Day 89

I woke up with a very bad migraine today, couldn't get to work so decided I'd stay at home and work.
Work was very steady spent a whole lot of the day completing stuff and attending meetings.

Did my insanity today, it was cardio and resistance. I could do pretty much all of it with a little breaks in between. I think the whole pushups part was a little difficult to do. I wasnt lazy today I just started working out at 3.

I ate healthy all day, Salad for dinner but ate biryani for dinner. So my carb overload for the week is done :)

These posts will matter more as I finish day 8. Until then, posts are pretty mundane.

Day 90

Im doing count down posts, this helps me stay motivated.

So today, I was able to complete pretty much all my work, ate healthy, worked out and finished most of my tasks.

Insanity workout was a little tough, picking up since i hadnt done it for 2 weeks now. Wasnt huffing puffing but was tired and wanted to give up. Made sure I did the whole class. Its easier on days when I dont have to get to work but on days when I do have to go to work there is a lot of things I have worry about. Tomorrow is cardio circuit, lets see how that goes...

89 to go...

90 Day Experiment

Sunday night,  I sit in my living room watching a netflix series, surfing the net and trying to complete a string of assignments due Tuesday. With all this multi tasking I thought what would it take to be able to be productive, maintain a healthy diet, workout everyday for the next 90days? I want to do this as an experiment to see if I can commit and survive. 

1. Insanity workout
2. Healthy Eating
3. Track food, exercise.
4. No coffee first thing in the morning.
5. Blog the whole 90days about what I did and how i achieved it.

Thats just the basics, how do you measure productivity? At work no more slacking, try and finish tasks that week. At home, complete all tasks defined as laundry, cleaning, cooking, dusting etc. 

The 90days experiment begins tomorrow...

Szechuan Stir Fried Chicken

While grocery shopping I bought this months' cooking light magazine. Their cover was 25 chicken recipes, but most of them were just pan roasted chicken, something you cant eat with rice. We are big on rice and want rice for dinner. So I finally found one recipe that can be served with rice. Its was a nice cold day with some stir fry, white rice and green tea.

Prep Time - 5mins    | Cooking Time  - 20mins   | Yield - 3 people

Ingredients
3 tblsp dark sesame oil
1/2 cup low sodium chicken broth
2 tblsp low sodium soy sauce
1 tblsp rice vinegar
2 tblspn chilli paste (I used sambal oelek)
2 tsp cornstarch
1lb skinless boneless chicken cut into bite sized pieces
1 yellow red pepper, cut into strips
1 red pepper, cut into strips
1 green pepper, cut into strips
1/2 vertically sliced onions
1 tblsp freshly minced ginger
1 tblsp freshly minced garlic
1/4 cup roasted unsalted peanuts

Combine 2 tblsp sesame oil and the next 5 ingredients in a bowl. Heat wok over medium heat. Add remaining 1 tsp sesame oil swirl, add chicken stir fry for 2 minutes. Remove chicken from pan. Add yellow bell peppers and the next 5 ingredients through garlic. Stri fry for 1 minute. Add the broth mixture cook for 30 seconds or until thick. Return chicken to the pan and cook until the chicken is done. Serve this with a scoop of white rice garnish with peanuts.

Thai chicken soup

Both M and I have caught a bad cold, the weather has been fluctuating here for the past couple of days. Its warm and sunny and by evening its gets really cold, like numbness in your fingers cold. So I decided to make thai chicken soup. I mainly used lemon grass known for its ability to aid pain relief as well as antibacterial and antifungal properties to add flavor to the soup. We just slurped the soup through some very tense episodes of '24' and went to sleep.

Prep Time  - 10mins   | Cooking Time  - 1 Hour   

Ingredients

2 cans low sodium chicken stock

4 cloves garlic finely chopped

1 inch ginger finely chopped

1 large onion cubed

1 celery root diced

1 carrot diced optional

2 cups shredded cooked chicken

1/2 cup shittake mushrooms chopped

1 tblspn freshly ground pepper

2 tblspn finely chopped basil

1 block of egg noodles

2 stalks of lemon grass finely diced

1 tblson olive oil

In a dutch oven heat oil, add the ginger, garlic, onions, celery root,carrots and sweat it. Add the chopped basil, lemon grass, mushrooms and chicken and saute for 5mins. Now add the chicken stock mix throughly reduce flame. Add the pepper and add salt only if necessary. The chicken stock usually contains salt so check taste and then add salt. Add the noodles and mix. Cook this on low heat for 40mins. Garnish with peanuts and serve.

Carrot Halwa

Im finally back on track cooking and blogging. Work, travel has kept me busy



Ingredients

7 carrots grated
1/3 cup ghee
1/2 cup sugar
1/3 cup milk
1 tblsp powdered cardammom powder
3 tblsp chopped cashew
3 tblsp raisins

Heat ghee in a pan, add the grated carrots and fry. Now add sugar stir and cook for about 5 mins. You will see the color changing a dark orange, now add the cardamom powder chopped cashew and raisins and cook for another 5mins. Add the milk and mix throughly and fry for another 5mins. Serve hot with chopped pistachio and vanilla icecream

Chocolate Cupcake with Chocolate Ganache

A simple chocolate cupcake with chocolate ganache. Its a very basic recipe but very delicious and yummy. The one thing Ive leart about baking is following the rules. Make sure the ingredients and measurements are to the dot. Butter for any kind of baking has to be at room temperature I usually leave mine overnight. This applies to the eggs also. Most baking recipes calls for eggs at room temperature helps maximizing volume when beating. A quick way to warm eggs to room temperature is to place them in warm water for 10-15mins or else leave them out for 30-60 minutes...

Prep Time - 30mins  | Cooking Time - 30mins  | Inactive Time  - 1 Hour  |Yield - 12 cupcakes

Ingredients

16 ounces unsalter butter at room temperature
1 Cup Sugar
4 eggs at room temperature
16 ounces chocolate syrup (Hersheys)
1 tblspn vanilla extract
1 cup all purpose flour

For the Ganache

1/2 cup heavy cream
6 onces good semi sweet chocolate chips
1 tsp instant coffee powder
unsalted pistachios for decorating (optional)

Line muffin pans with cupcake liners. Preheat 325 degree F.

In a bowl, take sugar and butter beat this until light and fluffy. Add the eggs 1 at a time and continue beating. Mix the chocolate syrup and vanilla extract. Using a spatula, mix the flour slowly and combine throughly.

Using a ice cream scooper scoop the batter into muffin pan and bake for 30mins. Dont overbake. Let it cool completely.

For the ganache, using double boiler method, cook heavy crea, coffee and chocolate chips until smooth and warm. Dip each chocolate cupcake and garnish with pistachio.