Coffee Madness: My name is Lily and I am addicted to my Keurig

My name is Lily and I am addicted to my Keurig Special Edition B60 Brewing System.  Yes, it is not cheap.  Yes, the individual K-cups are not cheap.  (Although Keurig also has a refillable K-cup - use your own coffee and save the environment!).  But I love having a variety of flavors of coffee, iced coffee, tea and iced tea at my fingertips and the ease of making only one cup at a time.  The picture below is my Keurig shrine - ahem, I mean coffee/tea bar.  In the far right corner of the picture is my Brew Over Ice tumbler - I love the Green Mountain Nantucket Blend Iced Coffee and Green Mountain's French Vanilla Iced Coffee (no extra calories!).  It's summer in Florida, so I have been drinking most of my K-cup beverages over ice! 


Picture:  My beverage station - a shrine to consumerism:

I believe the fact that I have well over 100 K-cups in my coffee bar definitely proves that I am an addict.  I have apple cider, several varieties of hot chocolate, iced coffee, decaf, half-caff, herbal teas, caffeinated teas ... it is K-cup mania!  Perhaps one day I'll have the Keurig Cafe One-touch milk frother, but it's a little too expensive for my coffee budget.


K-cups seem to be everywhere these days - Target, Bed Bath and Beyond (where I purchased the above super-awesome K-cup drawers) and of course at Keurig and Green Mountain Coffee.  My favorite go to drink is Green Mountain Island Coconut coffee, iced.  It is delicious.  For an added kick, I mix in So Delicious Dairy-Free Unsweetened Coconut Milk.  That is a very tasty treat!  I also find that Timothy's Lemon Blueberry Passion Tea K-cup brewed over ice tastes very similar to Starbucks' iced passion tea at a fraction of the price.  I'm my own barista!


What's your favorite K-cup flavor?

Restaurant Duels: A Tale of Three Shortcakes

Since I've been away from my blog for several months (did a stint in Malaysia, Thailand and a couple of US trips), I thought I would post 2 entries for today.  My last post was "The 1200 Challenge" - eating less than 1200 calories in one day.  I think it's only appropriate that my second post of the day be on the other end of the caloric spectrum!

I love strawberries.  Even a childhood stint working as child manual labor on my great-aunt's strawberry farm, which left my arms swollen with various bug bites and scratches, could not put a damper on my love of strawberries!

Living in Florida- which has more strawberry growing seasons than most parts of the US - is a great place to be when you're a strawberry lover.  I'm originally from the Midwest where strawberry shortcake was either yellow sponge cake or pound cake.  But now I am in "the South" where more of the strawberry shortcakes tend to be biscuit-based.  I am a lover of all types of strawberry shortcakes, but my preference is a cake-based one (although I'll take angel food cake over pound cake) with a pureed strawberry sauce (none of that red artificial glaze gel goop stuff), large fresh berries and a generous dollop of whipped cream.  I am not crazy about ones that incorporate ice cream - just give me the whipped cream!

I find that most of the places I go to, do not have a strawberry shortcake on their regular menu.  But since it's summer, it seems like I am seeing strawberry shortcake everywhere!  One of the many reasons I took "The 1200 Challenge" today is because I have been indulging way too much with treats like strawberry shortcakes! 

I'm starting a "Restaurant Duels" section in my blog to compare the same dish from various different restaurants.  Here is "A Tale of Three Shortcakes" - three different strawberry shortcakes - one from an inexpensive chain restaurant, another from my local "comfort food but with a gourmet flair" restaurant and one from one of my favorite high end restaurants.  From the pictures, can you figure out which shortcake is from which restaurant? 

Strawberry Shortcake #1:

Strawberry Shortcake #2:

Strawberry Shortcake #3: (strawberry sauce in a sauce boat not pictured)

Have you figured out which shortcake belonged to which price range restaurant?  I'll tell you at the end of this blog, but first a little more about the shortcakes ...

Shortcake #1 is a biscuit-based strawberry shortcake with fresh strawberry ice cream and whipped cream.  The biscuit was decent and I liked the presentation.  The sauce was basically a pink strawberry flavored sugar sauce.  It seriously tasted like simple syrup.  Blend a few strawberries in there, please!  I believe the strawberry ice cream was homemade at the restaurant and it was good, however the strawberry chunks were too big so there were these huge frozen ice chunks of strawberry that were off-putting in the very creamy ice cream.  I would have rather thrown out the ice cream, plopped more whipped cream on it and made a better strawberry sauce.

Shortcake #2 is also a biscuit-based strawberry shortcake, but you'll have to trust me on that since this bowl was overflowing with strawberries that the biscuit was completely hidden.  The berries were very fresh and the biscuit was still slightly warm as if it had been freshly pulled from the oven.  Although I suspect it may have just been slightly microwaved!  The biscuit was moist, dense enough to hold up against the rich strawberry sauce but still fluffy.  It came with a scoop of vanilla ice cream and whipped cream.  Again, with my purist shortcake views - I could have done without the ice cream.  But this mighty bowl of strawberries was delicious!

Shortcake #3:  Holy tower of CAKE, CAKE, CAKE!  This is a pound cake-based strawberry shortcake.  A tower of layers of cake, whipped cream and berries with a pureed strawberry sauce on the side.  First, I have to say that I love having the strawberry sauce on the side.  I don't like my food drowning in sauce.  I like to be in control!  I wanted to love this incredible tower of shortcake.  The presentation is great and I am a girl who loves a generous portion of whipped cream.  But sadly, this shortcake was not great.  The pound cake was dense as a rock, completely dry and tasteless.  Had I been the pastry chef and realized the pound cake was dry, I would have cut the pieces much thinner and grilled them.  It would have added more flavor.  The whipped cream, berries and strawberry sauce were terrific.

I like to think my palate prefers expensive restaurants to inexpensive chain restaurants, but when it comes to Restaurant Duel: A Tale of Three Shortcakes - I found the inexpensive chain restaurant to have the best overall strawberry shortcake.

Favorite Overall:      Strawberry Shortcake #2  I am shocked that my overall favorite in A Tale of Three Shortcakes came from the inexpensive chain restaurant.  Strawberry Shortcake #2 came from Bob Evans Restaurant in Lady Lake, Florida.  Sometimes the inexpensive, simple desserts are the best!

Second Runner-up:  Strawberry Shortcake #1  This biscuit-based shortcake came from Bailey's Restaurant on Davis Islands in Tampa, Florida.  Bailey's has a new menu each week.  In my opinion, their cuisine is "comfort food with a gourmet flair."  While their shortcake was not my overall favorite, I have several favorites from their comfort food menu.

Sorry no prize:         Strawberry Shortcake #3   This one came from one of my favorite restaurants in the world, The St. Paul Grill  in the St. Paul Hotel in St. Paul, Minnesota.  Even though I found your dry, tasteless tower of shortcake lacking - I'll be back for your other much tastier dishes!

I think the pound cake vs. sponge cake vs. biscuit debate for a proper strawberry shortcake will go on to the end of time.  But give me a slice of fat free angel food cake, fresh berries, some pureed berries and some fresh whipped cream with almond extract and that's my idea of heaven ... That would bump Bob Evans' version right off the map!

Do you have a favorite version of strawberry shortcake?  Leave me a comment!

The start of "The 1200 Challenge": Meals under 300 calories

Hello!  I'm back!  I've been on the road (or "on the lam") both in the US and internationally and the travel has definitely taken its toll on my waistline and zapped motivation to eat healthy.  So today I gave myself a challenge.  I know that if I eat 1200 calories a day, I will lose weight.  It's simple math with my basal metabolic rate.  But unfortunately the things I find delicious tend to be a lot more than 1200 calories total!  (Movie theater nachos are almost 1400 calories!)  So for today, I decided to try to make my meals be under 300 calories-- but still be satisfying, substantial portion and delicious.  The challenge was also to use what I had on hand in the refrigerator and the pantry instead of hitting the grocery store.

Here are my results of "The 1200 Challenge" (and by the way, no one will ever accuse me of being a food stylist!):

Breakfast: 245 calories
An omelet made of Egg beaters and a Laughing Cow Queso Fresco Chipotle wedge with dried dill, served open-faced on a rye sandwich thin and slices of rotisserie chicken deli meat.  Overall it's high in sodium and would have been better if I added some veggies, but I wanted something hearty to start the day and here it is...

I'm not a big fan of sandwich thins - they don't have a lot of flavor, in my opinion.  So when I am craving bread, I do like the rye sandwich thins.  They definitely taste better than the regular wheat ones.  Could I have skipped the sandwich thin altogether?  Absolutely!  I also could have skipped the chicken and/or the cheese.  The heartiest component was the omelet and it was delicious and satisfying.

Lunch:  273 Calories
Again, not a food stylist - but it makes for a colorful picture!  This is my version of a loaded baked potato.  I adore potatoes and so I try not to have them in the house.  But I had guests over for the weekend and made Ina Garten's (Barefoot Contessa) recipe for Vegetable Tian and have some leftover potatoes.  I baked a Yukon gold potato and topped it with an entire package (150 calories) of cauliflower in cheese sauce.  No butter, no sour cream, no bacon bits - but it made a very hearty entree.  1/2 a cup of sliced baby cucumbers with Caesar dressing spray and 1/2 a cup of strawberries rounded out my meal.

I went for a 5.8 mile walk after work.  I live in Florida where we have lovely birds and marine life.  I was very fortunate to see two dolphins on my walk.  It's important to stop and take in that the world is a beautiful place.  It is really easy to allow stress and the tedium of day to day life to form blinders around us.  Taking time to stop and watch dolphins was a great way for me to center myself in my place in the universe.

While I walked, my thoughts turned to food -- I thought I had a tuna steak defrosted in the refrigerator.  I thought of a tuna steak on a bed of greens with a side of spinach.  Protein and vegetables.  I had had starchy carbs at both breakfast and lunch, so I wanted to stay away from starches at dinner.  But when I came home, there was no tuna steak defrosting in the fridge!  Perhaps my cats had grilled it themselves as soon as I took off for my walk.  Could there be a roaming tuna steak bandit?

I suddenly was ridiculously hungry.  I decided a snack was in order to calm my appetite before I re-planned my dinner.

Snack:  122 calories
Grapefruit with 1 tsp. sugar.  I usually do not eat sugar on my grapefruit, but this baby was TART!  It gave me an excuse to use my serrated grapefruit spoon!

With my appetite not as ravenous, I opened the refrigerator to start planning dinner.  I was dismayed that a lovely avocado I had purchased had gone bad on my counter.  That's a way to save calories- I guess! 

Dinner: 187 calories
Chicken Chiffonade Salad with Creamy Garlic Yogurt Dressing

I love summer salads.  Last Sunday, I had friends over for dinner and I put my own spin on Lauren at Healthy Food for Living's Red Berry Salad.  Well Lauren's delicious salad recipe continued to inspire me.  I took 2 cups of a mix of spring greens and spinach as my salad base, added 1/4 c. red onion, 1/2 c. each of green pepper, celery and zucchini and 1 c. of strawberries.  I then took 6 slices (1 serving) of chicken deli meat, rolled up the slices and cut it chiffonade style.  I whipped out my Cuisinart Smartstick Hand Blender that I bought on sale at Crate and Barrel.  I love the Smartstick!  Especially with its chopper bowl attachment.  It's like a mini food processor without all the fuss of dragging out my big food processor.  I took 1 clove of garlic, dried parsley, 1/2 tsp. country style dijon mustard, splash of champagne vinegar and 1/8 c. Greek yogurt and took it for a spin in the Smartstick chopper bowl.  It made a very fragrant creamy dressing, BUT too much garlic!  Very raw, very biting - but a little goes a long way.  The spicy, creamy dressing with the spinach, chicken and strawberry made a delicious complex bite of flavors.  I cannot believe that this entire huge salad was 187 calories!  Definitely less garlic in the dressing next time!

I did have an (unpictured) additional snack with dinner - 3 jumbo olives and a serving of bread and butter pickles.  Hello salt and sugar!  This snack #2 was 95 calories.  I can't believe that a couple olives and a couple lousy pickle slices were over 1/2 the calories of my humongous salad!

My challenge was to eat 1200 calories or less today, but to also eat well, hearty, nutritious and delicious!  While today's menu had more sodium and processed food than your average nutritionist would probably like, I feel like I did pretty well.  My total calories for today was 922 calories for 3 meals and 2 snacks.  If I had chopped 2 hard boiled eggs on the dinner salad, I would have increased my protein and still been under 1200 calories for the day.

Tomorrow, I'm trying a local German restaurant for dinner - the typical order of weiner schnitzel with no side dishes is 750 calories!  I suspect tomorrow will be healthy breakfast, healthy lunch and a not so healthy dinner!