Test Kitchen

For readers who don’t follow me on social media, it’s the one time of year when I decide to cut my hair because once it gets long enough to go in a ponytail, that’s the only way I wear it.  I went over to a friends house on Saturday night, so Hannah did my make-up.  I am on the verge of coloring my hair to hide the greys but I am not there yet.  I am too low maintenance for that!  Hannah is all about the youtube videos about contouring make-up – she does it like this video and while it seems like SO MUCH make-up, but it ends up not looking like too much.

So my meal planning on my second week of the 7 Day Carb cycle is way more manageable.  While I like to think I could make 35 separate meals, um – that gets too much after a while – even for me!  Breakfasts on the plan are always high carb, so I made a potato crusted zucchini quiche.  I still bake 4 baked potatoes over the weekend, so one of the baked potatoes became the base of this dish.  This pie plate is 4 servings.

There is my whole day of food.  The only thing missing was my protein bar that I forgot to take a picture of which was Meal #4.  

I ended up walking before work, and at lunch too.  I just put a new battery in my fitbit but it kept turning off and I would reinstall that battery and then it would work again.  I had to manually put in my walks, so I didn’t end up capturing any of my steps around the office or at home.  Oh well!

I had an Eye of Round roast that I wanted to grill so I skipped the gym and came home and lit the grill.  My coals were on fleek!

I put the roast on and then had time to squeeze in a T-25 video – it’s been a long time since I’ve seen my buddy Shaun T!

I forgot how hard those are – it was all lower body and my quads were killing me by the end, but I stuck with it.

My stats for my low carb day:  1518 calories, 70 fat, 96 carbs, 17 fiber and 116 protein. 

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So when I last left you on my Beef tour we had just visited three different places to buy meat and it was time for lunch!  They had a lovely lunch for us at Seasons 52.   It was nice getting to know each other better at lunch.

Then it was off to the National Cattleman’s Headquarters and Culinary Kitchen!

We met up with Dani again, who is actually a Meat Scientist – didn’t even know that job existed, but she’s got that job.  She pulled out beef we had bought as well as from their refrigerators and explained all the cuts of beef and placed then where they would be on the steer.   Check out this interactive booklet for Beef Cuts.  Basically the front part of the steer is the most tender and fatty, and as you go back towards the rear you’ll get the tougher cuts of beef but they are leaner.  My Eye of Round I made for dinner was super lean and a perfect cut for grilling using indirect heat.  Chuck roasts are best for pot roast, and ground beef can actually be trim from any part of the steer.  If you are making burgers, 80/20 is the best choice for juicy burgers and best flavor.  Fat = flavor! 

It was interesting to see how The Beef Checkoff and the National Cattleman’s Association work hand in hand with the U.S. Department of Agriculture.  The test kitchen also works directly with the registered dieticians on staff and it isn’t unusual for the test kitchen to present a dish to the nutritionists only to have them come back and say “you need to cut 200 mg of sodium or 5 grams of fat before we can roll that recipe out” and back to the drawing board they go.  Not gonna lie I think that would be the coolest job to cook all day like that!

Dani showed us how to cut down a primal cut of beef – the New York strip.  Then we each got a piece of meat to trim and cut down.  p.s.  I did have gloves on when I was cutting, but forgot to take a picture so my friend Holley took one for me – thanks Holley!

So I was able to get a 1.5 pound roast (upper left of my tray of beef) 8, 8 ounce steaks (I took one off for my recipe I made) 1.5 pounds of beef for kabobs, and that “tail” portion on the far right hand side could be ground for tacos.  Surprisingly when we got done, they told us they would ship us our beef – nice!

Tomorrow’s recap will be actually cooking in the Test Kitchen which was so fun!

Alright, off to get in a walk before the rains come in before work – make it a great day!