Not only was it a wonderful to have a night off from cooking but as a  bonus, I still managed to enjoy fantastic, quality food too!  Our friends Holly & Dean came over for the evening and Dean, who is in Culinary school, surprised us by offering to cook dinner.  Not like I was going to turn that offer down! 🙂

Oh, and please excuse my ugly blue corelle plates, all my pretty white ones were in the dishwasher.

On the menu ce soir: Sticky Lemon Chicken w/ Garlicy Mashed Taters. 

The recipe for the chicken is from Gordon Ramsay’s book Fast Food but is available online from Rachel Ray’s site. 

With a glass of White Zinfandel.

Dinner is served! Mmm mmm!

 
What a delicious combination of food – chicken, taters, fresh steamed green beans and roasted squash.

  
These were the best mashed potatoes that I’ve ever had; they were made with garlic, beef broth and butter. So good that I went back and scrapped the pot so that I could have a small helping of seconds. 🙂

    
 
Thanks for the fantastic meal Dean!  You’re welcome to come back and cook any time for us! 🙂

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So I had a great week and that scale showed me down about 2 lbs.  However, I may have destroyed my hard work with a bit, ok a lot, of over indulging yesterday.    Whatever possessed me to make a batch of cookies, I don’t know… maybe it’s that I’ve been craving good homemade cookie since Jaime posted her fantastic looking ones! 

 
I made “Outrageous Chocolate Chip Cookies” which were oatmeal, peanut butter & chocolate chip. With some added Halloween candy for fun of course! 🙂
 

Anyways, I’m trying not to dwell on the thousands of calories that I inhaled yesterday.  Something’s got to give sooner or later right?  I can’t explain what’s up with me at all, it’s like I want to rebel because I’m so tired of eating well.  As hard as I try I just can’t seem to get back to that wonderful, awesome level of motivation that I had 2 years ago.  I am planning on getting 3 runs this week as preparation for the Santa Shuffle 5K and you know what, that’s something. Taking it day by day is all I can do.  Anyways, not trying to turn this post into a downer so I will stop!

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I have some secret plans for today which could turn into an exciting opportunity! I will reveal the details later but please wish me luck! 🙂