TOPIC: Over 200 New Year New Me Part 30

Laila -- You're very strong indeed! I can't even fathom a 90 minute car trip without water.
You may want to stop reading now because I'm going to share a recipe. :laugh:

I've made this a couple times & I made it last night from memory and it was so easy and so yummy I had to share.
It's raspberry chicken & coconut rice
Raspberry chicken:
16 oz boneless skinless chicken breast cut up in bite sized pieces
About 1/3 cup flour (sorry I'm bad about not measuring when I cook)
About 1 tbs lemon pepper (I use Mrs. Dash b/c it doesn't have any salt added)
About 1-1.5tsp dried rosemary
About 1/4 tsp salt
2-3 tbs rice wine vinegar (I used apple cider vinegar the first time and it was just as good)***
About 6tbs raspberry vinegrette***
1.5tbs Extra Virgin Olive Oil

((*** These 2 ingredients are a substitution for a recipe I came across that calls for reducing raspberry vinegar to make the sauce. I can't find raspberry vinegar and I really dig the sweetness of the vinegrette anyway, so whatever))

Place flour, lemon pepper, salt, and rosemary in a gallon sized zip top bag. Add chicken & shake to coat. Heat olive oil over medium heat. Add chicken, cook until golden brown (& no longer pink of course). Remove chicken from pan and place on a paper towel to drain. Add vinegar to same pan & allow to reduce for a couple minutes, then add vinegrette to pan & reduce for another minute or so. Return chicken to pan & completely coat with sauce and reheat thoroughly. Done. Serves 4.

Nutrition per serving (sorry these are all the values MFP gives me).
Calories: 194
Fat: 9g
Carbs: 7g
Protein: 23g
Sodium: 492mg (if you omit the salt or use chicken that hasn't been enhanced, sodium could be much lower)

Coconut rice (so easy & freaking amazing!)
1 cup basmati or jasmine rice
1 CUP (not can!) of full fat coconut milk
3/4 cup water
1tsp freshly grated ginger (last night I used about 1/8 tsp ground ginger & it was good -- could've used a little more; 1st time I had fresh ginger & it was better)
2-3tbs grated coconut (fresh, frozen, or even dried sweetened flaked will be good)

Get a pot. Put all the ingredients in the pot. Turn your burner on high & bring everything to just boiling. Reduce heat (I reduce mine to as low as my burner flame will go). Cover and simmer for however long your rice package says to simmer (my basmati says 20 minutes. I'm thinking my jasmine says longer...). Also, I don't think you're supposed to stir rice. But I can usually only hold out for 15 minutes or so before I have to stir it to ease my mind. :laugh: It comes out fine for me even though I do stir it once or twice (I'm so convinced it would burn on the bottom if I didn't stir it though!).

Nutrition:
I make this = 6 servings because I don't like the 4 servings numbers :laugh: It's plenty of rice split 6 ways, IMO. Last night my serving size was 87g (weigh the rice when it was ready & divide by 6)
Calories: 181
Fat: 7g
Carbs: 26g
Protein: 3g
Sodium: 13mg (yep, 13, coming from the coconut & coconut milk I used so ymmv)

Then I serve these with some kind of steamed green veggie. Last night it was broccoli (my fav). Green beans would be good, too.

It seems like a fatty meal with 16g fat but the fats are pretty much all from olive oil and coconut milk which are very healthy fat sources from what I understand. Surprisingly enough, I've been trying to eat more fat because I'm trying to get to the 40% carbs, 30% protein, 30% fat balance (instead of the 45% carbs, 30% protein, 25% fat I've been eating for about 6 months).

Julie: Wow, don't you love when people who could care less suddenly are interested when you lose a little (or in your case, a lot) of weight? Don't they realize that saying anything just makes them sound so shallow? Ugh. As far as Minnesota being "hot and humid" I suppose it's all relative. This is the longest heat wave we've had in a long time, so we're just not used to it. It felt like 101 (heat index) yesterday, which is crazy for those of us in the "frozen tundra."