#20: Chicken pot pie

One of my friends is pregnant with twins, so she recently went on a cooking mission where she made about 6 months worth of dinners and froze them all so that when the babies come she and her family will still be able to eat homecooked meals even though they'll be crazy-busy. One of her recipes was just a simple chicken pot pie, which I've never made before, but I thought it would be something nice to do. I actually made two and froze one of them, so now Keegan and I will have another one for some other day down the line! And we only ate half of the first one, so there are plenty of left overs for lunches, mmmmm. It was also pretty economical because I was able to get the chicken on sale (half price!), the soup on sale with a coupon, the mixed veggies on sale, and the pie crusts on sale with a coupon. All in all to make both meals the cost was about $12; I know I've made meals that cost much less than that, but I sort of made this on a whim and I bet if I plan in advance I can buy all the stuff on sale with more coupons and save more money to bring the cost per meal down. But I guess really we get two meals from each pan, so it's like $3/meal.

The recipe is just milk, a can of cream of chicken soup, frozen mixed veggies, and cubed chicken all mixed into a pan with a pie crust over the top. I used skim milk and the healthy choice version of the cream of chicken soup, so really the unhealthy part of the recipe was the pie crust. But that's okay, it's a small portion of the actual meal. It was really hearty and I was stuffed by the time I ate what I had served myself, which really wasn't that much food. Keegan was able to eat a much bigger piece than me AND he had seconds. And there was still half of it left in the pan! I can tell this will be a good meal for when we have kids.

Giant mixing bowl with two pies worth of ingredients!




Ready to start baking (or freezing)








Mmmmm, dinner








Now I'm looking forward to trying out a few Crockpot recipes I found online. I have a Crockpot but I've never used it; I bought it for like $2 at a yard sale when Keegan and I were getting ready to move in together, but I never got around to using it. I guess I'll just see if it works first, and if not, then I know what to buy for our kitchen next. But for such a cheap price I figured I'd buy it, just in case. I got a lot of nice kitchen stuff at yard sales actually, really nice baking sheets and casserole dishes.

SEM

I'm getting trained on the SEM today and I'm pretty thrilled. This means I should be able to look at the stuff I've been making in my experiments and hopefully I'll be able to confirm that I've actually been doing what I think I've been doing. If these images are good and support my work then I'm most likely going to regard them with the same level of reverence as ultrasound images. I'm just saying.

Edit:
I was trained on both the SEM and the sputter coater; I don't have any images yet because the SEM is totally booked this week, and next week I'll be out of town. Booked time for 7/6/2010, so hopefully then I will have exciting pictures!!

BMES and P90x pause

I found out yesterday that I'll be presenting a poster at BMES in Austin in October! I was already going to go to Austin since I bought tickets to ACL, but now I get to go for free (at least the flight, most of my nights in the hotel, and most of my meals). Keegan will be there after the conference to go to ACL also, so he and I have our own room for after the conference is over. I'm a bit concerned about missing class for the conference, but I'm sure teachers will understand.

I have been trying to sign up for this class at UNC, synthesis of polymers, but in order to do that I have to have at least 3 credit hours at Duke because I can't take more hours at visiting institution than I'm taking at my home institution; the course I'm taking this fall is only 2 credit hours, so I need to find another seminar or 1 credit hour class to take so that I'll be able to take the class that I really want to take. It's a vicious cycle. I only need 3 more hours to be finished with all of my required coursework, and I really want to take this class at UNC, which essentially means I have to take 6 hours guaranteed. Oh well, at least these courses will be useful to me down the line.

I've also been keeping up with P90x pretty well (missed 2 days but at least kept the order of the workouts) but I'm going to have to probably restart the whole 90 days after Keegan and I get back from our anniversary trip. Today through Friday I'll be house/pet-sitting at my family's house in Raleigh and although I could take the DVDs with me, Keegan also needs them and I can't really take all of my weights and mat and pull up bar with me. Then Friday-Sunday we're going to a wedding at the Outer Banks, then next Saturday we leave for our trip. I will just be so messed up with the schedule that I might just want to do what I can, then really start over from the beginning. I could be hardcore and take these things on vacation with me, but I'd rather enjoy our anniversary trip and just go running in the hotel fitness centers or something :-) I think for now I'll just do the ones I don't need any equipment for, like the yoga and the plyometrics. Maybe I'll take one set of weights with me to do the arms workout while I'm at my family's house, but we'll see.

I'm super-excited to go to the Outer Banks this weekend to see Jen and Philippe get married! And on the day before our wedding anniversary! How romantic :-) I also can't wait to take an entire week to spend time with Keegan in relaxing locales! It will be wonderful to see some beaches that aren't 95 degrees (but then I will probably be cold, but oh well) and to see a part of the country I've never been to. I'm sure there's a lot of history there for me to soak up :-)

This year's confirmed new state tally:
Kentucky, Indiana, Washington, Minnesota, Rhode Island, Maine, Texas

I'll be 32/50, only 18 from my goal (assuming I don't go to any other states this year)!

Ahh, what I'm looking forward to:

Newport, RI




Bar Harbor, ME

#19: Strawberry vanilla "muffins"

This is the same deal as the previous muffin recipe post -- I made more of a cake than a muffin, but that's okay. For this recipe we were also able to use fresh berries, which is great. They were also on sale, double great!

I think this recipe would have done much better as muffins because the dough was so thick it took about twice as long as the recipe said to cook. It still tasted great though!

#18: Lemon blueberry "muffins"

Keegan decided he would like me to make a breakfast food this time, so he chose two muffin recipes and I made them both so he could have some yummy breakfast food. I made them in cake pans because that's how Keegan wanted them, that's why I call them "muffins" because it was a muffin recipe but I made more like a cake of each of them.

This recipe was very tasty, made with lemon yogurt, lemon juice, and fresh blueberries (among other things) but even with all that lemon it still had only a hint of lemon taste and I would prefer more lemon taste. I really like lemon poppy seed muffins too, so maybe I'll make them some time. I didn't make any icing or topping for this recipe although that was an option. I'm really looking forward to eating the rest of the blueberries this week because they were super-tasty! I always feel like blueberries are hit-or-miss but these are really good AND they were on sale, mmm, the best kind!

P90X, day 6

I forgot to write about the last program I did, a kickboxing exercise video kenpo x. It was also pretty intense -- I was sweating a lot and my heart rate was around 180 by the end so I guess I was at least working myself. I've never really done any kickboxing and it was a bit difficult for me to follow their various punching and kicking patterns. Jab, cross, hook, uppercut! Baaah!!

Now I'm into my second round of the workouts and they're going pretty well. I'm going to have to take the time off this week, or try to do them at my family's house since I'll be house/pet-sitting for them Tuesday-Friday. At least they have a treadmill so I'll have somewhere to run that's not outside in 95 degrees.

#17: Chicken and macaroni bake

The most recent new recipe I made was a chicken and macaroni bake (which I have for leftovers today for lunch). This recipe calls for gouda cheese, chicken, pasta shells, heavy cream, chicken broth, frozen veggies, flour, and butter. It took a bit to make because I was shredding the cheese and then manning the sauce and noodles as they each cooked. The sauce was made with the butter, cheese, broth, heavy cream, and flour. After this was ready I mixed it with the chicken and frozen veggies, then mixed everything with the noodles and baked it. Yuuuuum, I can't wait to eat the leftovers in a few minutes!

#16: Watergate salad

My grandmother used to always make this salad in the spring/summer months that I really enjoyed so I tried to find the recipe online. It was a bit tricky because as it turns out, there are many many types of watergate salad out there.

Her recipe uses Cool Whip, orange Jell-O mix, crushed pineapple, and mandarin oranges. When I made it however, it tasted the same as hers but the consistency was all wrong and it was way too runny. I think the issue is that I used light Cool Whip and sugar free Jell-O so that probably messed with the final product (but not the taste! It was still very tasty!) I want to make it again and make it right, so I'll ask my mom is she has the recipe or just try it again with "original" ingredients.

Watergate salad, before I put it in the fridge to set.

#15: Alfredo

So I'm really falling behind on my new recipe things, but I also haven't been posting very regularly because I just leave the pictures on my camera for weeks.

For one of the weeks I made alfredo, real alfredo, from scratch. With the heavy cream, cheese, butter, all things of unhealthy goodliness, yuuuum. Needless to say, it was extremely tasty and we enjoyed having those leftovers!

Fatty goodness!





Final product, complete with some tasty bread with the words Sicilian and sun dried tomato in the title

P90X, day 5

Day 5 of P90X was legs and back which was not too horrible but still pretty challenging. This workout had more pull ups (just when my arms were starting to recover from day 1!) and a lot of lunges. I think the most challenging exercises were some calf raises and then these leaning lunges. There were also lunges called sneaky lunges because they were all on tiptoe, so those put a lot of stress on my calf muscles. The workout was also followed by ab ripper X; I can already tell I'm improving with the ab workouts, making a conscious effort to use my ab muscles (instead of tensing up my neck) and doing each of the exercises. The workout ends with these Mason twists and I was able to stick with them for all 50 yesterday, so that makes me feel good :-) Of course maybe because the hour long workout for the day wasn't as rough on me as I expected I had more energy to persevere through all the ab stuff. Whatever, in any event, I already feel stronger! Workout 6 is kickboxing, so we'll see how I do there.

P90X, day 4

Yoga X was pretty intense but I really enjoyed it. There were some pretty difficult maneuvers for me because my balance needs some work but I feel better this morning. Less sore from my other days of working out because I was stretching a lot, so that is nice. My back hurts a bit but I find myself sitting up straighter, trying to make a conscious effort to keep good posture. I wasn't able to hold my legs as straight or as high as they did in the DVD so I guess that's how I'll gauge my improvement.

Today is back and legs so we'll see how that goes :-)

P90X, day 3

Tonight I did the shoulders and arms workout which was not as bad as the other two I've done. This tells me that I need to use heavier weights. Some of the exercises I really had to work at (mainly the triceps), but I think next time I should switch to using my 8s for most of them. This workout was also followed by the ab workout, which was killer. I've already done the ab routine before, but this time it was even worse because I'm still sore in places I didn't even know I had. I guess I'll also have to see how I feel in the morning because it's only been a couple hours since I finished the workout -- I'll probably feel more of the pain tomorrow (let's see if I can distinguish it from the pain I already had going into the workout...)

Tomorrow's workout is yoga, which is 90 minutes long. Yeah... let's see how I deal with that one... I have enjoyed yoga when I've done it before, but I don't know if I'll be able to hold awkward positions for extended periods of time with my already overtaxed muscles.

P90X, day 2

You know in Kill Bill when Uma Thurman wakes up from her coma and tries to get out of bed? That was me this morning after plyometrics. Well, maybe I wasn't quite that bad, but it was rough, especially since I'm still really sore from the chest and back and abs workouts.

Plyometrics is essentially jump exercising so I spent an hour doing various lunges and squats integrated with jumping. It doesn't sound like it's that challenging, but I've heard it's widely recognized as the most difficult of all the workouts. I guess that should make me feel good because if I survived this one I should (theoretically) make it through the rest of them! A small victory I guess :-) My heart rate at the end of it was 170, so that's pretty good, in my aerobic zone or whatever. Even after all the cool down stretches it was still 140, so then I just collapsed on my yoga mat under our ceiling fan hah.

I think next on my rotation is shoulders and arms, but I'm not sure how well I'll fare with that since my arms are still in such pain from my first workout. Oh well, maybe it's more biceps instead of triceps and back. At least now I'm even more motivated to finish! It will be interesting to see how different I feel after the first cycle (month) of workouts. Before the first one you're supposed to record measurements around your biceps, thighs, hips, waist, and chest. I wonder if they will be any different in a month's time? Suzana says that she noticed a difference in the first month, so perhaps I will also! I'd like to keep running too because that also slims you down whereas this workout will muscle me up.

On a funny note, my thighs are not too much bigger around than my biceps! 17 inches versus 11.5 inches, but granted my measuring technique was less than precise (took a shoelace, marked the spot, and then measured that against a measuring tape since I don't have any sort of flexible measuring length like used for sewing). As long as I do it the same way every time it should be alright.

P90X, day 1

So amongst the people in my lab there is a P90X fad. P90X is this workout regimen where you have 90 days of pretty intense workouts. There is a cycle of 12 workouts: chest and back, plyometrics, shoulders and arms, yoga, legs and back, kenpo, stretch, core synergistics, chest shoulders and triceps, back and biceps, cardio, and abs. You keep to a schedule that cycles you through the different workouts to help you build strength and flexibility.

I decided to join the craze to see what it's all about. The first workout is chest and back, followed by abs. Now, I've never been able to do a pull up in my entire life and this workout was almost entirely a variety of push ups and pulls ups. I felt physically sick after getting through that work out because I never do straight weight training/muscle building exercises, I generally just run and do sit ups. Sometimes I do a tiny bit of weight lifting, but with like 5 or 8 pound weights. After doing this workout I realize I'm going to need heavier weights and Keegan will certainly need heavier weights. 8 pounds are the heaviest I own at the minute, but I'll probably need 10s and 15s once I get stronger.

We were able to get these discs from one of Keegan's friends, and we realized we're missing the plyometrics DVD, so since I'm supposed to follow the cycle, I guess I'll just run faster today or something, to get my heart rate up. And do a bunch of jumping jacks? Hopefully the next time I reach this DVD in the cycle we'll have it and I can keep with it.

My arms are angry with me. This morning I was thinking to myself "if I don't wash all the shampoo out of my hair no one will really notice, will they?" since that's how little I wanted to raise my arms over my head. Even reaching directly in front of me is a little taxing!

And my hands hurt. Will have calluses by the end of this...

May pleasure reading

This month I read the book Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen. I first heard about the book when I was reading an interview with Robert Pattinson and he said something about a new movie he is working on which also stars Reese Witherspoon. I really like Reese Witherspoon, so I looked up the movie and saw that it was based on a book. I really had no idea what the book was even about, but I decided to read it anyway.



The book is about an old man who is in a nursing home but it's all about flashbacks to his life right after vet school when he joined a circus as the vet for all the animals. He met his (future) wife while there for the summer, but she was married to a cruel and somewhat mentally disturbed man. I really liked the way the book ended, but while I was reading it I got a bit sad thinking about how when I'm older I hope I'm not shoved alone in a nursing home or something. I'd like to think that Keegan and I will grow really old together and have a bunch of kids that will come to visit us. But I'm sure most people miserable in nursing homes think their kids will visit... Well, anyway, I liked the book, it was easy to read and most of all, it held my attention. That's really all I ask for :-)