Happy Friday!

Yesterday was the first day of the preseason for football. In honor of this day, I wrote a little poem. 


T'was the afternoon before football when all through the house, everyone was preparing, even the chips to douse. The nachos have been prepared with precision and care, don't eat them early! Don't you dare! There are no children to distract our attention, for Football season has arrived, I must mention. With visions of cheese dip and beer in my head, the first thing said today was, "GO BIG RED!"


Yes, I am an Arizona Cardinals fan. My man is a Minnesota Vikings fan. As such, it has led to bets resulting in something humiliating for the other party. We didn't bet last year because, well...football sucked last year. Hard. The year before though, I won a bet. 

The picture above is my love, in my pink and white, glittered Arizona Cardinal Larry Fitzgerald jersey. Ahh, the wonder of football season. 

I am not sure about you, but football season is a great time of year. Almost worse than the holidays, diet wise. There is always someone having a get together for a game, there are always calorie laden choices to snack on and there is most certainly beer. Now, you can prepare for the holidays by ramping up your work out routine for a month or two, so the shockwave doesnt hit you at once. But, lets be realistic, football lasts until the beginning of February. Thats a lot of nachos, chicken wings and beer to avoid. 

I'll usually have one meal during the week that I don't count calories, fat or anything. I just eat what sounds good. And after several years of eating right, its usually not too bad. For example, I had two chicken tacos yesterday at lunch. It wasn't necessarily healthy, but it wasn't what I used to order-a chimi slathered in a jalapeño cream cheese sauce filled with cheese. Or, last Friday we went out with friends to Yardhouse for dinner. I picked the veggie burger and fries. I ate all of the veggie burger and 1/4 of the fries. You just need to decide what exactly you want and the calorie equivalent- then find something that might be a titch better for you. 

I find no shame in checking a menu online for a restaurant, looking at the calories and fats and then trying to pick something better based off of the good choices (Did you know that TGI Friday's turkey burger has a thousand calories and absolutely no veggie burgers?!?) I tend to know exactly what I want to order prior to going out. Yes, it makes me weird, but it also prepares me for what I want so I don't get distracted and lean to the bad choices. If I put in my head what I want it becomes something of a craving, if you will. Then, it becomes harder to be tempted to eat the bad stuff. Except for chips and salsa. I could eat 14 bowls of home made tortilla chips and the same with salsa. I usually have to stop myself. And when I say stop myself, I mean tell the server to take the bowl away post haste to avoid injury to herself. The same can be said about ice cream but my work around on that is cones. If I get the small cones at the store, there are usually about 10 calories in the cone. And, you can only fit whats equal to about one serving in the cone so once you're done you're done. 

So for football season, I tend to let my I-don't-give-a-rats-behind meal be on Sundays. 

I was recently cruising through a craft beer magazine (Draft) and saw a pretty neat little gadget. I will add that this "little gadget" is almost $300. I can't justify spending that much on this one little thing. However, if there are any of you that purchase it or have purchased it, please let me know how it works. I'd be interested to hear a real persons candid review. Its called the Actifry. It claims that it can make two pounds of "genuine delicious home made french fries" with ONE TABLESPOON of oil and two pounds of fresh potatoes. This, is amazing. Like the equivalent of no calorie no fat chocolate in my book. Or, catching a purple unicorn named sprinkles that craps nothing other than sprinkles red velvet cupcakes. 

Tfal Actifry

I did make a home made green chili recipe the other night that is super easy and not bad for you at all. I will preface this by saying that my level to tolerate spicy food is probably relative to licking the sun. My man refers to it as "blow fire out of your ass hot" You can modify this recipe to your liking, as the ingredients put into it are available in the little girls with ringlets in their hair versions (with no heat factor)

Green Chili (this was enough for two people and enough left over for one more serving)

One can of Macayos Green enchilada sauce (I use this because there is no MSG in the sauce)

One can of Rotel Hot tomatoes with habaneros (also in mild)

One can of Ortega Hot roasted green chiles (also can get just plain roasted green chiles)

Two large chicken breasts 

Cumin (to taste)

White pepper (to taste)

Mexican oregano (to taste- warning: a little goes a long way. I'd keep it a tablespoon or less)

Cilantro

Salt

Garlic powder

Chili powder

Ok. This is where it gets SUPER hard to make (I jest). You open the cans, put the chicken breasts in a crock pot and place all the stuff from the cans (including juice) and the chicken breasts into the crock pot. We have a crockpot that defies all logic. High on this crock pot for two and a half hours is the same as all day long on low in my other one.Turn it on, add your own personal preference of spices- I used the above spices and did a dash on each one. Probably about a teaspoon of cumin, white pepper, salt, garlic powder and chili powder. I like the taste of the mexican oregano so I used about a tablespoon. Then let it simmer until the chicken is shreddable. This was about two and a half hours for me on high in our nuclear crock pot. I put the chicken back in after it was shredded, tasted the sauce and made sure it was to my liking. I let it simmer about another half hour before I added two tablespoons of corn starch. I like it thicker (more like a stew) I used some of the sauce, put it in a cup, added the cornstarch and stirred until there were no lumps and then put it back into the pot. 

You can serve it in a bowl, with a tortilla as a burrito (they do have low calorie tortillas now) garnished with fresh cilantro and not feel bad. The enchilada sauce only has 390 calories in the entire can. The rest of the stuff is more or less veggies. I don't feel bad about eating it- the chicken breasts are good for you, veggies are good for you- the sauce is the worst component and coming in at less than 400 calories for two people to have a dinner and leftovers isnt something I'd be fretting over. 

This was the finished product. 

Happy Friday!