Here’s the recipe – combine enough brown sugar in a bowl to coat 2 chops, then add chili powder and salt/pepper to taste. Rub the granules into both sides of the chop, let sit for a few minutes. Heat olive oil in a pan, then cook the chops for about 5 mins each side; careful not to burn it – the sugar tends to cause that! I used a bone-in chop b/c the recipe said to use that kind, but next time I will go for a boneless chop!

Start the potatoes in advance – bowl 2 sweet potatoes until soft, the skins should come right off with your hand. Mash ‘em up with some honey and chop up a jalapeno or 2 into the mash. Add a little salt & a little lime juice if it’s available. Once again there were no limes to be found at the store – same for fresh thyme, WTF? I also couldn’t find spinach fettucine which also peeved me.

To top the chops, I used the drippings from the pork pan to sautee about a cup of chopped pineapple. Cook low for about 2 minutes until warm, remove from heat and then add some chopped scallions to it. Put this on the chops. I placed a little dollop of plain non-fat yogurt on the mashed sweets and it was a nice touch. Total calories for a “3oz. chop”, pineapple relish and 1 c. pots = 514 calories; 14g fat.

This was a super simple meal to make, and once again recommend it. We killed it on the slopes on Saturday, and I did 25 mins on the treadmill today! Now that I’m pretty sure we’re going to a Mexican beach for my 30th, I am REALLY REALLY trying to get in shape for a bikini…Dear god.

A few days ago I bought a cooking magazine called Cuisine for Two “simple, healthy & delicious”. The name sold me immediately and I only checked out a few of the recipes but they seemed solid. I’ve been cooking for myself and RB for almost 7 yrs now, and my tried & true meals are a little old – so I decided I needed some help!

Tonight, finally prepared one of the recipes – Turkey Pozole, which is a kind of mexican soup. I must say, it was pretty great. I made enough to feed both of us at lunch and dinner tomorrow. Total time was :30.

Here’s how to make it (use your judgement on how much for everything, there’s no way to mess this up) :

For 5 mins, sweat an onion, garlic cloves, dried/seeded ancho chiles, chopped tomatoes (I used canned), 2 chopped corn tortillas, a little tomato paste, cumin, oregano, chili powder. Then, pour a can of chicken broth in there & simmer for 10. Put all this in a blender and do work. Transfer to a pot, keep on low.

Next you’re gonna brown that ground turkey meat (drain it) w/some oregano and cumin, then you add in a can of mexican hominy (drained), and squirt in some lime (which I didn’t have, I used a pinch of that mexican salt called limon!) A variation I did was take some of the hominy and blend it up with the tom/onion mixture. So then you put it all together in the pot and simmer for about 10 minutes.

I served it in a festive bowl & decorated it with sliced radishes & avocado, and some queso fresco. You could also decorate it with a lime wedge and cilantro. The recipe said to make cheddar corn muffins, but RB ate the rest of the eggs for breakfast. Better that way though, cuz I can’t resist muffins.

The mag says 280 calories for a cup of pozole and one muffin, w/10 grams of fat, & 19 grams protein. I recommend this recipe and give it a 5 out of 6 stars.

Rodney got a nice long walk today, we ate angel hair w/meat sauce for dinner, JS brought me back some hot sauces from his trip to New Orleans, and made me jealous b/c he got to visit an Absinthe bar that’s about a million years old. Now I’m rethinking whether Vegas/Grand Canyon is a better idea for my 30th bday trip. I did check out flights for June on cheaptickets and the cheapest I found was around $350 which is just stupid.

Did not hit the gym today, so that means I have to go Tues-Thurs, and maybe Friday if my happy hour date cancels between now and then. The plan is to hit the Meadowlark and talk to whoever we need to talk to in order to get her artwork displayed.

Giants just beat the Cowboys today – that was unfortunate. Now who am I going to root for?

Yesterday we went to Total Beverage in Westminster to fill up our liquor supplies. We typically spend about $200 each time out there, but this time we spent almost $50 more than that. This is fine with me, as RB picked up the tab this time and now we have enough to drink for at least 6 mths. AND, what’s better – THIS is what our counter top looks like. It was more b/c we bought a lot of individual specialty beers. THEY SELL HITACHINO NEST BEER, and at almost $9 a pop (for a pint & a half) it’s not much of a deal. But I practically screamed when I saw it, so RB got me 2 bottles of it. I drank one last night, in addition to tastes of a few other strange beers.

We decided to hold a beer tasting last night – here’s how they ranked: #1 was Hitachino Nest Beer from Japan (I gave 8.9 pts, RB 8.5), #2 was Odolon Wheat Beer from Ukraine (avg of 7.6 pts), #3 was a Wheat Ale from Russia called Baltika at 6.9 pts, and last was a Lithuanian brew called Lobster Lovers w/an avg of 6.8 pts. We got a few others that we weren’t able to drink last night, and I’m looking forward to sampling those 5 later this week. I know I swore off beer, but it was a contest – I couldn’t let RB drink ALL the good beer we got. In total, I may have had 2 pints.