Fat Buster

a new take

2010-07-29T09:56:00.000-06:00

I’m sick of chicken breasts, really, I am! Dan has taken this as a challenge to find ways to make chicken breasts tasty again. This is an easy way to have fried chicken without all of the mess. I know I don’t have nutritionals right now, but they’ll come!

This dish is so tasty! I loved the buttermilk sauce and the chicken was just the right amount of crispy.

Crispy Chicken Cutlets with creamy romaine salad

adapted from Real Simple

Ingredients:

1 c buttermilk
3/4 c cornmeal
salt
pepper
1 1/2 lbs chicken
6 T olive oil
1/4 c sour cream
1/2 t honey
1 head romaine lettuce
1 sliced bell pepper

Instructions

Set out two bowls, in the first place the 3/4 c of buttermilk. In the second bowl combine the cornmeal, 1 t salt and 1/4 t pepper. Place the chicken in the buttermilk and then into the cornmeal mixture. Press the cornmeal mixture into the chicken.

Heat a large skillet over medium-high heat and add the oil. Add the chicken so that they fit flat on the skillet and cook for 2-3 minutes/side. (if they don’t all fit at once, divide the oil in half and cook half at a time).

In a separate bowl combine the sour cream and honey and the last of the butter milk. Add the lettuce and pepper and combine.

the shower made me do it

2010-07-28T09:23:00.000-06:00

Would you believe me if I said that my shower made me late to work? For real, it did! Dan and I haven’t been able to figure out how to make the water get to the perfect temperature. First it takes forever to warm up and then it goes to scalding and skips right over comfortable. The second I move the cold handle it goes to freezing. UGH. Showers are taking 20 minutes longer than they should.

Instead of eating my packed lunch, one of my friends suggested that we head down to Civic Center Park hosts an outdoor cafe of gourmet mobile food vendors.

It was crowded but not packed, the almost 100 degrees might have helped clear out the crowds. I was surprised by all of the different restaurants that had food trucks. Notable trucks were that for Deluxe and Steubens.

We decided to eat at Walt’s. I’ve never head of this place before, but they advertised a Caprese Panini.

The food didn’t take too long and was sooo tasty. It was the perfect size. And it came with a pickle (wrapped on top) of the sandwich.

After we finished our sandwiches (in the shade…it was too hot in the sun!) We stopped by the Denver Cupcake Truck. The truck was so cute and retro.

The flavors were pretty attractive too!

We settled on splitting the Zippy Lemon, it seemed really refreshing in the heat.

It was a perfect size to split in half. Yum! Hopefully next time I check it out it won’t be quite so hot!

Have you tried a food truck? What is the craziest thing you’ve eaten out of a food truck?

shrimp and slaw

2010-07-27T09:00:00.000-06:00

Finally! I’m back to sharing recipes! I may even revert back to taking pictures of everything I eat. I find that it’s a boring blog post but it’s helpful to keep me accountable. So, I may work something out about that. Any suggestions?

Onto the shrimp dish. Shrimp is my absolute fave. It can be kind of expensive but it’s delicious and can taste so different depending on the dish. The carrot slaw in this was a little too acidic, I reduced the amount of lime juice but maybe taste test it as you go.

Shrimp with Carrot Slaw

adapted from Real Simple

Ingredients

2 T lime juice
salt
1.5 lbs shrimp
1/4 c sour cream
1/4 lbs carrots, grated
1 apple, grated

Instruction:

Boil water in a large pot with 3 T lime juice and 2 T salt. Once the water is boiling add the shrimp for about 3 minutes or until it is opaque.

Move shrimp into an ice bath and pat dry.

In a bowl, add sour cream, 1 T lime and 1/2 t salt. Combine the carrots and apple.

Serve Cold

Nutritionals (Serves 4): Cals: 257, Fat: 6, Carb: 14, Fiber: 3, Protein: 36.

Tastes

2010-07-26T09:45:00.000-06:00

I got a really great surprise last week when my friend Rachel called out of the blue and said she was in town and would like to meet. yay! Rachel and I worked together in DC at my last job before moving to Denver. I haven’t seen her in like six months. So it was great to be able to catch up!

She wanted something different from conference food and so I thought some tapas would be appropriate. I decided to finally check out Tastes, a tapas place in Uptown Denver. We decided to share a number of tapas, starting with the brie stuffed dates. Wrapped in Jamon Serrano (Cured
Ham) w/ a Balsamic Reduction.

We also got the Brillat Savarin French Triple Crème Cow’s Milk, which came with strawberries and bread.

Man this cheese was good! And the strawberries were perfectly ripe. So good! Our second round was all pasta. We ordered the Butternut Squash w/ Sage Butter Ravioli. These were tasty, but not as memorable as the other pasta we ordered.

The other pasta dish was the 5 Cheese w/ Basil Pesto Saccotini. I usually don’t love the pesto as much at restaurants but this was the perfect amount and the perfect flavors.

The pesto looks terrible in this picture!

The droid just doesn’t always do food justice! Oh well. We finished the meal off with the Bing Cherries & Sour Cream Meatballs.

These were good, I wasn’t sure what I was expecting, the meatballs were spicier than I thought and the cherries weren’t as sweet as I had thought they’d be. But it was good.Overall Tastes was fun, the food was delicious. The happy hour looks pretty good too. I think I’ll stop by a little earlier next time!

After dinner Rachel and I went to Sweet Action (I think I have a sweet action addiction) And we both got the blackberry lavender flavor. Yum! I still have not been disappointed by a flavor at this place.

After we got the ice cream we walked around South Broadway and stumbled into an Underground Music Festival. It was kind of fun to see how active the area was. It wasn’t my type of music but it’s fun to be around so much energy.

What is the craziest ice cream flavor that you enjoy?

another race day

2010-07-25T15:11:00.001-06:00

Yesterday Dan and I woke up at 5 am to go to yet another race. I really wanted some more photography practice. It was good practice too because it was overcast and I’ve been having issues with cloudy days.

I brought my flash and tripod this time and both were really useful when I learned how to best use them.

What was really surprising to me was how beautiful Loveland, Colorado is! We escaped to Loveland/Fort Collins in May when our A/C wasn’t working. The swim was in a lake overlooked by the Mountains.

Of course it was also marked with this sign.

Not sure why you can’t swim in there, the boys had no reports of any issues.

Except Dan wasn’t too pleased with his decision not to wear a wet suit. Ooops. His helpful wife may have told him that the water was too warm…It was like 80 degrees. The bike finished right next to a sculpture garden.

I loved it.

The run course finished right next another part of the lake.

It was really pretty! And the weather was perfect. Not too hot and not too cold!

I got some good pictures that I’m working on right now.

I don’t know what it was about this race but I decided that I really really really need to get back on track with weight loss. I’m finally getting settled into the apartment. The last piece it to hang the pictures and I’d like to get that done this week before my dad comes to town! Now that a lot of the craziness of the summer is behind me I can focus on myself again. I’m not sure what I’m going to do, but I have to do something!

Vine Street Pub and Red Rocks

2010-07-24T14:15:00.001-06:00

After the race last Sunday we took mom to Vine Street Pub. Dan and I have never been but have heard great things.

Since I’ve heard about the beer I decided to try the raspberry wheat beer. It was pretty good! A little carbonated for me but the flavor was right on.

My mom liked it too!

Dan ordered a pesto blue cheese burger and my mom ordered a black been burger. I went with my standby grilled cheese with tomatoes. yum!

(my droid pictures are pretty bad! Sorry!) After lunch mom and I drove out to Red Rocks to check it out, I haven’t been there yet either.

Unfortunately it was like 100 degrees out! Ouch!

It was really gorgeous!

I love Denver and how many beautiful places there are!

early morning

2010-07-23T10:29:00.000-06:00

Last Sunday began with a super early wake up call and then I headed out to Wash Park to professionally photograph my first race. Well, it was kinda my second race.

It was a great learning experience! I now know the best reason to have a tripod or monopod. My arms were so dead after the race. Holding a camera vertically is really challenging!

I also learned that I need to be more diligent checking the light. I can’t share pictures of the race but I will be sharing my next round of sports class pictures!

I felt like I already had a full day and it wasn’t even 11am!

Mt. Evans

2010-07-22T18:11:00.001-06:00

Saturday we ventured up to Mt. Evans. Having just been to Pike’s Peak it was interesting to see the differences between the trips. Most notably was the quarter mile hike to the summit and the lack of donuts. (that one’s for you Annissa!)

It definitely had some terrifying parts just like Pike’s Peak and it was beautiful too.

We were joined at the top by some mountain goats, they were so domesticated and didn’t mind us at all.

We all made it to the top(14,200 feet) :) Go us! Of course we only walked the last quarter mile. But those are only details, right?

Salt and Boulder

2010-07-21T09:06:00.000-06:00

My mom arrived in town the night before we were scheduled to move. We went to lala’s Wednesday night and Thursday morning we went down to get the elevator key when we found out that it was broken! Dan started moving boxes down the stairs to lessen the load for the movers in case the elevator did not come back on. Thankfully, the elevator came back on the minute the movers showed up. Everything went smoothly and we’re completely unpacked and all I need to do is figure out where to put our pictures. Yay!

Friday morning mom and I drove up to Boulder (via some stores of course! I have a new apartment to furnish!) We got to Pearl St. just in time for lunch and decided to check out Salt. I’ve heard so much good stuff about it that I was excited to check it out.

I loved the interior it was very simple and beautiful. We sat at a small table right next to a window.

True to its name, the waitress immediately brought us salt.

Once we heard the specials I knew what we had to order. First we started with a side of fries since I’ve heard that they are phenomenal.

They were. What really stole the show was the homemade ketchup.

It was perfectly sweet with a hint of vinegar.

For her main course mom ordered a cup of the gazpacho. I wish I could remember what it was made of, but I know that it was topped with grapes. Mom couldn’t stop talking about it all weekend!

For my main course I ordered the tomato soup and a mini grilled cheese.

Wow, we were left with just the right amount of fullness and were completely satisfied by the complexity of flavors.

Yum! After lunch we walked around and found some gifts for Keira and saw the street performers. When we started melting from the heat we packed up and returned home to unpack my purchases and continue settling in.

I wish it wasn’t so hot, but we had such a good time!

Have you had a small meal that completely satisfied?

catch up

2010-07-20T18:23:00.001-06:00

phew! The last few nights have been full of photo uploading from Sunday’s race. I’m glad to be done and finally working through my pictures from my moms visit.

more later!

busy little bees!

2010-07-19T09:23:00.000-06:00

My mom sure knows how to pack a lot into a short time! Since she got here we:

1. moved

2. unpacked EVERYTHING

3. put everything away

4. picked up all needed furniture

5. updated hand-me down furniture

6. visited the top of Mt. Evans

7. visited Red Rocks

8. visited Boulder

9. Eat at Salt

10. Eat at Lala’s

11. Eat at Le Central

12. Eat at Tony’s Market

13. Eat at Vine Street Pub

This doesn’t count all of the delicious cooking Dan has done since we’ve been in the new place. Mom’s plan tomorrow is to finish working on our furniture, choose where all of my photos will be hung, go to Marczyks, and well that’s it!

Also, this morning I had my first pro photo gig. It was for The Donor Dash. A race for transplant recipients and donors and I have to admit I almost teared up a few times. I am really honored that I was able to work this race and it reminded me that you can make a difference in so many nontraditional ways. I LOVED photographing the participants, there was so much joy and meaning in everything.

I’ll share pictures later, I have to get fotojack the pics from this morning ASAP! Oh, and I thought my arms hurt after moving? Nothing compared to holding my camera all morning. I have to get a monopod stat!

lost and found

2010-07-18T12:38:00.000-06:00

I was getting my memory cards ready for the race this morning when I realized that I still had some pictures on one of the cards!

This card is from our trip to Canada a few weeks ago (it seems like a million years ago!)

The night after the race we went to downtown Montreal with Dan’s teammates Jordan and Amy and Jocelyn and Kevin. We wandered around, and I loved how European the city was.

I tried to capture the artwork we saw but did not succeed.

We went to this little joint with beautiful outdoor seating. Jordan and Kevin are both from Canada and they ordered Poutine. I had to try it.

Poutine is fries, gravy, cheese curds…maybe some other thing….I dunno.

I had one bite and that was it! No more for me! I had a burger, which was OK.

Overall it was a really fun night! I had never been to Montreal before so that was really nice!

to the highest mountain…

2010-07-17T12:34:00.000-06:00

I really will update with a better post soon. My mom and I are busy putting the house together and are really almost done. yay!

Today we take my mom up Mt. Evans! Unlike Pikes Peak, we’re going to have to hike up the last quarter mile to the summit. Should be fun :)

my aching’ arms!

2010-07-16T09:48:00.001-06:00

I think that in order to really get in shape and lose this chub I need to switch professions and become a professional mover.

We even hired professional movers but still had to carry boxes between rooms etc. and boy are my arms tired! We are almost moved in and I’ll post pics when we are fully settled but all we have left to do is to get a few pieces of furniture and hang pictures. Yay! I’m so excited.

My mom and I are off to Boulder and shopping. How fun!

our new digs

2010-07-15T09:48:00.001-06:00

Dan and I are moving today!! Yay! We got a chance to look at the new apartment last week and loved what we saw. Our new apartment is just a few floors below our current apartment and faces west. I thought that while I’m spending the day moving, I’ll preview my apartment for you (well mostly for my family since I’m sure they are curious)

So, you walk in and there is a hall closet twice the size of our current one.

You first come to our new living room.

This is where I’m confused about how to plan out the apartment. See, this seems the best place for sitting/tv etc.

however, we have a fireplace (a real one! That works! YAY!) And I’d love to be able to sit on the couch and face the fireplace…

But the area in front of the fireplace seems best for a dining room…(this next picture is the area in front of the fireplace and the entrance to the balcony)

The balcony is so much wider than our current balcony.

And the view is just amazing.

Now, back inside. The kitchen is the one part that is not better. It’s the same with a little less cabinet space.

My favorite part of the apartment is the fact that we have a second (full) bathroom

and a second bedroom (well treadmill room/ bike room/ photography studio) I hope it all fits!

The master bedroom has its en-suite bathroom (and his and hers closets! I get my own closet! YAY!)

and it’s own entrance to the balcony.

I’m soo soo excited to get settled in!

Did you move recently? Did you move for more space? Better location? Nicer view?

oh so much!

2010-07-14T09:56:00.001-06:00

Well, between the move, Dan’s parents visit, my moms visit, our move, my first paid photography gig, and my dad’s visit it’s a wonder we have any time to breathe! These are all such wonderful things, so I'm not complaining just remarking on how crazy this month is!

I did a quick photo shoot with Dan this weekend and it turned out OK. Not as well as I’d like it to though!

This weekend I have to take some group sports shots, I hate asking people to model so we’ll see how it works out!

My mom’s coming in a few hours and we move tomorrow! Yay!

Buckhorn Exchange

2010-07-13T09:20:00.000-06:00

Dan and I first learned of this restaurant through the TV show Man vs. Food and decided that it was something that his dad would enjoy. We were excited to finally go and Dan was excited to try Rocky Mountain Oysters (spoiler alert: he chickened out).

The lunch menu was much more affordable than dinner but unfortunately did not have the same fun types of meat. While we could order the dinner menu, I’ve had way too much food this week to eat that much.

Instead I ordered the buffalo Reuben. This was really really good. The bread was not greasy at all, the chips weren’t greasy. I only ate half of my sandwich and saved the rest (it saved really really well!)

Dan ordered the steak sandwich, it was too full so he ate the bread and the steak separately.

Buckhorn was definitely a once in a lifetime experience. I wish I took a picture of the restaurant, it was covered from top to bottom and side to side with dead animals! Apparently most are from the original owner (in the 19th century). So funny.

What is the quintessential local restaurant in your area?

Panzano

2010-07-12T09:32:00.000-06:00

Ok, now back to my in-laws visit! I don’t think that I’ve eaten this well in a long time! Tuesday night I met up with Dan and his parents for dinner. They spent the day hiking in Rocky Mountain National Forest and skipped lunch so they were ready for a delicious Italian meal.

We started with drinks at their hotel and then walked down to Panzano. We got seated right away and were greeted by friendly staff that filled our water and kept filling it all night. This is always something I notice at a restaurant, I get so annoyed when they don’t check on us and keep the water full!

There was so much to choose from but because the pasta was made daily we all ordered a different pasta dish. My father-in-law got the house made sausage and three cheese ravioli in a spicy rosemary red sauce. He seemed really pleased with his choice!

My mother-in-law order herbed pasta with corn, haricot vert, almonds, dried blueberries and a sweet corn emulsion with micro basil. This sounded so interesting and she really enjoyed it. (excuse the out of focus pic)

Dan decided that he ordered the best meal of all. He got the lamb with gnocchi and mint pesto. Yeah, I tasted the pesto it was pretty darn amazing. And the gnocchi it was lighter than any gnocchi that I have ever tasted. He ordered really well!

I settled on the carbonara since I’ve been craving a fried egg. I love the egg on top and the bacon was good but there wasn’t enough seasoning in the dish. I added some pepper and it helped but maybe it needed more salt, or maybe my taste buds are off after all of these heavy meals? Overall it was delicious. I ate the egg and the pasta but couldn’t seem to get all of the pancetta.

Overall it was a great experience and I was still full the next morning. So much food!

How?!

2010-07-11T16:03:00.001-06:00

How can two people accumulate so much stuff in 800 SQ Ft?! We’re still busy packing and cleaning the apartment. I’m not sure how clean it needs to be so I’m erring on the side of caution and I can say that the stove and oven are spic and span for the first time since I can remember! Our new stove better be so clean!!

I’m going through our magazines in order to not move more than we need to and I saw this

Remember how a few months ago I saw the girl with the pegged pants? Since instructions are now posted in Real Simple, I guess it is in style again?

tipsy

2010-07-10T11:40:00.000-06:00

Last Saturday I was wandering around and happened into a liquor store that some of my coworkers have been talking about. I was on the hunt to find Bell’s Oberon and thought this would be my best chance. Unfortunately, I failed. But I was really surprised by the decor inside the store. It is definitely kitschy. And maybe just a little bit freaky!

There were mannequins like these all over the store, I kept seeing them out of the corner of my eye and thinking they were real.

But it did have great prices. Most of the wine and beer were really good looking except for this one.

You read that right. Chocolate and Red Wine in a drink. together. Totally weird!

I did not buy this wine, I was a wee bit too suspicious :)

Happy Saturday!

highest mountain

2010-07-09T09:15:00.000-06:00

Monday morning started very very early. We wanted to get to Pikes Peak early so that we can drive up the mountain, visit Garden of the Gods and visit with some of Dan’s parents’ friends. Busy day!

We started the morning at Snooze. This is the fourth time I’ve been here and since we arrived before 7 am we didn’t have to wait for a seat! Yay! Dan’s Dad ordered the salmon Benedict. I apparently focused more on the hash browns than on the Benedict…Oh well

The rest of us ordered pancakes so I just photographed mine. I got the flight of three pancakes and I chose the strawberry rhubarb pancake.

The pineapple upside down pancake (my favorite)

And the basic buttermilk pancake (so as not to have overwhelming sweetness)

From Snooze we drove to Colorado Springs and made our way up the terrifying road to the top of Pikes Peak. Dan did a great job driving, it was terrifying.

We got to the top and boy was it cold! We layered on all of the layers we could find in the car.

The view was pretty impressive though.

The ride down was less scary, but still impressive. We went straight from there to lunch at Dan’s parents’ friends. They hadn’t seen each other in 20 years but that didn’t slow down the conversation at all and it was a great time! We went straight to the Garden of the Gods and did a quick drive through so Dan could get to swimming.

By the time I got home I was exhausted, and it was only 5pm! We later had a nice quiet dinner at Le Central one of our favorites!(no pics)

July 4th

2010-07-08T09:38:00.000-06:00

So, I’ve finally finished the recap of our trip to the east coast. Now I’m moving on to Dan’s parents to Denver! They arrived at lunch on Sunday (July 4th) and we started to show them around.

As we were walking around our neighborhood the sky opened up and the rain started pouring. The meteorologists kept saying that it wasn’t going to be a wash out so we thought that it would pass quickly. It did not. We ended up driving downtown for dinner at Bistro Vendome.

Dan and I were here once last year with his mom and had a great experience so we were excited to get back there! Dan and I started with some Escargot. Unfortunately they tasted just like butter and no other herbs or anything. Oh well.

For dinner I ordered veal medallions, with asparagus, white truffle potato gratin, Dungeness crab salad and caper hollandaise.

I know I know, veal is not the most PC thing to eat. But, then again, is it much worse than most factory farmed animals?

Unfortunately the rain kept up and so we headed home and couldn’t see any fireworks from our balcony. We saw a few while driving but not that many. Oh well.

We called it a night as early as possible because we had big plans for the next day! We were driving up Pikes Peak!

Do you eat Veal?

north end

2010-07-07T09:26:00.001-06:00

As you can tell last Sunday was a busy day! This is Part III. You can find Part I here and Part II here. After we went to Richardson's we went downtown Boston to meet our friends Paul and Gail.

They took us to the North End to one of their favorite places called Limoncello. The menu was very impressive and I wish I had written down what we got. I selected a squid ink pasta with main lobster.

YUM! Dan got something that I just can’t remember. It was some kind of baked pasta with white truffle oil

For dessert we got cannolis at this little place (not Mike’s) but at this point I can’t remember the name!

I don’t remember the last cannoli I’ve had. This was so delicious.

Dan and I had such a busy and delicious day. Good thing we walked so much :)

Have you had a epic day recently? What did you do?

stawbucks

2010-07-06T09:04:00.000-06:00

The two things that really made my college career are the beach (specifically Singing Beach) and ice cream.

We would go to the beach to study, walk, relax pretty much any reason. Unfortunately in the summer the beach is pretty inaccessible since it costs so much ($25 to park and $5/person to walk onto the beach).

So, Dan and I walked to the beach and didn’t walk on since it wouldn’t be worth it.

Dan got a kick out of the fact that on our way to the beach someone stopped us and asked “is there a STAWBUCKS nea-ya hea-ya” Total Boston accent :)

After the beach we drove to Richardsons. This place is awesome because the cows are in the back and there is a driving range and a mini-golf adjacent to the property. When we got there I forgot all about the sizes in MA ice cream shops and ordered a small. Dan was planning to order a large. And then I got this.

Oops. Dan got a small. We took our ice cream and walked back to the cow nursery. Poor things were really hot.

We also saw some ducks and

and some mamma cows.

I miss this place:) Such great memories coming here after swim practice. So fun!

What traditions did you have during college?

varsity memories

2010-07-04T10:47:00.001-06:00

One of the benefits of flying through Boston to go to Quebec was that I could finally take Dan to my alma mater, Gordon College. My campus is on the North Shore of Boston between Salem and Gloucester and I haven’t been back in like 8 years. It had changed so much!

The dorm that my roommates Melissa and Jessie lived in was torn down and replaced by a huge and really pretty new building (small picture, sorry!)

The dorm my roommate Rachel lived in Freshman year was also torn down and replaced by a nice science building. We only had two teeny out of date buildings, so this new building was sooo necessary.

Dan decided to pose in front of our library/academic building

From Gordon I took him to Bertucci’s the exact one I used to go to all the time with the swim team and family when they came to town. Lunch started with the best rolls ever. Love these things!

I had to order the Margarita Pizza, this is the quintessential margarita pizza for me. So yummy :)

After lunch I took Dan by the cottage four of us lived in after Senior year of college. I can’t believe we paid $1200/month for this!

Four of us lived there, the two “rooms” were divided by a curtain on the top floor, I lived to the right of the window. Our “living room was behind the window to the back left of the house and our kitchen was behind an identical window to the back right.

This house had absolutely No insulation and in June that year it was so totally cold that we once had to go to Jessie’s then boyfriend Kit’s apartment to warm up. It may have been summer but he turned the heat all the way up and got blankets and hot chocolate ready. Good times :)

Wow, this post is super long so I will finish our trip to Boston later :)

Have you gone back to your college campus? Has it changed a lot or just as you remembered?