Tony and I went to his yearly knee doctor appointment.  We live in the far NW suburbs of Chicago, and his doctors office is in Chicago on North Marine drive – it took us an hour and 40 minutes to get there with traffic!

First I have to say that I am the WORST back seat driver you’ll ever meet.  I don’t think Tony or Hannah brake soon enough, I am always grabbing the door handle.  It drives them both completely nuts!  So I have to keep my head down when I am the passenger – luckily this was a good read!

I had a piece of rye bread with a shmear of peanut butter before we left, then throughout the morning ate a big fuji apple.  Breakfast was only 191 calories, 36 carbs, 4.8 protein, 3.9 fat and .3 fiber.

Long time readers will remember that back in December of 2008, Tony’s knee replacement got infected.  He had to have that implant removed, they put an antibiotic spacer in his knee and he basically was unable to walk much for three months.  He relied on his left leg when using crutches.  It only makes sense that his right thigh muscle is not as strong as his left one.

So the x-rays look good – we need to concentrate on two things: building up his thigh muscle and losing a bit of weight.  The first thing the doctor said was “go on the South Beach Diet.”   We have both tried it in the past, but I wasn’t really into it – I really, really, really like bread and potatoes!

One good thing about being on insulin is that I can eat anything I want.  But as we were driving home, I thought, do I really need to pump that much insulin into me to have a baked potato??  Marriage is the ultimate team sport, so I plan on giving the South Beach Diet 110%.  Well, starting Monday so we can get rid of all the things we can’t eat the first two weeks:  alcohol, bread, rice, potatoes, pasta or baked goods.  😀

As we were waiting in the doctors office, Tony’s like “where do you want to go to lunch?”  I couldn’t think of anything off the top of my head, and the hospital we were at is not in the nicest neighborhood.  All of a sudden he looks at me and says “Siegelman’s?”  Yep!

First off, my parents in law and my mom would have loved Wednesday’s special:

liver and onions . . . worst combination ever 😀

I went with the classic Reuben.  Mind you, I believe I am the queen of Reuben sandwiches, if its on a menu, 90% of the time that’s what I am going to order.  The only thing I hate is getting a sandwich where the corned beef is so tough, you can hardly bite through the sandwich.  Not here my friends.  After the first bit I seriously closed my eyes and savored the moment.  Perfectly tender, lightly grilled, not greasy.  Heaven on a plate!

I ate the whole sandwich, and about 5 fries.  My guestimate is that lunch comes in around743 calories, 71 carbs, 36 protein, 40 fat and 4.5 fiber.  Does that sound about right?

In this month’s Food & Wine magazine, Mario Batali had a recipe from his new eatery called Butcher’s Ragu.  When I was driving the other day, Tony looked over and saw the picture and said “that’s looks good!”   When I started to put it together I realized I didn’t have all the ingredients, and the only sauce was 1/2 cup of tomato paste.  So this recipe below is no where near Mario’s – let’s just say it was my inspiration!

Biz’s Butcher’s Ragu Recipe (printer friendly version here)

Makes 8 servings (237 calories, 10.9 fat, 2.7 carbs, .4 fiber and 30 protein)

Ingredients

1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil
1 medium carrot, diced
1 rib celery, diced
1 clove garlic, minced
2 ounce pancetta, diced
1 1/2 pounds lean ground beef
1 ounce deli ham, diced
28 can canned tomatoes
1 cup milk
1 teaspoon oregano
1 salt and pepper to taste

Directions

  1. In a large dutch oven, heat oil. Add carrot, celery and garlic, stirring occassionally for about 5 minutes. Add the pancetta and ground beef and cook until no longer pink – about 8 minutes.
  2. Add the oregano, ham, milk, and tomatoes and simmer for 1 hour. Season with salt and pepper.

I dice my celery and carrots really tiny:

I only used 2 ounces of pancetta – it gives the sauce a bit of smokiness.

While the sauce was simmering, I realized I had time to squeeze in some exercise.  I did 20 minutes of Cardio 360 and 20 minutes of Strength 360 on my exercise on demand.  Then finished it off with 10 minutes of abs.  An hour later, this is how my sauce looked after it reduced on simmer – can I just tell you how good this smelled while I was working out??!!

My plate:

with 100 calorie garlic bread, dinner comes in at: 505 calories, 62 carbs, 36 protein, 12.4 fat and 10.8 fiber.

Stats for Wednesday:

  • 1439 calories, 169 carbs, 76 protein, 57 fat and 21 fiber
  • 34% of calories from fat
  • my grade was a C+ for being high in sodium, high in cholesterol and high in fat
  • 20 minutes cardio
  • 20 minutes strength
  • 10 minutes abs

Alright, I have to publish this so I can finish making my butternut squash apple soup for my lunch today.  Have a great day! 😀