Erica & Wes make house made pickles.

The first time I had fancy "restaurant's own recipe" house made pickles was at Iron Starr BBQ a few years ago. I'm sure I've had house-made pickles before at various restaurants but this was the first time that it was brought to my attention. The menu highlighted them and our waiter praised them. After the waiter left our table, Wes told me that he's had them before and they were gross. LOL Their pickles were okay. I didn't really like them but I wouldn't say they were gross either. I never really paid much attention to pickles after that.

Fast forward a few years... I had dinner at Goro Ramen and they have the best house made pickles ever! I excitedly went home to tell Wes. He replied by telling me that ALL house-made pickles are gross. They're never pickled enough and they always still taste like cucumbers--and he hates cucumbers. A few weeks after that, we had dinner at Uptown Grocery (By the way, having a hot bar & salad bar inside of a grocery store is GENIUS! You get to have dinner and then go grocery shopping all in one place.)  I got some of their pickles and they were awesomely delicious. How does Wes not understand this? With that, I decided that we needed to make our own house-made pickles that wouldn't be gross; ours would be pickled enough and no longer taste like cucumbers.

House-made pickle recipe:
       Ingredients needed- 3 cucumbers, 1 teaspoon (1/2 teaspoon per jar) minced garlic, a handful of fresh basil (most recipes call for fresh dill but we are only growing basil & mint and I don't think mint pickles will taste as good), a pinch of red pepper flakes*, 1 cup water, 1 cup vinegar, 1 1/2 tablespoons salt, two jars with airtight lids
*We actually made two batches... one jar of spears with only basil & garlic and then a jar of round discs with red pepper flakes added.

1. Wash & dry the cucumbers. Cut off both ends and slice into spears or rounds.

2. Chop the basil.

3. Put the garlic, chopped basil and pepper flakes into the jars.

4. Place the cut cucumbers into the jar.

5. Boil water, vinegar and salt. (This will be the pickling brine.)

6. Pour brine into jars. Make sure the cucumbers are covered completely. I did this in the sink so it wouldn't make a mess if the brine spilled.

7. Tap the jars against the counter a few times to remove the air bubbles then put the lid on. Make sure it is nice & tight.

8. Let jars cool and then refrigerate. Leave in the refrigerator for 2 weeks. (Wes prefers 3 weeks to make sure they're pickled enough with no annoying cucumber flavoring.) Then look... yummy pickles!

Erica shares another healthy recipe.

•        Healthy breakfast (hard boiled egg or yogurt or milk & cereal),
•        Savory morning snack (nuts or a piece of cheese or popcorn or vegetables),
•        Lunch (leftovers or a sandwich),
•        Fruit for an afternoon snack (trying to limit my intake of refined sugar so no more afternoon sweet tooth!),
•        A serving of grains, vegetables and meat for dinner (only eating out once a week),
•       And lots of water throughout the day.

Here's a teaser of the recipe I'm blogging about tonight. It's the chicken I make over a bed of greens.

That has been my diet for the past few months.  I've also kept up with my work out regimen. I do a 7 minute ab workout each morning as soon as I get up, walk a leisurely half mile at my morning break, walk a brisk half mile after my shift at work and attend a yoga class once a week. My secret is that I watch "America's Next Top Model" during my walks on the treadmill. I see all those beautiful people and notice how far away my body is from that physique. It makes me stick to my diet and exercise. LOL I don't know if it's working (I rarely weigh myself) but I don't look or feel any larger so I guess it's doing something.

Why am I telling you all of this? Who knows, really. Sometimes I just like to say things out loud to affirm that this is actually what is happening in my life. Or maybe, my job has become very busy and craft shows are picking up and the combination of the two is making me delirious. Anyway, here is a recipe I made up a while ago. I made it for Wes & his friends last Christmas. That time I used salmon (instead of chicken) but the recipe tonight uses chicken, and really, you can switch out choices of meats and it turns out the same.

Simple baked chicken with fresh vegetables:

Ingredients needed: chicken breast, asparagus, basil (I used fresh basil we grew ourselves), tomato, goat cheese and Cuban seasoning 

1. Cut the asparagus to be the same size as the piece of chicken breast. 

       I cut the ends and bottom half of the stalk off. I discarded the ends and saved the bottom half for egg drop soup... maybe I'll blog about that next week.

2. Slice the tomato.

3. Place the asparagus on a large sheet of aluminum foil and the place the chicken on top to your "asparagus boat."

4. Place tomatoes and basil on top of the chicken.

5. Sprinkle with your seasoning.

6. Wrap the foil all the way around your chicken and vegetables and place your foil chicken package on a baking sheet. Bake at 450 degrees Fahrenheit for 50 minutes.

7. Garnish with goat cheese and serve with rice or bread. Or if you want to replicate my recipe exactly, I served it over a bed of spring mix greens with a few banana peppers on the side and a drizzle of Italian dressing on top.

And there you have it... a super simple and inexpensive healthy dinner idea. Someone sign me up for Top Chef! 

       P.S. I've been on a reality TV competition kick. I started with a few seasons of Project Runway, then I moved on to watching RuPaul's Drag Race with a friend (Lacey, we still need to finish that season!) Now, I'm concurrently watching America's Next Top Model (cue Tyra saying "Cycle 22...double X, double I") and So You Think You Can Dance. And, I'm thinking of starting Top Chef: Masters. 

       Do I have a problem? LOL

Erica & Wes are trying to eat healthier.

Just a warning before we start this... it is currently 7:17 am on a Friday morning.
       I work half-days on Fridays, meaning I don't go into work until noon. I am up entirely too early!! (so please pardon any typos and/or nonsensicals...and it's too early for pictures.) I usually do chores and errands on Fridays before I go into work. On the to-do list today is to make a slow cooker meal and then head to my mom's to do my laundry. Since no one would want to read a blog about laundry, I'll will be doing another recipe blog post.

Wes & I are starting a "diet" next week. It's not necessarily a diet, technically. We are just changing our meal choices by eating healthier. And we're limiting ourselves to one sweet treat a day (which will be extremely hard for me *sad face*). We're getting older so we need to start watching our cholesterol, sodium intake and such. Also, I feel as if I am the heaviest I've ever been and I'm starting to look a little frumpy (damn metabolism... why you gotta slow down?) Plus, I don't exercise as much as I used to so I'm trying to get back into that as well. Changing lifestyles... that's the ticket!

I tried this once before when I did the Super Shred diet with a coworker in January. Surprisingly, it wasn't bad at all. I'll certainly miss sweets and chips but the rest of it is actually doable. I won't be starving myself or limit myself to eating certain things by calculating calories. There's a lot of variety and meal options in me & Wes' diet plan. The key is eating small portions throughout the day and choosing healthy things to eat for those portions. This isn't exactly the Super Shred regime but it's pretty similar.
       So here's what we're doing... we complied a list of "super foods" such as almonds, leafy greens, salmon, yogurt, beans, and the like. We are eating breakfast (something from our list like yogurt, oatmeal or a hard boiled egg), one morning snack (another item from our list--say a handful of almonds), lunch (something from our list like rice & vegetables, a salad or a turkey sandwich), and an afternoon snack (you guessed it--something from our list) and then for dinner, we'll have a serving of a grains or legumes, a meat and a vegetable. And then one sweet (can be used as one of the snacks or a dessert at dinner).
       I also have been going to the gym on my breaks and lunch at work so I'll continue that routine to have some exercise dispersed throughout the day. Oh and yoga... I go to class once a week for that.

So back to my slow cooker meal... I love the slow cooker, by the way. I throw some stuff in there in the morning and it magically cooks into a meal by the time I get off work. Today, I'll be making soup. It is literally three ingredients: a leafy green, a meat and some vegetable broth. I've done this with kale, collard greens, cabbage, and mustard greens. I haven't explored as much with the meats... only smoked turkey legs and ham hocks (which I know are both superbly unhealthy). It always turns out hearty and delicious.

THREE INGREDIENT SLOW COOKER SOUP:
       Ingredients needed: a leafy green (we're using type of Chinese choy today, "swamp cabbage" is what it is labeled at the market), a meat (we're using lean beef meatballs) and vegetable broth.

1. Prepare the meatballs by rolling a spoonful of ground beef into a spherical shape. Or you can use a cookie scoop to make meatballs of the same size. Set aside.

2. Wash and cut the greens. Set aside.

3. Put the meatballs in the slow cooker.

4. Cover with greens. This may look like too much but it will cook down.

5. Pour vegetable broth over the greens. I also add a can of water but it's probably not necessary if you want to only use broth. If you would like, you can add in a bay leaf or some herbs and salt.

6. Cook on low for 8 hours. Then you'll have soup for dinner!