Losing that (pre)Baby Weight

Most new mothers, after having their babies, long to get back to their pre-baby figures. During my pregnancy, I gained 45 pounds, which is more than the recommended amount and, truthfully, less than I thought I'd gain over those long, eat-everything-in-sight months. When I got home from the hospital I refused to get on the scale. I didn't want confirmation that my 8 pound 5 ounce bundle of joy left a bundle of weight on my body. And as a breastfeeding mom, I wanted to focus on taking care of my little guy, and eating right for him,not worrying about how many calories I was consuming. So I stayed away from the scale.

At my six week check-in with the doctor, I begrudgingly stepped on the scale. And what to my wandering eyes did appear? I had lost 35 pounds! I was amazed. I was shocked. I was so happy I almost fell off the scale!

No longer afraid of what the scale would tell me, I started weighing myself weekly, and, within another month the whole 45 pounds had melted away. I'm going to credit it to the magic of breastfeeding - apparently, every ounce of milk I produce burns 20 calories. And, since Harrison eats like a teenage boy, he is literally eating his momma thin. Yay for breastfeeding!

But alas, the story is not all good. I forgot to mention one small detail - that I was about 40 pounds overweight before I got pregnant, 40 pounds that I gained after I entered into wedded bliss (which is a side effect of marriage that is often not discussed).

When Dan and I were engaged, I lost 50 pounds on Weight Watchers without feeling hungry or deprived. The program helped me learn to balance my caloric checkbook, making sure I wasn't wandering into bounced check territory and teaching me to eat more healthy, well rounded meals. Since I had such success on the program the first time around, by the end of my pregnancy I had committed myself to using Weight Watchers to lose my baby weight.  And now, not having any baby weight to lose, I'm using it to help me shed my pre-baby pounds.

I've been attending meetings for a month, with three weigh-ins thus far, and I've already lost 7.4 pounds. Granted, I do get to eat more because I'm breastfeeding, but I'm also hungrier than I've ever been in my life and I need to eat healthy for my kiddo. For those who are interested, no, you don't get up in front of the room and say, "My name is Chelsea and I weigh 190 pounds." The only people who know your weight are you and the receptionist. If you do well and want to share you can and everyone will celebrate with you. Its a great feeling.

So, moving forward with the blog, I'll be putting a lot of waistline-friendly recipes up, and giving you the PointsPlus value so that if you want to join in on the weight-loss success you can. I'd love to hear from you about your own healthy lifestyle journeys and about whether you've tried (and hopefully liked) my recipes.

Until next time,
Love, hugs and lots of good (healthy) food!

Valentine's Day with a 7-Week Old

As parents of a newborn (is he still a newborn at 7 weeks?  I'm not sure...) celebrating Valentine's Day is pretty far out of the picture for Dan and I.  We had purchased a Groupon for Medditeraneo (on Federal Hill) awhile back, so we asked my mom and dad to watch Harrison on Saturday night so we could go out for dinner.  It was a wonderful meal, but being on the Saturday before Valentine's Day, it didn't really feel like a big special occasion.  So yesterday, I took a chance at surprising Dan with a Valentine's Day meal, not quite knowing how it would come out as I'd never spent a day cooking and taking care of Harrison at the same time.

The menu:

Filet of Beef with Horseradish Sauce
Roasted Asparagus
Baked Sweet Potato
Pineapple Upside-down Cake

My intent was to document the creation of the entire meal, but as I quickly learned, cooking is enough of a chore when you are trying to take care of an infant, never mind photographing each step in the process. I started with the Pineapple Upside-Down Cake, since that isn't something that needs to be prepared right before serving, while the little one took his afternoon nap.  When he woke up in the middle of cooking, I put him in his vibrating, music-playing chair in the kitchen and he was content.

And so, I have an entirely documented pineapple upside-down cake.  I wanted to surprise Dan with dinner, so I tried to have it done for when he got home at 6:45, and Harrison just didn't want to cooperate with that schedule.  Between 5:30pm and 6:45pm when I was supposed to be cooking and photographing, I had to change him twice and feed him, leaving little time to do anything extra.  Since the meal wasn't that extravagant (or difficult), I don't feel so bad about not blogging it.  Maybe next time.

1 stick of butter
1 cup of brown sugar
1 can of sliced pineapples
1 jar of maraschino cherries
1 box of yellow cake mix (and the ingredients listed to make the cake, whatever they may be)

1.  Preheat the oven according to the yellow cake mix directions and prepare your pans with cooking spray.  I used two 8 inch round cake pans, but you could use square pans or a large rectangle pan as well.

2.  Divide the stick of butter into two separate microwave-safe containers.  Melt the butter in the microwave.  I used 50% power for 60 seconds.  I find that if you use 100% power, the outside gets hot so you get some melted some not, and it spatters all over the microwave.

3.  Pour the melted butter into the pans and sprinkle them evenly with brown sugar.

4.  Arrange the pineapples in the pans and add the cherries wherever they fit.  I like lots of cherries, so I stick them in everywhere.

5.  Prepare the cake according to the package directions. My cake mix called for water, oil and eggs.  I substituted the oil with applesauce because it works just as well and is way less calories.  For extra pineapple flavor, I substituted half of the water with pineapple juice from the canned pineapples.

6.  Pour the prepared cake mix over the pineapples and cherries in the cake pans.  Bake according to the cake package directions.

I thought that since I had two round cakes, I would make a double-layer pineapple upside-down cake.  But, there is a reason that you never see a double-layer pineapple upside-down cake - the top is too heavy and it causes the top layer of cake to split apart!  Since this was only for Dan and I, I wasn't too concerned so I left it how it was.  If you were making it for a party or very special occasion, I would advise against it.

You can see the cracks on the left and right sides...

I hope your Valentine's Day was as wonderful as mine and that every day is a celebration of how much you love the people in your life.

Until next time,

Back in the Saddle

As many of you know, my beautiful bundle of joy was born on December 26, 2010.  After letting us have a really great Christmas with our friends and family, Harrison Alden Siefert made his debut in the middle of the season's first blizzard.

Harrison - 3 weeks old (look at all that hair!)

He is an adorable, amazing and aware little boy, who has been taking up all of my time since he was born (which has left no time for my favorite past time - cooking).  It is an under statement to say that we have been eating poorly - if it weren't for the generosity of some great people who have brought us home made food and take out, we may not have eaten at all over these past seven weeks!

Today, Harrison slept until a wonderous 9am and after I fed him, he was completely content playing with daddy on his activity mat.  So I took the opportunity to make something delicious.  This is traditionally a fall recipe, but I had some pumpkin left over from the holidays.  I think everyone forgets that canned pumpkin is available all year long and that it is a great treat pretty much anytime.  For your eating pleasure - I present to you my Chocolate Chip Pumpkin Bread. Yum.

3 1/2 cups all purpose flour
1 tablespoon ground cinnamon
1 tablespoon ground nutmeg
2 teaspoons baking soda
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
3 cups granulated sugar
1 (15 ounce) can pumpkin
1 cup unsweetened applesauce
2/3 cup water
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
4 large eggs
1 cup semisweet chocolate chips

I realized after I took the picture that I forgot to pull out the pumpkin!  (Also, notice my new apprentice.  He is going to be a really good cook!)

1.  Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.  Spray three 9 x 5 inch loaf pans with cooking spray and set aside.  (I didn't have any 9 x 5 inch pans - my loaf pans are 8.5 inches and 10 inches, respectively.  I used 2 of the 8.5 inch pans and 1, 10 inch pan).

2.  In a medium bowl whisk together the flour, cinnamon, nutmeg, baking soda and salt.  Set aside.

3.  In a large mixing bowl, combine sugar, pumpkin, applesauce, water, vanilla and eggs.  Mix until smooth.

This is what it looks like after mixing.

4. Slowly bled in the flour mixture. 

With the flour mixture added.

5.  Fold in the chocolate chips.

 I used mini chocolate chips because that is what I had in the cupboard.

With the chocolate chips folded in.

6.  Bake for approximately 60 minutes, or until browned and a toothpick or cake tester comes out clean when inserted into the center.  My two smaller pans were done in about 50 minutes while the larger pan needed an additional 5 minutes (for a total of 65 minutes).  

7.  Remove loaves from oven and cool in pans for 15 minutes.  With a knife, go around the bread and loosen the loaves.  Remove from the pan and cool completely before slicing.  (I personally never wait for it to cool completely before slicing because I love it when the chocolate chips are melty.  Mmmm.)

That's it!  So simple even the mom of a 7 week old infant can fit it in!  Hopefully it won't be so long before my next blog entry, but until then, 

Labor Inducing Frittata??

Well, its Wednesday, December 22nd and by all rational predictions we should have a newborn baby boy in our arms - but we don't.  As of the last ultrasound, on Friday, he was already 8lbs 8 oz and more than ready to make his appearance in the world.  Almost a week later, we can assume he has gained almost a half pound more, which means we no longer have a big baby but a REALLY big baby.  

Like good parents-to-be, we have been trying everything we can think of to get labor moving.  My wish would be to not evict induce him out of my womb and to not have a c-section, which means that he can't get that much bigger.  So, bring on the walking, sitting on the yoga ball, sex and spicy foods!  

Dan and I have another appointment today to discuss our options moving forward.  So, this morning, I thought I'd try my hand at a spicy frittata to see if we could convince baby Siefert to evacuate come on out on his own.  I had a recipe for a frittata something like this, but I couldn't find it this morning, so I decided to improvise my own.  Hopefully this will speed up the process, so that next time I blog I'll have not just one adorable observer, but two.

Meet Luna, our lovable tortoiseshell cat.

This is more of a weekend or brunch dish.  All of the preparation and cooking took about an hour (including photo breaks).  But, if you plan ahead (like we sort of did) you can prepare enough bacon and vegetables for a couple more rounds of frittata throughout the week - then all you would have to do is the cooking, which would be about 15 minutes.

(aka - Kick Him Out Frittata)

4 slices of turkey bacon

1 teaspoon olive oil

1/3 to a 1/2 of a green pepper

1/3 to a 1/2 of a red pepper

1/3 to a 1/2 of a yellow pepper

2 cloves of garlic

1 teaspoon cumin

1 teaspoon coriander

1/2 teaspoon paprika

1/2 teaspoon black pepper

salt to taste (I used two pinches)

4 eggs

2 tablespoons milk (or soy milk)

1/4 to a 1/2 cup shredded mexican blend cheese

1.  Chop bacon into small pieces and cook over medium-high heat until crispy.

2.  While bacon is cooking, begin chopping peppers and garlic.  I find that the best way to get the flesh off a pepper is to hold it by its stem and slice in a downward motion around the ribs of the pepper.

Once all the flesh of the peppers has been removed, dice.  For me, it is easiest to slice each segment the long way and then to turn them about 90 degrees and chop.

My photographer (Dan) thought it necessary to show you the side effects of blogging about food - he often says that we should put a sticker over the MacBook label on my Mac to replace it with "Cookbook".

I chopped all of the peppers, but because they were so big, we decided we only needed about 1/3 of each pepper.  So, as I chopped, I placed the extras in tupperware containers to save for another meal.  Earlier I said that I "sort of" prepared for making this meal again - while I did chop enough peppers for two more frittatas, I didn't cook enough bacon or chop enough garlic...

I struggled for a long time with peeling garlic until I heard this unbelievably useful tip on Food Network. (I watch a lot of Food Network.)  Once you have your clove removed from the garlic head, chop off a little bit of the top end (where it is hard and flat).  Then, set the broad side of your knife on the garlic head and smash it with the heel of your hand.  The peel will come off easily and in one piece.

I also like to die my garlic into pretty small pieces.  This can be challenging as well.  I slice it the long way, then just let my knife go all over until the pieces are a good size.  Probably not the best way to chop garlic, but it works for me.

(As an aside - has anyone else noticed how incredibly swollen my fingers look in these photos?! )

3.  When the bacon has finished cooking, remove from the pan.  I like to set it on a plate covered with a paper towel so that some of the grease will drain off.  Also, if you have an assistant in the kitchen with you, make sure that they don't steal too much of your ingredients.

4.  Add the olive oil to the pan and let it heat slightly, then add vegetables and spices and stir thoroughly to combine.

5.  Cover and cook over medium-high heat for approximately 5 minutes, or until tender.

6.  While peppers and garlic are cooking, combine eggs and milk in a small bowl.

7.  When vegetables are done, add egg mixture to the pan.  Stir slightly to cover the vegetables evenly with egg.

8.  Sprinkle cheese on top of eggs and vegetables.  

9.  Cover and cook over medium heat for about 8 minutes, or until the eggs have set.

To serve the frittata, run a hard spatula around the edge of the pan.  It shouldn't stick to the pan as the grease from the bacon and the olive oil should have made a nice nonstick coating.

And thats it - enjoy!  It may not look like much, but it was really tasty.  We'll see if it does the trick.  Dan gave this one a 3 on the HRS.

Until next time,