Weekend Update and Cinco de Mayo Recipes!

Once again, I’ve been absent from the blog for awhile (minus the DWTS post yesterday – I am still so sad that Chuck is gone!) and once again its for a very good reason! I am finally all moved into the house and had my first houseguest over the weekend so I spent all of last week getting things ready for company! I had one friend coming in on Thursday night and another on Friday so Mon – Wed was major crunch time! Usually I am in bed on a ‘work night’ by 11 pm at the latest but last week it was all 1 am or later for me. I was cleaning, decorating, unpacking, organizing – everything! I am very pleased with the way things turned out though and glad to have that process behind me so that now I can enjoy everything and not continue working when I get home at the end of the day.

(I was going to wait to post this until I had taken some more house pictures but thought you all might want the recipes (since they were all mexican food) if you were planning on anything for Cinco de Mayo –I will post house pics in a separate post next week!)

My friend Tiffany was in town last week from Austin for work and came by on Thursday. We got to catch up over a bottle of wine and some Texas Caviar – a recipe I got from the Four Fat Chicks. Its not often that I get to see my girlfriends when we have the time to just sit and talk without some other ‘event’ going on so it was so great to spend so much time just chatting and hanging out. I miss the times in college when that’s pretty much all we did! Its sad that we’re all so busy these days!

Here’s the recipe for the yummy Texas Caviar that we had for ‘dinner’!

Texas Caviar

(makes a LOT)

1 can corn (drained)
1 can pinto beans (drained)
1 can black beans (drained)
1 can Ro-tel (I don’t drain this very much)
½ cup chopped green bell pepper
1 clove garlic (minced)
1 16 oz bottle fat free Italian dressing

Mix and serve!

Some recipes call for more Italian dressing so feel free if that’s the taste you’re after!

I find this to be especially yummy with Tostitos Baked Scoops and that it is better once it has had some time to chill in the refrigerator……

On Friday my friend Meredith came in town from San Antonio to stay for the weekend. I lived with Meredith in college along with another girl, Molly, who also lives here so she came over for dinner on Friday as well. It had been a long time since the three of us got to catch up together!

Meredith is not a fan of fruit (crazy, right???) but Molly and I enjoyed some pomegranate margaritas before dinner.

Photo Courtesy of The Food Network

Pomegranate Margaritas

(serves 2)

¼ cup lime juice
2 shots POM Wonderful juice
½ cup tequila
¼ cup triple sec

Serve over ice with a squeeze of lime.

And for dinner we had Chicken Tamale Casserole from Cooking Light. I first saw this recipe on Elizabeth’s Edible Experience and had made it once before. I made this using her advice on the recipe to leave out the creamed corn in favor of just regular corn and it works great. I read some reviews online and some people complain about the ‘too sweet’ taste but I think this must be cured by the normal corn because this does not seem too sweet to me. Also, some people have used green enchilada sauce instead of red and really liked it so use whatever you prefer!

Head over to Elizabeth's blog if you would like to see step by step pictures - you'll also find lots of other yummy recipes over there!

Photo courtesy of Cooking Light

Chicken Tamale Casserole
Cooking Light November 2008

and Elizabeth's Edible Experience

1 cup (4 ounces) preshredded 4-cheese Mexican blend cheese ( I used reduced fat 2% blend)
1/3 cup fat-free milk
1/4 cup egg substitute
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1/8 teaspoon ground red pepper
1 (14 3/4-ounce) can cream-style corn ( I used regular corn - I hate cream corn)
1 (8.5-ounce) box corn muffin mix (I used Jiffy)
1 (4-ounce) can chopped green chiles, drained
Cooking spray
1 (10-ounce) can red enchilada sauce (such as Old El Paso)
2 cups shredded cooked chicken breast (I used a rotisserie chicken and used more than 2 cups…) 1/2 cup fat-free sour cream (optional topping)

Preparation
1. Preheat oven to 400°.

2. Combine 1/4 cup cheese and next 7 ingredients (through chiles) in a large bowl, stirring just until moist. Pour mixture into a 13 x 9–inch baking dish coated with cooking spray.

3. Bake at 400° for 15 minutes or until set. (I had to cook mine about 20-22 min) Pierce entire surface liberally with a fork; pour enchilada sauce over top. Top with chicken (When I made this recipe the 2nd time I poured some sauce over the bread, just to coat it and then mixed the remaining sauce and the chicken together in a separate bowl and then placed that mixture on top of the bread);sprinkle with remaining 3/4 cup cheese.

4. Bake at 400° for 15 minutes or until cheese melts. Remove from oven; let stand 5 minutes.
Cut into 8 pieces and serve. YUM!

Our plan for the rest of the night was to watch the Sex and the City movie because Meredith had only seen it once – can you imagine? – but of course we ended up talking with the movie on in the background. We had a great night full of girl talk!

Saturday I proved to my hard core workout friend Meredith that walking really is a workout! I knew she thought I was crazy and even wore her heart rate monitor to see if she was getting a good workout – I was actually a little worried at what the official stats would be but luckily the walking workout got a good rating! We walked about 4.5 miles in just over an hour so we were moving!

That night we met some friends for sushi had a great time catching up and having some great food. That was pretty much the end of our girly fun-filled weekend. After Meredith left on Sunday I caught up on a LOT of tv (I am loving having my DVR back!) and ran some miscellaneous errands. This week has actually been pretty nice thus far and I’ve been able to work out and just relax in the evenings now that most of the house stuff is out of the way. I’m so glad I got a lot of that done last week so that now I can just enjoy it!

I tried a new Jillian Michaels workout dvd this week that I’ve had on Netflix for about a month now, “Banish Fat Boost Metabolism” – it’s a good one! I’ll post a review after I’ve completed it a few more times, so far I would recommend it though!

Tonight we’ve got our book club meeting for “Straight Up and Dirty” by Stephanie Klein – I’m looking forward to a fun night, and then the weekend is almost here!

Workout DVD Review

I heard about this dvd from the Four Fat Chicks blog and after seeing their amazing progress with this video and their Weight Watchers diet pact, I just had to give it a try for myself. I had been putting working out on the back burner the past few months because of a work commute but now that I've moved and have more time for things like that, I've become more motivated and I'm looking for new ways to workout. I can finally actually USE the 24 Hr Fitness membership that is so conveniently autodrafted from my bank account each month but the start of the new year also means the start of a new program for lots of people and the gym has been a little crowded. Also, there are just those days when you want to mix it up a little or save some time and workout at home.

So when I read about Jillian Michael's 30 Day Shred dvd I added it to my Netflix list and thought "how hard can it be?". The dvd is made up of 3 20-minute workout segments. Levels 1, 2, and 3. The dvd is designed with the idea that even if you only have 20 minutes to work out, if you do one of these 20 minute workouts each day for 30 days, you will see results. Each 20-minute segment is divided into a warm up, 3 different 6 minute workout routines, and then a cool down. Each workout routine is 3 minutes weight training, 2 minutes cardio and 1 minute abs. Jillian keeps you busy the whole time with all that switching between exercises! The first level includes push ups, jumping jacks, squats, punches, jumping rope, crunches, reverse crunches, and I can't even remember what else. By the end of it I was a little sweaty but wanted to keep going and see what Level 2 was all about...

Level 2 was a little more of the same with some lunges, high kicks, and planks thrown in for good measure. Jillian doesn't let you take a water break but man I was reaching for mine every chance I got between the cardio and abs portions! This is a total body workout for sure! Its fast paced and Jillian seems focused and pretty serious about delivering results. I was able to do all of it, sans weights on the first go round, and Jillian is there cheering you on along the way which helps a lot too. She knows just what to say to keep a girl going "Picture yourself going shopping for jeans - or even better bathing suits!" - definitely got me going a little harder! There are 2 other girls in the video also, one doing an advanced version of each move and one doing an easier version so you just do what you can - the important thing is to keep moving. After I had finished I didn't feel like it had been the hardest workout in the world or anything but upon waking up the next morning and even still today, 2 days later, I am feeling those squats, lunges, chest presses. This dvd is about $10 and totally worth it. I think I'll be bringing Jillian home for good and adding her to my workout video library pretty soon! After my trial run of Levels 1 and 2 I wasn't up for Level 3 - honestly after Level 2 I'm a little scared of what is in involved in Level 3! Maybe I'll get there once I own the dvd and have mastered the other 2...

The only complaint I have is that you can't set the workouts to play all in a row. So if you want to do more than one, you have to go back to the menu, select the next one and then go from there. Not a huge thing but a "play all" feature would be nice. And the music selection isn't the best but what workout dvd really has music that is that great? Not many!

There are only 2 other workout dvds that I really like. One I've had since college and even though Billy Blanks has been around the world and back at this point and probably has about 100 dvds, I'm still a fan of the original. The dvd I have has 3 workouts on it and once you are familiar with the moves, the Advanced one is great. It runs about an hour and has great moves for strength and toning. There is a good section at the end for abs and butt/legs too. I can do this one over and over without getting too annoyed with the music and/or people also. I started doing Tae Bo in high school and still, 10 years later, I would be happy to pop this in and kick and punch with Billy for an hour!

The other dvd I regularly do at home is MTV Pilates Mix. This dvd is made up of 2 30-minute workouts and a 12-minute bonus routine for whenever you're in a real time crunch. On the 30-minute workouts, one concentrates on lower body and one concentrates on upper body. To me, the workouts are timed perfectly. They're not too long or too short. This dvd does have a "play all" feature so I usually select that and do both 30-minute workouts. This is the perfect workout for those times when you don't want to so hot and sweaty that you have to take a shower but you do want to get a good workout in. The toning and ab moves are great and I feel like it does help you lengthen your muscles and improve your overall posture. The instructor for this also does a Power Yoga dvd for MTV but I haven't tried that one just yet. It is coming up in my Netflix queue so I will let you know what I think pretty soon!

Also, none of these dvds require any additional equipment. You could use some light weights for the 30 Day Shred, but thats about it. You just need to make the space on the floor in front of the tv! And Jillian and the Pilates Mix dvds are listed for about $10 each on Amazon.com and qualify for their great "Super Saver Shipping" so you could add on something fun to make up the $25 minimum order and have these in your home by next week! Sadly, I just realized that the Tae Bo dvd I mentioned is pretty hard to come by these days. I think all of his workouts are probably great, the original advanced one is just one that I prefer. He must be doing something right if he's still able to make and sell all these new dvds!