Urban Standard

Saturday was date night! Me and Nick went with Steph and Devin to watch our friend Jon David Wise play the violin with some local musicians at Urban Standard. I've been to Urban Standard before but it was just a quick stop in to grab a drink after the loft tour in Birmingham. I'm just super glad that we didn't go eat somewhere before stopping in.

Their entire menu looked great. I did what I usually do and look at every plate that passed by. I would have loved to try a little of everything. I'll just come back to eat. I am on weight watchers so I had to be smart with my selection but to tell you the truth, everything that went by looked to be a sensible portion of a variety of fresh vegetables and lean meats. I love hummus so I chose the hummus, pita, olives, cucumber and salad plate. I didn't eat all of the pita and shared with my honey.

Steph decided to try the grilled cheese. Their grilled cheese had a side of jelly - I believe it was grape jelly or was it balsamic jelly. I'm not 100% sure but I tried it. I tried a couple of bites of the the sandwich dipped in the jelly. Mmmm can't get over that salty sweet taste. It was delicious.
And as always, Nick ordered my favorite meal. Their steak was cooked perfectly - tender and perfectly medium rare. I can't wait to go back and order it again. It was served with roasted eggplant, squash, tomatoes and fingerling potatoes. Very simply served and you could taste the great roasted veggies. He cleaned up his plate.

Devin ordered the chicken salad over their spring salad mix with strawberries and blueberries. Delicious chicken chunks with just enough mayonnaise. They give you a lot of salad and chicken salad so be prepared if you order it.

We are going back for dinner very soon. Our first dinner experience was excellent. Great company, great music and delicious food. Our night was perfect.

Next time we are ordering the grilled tofu and the lamb. See you soon at Urban!

Food choices

I'm proud of my food choices and love the new Weight Watchers program. I love it because fruits and veggies are free foods. Well some veggies are! I go straight for the apple, pear, celery, spinach or peach when I need a pick me up snack. And it doesn't take any points from my total so that makes me incredibly happy! Here are some of my choices from the week:

-coffee with splenda with 2 tbsp of creamer measured

-wheat toast with a slice of cheese

-apples, pears, a banana (eat in moderation), plums and peach

-sandwiches rolled in a wheat pita, lettuce, lean turkey, mustard and cheese slice

-lots of water and coke zeros every now and then

I went to Jim and Nick's for lunch and had turkey brisket, collard greens and a cucumber/tomato/onion salad and ate one cheese biscuit (found the smallest in the basket).

We also went to Cheesecake Factory where I opted for the grilled salmon with salt and pepper, brown rice (ate half), and broccoli. We ordered steamed edamame for appetizer (which was excellent!). I was so super stuffed and satisfied. Great lunch and only used about a third of my allotted points for the day. I didn't want any cheesecake or bread.

I made sloppy joe's for family dinner night and used plenty of red peppers and onions. I plugged it into the recipe builder on weight watchers and found out that a serving was only 7 points. So I ate my sloppy joe on slim wheat sandwich bread and measured out a serving of fries (5). As I cooked, I made sure I had some black olives available to snack on so I wouldn't go for chips or extra sloppy joe right out of the pan. That worked wonders!

I also bought some Weight Watcher bars at my meeting so if I wanted something sweet, I could eat a bar. I got the toasted coconut and chocolate bar (YUM!), the lemon bars (okay), and the chocolate caramel bar (haven't tried) and they are only 2 points a bar. So far it's taken the place of the candy bars I head for around 3:00 every afternoon at work. It's been a great for me.

And last but not least, I cooked breakfast this morning. My daughters wanted an omelet and I wasn't sure I wanted that. I ended up frying two eggs in olive oil, then threw in some spinach and lean turkey breast. It was so good! I didn't use fresh garlic so I threw in some salt, pepper and garlic powder. Delish!

I'm going to look through some recipes and see what I can make for them family. I'll blog about my findings soon.

Cupcakes!

HaHa! Right after my losing weight blog comes a blog about cupcakes. Too funny.

I've been hearing great things about Gigi's cupcakes. Imagine my surprise when I drove by the new Chase mall and saw that they are readying a Gigi's cupcakes right next to Baha Burger. Now that is WAY to close to where I live. Of course, I looked up the website and thoroughly enjoyed reading her story. What an inspiration! And then to hear everyone in Tuscaloosa singing Gigi's praises - I had to go check them out when I went to Tuscaloosa last week.

It did not disappoint at all! We ordered the orange creamsicle, pink lemonade, red velvet and summer fun. They were all so good, but my fav was the red velvet. I could only eat bites of the cupcakes because they were so rich and I wanted to try all of them :) I can't wait for them to come into Hoover - it's going to be my treat on good days. Wonder if I can find the nutritional values on these goodies.

Yum!

Losing weight

I have been trying to shed these pounds for years! It took me fifteen years to get this way and I need to realize it will take a while to shed them. It's weird - I want to lose the weight but when the tough gets going, I just sit down and quit. Yep - I'm a quitter when it comes to losing weight. Granted the last few times I tried, I lost weight and then got pregnant... gained the weight back, and then quit the dieting. Oh and this isn't Nick blogging - it's Jenny. It's been a hard road - it totally stresses me out to not be able to eat what I want but what I need to understand is that what I want is so bad for me. If I keep continuing the way that I am going, it will only be harder on me, my family and my attitude.

I decided that I am sick and tired of being this way. I have to be honest - yes, I love food. And yes, I hate planning ahead - I'm more of a fly by the seat of my pants kind of girl. But look where it has gotten me and my family. I am way overweight, my husband could stand to lose some weight, my daughter is telling me that she would like to eat healthier and overall we don't eat enough fruits and vegetables.

I took the first step on Tuesday and joined Weight Watchers. Weight Watchers has always been a plan that I can work with and lose weight. I called my mother-in-law because she wanted to attend the meetings with me. I changed the start date about four times because I had my kids with me and I didn't think I could bring them with me. I went anyways - I went in, weighed in and asked about bringing the kids to the meeting. I was told that if they made any noise that I would have to leave. I totally understood since I wouldn't want to sit through a meeting with fussy kids. But lucky for me and thanking God, they didn't fuss at all - they sat and played quietly.

I feel great about starting the program and am ready to make the right choices. I'm including the kids in my journey and cooking well for my family. This is a great start for them and an even better life change for me!

I HATE taking pictures of myself because I see what other people see. I cannot believe that I've gained so much weight. But I am going to face it now, be in photographs, and start taking care of myself. Here's to losing weight!

This is me after having my third child. I keep telling people - I'm going to lose weight but I just had my third child. Let me tell you - I can use this exact excuse for YEARS. I've proven it too - I used that excuse after my first turned four. The girl I was talking to said, "Oh my goodness, you just had a baby? How old is she." I was totally embarrassed that I had to admit that she was four years old.

The bottom pic is me at 19 or 20 years old. I was in college at the time and dating Nick. This is where all the weight gain began. I remember days of eating at McDonalds, Pizza Hut, Chinese Buffets and Auntie Anne's just came to Bham so we ate a ton of pretzels. Being a broke college student, we ate at a burger joint right down from campus that sold incredibly cheap burgers. I can imagine that they were incredibly fattening.

It's not easy to admit to all of this but I wanted to. I wanted to blog about it so I can look back and see my journey! We're still going to look for great places to eat in Birmingham but I'm going to make wiser choices and if there are times that I don't, I want to blog about it too so I can learn from my choices.

Easter Sunday food

You can always count on some good food in the south during holidays! We always go to Granddaddy's after church. I made grape salad as my side dish. It's delicious. I learned how to make it from my friend Dawn. She made it for a woman's conference at church and I had to have the recipe.

It's pretty simple: 2 cups red grapes (seedless), 2 cups green grapes (seedless), 8 oz cream cheese softened, 8 oz sour cream, 1/2 cup sugar, 1/2 cup chopped pecans and 1/2 cup brown sugar. I couldn't find green grapes so I used red - it's prettier with both colors. Melt the cream cheese, sour cream and sugar in the microwave and mix well. Add the grapes and stir. Place in a pan. Let it cool in the refrigerator for a couple of hours to set. Then before serving, add the brown sugar and pecans. I doubled the recipe.

Here is what it looked like when it was done. It was a hit!
Steph made the pasta salad. She uses tri-colored pasta, black olives, cucumbers and grape tomatoes cut in half. She adds italian dressing and mixes. Easy and really good!
Grandaddy always provides the ham. I love salty ham but Nick likes sweet. At this point, I don't mind either.
Suzy made deviled eggs. I've never tried to make deviled eggs and I don't bother trying because Suzy are amazing.
Debbie brought the cupcakes. They are too cute! She said she looked for green edible paper but couldn't find any. I think they are precious!
I didn't try the cookies either. They looked good though. Rhonda made them - she had a couple of prepacked cookies - nothing wrong with that because they are easy and taste great.

Chicken, Broccoli and tomatoes

There are days where I just don't want to find a recipe to make dinner. I looked in the fridge and found some chicken thighs, broccoli and grape tomatoes. I bought them at Publix because they were on sale. I decided to cube the chicken and saute it in olive oil. I seasoned the chicken with salt, pepper, garlic powder and dried thyme. I use garlic powder when I don't have fresh garlic to use. I would rather use fresh garlic!

After browning the chicken, I added the broccoli and tomatoes and mixed the food up. I added a cup of water and covered with a lid to steam the vegetables and finish cooking the chicken. I cooked brown rice as a side. It didn't take much time to cook and it was great! The kids loved it which in itself, is a HUGE deal.

Seoul Restaurant

There is a Korean restaurant off of Greensprings that Nick and I like to go to for Korean food. I really don't know of another Korean restaurant near us. I have a Korean friend from the St. Louis area that said he liked it but they had some items that he wish they had. Hopefully we'll find another one that we can try as well. My favorite is Kimchee. I could eat it with anything!

They start you off with side dishes or appetizers. Pictured are (left picture): Black beans and anchovies, kimchee, turnips and seaweed. (Right picture): Kimchee. YUM!

Pickled cucumbers. I love these. They are pickled and a bit sweet.
Spicy bean sprouts and seaweed. Both are so good. I can eat them by itself but Nick likes to wait for the rice so it will not be so spicy.
I ordered the rice bowl pictured on the left. The rice was placed in a hot pot that made the rice that contacted the bowl crispy. There were pickled veggies, stir fried veggies, some pork on top of the rice and to top it all off... a fried egg. They gave me a chili sauce to put on the rice that was not too hot. It was a spicy sweet red chili sauce that was so good. Nick got the beef bulgogi - stir fried beef, onions, bell pepper and sesame seeds. His tummy was not up for spicy that day.
The food was good overall. I was not a huge fan of the beef because I would have liked it with more spice but I did love my rice bowl. If you go, be adventurous!