Monday Night Food and Fitness

Food

Saturday I went to the Basic Adult Leader Outdoor Orientation (BALOO) training for cub scout leaders. Overall, it was a really good experience, and I learned a lot of great information about leading cub scouts on camp-outs and hikes. One of the things we did at BALOO was learn a few simple things that we can cook at camp using foil pouches.

In the first foil pouch, we put a frozen hamburger patty in the bottom, then some potatoes, onions, and frozen mixed vegetables. For the potatoes and onions, we used a french-fry cutter like at In-n-Out (southern California burger joint that makes french fries fresh from potatoes). Then we could either squirt in some Italian dressing or some cream of mushroom soup. [Aside: Thank goodness I checked the ingredients before hand. The cream of mushroom soup had MSG in it and would have made for a miserable day.] The trainer said it was important to use a frozen hamburger patty because as it melted the melted ice would make steam to help cook the food. If it wasn't frozen, he said to just put an ice cube inside the pouch and it would have the same effect. I was really pleased with how well it turned out. I would have liked to put some salt and/or Chipotle Tobasco on it, but it was decent on it's own.

I learned a new technique for making the foil pouches. If you do it so the seam is on the sides and it's symmetrical, then you can flip it from one side to the other to cook it on both sides without putting a seam facing down to leak. After about 20 to 25 minutes when the foil pouch poofs up like a pillow, that tells you it's done cooking. It's important NOT to use any sort of tongs on the foil pouch that could rip the foil. They taught us to use some leather gloves for picking up the pouches off the grill and flipping them over without tearing them.

The second foil pouch was for pigs in blankets. This was something simple enough the kids could get involved in doing it. You just wrap a hot dog in a Pillsbury crescent roll dough and put it in the foil pouch. He recommended spraying the inside of the foil pouch with the non-stick spray, and turning the pouch on the grill every 2 minutes (to keep it from burning on one side) for about 12 minutes.

The third thing we had that the trainer made of us was corn on the cob. He put some butter on frozen ears of corn, wrapped them in foil but didn't seal the ends. They turned out pretty good, too.

None of the things we ate on Saturday were gourmet by any means, but it was easy stuff to prepare at camp. The trainer commented that's why you want to be sure your boys continue on into Boy Scouts, because then the scouts cook their own food and the adults make their own. He said he likes having filet mignon with the other scout leaders while the boy scouts make whatever hot dogs or other stuff they scrape together.

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Fitness

I haven't been doing so hot on wait loss the past two weeks. I've basically maintained my weight, so at least I wasn't putting weight back on, right? One of my problems is I haven't been doing as much PT as I would like. Last Monday at Command PT, I hurt a muscle in the middle of the left side of my back. I'm not sure how I did it, but it came on suddenly as I started my run. I had only run like a block from the Bloch Arena gym when the pain started, and within half a block later, it got suddenly so bad that I couldn't run anymore. It hurt to breathe. I walked back to the gym to find our corpsman to have him take a look at it.

Doc used some highly scientific latin type of name to describe what it was, but I didn't understand it. Not surprisingly, he told me to take motrin, use cold packs on it, and recommended I not go to Command PT for the rest of the week. I needed to do something to burn some calories though, so I just went to the gym and rode the exercise bike on our Command PT days (Wednesday and Friday).

Today I really wanted to get back to running. Of course, it was raining out, and that means the gym was packed with people. Luckily, I got the last treadmill in the gym... but was it good luck or bad luck? The treadmill kept wigging out on me. I was trying to run a heart-rate program with my Polar HRM watch, but it kept suddenly and drastically raising the incline on me (even though my heart rate was above my target zone already) and then not responding when I pushed the buttons to lower it back to where I wanted it. The good news is, my back was a little sore, but it was okay.

It's too bad I missed our Command PT on Wednesday. Apparently our old trainer a.k.a. "PT Nazi" suddenly packed his bags and moved back to the mainland, and all of our single Sailors were rather pleased with the replacement trainer. I hear she's... uh... not bad to look at. I hope it'll boost our attendance at Command PT (yes, everybody's supposed to go to Command PT, but there are always excuses). COB said she "took it easy" on them since it was their first session with her, but she really kicked their butts. It'll be interesting to see how tough the workout is on Wednesday.

Weekly Food Recap

I like the idea I saw on someone else's blog about doing a weekly blog entry for certain topics. Since I do my WW weigh-ins on Mondays, I figured Monday would be a good day to write about food.

So you say to yourself, "Self, why does Kevin write about and post recipe links for food that his wife made? It seems most people who post recipes on their blogs are posting the recipes of things THEY'VE personally cooked." Well, I'm glad you asked. I actually do it for two reasons. First, I do it as a shout-out to show my appreciation for my LW and the time and effort she puts into finding and planning nutritious yet good tasting stuff for us to eat. Second, I do it as sort of a catalog of things I can ask LW to make again in the future.

We have found that planning ahead is the key to being able to stay in for dinner instead of going out to eat every night. If LW hasn't planned what we're going to have in advance, then by the time 4:30 or 5 p.m. roll around and we start the "what do you want for dinner" discussion, then it's really too late to take chicken out of the freezer to thaw, or go to the store to pick up the ingredients, etc. So LW makes a concerted effort to sit down and plan out several meals for the week before she goes to the grocery store, and she frequently hits me with the, "What do you want for dinner this week?" question. Now, given the indecisiveness I feel and the lack of response she gets from me when she asks me what I want for dinner TONIGHT, you can probably imagine how much worse of a blank-stare response she gets from me when she asks what I want to eat for dinner this WEEK.

I do much better when I can choose from selections put in front of me. So if I keep track of what LW has made that I've liked, then next time she asks me what I want to eat this WEEK, then I can look at my list of favorites and pick out some suggestions for her instead of giving her the blank-stare response (or worse - the "Not now dear, I'm playing Lego Star Wars" response).

Now, when I say LW "plans" the meals for the week, I don't mean that she plans we're going to have THIS on Monday and THAT on Tuesday and THOSE on Wednesday. I actually think it's worked out really well the way she has been doing it. She has several meals "planned" for the week that she has purchased all the ingredients for at the commissary. Then, getting back to how it's easier for me to choose from selections put in front of me, on any given day of the week LW will say to me, "Would you rather have X, Y, or Z for dinner tonight?" where X, Y, and Z are meals that she has planned for the week and the ingredients readily available in the kitchen. The results have been that we eat out a lot less and save a good amount of money in the process.

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Restaurant Review: Zia's in Kaneohe

Sunday after church, we were starving, so we wanted to go someplace close. Up until now, we have not been very impressed by the selection of places to eat on the Windward side of the island, with the exception of Haleiwa Joe's in Kaneohe. Haleiwa Joe's Sunday Brunch is AWESOME, but it's also expen$ive, so we tend to go there when we have visitors or for special occasions. We didn't want to spend that much this morning, so we started driving down the street just looking for whatever popped up in front of us.

We found a place called Zia's on Kam Hwy in Kaneohe. If you take H-3 to Exit 11 and turn left onto Kam Highway, it's probably about two miles down on the left hand side, before you get to the traffic light intersection with Burger King and the Toyota dealership. You can't miss it because it's ORANGE and really stands-out. It's a fairly small place with about a dozen tables. It turns out this is their second restaurant, and there's another Zia's in Kailua.

The atmosphere was really cozy and nice. The service was very prompt, professional, and courteous (significantly above average service for Hawaii). They had really good salads and sandwiches, but it's really sort of an Italian place. I had a hard time deciding what to have, because so much of what was on the menu sounded delicious.

They had something I had never heard of before called a plantation iced tea. I found there is a recipe available online here, but the waiter at Zia's told me a couple of extra little sumthin-sumthin's they put in their recipe. I could tell you the ingredients if you want, but it might be more fun for you to try one and guess the ingredients and then ask your waiter. I thought it was pretty good.

LW commented to ES that Zia's might be her new favorite restaurant. I definitely look forward to going back.

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Another Run with Chicken in Aluminum Foil on the Barbecue Grill

I've been surprised by how many people have come to my blog after doing a Google search for some combination of "barbecue," "chicken," and "aluminum foil." Since I've had multiple hits from that flavor of Google search, I thought I'd share that we did another barbecue chicken in a foil packet. LW prepared these teriyaki chicken packets with a chicken breast, some pineapple, onions, and peppers along with some teriyaki sauce. All I had to do was throw them on the barbecue grill for 20 minutes. LW tells me she got the recipe here. It turned out really nice - the chicken was very tender, moist, and not charred black (the usual result of my cooking chicken on the barbecue grill without aluminum foil).

Barbecue Chicken (updated Monday, 17 Dec)

Tonight, I tried an experiment with cooking chicken on the barbecue grill. In the past, I have never been happy with my results trying to cook chicken breasts on the grill when they've been marinated in barbecue sauce. I need a high heat setting in order to get the temperature up in the grill and get the chicken cooked all the way through, but the barbecue sauce burns and makes the outside of the breast really tough, and the inside is really dried out. I've never been completely satisfied with the results.

So I had an idea tonight. Some of you who are more experienced in cooking or using your barbecue grills may laugh at this and say, "I can't believe he didn't know that." Maybe I should start reading up on barbecue tips on the internet.

In any case, here's what I did tonight that really worked out well. After LW had marinated the chicken breasts in the barbecue sauce, I pulled out the roll of aluminum foil. LW had some sort of "no-stick" aluminum foil, and I don't know if that played a roll in it (no pun intended), but it worked and the chicken did NOT stick to the foil. I wrapped the two chicken breasts up in foil and rolled the ends together to make it a sealed pouch.

I put the barbecue grill on a high heat, and the temperature gage read in the ballpark of 500F. Normally I have to cook chicken for 15 to 18 minutes to get it to cook all the way through, so I put the foil pouch with the chicken in it on the grill for 18 minutes to be sure. Twice I flipped the packet over in the middle of that time, but I'm not sure if that was absolutely necessary.

When I took the packet off the grill and started to open it, I got a little nervous. My nostrils detected a smell of charring and burnt stuff. However, when I got the packet fully open, I found that while the barbecue sauce was burnt, it was just laying in the foil and not stuck to the chicken. The chicken itself was absolutely fine! It was tender and juicy all the way through, and the meat was almost falling apart.

Why the barbecue sauce burnt but didn't stick to the chicken, I don't know. I was really pleased with the results though.

Monday morning afterthought: Does putting the chicken in a foil pouch defeat the purpose of using the barbecue grill? I mean, I could put the foil pouch in the oven and get the same results, right? Help me out. What am I supposed to be getting out of my food cooked on the barbecue grill? What does exposure to open flames give it that just baking in the electric oven doesn't?