Day 3 - Ten Pounds To Go

The Casey Anthony Trial Is Heating Up

While I have admitted to my guilty pleasure of watching the Casey Trial, it's even more addicting now.  The defense is reaching the end of it's case and the fireworks are sure to commence during closing arguments expected to start in a day or two.

Unless the defense, at the last hour, decides to put Casey on the stand, the rebuttal case and closing arguments will air Saturday.  And, in a surprise announcement, Sunday, too.  This judge wants to get this done, and I appreciate it because I need to get back to my normal life.  Lots of late nights have resulted because of this trial.  My days are disjointed because I'm not getting my Sugar Notes business completed during the day.

But, more importantly ... something had to give.  And I'm admitting to you today that my exercising routine has suffered.  I usually exercise every-other-day.  And that's not happening.  It's very sporadic these days.  Hopefully, this trial will be over next week, because I can't stop myself from watching.  And it seems everyone in Florida is doing the same.  We're all very tired people.

Here's my meal plan for the day:

Breakfast - Cereal with non-fat milk.

AM Snack - Fruit smoothie

Lunch - Chicken Lettuce Wraps (SS web site).  I used some leftover chicken breast from last night for these lettuce wraps.  However, I felt the wraps were a little bland.  They needed something other than mayonnaise to zip it up.

Basically, you spread some mayo on large lettuce leaves, then fill with diced chicken, green pepper, red onion, and cucumbers.  I'm not a big fan of raw onions, and the combination wasn't the most exciting.  I think I'll use the ingredients tomorrow to make a salad. 

PM Snack - Whole grain Wasa crisp and natural salsa from the deli.  This snack is always a hit with me.

Dinner - Beef Stroganoff (SS web site).  This dish replaces the traditional noodles, or fettuccine, with sauteed spinach.  Plus, Suzanne adds a very unusual ingredient to the cream sauce . . . dill pickles and pickle juice.

I was attracted to the recipe because of the dill pickles because I love them.  Plus, I have always enjoyed beef stroganoff.  However, this dish was a little disappointing.

The meat and cream sauce are wonderful.  I loved the addition of the dill to the cream and mushroom-based sauce.  And, of course, tenderloin steak is always a treat.  However, to keep costs down, I used 1 pound of tenderloin and 1-1/2 pounds of sirloin to make this dish.

My problem with this dish was the spinach.  It gave the dish a disjointed taste.   In other words, they didn't go together.  Or, at least, that's my opinion.  I should mention that I like spinach.  That wasn't the problem. 

I also need to mention that you'll need 3 large saucepans to pepare this dish.  My stove has 2 large burners and 2 small burners, so it was a little tricky to make this dish.  I'd recommend a plug-in skillet for those of you with the same type of stove top as it was a bit crowded.  Plus, there's lots of clean-up, too.

When I serve this dish as a leftover I'm going to eliminate the spinach.  It was too powerful for the wonderful sauce and beef combination.  I think something like a light salad or steamed cauliflower would be better.