Delicious Food and 177, Bitches!

177lbs. Ba-dow. BMI is 30.4 and I am two pounds away from being at the high end of "overweight" and out of the "obesity range." Additionally, this marks 8lbs of loss! ADDITIONALLY! I am 1.25lbs away from by 5% goal. WOO!!

Okay. So I didn't go to Wendy's. I just didn't have time. Instead I ate a Kashi GoLean bar that I found in my purse (no idea how old it was, haha). And later, a pumpernickel bagel.

Mmmm.....carbs. As a result of my crazy day, I had only eaten ~730 calories by dinner time. The previous night, I had decided that I would cook some cornish game hens that I had in my freezer. I was dreadfully short on vegetation in the apartment, so I ventured over to the Sunflower Market. I came home with two gorgeous cauliflowers, two bunches of asparagus, some potatoes, a butternut squash (forgetting that I already had a squash at home), and sweet potatoes.

Here's how I always cook:
1) Meat
2) Vegetable
3) Starch
4) Sauce (optional, depending on the nature of the other ingredients)

There it is folks. It's that simple, haha.
So the hens were spatchcocked, lightly salted, and sprinkled with smoked paprika (seasoning was worked under the skin). They were placed directly into a hot (med-high) cast iron skillet (breast side down, but with the legs folded underneath so that they had the brunt of the heat) and weighted down with a large cooking pot full of hot water.

Neither D nor I eat the skin, so any sticking was just ignored. After a few minutes, the birds were flipped. I cooked them until the leg temp was at 168F, turned off the burner, and let the carry-over heat them to 175F (safe temperature for poultry).

As for the starch. I love squash, and I just decided it could be the starch (even though it's more of a veggie, I guess). D doesn't like squash all that much, so I made potatoes for him. They were both treated in the exact same way:
1) Peeled and cubed into ~1cm cubes and parboiled until just shy of "done."
2) They were drained, spread on a cooking sheet until they weren't so damp, seasoned with salt, pepper, and [paprika for the taters, sage for the squash], and tossed in just a bit of vegetable oil (just a teaspoon for the potatoes, as there was less of them. 1 tbsp for the squash).
3) Roasted in the oven at 450 until golden brown at the edges.

For the cauliflower, I went roast-happy again. My kitchen is tiny, and too many things on the stovetop just gets...annoying. So the cauliflower was cut into florets, tossed in salt, pepper, curry powder, and chili flakes, tossed in 1 tsp oil, and roasted in the same 450 oven until fork tender and just brown at the edges.

The chicken was perfect. Not the least bit dry, very tasty, and 1/2 a chicken was plenty for each of us (most serving sizes recommend a whole hen per person). The squash was slightly sweet, crispy, and very tasty. The cauliflower was my favorite. D loved the potatoes.

So! Where does this put me in terms of calories? 408 calories for the whole meal. Bam. Filling, gorgeous, delicious, and a good calorie count. If I had used chicken breast, this count would be lower, but such is life. Hens are fancy!