Shredded Chicken

As I mentioned in Tuesday's post, I was planning on posting my "recipe" for making shredded chicken. This is adapted from my high school forensics teacher's recipe. Forensics as in public speaking, not anything science or gore-related!! I would link to the recipe, but it looks like her cooking blog has been taken down. Pam, if you're reading this, let me know if you have a link to it, and I will properly credit you!

Lots of recipes call for shredded chicken. Before I came across Pam's recipe, I would pretty much boil the crap out of a couple chicken breasts since I'm always nervous about not cooking meat completely, and we didn't have a meat thermometer until we received one as a wedding gift last summer. I would then struggle with shredding the chicken breasts since they were so overcooked and dried out. This didn't exactly lead to great tasting meals!

Now that I've changed the way I make shredded chicken, it is much tastier, easier, and more convenient! Shredded chicken is a great way to add protein to a meal without adding a ton of calories. A half cup serving of shredded chicken has 120 calories, 4g of fat, and 12g of protein. This "recipe" yields enough shredded chicken breast for 5+ meals!

Ingredients:

Boneless skinless chicken breast, raw and unfrozen

(I used 14 lbs for my 6 qt slow cooker, but would

recommend something more like 10 lbs)

Onion, sliced

Minced garlic

I always start by trimming most of the visible fat from the breasts.

I didn't include a photo of that, since I'm sure you can figure it out ;)

Place enough chicken breasts in the slow cooker to cover the bottom. Place sliced onion on top, followed by a few spoonfuls of minced garlic.

Repeat another layer.

Repeat a third layer. At this point I should have stopped. I normally stop after three layers, but for some reason this week I was overzealous and did a fourth layer. This led to having to cook for extra hours to ensure the breasts in the top center were thoroughly cooked. It was a pain and not worth the extra chicken I got out of it.

Cover slow cooker.

Cook for 5 or 6 hours on high (depends on the size of your slow cooker and the amount of chicken you have in it). I usually cook for 5 hours when I do three layers.

When the slow cooker is done cooking, remove the breasts into a bowl or a cutting board and shred with a fork. It shreds extremely easily and is so tender and flavorful.

Place in freezer-safe containers and baggies in 2 cup portions

(most recipes call for 2 cups of shredded chicken). Place in freezer.

I got seven 2 cup portions this time, which should last us over a month!

If you choose to make this amount of shredded chicken at once, make sure you will use it within the next few months. If you don't often make recipes that call for shredded chicken, having 10+ cups of shredded chicken in your freezer could go to waste before you get a chance to use it. We like to add it to pasta dishes to add protein and it's great in Mexican dishes and other recipes that call for shredded chicken.

Printable version of recipe.

I move the frozen shredded chicken from the freezer to the refrigerator two days before I need it. It is always thawed and ready to go after two days in the fridge. I help keep track of this by meal planning using the meal planning spreadsheet I created this past February. Here is a link to that spreadsheet so you can download it yourself if you like it! This helps keep me on track and to make sure the meats and other ingredients I need will be thawed and ready to go when needed.

Happy cooking! :)

---

Katie's Food and Exercise Diary can be found here.
Tony's Food and Exercise Diary can be found here.
Our weight loss tickers can be found at the bottom of every page of our blog.

Week 13 Results

This past week was pretty good. Our results turned out well, even though we had some high calorie days. On Saturday afternoon we went to Holland State Park to hang out on the beach and swim in Lake Michigan.  Afterwards, we stopped at Captain Sundae and had delicious flurries. I swam around in Lake Michigan for probably close to two hours total so I definitely earned the flurry!

Katie

Current Weight: -30.2 lbs. (This week: -1.8 lbs.)

Tony

Current Weight: -36.0 lbs. (This week: -1.4 lbs.)

Last week I decided to keep my exercise goal of two days for 30 minutes each. I met it, and then more than exceeded it with the swimming in Lake Michigan. This week I will continue the goal of two days for 30 minutes each. At some point I will increase this to three days but for now I don't want to push it. Two days is a week for two weeks in a row is amazing for me, so I'm hoping to continue it!

Next week we will do our weigh-in on either Tuesday or Wednesday. We will be at my parents' house for Labor Day weekend on Monday. I may stay until Tuesday, in which case we will do our weigh in and results post on Wednesday.

Later this week or next I will be doing a post about how I make shredded chicken for meals that call for it. It is a super easy way to make a ton of shredded chicken at once, with good flavor, and adds a low calorie protein source to a meal.

---

Katie's Food and Exercise Diary can be found here.
Tony's Food and Exercise Diary can be found here.
Our weight loss tickers can be found at the bottom of every page of our blog.

Week 12 Results

Last week was a much better week for me. I did not resort to old habits in the way I had the prior week, and I met my exercise goal! I exercised on two separate days for over 30 minutes each. I used my Wii Fit, which was fun and pretty easy exercise. So I will make the same goal for this week. I will exercise at least two days this week for 30 minutes each day.

It has been four weeks since we took measurements, so normally today would also include measurements. However, instead of taking them Sunday morning after we woke up, we took them Sunday night. I had to leave early Sunday for my cousin's bridal shower, so we did not have a chance to do measurements until that night. Because of this, the measurements did not come out the way one would expect given the weight we have lost in the last four weeks. A few of the measurements were higher than four weeks ago, which doesn't seem right. I think this is because we took them after eating and drinking during the day, so we were a bit bloated. So I am not going to count them. I also think we should switch to taking them every 5 weeks on the 5s (week 15, 20, etc.); it will make it easier to remember to take them and that extra week will lead to greater results.

Here are the weight results for this week!

Katie

Current Weight: -28.4 lbs. (This week: -1.8 lbs.)

Tony

Current Weight: -34.6 lbs. (This week: -2.4 lbs.)

The results accurately show our efforts from this past week, so I was happy with them! We are going to keep on doing what we are doing, because it's obviously working!

---

Katie's Food and Exercise Diary can be found here.
Tony's Food and Exercise Diary can be found here.
Our weight loss tickers can be found at the bottom of every page of our blog.

Week 11 Results

Last week was a bit of a struggle for me. I gave in to old habits for a couple days and basically binge ate the way I used to. So I was not upset at my result this week, since I just wanted to at least stay even. In fact, I was pleasantly surprised by my result considering how many terrible days I had.

I also did not meet my goal of exercising at least two days last week for 30 minutes a day. But I did get a lot of exercise on Saturday helping our friends move, so maybe that counts? Ha, not really. I never did find the willpower to force myself to exercise. So I will set that goal again this week. I feel more positive about this week so I am hoping nothing derails me from this goal.

Katie

Current Weight: -26.6 lbs. (This week: -0.4 lbs.)

Tony

Current Weight: -32.2 lbs. (This week: -1.6 lbs.)

So. This week I will try really hard to ward off any desire to go back to bad habits, and exercise at least two days for 30 minutes each day. I just need to keep reminding myself of my reward (hopefully) at the end of all this - a baby and motherhood! I know babies are not easy so I'm not imagining this dream-filled world where everything is perfect, but my desire to become a mother has been extra strong lately. I think it is probably due to the fact that so many of my friends have children, and I am about six months from turning 30. I don't exactly have tons of time to dilly dally before we need to start trying!

---

Katie's Food and Exercise Diary can be found here.
Tony's Food and Exercise Diary can be found here.
Our weight loss tickers can be found at the bottom of every page of our blog.

Week 10 Results

Sorry for the one day delay with this post. Our internet wasn't working yesterday afternoon.

As I expected, Tony's huge weight loss last week was not sustained this week. He felt like he did pretty well last week so he was a bit surprised with his result, but I told him that he must not have drank enough water last Sunday which led to all that weight loss. This week just kind of normalized his results.

Katie

Current Weight: -26.2 lbs. (This week: -2.8 lbs.)

Tony

Current Weight: -30.6 lbs. (This week: +0.2 lbs.)

So now that we are at 10 weeks, we can easily calculate our average weekly weight loss! I have lost an average of 2.62 lbs a week and Tony has last an average of 3.06 lbs a week. Pretty good! My goal is to lose 2 lbs each week, so I'm clearly on track. :)

I still have not added regular exercise to my schedule. I know I'll be fine with losing weight for awhile without adding exercise, but I will plateau. I plateaued in 2008 and I know I could have kept going if I had started exercising regularly. Since I would like to get lower than my plateau weight from 2008 and then stay there, I will need to exercise regularly and the sooner I get into the habit, the better! I have a Wii Fit I haven't used in almost three years, so I should try that, along with my Just Dance Wii game I did a few times in June. I really have no excuse since I am home all day, most days right now.

Between today and next Monday, I will make a goal of exercising for 30 minutes at least twice. I know that's pretty much nothing but it's better than my current exercise of zero minutes on zero days ;)  It is a doable goal and doable goals are what I need right now!

---

Katie's Food and Exercise Diary can be found here.
Tony's Food and Exercise Diary can be found here.
Our weight loss tickers can be found at the bottom of every page of our blog.

Niagara Falls Trip Recap with Photos

As mentioned previously, we spent our First Anniversary in Buffalo, NY and Niagara Falls, ON.


We left Saturday, July 14 around 11 a.m. Tony drove to Port Huron, MI; then I got us across the border, through Canada, back across the border, and to our hotel in Buffalo, NY. We didn't stop once from the time we left Port Huron until we arrived at our hotel in Buffalo!

On our way!

Tony showing off our passports which will enable us to return to the U.S.!

After checking into our hotel, we walked the 1/2 mile (yay, exercise!!) to the Anchor Bar, the restaurant that invented buffalo chicken wings in 1964.

Yum!! We shared this plate of 20 wings with homemade bleu cheese dressing.

On Sunday, July 15, we went on a Buffalo harbor cruise on the Miss Buffalo IIL

On the boat, waiting to leave.

The harbor cruise goes into Lake Erie, down the Niagara River, then through the Black Rock Lock and Canal.

Lake Erie

Going under the Peace Bridge. The flag in the middle is the United Nations flag.

Awesome Buffalo City Hall in the center.

After the harbor cruise, we drove back into Canada and checked into our hotel. We discovered our "city view" room had a great view of the tightrope the skywalker, Jay Cochrane, would be walking on every night at 7 p.m. So we stayed in to watch:

We left before Jay Cochrane finished the walk, as we were starving and needed to get going. We went to dinner at a restaurant in our hotel and then went to Dave & Buster's in the Clifton Hill area of Niagara Falls. If you've ever been to a Dave & Buster's that isn't in a tourist town, please note that the Niagara Falls D&B is nothing like the one you have been to. It is kind of terrible. The prizes are crap, you can't take your drinks outside of the bar area, and it seemed much smaller than the one I went to in Houston, TX. But we still had fun!

Patriotic looking drinks at Dave & Buster's :)

On Monday, July 16, we celebrated our first anniversary! We began the day by enjoying a cheap all-you-can-eat buffet breakfast at a restaurant behind our hotel. It was filling, we did not go overboard, and we spent a LOT less money than we would have at the hotel's IHOP (don't get me started on Niagara Falls pricing or Canadian tax rates). 

After breakfast, we walked to a welcome center where we purchased the Niagara Falls Adventure Pass. I highly recommend this pass. For $50 each (including tax), it gets you into four attractions and enables you to take the People Mover bus system for two days. It is worth every penny and saves you money over separately purchasing admittance to each of the attractions along with a People Mover pass. I believe something like $15 each.

We started with Journey Behind the Falls. It is pretty cool and we enjoyed it. To save myself some time, I am not going to describe these attractions; if you are interested in what they entail, feel free to click the links provided :)

Then we went to Niagara's Fury. Photos are not allowed, so no photos :)  It was interesting and we enjoyed this one also. The first part seems geared toward young children but the second part could be a little scary for children who are afraid of the dark and/or thunderstorms.

After that, we took the People Mover to Maid of the Mist! This was so much fun and I would do it again for sure!

We then took the People Mover further north to the White Water Walk. This was decent; for some reason I was under the impression we would be able to see the whirlpool that forms in this area of the Niagara River, but we could only see Class 6 rapids. The rapids were interesting, but if we had had more time, I would have liked to have seen the whirlpool through one of the other available attractions.

We then took the People Mover back to the welcome center, took the Funicular (or as they call it, the Incline Railway) up the hill, and went back to the hotel to shower and get ready for dinner.

We had dinner at the Keg Steakhouse on the 9th floor of the Embassy Suites, about a block from our hotel. It was delicious! We had reservations at 8 p.m. We could have waited 60-90 minutes for a front row table, but decided it wasn't worth it. We were given a table in the second row which still gave us a nice view. When the couple at the table in front of us left, we got up, sat at their table, and had our waitress take our photo ;)

After dinner, we came back to the hotel and ate a piece of cake from the top tier of our wedding cake! it was still delicious. We enjoyed it multiple times over the rest of that week.

On Tuesday, July 17, we slept in, then walked to the Skylon Tower, where we took the elevator up to the top to have a buffet lunch (again, we didn't go crazy!) and to see the views from the observation deck. 

This photo was taken as we went up the yellow elevators that face outside the tower. 

These two photos above were taken from the Skylon Tower observation deck.

After that, we spent about 45 minutes in the casino to secure free parking (woohoo!) and then were on our way home! We got back around 9:30 p.m. or so.


Overall, we had a really great trip. It was so nice to get away and to see a new part of the world. Throughout the trip, we talked about coming back once our future kids are 8 and 10 (or so), once they are old enough to appreciate it. There is so much to do as a family, as a couple, or even as a group of friends. Next time we will hopefully have more time so we can see more things.

---

Katie's Food and Exercise Diary can be found here.
Tony's Food and Exercise Diary can be found here.
Our weight loss tickers can be found at the bottom of every page of our blog.