Weekly weigh-in and recipes

Well, I wish I could say that since the last time I posted I had lost more weight, but I am about 4 pounds up from that. I can't say I'm surprised since I ate pretty much whatever I wanted over Christmas. Now, I'm back to really eating right and working out almost every day. I still have about 12 pounds to go, so I am not in the homestretch yet. The good news is that now I'm back to eating right and exercising a lot I feel great and I have a ton more energy.

For Christmas my mom got me the Best Light Recipe cookbook. This is a compilation of recipes from the people who do "America's Test Kitchen" on PBS and Cooks Illustrated magazine. All the recipes were delicious, albeit somewhat preparation intensive (still easy, though). I guess that is what happens when you use a lot of fresh produce in your cooking--lots of chopping involved. I found two of the recipes online, but the other two I couldn't find. They were good, trust me, but I just don't have time to type the whole thing out.

-Stir-fried tofu with bok choy and ginger sauce...Chad and I both liked this a lot. It tasted like Chinese food that you'd get in an actual Chinese restaurant. You could substitute chicken or flank steak for the tofu.
-Chicken enchiladas...these were yummy. This recipe calls for 50% reduced fat cheddar cheese. The kind I found is Cabot brand, and it was surprisingly good.
-One-pot chicken, rice and broccoli with cheddar...Paul and Carolyn were here when I made this and they gave it the thumbs up as well. I used fresh broccoli instead of frozen, and next time I will use brown rice instead of white.
-Wilted spinach and orange with pan-seared scallops...this was delicious. It tasted a lot like the scallop salad at Macaroni grill. Chad didn't try it as it didn't sound very appealing to him, which is fine with me because now I have leftovers for lunch today. You can find frozen scallops in the frozen seafood section at wal-mart, and they were surprisingly good.
-Carrot cake pancakes from my Cooking Light magazine...sounds good, right? Wrong. These were not good at all, don't try them.
-The last thing I made wasn't really a recipe, it was just something I threw together because I am not going to the grocery store this week. I had a bottle of Panda Express orange sauce (the kind that they use on their orange chicken). I cut up chicken breast into bite-sized pieces, patted it dry, seasoned it with salt and pepper, and then pan-seared it and put some of the sauce and some scallions with the chicken. Then I served it over brown rice cooked with chicken broth. It was yummy and soooo easy!

Here's to a better week of being healthy and going in the right direction on the scale. :)