What I Cooked | Cooking Light Diet

This month Todd & I signed up for the Cooking Light Diet (CLD).  Cooking Light Diet is an online membership diet meal-planning program by Cooking Light.  Since Todd and I have subscribed to Cooking Light magazine for years and have cooked many many Cooking Light meals, we thought this would fit into our current lifestyle just fine.  I signed up for three months and it was $29.95.  Each week you get a meal plan for all seven days which includes breakfast, lunch, dinner, and snacks.  Breakfast is usually 300 calories.  Lunch is usually 400 calories, and dinner 500 calories.  The snacks usually add up to 200 calories.  For my weight-loss goals, it aims for 1400 calories per day.  You can click on which meals you want to make, and the website will generate a shopping list for you.  Also, most of the meals take 30 minutes or less to make.  Todd & I cook together and it comes together really fast.

Our first week with the CLD meal planning, I realized that I don’t need the breakfast, lunch, and snack planning.  The reason is, your shopping list becomes HUGE because you’re eating a little bit of many different things.  This promotes wasted food.  I didn’t like that.  I don’t mind eating the same basic things for breakfast and snacks everyday.  Since there are only two of us, our lunch everyday consists of leftovers from the night before.  So really, I only need dinner planning!  Realizing that has made the shopping list much easier to handle. 

Here are some of the dishes we have cooked so far.  I’ve also added them to my “Stuff I Cooked” Pinterest board. 

 

Linguini with Basil Pea Cream

This one was not my favorite.  This dish has too much peas and basil, making it really sickly sweet. If I make it again, I would use a lot less peas and somewhat less basil.  More garlic!

 

Superfast Chicken Posole

It really was fast, and actually quite good. The bitterness of the radishes compliments the sourness of the tomatillos and lime juice.

 

Pan-Roasted Chicken Cutlets with Maple-Mustard Dill Sauce

The chicken sauce was slightly too sweet, but it was pretty good.  We served it with green beans instead of rice.

 

Tofu Curry with Bok Choy and Peanuts

This was probably my favorite out of the Cooking Light Diet dishes I’ve cooked so far.  It was super-fast and easy. Used regular bok choy instead of baby bok choy. Great vegetarian meal.

 

Loaded Mashed Potato Soup

This dish sounded good but didn’t really taste good.  The potato soup tasted too sour to me.  Plus, my soup looked nothing like the one pictured on their website.  Their soup looks like it has cream in it, since it’s so white. 

 

Fresh Tomato, Sausage, and Pecorino Pasta

We’ve actually made this dish before, but since it showed up in our menu this past week, we decided to make it again.  We hadn’t had it in years.  This was super-fast and so yummy. 

 

I just wanted to share my personal experience so far with the Cooking Light Diet.  I like that you get to pick from its suggestions and that meals are planning for you each week.  But I’ve found that we only use it for dinners, which is fine.  Even though I’ve been on a “diet” for two months, I haven’t really felt hungry, which is good.  I’ve lost about 5 lbs, with a goal to lose a total of 15 lbs.  But diet is just one part of being healthy.  I am also exercising quite a bit, and getting over 10k steps in each day.  Making progress!

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Showered With Goodness

This past weekend was full of good times, good food, and good friends.  Basically, my favorite things in life! 

On Saturday afternoon we attended Dejah & Roby’s wedding shower.  They are getting married in Key West in February.  Many of their San Diego friends won’t be able to attend (us included), so this was an awesome celebration of their upcoming nuptials.

There was Indian food from our favorite place, Punjabi Tandoor. 

Of course there was cake.

Todd made a beautiful and humorous speech about Dejah & Roby.

There were various wedding shower games.

And there was gift opening.

All in all, we’re so excited for them to begin their lives as husband & wife!

Right after the shower, we drove straight to Costa Mesa to meet up with Peppermint, Liz, and Kami for dinner at Santouka!

 

Peppermint was in town for CHA and Disneyland, so we had to get together.  And she said, “I want to try the real Japanese ramen that you Asians are always raving about”. 

After the ramen, we wanted to hang out more, so we decided to go to Panera and hang out.  Of course, everyone got on their phones to find the nearest Panera, ha!

I feel super-blessed to see these girls again.  My scrapbooking friends whom I met online and have become good friends with!

On Sunday, we went to Karl Strauss for lunch because the NFL playoffs were on.  Go 49ers!

I was so tempted to get a burger, but I was good and got a seared ahi salad instead.  It was really delicious!  So glad to find a good salad close to home!

Todd got a turkey bacon sandwich and he loved it.

Some other good things this week…  I got a new laptop at work!  I’ve fully migrated and this beauty is so fast!

I spent about three hours on Saturday cleaning up my messy craft room.  This was the before photo.  It was mainly the tabletop that was out of control.

Now it’s all cleaned up and ready for me to create!

I received my first Ipsy glam bag this month.  It’s a monthly beauty subscription club.  It costs $10/month and they send you samples or full-size of stuff to try, in a cute bag no less!

Here’s what was in my Ipsy glam bag this month.

So far I like the lip balm, the foundation (happens to be a perfect shade match for me!), the makeup cleansing tissue, and the body balm.  I haven’t tried the pore minimizer yet.

And… we’ve been cooking at home on weeknights for two weeks now.  It’s just easier since I’m back on Weight Watchers.  This Halibut with Bacony Corn Saute is absolutely delicious and only 8 WW points!  Mmm… bacony corn!

Work has been slightly stressful due to trying to get the budget to fit the target numbers that upper management handed down to us.  I’m trying to make it fit and it’s pretty bad this year.  On the personal finance side, I’m actually looking forward to doing our taxes this year, because I think we’re going to get some good amount of taxes back.  Todd went to a new job in mid-year and I think his withholdings were way too high.  Oh, I had my first orthodontist appointment yesterday.  I got x-rayed and they made mold casts of my teeth.  Next week I get the braces on!  Sigh, my second stint of braces as an adult.  Stupid misaligned bite this time.  So I guess I better take some pretty pictures of myself this weekend before the braces go on, hee hee!

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Around Here

I knew the fall season is always my busiest season, but I didn’t think I would have so much going on.  Between work and all my other activities, I haven’t been spending as much time on the computer when I get home.  That means less blogging.  I started to feel guilty about it, but then I stopped immediately.  Blogging should be fun and not guilt-ridden. 

On Tuesday 10/15, we had dinner with one of our good friends Dan.  He was in town for a conference and we had dinner together at Urban Solace.  I decided to be good and have a salad.

Todd had the chicken and dumplings, which is one of my favorite things there.

So fun to get-together with old friends!

I’ve had to take the last two Fridays off work, because I’m bumping up against my maximum vacation accruals and if I don’t take days off, I lose them.  So last Friday 10/18 I took the day off and spent some me-time.  I went to lunch at Rubios.

And I went to Target.  But I thought I had entered a time portal back to 1988.  What’s with the clothes??!  I mean, Bruce Springsteen “Born In the USA” and Def Leppard?

Weird colored and patterned (almost acid washy) jeans?

And big cardigan sweaters??

Made me want to tight-roll my jeans.

Did you know that Target now makes their own brand (Archer Farms) of k-cups for the Keurig?  I tried the Pumpkin Spice coffee and it was delicious!  And because I only put in two tablespoons of coffee creamer, it’s only 70 calories versus the Pumpkin Spice Latte at Starbucks, which is WAY more calories.

I’ve been working out with weights twice a week for three weeks now.  I feel like it’s making a difference with more toned muscles and less fat, but the scales haven’t moved as much as I would like.  It’s ok.  I love it and I’ll keep going.

Todd went to a nerdy science-fiction book convention last weekend on Sunday.  It was called Conjecture/ConChord. 

I re-organized my washi tapes.  I used to have them in a divided plastic container like this.

I now have them all on a pants hanger than I wasn’t using.

Todd made this Thai Steak Salad and it was really amazing.  So flavorful!

I got to spend some more “me-time” this week.  The 3rd book in the Divergent series by Veronica Roth came out.  I had pre-ordered it on Kindle as soon as I finished “Insurgent” back in September.  It downloaded to my Kindle around 11pm on Monday night.  I haven’t read as much this week because I’ve been busy, but I’m so excited to read it.

I suppose this is some me-time.  It was time for a mammogram for me.  It’s really not a big deal and takes only a few minutes.  The actual squishing/uncomfortable part is only a couple of seconds at a time. 

And then Wednesday a “me-time” that I did not enjoy:  an orthodontic consult.  I had braces 12 years ago as an adult, mainly because my teeth were wearing down unevenly due to them being crooked.  It was totally worth it, because my smile is so much better now and I love smiling.  (As Buddy the Elf would say, smiling’s my favorite!)  But I noticed that my bite has changed over the last two years.  I thought it was TMJ-related so I had a TMJ consult back in June.  Turned out the TMJ specialist told me it was my bite that was really the problem, and referred me to ortho.  So anyways, I went at lunch on Wednesday and my bite really is very off.  And it will cost thousands of dollars to fix it, and 7-12 months of braces again.  I am NOT happy!  :(

I took yesterday (Friday) off work again.  Not working two Fridays in a row is kind of awesome, although I think next time I will take Monday off.  I hadn’t had a haircut since May, so it was time for a trim.  I took a couple of before photos.

I haven’t had hair this long in a while, and I still like it a lot.  So I didn’t have a lot of length cut off, maybe just an inch.  But all the layers were re-cut and re-shaped.  And now I part my hair on the left side, because my hairstylist said my bangs naturally want to go that way.

And this is the back.  Lots of long layers.

I really like it.  It’s actually really easy to maintain compared to short hair.  I tried short hair once in 2002 and it was a lot higher maintenance than I realized.  With long hair you can sleep and wake up and it looks ok.  With short hair you wake up with horrendous bed-head and have to either wet it or wash it to style it.  And having the option of just pulling long hair into a ponytail is way better for me when I exercise than having short hair on my neck when I sweat. 

After my haircut I went to Old Navy and tried on skinny-fit jeans.  Normally I hate trying on skinny-fit jeans because they never fit me and make me feel like I have the biggest thighs and calves in the whole world.  But I’ve lost some weight so I thought I would try it again.  Miraculously, all three pairs I tried on fit!

The weird thing was, since they were different washes, they were THREE different sizes and they all fit me!  I tried on sizes 4, 6, and 8 and they all fit in those different washes/styles.  So the moral is, don’t just try on one-size at Old Navy and think that’s what you are.  You could be three different sizes, like me.  Well, I think it has more to do with their quality control than anything else.  But I guess on my fat-feeling days, I can pull on the size 4 and revel in it.

Obviously, no update could be complete without some cute Noodle photos.

I found him in a basket under my desk a few days ago.  I had never seen him in there before!

And a common sight around here when the weather gets cooler?  Noodle sleeping on Todd.

And then the other night, he slept on Todd’s chest while Todd played on his phone.  Cutest sight in the whole wide world!  ♥

I can’t believe that October is coming to a close!  Todd and I decided on our Halloween costumes.  I hope it works out.  We won’t be going anywhere, just handing out candy to kids.  Hopefully they’ll like our costumes.  :)

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