I love to cook but I’m not really creative in the kitchen. I can follow a recipe but I haven’t branched out much further than that. There is, however, someone who took the muffin tin idea and ran with it.  For those of you who don’t like to cook…or who don’t have much time to cook…or who have picky eaters at home who would rather eat wings and burgers than salad and veggies…I bring you Emily Bites.

Just like Tuesdays have become Taco Tuesday, I think Thursdays are becoming “Cupcake” Thursdays.

Last Thursday I made her Buffalo Chicken Cupcakes. They. Were. Awesome.

Buffalo Chicken Cupcakes @ Emily Bites Original

Last night I made her Cheeseburger Cupcakes. They were pretty awesome as well but I think I’ll make some modifications next week when I make them again. Oddly enough, Dave and I thought the mushrooms were too much. I say this is odd because we’ve never met a recipe that had too many mushrooms in it. If I had a cooking motto it would be “You can never have too much garlic or too many mushrooms.” Anyways, when I make these again next week (yes, on Thursday), I’m going to cut the mushrooms in half, replace the ketchup and mustard with BBQ sauce and add a little bit of bacon (to replace some of those mushrooms). I might also use Laughing Cow Swiss Cheese wedges instead of the Queso wedges. The possibilities are endless!

Emily also does breakfast cupcakes…I can vouch for the Banana Chocolate Chip Oatmeal Singles!

Now, to make all these muffins you need a good muffin tin! I don’t normally do this but I’d like to recommend a particular muffin tin. Would you believe Rachael Ray’s Oven Lovin’ Muffin Pan has served me better than any other muffin tin I’ve owned (especially the Calphalon one)? I’m not very good about not using metal utensils on non-stick surfaces and this muffin pan has been quite forgiving. It really does not scratch easily. The Calphalon? I looked at it the wrong way and it scratched (I think this is odd because I love my Calphalon pots and pans).  Ok, PSA on muffin pans over and out.

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Marsial over at Eyes of the Sun: Musing and Losing was tagged by someone, had to answer a bunch of questions and tag some of her fellow bloggers to do the same thing. Well, Marsial tagged me. The questions are not easy to answer without a lot of time and effort (and I am a bit short on time due to a meeting with my dissertation chair on Monday) so I will leave you with answers to a couple of the questions:

Q: Which author do you admire so much that you have read more than one of his/her books

A: John Irving: A Prayer for Owen Meany is my favorite book of all time and I actually keep an eye out in the news for when a new Irving book will be published (next new one is due out in May)! I don’t think there is any other author I “track.” I don’t know if I so much admire John Irving or just admire his talent.  His stories are pretty epic!

Q: Describe how you met your spouse/significant other/love of your life (even if you are no longer with that person). 

A: I don’t think I’ve ever told the story of how Dave and I met. We met on Myspace of all places. Yes, MYSPACE. After we met, we both posted a note on Myspace about how we met (from our own perspective), kind of a he said/she said thing. Here’s what I wrote (Sorry it’s long, but I promise it’s a good story):

A lot of you know that I’ve tried the online dating thing off and on for the past 3 years or so. You name it, I tried it…eHarmony (twice), Match, and Yahoo. This past spring break, I even tried my luck with Craigslist. Yep, you too can find a date and a used couch by barely lifting your clicker finger. For the most part, I met nice enough guys, and even dated one for a little while. I also met my fair share of total lunatics (Craigslist is their home apparently), but that’s a whole other post that’s not even worthy of my time.

Anyways…

I still had a profile on Yahoo, but it was inactive and invisible to anyone on Yahoo who was searching for women in my age group. But Yahoo would still send me weekly-ish “These are your latest matches” emails and every now and then I would get curious and just browse. On April 16th, a Monday, I happened to browse my latest matches and stumbled upon one that actually sparked my interest. He had this huge smile that drew me in to the rest of the profile where I learned that despite a certain level of corniness (he did, after all, quote a Rupert Holmes song…groan), he was pretty funny. And for those who know me, I really like funny. He also seemed like he had a big heart, was open-minded and easy-going, and was kind. Unfortunately, I wasn’t in the position to subscribe to Yahoo (these things get expensive). I wasn’t going to get to break the ice with this cute guy who had grabbed my attention.

Except…

The very next morning, I had a message in my MySpace inbox from HIM! It was about 8 something in the morning, I wasn’t fully awake yet, and I about fell right out of my chair. I swear the Twilight Zone theme song was playing softly in the background. I think I did my best to resist thinking about “fate” and “destiny” but those words were creeping into the forefront of my mind. I mean, what were the odds of this happening? They were totally independent events…which is always fun to explain to people b/c they somehow think Dave could see that I checked out his profile on Yahoo (he couldn’t). When people realize that we just happened upon one another at the same time in unrelated cyber territory, their eyes get real wide and then they smile.

Anyways…

Not only had he sent me a message, the subject line was “Not the same without Cowher.” He was a Steelers fan! I didn’t want to reply immediately and had to get to school, so I think I replied sometime in the early afternoon. We spent a couple of emails back and forth that day and then began talking on AIM that evening. I had mentioned in one of my emails that I wanted to see Grindhouse…he echoed that sentiment. When we were IM’ing, I decided to just ask him if he wanted to meet up that weekend to see it together. I usually do not suggest meeting up so quickly, or even at all…I usually let the guy make that move. But I didn’t really know where it would all lead and knew I was sick of the whole back-and-forth emailing that came with meeting guys online. We exchanged numbers and ended up talking for 3 hours that night. Our little meeting up for a movie quickly turned into a real date when we realized that there was a lot of chemistry between us. He was all shy about asking me to dinner beforehand…it was really adorable. We ended up talking every night that week for about 3 hours a night. We never wanted to get off the phone, we never ran out of things to talk about, and we talked about the heavy stuff and felt totally comfortable doing so. There was no way that the first date was going to end poorly.

And of course, it didn’t…

***********

We met on our first date on April 21, 2007. We went to see Grindhouse (a B-movie double feature full of zombies and blood and machine guns for legs) at North Hills cinema and then out to dinner at 518 West (contemporary Italian food) in downtown Raleigh. After dinner we went to the Raleigh’s Little Theatre Rose Garden and had a wonderful time. That was just the beginning of a new life together…

***********

Interesting fact: We lived closer to each other in Pittsburgh growing up (Mt. Oliver and Penn Hills) than we did here in Raleigh/Chapel Hill when we met!

And if you’ve lasted this long, here’s a picture of us very early on in our relationship. I think it might have been taken at his mother’s on the day I met her for the first time!

Here’s a picture of me and my Mom dancing to Bruce at the wedding. It was sort of a mother-daughter dance because I made sure to drag her on to the dance floor.

Photo by Stephanie Spencer Photography

Anyways…the whole reason for this post was to let you all know I was down 2.4lbs at weigh-in this morning. So, yes, I’m going down, down, down, down! I’ll post some recipes very soon, I promise!

And on a more serious note…if you’re the praying kind, send some prayers up for Biz’s husband Tony…poor guy can’t catch a break and is back in the hospital. Hopefully, this will be his last hospital stay in 2012!

It’s been a wacky few days full of highs and lows. Here’s what’s been going on:

Bad: My Dell Studio 15 laptop has a design flaw that causes it to overheat…it eventually fried the processor and the hard drive…and I’m 4 months past warranty. I’ve been fighting with Dell since mid-December. I will never ever buy from Dell again. Their customer service disservice has now topped Time Warner Cable and Verizon Wireless on my list…and that is saying a lot!

Good: I bought a new 21″ iMac which is so very pretty and lovely to use. I’m trying to switch everything over and relearn stuff from my previous Mac experience. But all in all, it’s soooo worth it!

Bad: That knee injury has apparently not resolved itself like I thought it did. It has been feeling better each day since last Saturday when it was at its worst. I iced, I rested, I stayed away from exercise involving the lower body. It seemed fine. I did 20 minutes on the elliptical today and it felt fine. I followed that with 10 minutes on the stationary bike and it felt less fine. This evening, it’s swollen again and throbbing a little bit. Crap.

Good: I had personal training sessions with Isaiah twice this week, each time focusing only on the upper body. And while Thursday’s workout kicked my butt (boy oh boy did I WHINE), I’m not nearly as sore as I anticipated and I actually feel like I accomplished something in the session. But don’t tell Isaiah. He already likes to give me smug smiles as he’s kicking my butt.

Bad: I had bought a Groupon for a shellac manicure (Never done one? They. Are. Awesome.) and had a 1pm appointment yesterday. I showed up 20 minutes early in case they wanted me to soak my already shellac-ed nails. The only person working was doing hair. She couldn’t track down the manicurist. She called twice and finally, around 12:55pm, LEFT to go get lunch. Yep, I was left alone in a salon with another customer (who had her head under a dryer) while the ONE employee left the building for lunch. At 1:15pm, when nobody had shown up, I left. Boy was I pissed. I REALLY hate people who are late and people who don’t show up. I called Groupon from the call so they could issue me a refund. They did, without so much as an apology, but whatever. When I got home, I sent a message online to the nail person and said I was issued a refund and I would be reviewing her “business” online at various websites.

Good: The nail salon owner emailed me today to apologize. Apparently, they didn’t have my appointment in the book. Even though I was issued a refund, she offered me a complimentary shellac manicure. I sent her my phone number and we’ll see what happens. Mistakes happen and I will give her a second chance. I haven’t posted my review of her business online…yet.

It really does last!

But in the middle of all these “first-world problems,” I was down 8.2lbs at weigh in yesterday morning, I’m still faithfully tracking all my food, and I’m still not drinking pop!

Oh by the way….that dark chocolate caramel with black sea salt candy bar that has its own Facebook page? I finally ate it…half yesterday and half today…and it is good enough to have its own Facebook page. And that is not an exaggeration. Each half of the chocolate bar cost me 6 points plus. It was worth every single one of them.

Have a good weekend everyone! I’ll have some great recipes for you next week!

I worked the plan this week. I tracked everything. I stuck to my points. I managed one session with my personal trainer before dealing with a knee injury and a back sprain.

I was down this morning at weigh in.

I was down 8.2lbs to be exact.*

Boo-yah!

I went from my meeting to another session with Isaiah. I told him to stay away from my knee and lower back. You know what that meant? He absolutely destroyed my arms. I will be cursing his name tomorrow. Hell…I’m already cursing it. As I am typing, my arms are shaking!

I hope I can hold my arms in position for my manicure later!

*Last week’s weigh in did involve me wearing jeans rather than workout pants like this morning, but my jeans don’t weight 8.2 lbs.

Last week (Wed or Thurs) my ankle rolled and I hit the floor. I walked it off but knew my knee was a little more sore than normal. My inner knee, where I have a plica that is prone to inflammation, was a bit cranky but after about a day, it was fine. Fast forward to Saturday night when my knee began to throb in pain. It was bad. It was distracting and it definitely hurt. Except the pain was on the outside of the knee. Weird. Anyways, I iced it a few times on Sunday, popped a bunch of ibuprofen, and told Doc about it on Monday morning. He was perplexed about the 2-3 day delay in pain after my fall. Then again, I’m not normal so who knows what happened. He poked around and said I have a mild LCL sprain and to rest it (and ice it) for a week. That meant no cardio except the recumbent bike. BOO! I was actually gonna get back on the elliptical after that appointment.

So I hopped on the recumbent bike for 10 minutes before my training session with Isaiah. I did not enjoy those 10 minutes. I was uncomfortable, my knee hurt and I didn’t feel like I was actually doing anything (except bothering my knee). I decided to just skip cardio for the week and do strength training. Isaiah stuck to an upper body workout. Only problem is that I pulled a muscle in my lower back doing chops with the pulleys.

So I’m a hot mess right now. My knee is feeling better and almost back to normal (I think). My lower back is not. I see Isaiah again tomorrow and will tell him to stay away from lower body and lower back. I have a feeling I’m going to have some tired arms tomorrow! On Friday I plan on easing back into some cardio to see how the knee feels. Let’s hope for the best.

In the meantime, I’m going to try and not hurt myself again

Clementine & Five-Spice Chicken

from Eating Well magazine, Feb 2012

Makes 4 servings

Ingredients

• 8-10 clementines (mandarins, honey tangerines or oranges work well too)
• Generous 1/4 tsp Chinese five-spice powder (All blends contain cinnamon, fennel seed, cloves & star anise…some versions are made with white pepper, some with Szechuan pepper)
• 2 tsp Canola oil (I used extra virgin olive oil)
• 4 large, bone-in chicken thighs (about 2lbs), skin removed and fat trimmed
• 1 tsp kosher salt
• 1/4 cup small fresh cilantro leaves
• 1 Tbsp thinly sliced scallion greens
• 1/4 tsp toasted sesame oil

Directions

• Finely grate 1 tsp zest and squeeze 1 cup juice from 6-8 clementines (make sure to reserve 2 clementines for slicing). Combine the zest, juice, and five-spice powder in a small bowl.
• Heat oil in a large nonstick skillet over medium-high heat. Season chicken with salt. Cook the chicken, turning frequently, until brown on both sides, about 5 minutes. Pour in the juice mixture and bring to a simmer. Reduce the heat to maintain a simmer, cover and cook the chicken is just cooked through, 16-18 minutes.
• Meanwhile, peel 2 clementines and slice into 1/4-inch rounds.
• When the chicken is done, transfer to a plate and tent with foil to keep warm. Increase the heat to high and cook the sauce, stirring often, until thickened and reduced to 1/2 to 2/3 cup, 2-4 minutes. Stir in the clementine slices, cilantro, scallion greens and sesame oil. Serve the chicken with the sauce.

Nutrition Facts per serving (7pts+ each)

• 270 calories
• 13g fat
• 92mg cholesterol
• 11g carbohydrate
• 26g protein
• 1g fiber
• 359g sodium
• 84$ daily value of Vitamin C!

I served this with some fresh spinach, sauteed with garlic and olive oil until wilted, and a serving of Trader Joe’s Harvest Grain blends. I was a bit apprehensive about this grain mix because Dave can be picky. After dinner…because he didn’t say anything during…I asked if he liked dinner. He loved everything except the seasoning I put on the spinach. He really liked the grains! I then told him it was a mix of Israeli couscous (which we knew he liked), orzo, red quinoa and the kicker: baby garbanzo beans. I was sure he was going to ban them from the house. Dave doesn’t do beans. Ever. But all he said was ok. Anyways, the grain mix was quite tasty, had a nice mix of textures to it and was very creamy (I made it using chicken broth). I highly recommend this blend if you’re looking for something a little bit different! I bet it would be good in a soup of some kind. Like a modified wedding soup. Biz, you up for that challenge? If you don’t have TJ’s by you, I’ll ship you a bag of this stuff to try!

Overall, a tasty and healthy dinner that took very little effort!

Today has been another story. We went out for lunch and I got a burger. I have the points for it but it does take away some of my points cushion for the rest of the week! Oh well. The burger was fantastic. We’re going to ration out the goodies we got at the German bakery and the Chocolate Boutique (which just opened up by Savory Spice Shop).

I’m still tracking it all. If I bite it, I write it!

I’ve tracked since Thursday and done really well getting back into the swing of healthy foods. I had to hit up Trader Joe’s on Thursday for some produce and was enticed by the dark chocolate bar with caramel & sea salt at the register. I picked it up. I put it back. I picked it up and paid for it. Would you believe that it has it’s VERY OWN FACEBOOK page? What is this world coming to?

Guess what?

I haven’t touched it yet! I kind of forgot it was here! The plan was to essentially eat a fourth of it at a time…on different days of course…for a special treat to satisfy my sweet tooth. Well, I guess I haven’t needed it. We did go get frozen yogurt last night which was nice…that took care of the craving for me!

I’ve also been pop free since Monday (I think Monday). That’s been relatively fine. I do miss a fizzy cold drink. I’m not going anywhere near seltzer water…I think it’s disgusting…so I will live without the fizz. For now, it’s been water and coffee. Can’t give up my coffee!

Today will be a good test for me…it’s off to the Farmers’ Market in a bit. The problem is our favorite German baker sells there. It looks like I’ll be banking all my weekly points for a sweet treat from Norbert and Annelore every Saturday. They do sell granola and energy bars, sweetened with honey, but sometimes those things cost as many points as a regular baked good.

I’ll be posting a healthy and EASY recipe later on…Chinese 5 Spice Chicken with Clementines. Our dinner, also made with Chinese 5 Spice is in the crockpot. If it’s good, I’ll post that as well!

Have a great weekend everyone!

But enough of that sappy stuff. I want to talk about 2012, especially since the world is apparently not going to end in December.

I’m not going to utter the R word. My goals are to finish my dissertation (non-negotiable success here) and to get healthier (again, non-negotiable success here). Here is how I am going to do it:

(1) Set a fairly rigid schedule to stick to until my dissertation is done. Dave always lets me get away with things like watching tv on nights when I am supposed to do work….there will be no more of that (so I’ve been told). I pretty much need to schedule everything because at this point, only structure is going to help me achieve my goal.

(2) Get to the gym 3-4 days per week, consistently. This will be on my schedule!

(3) Give up pop except when it’s part of an adult beverage (my drink of choice is Captain and Diet Coke after all). This starts tomorrow since I am drinking a Diet Dr Pepper as I type this blog post <sheepish grin>.

(4) Get back on Weight Watchers…I am going to give the new Points Plus 2012 plan the old college try for 3 months…if at that point, I don’t see the success I used to see on the old plan, I will revert. I’ve already mentally prepared for this…there seem to be a fair number of people who aren’t loving the new(ish) plan. Anyways, this will start this week on Thursday when I hit a meeting and buy a new tracking journal.

(5) Blog more. I’m going to put this on my schedule but I think I will blog two times per week with one day being a regular post and one day being a post with a recipe. If I discover more recipes, I’ll post more. There are a few blogs that I follow religiously…they are entertaining…they are informative….they are inspirational….and they are regular. I can always count on Shelley, Biz and Lori. I want to be dependable like that (and perhaps a bit entertaining, informative and inspirational too).

(6) Get back to Healing Spices. I was a bit ambitious with this before. My goal is to teach you about one spice per month and post a recipe or two for you. This will be above and beyond the normal blogging I want to do.

I think that about covers it. It’s simple. Finish my dissertation, eat less, move more. How hard can that be?

With that, I’m off to prepare my rigid schedule and make some applesauce with apples from our farmers market.

Oh…before I go…I should announce the winner of the giveaway I posted well before Christmas. Sorry (once again) for being a slacker. There were only 6 comments on the giveaway…perhaps because people have given up on me because I turned into a slacker? Anyways…the winner is….

Shelley: “Sweet of you to do a giveaway! I’d pick the Spiced Vanilla Bean Sugar – wouldn’t that be interesting to try in my granola instead of regular brown sugar?!?”

Shelley, you’ll get your winnings sometime this month! Did you know that we gave out spice blends at our wedding as favors and the Spiced Vanilla Bean Sugar was one of them? I’ve used it on oatmeal and it’s great!

I’ll leave you with this gem from the Hunger Games books (which you should all read): May the odds be ever in your favor.

I’m going to do my best to stop the odds from stacking up against me

This is me after 3 months of not following Weight Watchers:

Let’s just say that I had A LOT of fun putting on the pounds since the wedding and that they most certainly won’t come off as quickly as they went on. Good grief!

Not only was weigh in BRUTAL this morning, but WW made some changes to the program that I need to figure out. They are adding more flexibility in that you can choose what your daily points target is going to be (lower for days when you don’t need it or higher for days that you do). I think the intention is for folks to make minor changes to accommodate normal fluctuations in life….BUT….it just sounds like a way to set oneself up for failure. I’m pretty sure that I will be sticking to the daily points target that the computer spits out at me and if I find that weight isn’t coming off as well as it could, I might lower the target by 1 or 2 points. Other than that, I need the structure. Rigidity is a good thing, at least right now when I’m trying to get back on track.

Speaking of…I think I really am going to make some baby steps to get me through the holidays rather than go gung ho at a time in the year when I have to make my annual fruitcake and Christmas crack (don’t worry, I will post recipes). So, here is what I am going to do. Each Thursday until 2012, I am going to set baby goals for the week and post them here. I’m not going to get psycho about points right now. That will come in January. For now, I just need to get back my good habits! So for the next 7 days:

(1) Write down everything I eat with points values: This isn’t hard…I just have to dust off my tracking notebook!

(2) Informally attempt to stay around my daily points target: The only thing on the schedule that could derail this a teeny bit is lunch at a wings place tomorrow and breakfast at the farmers market on Saturday morning. I can make better choices at each of those places but I’m not going to focus on the points as much.

(3) Hit the gym on Friday, Sunday and Monday: I will do my strength training routine on Friday and Monday and probably just cardio on Sunday.

That’s it. Baby steps. It’s all about making BETTER choices. The BEST choices can come in January when there isn’t fruitcake around!

I’m still alive, I promise. I can’t seem to get a leg up on much of anything these days so until I do, my postings might be a little sparse. To hold you over to the next post, I’m posting a couple of our wedding photos, an awesome recipe, and a giveaway! Can you beat that???

First, a few wedding pictures (click on them to get the bigger version):

Photo by Stephanie Spencer Photography

Photo by Stephanie Spencer Photography

Photo by Stephanie Spencer Photography

Photo by Stephanie Spencer Photography

Second, an awesome recipe:

You’ve probably heard me mention my most favorite store, Savory Spice Shop? Well, a couple of weeks ago we stopped in to see if they had espresso powder. I was making fancy brownies in our new “all edges” brownie pan and the recipe called for espresso powder, which I couldn’t find in any grocery store. Apparently, it simply enhances the chocolate flavor and does not mess up the recipe if you don’t have it. ANYWAYS…Savory Spice didn’t have espresso powder but they had a couple of new spice blends with coffee in them. One of them was the Baker’s Brew Coffee Spice and it was suggested that we use that in place of the espresso powder. Well…we did and the brownies were awesome…and we also picked up the recipe for Caramelized Coffee Spiced Chicken.

I made that the other night, substituting boneless skinless chicken breasts for thighs, and served it over some jasmine rice. In the words of Dave, dinner was <expletive> awesome….he wants to put the glaze on everything. Which brings me to…

Third, a giveaway:

I’m going to hold a giveaway to try and bring back my readers from the post-less abyss I banned them to (at least in terms of our blog here). The winner will receive a 4oz. bottle of the Baker’s Brew Coffee Spice and a 4oz. bottle of a spice or spice blend of their choice! All from Savory Spice Shop! All you have to do is go to the Savory Spice Shop website, drool over all the awesome spices and recipes, pick one or two of your favorites, and leave a comment here telling me what you picked and why! Leave your comment by Thursday, December 22nd at 5pm and I’ll pick a winner on Friday the 23rd! I can’t promise you’ll get the spices before 2012 but I won’t make you wait too long.

Now…back to reality….I’m hitting up my first Weight Watchers meeting in months tomorrow morning….weigh-in ain’t gonna be pretty!