What's on your Thursday menu,RNYers?

Quick post for accountability today so feel free to add a QOTD. Lily and I have our 1 hour walk in and will do a short and another longer walk in tonight. Walking is different here as there's tons of traffic on the nearby roads so we walk in a school and in a church parking lot. It's boring and it would be easy to use it as an excuse but there is NO excuse and we'll be there daily. Accountability was spot on food and stepwise yesterday and weight is 122.6 today. Here's the food plan B 2/3 c earnest eats hot cereal L 4 oz chicken salad D 3 oz pork fritter and 3 tomato slicesS if needed 1/2 c cheese popcorn. Have a wonderful day full of healthy choices everyone!

Good morning, Karen. Marilyn needs to get me off to the train so that she can play tennis, so I need to be quick this morning.

The jerkies and meat sticks that I ordered came from Steve's Paleo Goods last night. I haven't tried the meat sticks yet, but I had a jerky last night. I liked it. Without all of the added sugar it tastes much more like actual meat than the sugar jerkies. Also, it seemed more filling and kept me from wanting anything for a couple of hours.

I will try a meat stick today and see how that is. The only drawback I have seen so far is that the meat sticks come in single packages of 4, which are 40 calories each. I can eat a 160 calorie snack no problem and still have a good day, but some of the smaller women probably would want break that up. I don't know whether they need to be refrigerated once they are open.

Breakfast: Bratwurst

Snack: Meat Stick

Lunch: Pork

Snack: Meat stick

Dinner: TBD

Have a great day, all!

Yum, the jerky sounds yummy!

Mornin' everyone!

another sunny day here in southern Wisconsin, and I hear the workers out on our porch drilling or something. They get here promptly at 7:00 a.m. most mornings. Since it's so nice out, I'll need to take a walk again today, preferably this morning before it gets too warm. I'm also going to go to one of the clinics and have my labs drawn sometime today, since my four-year checkup is in a couple of weeks (I like to have my lab results before I go in case there are any issues).

I'm going to this "Cooking Club" meeting today for the first time. I noticed one of the public libraries in our county hosts it. I used to love cooking but have gotten out of the habit. I obviously still cook - but not as often and not as creatively as I did pre-surgery. I'd like to start again - but with healthier, lighter things, of course. I'm not sure if this is the theme of every meeting or just this one, but with this one, we are supposed to make a dish out of any international cookbook, and then take the dish and the cookbook to the meeting. Then we'll have lunch (trying all the dishes). I have a million international cookbooks at home (well, millions of cookbooks *period*). It was sort of hard to find many things to make for a potluck since I didn't want to lug a crockpot there (for things that have to be served warm), and soup is kind of out because I don't know if they'll have bowls there (and also, most soups are served hot). And I didn't want to make anything too simple or too elaborate. So I settled on these lentil/bulgur balls I found in a Turkish cookbook, which are served at room temp with garlic yogurt sauce. I made them yesterday. The recipe said they served 4-6 people, so figuring there would be at twice that many people at the meeting, I doubled the recipe. Big mistake. The 4-6 people referenced in the cookbook must be real pigs, because I have these stupid lentil/bulgur balls coming out of my ears. We will be eating these things for days. DH will definitely have some in his lunch today - and probably every day for awhile. At least they're good - and healthy - with lots of fiber so they're filling - but at c. 75 kcal each, the going will be slow - at least for me. Maybe they'll freeze? Yikes - what a problem. Anyway, there's that today. Hopefully this will be a good group as I'm really interested in being involved with this.

Accountability was good yesterday but weight is up 0.8 lbs this morning (153) - might be the soy sauce from the three pieces of sushi I had for dinner last night. Fine - should be gone by tomorrow if I'm careful today and drink a lot of fluid.

4 years out:

B: protein pancakes with 1/3 C plain Greek yogurt and some kind of fruit compote (no sugar added), coffee with half & half

MS: protein shake

L: ?? well, a lentil/bulgur ball of course. Not sure what else. I'm going to try to be really good with this and pick protein-forward things - and not too much

AS: if needed, a light yogurt

D: if lunch ends up being too heavy, then deli turkey slices. If I'm still OK calorie-wise, then a Beyond Burger on a slim, multigrain "bun" (the ones that look more like English muffins) with reduced fat mayo, lettuce, and tomato

ex: yes. Walk and maybe a class if I can find one

have a great day, all!

My 13 yo self can't stop laughing with the name of your recipe

actually, the name is mercimek koftesi - but no one would have a clue what that is! (unless they know Turkish). In the book, they translated it as lentil/bulgur patties - but they don't look like patties - they look like....spheres. Maybe I should have used spheres instead of balls. LOL! And maybe they used "patties" for the same reason - so people wouldn't laugh!

? share the recipe...

here it is (actually, I know a few Turkish words, most pertaining to food (important when ordering at restaurants!). Mercimek I know means lentils. And I'm not sure of the exact translation of koftesi (or kofte - I'm assuming koftesi is the plural), but you always see it in association with meatballs). (I did add an extra garlic clove to the yogurt sauce since I LOVE garlic - I'll let you know how that turned out. Also, I tend to add more spices than recipes call for because I love spicey food, but this recipe is spicey enough, I think. Had I added my usual extra spices, it might have been a bit much...)

garlic yogurt sauce - (make this the day before so the garlic can infuse the yogurt in the fridge overnight):

1.5 C plain yogurt, 4 garlic cloves (diced), salt to taste (just mix them together and stick them in the fridge)

mercimek koftesi -

2 T olive oil

1 small onion, finely chopped

1 lb red lentils, rinsed and drained (about 2 C)

1.5 T tomato paste

1 C bulgur

4 scallions, trimmed and finely chopped (include some of the green parts)

2 t Turkish red pepper or ground red pepper

1 T ground cumin

1 T dried mint

1/2 C finely chopped fre****alian parsley

salt and black pepper to taste

lemon wedges for serving (I skipped these - I'm just taking them in Tupperware - not on a serving platter)

Heat the oil in a large pot over medium heat. Add the onion and cook gently until it's softened but not brown. Add the red lentils, tomato paste, and 3 C water. Stir, cover the pot, and bring the mixture to a boil. Lower the heat, add the bulgur, and simmer with the pot covered for 25 minutes, or until the lentils are tender.

Remove the pot from the heat. Reserve about 2 T of the chopped scallions for the garnish (I just threw them all in since I'm not putting them on a serving platter - I don't care what they look like in a Tupperware thing!). Add the remaining chopped scallions to the pot along with the Turkish red pepper, cumin, mint, and parsley. Season with salt and pepper and mix well. Let the mixture cook at room temperature for about 15 minutes.

Form the mixture into small round or oval shapes, using about 1 T of mixture for each (I think I used more than 1 T - I used a small handful as they squish up quite a bit when you're forming them - they ended up about meatball size). Place on a serving plate and refrigerate for 30 minutes.

Bring to room temperature before serving. Garnish with lemon wedges and the reserved scallions. Serve with the garlic yogurt sauce.

THANK YOU!!!

I hope you have fun at the new meeting.