A squash divided against itself...

Ha, this title reminds me of a great line George Costanza had on "Seinfeld."

I have cooked spaghetti squash in the past, but never for my husband.  I prepared it the other week and he loved it.  I love how easy it is.  This week's trial was butternut squash.  He requested a "sweet" version, with a bit of cinnamon on it.  I don't care for that, so on the right is my olive oil + pepper squash.  Win-win.

Recipe:
-Cut 1 butternut squash in half lengthwise, scoop out seeds & guts
-Place in a Pyrex baking dish, cover with foil, and bake for 1 hour or until flesh is soft
-Peel away skin and cut into cubes
-Season with olive oil, pepper, and salt, OR 1 Tbsp Brummel & Brown light butter, sprinkle of brown sugar, and cinnamon
-Return to over for another 10 minutes
Serving size = 1 cup cubes
Calories = 82

Just one cup gives you 457% of your daily vitamin A needs!  In fact, I feel my vision is improving as I write!  Ha.

Po-tay-to, po-tah-to

Last night my husband and I grilled some New York Strip steaks and along with that we had baked potatoes.  You're probably thinking- tasty, but heavy meal.  I've found that buying thin lean steaks is the way to go, because they are quite easy to trim to the standard 3 oz (deck of cards) serving size.  As for the baked potato, here are my secrets to keeping them tasty and low-cal:

-scoop out 1/2 of the inside (shaves at least 50 calories!)
-replace with broccoli or other veggie
-sprinkle on 1 Tbsp lowfat cheese
-top with 1/3 cup nonfat plain Greek yogurt

Sad but true- a "loaded" baked potato at a typical restaurant can be packed with more than 500 calories!  With this version, you get about 100 calories and around 7 grams of protein. 

If you're not one for doing veggies on your taters, try scooping out the insides and replacing it with some homemade chili.  Mmmm...fall cooking!

Adventures in Deep Freezing

Another great weekend has come and gone.  My husband and I went on a 5 mile run together- the longest we've both run in over six months.  It was rough, but we finished, and now it seems like I can pick up momentum to train for the upcoming Autumn Woods 10K trail race.  We also went golfing together at a small local course.  It was really my ideal course- not a single hole over 200 yards and no bunkers or rough!

 Last week we bought a small-ish deep freezer chest from Costco.  I can tell I'm going to love it!  The upside to my Costco membership is that it's free (it pays to work next door to a Costco!).  The downside is that I feel we're not able to use 5 chicken breasts, 4 pounds of ground turkey, a 10 lb slab of ribs, etc., before they go bad.  Entrez le deep freeze.  Yesterday at Rainbow there were bags of steam fresh veggies on sale for $1.  I was able to grab an armload of 'em.

Here's a picture of a major pudding fail.  I attempted to make a slow-cooker rice pudding recipe, but I swapped out brown rice for the recommended white rice.  It was cooking way too slowly (yes, even for the slow cooker) so I moved it to the stovetop and subsequently got distracted.  The smoke alarm going off sent me running back to the kitchen to see a big boiling-over mess.  Here's a pic of the lovely crust-ring I've been working on.  That's my husband carefully chiseling away with a knife.

On a happy cooking note, here is my super easy, super cheap recipe for goulash, which I made last night and just enjoyed as leftovers for my lunch.

-1 box elbow macaroni (I like Ronzoni with the added fiber and omega-3s)
-1 pound 93% lean ground turkey
-1 can diced tomatoes + onion
-1 can tomato sauce (not marinara- just plain canned)

-Thoroughly cook the ground turkey and blot out liquid grease with a paper towel.  Add can of tomatoes and tomato sauce, season with a bit of salt and pepper, and let simmer.
-Meanwhile cook the pasta until done, then spoon the sauce over the noodles.  So easy!

Two days in a row!

I'm on a roll now, such as it is.  Right after the wedding we had a lot going on, including a trip to Vegas.  My husband was out there for a work conference and spent the entire week there, whereas I flew out Weds night.  This was the third time in the past year that I've been to Vegas, so it was fun to know exactly what I wanted to show my husband- where the good shopping was (Forum Shops at Caesars!), great restaurants (Dragon Noodle!), etc.

We did Fremont Street one night and I limited myself to just one dollar-margarita at the casino.  Dinner was a slice of Piccadilly Pizza, that I intended to share with my husband, but he ordered pepperoni.  Bleh.  A few bites of that and then no thanks.  My own order was probably even more nasty though- I was brave enough to try the $1 shrimp cocktail at Binion's.  I was bummed out when I saw they were the cheap, flavorless baby shrimp- like the kind from a can- with a half cup of cocktail sauce on top.  I had a few bites just to test my iron gut.

One day we got a rental car and drove 30 min out of the city to Red Rock Canyons.  I had been there before with a friend and enjoyed the hiking, so the purpose was to get us out of the drinking-gambling-eating rut.  Of course there was one restaurant I wanted my husband to experience- In-N-Out Burger.  So tasty.  So unhealthy.  He was skeptical at first, but loved it.  In fact we're going to try to recreate them for dinner tonight (but I bought fat-free Thousand Island and whole wheat sandwich thins). 

Other highlights of the trip included dinner at Sushi Samba (first time I tried sashimi- loved it!), meeting Dick Butkus (more exciting for my husband), and just lounging poolside in each other's company.

It's been good to get back to reality this week though, and we're enjoying cooking dinners together.  Here's a picture of last night's spicy Asian chicken, veggies, and brown rice.  Mmm.  The key for us is cooking 2x the portions for dinner, and then having leftovers for lunch. 

The Unfaithful Blogger

Roughly six weeks into my blogging experience and I have...dum da dum!  One post. 

I've always been better at coming up with ideas than necessarily following through with them.  One thing I've learned so far is that it takes time to make posts, and the blog has been last on my priority list.  Now that my wedding has come and gone (*sniff sniff*) it is time to get back to it.  I welcome back some accountability!

Here are some pictures of the big day- it was truly the best day of my life, and hopefully my husband thinks the same, haha.

Our cake was made by Cynthia Wheeler of Sweet Life Desserts, who's a good friend of Marcus's mom.  Everyone thought I was exaggerating when I told them "this is the best cake you've ever had in your life," but afterwards people were in agreement.  We chose a red velvet cake for our tiered cake and then also had a strawberries & cream sheet cake.  Both were excellent, and I don't think we'll be waiting a whole year before eating our top tier. 

It is a bit inevitable that there's a sort of letdown after a wedding.  "Now what?"  I have nothing to shop for.  Nothing to plan for.  Nothing to exercise for!  I am definitely a person who needs something to plan for, fitness-wise, so I signed my husband and myself up for the Elm Creek Park 10K race on October 8.  I've ran this race many times in the past with my family and it's absolutely beautiful- part trail, part paved path through woods and prairie.  I'm a lucky girl to have a husband who's willing to join me in my running ambitions!