About 5 years ago when I first decided to get off my a$$ and change the way I treat my body I reached for pilates. I wasn’t in a rush, so I thought something low key would suit me best. The exercises didn’t seem difficult or very strenuous, so I did my research and came across Marie Winsor Pilates. It came in a set of 3 DVD, each devoted to different body part: abs, buns and thighs and overall body sculpting, with a resistance band. I used it every single day for 7 months along with a changed diet. At first some parts of it were challenging, but with time my muscles got used to even the most challenging bits, so in the end it wasn’t a difficult routine at all. Even though it didn’t require any special skills and I never felt exhausted after my 30 mins workouts every day, it did give me amazing results. I lost about 20kg (can’t remember the inches loss anymore). It was good while it lasted, but I found my muscles getting board with the same routines.
So I’ve recently purchased 3 new pilates DVDs:
1. To see what Ms.Marie Winsor has to offer after 5 years I bought her Pilates for Pink workout. It’s divided into 3 parts for abs, thighs and upper body. It still uses a resistance band for all the exercises, this time pink and significantly thiner ( with less resistance). The part on thighs is a direct rip off from the previous series, there is nothing new for you to work your legs at all. Quite disappointing. The part on abs is somewhat challenging, but easy to get used to.
2. I didn’t want to limit myself to the old Winsor Pilates, so I purchases “Maintenance Pilates for WeightLoss with Ana Caban”. This one doesn’t use anything except an exercise mat, no resistance band, but man is it ever challenging!! When I first put it on I realized right then and there that the pilates I have been doing so far (read: Winsor pilates) was a joke! What Winsor offers is pilates for true beginners, a softened version of each and every move. It’s still good for people starting out and not wanting anything too elaborate and difficult, but there comes a point in time when people do want to challenge themselves and I believe that this DVD is a good next step. I’m sure there are even more challenging things out there, but I will stick to this one for now. I don’t necessarily like the narration style, it’s too childish for my liking, but I guess I can look past it for the benefits it’s giving me.
3. My third DVD was more of a curiosity thing than anything else since it’s Sting’s wife’s pilates. I’ve never been too much of a celebrity workout gal, unless of course the celebrity is a personal trainer and they know what they are talking about (like was the case with my purchase of Jackie Warner’s workout DVD). However, even though Trudie Styler doesn’t strike me as a fitness guru, there is some impression of healthy living associated with her persona and since my geek is a fan of Sting I couldn’t say no to Trudie. Yes, rather pathetic way of reasoning. Nevertheless, I am quite pleased with the workout I have gotten from her DVD. It’s narrated by her personal trainer and she’s in the videos to accompany him in the workout routines. It’s a 55 mins intense workout and you will feel your muscles channelled to their limits, especially during the stretches. At first you’ll probably need to modify the exercises, as it seems close to impossible to keep legs straight in some routines. It’s a very good DVD that will stay with me for many workouts to come.
Conclusion:
I find it extremely hard to commit to any cardio workout due to its exhaustive qualities, but pilates I can do any time and its results are still as thrilling as a cardio exercises or even more.
Thanks to my return to the Montignac method I’ve discovered a new product without which I truly can’t imagine my culinary adventures anymore. I’m talking about Belsoy creamy soya preparation. In previous editions of Montignac’s books he’d often times use heavy cream, which I would skip. Somehow the name itself would  scare me enough to not want to even look at it, let alone cook with it. But my most recent purchase was a french edition of his recipe book and all of a sudden this soya cream sprung into life. He uses it in everything! So I researched it and it turned out there is a slight chance of finding the product chez nous. So I went on a caper with my loved one to look for it and to my outmost surprise I did find it! The caper really didn’t count as a caper, because we found it in “our” Dominion (read: it’s a caper only when you spend half a day looking for something). Nevertheless, I was a proud owner of a couple of 250ml cartons of Belsoy creamy soya preparation!
So what’s the big deal you ask? Well, the big deal is that it’s an awesome product that tastes like cream, with a very silky consistency, but without the bad stuff! See for yourself:
Up until a week ago or so, I cringed at having to deseed a pomegranate. Anybody who has ever tasted the delicious fruit knows what I am talking about and those who don’t should go to their local grocery store and get one. Now to spare you (and those who eat the fruit regularly) the pain, mess and labor of deseeding a pomegranate the traditional way I am going to share with you my newly discovered deseeding technique.
Usually, I would have put my pomegranate on a large place, prepared half a roll of paper towels and cut the bugger in half and just started poking at the seeds with whatever means available (read: own fingers). You don’t want to do that! Why? It’s extremely messy and everything that touches the red juice, and trust me it will go everywhere, will turn a gorgeous red colour.
So here is what you do:
1. Get a big bowl and fill it up with luke warm water.
2. Cut off the top and bottom of the pomegranate. Same way you do for peeling a pineapple. Just the tough skin, do not cut in too deep. You end up with a flat surface on the top and on the bottom.
3. Score the skin from top to bottom in 4 places as if though cutting it in quarters but not going all the way through, just cutting through the skin.
4. Immerse the entire pomegranate in the water and gently break it apart into 4 quarters. You’re using the scoring to do so by gently pushing the parts away from each other.
5. Once you have the pomegranate quartered you can take three quarters away on a plate and work on one at a time.
6. Now all you do, you do underwater separating this way the messy membrane from the seeds. Membrane will float in the water and the seeds being heavier will sink to the bottom. You can then fish out the membrane with a small strainer and voilà you end up with nicely separated seeds with no goopy white stuff. Now, do not strain the whole thing through a big strainer! It seems like a no-brainer, but you are going to be tempted to do it to get rid of the water. I simply fished out my seeds with my hands gently rinsing them with water before placing them in a container.
I assure you that this method is the cleanest and fastest one there is. The first time I tried it I kept reaching for the next quarter when there was none left! And you will not get anything red from the juice either!
I have seen another method of deseeding a pomegranate floating on the internet where you cut it in half and then pound it with a rolling pin until the seeds fall out. Somehow, I don’t even want to try this method, mostly because it sounds even more messy than my old method.
As for the chili peppers, my first and last encounter with them yesterday was a very painful one. I was making my mushroom soup and wanted it to have a kick, as per usual. So I had these red chili peppers kicking around in the fridge and thought I’d use them instead of the powder stuff and from then on my day went downhill. I picked the smallest there was in the package and cut it in half lengthwise. Then I scraped the seeds out with my fingers and rinsed the thing with water. As I was doing it I could already smell the spicy aroma, but somehow I wanted to make sure it was coming from the red thing and I put it closer to my nose to smell it. The odour was so strong that I jerked my head back as if punched by a professional boxer. So at that point I decided to only put a fraction of the pepper in my soup. I proceeded to cut off a tiny bit of the pepper, I chopped it up and put in my soup. At that point my nose was so full of the spicy aroma that I only had enough time to reach out for a tissue and blow it. There was no time for reflection. So I took care of my nose, wiping it thoroughly, using the same fingers that just scraped the seeds out of a red hot chili pepper! For the next 45 minutes of so I thought my nose was going to fall off! It was officially on fire and the only relief could come in a form of a wet face cloth stuck to my face. It was truly an awful experience. But I guess my loved one must be happy, because there is no way I’m ever experimenting with chili peppers again!
The weather outside suddenly turned very gray and cold, so I’m embracing the opportunity to talk soup, again. You might be thinking: “What does it matter if it’s gray and cold outside?” Well, it is commonly known that eating soups is linked with bad weather and cold seasons. Soups have warming up qualities. On the other hand, when it’s nice and sunny outside, people tend to reach for salads and cool dishes. Now, don’t ask me when we actually consumed this soup. We won’t go there.
Cooking vegetables has never been my favorite thing to do, let alone eating cooked vegetables. Things like broccoli and cauliflower have never entered my digestive system cooked. I just can’t get past the texture of these vegetables when they are fully cooked. I gave broccoli a try once by steaming it and then gently sauteing in olive oil, but that was the extent of it. I prefer them so much more in their raw form in a salad, that I do not mind at all. I quite enjoy their crunchiness. Now, when it comes to soups it’s a different story all together, because I mush the heck out of them.
I’ve gotten accustomed to putting grilled chicken breast into my soup. It gives it a very nice flavor and texture. I guess that’s what’s left from my past and the conviction that soup means meat….
We had this dish couple of days ago, when I started my “inventive mood”. I was making one soup a day and suddenly felt like I needed to break it up a little. The temperature outside was rising and I kept feeding my boys these hot soups and from the looks on their faces I deduced that they might soon fire me from my cooking duties for making them suffer through yet another bowl of hot soup. So I decided to reach for inspiration to Randy’s favorite restaurant (Oliver’s) and our latest visit there. We both had the same dish, which was linguine and chicken in some extremely rich creamy-cheesy sauce. Yes, I know that was sinful, but we went there in celebration of a year since our first face-to-face meeting, so we made an exception. I remember the sauce was so rich that I was unable to finish it, even though it was quite delicious. So part of my inspiration came from that meal at Oliver’s, even though the only ingredient that both of the meals share is the chicken. Now I needed to find something that would replace the heavy cream that was surely used in the meal at Oliver’s and I decided it would have to be Silken Soft Tofu. I’ve used it before, so I knew the consistency was just perfect for making sauces and dips. I also got inspired by that picture on the box on your right, even though, mine looks nothing like it.
So here is my invention. Mind you, it’s not even half as sinful as the one at Oliver’s….
3. My third DVD was more of a curiosity thing than anything else since it’s Sting’s wife’s pilates. I’ve never been too much of a celebrity workout gal, unless of course the celebrity is a personal trainer and they know what they are talking about (like was the case with my purchase of Jackie Warner’s workout DVD). However, even though Trudie Styler doesn’t strike me as a fitness guru, there is some impression of healthy living associated with her persona and since my geek is a fan of Sting I couldn’t say no to Trudie. Yes, rather pathetic way of reasoning. Nevertheless, I am quite pleased with the workout I have gotten from her DVD. It’s narrated by her personal trainer and she’s in the videos to accompany him in the workout routines. It’s a 55 mins intense workout and you will feel your muscles channelled to their limits, especially during the stretches. At first you’ll probably need to modify the exercises, as it seems close to impossible to keep legs straight in some routines. It’s a very good DVD that will stay with me for many workouts to come.
So part of my inspiration came from that meal at Oliver’s, even though the only ingredient that both of the meals share is the chicken. Now I needed to find something that would replace the heavy cream that was surely used in the meal at Oliver’s and I decided it would have to be Silken Soft Tofu. I’ve used it before, so I knew the consistency was just perfect for making sauces and dips. I also got inspired by that picture on the box on your right, even though, mine looks nothing like it.
