Last night I made one of our favorite meals, sauteed scallops with white wine and butter.  My wife made the comment that people who don't eat seafood, especially scallops are missing out.  Actually she said, "People that don't eat scallops are stupid."  Blunt, but truthful.  Being a good southerner I try to keep a bowl of bacon grease on the counter usually located beside the cheap wine and the fresh tomatoes. 

Bacon grease is the best thing to sear scallops in because it adds flavor and coloring as well as putting pork into a dish which is always a good idea.  Believe it or not we have been trying to eat healthier, obviously adding butter and bacon grease is helping that cause, so I paired our scallops with braised red cabbage and sauteed spinach.  I guess the extra fat is offset by no carbs, go figure.  Ten years ago it would have been the opposite.  However even with the addition of bacon grease I  still pined for a piece of fresh bread for the scallop broth or as I call it heaven's golden shower. Not sure if that should be the name or not but it is how it feels, I guess. Supper was excellent and it was certainly nice to have an evening at home.

Seared Scallops:
10-15 Dry Pack Scallops
2 tbsp. bacon grease
1 tbsp. butter
salt and pepper
1/2 cup white wine
1/2 lemon

Heat pan on high heat and add butter and grease.
Salt and pepper both sides of the scallops and place in pan.
Sear for a couple of minutes or until they have nice color on one side.
Add wine.
Flip and place in a 350 deg. oven for ten minutes.
Take out and squeeze lemon on the top of the scallops.

Braised Red Cabbage:
1 small head of red cabbage sliced into thin long strips.
1 cup of cider vinegar
salt and pepper
1 cup of diced apples

Bring cabbage to a boil.
Add vinegar, salt and pepper, cover and turn down to med. high heat for 20-30 minutes.
Drain, re-season with salt and pepper to taste.
Serve with a little sour cream on top.

It has been a while since I have visited my blog site.  Some of the stuff was kind of funny, at least to me, but that's all that matters anyway.  So I am going to try and start writing again.  No idea what it will include but hopefully it will be interesting. 

A little weight has dripped off!

Well I think the 5:40 work-out sessions are paying off a little.  My fiancee said that she thought I had lost a little weight which is awesome.  Dieting is hard.  During the week it is not so bad but  the weekends are rough.  I like beer.  Wait a minute, scratch that, I LOVE BEER.  Evidently beer is fattening.  Who knew.  So on the weekend when it is time to let loose a little, I like to have a few beers.  This usually leads to eating things that are not on the diet.  So the other night, we went out for a couple drinks and we were going to get some food later to take back home.  It had been raining all day so we had a bit of cabin fever.  We had a few beers at a local place that we like to go and realized that it had gotten to late for food.  Here is where the title of this post takes on a new meaning.  Not having any other choices we decided to make a call that we have not made in a long time.  The call to Domino's.

Now we had seen these commercials about new crust, new sauce and from the advertisements it sounded like they had changed the recipe.  We decided to roll the dice.  After picking up our box of what we thought was going to be a wonderful end to our night.  Pizza beloved Pizza.  I have always loved the stuff.  Upon returning home we tore into it like a couple of ravenous dogs.  After eating our fill we slowly start closing our eyes in a satiated haze.  All diet rules had been broken and I felt great.  We finally went to bed and I vaguely remembered my fiancee saying something about feeling weird.  Being the compassionate and loving man that I am, I promptly mumbled something to about not throwing up in the bedroom and fell asleep.  That is when 5:40 took on a new meaning for me.

 I awoke to a rumbling in my stomach and an urgent need to find the can.  This is where I spent the rest of my morning.  I wasn't puking, at least not out of my mouth.  Domino's definitely changed the flavor of their pizza but don't worry they still use their secret ingredient.  That ingredient is diarrhea.  Fuck you Domino's. 

5:40 a.m.

This is what time I have been getting up to work out.  The particular workouts I have been doing are the fabled P90X workouts.  Now I know you have seen the commercial for it and thought wow, they make it sound very easy.  It is easy.  It is easy to almost shit on yourself while trying to do pull ups at 5:40 in the morning because you forgot to do your usual morning bowel workout.  It doesn't help that the guy leading the workouts is basically doing pull ups with his toes.  It does feel good to be working out again even though I can't bend my legs right now.







Thought about buying one of these but not too sure if it is actually exercise euipment.  Safeword not included.

Peace, Love and Ping-Pong

A lot has happened in the past week  As one can see on the Matrometer, I only have 65 days left until the big event.  Here is what has been going on.  Over the weekend we went to visit my fiancee's real father and her stepmother whom I've never met.  We had a very nice time with them in between meals and snacks and more meals and more snacks.  It was not a very good diet weekend but the Saturday afternoon marathon margarita session made me forget all about that. 










Definitely calling this guy next time I need a margarita and the kids have a hankering for a slushy. 

Monday was a holiday and I had a full schedule ahead of me.  I spent the day playing ping-pong and poker.  My friends and I have become ping-pong nuts.  I don't know what it is about the game that we enjoy so much.  It takes skill and good coordination but you can also play it with a beer in your hand completely blitzed.  I have perfected the one hand serve.(please re-read the following sentence to figure out why)

         




We take our ping-pong seriously.  Always go for it!


















Even my fiancee gets in on the pong action.

The life force is strong in this one.  I can do this after a few beers.

This last one is my favorite.  This guy looks likes he learned this serve in a German prison.  I think he should call the Margarita Man.

Black Bean Quiche

If you are like me than you are a nut for Mexican/Latin flavored dishes. I could eat tacos con carnitas every day. Unfortunately as I mentioned before, I am on a diet, so no carnitas for me. For people that are not familiar with carnitas, it is slow cooked pork goodness. I like to mix mine with a salsa verde. But I digress, I will have to give those recipes out at a later date. This black bean quiche recipe has all of those flavors as well, minus the pork obviously.  My fiancee found this recipe online.  It is a good way to get a quick south of the border fix without all the calories.

6 eggs
1 medium size poblano or anaheim pepper (roasted and chopped)
1/4 cup spinich ( fresh or frozen, if using frozen thaw before adding)
1/2 of a white, yellow or purple onion, chopped
1/2 cup skim ricotta cheese
1/4 shredded jack cheese (optional)
1 can of black beans (rise before adding)
pinch of cumin
salt and pepper to taste
chopped cilantro for garnish

Grease an 8 x 8 square glass baking pan and pre heat oven to 350 degrees

Mix all ingredients well

Bake for 40-45 minutes, or until edges are slightly browned and center is firm. A knife inserted will come out clean.
Cuidado!The center is very hot!

This is the way that I made it but if I make it again I will add some garlic. I also recommend a little Valentina on top of it.

TIP:

Roast your pepper on the eye of the stove at about med-high. Use the stem to turn it. Put it in a plastic bag for a half an hour then run it under cold water. The skin just falls off!

72 days till I get married

So as the title states the clock is ticking on my "you can get out while it is still cheap" part of my life. I am going to keep anyone out there that might be reading this, updated on the details of my march to marital bliss. By march I mean run because I also need to lose some weight as well, so I will also post some of my favorite healthy recipes. So if you have stumbled upon this blog by going through the countless other blogs that are probably very similar to mine, than please come back and read it again. My mom always said that I was funny.