James Andrews

Recently I went to Japan to visit my wife. While we and a few of my relatives were at “Tokyo Disney” we stopped at a convenience store called “News Day”. We were looking for chocolate, but what we found was Banana flavored Kit Kats. I decided to pick one up and give it a try. I waited until my return to the US where I opened the bar up at work and proceeded to cut it into 5 pieces to share with my co-workers. I grabbed the bar, and it started to melt where my fingers touched it. Leading me to believe the base was a white chocolate. The flavor is that of fake banana flavoring. Reminding me a lot of the flavor of banana Runts. The texture was that of a normal chocolate kit kat.

While the concept is interesting, I can’t find myself buying a whole lot of these. I prefer the original.

… of food that is…

Currently I am working a contract job in Framingham, MA. It’s in a medium sized office building. Big enough that it has an on site cafeteria. Now I am not one for bringing my lunch to work. I usually don’t have time to make it in the morning and forget about it if I make it the night before. I love the idea of not driving off site for lunch since I am paid hourly, the less time I spend eating the more time I spend making money.

The problem here is the on site cafeteria here sucks. The way they work is you get the choice of one “special” entree, the salad bar, or a selection of crappy pre-made sandwiches. I am a fan of hot lunches. I don’t really want my tunafish on a croissant. If you are going to run a cafeteria give people options. Have more than one hot entree. Hire some one to make the sandwiches as you go. There is nothing from this cafeteria’s menu this week that I will even consider eating, so I will have to drive over to Pizza Wagon, or try to remember my own lunch..

Growing up I could eat anything, and it would not affect my weight. I weight 110lb until near my 31st birthday. 1/2 a pizza here, 3 servings of lasagna there. Whatever I wanted to eat I could, so I did.

Now I’m at 160lb. I have a small frame, and according to everything I’ve looked at I should be at 145. 15lbs off isn’t so bad. I have friends who tried weight watchers, and have had great success, others who started the P90X and look better than ever. Now I’m not most physically active person being a computer nerd and all, so I decided to try an experiment with calorie counting, without exercise, since once I start work again I may not have time to exercise. I found 2-3 calculators and did some comparisons and all came up with similar numbers for what I should be eating.

Maintenance: 1945 Calories/day
Fat Loss: 1556 Calories/day
Extreme Fat Loss: 1280 Calories/day

Over the last 5 days I have eaten the kinds of food I like in smarter amounts. Alternating the number of calories I take in based on the above numbers. Since most parties are on the weekend I will leave the most amount of food I eat for days when I may want to indulge a little.

Sat: 1745c
Sun: 1527
Mon: 1295:
Tue: 1555
Wed: 1289

I’ve already lost 3 lb since starting the experiment. (so says the Wii fit, but I’ll say it’s 2lb because the body fluxuates). The goal is to get to 145 by the end of May, and then adjust my calorie intake so I maintain that weight.

During my experiment I have also started using a white board to display my totals and keep track of things. I really think this is a smart approach because it’s in your face, and helps remind you of your goal. I think I’d be far off my experiment if it wasn’t there.

Of all the food I make, this is probably one of the items I cook the most. It’s easy to make and fairly good for you as well. It is easy

Ingredients:

1 fully thawed boneless skinless chicken breast.
1 tbsp butter or fake butter (for greasing the pan).
ground pepper
minced garlic
dried rosemary
dried chive

Place your chicken on your cutting board. Grind the pepper right over one side. Take a pinch of rosemary and in your hand break it apart releasing it’s flavor. Now sprinkle it over the chicken. Sprinkle dried chive flakes over it next.

Put the butter and garlic in the skillet, and put the skillet on medium low heat let the butter melt and coat the entire bottom of the skillet. Put the chicken in the skillet with the seasoned side down. Now repeat the same process on the unseasoned side, cover.

The larger the piece the longer it’ll take to cook, so wait 3-4 minutes and flip and repeat until it is cooked should take no longer then 8-10 minutes to cook one piece.

This is my first attempt at cooking a casserole. Not only is it my first attempt at cooking a casserole, it’s a completely original recipe.

1 cup carrots (cubed)
1 cup potatoes (cubed)
1 chicken cube breast
1 4.3oz package Knorr Pasta Sides “Chicken Flavor”.
1 package of buttermilk biscuit dough from your grocer’s cooler
pepper
salt (i use kosher salt)
dried rosemary
minced garlic (fresh or from a container).
milk
1 cup chicken broth (can be made from bullion)

Preheat the oven to 350.

Set a pot of water to boil. season with salt. Once boiling place the carrots and potatoes in the water. This is to get the cooking process started. Cook them for about 15 minutes while you cook the chicken below. (I learned the hard way they won’t cook enough in the oven alone. You could try making smaller cubes mine were kind o big, but I thought small enough to cook in the oven). In the end the flavors were there, the veggies just needed longer to cook. Hence the boiling addition which isn’t tested, but should work.

Place 1tbsp butter in a skillet, and place on high heat. place cubed chicken breast in the skillet, season with fresh ground black pepper, a pinch of salt. 1 pinch of rosemary (make sure you break it to release the flavor. Cook chicken until cooked all the way through.

While cooking the chicken mix the potatoes and carrots into your casserole dish. Season with pepper. Once the chicken is cooked add that to the mixture, and thoroughly mix together. Now add the package of noodles. Make sure to mix them in so they are through out the casserole. Add your 1/2 cup of milk, and the chicken broth (the noodle mix is our binder). 2 tblsp of butter on top of the noodles. (just cut it up and place it randomly so it sinks in.)

Lastly take the biscuits and lay them on top of the entire thing until they cover it entirely by biscuits. Place on the cover and put in the oven for 30 minutes.

Once 35 minutes is over remove the cover so the buscuits can brown properly

Let cook for 10 more minutes turning the heat up to 400F to allow browning of the biscuits. It may not take a full 10 minutes to brown.