Dinner : Sriracha Burgers and Potato Wedges

When I was looking ahead at the weather forecast for the week, I knew I needed to get out and use the grill Monday.  The rest of the week has the possibility of either - turning very cold, or maintaining Spring. 

I hope it can maintain!!  We have had a very long, cold, and particularly snowy April.  I am hoping that May will be the warmth that everyone knows and loves.  Especially since we will be camping at the end of the month for Memorial Day.

Monday's lunch was pretty disappointing from the cafeteria.  It consisted of stir fry veggies, a piece of grilled chicken (like, a slice of it) soggy rice, and peanut sauce.  I put more Sriracha sauce on it to give it a little extra kick. And am I ever glad I did.  If you have read a few of my past posts, you may have seen my posting on Poor Man's Pad Thai that I was making for lunch for a month, for no other reason than I LOVED it.

But that got me thinking,

1. I needed to figure out dinner
2. We should use the grill tonight
3. There is ground beef in the fridge that needs to be used
4. I love Sriracha!

So I came up with this brilliant idea of Sriracha Burgers!  Knowing I am not the most ingenious person in the world, I knew I could google it and find something that would work.

The results I came up with ended up leading to The Sriracha Cookbook.  Which I should probably own. I decided to use the Serious Eats Ultimate Sriracha Burger recipe.  I followed the recipe pretty much, I posted the recipe here too.

And while I was floating for a recipe for the burgers, I knew I wanted to make 'oven fries' on the grill, and came across Serious Eats for Grilled Potato Wedges - sounds good to me!  I made a couple of changes to the Potato Wedges, my version can be found here.

One of the number one things I would say, is you should ALWAYS set up a topping station, for anything that requires assembly.  You can see in my photo the bacon slices, onions, tomato slices, blue cheese-Sriracha sauce and the Arugula, waiting patiently for the burgers to finish.

All we did was put a slice of cheese on the burgers and let it sit on the grill an extra minute, and then put them on the buns.  I was eating a Pepperidge Farm Deli Flat. Not the same as a beautiful hamburger bun, but with the average calorie count for the burger being at about 780, I needed to cut corners somewhere.

There she is in all her glory. She was super tasty!  I really liked the extra bite the Sriracha gave the burger, and the sauce? That was so delicious that I needed to dip some of our slightly over done potato wedges in.

I let the hubster do the grilling, I mean, I did buy him the grill.  However, I think we would have better results if I took it over.  He seemingly has no idea what he is doing. 

What do you like to make on the grill?  Have you checked out my Chipotle Mango Chicken Kabobs?  I am going to make them when it warms up again. 

Which hopefully will be next week.

Lunch : Salad with Balsamic

Sorry friend, your salad looks sad.

Have you tried balsamic?

Just about every brand has one.

At Cub (not sure what your shopping options are these days) they have a 1lb tub of 'spring mix' lasts me easily a week of extra large salads for lunch. ($6.99-organic section) I mix 3 c. of that with 1/2 c. broccoli slaw mix (dry-has carrots and broccoli) 1/8 cup of of unsalted roasted sunflower seeds, couple tablespoons of craisins and finely shredded Parmesan cheese, and top it with a tablespoon or 2 of Newman's Own Lite Balsamic Vinaigrette dressing.

Can you believe this clocks in at a mere 230 calories including 2 tablespoons of dressing?  It fills me up (I mean, it's 3.75 cups of veggies!).  I have been eating this for 2 weeks now, I love it, and apparently am borderline obsessed.

I had the hubster eat it last night too - Thursdays are generally pizza night, and he can put down a few slices, I wanted to limit the number of slices I ate, so he joined me in a salad before the pizza.  He still ate 3/4 of the pizza. 

Wish I were a guy, then I would only gain a pound every month by eating like that.. *sigh* but at least I get to have long pretty hair..

Do you have a great low calorie, high nutrient salad?  Please share, for I fear I will become bored with this one.

Words for Wednesday : Evil Food

My body did not wake be around 5 this morning.

I woke at 6. I am not going to lie, part of me was happy I slept a little more. But the other part of me was a little irritated.

I think the working out in the morning does have a positive effect on a person (or just me?). I really think it might help me to make better choices of what goes in my mouth.

Today, was not a great day. Not sure why I let it stray so far off. Probably that time of the months coming up. I ate a ton of crap today. Like- literally a ton, and a piece of bread with dinner.

On my way home I was thinking if I made it home in time I would head over to the gym for a class. I probably made it in time, but I really don't like to leave once I get home. No motivation. Zilch. Which is why I need to go in the morning.

Tomorrow will be better. I am going to bed in the work out clothes, and going to bed earlier.

What do you do to stay on track?

This is April?

Bleh.

I do not believe it.  It was an hour long car ride home - AFTER I cleared the 4" of snow off my car.  At least the commute was only double.  Good thing I left early.  I took this picture as just before I started clearing our sidewalks/driveway:

I sent it to one of my boss' who is starting his trip back to MN from India on vacation.  They say they are predicting another 4" over night.  Tomorrow's commute I don't think will be affected. 

Which is good.

Because I am going out with my little sister for happy hour, and then going out with one of my friends.

Tonight is Pizza night.  The Hubster said he was going to make homemade pizza.  He has never made a pizza before.  I don't see it happening anyways.  He will forget or something..

I am a little sore right now as I did the 'Body Works Plus Abs' this morning after 25 min on Mr. Dreadmill.  And the Thursday lady, she ALWAYS forgets to count or something. I was watching the clock today, and she did about 5 minutes on each move.

Yes, you read that right. 5 MINUTES!

Are you kidding me?  5 minutes of 'dead lifts' or whatever, is ri-dic. For realz. BUT I finished through.  I mean, I grabbed the light weights (2 lbs.) so I could , but whatever. I knew I was in for a long boring class.

At any rate - How do you make it through a tedious class?  Any tips?

Words for Wednesday : C25K - W1D3

Ugh. Wednesday you middle of the week beast you. 

Why does it take so long for you to show up?  After that warm welcome.. So glad you are here!

 

My vagine still hasn't fully recovered from last week's Spin class.  I don't know if it will ever.  I read on some other blog I was clicking through (sorry I cannot remember..) about how she was going to have to explain to her gyno about why her lady bits were bruised... I completely understand. I was tempted to grab a hand mirror and see if they were discolored!  Sorry.. TMI I am sure..

Since I was not up for another beating, I completed another day of the C25K Program this morning.  I completed W1D3 (week 1 day 3).  And then I stayed on a little longer and increased the incline to 5.  For 5 minutes.  I don't know really what that will do, other than make me work more (which it did).

 

I really do like the handy App that I could download on my iPhone. I think it was originally free and that I paid for the GPS add on feature. It shows that the Ease into 5K, by Bluefin Software is sitting at $2.99. I still think it is worth it.  They have some sort of subscription feature now that does more than I think I need, so I do not pay for it.. but getting little 'badges' is always fun, if that is more motivating to you?  The main things I like about the App, are that it

1. GPS you if you run outside
2. Let's you play your music
3. Tells you when to Run/Walk
4. and has a timer/shows your progress (walk 8 of 9)
5. It keeps track of your pace (with GPS) for your run vs. walk
6. It will track how many calories you burned and weight (accuracy.. I dunno)

I am not that great at keeping track of time, I get lost in lots of random thoughts, and forget to change it up.  Plus the person's voice isn't real demanding or anything.  Well, maybe when I get up to that 20 min run again I will think differently..

At any rate, I did it, I completed about 45 minutes on Mr. Dreadmill, and I lived to tell about it.

 

I would like to say, my gym is not the most AWESOME gym in the world.  My main complaint is that there is ZERO air circulation up in the joint.  Those fans on Mr. Dreadmill?  They are worthless, I can't hardly feel them at all, unless I put my sweaty palms over the vent.  So stupid. I wish they would just put like... 1 fan in off the ceiling.  Or open that door on the 2nd floor where all the cardio equipment is, where I spend most of my time.  I mean really people, the smell of stale sweat is not the most appealing. Maybe that's just me.

 

What you got for me.. any App recommendations? Gym variations?  Good libations? 

Leave me a comment!



Multi-Tonal Highlights!

I got my hair did again!

I did the Ombre type look in February. 

Then colored over it because I was over it pretty quickly.

So this time, I figured I should get some more dimension in this hair.  So I requested a couple of different colors put throughout.  I kept my base color, but it now is just a little brighter over all.

In the photo you can see the before on the left, and the after on the right. 

I love it.  And I am excited for next time, because I will have her put more in it.  I mean, Summer is coming - even if they are predicting snow again this week. I mean, it's APRIL for crying out loud.

The Hubster and I are going to a 'Beer Bust' for some girls on one of the Softball teams I play on.  It should be fun.

Words for Wednesday : Spin Class

So today I decided that I should take that morning Spin Class at the Gym.  Yeah, brilliant idea.

I hear everyone say - great calorie burner, so fun, yadda yadda.

Know what I say? NOT FOR ME!

So, I crawled into the gym at 5:10am with about an inch and a half of snow on the ground.  Yes, in April. So awesome.  NOT. (Side note: They are predicting another 6 inches overnight.)

So I do 15 minutes on the treadmill, nothing fancy, traveled a mile. Yeah, you can be jealous. And then wandered down to the Spin room.  Well, it's a bunch of bikes, I don't really know what I am doing, so I went up to the instructor, she introduced herself as Tracy, filling in for her twin Theresa today.  Cool, don't need your full background, but let's start with this sign - it says 'Must sign up at the desk'. Is that for real?  She said yes, and so went up to the desk.  Apparently the last spot on the list. AWESOME! It was meant to be!

I go back in, and she is like, do you have a bike picked out? I told her I hadn't marked my territory yet, she suggested I pick one in the back, so we took the only open one, and she says adjust the height of the seat to this, blah blah, and explained how class works, and that she will say 80% etc and this lever on it will control that, but if I wanted to keep it at a 5 that would be okay too- no one will know.  This lady already knew what I was going to do - never move it.

She also was kind enough to let me know that it took her a year to get used to the seat.  My back side is kind of ample. And yeah, the seat isn't comfy, so, after 45 minutes, I am sure it's not going to be fun.  She may as well have just handed me this card:

So class starts, they never turn the lights on - which is fine, because no one needs to see this on a bike.  Everyone is going up and down, and up and down, and moving their resistance to 80% 95%.. here I am at like 70%.  50 was too easy.  But I am not moving, are you kidding me? It was hard standing up and riding a bike.

I sat on the bike, moved the resistance up some, and moved it back down when she said, and only stood up for a 90% for the 15 seconds once.  It's way hard. Everyone was sweaty, sweat is dripping on the floor, people have their towels to sop up all their mess.  I was getting ready to take off my t-shirt (I had a shirt on under it).  I really wish I had a FitBit One or the FitBit Flex thingy.  Because that is supposed to track your calories based on your personal profile, tracks your sleep and all that other good stuff.  It is also $99.  The Flex has the ability to of a silent alarm as well to wake yer butt up.  So it won't disturb my hub.. which is nice, because now he just groans and grumbles when my phone alarm goes off..

Maybe when I decide I need to spend a substantial amount of money on nothing again I will blow it on that.

But also, there are no widgets on this bike, no distance, no nothing. So what I do know is that I rode it for the full 45 minutes, at probably around 80% resistance on average, and was super sweaty. And my vagine hurt.  Like it still hurts hours later.

I am out on a decision of whether or not to go back.  I felt a little guilty at using the last spot (although there was an empty bike the whole time), I mean, I doubt I would ride a stationary bike that long on my own, but someone else probably really wanted to sweat their balls off for real. Also, even though I was super sweaty, I have no idea on how to figure how much I burned.

Perhaps I will stick to the early morning Body Works plus Abs classes on Tues/Thursday, and try keeping up with the Couch 2 5K training plan around that.

We will see.

Do you have any advice for those spin classes?  Because even when I tried standing up and riding, it was still poking me from behind in a not so PG-13 way.

Words for Wednesday : Carmex

I love Carmex.

I used to strictly use the pot of Carmex only.  I would rub my lips in the pot, instead of rubbing my finger in it to rub on my lips.  Reasoning - why do I want a greasy substance on my fingers after it has been applied?  People said it was weird, and that it looked like I was making out with the container.  What evs people. Mind yer business.

It's a true story. And I am not ashamed.

I have loved Carmex for as long as I could remember.  There is something about the menthol/cool feeling that I LOVE.  Well, that, and when my lips are really chapped, it only takes like half a day for them to feel normal again.

I was at work today, and I put some Carmex on, and did that little >POP< after putting it on, and someone just happened to be walking by and saw/heard me do it.  And we also just happened to make eye contact.  A little embarrassing, but nothing out of the ordinary really.

But I was recanting the story, and they said that Carmex is horrible for your lips, that there was fiberglass in the Carmex. WHAT!?!! No way! 

I decide to take a look at the ingredient list..

Active ingredients - Camphor, Menthol and Phenol. Same as always, maybe fiber glass is not considered an 'active' ingredient. 

Let's scroll lower.. 

Inactive: Petrolatum, lanolin, cetyl esters, theobroma cocoa (cocoa) seed butter, mineral oil, beeswax, flavor, salicylic acid.  The only thing that sort of caught my attention was the salicylic acid - well that and 'flavor'. Who knew that Carmex had 'flavor'?

See, salicylic acid is in facial cleansers and acne medications and what nots to slough off dead skin cells, to help your fresh skin show faster.  They use it in those facial peels.  Higher percentage of the acid, the deeper it sloughs off/burns down to.

Which at least let's me know why you would only want to use Carmex a few times a day.

So of course I had to research it.  I pulled up Snopes.com, and read what they had to say.  Basically what they had to say was a lot of blah blah blah, 'no fiberglass'.  But I am never happy with just the skim of the surface information.  So I continued on my quest for more knowledge.

I came across this Museum of Hoaxes website. They say the same thing, but they also offer up a link to the Lip Balm Anonymous website. They have some light hearted 'letters to the editor' on there, also a page about 'Are Balms Addicting'.  But still I wasn't satisfied. 

I clicked on over to the Wikipedia link, and read up on Carmex there. They go in to some more detail, referencing people's concern over the fiberglass content, and how it is not in the Carmex.  But they do bring up, "The use of phenol in cosmetics is prohibited in the European Union".  Which then intrigued me. 

What is wrong with 'phenol'? And also, what is it?

So I had to click and dive deeper into Wikipedia for the article on Phenol.  Turns out that 'phenol' is also an acid.  But it is used in stuff like Chloraseptic spray, and from how I am interpreting it, it helps to numb, and kill bacteria and other stuff, as it is an antiseptic. And if used improperly, (or properly I guess) it can kill a man.  (Not a women, they are too darn smart. *maybe not the most accurate*)

When I looked at the Carmex Website, I found they had 'The Little Lip Book' available for download. I did.  It says in there that salicylic acid loosens the keratin layer and allows the chaps to fall off.  Which totally makes sense when you think of what it does in other cosmetics/facial cleansers.

So, at the end of this rambling.  Carmex is not bad, only use it a few times a day (you won't need to use it more), and there is no fiberglass present in their lip balms.

I personally think there is something wrong with waxy Chapstick. Only good thing for them, is if you wanted to coat your lips to protect them from something, like a spray tan. But that's my opinion.

Manicure Monday : Metallic Blue

My nails have not been growing very long, and splitting and peeling and cracking and breaking lately.  It is a big bummer.  My mother always had really pretty nails, and I like to have nice nails too.

But instead of being a whiny baby.  I am working with them.  I rubbed oil all over them after I took off last week's polish, and then put lotion on them in hopes to help them get stronger/less dry.  I have been taking a multi vitamin, but that apparently hasn't been helping.  Or maybe it is making them grow too fast?

At any rate, this week I went with a Metallic Blue from my massive collection.  I wanted to go black, but I just thought it might be a little too dark, I mean, I really want Spring to show up sometime soon.. Hopefully we hit 50 outside this week, that would be nice.

Do you have any suggestions of what to do/try?  I am listening!