Category Archives: indian food

Closing done!!!!!!

It happened – the closing is done!

But first, I’ll start off the morning.  Had a protein shake and headed out to the gym.  I got my first recognition from the Shape magazine article that was posted there.  One of the employees came up and said “I didn’t know that was you!”  I happened to be wearing the same shirt today that I did in the photo. Funny.  I did 15 minutes on the stationary and then lifted:

  • Chin ups from a box:  3 sets of 3
  • Stiff legged deadlift:  3 sets of 10 at 45#
  • Wide grip lat pull down: 3 sets of 12 at 40#
  • Rail squats:  3 sets of 8 with body weight
  • Bent lateral raise:  3 sets of 12 with 10# dumbbells
  • Planks:  3 sets of 30-second hold (first time back with these!)
  • Nosebreakers:  3 sets of 15 with 20# bar
  • Chest fly:  3 sets of 12 with 15# dumbbells.

Then 10 minutes of treadmill walking and a little more biking.  That was a nice workout.  I then picked up John for bagel time!  See my cool new travel mug?

I finally found one that met my trifecta of requirements:  Dishwasher safe, microwave safe, and a lid I am comfortable with.  Looks like a paper cup.  The best part? It was on sale!!

The lovely bagel, and no – I didn’t eat all that cream cheese.  Just most of it :mrgreen:

My folks joined us today, which is always nice 😀

Talked to the lawyer this morning and the closing was scheduled to happen at noon – see how happy I was to hear that??

Not much notice, though.  Good thing I have a flexie work schedule.

I grabbed piece of toast (John didn’t even eat anything)

and headed out to sign the multitude of papers.  There was a snafu in that our mortgage lender charged a prepayment fee when they weren’t supposed to, so we do need to get that cleared up, but the house is gone!!  Yay!!  I have had this house for 2.5 years.  It was supposed to be a fix and flip, but I got caught with this particular house right when the real estate issues happened with mortgages.  So, I rented it out.  I cannot believe that I am tempted to flip again, too.  I must be totally insane….. totally.

Came home and had a quick bowl of cereal:

Kelloggs Wheat Bran flakes…mmmm… fiber….    It was a ‘grab as you can’ meal day.  Then ran back to the lawyers office with proof of prepayment exclusion and deposited checks (sweet).

Good thing work was slow while I was gone.  John made us celebratory lattes and baked an individual cookie for each of us.

We bought some frozen cookie dough to support our nieces’ school – I know you all have done this 😀 . At least they are individual cookies and not a tub of dough or it would be “hello spoon and couch.”  Pretty good, I have to say.  Nothing like a warm cookie from the oven.

We are treated ourselves out to dinner tonight kind of fancy to celebrate the closing.   I decided on Indian food – yay!  We went to Saratoga to Karavelli.

:clink:

(That’s just water).

Pappadum (lentil crisps) served with a couple dips:

We started with an appetizer called Bhel Poori: Rice puffs, chopped onion, potato, chick peas, coriander leaves and tamarind.

It was so different from what we were expecting. I was thinking rice puff meant something fried, but it was like a cold salad. It was really, really good. A kind of sweet/sour sauce (tamarind) with crispy rice cereal in there. So unusual!

John ordered Lamb Rogan Josh:

Not too spicy at all.  Those are strips of ginger on top.  Yum.

I had the Malai Kofta, which were a paneer cheese rice dumpling in a nut sauce.  They were almost sweet savory, as I tasted cinnamon in them.

Flipping good.  Served with basmasti rice

I really had to control myself with the rice.  I just love white rice and with that sauce it was amazing!  But, I wanted dessert, so had to practice restraint.

I told John to look happy about the house closing:

It looks like there should be a thought bubble over his head, but I don’t know what it would say.  Maybe he is dreaming of the rice above him. LOL!

After dinner, we walked to this place:

I almost never have real ice cream (as you all know I do the frozen yogurt).  I got a kiddie size cup of Maple Blondie: Maple Ice Cream with Blonde Brownie Chunks & a Maple Caramel Swirl.

Dang this was good.  Good thing I got the kiddie size, as it was very rich.  I am satisfied, but not stuffed.

Home now in my jammies and will be getting back to work after hitting publish on this post!  Sorry I haven’t been to blogs – I have not even opened my google reader since yesterday! 😯

Question:  Do you eat Indian food?

To bagel or not?

Woke up around 6 am this morning, hearing Pixie playing out in the hallway.  I think I dozed for a while and maybe slept more?  Not sure if the balance bar I had later on in the evening mattered or not as far as helping me sleep better.  Need to keep experimenting.

Regular readers know that Sunday is normally bagel day.  I had a bagel yesterday, so I was unsure if I was going to have one or not today.  We went out to Ridge St, where I decided on a bowl of oatmeal, since it was cloudy and snowy:

I definitely like the nana cooked into the oats rather than on top.

Then we hit up the grocery store.  Our fridge was pretty much cleared out of food!

That looks better.

Need to control the eating today.  All this fresh food makes me want to eat!  Especially with a slow work day.

Lunch break was a egg/egg white wrap with laughing cow cheese.  Lots of protein, lots of fiber (smart carb wrap), and lots of flavor!

I am going to try 1 new Indian recipe each week for January and here is this week’s try! Dinner experiment:  Lentil Dal.

I cooked up 2 servings of lentils in about 2 cups of water with 1/2 a cinnamon stick and a bay leaf until they were very soft.  Mashed those and transferred to a bowl.  In the same pot, I added 2 tsp of coconut oil and pan fried 1 tsp of mustard seeds, 1 tsp cumin seeds, 1/2 tsp turmeric,1/4 tsp chili powder, salt and pepper, and 1/4 of a finely minced onion.  Cooked those for a couple minutes and then added back the lentils and mixed thoroughly.  Served along side brown rice (which John cooked yesterday).  It was quite good.  I have more for tomorrow! 🙂

Regarding the google analytics from my keyword post earlier – to use this, just go to http://google.com/analytics and sign up for a google account (if you don’t have one).  Then add your website and give it a day to start tracking.  It’s pretty neat.

Tomorrow starts a new set of lifting moves tomorrow for the month of January, which I will be working on tonight.  Planned snack for later is a balance bar.  My new sleeping pill 😛

Pixie has been sleeping all day, guess she doesn’t care that she woke me up!  I woke her up for a picture and she looks totally annoyed:

Question: Do you eat Indian food?

Anniversary!

Today is John’s and my anniversary!  13 years ago we were married in the flat irons of Boulder, Colorado.
outside It was a gorgeous day – snow the day before, sunny and 70 the day of.  That’s Boulder for you!

kiss

You know one of the fun parts of this day?  For my bouquet, I went to the farmer’s market that morning and had a flower vendor do my bouquet – and it turned out gorgeous!  I also got sunflowers for my attendants.

wedding2

13 years later and we are still a pair of goofs:

us

Forgive the mushiness here, but John is my best friend and someone who has supported me 110% all the time.  I don’t know how I would have done many of the things in life without his being my rock.

13 years later on our way to dinner:

anni Note the dress I decided upon 😀

We went to Karavalli Indian Restaurant

Pappadum provided as we sat down.

pappdum

John got the Shrimp Manga Curry: Shrimp cooked with fresh mango, coconut and tempered with curry leaves and mustard

shrimpcurry

I got the Malai Kofta: Cheese dumplings in a mild almond and cashew sauce

malai


 This was really good. It had a strong cinnamon flavor. The dumplings were almost rice-like in texture and very good.  Everything tasted very fresh and delicious!

I am pretty full at the moment!  I love Indian food.

Have a great night!

Rainy day and curry

What a soggy day today!  For some reason, rainy days make me really snacky.  No weight workout today as I have the race tomorrow and I want to rest my hamstring.  Feels much better, though.

I was going to pick more blueberries with my mom today, but it was raining all day, so nixed that.

Lunch was the other of those strawberry pluots plus an egg sandwich:

pluotsammie

Spent most of the morning hoping the rain would stop and cleaning.   Wheeee…..

Then went out and picked up groceries for a little party tomorrow for John.  His birthday is next week, but we are having a cheese, fruit, and veggie thing and then cake (chocolate with chocolate buttercream) tomorrow night with the family.

Stopped and had coffee and a cookie that John had made – a lowfat version of a sugar cookie

cookies

We had a throw together dinner.  Wanted something Indian curry style, so I put together the following:

  • black mustard seeds
  • cumin seeds
  • garam masala
  • 1 tablespoon coconut oil
  • 9 ounces of chicken, cubed
  • 1/3 cup red lentils
  • 1 tablespoon red curry paste (hot!!!)
  • 1 can of lite coconut milk

Sauteed the spices in the coconut oil until the seeds popped, then added the chicken and browned.  I had parcooked the lentils and then added them to the pot with the curry paste and coconut milk.  Then simmered while the brown rice cooked.  This will serve about 4 people.  I wasn’t going to use the whole can of coconut milk, but the curry paste is very hot, which is fine by me, but I didn’t think John would like it so I used the rest of the coconut milk to dilute it.

I pan sauteed broccoli to add to my bowl to bulk it up.  1/2 cup of rice doesn’t go very far.

dinner13

Quite tasty!  I used the lentils to thicken it instead of ground cashews to save on some fat.  But, I did snack on some!

cashews

Have to get up flippin’ early again tomorrow.  We need to be registered for the Silk & Satin race by 7:30 tomorrow morning.  I hope to be under 30 minutes.  Last year was my very first official 5K and it was this same race.

My time was around 45 minutes, which I hope to better tomorrow 😀

Weather calls for sun with maybe morning clouds.  Should be good if it isn’t too humid.

Hopefully John won’t finish too far in front of me.  I finally got him into running, and now he is faster than me!   D’oh!

Question:  What’s on tap for your weekend?

Elvis and Indian Food

On the challenge front today, I would give myself a B. Did much better than last Saturday, but still have room for improvement.

The day turned out glorious, and we biked to Lake George. That is one hilly ride!  Plus it was windy, which really increased the resistance.  Thank you squats for helping me get up those hills. Had fueled up with a good oats breakfast with protein powder, and it did the trick to get me there.

It happened to be Elvis Tribute weekend in Lake George :O So we see this guy as we pull into town:
e1

Now that it is past Memorial Day, all the restaurants are now open, including one of our favorite Indian ones. We love to eat Indian because vegetarian options are really diverse. It’s very difficult to find restaurants that serve locally produced meats, so we try to avoid that when dining out.

Me waiting for food:

lori

Note the hat covering up my helmet head! I had some yummy dal mahkni! This was devinely delicious, although probably cream laden by the looks:
dal

It also came with about a pound of jasmine rice.  White rice is a trigger food for me.  I love it to pieces, so I really tried to control myself.  I did have a little to much, but it was less than a cup (which was still less than half the bowl).  I also sampled some of John’s paneer – yum!:

paneer

His dish also came with the same boatload of rice!

The meals were enjoyed with a nice view:

view

We spent the afternoon browsing the stores and viewing more Elvi  (is that the plural??)

e3

Then we stopped at a new coffee shop to have a treat.  I was sorely disappointed that they only had whole milk available!  I was shocked, to say the least.  I did not want 16 oz of whole milk in my latte, so I just went with a regular cup of coffee with some milk.  What is up with that?  However, they did have some of the delectable 3-bite desserts, which are awesome to have a treat, yet keep it small.

tart2

Then we got ready to go home.   We hit an interesting spot where we could hear 3 different Elvi performing all at once.  It was like a house of mirrors.  Saw one last Elvis on the way out of the village, and he was the most flamboyant one.

e4

The bike ride home was a little better wind-wise.

Stopped for a peaceful view along the path:

view2

Crashed on the couch after we got home.  30 miles of hills.  Ate a fairly light dinner and if I can manage to not snack before bed in the next couple hours, I still will have the B grade for Challenge Day 7!

Thank you very much……  Think I will be hearing that in my sleep tonight. 😀

Workouts and Indian food

So I’ve been working on some new strength training routines for the last few days. Think I have settled in on some exercises, combining both the bowflex and the free weights. Once I get them in my book, I’ll post them here.

I do keep a log book of my strength workouts. My book goes back to 2004, and it is pretty neat to see how far I have come. The logs include my weight, my measurements, and the rep/weight of my exercises. I love to look back over my starting measurements and see a 57 inch hip circumference, which is now 40.25 inches. It’s very motivating for me.

I think if I could tell someone to start with non-scale measurements from the very beginning, I would emphasize that more than the scale. This log has really helped me to see that I was still making progress even when the scale wasn’t doing what I wanted it to.

On a food topic (yum!!), yesterday we went out for Indian food for John’s birthday. I am really glad I did my jog in the morning LOL! I decided against a sauce dish, and went for a biryani – which is kind of like a casserole. It was sooooo delicious. I really love the complexity of Indian cuisine, with the subtle spice combinations. I have really come to love cinnamon and clove in savory preparations. Anyhoo – the portion was huge! So, I ate half (I had to force myself to put the fork down), and brought half home, which is still in the fridge. Will probably have that tomorrow. I did have a small piece of birthday cake, but no ice cream. So – not really bad, but I probably could have made a better choice. However, I do not regret my choices, and enjoyed them very much. Will see what the scale says about that tomorrow 🙂

Batman

We went to see Batman today. Wow, that’s all I can say. Just wow.

Brought my own snack to the movie – Nutrisystem white cheddar soy crisps. I am a big sucker for movie popcorn, but really wanted some control. I did eat a few peanut M&Ms that John had.

Today wasn’t great food wise. Ended up around 1850 calories for the day. Could’ve been worse, but I didn’t get in any exercise today. Tomorrow is John’s birthday, and we are going out for dinner at an Indian restaurant. That is going to be a true test, as I totally adore Indian food. Won’t be the end of the world if I gain this Wednesday, but I hope the damage will be minimal. I’ll be jogging tomorrow morning.