Chicken Wings and a Skinny Snowman Challenge

Back to the grind this morning, although I can’t complain.  I had a great four days off and I have another three day week this week.

In case you missed it, my step-son and his fiancé Lizz got married the Friday after Thanksgiving!  Just the two of them – but they’ll be coming up to Chicago on Wednesday.  With a whirl wind trip and lots of family and friends to see, I decided to take of Thursday and Friday of this week to keep all my possible options open to see them.

I found out Joe’s ring is actually titanium – I guess that’s the new 20 something trend in wedding rings – who knew?  Can’t wait to see them this week!

Tony picked chicken wings for his football food yesterday.  Usually my store sells the chicken wingettes – the smaller version that are already cut up – my store just had regular chicken wings.  I went to the butcher and asked him to cut them up for me – I forgot to tell them to cut off the wing tips, but oh well!

Usually I make my chicken wings using the copycat Hooters chicken wings recipe.  But that requires breading the wings and since I didn’t go to the grocery store until kick off of the Bears game, I didn’t have that time.  So I took them out of my grocery bag first, and had them sit in a cup of milk with Tabasco sauce for about 15 minutes, while I put all the rest of my groceries away.

Next I put 1 cup of flour in a ziploc bag with cracked pepper, salt and a pinch of cayenne pepper – this was enough for eight decent size wings.  Go from the milk mixture to the flour mixture, toss to coat, dip in the milk mixture a second time and give it a second toss in the flour.

I of course used my deep fryer – set at 375.  The smaller wing portions took about 8 minutes – the bigger seconds about 10 minutes. 

Did you know that Frank’s makes an actually buffalo wing sauce?  Where the hell have I been?!

I used about 1 tablespoon of melted butter mixed with about 1/3 a cup of the chicken wing sauce.  One word.  Amazeballs.  The chicken was super crunchy, and the sauce wasn’t too spicy for Tony.  Winning!

Thank goodness this was my breakfast and lunch yesterday!

I was Bizzy in my Kitchen – using leftovers to make up my SIL’s lunches for the week.  So far I’ve been pretty lucky, she’s liked just about everything I’ve made – although one week I gave her tofu in a dish, and that didn’t go over too well – she thought it was chicken and the texture of course was all wrong!

I kind of remind myself of Robert Irvine – I always use my chalk board to menu plan for her based on what I usually have on hand.  Since I forgot to bring my Mom the sweet potato spinach ravioli, Jody got an extra meal this week!

I also made potato pancakes made out of leftover mashed potatoes and chopped up green beans almandine – they turned out really good!  I check off the recipe when its done and ready to go.

Dinner last night?  Also amazeballs.  I had grilled chuck roast and baked potatoes on the menu, but neither of us was up for a heavy meal, so we opted for sandwiches.  I made two loaves of Artisan bread and used that as the base of our sandwiches.  Tony wanted a turkey BLT.  Me?  I had a Cuban on the brain!

Mine was:  2 slices of bread, sliced turkey breast, 2 pieces of bacon, yellow mustard, pickles and Swiss cheese – I made a panini out of it and it was so good – fresh baked bread sandwiches are just crazy ass good.

So I am jumping on Brooke’s Skinny Snowman Challenge, although I am starting today even though it started yesterday.  I’ve printed out her handy point chart so I can track my points.  It’s using the honor system – basically each week you score “points” for certain things – and there is a mini weekly challenge to do each week.

Here is the low down for Week 1:

• lose weight or maintain your weight this week – 15 points
• veggie serving at each meal – 5 points per meal
• 3 fruit servings a day – 10 points
• log your food – 10 points
• list 5 positive things per day – 5 points
• drink 65 ounces of water – 5 points
• over 65 ounces of water – 10 points
• have a meatless Monday – 10 points
• minimum of 30 minutes of exercise – 5 points each 30 minutes (maximum 50 points)
• First week mini challenge – try a new recipe – 25 points

If I do all of the above – the most I can score is 450.  I already missed out on the first day.  I also see meatless Monday’s being a challenge for me.  I think the best way for me to get my fruits and veggies in is to make more smoothies – green monsters and the like.  If you have any tried and true smoothie recipes, let me know!

I have to participate the full five weeks that takes us to December 29.  The person with the most cumulative points gets a change to win a prize.  And I am all about prizes!

So at the beginning of my 21 day challenge, I weighed in at:

Today I weigh:

I lost 1.8 in my 21 day challenge.  Could I have done better?  Of course. I kind of wasn’t as committed over the Thanksgiving weekend.  I had pie three nights in a row.  I didn’t work out.  And my water drinking wasn’t what it should have been.  But it’s better than gaining, right?

So I am going bold for this Skinny Snowman Challenge.  In five weeks my goal is to be 159, which means I have to lose 9.2 pounds.  During the holiday season.  My 45th birthday is March 19, and my goal is to be back to 140 by then.

Hope everyone had a wonderful long weekend.  Did you go off track these last four days?? 

I am off to make a pumpkin coconut milk smoothie.  Yep, my husband pretty much just threw up in his mouth reading that sentence, I am confident of that.  You’re welcome honey!

Make it a great day!