Lipstick Kitchen – Healthy Food that Tastes Delicious!

10 sweet potato recipes that I’m dying to make

Posted on January 31, 2013 by Rory

Among the groceries that my mom gave me the other day were eight sweet potatoes. EIGHT! I decided that instead of “wasting” them by simply microwaving them and adding butter, I would use at least a few of them to make something I’ve never made before.

Right away I knew I would be making sweet potato fries. The level of excitement that I reach when I go to a restaurant and see sweet potato fries on the menu is RIDICULOUS! I also knew I’d be making sweet potato chips (time to put all of my Apple Chip-making experience to use!).

I headed to the internet in search of some other cool sweet potato recipes, and I was not disappointed. I got all of these recipes from Health.com, WomensHealthMag.com, and SouthernLiving.com. Some of them will need to be “healthified” a little bit – especially the desserts! But I WILL be making these recipes sometime in the next two weeks.

And here we go:

1. Sweet potato fries

2. Sweet potato chips

3. Baked Sweet Potato Latkes

4. Sweet Potato and Spinach Quesadillas

5. Sweet Potato Soup

6. Sweet Potato Fettuccine

Desserts:

7. Sweet Potato Casserole

8. Sweet Potato-Pecan Cupcakes With Cream Cheese Frosting

9. Sweet Potato Pie with Marshmallow Meringue

10. Ginger-Sweet Potato Cheesecake

Stay tuned!

Posted in Blog, Cooking, DIet, Dieting, Food, Life, Personal, Photos, Recipes | Tagged sweet potato | 3 Comments

Unexpected weight loss

Posted on January 30, 2013 by Rory

I got on the scale this morning and I was shocked – SHOCKED – to see that I was down to 139.5! It was really unexpected, considering yesterday I was 141.5 and I ate two sweet potatoes. I think it’s because I had pretty intense exercise sessions this week.

On Monday I had my salsa class, which can be hit or miss in terms of how much I sweat. This time it was definitely “hit” – we danced for the entire class, and I sweated my butt off.

Yesterday I went to Zumba. My friend and I were going to do a body sculpt class, but we got there late and the class was crowded. While we were debating what to we noticed that there was a Zumba class starting at 6:30. Normally that gym only has Zumba on Thursdays, so we were pretty excited. Especially since it was a different instructor. We killed time by going to get a beer, which in retrospect wasn’t the best idea. We were pretty buzzed when we got to class 45 minutes later.

The class was intense. At one point I actually thought I might pass out. But it was an awesome workout – I am extremely sore today. And I’m two pounds lighter. 🙂 At this rate it will be easy peasy to hit my 135 pound target by birthday. Yay!

Posted in Blog, DIet, Dieting, Exercise, Fitness, Food, HCG, Life, Personal | Tagged health, salsa, sweet potatoes, weight loss, working out, Zumba | 5 Comments

I stopped taking the HCG drops today.

Posted on January 28, 2013 by Rory

I live right next door to my mother. While this occasionally has its disadvantages (like the time she called my male friend at 5 in the morning to see if I was still there because she had looked outside and didn’t see my car), for the most part it has been a good thing (like when I run out of toilet paper and don’t feel like going to the store).

This proved to be the case yesterday. I was enjoying a lazy Sunday on the couch when she called me and told me to go my front door. Why? Well, she and her boyfriend had decided to start the Atkins diet, so they had cleaned out their fridge and were giving me everything they wouldn’t be allowed to eat. Awesome.

I don’t know what I was expecting, but I was taken aback when I met her at my front door and saw her carrying three grocery bags full of food! (Turns out they had just gone grocery shopping the day before, which is why they had so much stuff to give me!)

She gave me:

Fruit – strawberries, blueberries, grapefruits, oranges, apples, bananas
Vegetables – cauliflower, broccoli, sweet potatoes, red potatoes, onions, zucchini, lettuce
Misc. – olives, almond butter, yogurt, roll of toilet paper (because I asked :-))

Despite the fact that everything she gave me is healthy, most of these foods are not allowed on Phase 1 of the HCG drops. I’d been thinking about stopping the drops anyway, because I’ve taking them on and off since November and I don’t think you’re supposed to take them for more than 40 days, but if she hadn’t given me all that food I would have continued taking them until I finished out my bottle.

But once I saw all that beautiful food sprawled out on my table I decided to stop taking the drops and move on to Phase Two of the diet, which is the Maintenance Phase. I mean, it would be stupid of me to keep taking the drops without even attempting to stick to the approved foods. Right? I think so.

Besides, the truth is that I really haven’t been all that strict with myself while I’ve been on the drops, especially compared to my first go around last year when I dropped 25 pounds. That time, I never cheated and only went out for drinks ONCE. This time, I’ve gone off the allowed menu on many occasions, and I’ve gone out drinking every single weekend. I’m not sure if the drops are even making a difference at this point.

So was it worth it for me to have done the drops at all this time? Probably. Even though I’m only 7 pounds lighter than I was in November, the drops definitely put me back in “diet mode.” Who knows? If I hadn’t started taking the drops again, right now I might be 7 pounds HEAVIER than I was in November. I was definitely heading in that direction.

One of my short-term diet goals is to get down to 135 by my birthday, which is on Feb. 15, less than three weeks away. Right now I’m at about 141, so I can DEFINITELY do this without the drops. I’ll be fine as long as I stay away from pasta, rice, and bread.

So yeah, that’s the update. Phase two began with last night’s dinner – a salad with mushrooms, cucumber, roasted red peppers, tomatoes, and almonds and topped with oil and balsamic vinegar. Delish.

Posted in Blog, DIet, Dieting, Food, HCG, Life, Personal | Tagged cheating on diet, food, health, low calorie diet, maintenance phase | 4 Comments

Healthy homemade cookies (whole wheat flour and coconut oil) with some not-so-healthy additions (chocolate chips, walnuts and Reese’s Pieces)

Posted on January 24, 2013 by Rory

A few weeks ago my friend Verushka, who moved to Seattle last year, came back to NY for her brother’s birthday. She was only here for a few days and I only got to spend a few hours with her, but boy did we cram a LOT into those few hours!

One of the main things she wanted to do was watch me make my sugar-free meringue cookies. I was hungover that day and wasn’t really in the mood to cook so early in the morning (okay, it was like 11:30 when she called), but there was no way I could say no to the girl who got me one of the most thoughtful gifts ever:

So I picked her up around noon, and after a quick trip to the supermarket we headed back to my place to start baking. In addition to wanting to make meringues, she also wanted to bake cookies for her brother’s birthday, which was that same day.

I’ve never actually made cookies from scratch before, so we decided to go with a recipe she already knew (Chocolate Chip and M&M Cookies) and try to “healthify” it up – you know, use whole wheat flour instead of regular flour and coconut oil instead of butter. We did a google search and found THIS recipe, which turned out to be delicious.

If I’d been making the cookies for myself I would have used made them sugar-free using Truvia, but since these were for her brother we used brown sugar instead. And really, even with the brown sugar, they STILL could have been classified as “healthy cookies” – if we had stopped right there.

But we didn’t. We added chocolate chips, walnuts and Reese’s Pieces, which of course made these cookies 100% UNhealthy. 🙂 But man, were they delicious. As soon as I get off my no-carbs diet I’m going to try to make this recipe completely sugar-free. But in the meantime, here’s the recipe we made.

Healthy Homemade Cookies
(with whole wheat flour and coconut oil)

Ingredients:

2 cups whole wheat pastry flour
1/2 cup coconut oil
1 and 1/2 cups brown sugar
2 eggs
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon sea salt

See? When you look at the above ingredients, the recipe really is kinda healthy!

OPTIONAL – chocolate chips, walnuts, Reese’s pieces. We used 1/4 cup of each.

Directions:

1. Preheat the oven to 375 and line a cookie sheet with parchment paper.

2. Mix the oil, eggs, vanilla, sugar and salt.

3. Add the flour, baking soda and baking powder.

4. Mix in the optional ingredients.

5. Spoon the cookies onto the cookie sheet. Make sure you leave space, because they grow when they cook! (Which I really wasn’t that aware of, which is why my cookies were too close together and which is why I ended up with the Mickey Mouse cookie in the first picture above.)

6. Bake for 8-10 minutes (closer to 10, really).

7. Remove from the oven, let them set for a few minutes and then transfer to a cooling rack.

8. That’s it! Try to wait for them to cool down, and then enjoy.

You may be thinking that they look kind of dry. That was my first thought when they were done and I went to take pictures for this post – “Oh shit, we overcooked them.” But trust me, they weren’t dry at all. They were awesome. And my Mickey Mouse cookie worked out after all:

Posted in Blog, Cooking, DIet, Dieting, Food, Life, Personal, Recipes | Tagged coconut oil, cookies, dessert, healthy, Verushka, whole wheat flour | 4 Comments

Like me on Facebook?

Posted on January 22, 2013 by Rory

I’ve had a Facebook page for this site up for a while, but I only recently realized that I hadn’t “published” it – meaning nobody could see what I was posting up there! Duh. Not that there’s all that much going on there at the moment – mostly it just captures my twitter and WordPress feeds. But I guess it’s a good way to follow me if you’re not on tumblr or whatever.

So “Like” me if you’d like. 🙂

Posted in Blog, DIet, Dieting, Food, HCG, Life, Personal, Recipes | Tagged facebook, social media, social networking | Leave a comment

Sugar-free Raspberry-flavored Meringue Cookies (HCG, South Beach Diet, etc.)

Posted on January 15, 2013 by Rory

Yes, it’s ANOTHER meringue cookie recipe. Of all the recipes that are approved for my very strict HCG diet, this is by FAR my favorite one. I went to the supermarket looking to see if there was such a thing as oil-free mint extract, so that I’d have an easier time making the mint-flavored meringues. While I was there I discovered a ton of different extracts! Of all the ones they had (including orange, lemon, and anise), raspberry definitely sounded the most promising.

I was not disappointed in the slightest! That light, sweet hint of raspberry was just what I needed to keep me from getting sick and tired of eating meringue cookies.

Sugar-free Raspberry Flavored Meringue Cookies

Ingredients:

1/2 cup liquid egg whites (or the equivalent, which is three egg whites)
2-4 Tbs. Truvia (Lately I’ve been playing around with the amount of Truvia. I normally use 2 tbs., but lately I’ve been using 3.)
1/4 teaspoon cream of tartar
1 teaspoon raspberry extract
Red food coloring – 6 or 7 drops (optional!!! I just like the way it looks)

Instructions:

1. Place the liquid egg whites into a METAL bowl and let them warm up to at least room temperature. (I place the bowl on the oven while the oven is pre-heating so the egg whites get even warmer.) This step is crucial.

2. Preheat the oven to 215 degrees Fahrenheit.

3. Line a cookie sheet with parchment paper.

4. Beat the eggwhites for a few minutes, until they start to stiffen.

5. Slowly add in the Cream of Tartar while continuing to beat the egg whites.

6. Slowly add in the Truvia while continuing to beat the egg whites.

7. Add the raspberry extract and continue to beat. I usually try to drizzle it down the side of the bowl, as opposed to just pouring it in the center, so as not to disturb the meringue.

8. Add the food coloring and mix it well.

(The total beat time is about 10 minutes. You’ll know you’re done when you’re able to turn the bowl upside down and nothing falls out.)

8. Use a spoon to dollop the egg whites on to the parchment paper (I usually aim for 36 small cookies, but when you increase the amount of Truvia you are also increasing the amount of meringue, which is why the meringues in these pictures are bigger than normal).

9. Put the tray in the oven for 25 minutes.

10. Rotate the tray and leave it in for another 22 minutes. (Every minute makes a difference. I like the texture the best at 22 minutes, but you might like them crunchier at 23 or 24 minutes. Feel free to experiment!) This pic is of them halfway done, hence the browning on top:

11. When the time is up, turn the oven off but leave the cookies in there for a while. In the summer when it’s humid I leave them in the oven for an hour or two and then transfer them straight into a tupperware so they don’t get soggy. But in the winter I might only leave them in the oven for 20 minutes and then leave them on the stovetop for several hours.

All finished:

Posted in Blog, Cooking, DIet, Dieting, Food, HCG, Life, Photos, Recipes | Tagged desserts, extract, meringue cookies, meringues, raspberry, sugar free, Truvia | 1 Comment

Yummy AND Diet-friendly Egg Drop Soup (HCG, South Beach Diet, etc.)

Posted on January 9, 2013 by Rory

I’ve made this recipe two or three times since I started the HCG Diet, and I have to say it is AMAZING. I had never tasted egg drop soup before trying this HCG version, so I really didn’t know what to expect. It is so yummy! Especially with the green onions, which I had never bought before (tip: when you’re at the grocery store, they’re near the lettuce, NOT the onions).

I guess what makes it “diet” is that normal egg drop soup uses cornstarch, whereas this one doesn’t.

It’s a really simple recipe – except when it comes time to “drop” the eggs into the soup, which I still haven’t gotten the hang of. The last time I made the soup I turned to google for advice, where I learned this:

To make shreds, stir the egg rapidly in a clockwise direction for one minute. To make thin streams or ribbons, gently stir the eggs in a clockwise direction until they form.

Now, I still don’t know the difference between shreds and ribbons. My goal was something like scrambled eggs, where you could actually take a bite of eggs. So I decided not to stir too much. But that didn’t really work out – I ended up with a layer of eggs stuck to the bottom of the pot.

Regardless of how the eggs come out, overall it tastes delicious. And like my “Almost an Egg Roll” recipe, this is pretty good for satisfying a chinese food craving.

Diet-friendly Egg Drop Soup

Ingredients:

2 cups chicken broth
1 egg and 1/2 cup of liquid egg whites (which is the equivalent of 3 egg whites)
1 tbs. Braggs Liquid Amino Acids (keep in mind that I like things salty. You might want to add just a little bit at a time.)
1/2 cup thinly sliced green onions
1/2 tsp. garlic powder
1/4 tsp. ground ginger
salt/pepper to taste (If you want. I didn’t add any.)

1. Bring the chicken broth to a boil.

2. Add everything but the eggs.

3. Whisk the egg and the egg whites, and then slowly pour the eggs into the pot, a little at a time. Keep stirring as you do this, fast or slowly depending on how you want your eggs.

4. It should look like this when you’re done.

That’s it! Enjoy!!!

Posted in Blog, Cooking, DIet, Dieting, Food, HCG, Life, Personal, Recipes | Tagged chinese, easy recipes, egg drop soup, ginger, green onions, Phase one, soup | 1 Comment

New year, new weight loss goals

Posted on January 7, 2013 by Rory

Happy New Year!

I had a pretty good New Year’s Eve. I went to 40/40 Club with my friends. I’d never done the NYE clubbing thing before, and it was something I wanted to do at least once in my life. Now that I’ve done it, I definitely do NOT feel the need to do it again! Even though we paid in advance, the line was ridiculously long, and it was cold as hell outside! Also, there weren’t enough bartenders, so trying to get a drink at the open bar was extremely unpleasant. But the music was good, and I was with my besties, so overall it wasn’t a terrible experience.

Even though I’m not where I wanted to be at the start of the year weight-wise, I’m still down about 15-20 pounds from last year’s New Year’s Eve, and that’s definitely something to be proud of.

Ugh, looking at that photo from last year never gets any easier! I hate it!!

Anyway, today I started on the HCG drops. AGAIN. I’d been doing pretty well before the holidays, but I went off the rails around Christmas time and haven’t stopped since. I’m back up to 146. But no big deal, I’ll lose it soon enough.

My short-term weight loss goal is to get down to 130 by my birthday, which is Feb. 15. It is DEFINITELY doable. My long-term goal is going to be more difficult to achieve: maintaining my weight, for the rest of my life. I’d like to be done with yo-yo dieting.

So yeah, that’s where I’m at now. Back on a diet, what else is new, right? But hopefully this will be my last New Year’s Resolution that has to do with losing weight.

Posted in Blog, DIet, Dieting, Fashion, Food, HCG, Life, Nightlife, Personal | Tagged HCG, New Year's Resolutions, New Yoear's Resolutions | 5 Comments

Chocolate, Vanilla and Banana Cream Pudding Shots

Posted on December 30, 2012 by Rory

I had so much fun making the pudding shots for Tiffany’s party. My shopping list that day was extensive, because I planned to make four different types of shots. I needed:

Chocolate pudding (instant, 3.4 oz)
Vanilla pudding (instant, 3.4 oz)
Banana cream pudding (instant, 3.4 oz)
Lemon pudding (instant, 3.4 oz)
Two pints of heavy whipping cream
Four tubs of extra creamy cool whip
Amaretto
Irish Cream
Kahlua
Vodka
Plastic little cups to serve the pudding in

Here is a glimpse of my workstation. It got kinda messy!

I made the vanilla, then the chocolate, and then the banana cream. In the end I decided to skip the lemon pudding and make an extra chocolate one instead. I didn’t have any more regular chocolate pudding, so I used one of the sugar-free puddings that I keep stockpiled in my cupboard, and trust me, it came out just as good as the regular chocolate one. So next time I make these shots I will definitely be going sugar-free all the way.

Note: don’t bother using an electric hand mixer.

“Tiramisu” Pudding Shots

Ingredients:

1 package 3.4 oz instant vanilla pudding
1 cup heavy cream
1/2 cup Kahlua
1/4 cup Amaretto
2 cups extra creamy Cool Whip
Cinnamon

Directions:

1. Mix pudding, heavy cream, and liquor.

2. Fold in Cool Whip.

3. Portion into plastic shot glasses or whatever, then stick in the freezer until you’re ready to serve. (They won’t fully freeze because of the alcohol.)

4. Garnish with whipped cream and cinnamon.

Irish Chocolate Pudding Shots

Ingredients:

1 package 3.4 oz instant chocolate pudding
1 cup heavy cream
1/2 cup Baileys Irish Cream (or a cheaper version, like the one I used)
1/4 cup vodka
2 cups extra creamy Cool Whip

Directions:

1. Mix pudding, heavy cream, and liquor.

2. Fold in Cool Whip.

3. Portion into plastic shot glasses, then stick in the freezer until you’re ready to serve. (They won’t fully freeze because of the alcohol.)

4. Garnish with whipped cream and maybe some sprinkles.

Banana Cream Pudding Shots

Ingredients:

1 package 3.4 oz instant banana cream pudding
1 cup heavy cream
1/4 cup Baileys Irish Cream (or a cheaper version, like the one I used)
1/2 cup vodka
2 cups extra creamy Cool Whip

I saw recipes that called for 99 bananas or other types of banana-flavored liquors, but my alcohol budget was already stretched to the max, so I figured I would just use what I had on hand. It was fine.

Directions:

1. Mix pudding, heavy cream, and liquor.

2. Fold in Cool Whip.

3. Portion into plastic shot glasses, then stick in the freezer until you’re ready to serve. (They won’t fully freeze because of the alcohol.)

4. Garnish with whipped cream. (I thought about adding crushed Oreos, but I was running out of time.)

I made so many of these that I still have a bunch leftover in my freezer. They won’t last much longer though.

Enjoy!!

Posted in Blog, Cooking, DIet, Food, Life, Nightlife, Personal, Recipes | Tagged alcohol, desserts, liquor, party, party food, pudding shots | 7 Comments

Pudding shots – the best party food ever!

Posted on December 28, 2012 by Rory

When my friend Tiffany told me that she was going to have a party at her house to celebrate her birthday and her new apartment, I got ridiculously excited. “I’ll make something!!!” I immediately went to pinterest to look for a cute little dessert to make that would have everybody oohing and ahhing.

It only took about 5 minutes of searching for me to figure out what I was bringing: PUDDING SHOTS! I’d never heard of them before, but the cute little photos on pinterest had me hooked.

I made these shots as fattening as possible, meaning I used regular pudding, heavy cream, and extra creamy cool whip. Everything I read said that if you tried to go “Light” or “Fat free” then you wouldn’t end up with a normal pudding texture because of the alcohol.

But now that I’ve made them, I’m calling bullshit on that. I made one batch of shots with sugar-free chocolate pudding, and they came out fine. I’m pretty certain that regular milk (or maybe low fat half and half) and sugar-free cool whip would have worked out just fine too. I will be making these again soon, so I’ll let you know what happens.

But if you’re worried that they won’t come out good, then go full fat. Trust me, you won’t be disappointed. Everyone who tried one LOVED THEM. And they were a good conversation starter, because while everyone has heard of Jello shots, no one at the party had ever heard of a pudding shot before.

In a few days I will post the individual recipes I made. I don’t know that they warrant their own posts, but I took sooooo many pictures and I really want to share them all!

Basic Pudding Shot Recipe (fattening version)

1 package 3.4 oz instant pudding
1 cup heavy cream
3/4 cup liquor
2 cups extra creamy cool whip
Little plastic shot glasses or whatever you’re going to serve the shots in

Directions:

1. Mix pudding, heavy cream, and liquor

2. Fold in cool whip.

3. Portion into plastic shot glasses, then stick in the freezer until you’re ready to serve. (They won’t fully freeze because of the alcohol.)

That’s all! Just try not to get too buzzed when you’re licking the beaters and bowls, as I did.

Posted in Blog, DIet, Dieting, Food, Life, Nightlife, Recipes | Tagged alcohol, cool whip, jello shots, liquor, party food, pudding shots | 2 Comments

Lipstick Kitchen – Healthy Food that Tastes Delicious!

10 sweet potato recipes that I’m dying to make

Desserts:

Unexpected weight loss

I stopped taking the HCG drops today.

Healthy homemade cookies (whole wheat flour and coconut oil) with some not-so-healthy additions (chocolate chips, walnuts and Reese’s Pieces)

Healthy Homemade Cookies
(with whole wheat flour and coconut oil)

Sugar-free Raspberry-flavored Meringue Cookies (HCG, South Beach Diet, etc.)

Sugar-free Raspberry Flavored Meringue Cookies

Yummy AND Diet-friendly Egg Drop Soup (HCG, South Beach Diet, etc.)

Diet-friendly Egg Drop Soup

New year, new weight loss goals