What a fun dinner!!!
I didn’t have anything but a Carbonated Acid Water between lunch and dinner…..well, I did do some nibbling, but nothing substantial. I knew dinner would be a hefty bunch of calories and didn’t really want to eat a snack, so I had a Coke to busy my mouth and stomach. And an almond or two. But I never really got hungry.
When I got home, we realized the husband had forgotten the oh-so-important chocolate chips so we walked to the grocery store and back (~30 minutes) to get some. More walking!!
I made the cookie batter at 6:00 and then sat down with a single serving bottle of wine when my sister and her boyfriend arrived. Yum!
Our main course was “Stilchester” cheese (a combo of English Stilton and Gloucester) stuffed into pounded (flatened) chicken breasts with diced apple and thyme. YUM!!!! I LOVE cheese and this one is a favorite. The chicken was more “steamed” than “roasted” so it didn’t have a nice golden brown crust (we baked it with the root veggies) but it was still good. I left a good ounce on my plate, which the husband happily ate. To get the nutritional info, we weighed my chicken breast and the did the grams for the cheese and apple and divided by 4 portions. Since mine was a little smaller, I did about 1/5 of the filling. Accurate enough!
Our yummy side dish and clearly the most popular recipe we made was roasted root vegetables. Turnips, parsnips, carrots, sweet potato and mushrooms with a little EVOO. We weighed each of the veggies as we chopped them and then weighed them when they came out of the oven to get the oz weight.
(Hi to Susan, who probably thinks this is the best side dish she’s ever seen with all the root veggies!)
Husband baked the BEST honey wheat bread this afternoon. I had a 1.25 oz portion with some Smart Balance:
All together:
Dinner calories (after nibbling on extra veggies) = 709 calories (with a good 200 coming from the veggies!)
Now here’s the best part…….
We made my fabulous cookies again, and again, they were TO DIE FOR!! Doughy in the middle with crispy bits throughout. I had a big one, and of course nibbled on the crumbs a bit. When I finished my first one I decided immediately that it was worth 200 for another. But I went into the kitchen, which was a mess, and started cleaning. In the process, I packaged up all the cookies (after everyone else had had 3-4 of them!) and then they were gone!! I only had 1.25 cookies! GO ME!! I’m so glad I made that decision, and I’m sending them home with my sister so they’re out of the house (even though we have 5 frozen in the freezer from our first batch – the freezer makes them somewhat hard to get to).
Lesson learned: WAIT 10 MINUTES!! The craving really will pass and your reasoning will return.
Total Friday calories: 1931
-646 thru cycle class and 2 walks
= net of 1284.
Considering I had wine AND dessert, that’s excellent!
Brenda says
Do you eat the skin on your kiwi fruit and sweet potatoes?
Kath says
Definitely – because I’m too lazy to peel either!! Now I really like the skin on both and would think something was missing to have them without. Never peel apples either.
Elle says
Yum, that dinner looks good! I made the oatmeal cookie recipe from recipezaar as a birthday treat for Garrett on Thursday…good thing he brought the leftovers to work because they were amazing! When you guys make bread, do you use a bread machine? That honey wheat loaf looks great, but not like it came out of a loaf pan…how’d you do it?
super spouse, bread baker says
No bread machine here. Here’s how I make it:
-start by putting about 1.5 qt water on the range, on high heat (you’ll see why in a few steps)
-for the honey wheat bread, the ingredients are:
150g whole wheat flour
250g bread flour
7g salt
50g honey (or 8g granulated sugar)
6g instant yeast (probably about a packet if you use active-dry)
-put all dry ingredients in mixer
-microwave 10oz water so it’s barely warm to the touch (30 seconds on high)
-add about 8oz of the water to mixer and turn on 30%
-let it mix for a minute before judging if you need more water, and if so, add .5oz at a time
-add water until the dough is just sticky enough so that you probably don’t want to touch it (i rarely use all 10oz – you may if you leave out the honey)
-mix on 75% for 10 minutes. this ratio of ingredients isn’t enough for my dough hook to really work it around, so i usually take it out and knead by hand. if you do knead by hand, do it for about 50% longer (just make sure you knead until you can stretch (not rip) the dough out and see sunlight through it
-at this point i’m sure the water on the stove will be boiling. when you’re finished kneading, place a cakepan on the bottom rack of the oven and pour the boiling water into it. place the dough back in your mixing bowl and put in the oven, on a rack above the water
-let rise for 30-40 minutes (double in size)
-take the dough out and “punch” down. the goal is not to push the air out, but to redistribute the yeast. i gently flatten it into a long rectangle, then fold over like a tri-fold wallet. do this three times, and it’s fine that air will be pushed out.
-put the dough back in the mixing bowl, back in the oven with the hot water underneath (no need to reheat) and let rise another 40 minutes
-redistribute the yeast again, and then form into whatever shape you want. if you use a loaf pan, be aware that this recipe will not make one of those overflowing, mushroom shaped loaves. it will basically make a nice rectangular loaf. upping it to 500g flour (and everything else accordingly) will make a pretty nice loaf-pan size. i formed it into two 12″ snakes for this dinner
-place shaped dough on the pan you will bake it on, and back into the oven with the water for the final bench-proof (about 30 mins)
-take the water out, and the pan. slash the bread to let steam escape, and preheat the oven to 400
-a whole loaf will take about 30 mins to bake, these two small french breads took about 20. bake until the internal temperature is approx 200
-when finished baking, take out, place on cooling rack or cool surface, and cover with a towel for at least 30 minutes. this will allow the crust to soften a bit so you don’t make a huge mess when you cut it
-enjoy!
i know this sounds like a lot more work than most people are willing to do, but realize that the actual work takes about 30 minutes – when the dough is rising and baking you can be doing other things around the house. the extra rising in the moist environment ensures you’ll have a fluffy loaf rather than a terribly dense-packed piece of bread.
elle says
Wow, thanks super spouse! That does sound like a lot of work, but I’ll definitely have to try it one of these days because fresh honey wheat bread sounds divine…
Anonymous says
Yes, I think you did great overall with calories! The side dish looked delicious as did the bread! Yay for sticking to 1.25 cookies! Hope you are having a great Sunday! -Meggers