlus tracker
I favorited a bunch of foods I use all the time in the tracker and added a breakfast "meal" -- 8 oz FAGE Total 0% with 8 oz homemade, unsweetened applesauce. (I make the applesauce in my slow cooker, portion it into cups, and freeze it until needed).

3. Make one small change to a favorite meal/snack
I've started using Cabot 50% and 75% reduced fat cheeses on sandwiches and crackers instead of the full fat kind. There's a taste and texture difference, but it's not as bad/strong as I'd feared.

4. Stock your pantry perfectly
Aside from all the ☠☠☠ my husband eats while I'm at work, I stocked it pretty darn well. Plenty of fruits and vegetables, low-fat dairy, lean meat, grab-and-go low PointsPlus value frozen meals. A lot of the items listed in the article are items I already own/use, anyway.

5. Check that your weight-loss expectations are realistic
Weight Watchers wants me to lose more weight than I'm currently comfortable thinking about! I'd be happy to see 180 lbs, but Weight Watchers thinks my healthy weight range is 109-137 lbs. ATM, I'll just focus on my 10% Target (204.8) and worry about the rest later.

Overall, I'm happy with how Week 2 turned out. I'm definitely more comfortable using the Plan Manager, am generally feeling more confident about my journey to better health and fitness, and I'm pretty sure I lost weight! (Official weigh-in is Sunday morning, so I will find out then).


Onwards to Week 3 ...

Deliciously Simple Sweet Potatoes

We had supper at the Texas Roadhouse last weekend and I had a sweet potato with my delicious mooing steak, because I love sweet potatoes and just cannot get enough of them. However, it was a good thing I was paying attention when I ordered because I almost ended up with a sweet potato covered in caramel sauce, marshmallow, brown sugar, and butter!

What the flippin' fish sticks?! Isn't a sweet potato pretty much delicious vegetable candy to begin with? Why tart it up with marshmallow, caramel, and brown sugar? That is just wrong.

Now, if you really need to tart up a sweet potato, why not try Barbara Kafka's recipe for "Maple-Glazed Roasted Sweet Potatoes" from Vegetable Love (Artisan, 2005)? A little butter and maple syrup (use the real kind, mind you) enhance rather than overwhelm the sweet potato, creating a side dish which I'd be just as happy eating as a main.

But, then, I'm pretty sure I could happily survive the winter on nothing but roasted root vegetables and greens. And Greek yoghurt.

To make Kafka's dish, cut up peeled sweet potatoes, toss with melted unsalted butter, and roast in preheated 500°F oven for 15 minutes, then toss with maple syrup and roast until potatoes are easily pierced with a knife (about 5 minutes in my oven). Season with salt and pepper, as desired.

This is may not be the shape Kafka had in mind, but I was a little confused.

Delicious, simple, and much better for you.

Easy Autumnal Bundt

Tuesday was National Bundt Day and, to celebrate, I made an apple-walnut bundt using About.com's recipe for "Apple Cake." I substituted King Arthur 100% Organic White Whole Wheat Flour for half the all-purpose and added in a ¼ teaspoon each of ground allspice, mace, cinnamon, and ginger, but otherwise followed the recipe as written.

This bundt bakes at 325°F for 90 minutes and I was worried that it wouldn't bake through at such a low temperature, but the cake tester came out clean at the 90-minute mark and the cake certainly looked done. I let it sit in the bundt pan for about 10 minutes, then slid it out and let it cool on a rack for an hour.

When I bring a cake to work, I usually slice it and arrange it on a platter as unsliced cake will just sit, untouched for hours, on the staff table while sliced cake immediately disappears in an explosion of crumbs and discarded napkins. I presume it's a psychological thing -- no-one wants to cut their own slice lest they be declared greedy guts by their coworkers, but if the cake is already in slices, then it's not their fault?

Deliciously Simple Curried Cabbage

Sunday, I had half a cabbage and a mostly empty container of fat-free Greek yoghurt in the fridge. I thought about cooking the cabbage with chopped onions in a little chicken broth until tender, then combining them with the yoghurt dregs, paprika, salt and pepper and calling it "Hungarianesque Cabbage," but then I saw Barbara Kafka's recipe for "Curried Cabbage" in Vegetable Love and thought better of it.

This was a very simple recipe -- bloom curry powder in hot oil until it is fragrant, stir in one thinly sliced onion and cook until translucent, add a thinly sliced cabbage and cook until wilted, then remove the pot from heat and stir in lemon juice and yoghurt.

Delicious and easy!

Menu Plan Monday, 14 November

I cooked up a big batch of vegetables -- cabbage, sweet potatoes, chard, and kale -- over the weekend to eat at work all week and was so busy with that, that I didn't give much thought to what we would eat the rest of the week. Happily, our freezer is full of food so menu planning turned out to just be a matter of mixing and matching.

Monday
Salsa backed chicken thighs with diced avocado, vegetarian refried black beans, and garlicky green beans. Ingredients: skinned bone-in chicken thighs, Penzeys Bold Taco Seasoning, Green Mountain Gringo Roasted Garlic Salsa.

Tuesday
Maple-glazed roasted sweet potatoes with curried cabbage, fat-free Greek yoghurt, and a pear.

Wednesday
Baked peppercorn-crusted pork tenderloin with parsleyed rice, buttery carrots, and garlicky chard.

Thursday
Maple-glazed roasted sweet potatoes with braised kale, fat-free Greek yoghurt, and homemade applesauce.

Friday
Chicken stir-fry over rice. Ingredients: diced boneless chicken breasts, baby corn, straw mushrooms, celery, carrots, onion, low-sodium chicken broth, stir-fry packet.

Saturday
Mexican delivery.

Sunday
Southern Living's slow cooker "Braised Chicken Thighs With Carrots and Potatoes." Ingredients: onion, potatoes, carrots, low-sodium chicken broth, white wine, garlic, thyme, paprika, skinned bone-in chicken thighs.

Yummy Vegetables for Work

I had a bunch of vegetables that needed eating up, but I wasn't sure what to do with them so I turned to Barbara Kafka's Vegetable Love (Artisan, 2005) for inspiration and found many good recipes. I've borrowed Vegetable Love from my library so many times that I don't know why I haven't bought my own copy yet!

Thanks to Vegetable Love, I made some really great, easy dishes this weekend using Swiss Chard, kale, cabbage, and sweet potatoes. Making all four dishes took about three hours altogether and yielded enough food to keep me feed at work all week.

I made:

• Maple-Glazed Roasted Sweet Potatoes
• Curried Cabbage
• Braised Kale
• Braised Chard

I liberally sampled these dishes as I cooked them and they tasted so good that I almost looking forward to going back to work tomorrow!

Weight Watchers: Week 1 Overview

Every week, Weight Watchers gives you a "To Do" list depending on where you are in the program. During Week One, I was supposed to:

1. Take a "before" photo, and track your measurements
Yes, I did this. No, I'm not sharing that information here.

2. Track what you eat
Chants: "The Plan Manager is my friend. The Plan Manager is my friend. The Plan Manager is my friend ..."

3. Plan the best weight-tracking strategy for you
When I went to meetings, I weighed-in on Tuesdays. Now that I'm on my own, I'm moving my weigh-in day to Sunday as weekends are Fraught with Peril and I frequently make poor food choices.

Also, I really need to work on only weighing myself on my weigh-in day. Hopping on and off the scale all week is only going to make me batty in the long run.

4. Build your Favorites
Added products/foods I use most often to my Favorites -- includes many boutique grocery items Weight Watchers doesn't have points calculated for, like Nutella.

5. Clean your fridge and cupboards, and fill them with healthy food
I cleaned and reorganized my kitchen, making the better-for-me-choices more prominent, but I didn't toss anything that wouldn't meet with Weight Watchers's approval as a) I am not the only person in my house and binning the Oreos would be seen as an act of war and b) I can't stand the idea of throwing away food that is still edible.

Sunday is for Soup

Woke up Sunday morning in the mood to make soup. Rummaged around in the kitchen and found celery, carrots, onion, cabbage, barley, beans, and chicken broth. Knew I had the makings of a hearty vegetable soup ...

Easy Barley Vegetable Soup

Ingredients
5 cups thinly sliced chopped green cabbage
2 carrots, sliced
2 celery stalks, sliced
1 onion, chopped
2 cups frozen green beans
15½ oz can Great Northern beans, rinsed and drained
2 32 oz container low-sodium chicken broth
14 oz jar crushed tomatoes
2 tsp Penzeys salt-free Tuscan Sunset seasoning blend (or any salt-free Italian seasoning blend)

Directions
In a Dutch oven, saute onions and celery in a little olive oil until tender. Add all other ingredients (except barley) to French/Dutch oven. Bring to boil; reduce heat and simmer about 30 minutes. Add barley to soup and cook for about 15 minutes more. Season with salt and pepper, as needed.

This recipe made a lot of soup -- at least ten cups -- and I expect to eat it all week. Yum!

Menu Plan Monday, 7 November

We're having three kinds of soup this week, because I craved homemade soup the whole five days we were without power during The Great Snowtober and now, with power restored and our kitchen restocked, I am in a position to satisfy that craving in a big way. Besides, it is simply impossible to have too much soup!

Monday
Slow cooker vegetable beef soup with garlic toast. Ingredients: beef (from freezer), carrots, celery, onion, green beans, Muir Glen no-salt-added diced tomatoes, McCormick Slow Cookers Vegetable Beef Soup Seasoning sachet.

Tuesday
Vegetable barley soup with hummus and crackers. Ingredients: cabbage, carrots, celery, onion, green beans, cannellini beans, low-sodium chicken broth, crushed tomatoes, Penzeys salt-free Tuscan Sunset seasoning blend, quick-cooking barley.

Wednesday
Baked peppercorn-crusted pork tenderloin with green beans and parsleyed rice.

Thursday
Repeat Tuesday.

Friday
Sushi.

Saturday/Sunday
Slow cooker chicken noodle soup with biscuits. Ingredients: chicken (from freezer), carrots, celery, onion, egg noodles, McCormick Slow Cookers Chicken Noodle Soup Seasoning sachet.

Weight Watchers: Starting Over, Again

Starting over with Week One of Weight Watchers Online as if it were for the very first time I'd ever joined Weight Watchers. Weight Watchers-wise, October never happened and I have deleted all posts that might suggest otherwise.

I will not let others sabotage me. I will not sabotage myself. I will stay on plan. I will become stronger and healthier.

And, whenever I think "I can't do this," I will put on my goggles and cackle the mad cackle of a goggle-sporting subjugator of worlds to whom nothing is impossible.

Slow Cooker Shepherd's Pie

I like shepherd's pie a lot and I've made many variations of it over the years, but one of my favorite versions is one I adapted from a recipe in 101 Things to do With a Slow Cooker by Stephanie Ashcraft and Janet Eyring. It's not elegant or pretty (unphotographable, really), but it tastes good and takes no time to assemble.

Slow Cooker Shepherd's Pie

Ingredients
1 pound lean ground meat, browned
10¾ oz can condensed tomato soup
16 oz bag mixed vegetables, thawed and drained
2 tsp dehydrated minced garlic
2 tsp salt-free Italian seasoning blend
Dried parsley, as desired
23-24 oz container refrigerated mashed potatoes
½ cup grated parmigiano reggiano, if desired
Paprika, as desired

Directions
Grease slow cooker insert. Stir together meat, soup, vegetables, garlic, and seasoning blend. Pour into your slow cooker insert. Combine cheese, potatoes, and parsley. Spread over top. Sprinkle liberally with paprika. Cook on LOW for 5-6 hours. Leave on WARM until ready to serve.

I've left this pie on WARM for 2+ hours without it coming to any apparent harm.

I always cook the meat ahead of time -- often the night before -- and usually use lean ground turkey or bison which, I know, makes this a cottage pie rather than a shepherd's pie. But let's not be picky, eh? Let's just enjoy good noms.

Apples in My Slow Cooker

A few weeks ago, I picked up a big bag of Mutsu (aka Crispin) apples at the last Hill-Stead Farmers Market. Mutsu apples are one of my favorite apples as they're good for both eating and cooking. Also, they're simply enormous and one apple goes a long way ... which is probably why I still have so many left! Or, had, as I made apple sauce earlier today using a combination of Mutsu and Gala apples.

I love making applesauce in my slow cooker. There are only four ingredients and the method is entirely foolproof!

Easy Slow Cooker Apple Sauce

Ingredients
9 apples, peeled, cored, and sliced
2 tsp grated ginger (or 2 frozen cubes)
1 tsp cinnamon
¼ cup water

Directions
Dump everything in the slow cooker; cook on LOW for 6 to 8 hours. Stir until the biggest chunks break up. Eat.

I rather overfilled my slow cooker, but the lid still fit and I knew the apples would cook down a lot. (The instruction book says not to fill the slow cooker insert more than two-thirds full, but I regularly disregard this when making things like soups and sauces).

While this applesauce is good on its own cold, it's very nice warm with a splodge of whipped cream or poured over plain Greek yoghurt. Probably good over French vanilla ice cream, too ...

Clean Out the Kitchen With Soup

Soup is one of the best ways to use up odds-and-ends I'm sick of seeing or are getting a bit manky or just too close to their use by date. Making this soup rid me of an open container of low-sodium chicken broth, a can of lower-sodium beef broth I bought who knows when, and a lonely can of turkey broth. It also allowed me to use up an ancient package of frozen ground turkey, a nearly-as-ancient package of frozen mixed vegetables, and the last two packages of ramen The Husband likes to buy, but doesn't eat so much.

Odds 'n Ends Soup

Ingredients
1 pound lean ground turkey
1 small onion, diced
2 celery stalks, diced
3 gloves garlic, smashed
6½ cups broth
14½ can Muir Glen organic fire-roasted adobo-seasoned petite diced tomatoes, undrained
16 oz package frozen mixed vegetables, not thawed
2 3.0 oz packages beef-flavored ramen noodles
Parsley, as desired

Directions
In French/Dutch oven or large whathaveyou, brown ground beef, onion, celery, and garlic over medium-high heat until thoroughly cooked. Add broth, tomatoes, vegetables, and seasoning packet from ramen package; mix well. Bring to a boil. Reduced to a simmer and cook for about 10 minutes or until vegetables are tender. Smash ramen noodles and add to soup. Stir in parsley, if desired. Simmer 5 minutes or until ramen is tender.

Left overnight, the ramen will soak up a lot of the broth so you may wish to pour in a little more broth when you reheat the soup. Or just recategorize it as stew.