The Biggest Loser

I started watching the Biggest Loser last season when the show had its first-ever female winner. This season most of the men on the show were pretty weak and I was hoping for a female repeat.

When the season first began I was rooting for the husband and wife brown team of Vicky and Brady. I wanted this team to succeed because they kept talking about their 4-year-old daughter who weighed more than 60 lbs and was bigger than her 7-year-old brother. What a sad situation when your eating and exercise habits rub off so dramatically on a 4-year-old child.

The more I watched, however, the more I came to dislike the conniving, vindictive Vicky. In fact, there really wasn’t even a husband and wife team that I liked all that much. Every one of them was in it for the payout while the parent/child teams seemed more about the bonding and sharing the experience together and then with their families when they returned home.
Yellow team Coleen and her dad Jerry along with purple team Shellay and daughter Amy A. soon became my teams to route for.

With all her conniving, Heba was able to walk away with $100,000. Photos from NBC.com

During the finale those who were eliminated were brought back to weigh in for a chance to win $100,000 for losing the most weight away from the show. While the weigh-ins proceeded, Jerry, Shelly and Amy were all part of the running, but it was Heba, the last person to be eliminated from the house, who came out on top. Here’s the kicker. Heba, along with her husband Ed, was up for elimination during the final weigh in, but it was America who voted on who would compete in the finale. Despite Ed’s pleas to let his wife stay in the competition, a whopping 84% voted to keep Ed rather than Heba. What does this say about this couple? Ed was willing to sacrifice everything he’d work for to let his wife get the credit. In the end, I think America, along with myself, thought that Heba’s actions and behaviors on the ranch didn’t warrant her a chance at the final prize. Way to go America. If only it would have been Heba’s cohort, Vicky, that we could have voted off.

Michelle looked smokin hot at the finale. She deserved the win.

The final three Ed, Vicky and Michelle all weighed in and much to my delight, it was Michelle that came out the victor after losing more than 100 lbs over the course of the show. Congrats to Michelle for the female repeat and congrats to good winning out over evil.

On a final note, I had to include the pictures of Amy C. from the red team because as far as sheer make-overs went, I thought she looked fantastic. She was probably one of the only husband/wife team members that I could stand and I'm happy that she did so well for herself, even after being eliminated from the show.

To me, Amy C. had the most drastic transformation and looked fantastic at the finale show. She was one of my favorites this season.

Rain + leaky roof =

So this is what happens to your kitchen when a roof leak that was supposedly fixed last year really wasn't fixed.

And, as if not having space in my kitchen to cook wasn't bad enough, these fans are SO loud that you can't hear the TV at a level that won't disturb the neighbors. What on earth am I supposed to do with my time? Go to the gym?! Ha.

Oh yeah, and this will be going on for another two days. Anybody need a temporary roommate?

Monday Night Meals

Lots of love and lots of lemon went into the making of these Angel Whisper thumprints.

This week’s Monday night meal came in a backward sort of way. I made dessert before the meal. Hey, life’s too short, cook dessert first, right?

Even though I’m not a huge baker, ‘tis the season to do so. There’s something about the holidays and cold weather that gets my baking juices flowing and every cookie recipe I see I want to make. So this year it was tough to narrow down the pot to just a few delicious recipes, but alas, the two I made Monday were Angel Whisper cookies and Peanut butter-Chocolate fudge. Mmmmmm, my mouth was watering before I even mixed the first ingredients.
The fudge was super easy to make and as someone who doesn’t like a) nuts in her baked goods and b) fudge in general, I wanted to gobble up this entire batch. Alas, I used some restraint and only had two pieces. I didn’t take any pictures of this fudge because the pictures provided on the like above are much prettier. I got 49 pieces out of one batch.

Mmmm, don't those look good enough to eat? I thought so and snuck a few in before making dinner.

Next I made Angel Whispers. The dough was only a few ingredients and while it was chilling for an hour, I was able to make the lemony filling. I really liked this recipe because it required very few ingredients and all the lemon flavoring came from natural lemon, not extract. Because I wanted to get more bang for my buck, instead of making sandwiches like the recipe asked for, I instead made bite-sized thumbprint cookies. The filling had just the right amount of tart and sweet. The recipe made 36 thumbprint cookies.

After baking the afternoon away (I should also add that I cooked the day away while there was a leak in my kitchen ceiling, not fun), it was time for a 30-minute meal to satisfy my belly a little further. In store for the evening was Cuban Surf and Turf. I came across this recipe last week while flipping through one of my Rachael Ray cookbooks and had to make it this week.

After making a batch each of fudge and cookies, this dinner was a welcome treat.

This recipe will be made again. I loved the lightness and wonderful citrus flavors. The leftover factor will be tried out tonight. I decided not to mix the pineapple and scallions into the rice so that I could re-heat the rice easier then add those ingredients each time as to keep them more fresh and crisp.

While eating dinner, I watched Heroes. My friend over at I Watch Lots of TV has a great hate for this show right now and each time I read one of his blogs about the show, I tend to nod my head in agreement on most of his points. This episode was so-so. I’m happy to see that the “Villains” chapter is over, but I’m not so sure about the next chapter “Fugitives.” I liked Nathan Petrelli and now he is going to be the one leading the hunt to contain everyone with powers. Now I don’t think I’m going to like big brother Petrelli so much. I was also sad to see Benjamin Knox (the human fear detector) killed off leaving no more former players from The Wire on the show. Darn shame. We’ll see what the new year has to offer for Heroes, but I’m not holding my breath.

Jamie Hector, formerly of The Wire, was killed off in this week's episode of Heroes.

This way to Zia

A different spin on pizza, but well worth a visit.

I finally made it to a pizza joint that I've been meaning to try for the past 2 years now and boy have I been missing out. But there is a back story that I must cover first.

In college, my roommate Michelle and I shared a passion for wraps at a little place on the corner of El Cajon Boulevard and Montezuma Road near San Diego State. The place is Cafe Zia. I don’t know who found it first or how we came to start eating there, but once we started, we couldn’t stop. The owner, Khaled (more about him later), uses fresh ingredients and low-fat proteins in his wraps, which are all topped off with these amazing chutney sauces. Over time, the menu has changed, but I haven’t found a wrap that I’m not fond of. Most recently, after a nice hike up Cowles Mountain one morning, I stopped by Café Zia to quench my wrap craving. This time, the new menu item was breakfast wraps. Even though it was after noon, I still got one and I was very thankful I did. Of all the wraps I’ve had, this was by far my favorite. It had eggs, potatoes, sun dried tomatoes and a turkey-pastrami that was topped off with a sweet chutney. I tried to go back and get it again one morning after the gym, but I got there before they opened (insert sad face here).

Khaled showing off a potato pizza masterpiece.

So, back to the owner. Khaled was the nicest café owner I’ve ever come across (other than Francesco at Mama Mia’s, but that’s another blog right there). Every time we’d visit Café Zia and he was working he always remembered who we were and what our favorite wrap was. He also made a point to suggest new wraps or chutneys that he thought we might like. The atmosphere at Café Zia is very laid back and lent itself to Khaled being able to chat with costumers a lot. He even started a book collection that you could read while eating or borrow for longer. Michelle’s then boyfriend, now husband, Edward, would borrow books on the regular and he and Khaled would talk books each time he went in. Point is, Khaled adds to the overall great dining experience.

After graduating from SDSU I don’t frequent Café Zia as much as I’d like because it’s a little out of the way, but I still try to make it back every other month or so. At the 2007 Adams Avenue Street Fair in Normal Heights I ran into Khaled outside a café with a Zia awning. I hadn’t seen him probably in about two years, but he still recognized me and asked where my little friend was (Michelle) and then started telling me about this great new pizza place he was opening the week after the Fair. I told him I would love to come back to the grand opening, but when I did, it had been moved back. I never returned until this past summer’s Adams Avenue Street Fair when Khaled was on the sidewalk selling his pizza again. I said hello and sorry that I hadn’t been in yet and that I really would come back after reading his pizza menu this time.

Fast forward to this past week. I finally made it to Zia Pizza! I was splitting three slices with someone and we were going to order two slices of Khaled’s favorite eggplant and one slice of the New Yorker pizza (with the turkey-pastrami from the breakfast wrap at Café Zia), he suggested we get three different kinds and convinced us to also try a garlic chicken. I’ve always enjoyed the suggestions Khaled has provided me with, but in this instance, we should have gotten all three slices of the eggplant pizza. That pizza was a little slice of heaven. I can’t recall everything that was on the pizza, but the key components were eggplant, cranberries and a yogurt sauce (instead of tomato sauce). And keeping in the tradition of Café Zia, Khaled does healthy pizza – well as healthy as you can get for pizza. He uses a whole-wheat, thin crust that also seemed to have had oats in it, which wasn’t too filling like a lot of traditional pizza.

Zia Pizza is only open from 5-10pm, so make sure to stop by for a dinner slice. Drink options are limited (bottled cokes and water), but it appeared that you are able to bring in your own bottle of wine. Oh yeah, and you can buy by the slice or whole pizza. Both are pretty reasonably priced.