30 Day Weight Loss!

Signed up for a 30 Day Weight Loss support group shepherded by Miranda Zukowski. The goal of course is to lose weight but do so in a healthy way. We've been sent Excel spreadsheets already organized to help us track our food and exercise and there's a private Facebook group. Of course each of us need to know where we started. That could be weight, measurements, or before pictures. So this is where I started on 6/23/14: 147.1#, hips - 37 3/4", waist - 29 3/4". And here's the before picture:

 

Not too bad but still need some work. I have pants that I still need to fit into! My ultimate goal is to get down to 135#. This is still not as low as I've been. Up until the last year of grad school I weighed 125#. 

Besides upping the exercise (I'm currently training for a tough 50 km race in August), I also need to focus on the diet - which really means less beer and snacks and eating more fruit! - as I've been pretty good with the diet having more vegetarian meals than I used to.  I think I'll post an update here in 2 weeks and of course the final results.

Black Bean & Mushroom Enchilada Casserole

I have a lot of stuff in my freezer so I'm trying to use up some of it. Last week I made chicken & andouille gumbo with the andouille sausage that had been frozen for a year. Turned out really yummy. Today it was black bean & mushroom enchilada casserole with the enchilada sauce, corn tortillas, and chipotles in adobe sauce from the freezer. I checked a few recipes but nothing had what I wanted in it so I winged it. It turned out quite good!

Ingredients
chipotles in adobe sauce. I think I used about 4 or 5 chipotles and whatever sauce was remaining. Make sure to dice them. I only sliced them so would get a chunk of chipotle every so often
corn tortillas
enchilada sauce (I think I used this recipe but probably omitted the sour cream )
1 can black beans, rinsed
diced onion
diced green pepper
sliced mushrooms. I used baby portabellas (they were on sale) but button mushrooms will work too
2 cloves of garlic minced
1 tsp ground coriander
2 tsp ground cumin
grated cheese (use whatever you like for a tex-mex dish)

Preheat oven to 350 F.

In a large frying pan, saute onions and garlic for a few minutes. Add green peppers and saute. Add coriander and cumin, saute for a minute. Add mushrooms and saute until mushrooms release their moisture and moisture cooks out. Add black beans and diced chipotle. Mix well until everything is warmed through.

Spray 9X13 in baking dish with Pam. Put a little enchilada sauce in the dish. Put in a layer of tortillas.
Spread enchilada sauce on tortillas then half of the bean/mushroom mix. Sprinkle with grated cheese. Repeat with another layer of tortillas, sauce, bean/mushrooms, and cheese. I had a final layer of tortillas, enchilada sauce and cheese.

Place in oven and bake 30 min. Let cool about 5-10 min, cut and serve.