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And the Wiener is....Oscar Party 2012

2/27/2012

Yesterday was the Academy Awards and my wife and I had a little gathering at our house of friends to watch and see what actors and films win the Oscars this year. Its fun to see what film takes home the prize and we all root for our personal favorites. We usually do the ballot thing where everyone votes for who they think will win too. The person with the most correct responses gets a fun prize. As an additional part of the game we decided that guests could get extra points for bringing a nominated movie theme food item. We had lots of yummy treats show up and some were even on the low carb side. Heres a just a few of the great ones people brought.

Minnie's Friend Chicken - The Help

Extremely Stuffed and Incredibly Mushroom

French Wine - Midnight in Paris

Brie of Life

There was also Money Ball Hotdogs, Mini Tree of Life Brocolli Salad, and The Desendant's Hawian beer. Everyone did great!

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Stress Levels Make a Difference.

2/23/2012

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I work customer care on the phone for a company that manufactures a product for a very specific type of person. That person happens to be extremely anal and meticulous. Because of this most of the people I talk to on a daily basis seem to think they know quite a bit more than anyone else on the topic I am trained to be a specialist on. It can be extremely annoying.

I hate Thursdays. I end up working in the mornings alone. I have some other coworkers that come in later in the day but the mornings I'm all by myself. Because of this I end up getting extremely slammed with a lot of people making requests that tend to build up quite a bit of stress for me. All it does is make me kind of cranky on Thursdays and what that in turn does is make me want to eat donuts.

We all know that stress can affect our diet. You can get your stress levels so far off that it makes it that all we want want to do is gorge ourselves on chocolate bars and Pop Tarts. It can be a constant battle.

For me now on Thursdays I try to make it a point to take more of a quiet lunch. I don't get a lot of time for lunch but I've decided to use what time I have in a more peaceful way. Usually that means eating my lunch out of the office in my car or even in some park if possible. Gives me a chance to cool down and reset a bit. I think it's important to try to keep this stuff in check. Otherwise you'll be full of donuts and regret.

Even so, I still hate Thursdays, and as I write this a donut sounds amazing.

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Low Carb Sausage & Egg Breakfast Muffins with Sweet Cinnamon Crisps

2/23/2012

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My wife and I love breakfast. On days that we have off together we make it a point to get up and cook a nice big breakfast together of eggs, sausage or bacon, or even pancakes. However sometimes breakfast can get stuck in a little bit of a rut. We decided to try to mix things up a little and get creative with two super easy things. You could say that these ideas came loosely based out of a traditional breakfast my mom makes. On holidays my Mom makes a savory egg bake and home made caramel rolls which go great together. Its one of my favorite things. But both items have a ton of carbs in them. In an effort to come up with something that was both savory and sweet heres what we discovered.

Low Carb Sausage & Egg Breakfast Muffins with Sweet Cinnamon Crisps

We found our breakfast muffin recipe on-line and tweaked it a bit. We only needed 9 eggs.

Ingredients
1/2 pound ground pork sausage
12 eggs, beaten
1/2 (4 ounce) can chopped green chile peppers, drained
1 small onion, chopped
1 teaspoon garlic powder
salt and pepper to taste

Directions
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Lightly grease 12 muffin cups.
2. Place sausage in a large, deep skillet. Cook over medium high heat until evenly brown. Drain and set aside.
3. In a large bowl, combine eggs, chiles, onion, garlic powder, salt pepper and sausage; mix well. Spoon 1/4 cup of sausage mixture into each prepared muffin cup.
4. Bake in preheated oven for 15 to 20 minutes, until egg has set and a toothpick inserted into each 'muffin' comes out clean.

These were super yummy, and really easy to make. I enjoyed mine with a little hot sauce. We had some left over that we put in the fridge and had later and they were still good. Almost like mini low carb quiches. The great thing is, you could really do whatever ingredients you wanted. Peppers, onion, ham, spinach or whatever. Everyone could make their own kind. Could be a fun group breakfast to make.

To get something sweet to pair with our muffins we decided to take a couple low carb tortillas, butter them and cover them in Splenda and cinnamon. We placed them on a cookie sheet in the oven and let them go until they we nice an crispy. Very yummy and a nice treat to have with breakfast. Only carbs involved were what was in the tortilla. They tasted great with our french press coffee too.

Easy, and fun. That's how we like to cook. And it made for a great new breakfast experience.

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President's Day Weekend Fun

2/21/2012

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Well the holiday weekend came and went. I wish I could say it was jam packed with excitement, but that's only half true. I was sick for the first part of the holiday so I spent a good portion of time sleeping and staying in bed. Once my body started to recoup then more activity started to become introduced to my weekend. The most exciting day was on Sunday. My in-laws came in town for the weekend and we took that day to celebrate my mother in laws birthday. We went up to The Getty Art Museum in LA, which if you haven't done is a must for a great free outing in southern California. I got to say staring at art can be pretty exhausting. Partially from all the stimulus your eyes receive, and partially from having to think of new creative ways to appear as though you understand what you are looking at. When that portion of the day was over my brain hurt. I guess that means the art was good then huh.

After the museum we had dinner at a place not to far away. Everyone else was having pizza and appetizers but I had a really yummy Chicken BBQ salad. Lots of flavor and ingrediants. Sorry I don't have a picture, I ate it too fast . After dinner we walked down the street to a great little place called Diddy Riese. It's an ice-cream cookie sandwich place. You get your choice of ice-cream placed between two fresh baked cookies of your choice for a $1.50. They are amazing. I had been doing really good the last couple weeks so I decided to partake in the festivities. As you can see, they are pretty wonderful.

Pretty good weekend with lots of business. Today its back to work though, and back to eating low carb.

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Wingnuts in Costa Mesa

2/16/2012

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Some days at my work my boss is cool enough to by my coworkers and I lunch. This usually happens when we have a meeting planned and often times he give us the option of choosing where we want to get food from. Since we are all creatures of habit and there are just a few of us in our department its usually one of three or four places we choose. Our big go-to place for the past year is one of my all time favorite places to eat. Its a sports bar called Wingnuts in Costa Mesa, CA and of course their specialty is hot wings. They have about 30 different sauces to choose from but my go to flavor is Soy Ginger. Its sooo Good and not to sweet so the carb count is lower!!!! Now of course they have traditional wings which are a great low carb option, but they also have boneless strips that they make and they are some of my favorite around.

I know, I know, the breading on the strips is carbs. I understand that fully, but these strips are much lighter on the breading than most others are and heavy on the flavor. I seriously love Wingnuts! My buddies and I had an ongoing tradition for a while where we went almost every friday. They even made me a member of a special club called the Pile High Club. No joke. I've almost earned a plaque on the wall.

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Clemmy's Ice Cream.

2/10/2012

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Well...that happened. Its super low carb and really good! I hade the Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip. This stuff has huge swirls of Peanut Butter in it. Its awesome! Problem is, if you aren't watching yourself minutes go by and you're staring at an empty carton.

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What's Going on These Days...

2/9/2012

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So I got cast in another theater show. I am doing a play in Huntington Beach with a couple of friends. It's a British farce comedy so it's filled will all sorts of comedic misunderstandings. It's called Funny Money. Anyway, it hasn't been to heavy in terms of rehearsals which is nice. Like I said, I have a couple friends in the show with me so that make the whole process a bit more fun too.

Anyway, besides rehearsal my time has been filled with a the of the following:

Reading - Been reading East of Eden by Steinbeck in a mini book club with my wife. So far I love it. Independently I have been reading Warriors #1 by Erin Hunter on my iphone. It was a free download on the ibookstore so I thought I would check it out. It's pretty good. Sure makes me look at my cat Rosie in a whole new light.

Watching- I have been trying to get caught up on all the 2012 Oscar nominated films. After seeing Warhorse a little late I think I've seen them all now except Tree of Life which I am hoping to remedy by the end of this week. I have also been watching How I Met Your Mother on Instant Netflix. It's a show I've only seen in passing before, but now that I've got to spend some time with it I highly recommend it. I'm usually not a huge fan of sit-coms, but this one seems to have found it's own unique voice and the comedy is great. I'm three seasons in and still enjoying it.

Playing- I've been playing a game I got for Christmas called RAGE on my xbox. It's just another post-apocalyptic shooter, but the art is wonderful. I think people often times over look video games as art since they are often identified with lazy gamers, but when you see all the creative expression that goes into the design of them you really can't deny it. This is something I'll probably share a bit more in the future. Also, Scramble on the iphone is the new thing.

    Listening- I guess the latest Wilco album has been on a lot when I go walking. That and the new Black Keys seems to get my energy up to work up a sweat.

    Anyway, just thought I would share what's on my radar these days. May do this every so often so you can see what thing are wasting my time.

    Lastly here is a rare picture of Rosie and Lois having a battle of wits.

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Low Carb BBQ Pork Pizza

2/9/2012

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The other day my wife and I made some pulled pork in our crock pot. It was very yummy, However we didn't eat it all. There were some leftovers in the fridge for a few days and instead of just reliving the same meal over and over again we decided to use our pork for something new. We made our first attempt at low carb BBQ Pork Pizza.

You probably can't tell from this photo, but it was awesome. Basically we took some lower carb bbq sause. and spead it on a couple low carb tortillas. We spread out some pork on in, used some diced bacon we had leftover from breakfast, threw some onion on, and topped it with grated mozzarella cheese. We cooked them till the cheese was melted and the tortilla was crispy. Very good.

I think the big trick here is to find a good BBQ sauce that is lower in carbs. Its tough, but it can be done. You probably wont be able to find much under 10 carbs a serving, but remember a little sauce can go a long way. About half a table spoon of sauce should be enough for one tortilla. So if you play your cards right, all the ingredients together could equate to about 9+ carbs for a small pizza. Its really up to how sweet you want it.

If your really feeling ambitious you could make your own low carb BBQ sauce. More on that one later though.

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Superbowl is Over, Can We Move On Now?

2/6/2012

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So that happened.

The Super-bowl that is. Giants won and the commercials played. I played on my phone and ate too many wings. It came and it went and I am the same. If I was completely honest I would say that I kind of hate the Super-bowl. Don't get me wrong, I don't hate football, I enjoy watching a few games every year and I route for my hometown team when a big game comes on. The Super-bowl is different. It's too forced. Its pretty much become a new American holiday where we all celebrate football and commercials. I feel forced to watch this three hour game and spend most of my Sunday watching two teams play that I don't even really care about. Next thing you know my Sunday is over and I feel like its back to work on Monday again. I'm seriously considering not participating in this game day thing anymore. Why not use that day to go do things that would normally require standing in line. I bet you would be done much quicker. Imagine what the Apple store is like.

The one good thing about the Super bowl is the food. Although much of it is junk food that we low carb folk need to stay away from, it it the one day where we can gorge ourselves on chicken wings and meatballs and not feel like we are being judged. That I like. That I did yesterday. Today I do feel a little bit like I have a wing hangover, but it could be so much worse.

Heres some of the lower carb football snacks that could be found at our place yesterday.

Wings (Soy ginger and Carolina BBQ)
Lil Smokies in BBQ sauce
Peanuts
Almonds
Cream Cheese in Salami wraps
& Veggies

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Jalapeno Smokehouse Almonds Are Like Candy.

2/3/2012

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Have you tried these? little smokey & a little spicy, They are wonderful.
And of course only 3 Carbs a serving.

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