Praise Jesus! For more than one reason, obviously. You know, these past 6 weeks really have been pretty spiritual for me. I mean, I wasn't praying every second of my day, but I did talk to God more often, especially when I would have cravings and be tempted, and the meaning of Easter and my appreciation for what Jesus did for us really came together for me at the end. It's truly a blessing...and what I did for Lent is nothing in comparison to it.
To kinda have closure to the Daniel Fast and the past 40 days, I'll give you a brief update on how things are. During my journey on the Daniel Fast, I lost 13 pounds. I haven't weighed this since my senior year in college when I went on the super nazi diet. You must be thinking, "Well, couldn't be worse than the Daniel Fast!" This was different, for obvious reasons. I wasn't dieting, I was fasting. It felt easier than when I was dieting. Which leads me to my next topic of discussion - what the #$%^ am I going to do now that I'm off the fast? Well, I've decided to add dairy and fish back into my diet. I'll have chicken and red meat if I crave it, but not on a regular basis like I used to. Oh yeah, I've definitely added back sweets. Probably not a good thing...
We'll see how this goes...
Tuesday, April 26, 2011
Thursday, April 21, 2011
T-3...
Well, it's been an interesting journey these past 7 weeks, but man...I'm ready for Easter! This week, by far, has been the hardest week. Everywhere I look there's food...food, glorious food. I spent much of the day yesterday, daydreaming about carrot cake. To add to the torture, I kept reading carrot cake recipe after carrot cake recipe, looking at pictures...yes, it was torture.
But today's a new day. I'm not going to torture myself like that today. Oh, who am I kidding? Of course I'm going to be thinking, reading, daydreaming about food! I've already tortured myself this morning by making sticky buns for the shop. I used Ina Garten's recipe, which uses puff pastry for the dough, rather than making a yeast dough and waiting for it to rise. I heart puff pastry with a passion, so I thought, "Perfect!" However, the reviews were a little mixed - people kept talking about how the sticky buns came out hard or burnt, and how there was too much sugar. I decided to follow the ingredients exactly, but lower the temperature of the oven to 375 from 400 and reduce the cooking time from 30 mins to 25. Well, some of them came out hard, some did not. That probably had to do with the different temperatures in different parts of my oven. They also had waaaaaaaaaay too much butter on them. Seriously, they were to the point where butter was dripping down my first guinea pig's hands (aka: Andrew Parsons). So here's how I'm going to modify it for Easter Sunday's breakfast: reduce the amount of butter and sugar by 1/3 and rotate the pan halfway through baking. If that's successful, I'll post the recipe.
But today's a new day. I'm not going to torture myself like that today. Oh, who am I kidding? Of course I'm going to be thinking, reading, daydreaming about food! I've already tortured myself this morning by making sticky buns for the shop. I used Ina Garten's recipe, which uses puff pastry for the dough, rather than making a yeast dough and waiting for it to rise. I heart puff pastry with a passion, so I thought, "Perfect!" However, the reviews were a little mixed - people kept talking about how the sticky buns came out hard or burnt, and how there was too much sugar. I decided to follow the ingredients exactly, but lower the temperature of the oven to 375 from 400 and reduce the cooking time from 30 mins to 25. Well, some of them came out hard, some did not. That probably had to do with the different temperatures in different parts of my oven. They also had waaaaaaaaaay too much butter on them. Seriously, they were to the point where butter was dripping down my first guinea pig's hands (aka: Andrew Parsons). So here's how I'm going to modify it for Easter Sunday's breakfast: reduce the amount of butter and sugar by 1/3 and rotate the pan halfway through baking. If that's successful, I'll post the recipe.
Thursday, April 14, 2011
Turning a New...something.
Well, I've had to let go of BaaSpice. It's a good thing! I'm growing up...or something like that. I'm definitely getting older.
Tuesday, April 05, 2011
Three more weeks...
Since the beginning of my fast, I've lost 10 pounds, and I'm proud to say that I've been on track for most of it. Yes, I've had moments of weakness and cheated...but I'm only human, and I'm okay with that. It was especially hard this weekend when Andrew was out of town. He wasn't here to keep an eye on me. Not to say God wasn't watching...
Anyways, I saw this post that Kevin Gillespie had on facebook about adding more green veggies to the Woodfire Grill menu, and so I commented, asking if he'd share some vegetarian recipes so I don't have to eat salads for the next three weeks. Guess what - he actually responded! He said he totally understands about giving up meat for Lent, and he said that he did a series of vegetarian dishes for Food and Wine last fall. I look them up, and they look pretty good! I think I'm going to try the Creamless Cream Corn with Mushrooms and Lemon and the Toasted Farro with Greens and Tahini tonight. I'll finally get to use that farro I bought four weeks ago! Andrew was actually complaining about it the other day. He looked in our pantry, saw the farro and said, "Are we going to have a bunch of weird vegetarian stuff left over after Lent?"
Speaking of Andrew, he said I can get an iPad2! I love my husband...
Since the beginning of my fast, I've lost 10 pounds, and I'm proud to say that I've been on track for most of it. Yes, I've had moments of weakness and cheated...but I'm only human, and I'm okay with that. It was especially hard this weekend when Andrew was out of town. He wasn't here to keep an eye on me. Not to say God wasn't watching...
Anyways, I saw this post that Kevin Gillespie had on facebook about adding more green veggies to the Woodfire Grill menu, and so I commented, asking if he'd share some vegetarian recipes so I don't have to eat salads for the next three weeks. Guess what - he actually responded! He said he totally understands about giving up meat for Lent, and he said that he did a series of vegetarian dishes for Food and Wine last fall. I look them up, and they look pretty good! I think I'm going to try the Creamless Cream Corn with Mushrooms and Lemon and the Toasted Farro with Greens and Tahini tonight. I'll finally get to use that farro I bought four weeks ago! Andrew was actually complaining about it the other day. He looked in our pantry, saw the farro and said, "Are we going to have a bunch of weird vegetarian stuff left over after Lent?"
Speaking of Andrew, he said I can get an iPad2! I love my husband...