Kevin's Kitchen: Cowboy Stew

Your slow cooker is a quick road to dinner heaven!

A thyroidectomy requires a life change. That includes changing eating habits. The purpose of Kevin's Kitchen is to help those with no (or little) cooking skills to create great meals.

It is October, the weather is changing, and we naturally start thinking about comfort food. What is more comforting than thinking about a cowboy come off the dusty trail and arriving at the chuck wagon for some chow? Working the range all day calls for a big hearty beefy meal for dinner. 

Today I am doing Cowboy Stew in the Crockpot. That means cans of tomatoes, tomato soup, beans, and potatoes. 

One chopped onion (I like Spanish Onions). 

Brown and drain a couple of pounds of lean hamburger (I usually use 95/5). Mix it all together in the crockpot and cook on low 8 hours. This'll put some getty-up in your saddle! 

Kevin's Kitchen: Grilled Cheese

A thyroidectomy requires a life change. That includes changing eating habits. The purpose of Kevin's Kitchen is to help those with no (or little) cooking skills to create great meals.

The phrase "Honey, can you make me a sandwich?" Does not exist in Kevin's Kitchen. So go clean the grease out of your finger nails and brush the lawn clippings off your pants because we are going to construct a manly grilled cheese sandwich.

First thing you have to do is toss an ample helping of butter in the bottom of a pan. Don't use margarin or Pam or Olive oil or anything sissy like that. I don't care if you have one of those cancer causing non stick pans - lob some real good butter in there and warm the pan on a stove.

Next, get some bread. Not some fuccia whole wheat Texas croissant style crap. Just your every day sandwich bread will do. Butter both sides of that bread - and I mean butter it!

Toss that into the pan and grab a slice of cheese. Not a skin goat Milk crumbly gotta slice with a hacksaw cheese. Just a normal slice of American. In fact? Why not toss two slices on it?

Here is the secret - squirt some mustard on the cheese. Not that brown grey poopa fonie bologna crap. Just some every day yellow mustard.

Get one side of the sandwich Golden brown, flip it, get the second side golden brown. Find a beverage and dig in.

Kevin's Kitchen: Instant Potatoes

A thyroidectomy requires a life change. That includes changing eating habits. The purpose of Kevin's Kitchen is to help those with no (or little) cooking skills to create great meals.

Creating great meals means cooking at home. Eating out has been shown to be expensive and often unhealthy as portions are huge, ingredients are unknown to you,  restaurants focus on calorie rich flavors, and diners tend to over eat. It is better to take those traditional classics and make them at home where you can control the ingredients and the portion sizes. Even if the meal isn't at the top of the "healthy list", just making the meal at home instead of eating out can greatly improve your health habits.

God invented instant potatoes for people like me who can't cook. Especially the bacon and cheddar potatoes! These are so easy!

Just boil some water, dump in the potatoes, and stir with a fork. 

And if you aren't very familiar with the complex workings of a stove? They even provide microwave instructions.

Kevin's Kitchen: South of the Border Soup

Your slow cooker is a quick road to dinner heaven!

A thyroidectomy requires a life change. That includes changing eating habits. The purpose of Kevin's Kitchen is to help those with no (or little) cooking skills to create great meals.

It is September, the warm weather is leaving. Sounds like it is time to make some South Of The Border Soup!

 Start with five pounds of diced potatoes.

 Dice up one spanish onion and add it to the potatoes

Next, add two cans of beans, chicken broth, and sharp cheddar cheese.

Mix in Salsa, black pepper, and chili powder. Let this cook on low for 8 hours (or high for 4). 

This South of the Border Soup is going to cure whatever ails you.

Kevin's Kitchen: Pot Pie

A thyroidectomy requires a life change. That includes changing eating habits. The purpose of Kevin's Kitchen is to help those with no (or little) cooking skills to create great meals.

Creating great meals means cooking at home. Eating out has been shown to be expensive and often unhealthy as portions are huge, ingredients are unknown to you,  restaurants focus on calorie rich flavors, and diners tend to over eat. It is better to take those traditional classics and make them at home where you can control the ingredients and the portion sizes. Even if the meal isn't at the top of the "healthy list", just making the meal at home instead of eating out can greatly improve your health habits. 

When I think of easy cooking, I don't think casseroles. Casseroles require planning, measuring, and thinking - and who wants to do that? However, I received a recipe from my cousin for Chicken Pot Pie and had to give it a try. Thinking about a chicken pot pie stuffed with vegetables and lean chicken. I changed the recipe a little to make it easier.

 1. Mix half a bag (2 cups) of Mexican cheese with two cans each of chicken, mixed vegetables, and cream of Chicken soup into a greased backing dish.

2. Put 2 tablespoons of butter over 8 Pillsbury biscuits that you cut into quarters

3. Put the biscuits ontop the mixture

4. Bake at 375 for around 20 minutes (until the biscuits are golden brown, but before they turn black).

Kevin's Kitchen: Spaghetti

A thyroidectomy requires a life change. That includes changing eating habits. The purpose of Kevin's Kitchen is to help those with no (or little) cooking skills to create great meals.

I was sitting in a business meeting one day. Waiting for the meeting to start, everyone was telling their favorite meals to make. One guy said "I make spaghetti". I said "You mean... you open a jar?" And he said "Yep".

We know we need to eat differently... healthier. But we don't all have time to make a home made sauce. Sometimes a jar of Prego is just as good as anything else. And what could be easier to make than spaghetti?

Get water boiling in a pot and dump in your favorite pasta. A pro tip? Put a small amount of cooking oil in the water before adding the pasta to help avoid the pasta from sticking together. For a healthy alternative, use whole wheat pasta. Stir the pasta often. When it turns white, fish one out and try it to make sure it has the consistency you want. Then drain off the water. To make draining the water easy? I use a pot that has a strainer built into the cover!

Next, warm up a jar of sauce in a second pot. Just be careful: hot sauce can be hotter than lava. Don't get burned by a splatter.

I kicked it up a notch with some frozen meatballs cooked in the oven. Make sure you read the instructions - some frozen meatball brands will tell you the meatballs need to be cooked to a certain temperature. If the instructions say that? You need to poke them with a meat thermometer to make sure they are done.

Add grated cheese, shredded mozzarella, and I used Penne instead of Spaghetti and you have a quick and easy Italian meal. 

Kevin's Kitchen: Boiling Water

A thyroidectomy requires a life change. That includes changing eating habits. The purpose of Kevin's Kitchen is to help those with no (or little) cooking skills to create great meals.

It can take forever for water to boil on a stove. And boiling water in a microwave can be dangerous because the water can explode if it can't form bubbles. So here is an easy way to speed up the process: run the water through your Keurig (with no k-cup).

Kevin's Kitchen: Pork Spiedies

Your slow cooker is a quick road to dinner heaven!

A thyroidectomy requires a life change. That includes changing eating habits. The purpose of Kevin's Kitchen is to help those with no (or little) cooking skills to create great meals.

Remember when I made Chicken Spiedies? This is a twist on that favorite meal - this time using pork! Click on the video below to watch.

Vegetables for lunch: Beed Margot

Today we are going to try Healthy Choice Cafe Steamers Beef Merlot. These lunches are supposed to be veggie lunches and this one mostly is. There is very little beef in this dish compared to veggies.

Included in the meal is beef, potatoes, carrots, and green beans in a merlot sauce for 180 calories. It takes 4.5 minutes to microwave.

My dish has an ample amount of free means. My definition of ample amount is anything more than one because green beans aren't my favorite. I can usually choke them down, but not my favorite. This dish actually has a dozen green beans. The cooking process steams them, and then you mix in the sauce.

I never have problems eating carrots or potatoes and those were a delight. The meat was OK.

Would I eat this again?  YES

Celebrity Workouts: Zac Efron

Why can't we all look like a celebrity? You've probably seen a celebrity and was impressed with their physique. When that happens, I like to look at that actor or actress's workout routine. I always say, if you want to look like an athlete? You need to work out like one. The same is true for celebrities.

The 5'9" Zac Efron rose to fame in Disney's High School musical. After shedding his high school roles, Zac focused more on his physic and then ramp up his work outs to appear in the 2017 movie Bay Watch. 

Zac was lean in Baywatch with only 5% body fat. To get ready for the movie Zac worked with personal trainer Patrick Murphy. For diet, Murphy focuses on foods that are nutritionally beneficial. That includes things like tuna, egg whites, salmon fillet, and chicken breasts for protein. Fruits include apples, pears, cranberries, strawberries, and blueberries. Whole grains focus on brown rice, oats and quinoa. For vegetables, focus on dark green leafy choices such as kale and spinach. The diet included healthy fats from nuts, seed, and Avocados.

Murphy then uses intermittent fasting which means you eat all your calories for the day during an 8 hour period of time.

Murphy uses fruit to beat sugar cravings, and green tea to beat beverage cravings. Efron drank 100 ounes of water daily and supplemented his diet with whey protein. Just like muscle confusion is important, Murphy uses diet confusion - changing caloric intake every two weeks along with changing the mix of protein, carbs, and fat. 

For exercise, Murphy makes sure the form is perfect with the aim of exhaustion within the first couple of sets. Instead of doing crunches to get abs, Murphy involves the abs throughout the workout. He changed Efron's workouts, constantly evolving them to get the most benefit. "The main feature of the workouts is supersetting - doing two exercises back-to-back with no rest in between," Murphy explained. 

Week 1 Fall 2018 Results

Disclaimer: I am not a doctor, nutritionist, nor personal trainer. Never take medical advice over the internet. Seek the advice of your doctor before following any of the recommendations made during this series.

Support Group: Sound Sensitivity

I scour the support groups for some of the best questions and answers. Everyone's names are removed for privacy. Answers may be summarized and/or edited.

QUESTION: has anyone had sensitivity to sound accompanied with mild ear pain.

ANSWERS:

• Sound sensitivity (and light) is associated w/ some autoimmune issues. Graves disease causes both
• when I am extra exhausted or anxious, it can become worse (late night mostly)
• Noise sensitivity is also associated with adrenal/cortisol issues

Disclaimer: I am not a doctor, nutritionist, nor personal trainer. Never take medical advice over the internet. Seek the advice of your doctor before following any of the recommendations made during this series.

Kevin's Kitchen: Steak Salad

A thyroidectomy requires a life change. That includes changing eating habits. The purpose of Kevin's Kitchen is to help those with no (or little) cooking skills to create great meals.

Are you a guy? Got a guy in your life? Guys need to eat healthy, but most men want meals they can rip into with a fork and knife. And the easier? The better! 

Here, I have some peppercorn marinated grilled steak surrounding a quarter head of lettuce drowned in a low calorie Italian dressing. The trick is in the head of lettuce. Don't tare it or shred it! Just rinse it and then cut it into quarters. You'll find it to be a fun new experience to eat salad with a fork and knife.

Vegatables for lunch: Sweet Sesame Chicken

I do not enjoy eating vegetables, but I know I need to get more vegetables into my diet. It can't all be salad, I need to find new and creative solutions. I am exploring a bunch of different options and I'll bring you along with me.

Today it is Heathy Choice Steamers Sweet Sessme Chicken. This was 300 calories and took 4.5 minutes to microwave.

Was it good? Well... it was more than half rice, so, yep - it was good! But it didn’t really meet my goal of eating more vegetables for lunch.

Celebrity Workouts: Jennifer Aniston

Why can't we all look like a celebrity? You've probably seen a celebrity and was impressed with their physique. When that happens, I like to look at that actor or actress's workout routine. I always say, if you want to look like an athlete? You need to work out like one. The same is true for celebrities.

At age 49, Jennifer Aniston looks as hot as she did while staring on the 1990's Friends TV Show.

Her diet is simple. Warm lemon water, toast, eggs, and avocado for breakfast. Lunch and dinner are vegetables or salad with a lean protein.  She adds grains to her salads such as quinoa, bulgar, and tabouleh. She snacks on frozen grapes, side of nuts, or an apple with almond butter. Sometimes she replaces a meal with a protein shake filled with fruits and vegetables. On her cheat days she goes for Mexican food or pasta.

She drinks two liters of water every day.

For exercise, she does a fifteen minute spin classes and a fifteen minute cardio sessions with a trainer, followed by a fifteen minute run. She does intervals when doing cardio to keep her body engaged with the muscle confusion intensity. 

She doesn't hit the weights for resistance training. Instead she uses her own body weight for resistance using a dance exercise that combines ballet, yoga, and pilates. Her workouts also include yoga.

She exercises five days a week and takes Sundays off. 

Where did I go?

I just get back into the swing of things and then life turns upside down. I had created an awesome plan to get life back on schedule. If you read this blog in the Spring of 2018, it looked very promising.

Then... I found out my oldest son was failing his second semester at college. As a result, in addition to working full time I went back to college full time to help him out. Either I was at work, or I was doing college work, or I was helping my youngest with his high school homework or I was sleeping. And I didn't get very much sleep!

Good news: my oldest passed all of his second semester college classes. And my youngest passed all of his high school classes.

I am going to attempt this again! I am putting together the plan and hope to share more in the coming weeks. In the meanwhile, I hope you have enjoyed all of the Kevin's Kitchen blog entries.

Kevin's Kitchen: French Dip

Your slow cooker is a quick road to dinner heaven!

A thyroidectomy requires a life change. That includes changing eating habits. The purpose of Kevin's Kitchen is to help those with no (or little) cooking skills to create great meals.

Creating great meals means cooking at home. Eating out has been shown to be expensive and often unhealthy as portions are huge, ingredients are unknown to you,  restaurants focus on calorie rich flavors, and diners tend to over eat. It is better to take those traditional classics and make them at home. Even if the meal isn't at the top of the "healthy list", just making the meal at home instead of eating out can greatly improve your health habits. 

Who doesn't like a good French Dip or Beef on Wick? Tonight's dinner works well for either. Trust me, this is going to be one of your all time favorite French Dip recipes! 

I have a 4 pound roast. 

Add 2.5 cups of water, 3/4 cup soy sauce, 1.5 tsp of Rosemary, 1.5 tsp thyme, 1.5 tsp garlic powder, 5 peppercorns, and a bay leaf. 

Let it cook for a good 6-8 hours. In fact, why don't you put it on, go to work, and it will be ready when you arrive home! Just finely shred the beef and put it back into the crockpot and it is ready to eat!

Kevin's Kitchen: Grilling Peanuts

A thyroidectomy requires a life change. That includes changing eating habits. The purpose of Kevin's Kitchen is to help those with no (or little) cooking skills to create great meals.

A reader asked "why do you drink Smirnoff and eat peanuts while grilling?" The Smirnoff if obvious. The peanuts have two purposes: I feed them to Riley the Grilling Dog to keep his interest; and I put the shells on the grill to give the meat a unique smokey flavor.

Kevin's Kitchen: The Salad Toppings

A thyroidectomy requires a life change. That includes changing eating habits. The purpose of Kevin's Kitchen is to help those with no (or little) cooking skills to create great meals.

When you make a salad, how much of it is lettuce versus toppings?

Salad is a staple for eating healthy. Getting more fruits and vegetables in our diet is important. But how much salad can one person eat? To avoid getting sick of salad, many people will load the salad with calorie rich dressing or bury the salad in toppings.

What is the answer?

Don't get all your vegetables from salads. Find otherways to enjoy vegetables so you aren't pounding away lettuce every day.  If you must have toppings? Keep the toppings healthy: lean chicken, low fat cheese, and whole grain croutons to name just a few toppings ideas.

Kevin's Kitchen: Taco Salad

A thyroidectomy requires a life change. That includes changing eating habits. The purpose of Kevin's Kitchen is to help those with no (or little) cooking skills to create great meals.

You are trying to eat healthy, which means eating salad. But how much salad can one person take?!?  You have to live it up a little. Spread those calories across the lettuce to make it worth eating! Just make sure the Taco Salad is mostly salad and not mostly taco!

Cooking has to be fast and easy. Like opening a can of ravioli and eating it cold. A better choice than can ravioli is a fast and easy Taco Salad.

 Start with the leanest hamburger you can find (I usually use 95/5). Just brown the hamburger, drain or the grease, and put taco seasoning on it (season to taste). 

Side note: How to you drain hamburger grease? DO NOT POUR IT DOWN THE DRAIN! That'll clog your pipes. There are three thing I have done: (1) Pour the grease into a cup, let it cool, and then throw it into the garbage. (2) Spread the hamburger out on paper towels, let the pan cool, then wipe out the pan. And (3) Push the hamburger to one side of the pan and allow the grease to pool into the other side. Soak up the grease with paper towels and then throw the paper towels away.

Next, throw all the ingredients into a bowl and eat it.  Is that simple? Or what? And that is another fast and easy meal from my kitchen.