31 July 2010

 Breakfast: We went to the Boot Hill Casino for breakfast (and some penny slot action). There, I had

• SOS on hash browns
• grape jelly on a powder biscuit
• scrambled eggs
• well cooked bacon (3 slices)
• 2 well cooked disk shaped sausage and
• a waffle

After eating the waffle, I had the feeling I should have skipped it. This was the 7^th breakfast we had there after joining the "breakfast club", so we got our breakfast for free. I asked the waitress for a glass of orange juice. Silly me, I thought it would come with the meal but she said "I will have to charge you for that". Later, the urge for orange juice became too much for me so I ordered a glass. I figured it couldn't be too much so I gave the waiter ^US$2⁰⁰. I went to the "wait staff" area to make sure they had gotten my ^US$2⁰⁰ and was told the actual price was ^US$2¹⁸!

218¢

I realize it is probably silly to be upset by this price but I recall the champagne and orange juice wasn't much more expensive that this. I hadn't brought much change with me but was able to find a single coin (a quarter) in one pocket. I gave this to "our" waitress and she must have assumed that I'd let her have the 7¢ as a tip...

I don't hold this price against the waitress; I think given the amount of money I later dropped on the slots, that a more proper Lost Wages attitude of keeping the food and drinks as cheap as possible or even free would have left me with a better attitude. (Ok, so it was only about ^US$7⁰⁰ that I dropped on the slots.)

About a ½ hour later, I realized the orange juice was mixing rather badly with the pancake/waffle syrup and I ended up losing my breakfast. To quote Vir Coto "it tasted so good going down, not so good coming back [up]". [or words to that effect as I remember them from watching Babylon 5]

Lunch: a turkey and roast beef on sour dough bread sandwich with coleslaw and cold water

Snack: coffee

Dinner: A Lean Crusine Swedish Meatballs: with pasta in a savory gravy, an apple and a glass of iced water

Snack:  peanut butter and jelly on sour dough

30 July 2010

Breakfast: Jimmy Dean Breakfast Bowls Bacon (Eggs, Potatoes, Bacon & Cheddar Cheese) and coffee

Lunch: two ballony on sour dough sandwichs and a bottle of Diet Pepsi

Dinner:  We went to Boot Hill Museum Bull Fry Bash and I had

• bar-b-que beef
• baked chopped potatoes
• cole slaw
• water

I could have had "bull fries" but simply don't like them. "Bull Fries" are deep fried bull balls.

After we got home, I had a double gin-n-tonic; I was quite thirsty!

29 July 2010 (updated...)

Breakfast:  wheaties and coffee

Snack: a small handfull of peanuts

Lunch: left overs from Applebys of the other night: my steak, baked potatoe and Kathie's french fries and coffee

Snack: chips and cheese at the movie theater...I would have had a "Diet Pepsi, no ice" except I didn't have enough money on me! Theater snacks have gotten really expensive! The chips were a bit stale, the cheese dip cooled and became lumpy (I got to the theater too early and had to wait 20 minutes for the movie) and the movie itself, while fine, had me wondering why I'd spent the money on it. This is the third movie this summer that I've felt I really didn't get my money's worth from the movie...

Dinner: a nice little diet TV dinner featuring noodles and sauce and a bottle of room temperature water

29 July 2010

Breakfast:  wheaties and coffee

Snack: a small handfull of peanuts

Lunch: left overs from Applebys of the other night: my steak, baked potatoe and Kathie's french fries and coffee

28 July 2010

Breakfast:	oatmeal and coffee
Snack:	peanuts and coffee
Lunch:	At Casey's Cowtown: a beef burrito with lettuce and tomatoe and ice water
Snack:	a little 3.8 oz container of vinillia ice creamme and water
Dinner:	a comfort food: tuna noodle casserol, boiled brococli and water

27 July 2010

Breakfast: from Wendy's:

• 2 breakfast burritos (little flavour without the hot sauce)
• tatter tots (my dog liked his share...)
• coffee

Lunch: a nice little TV dinner and then some potatoe soup after donating blood (I felt a great deal of satisfaction at having been able to donate; I was put on a 6 month deferral list simply because I had heart surgery on 13 January 2010...)

Dinner: from Applebys,

• split an order of cheese sticks with my wife
• ½ my dinner of 12 oz steak
• baked potatoe and all of
• a brownie with a very small scoop of vanilla ice creamme and chocolate fudge syrup

Two hours after dinner, my blood sugar was 211. I was shocked and outraged and dismayed!  My morning score had been 132 and I thought the exercise and trying to "eat right" was finally taking the blood sugar levels down. Silly me! It is enuf to make me dismay! Oh, well, we'll see if I can't get the levels down by the time I next check blood (about 4:20 am on Friday the 27^th)

26 July 2010

_____Breakfast:  milk toast with sour dough toast and coffee
________Lunch: a Quinox prime rib French dip sandwich, chips and bottle of Diet Pepsi
_______Dinner: a nice steamer TV dinner and water
Pre-Bed Snack: some ice creamme and later a gin-n-tonic...

25 July 2010

Breakfast: cheerios and coffee

Lunch: Kathie did baked chicken with:

• bowl of asparagus
• baked chicken with
• dressing and
• several scoops of strawberry sherbet with chocolate "shell" and
• cold water

Dinner: a mixture of healthy and starchy or meat...

• well baked and sliced thin pork chops
• a small potatoe chopped and boiled with
• white rice and
• some iced water...

24 July 2010

Breakfast: Kathie's big breakfast of scrambled eggs, bacon (I put this between slices of sour dough toast), Seri Lee Coffeecake and coffee

Lunch: the rest of the home made tomatoe soup with rice and two hot dogs

Dinner: well cooked minute steak, thick slices of potato fried in the steak fat and olive oil, boiled broccoli and iced water

23 July 2010

Breakfast: cheerios and coffee

Lunch: at Burger King, a double hamburger, fries and a medium "Diet Pepsi"

Snack: I was having a serious chocolate craving but could not find any. So, I found a container of dark fudge frosting that had been sitting on the cupboard since January and ate a tablespoon or so of it. Very sweet and it terminated my chocolate/sweets craving ("Ah, sweet mystery of blood sugar...) I then put it in the freezer and hope to forget about it again... :-[

Dinner: the left over steak and baked potatoe from when we went to Bad Habits the other day; I added some boiled brociflower and had iced water.

22 July 2010

Breakfast: bacon, fried in the 10½ inch cast iron fry pan, two eggs fried in the bacon grease in said fry pan and 2 cups of wonderful ( ;-) ) instant coffee

I like cooking with the cast iron fry pan even thought it seems to put a bit of a metallic flavour into the food. It was easy to wipe the bacon grease off the pan (which then looked clean) and to pour boiling water into the pan and "scrub" it with a piece of paper towel. After that, I scrubbed it with a salt loaded wash cloth, rinsed it with boiling water, dried it off and re-oiled with virgin olive oil. It should be good to go on Saturday, when I hope to get Kathie to cook bacon in it...

Lunch: at King's Buffet, a pseudo-Chinese restaurant, a mixture of chicken and pork disks, rice, chocolate pudding on vanilla ice creamme and some kind of lumpy white pudding. I also had two glasses of "Diet Pepsi, no ice..."


I didn't think of this at all!     8.3    I guess I must subconsciously want to be an insulin (Levemir) user in November after all...


Snack:  a couple of cups of coffee before going to work. I guess I just like have iced coffee when it is 95°F outside...


Dinner^*: The last of the left over rice pilaf and chicken (I simmered it with red wine this morning) and an oversize bowl of boiled carrots and, of course, iced water.

NOTE: further data on Levemir.


^{* Dinner is defined as the evening meal.}

21 July 2010

Breakfast: hamburger on sour dough bread and coffee

Lunch: at Casey's Cowtown, salad with Thousand Island Dressing, steak stripes and a little bowl of cottage cheese

Snack: a small container of choclate ice creamme
<blockquote>I should not have but it was very hot out and the ice creamme was irrestable :-[ .</blockquote>

Dinner: Stouffer's lasagna with meat & sauce (lasagna noodles layered with meat and herb seaoned tomato sauce and three cheeses) and iced water

Snack: some little Oreo cookies - I really had the munchies!

20 July 2010

_____Breakfast: wheaties and coffee

________Lunch: rice, two hotdogs and some of the left over tomatoe soup

               Snack:  some choclate ice creamme. It was really hot outside...

_______Dinner:Kathie mixed canned chicken with her rice pilof and also boiled broccoli.

Personally, I don't like the flakey canned chicken and wish we'd fried or baked boneless skined chicken. We had some choclate chip yogurt and it was fairly nice.

Pre-Bed Snack: a double gin-n-tonic

19 July 2010

Breakfast: at Burger King, their SOS on biscuits with potatoe thingies and a large coffee

Lunch: a little TV dinner with a bottle of Diet Pepsi

Dinner: At the remodeled "Bad Habits", I

• split an order of cheese sticks with my wife
• had a nice salad with Thousand Island dressing
• about &frac12; of a 16+ (or so they said) T-bone steak
• baked potatoe

My appetite wasn't that large after the cheese sticks and salad, so I ended up taking about &frac12; of the steak and potatoe home. I expect to have it for dinner tomorrow night.

The remodeled "Bad Habits" was reopened after Mike Casey had opened "Delmonicos".  "Delmonicos" was a fine place to eat but Mike had to close it since many of his customers went to "Bad Habits". I've never had the heart to tell Mike that "Bad Habits" was simply a better restaurant. Mike's food was comparable but "Bad Habits" was larger and designed as a sport bar (pool tables  and wide screen TVs) and "Delmonicos" as a traditional sit-down place. I do think the service at "Delmonicos" was better.

Diabetics Forecast recipie (modified)

A recent copy of "Diabetics Forecast" had a tomato soup recipe I decided to try.   I misplaced the issue so I had to see if I could remember the recipe. What I remembered was:

• ¼ cup Fennel
• 1 medium onion
• 2 celery stalks

The recipe called for sauteing these items for 7 minutes and till they were translucent. I was supposed to chop the items before sauteing but I didn't bother. Instead, I put them in the blender with about half the chicken broth and ground it up good. Then, this greenish and lumpy liquid when into a big sauce pan.

• 1½ pounds of tomatoes (I had about 1 2/3; pounds
• cook with the remainder of 2¼ cups of low sodium chicken brth

The recipe calls for cooking the onion, celery and fennel in about half of the "low sodium chicken broth" and then chopping up the tomoatoes and cooking them. After letting everything simmer for about 20 minutes, blend it.

I didn't have the patience to do the chopping or simmering os after blending the onion, celerty and fennel followed blending the tomatoe (with the remaining chicken broth) and then cooking for a while.

I didn't follow the directions but so what?

18 June 2010

Breakfast:creamme of wheat and coffee

Lunch: :Chinese from the 14^th Street Dillions: rice, chicken with sauce, noddles and water

Dinner: hamberger between two slices of sour dough bread 

Pre-Bed Snack:

17 July 2010

Breakfast: at the Boot Hill Casino, buffet with:

1. SOS on hash brown potatoes
2. coffee
3. disketts of sausage
4. ice water
5. some well done bacon
6. more coffee
7. bisquit with strawberry jelly (they didn't have grape)
8. and yet some more coffee...

The food was quite good and the service quite adequate.

While gambling playing the penny slots, a glass of "Diet Pepsi"...

Lunch: hot dogs and iced water

16 July 2010

Breakfast: cheerios and coffee

Lunch: from the "new" Wendy's: a double hamburger with a baked potatoe with sour creamme and butter and chives and a "medium" Diet Pepsi

Snack:  about a tablespoon of orange sherbet

Dinner: left over steak from yesterday, the rest of the stew meat from the other day (boiled), the rest of the baked potatoe from yesterday and about a cup to a cup and a half of boiled carrots (and I drank iced water of course...)

Kathie's Birthday 2010 (try 2)

Breakfast: cherrios and coffee

Snack: six little powdered donuts and coffee


Lunch: at Montana Mike's

1. salad with Thousand Island dressing
   
   

   They had a "problem" with their refrigerator so they put the salad dressings in squeeze bottles. "Our" waitress used a hot sauce vice Thousand Island and it sure burned my throat for a while...

   
   
2. ribeye steak done medium
   
   

   It was red in the center and pink nearly to the top and bottom. My "medium" steak was "medium rare" at best...

3. baked potatoe loaded with cheddar cheese and bacon
   
   

   Turned out just fine...

   
   
4. a cold glass of Diet Pepsi!
   
   

   The Diet Pepsi tap had run dry and needed to be changed; "our" waitress did the change and could only get foam and fizz but no actual Diet Pepsi; I had iced water instead. She remembered to take the Diet Pepsi off the bill...

Snack: This being an anniversary of Kathie's 29^th  birthday, I had bought her a cake. We each had a piece and invited her co-workers in to share this cake. We definitely did not want it near us at the house! Why?

8.3

Yes, that is my most recent A1C and the clue to when I'll be on injected insulin vice evening pills. In spite of my best efforts to lose weight, I haven't had much luck. I haven't been exercising very much lately (just restarted) and so that probably has a lot to do with the A1C going up. None the less, I anticipate the needle starting in late November 2010...


Dinner: Healthy Choice Cafe Steamers Chicken Red Pepper Alfredo (Chicken Tenderloins with Linguini  Broccoli in Roasted Red Pepper Alfredo Sauce) and iced water


Snack: popcorn and iced water at work

Snack before going to bed: cottage cheese with grape jelly

14 July 2010

Breakfast: a couple of small potatoes, chunked up and baked at 350ºF till almost cooked, with two eggs poured over them and then cooked for another 20 minutes. Both my dog and I liked it...

Snack: a small amount of orange sherbet with chocolate shell

Lunch: at Casey's Cowtown: a large hamburger, fries and iced water

Dinner: boiled broccoli, stew meat and a largish potatoe plus iced water

Snack: two little Oreo cookies...

A not so little something to keep in mind:

13 July 2010

Breakfast: the last of the hamburger from the other day, mixed with
fresh grits and coffee

Snack: a small amount of orange sherbet with chocolate topping

Lunch: a "Gyro" from Arby's (could have used more cucumber yogurt) and a
glass of "Diet Pepsi" and fries

Snack: two Reeses's bars; I had the munchies...

Dinner: the left over store bought mashed potatoes and stewed meat and
iced water

Snack at work: a couple of mini-Oreo cookies, which were way too sweet

Snack at home: some cottage cheese with grape jelly

12 July 2010

Breakfast: wheaties with a banana and coffee

Snack: a small piece of overcooked hamburger I cooked this past Friday

Lunch: at Pizza Hut, two slices of meat pizza, a slice of apple pie
pizza, a salad and about 1 1/2 glasses of "Diet Pepsi".

They were crowded and apparently short on "wait staff". It took several minutes to get seated and I had to walk up to the counter to get my
"free" drink refill. The waiter never did bring our bill to us by the
girl behind the counter figured out what we owed (on her second try...)
I shouldn't complain; the food was quite adequate.

Dinner: some pre-made stewed beef on pre-made mashed potatoes

it didn't taste as good as I remember it tasting and upset my stomach...

Snack: cottage cheese and grape jelly

11 July 2010

Breakfast: at the Holiday Inn Express (Amarillo Texas), I had their breakfast of:

• cheese omelet (from a box)
• 2 little disk sausages
• SOS on a biscuit
• slice of bread with peanut butter and grape jelly and
• coffee

Snack:We split my left over steak from the night before and I ate the little bit of biscuit. I ate half of the potatoe the night before but it wasn't very good cold.

Lunch: at a somewhat mediocre typical "Chinese buffet" in Ulysses, Kansas, I had various chicken items, rice and desert with "Diet Pepsi". 

Dinner:  We had some frozen you-cook-it Lazzana and I had a beer. For dessert, orange sherbet with hard shell chocolate sauce.

Pre-Bed Snack:

10 July 2010

Breakfast: at home

• fried eggs that went to scrambled...
• grits
• two chunks of overcooked hamburger
  

Lunch: at a place in Canyon Texas called Feldman's "Wrong Way Diner"

• excellent pork chops (as good as I remember the Iowa Machine Shed being) and far superior to the burnt chunks of meat I create
• baked potatoe
• broccoli

Dinner: at the "Big Texan Steak Ranch" in Amarillo Texas
It was incredibly crowded so we started with a beer in the bar and when our buzzer went off, were taken upstairs to a table. There I had:

• salad with Thousand Island dressing and 
• a beer with the salad (my second of the night)
• the main course consisted of
• an 18 oz rib eye steak (which I couldn't finish and took to the hotel)
• a large baked potatoe
• two rolls and
• another beer

Pre-Bed Snack: I simply did not have one! First, I was stuffed from dinner and second, I'd had enough to drink!

What can we say about the "Big Texan"? It was outstanding!

Living in "Beef country" (Kansas), we have been a naum ber of good (and mediocre) beef places in Kansas, Oklahoma and Texas. Without a doubt, "The Big Texan" had the finest steak we've had in many years! (Sorry, Mike Casey.) It was worth driving about 4½ hours to get to Amarillo. We're going back again, probably in late August...
First, a bit of bitching....  

We went to the nicest looking hotel near the "Big Texan" (Holliday Inn Express), parked the dcar and went in. there was a man in a limo with steer horns on the hood and a sign (on the door) advertising "Free Limo Service to The Big Texan". So, I trotted up and asked him "Sir, does this really mean you'll drive us to and from "The Big Texan" for free?"


"Sure does."


"Great, we're going as soon as we check into the hotel!"


Then, we went in and were able to get a nice room for not too expensive. We told the desk clerk we wanted to go to "The Big Texan" and she made the reservations for us. She gave us a little card. We went to our room, dumped the suitcase and "shoulder bag" (with cameras and meds) on the bed and hustled back to the waiting area by the front desk. It was about 6:40 pm West Texas time (ok, CDT)


We started waiting. While we were waiting, we started talking with family from Arizona (man, wife and two little boys). We hit it off pretty well. While we wait3ed, we asked the front desk clerk several times "when is the car getting here"? She called and was told "he's on his way". Then, she was told "one car has a flat and the other one blew out the front bearings." (Really?)


About 7:20 pm, the other couple got fed up and drove over to "The Big Texan". After a couple more calls, we were told the driver was finally coming and wold be there "in five minutes". Actually, we heard that several times.


I looked out the front door and saw a hood with steer horns and knew our driver was finally there.


The driver appologized several times for the delay and I believed him. Two of their six limos had broken; when you use cars a much as these folks do, I suppose you can expect the occasional multiple failures...


When we got to "The Big Texan", we ran into the couple we'd chatted with at the hotel. It turned out there was a very long (2 hour) waiting line to get in and they had gotten a "call disk" for us as well as them. These call disks are the kind used at Olive Garden.


It's good to have friends!


There were a number of people going back to the various hotels in Amarillo so we ended up having to wait maybe 20 minutes before we could start the 10 minute (or so) trip to the hotel. No big deal, really...

9 July 2010

Breakfast: 2 soft boiled eggs on a hot dog bun and coffee

Lunch: From A & W:

• a double hamburger with the usual crap (which my wife ate)
• excellent french fries
• a medium sized "Diet Root Beer" (no ice)

We had another typical order-from-the-bitch-box moment. We ordered the bacon hamburger and diet root beer with no ice for me and a hamburger with Diet Root Beer for Kathie. The man at the other end read back "bacon hamburger and root beer" and "hamburger and a Diet Root Beer". My wife called back that is a diet root beer with the bacon hamburger and a hamburger with a diet root beer. He repeated the order back and said "both diet root beers with no ice? Kathie repeated the orders and we had little hope that it wouold be gotten right.

We were right to be skeptical; the fellow behind the window gave us diet root beer, no ice. He offered to add ice to Kathie's order but we didn't want the hassle.

Dinner: a Marie Calander TV dinner of spegethie and water

Pre-Bed Snack:

5 July 2010

Breakfast: wheaties and coffee

Lunch: a small amount of left over chicken and rice pilof, plus coffee

Snack: some Cheeze-Its and coffee...

Snack 2: bowl of chicken noodle soup and some nuked egg

Dinner: a corned beef sandwich, a little bit of potatoe salad and a bottle of water

Independence Day 2010

Breakfast: oatmeal and coffee

Lunch: left over rice pilof and coffee

Dinner: a Burger King two hamberger, fries and water

3 July 2010 revised

Breakfast: cheerios and coffee

Snack: bag of "buttered" popcorn and coffee

Snack #1: Six little Oreo cookies; the first couple were fine, the rest
too damn sweet. This will teach me to bring something to eat around noon
(I'll get home about 1:15 pm)

Lunch: 1.5 Rubins, some potatoe chips and water

Snack: at the Boot Hill Casino, two bottles Bud and a couple of cheese crackers...

Dinner: most of a steak, a baked potatoe, broccoli and refrigerator cold bottled water

3 July 2010

Breakfast: cheerios and coffee

Snack: bag of "buttered" popcorn and coffee

Snack #1: Six little Oreo cookies; the first couple were fine, the rest
too damn sweet. This will teach me to bring something to eat around noon
(I'll get home about 1:15 pm)

2 July 2010

Breakfast: From Burger King

• SOS
• potato thingies
• coffee
• a great vegetable! catsup!
  

Lunch: yogurt with strawberries at Kathie's work and then

• the left over piece of steak (about 4 oz) from the other night
• the skin of the left over baked potatoe and maybe ¼ of the "meat"
• about ½ of the leftover roll
• and refer cold water
  

Dinner: You might say that Kathie made leftovers for dinner. We had her rice/noodle pilof mixed with canned chicken. Normally, we have the rice pilof by itself with baked boneless skinned chicken and I mix the leftovers to take to work. I didn't tell Kathie this but the flavour was off and I would have liked to season it up with mixed Kikoman soy sauce and lemon juice and Worchester Sauce (none of which we currently have in the house...)

Otherwise, it was fine and I certainly ate a good dinner...

1 July 2010

Breakfast:at Flying "J"

• hash browns
• corned beef hash
• two eggs medium
• whole wheat toast with grape jelly and
• coffee
  

Lunch: plain yogurt with strawberries, three Dillons' chicken legs and some bread and a bottle of Diet Pepsi

Dinner: three soft shell Taco Hell Bell buritos, some chips and crap

Pre-Bed Snack: a small amount of potatoe chips and cottage cheese