Day 20 (355) 3rd week....hmmmm

Well it's the 3rd week of my life changing change.  I'm not seeing a whole lot difference.

I was barely cognitive of where I was when I woke up this morning, then stumbled back into the bathroom to weigh myself, but I couldn't find the camera!  I needed coffee.  LOL

So my weight is 163.4  - exactly what it was last week.  But I know why - it was a rough weekend here, and I turned to food and wine to get through it.  I hadn't had a good glass of wine forever.  When I do drink wine, we usually get a boxed light fruity red sangria - perfect table wine.  But I wanted to savor some wine, I wanted to taste it, really taste it.  There is one wine that does that for me Shiraz Bin 51 by Linderman.  Well, along with wine eventually comes snacking, but I think I did pretty well for that.  Lots of popcorn - not too bad.  Another thing is, I haven't gotten much exercise this week. 

So last night once my life seemed to settle every so slightly, I wanted to go for a walk.  I threw on my walking shoes and hoped I wouldn't get lost this time.  I didn't.  But boy was it HUMID!!!  I was sweating by the time I got down to the entrance of our subdivision.    But even for me, it felt good ~like the stress and anxiety and anger was all pouring from my body.  I still have to go back and drive the distance to see how far it was, but I am guessing 4 miles.  It took me 1 hour and 13 minutes and I was rolling in sweat  from the get go.  Close to the end I took this photo, but it was wosrse by the time I got home.

Now the down side of not having walked in about a good week or two after just purchasing new shoes...  Do you see that nice gnarly blister?  I have one on both feet.  So now I can't walk tonight.  And honestly, I'm upset about it, not copping out.  I would love to go out and sweat it up again tonight.  The heat index today is supposed to get us up to 110.  If I can't sweat a few pounds off in that heat, I'm never gonna.  I've thought maybe putting a bandage on, but will that hold for an hour for four miles?  Anyone have any thoughts?

I picked my first pepperonchini Sunday. 

I brought it in, chopped it up thin like I see in my store bought pepperonchini jar...

And after months of waiting for the seeds to arrive, then for them to sprout, then for them to transfer and then for peppers to grow, all ended up with a big YUCK!  Then I loooked at my store bought bottle and I know realize I like PICKLED pepperonchini's!!!!!!  So now I need to figure out how to pickle my little peppers.

You'd think this was a pretty candle on my kitchen table.  Nope!  It's a fruit smoothie!  My daughter asked if we could have smoothies for breakfast.  How could I say no?  And, as usual, they were DELICIOUS!

Although I'm "back at work," there is a lot of waiting.  Waiting for email responses, waiting for review calls, waiting for qa results, waiting for work to come in.  And since it's

I didn't feel that walking with two kids would be a good idea.  So I started playing with my food process when my mom popped in to visit.  We were BOTH very impressed - this is a quiet, solid, serious machine!  Looking in the booklet that came with it, still haven't watched DVD, they suggested starting out playing with food that you don't intend to eat - like a zucchini or potato.  I'm not sure why they said that you don't intend to eat, unless they meant it cuz you might not get the consistancy you desire?  So my 1" slices of zucchini turned into chopped zucchini and then it turned into diced zucchini.  I think it looks so pretty!

But I couldn't just throw it away.  That didn't make any sense.  And I didn't have any diced zucchini recipes, so I just tossed it with some olive oil, garlic salt, and Italian seasoning blend until slightly browned.  It tasted wonderful, but didn't know what to call it.  I wanted the kids to try it.  I put a few tortilla chips out and sure enough, they tried it and really liked it!

It looks like guacamole, doesn't it?!  I guess I could call it zuchini hash or zuchini slaw!  But it was good!

Then I decided to try some almond butter.  The receipe seemed simple enough:  toast 1 cup almonds, process, add 2 tsp olive oil, process more then enjoy. 

I ended up making what looks like poop.

I think the problem was I over toasted the almonds.  Live and learn, right? 

So I undertoasted the almonds the next time.

You can see a difference in color immediately!

 

The finished product. 

I'm not sure how I feel about it.  It's semi-thick, not silky smooth like I thought it would be.  I read in the recipe to add 2 tbsp honey if flavor is too harsh.  So I did.  But then that is when the texture changed.  So I don't know.  To be honest, it is sweet, but has a strong after taste of something not sweet. 

Kids did NOT like it.

Here is the comparison of the two.  I would say I definitely burnt the almonds the first time!  bwah haw haw

Well, I can't walk today, it's 104 outside, I have no work to do, so I guess I'll research almond butter.