Greek Chicken And Vegetables

During her annual trip to Florida, Bev had purchased some Greek spices at the Marco Island farmers market and I wanted to try it on some chicken so I went to one of my favorite sources of Mediterranean food and found a recipe for “Rosemary Chicken and Vegetables” on Suzy’s “Mediterranean Dish” Blog.  I didn’t use much of her ingredients but I did follow her cooking directions.  You can click on the link for the original recipe.

Cowboy Chili

After a very warm December, January has been below average cold and all things soup are finding their way onto our menu.  On this particular day with a high temp of 33F, it seemed like a perfect day to try Chef Lea Ann’s Cowboy Chili from her “Cooking On The Ranch” blog.  Since I made several recipe revisions, you can click the above link for Lea Ann’s original plus more photos like this.

Egg Drop Soup

Rather than canned dog food, we mix the dry food with cooked chicken for our pups and, as a result, we make a lot of good chicken broth and Bev decided she wanted to turn some into egg drop soup.  I went online and found a recipe from The Woks Of Life that sounded easy and good.  I followed the recipe as written except as noted and I increased it by 50% to match our amount of chicken broth. You can click on the above link for the original recipe and more pics like this.

Mediterranean Style Chicken Wings

We had a package of wings in the freezer that needed to be used so I went looking thru my recipe file for something different and came across the recipe for "Mediterranean Style Grilled Chicken Wings" from Suzy on her “The Mediterranean Dish” blog.  Unlike the flavors I usually associate with Mediterranean cuisine (Greece & Italy), this dish has Middle-Eastern spices so I assume it comes from the other side of the Med.  I followed the ingredients list but used more of everything for my larger amount of chicken – a pkg of wings and two breasts for the non-wing eaters.  This is a pic from Suzy's blog.

New Stairs & Weight Loss

Unfortunately, Kitty decided to begin using the bathroom inside the house sometime back and picked the stair landing as her spot.  We got her a litter box, which she quickly adapted to, but unfortunately the carpet on the landing was too far gone to save and it smelled pretty bad.  So, I ripped up the carpet on the whole stair case in late 2019 and began looking for our best option for the future and Bev decided she did not want to go back with carpet.

Then along came Covid-19 and any replacement plans were put on hold while we continued to explore our options all the while living with pine 2x12’s for our stairs.  In October, 2021, we finally decided to go back with the natural oak hardwood stairs that Bev originally wanted when we built the house 28 years ago and this is the final product.

I’ve mentioned before that I was facing another hip replacement and I finally decided the time had come but, unfortunately, as with the first replacement, I have some significant weight to lose and am using the same eating plan as last time – count calories, minimal carbs, intermittent fasting.  So far so good as I’m dropping 5-7 pounds per week.

I try to stay under 1000 calories per day and my typical daily meals look like this:

Breakfast: Two extra large eggs and a slice of Kentucky Legends Ham – 250 calories

Lunch: ½ cup of cottage cheese and a few cherry tomatoes or left over vegetables – 150 calories

Supper: Meat and salad or vegetables – 400-500 calories

Snacks if needed: Blueberries, celery and pimento cheese, nuts – 100 calories

While I’m not totally omitting carbs, I try to stick with complex carbs, as in beans, and avoid alcohol, bread, pasta, rice, and potato although I eat a little potato on occasion.

For the intermittent fasting, I don’t eat before 10am or after 6pm which gives me a 16 hour fast.

And since I can’t walk very far but need to speed up my metabolism, I got out the ole Bow Flex and do a little workout every other day.

My goal is for a mid-march surgery so I’ll be ready for RV season.

Photos can be enlarged by clicking on them and the blue words are links.

Have a great day and thanks for stopping by Almost Heaven South.

Larry

01/10-1/14/22 event date

Smoked Beef Tri-Tip, My First

I went freezer diving and discovered a nice beef tri-tip roast/steak that I wanted to use but rather than just grill it as usual, I decided to smoke it first.  I set up the smoker to run at 225F and used some maple for the smoke.  For seasoning, I used a brisket rub from master BBQer Chis Lilly.

Brisket Dry Rub Recipe:

1/2 tblsp salt

1/2 tblsp paprika

1/2 tblsp black pepper

1/2 tblsp sugar

1/2 teaspoon garlic

1/2 teaspoon onion powder

1/4 teaspoon oregano

1/8 teaspoon ground coriander

It took a little over two hours for the meat to reach an internal temperature of 130 F. 

Chicken Stir Fry, Snow, and Capt. Romeo

 I’m back to eating healthier with very low carbs so a chicken stir-fry dish seemed to fit the bill well but before I get into the food let’s look at the weather.  It was 76F on New Years Day and we awoke on Jan 3 to this.