Quesadillas, an Apple, and Lots of Pictures

Work was pretty miserable and very stressful today, so when I got home I didn't feel like doing anything.  I lounged around for awhile and was hungry.  Of course, my darling husband hadn't cooked anything like I'd asked so dinner was on me.  I decided that I wanted chicken quesadillas (one of my favorites), I just had to go to the store to get the ingredients.  Fortunately, we live a 2 minute drive from a grocery store.  (In the spring/summer, it's a 15 minute walk.)  So I ran over there to get the ingredients and came back home.   Here's what happened next:

Picture with Mr. Leick (Okay, that's not actually his name because I didn't change mine when we got married, but I don't want to take away *all* of his privacy, so that'll be his name for now.)

Ingredients! (Except for the salsa, because I forgot.) 

I always get light sour cream because you can't taste the difference and there are 20 fewer calories in each serving.

Extra large picture because I wanted everyone to be able to see the recipe.  It came on the back of the chicken package and sounds completely delicious!

Also, I wanted to point out that I decided to get the hormone free, minimally processed chicken.  A big goal for me is to be more aware of what I'm putting in my body and Matt and I are very fortunate to be able to afford the healthier (read as: more expensive) versions of the foods we frequently eat.

Dicing the chicken. 

Bwahahaha! I have a big knife!  (I commissioned Matt to take these pictures for me.)

Omnomnom! 

 I LOVE carrots, which is really good because they're actually a negative calorie vegetable and are very good for you.  Funny thing though - I do not like them near as much when they're cooked.  Growing up, whenever my mom would cook carrots, she'd always leave some uncooked on my plate.  I just don't think they're very good when they're all mushy.  (The one exception to this is her glazed carrots, but since this blog is about losing weight and not an instruction manual for putting on 30 lbs. in 30 days, I'll stay away from those.)

All chopped up! 

If I had had my way, I probably would have eaten all of them, but apparently Matthew needs to eat too. *pouty face* 

 

I cooked the chicken in a touch of olive oil with salt and pepper while I was chopping up the carrots.  When the pieces are diced this small, it really only takes a couple of minutes to cook them fully.

Apparently I did not take as many pictures of the process as I thought I did, because I forgot to take one of the chicken with the salsa.  After the chicken was cooked all the way, I drained the liquids (olive oil has a lot of calories in a small serving!) and then added a few tablespoons of salsa.  I've found that adding the salsa to the chicken (as opposed to using it for dipping) makes a HUGE difference in the deliciousness of the dish.  Besides, I think sour cream is much more delicious for dipping the quesadillas in.

My dear friend Paul got us this pan for our wedding and we LOVE it.  It's perfect for quesadillas!  Anyway, I always put the cheese on first and then add the chicken and then (pre-diet, I would) add more cheese on top.  However, when I realized just how many calories are in cheese, I used significantly less.

With the salsa chicken.  

I paid close attention to the serving sizes (again, something I almost never did before) and made sure only to cook enough chicken so that Matt and I would each get one serving.

The finished product!

I've been on something of an orange juice kick, so I've been drinking a lot of it with meals.  I think it might have to do with the fact that I'm feeling a little under the weather, so I'm hoping the extra Vitamin C will help.  

The entire meal came out to about 550 calories - just about 1/3rd of my daily value.  I was really surprised  to find that the food with the highest caloric value was the tortilla. (190 calories for one!)  Regardless, it was a delicious and reasonably healthy meal.  Plus, I was surprised to find that I actually enjoyed the quesadilla more without as much cheese as I usually use.  

And, as an added bonus, a picture of my darling husband looking at me thinking, "Dear God, my wife is crazy." xD

 And lest I forgot... The Apple!:

When I was talking to one of my Austrian friends (Johannes) awhile ago, he told me a story that I find incredibly difficult to believe.  Of course, given his opinion of American food (that it's crap - and he's kind of right), he insists that it's true.  Anyway, Johannes' brother was studying at a University here in the states and at the beginning of the six week program he bought several apples.  Apparently, he ate all but one of them and the last one disappeared until the end of the six weeks when he was packing everything up.  Supposedly he found the missing apple and it was in perfectly good condition, exactly as it had been six weeks before.

I maintain that he must have eaten the original apple and forgotten about it, and then found an apple that he actually bought at a much later date.  Johannes disagrees and insists that it was the same apple and American food is absolutely terrifying.

Since, as I mentioned earlier, my goal is to be more informed about what I'm putting in my body (and also, I'm a Statistician at heart and a total sucker for experiments) I decided to put this little Granny Smith Apple to the test.  My experiment is as follows:

Step 1: Buy a Granny Smith Apple (the same type that supposedly stayed perfect for six weeks)

Step 2: Write "Experiment Apple - Don't Eat Me" on the apple

Step 3: Put it in the corner of my kitchen for six weeks

Step 4: Take a picture daily (or weekly, if I forget or get lazy) to track the progress of said apple

Step 5: Determine after six weeks (or when the apple goes bad - I promised Matt I'd throw it out if it did) how afraid of American food I really should be

Unfortunately, there are a lot of problems with this experiment that make it not exactly scientific.  For instance: it's a different time of year than when the original apple allegedly didn't go bad for six weeks, I'm several states away from where the original apple was purchased, I probably didn't buy it at the same grocery chain, I can't get an apple from a different country to compare the results, etc.

BUT since I'm not actually running a legitimate scientific experiment complete with SPSS-analysed results (excuse me for a minute, I need to sulk and be depressed about this...okay, slightly better now) I'm willing to overlook all of this.  I just really want to know if this particular apple, which is probably very similar to all of the other apples I have eaten or will eat, will last for 6 weeks without going bad.  If it does, I'm going to freak the eff out.  If not, I'll pretend that it was an incredibly scientific experiment and conclude that there's no way that an apple lasted six weeks without going bad and demand that Johannes apologize to America for being so judgmental.  (I never said I was mature... :P)

But honestly, I want to make myself better and I'm never going to get there if I don't question the things I've believed without questioning for so long.  You can never find an answer if you don't ask the question, so that's what I'm doing.  We'll see what happens.

Also...sorry for the total lack of German in this post.  I'll try to talk about that more next time!  

Tschüss!