Monday Night Food and Fitness - Favorite Recipes Recap

Food

I used to write a post on Monday nights called Monday Night Food and Fitness, but I fell out of the habit. It wasn't that LW wasn't making us awesome meals to eat, it's just that we got into sort of a rotation of eating mostly the same things over and over again because they were so good.

Tonight she tried something new though - chicken enchiladas, and they were AWESOME!!!! I wish I had more hands to give her more than two thumbs-up on this one. (How about two big toes?) The recipe was from our neighbor B across the street, and she got the recipe right off a can of Old El Paso green chilis. If you would like the recipe, here it is:

Creamy Chicken & Chile Enchiladas

1 lb uncooked chicken breast strips

1 package (8oz) cream cheese, cut into cubes

1 can (4.5oz) Old El Paso chopped green chiles

1 package (10.5oz) 6 inch flour tortillas

2 cans (10oz) green chili enchilada sauce***

¾ c shredded cheddar cheese

1. Heat oven to 400. Spray 9x13 glass baking dish with cooking spray.

2. In 10 inch skillet, cook chicken over medium-high heat, stirring occasionally, until no longer pink in the middle. Stir in cream cheese and chilis; reduce heat to medium. Cook and stir until blended and cream cheese is melted.

3. Spoon chicken mixture into tortillas; roll up and place seam side down in pan. Pour enchilada sauce over the top, sprinkle cheese.

4. Bake 15-20 minutes until hot and cheese is melted.

*** All the enchilada sauce they had at the commissary had MSG in it, but LW found some Ortega salsa verde that was MSG-free, and she used that instead. It worked out like a champ.

As I had stated before, the main reason I was writing the Monday Night Food posts was to (a) give a shout-out of thanks and praise to LW for the awesome food she cooks, and (b) to keep track of the recipes that I really like. That way, the next time LW is preparing her grocery list and asks, "What do you want for dinner this week?" I can click on over to my blog and remind myself which things she's made that I REALLY liked.

Up until now though, it's been scattered through a bunch of my previous posts. So mostly to make it easier for myself in quickly providing input to LW's grocery list, I'm going to write a summary here listing my favorites and linking back to the previous posts for the recipies.

Smokey Sweet Potato Chicken Stoup

Tortilla Soup

Falafel Sandwiches

Chicken Parm Meatballs

Layered Mexican Chicken Casserole

Spicy Chicken Breasts with Carmelized Onion Relish

Spiedies

Cilantro Stuffed Tri-Tip

Crash Hot Potatoes

Chocolate Bourbon Pecan Pie

Pots de Creme

Fitness

Falling out of the habit of writing my Monday Night Food and Fitness post also wasn't due to stopping PT. I just didn't have anything new to write about. Up until last week, we continued our routine of Command PT on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. On Mondays and Fridays, we did warmup calesthenics and stretching in Bloch Arena and then split up to do our own cardio-type workouts. I usually did a 3 mile run out to the waterfront and back along South Ave. Wednesdays, we had "The PT Nazi" personal trainer lead us through some interval training at Quick Field.

We're getting close to the end of the Mighty MSP's decom, and we're closing out sections of the barge like berthing and showers, so it's harder on the guys to have to go to Command PT and then shower at Bloch Arena or back at their barracks room and then have to trek their way into work in the shipyard. At the same time, most of the work on the boat is done and there's nothing keeping most of the crew on board past 1400, so it's easier for guys to just go to the gym and then go home to shower.

So we've declared an end to the Mighty MSP's Command PT Program. I will say it was a huge success though. On our final Command Physical Fitness Assessment (PFA), we increased the number of Excellent and Outstanding scores by 100% (from 21 to 42), and we reduced the number of PFA failures by 100% (from 10 to 0). Our crew lost a total of more than 300 pounds (I forget the exact number, but I'll look it up at work and correct this entry later). My hat's off to our previous COB, current COB, and our Command Fitness Leader for leading an excellent physical training program and really getting the crew to "embrace the culture of fitness."

Now, I'm riding my bike to and from work, so that is helping with the loss of the organized Command PT, but I'm still doing PT in the morning before I go to work on M-W-F.

Also, my left shoulder has hurt and had a limited range of motion ever since we tried doing that "combat fitness" routine with the PT Nazi on May 28th. Those wheelbarrows and crab walks and pushup-side steps really messed up my left shoulder. The Doc at the Makalapa Clinic said it's tendonitis in a tendon that's very hard to "get at" and that it won't be an easy process to recover. So now I'm going to physical therapy on Tuesday and Thursday mornings and doing specific exercises geared toward working that left shoulder.

Anyway, my main point being that I haven't been writing my Monday Night Food and Fitness posts because we fell into a routine on both fronts and I didn't have much new to write about.