Kalyn's Top Ten South Beach Diet Snacks

Recently I saw something that reminded me why I love the South Beach Diet. One of my new favorite blogs, Plain Jane Mom, posted a link to a story about a guy who lost 240 pounds on South Beach. The difference in his before and after photos was amazing. Jane and her husband are doing South Beach and having great success too, which is how we found each other.

Blogher Month in Review

You might have noticed this logo over in the sidebar, but if not, now you know that I'm a food and drink editor for a site called Blogher. The goal of Blogher is to spotlight women bloggers, and my assignment is to find interesting food pieces or blogs written by women and share them with Blogher readers. (All those blogs to read. Tough work, but someone's got to do it!)

(Edit 1-31-07: When I wrote that last night I didn't realize that Blogher was turning one year old yesterday! Happy birthday and congratulations to all involved.)

No Water Day Four, and Why Kalyn Won't be Posting Recipes for a Few Days

What's a food blogger to do when it's day four without water, every dish in the house is dirty, no way to wash them, and there's a big hole in the lawn where the water meter used to be? Take photos of course. Here's part of what's been going on around here the last four days.

How to Make Beef Stock

Homemade beef stock adds wonderful flavor to soups and stews!

No, I still don't have any water so I won't be making any beef stock today! For most of you who do have water, it's Saturday, and making stock is a great Saturday activity. It makes the house smell great and there's time to coax every ounce of flavor from the ingredients by cooking the stock all day. If you've never made your own stock before, I'd like to tell you in one word why it's worth the time: Flavor.

South Beach Recipes of the Week #23: Phase One Soups

(Update for all those who are worried about me: I'm sorry to report that I still don't have any water. Right now there is a machine attached to my water line that warms it with an electrical current. My plumber seems confident that this will work (eventually) so I am trying to stay optimistic. Everyone please visualize running water coming out of my taps, and let's see if we can help create it!)

South Beach Phase One Recipes: Chicken and Tomatillo Soup

I'm home from school, waiting for the plumber to come so that I can have running water, but I have ice, plenty of Diet Coke, and some of this soup in the freezer, so life is still good. Hopefully I'll be able to take a shower again not too long after you read this, fingers crossed.

Possibly some of you who are cilantro haters are groaning seeing another photo of a dish that has cilantro, but read on. It's actually the tart-flavored tomatillos (toe-mah-tee-ohs) that are the star of this soup. I just love the flavor of this intesting fruit which is called husk tomato, jamberry, husk cherry, mexican tomato, or ground cherry in different parts of the world. It's easily recognizable from the husk that surrounds the fruit.

Why Kalyn Hates Winter in Utah

Icicles photo from 5thpercentile.com

Right now there's no water in my house because it's frozen somewhere in the pipe between the water meter and the house. I called the Salt Lake Water department and remarkably they got there in about an hour. The bad news is that water is coming out of the meter but not getting to the house, which means that it's my problem to get it fixed. A wonderful neighbor crawled into the area where the water pipes come into the house and put a light to heat the pipe enough to get water flowing again (theoretically). I have my cold water taps turned on, so if it would only get a little warmer maybe I'd have water again.

Kalyn's Kitchen Picks: Cardini's Caesar

Recently I introduced a new feature for the blog called Kalyn's Kitchen Picks where once a week or so I'm going to spotlight products I adore. If they're food items, they'll be things that also happen to be South Beach Diet friendly. I started last week with Patak's Biryani Curry Paste, something I use to make an easy chicken curry in the Crockpot. This week I'm sharing a recommendation for my all-time favorite salad dressing, Cardini's Caesar.

Kalyn and Mimi's Chicken Salad with Mustard and Cashews

I spend lots of time every day reading my favorite food blogs, yet interestingly enough, I don't cook with many recipes from blogs. It's not that the recipes don't look great; I see lots of things that inspire me. But I'm such an intuitive cook that I rarely follow recipes the way they're written. Somehow it feels a little strange to make changes to a fellow blogger's recipe and then write about it on your own blog. (Obviously, I don't have these same qualms about cookbook authors; they're fair game for "improving" on the recipes!)

South Beach Recipes of the Week #22: Phase One Vegetables and Salads

It's Saturday, time for South Beach Recipes of the Week, those yummy, low glycemic index recipes I discover on my favorite food blogs. Since Kalyn's Kitchen is doing phase one recipes for the month of January, these are all phase one salads and vegetables, plus a bonus recipe that might become one of your favorite salad dressings. Looking at these photos, isn't it easy to see why I love the South Beach diet so much. There are so many good things here that might be forbidden foods on other diet plans. No worries if you're not at all interested in dieting, you'll still love eating this food!

Friday Food Porn: Memories of Christmas

It's Friday, when I take a day off from writing about the South Beach Diet food I'm cooking and have fun showing shots of things I *may or may not* have eaten. If you're a new South Beach Dieter who's just discovered this blog, this is a reminder not to take your diet too seriously! Even though I'm about as committed to the South Beach way of eating as you can get, there are still special occasions where I'll eat whatever I want. Just not too often!

Kalyn's Kitchen Picks: Patak's Biryani Paste (Crockpot Chicken Curry with Patak's Sauce)

If you've been paying attention around here, you'll notice a new mini-header at the beginning of this post, and if you've really been watching you might realize this is a new feature on Kalyn's Kitchen. Doesn't every good cook have a few standby ingredients they rely on to help get dinner on the table sometimes? I know I do, and Kalyn's Kitchen Picks is how I'm going to share those recommendations with you. Thanks to my wonderful brother, Rand, for the new mini-header; more are coming! And it was purely a coincidence that the first dish I wanted to share perfectly matched the new mini-header. I think that's called synchronicity.

South Beach Phase One Recipes: Five Great Salads For Your Lunch

When I started categorizing my recipe into some kind of archives where people could actually find a recipe if they were looking for it, I was astounded at how many salad recipes I had. I like salad, and of course I knew salad was a great South Beach Diet food, but truly I had no idea I'd eaten so many salads. Since I'm doing phase one recipes this month, I thought it would be fun to share a few salad recipes from the archives you might like to try. Those of you who aren't doing phase one, go ahead and have some garlic bread with your salad!

South Beach Recipes of the Week #21 Phase One Dinner Ideas

It's time for South Beach Recipes of the Week, low glycemic index recipes I find on my favorite food blogs. I'm doing phase one recipes for the month of January, so this week I'm featuring phase one dinner ideas. Mix and match these recipes for a great dinner. When you see how yummy all these recipes look, it will help you understand why I love the South Beach diet so much. And if you're not at all interested in dieting, you'll still love the taste of this food.

South Beach Phase One Recipes: Southwest Chicken Salad

We're still doing phase one recipes for the month of January, but wow, a lot happened around here yesterday. I'm beyond excited that Kalyn's Kitchen was named Best Food Blog - Theme in the 2006 Food Blog Awards. Thanks to everyone who voted for me, and congratulations to all the other winners. I'm sincerely honored to be included with so many great bloggers. And I even got flowers 2.0 from Rand. What a day!

Sending Flowers 2.0

I don't think orchids do too well in Utah, but since I just happen to know your password I thought I'd send some flowers to congratulate you on being voted "Best Food Blog Theme" in the 2006 Food Blog Awards. Anybody that teaches a pack of fourth graders by day and still has the energy to maintain such an amazing blog by night certainly deserves to win. (And deserves to call in a substitute.) I don't know how you do it, especially considering that Red Bull isn't South Beach approved. Big congratulations and much love Rand (& Bradley).

South Beach Phase One Recipes: Roasted Chicken on the South Beach Diet?

This post is going to turn into a recipe for roast chicken eventually, but first I'm going to do a little talking about eating roast chicken on the South Beach Diet. Since I've been eating this way over two years now, I've noticed that some people interpret the SBD rules very literally. Other people (like me) learn about why certain foods are prohibited and then use that information to make food choices. Using the latter approach opens up a lot more options than if you simply follow the lists in The South Beach Diet Book, (which I *do* recommend reading from cover to cover before you start the diet.)

Recipe for Beef Stew with Dried Mushrooms

I've had a couple of people request more easy recipes that can be made in the Crockpot, so this stew is something I cooked over the weekend and really loved. Other than having a chuck roast from Costco, quite honestly I chose this recipe because I had all the ingredients and wanted to cook something on Saturday without going to the grocery store!

Happy New Year and New Bloggers!

Happy New Year everybody! We're back to reality after the holidays, and back to Weekend Herb Blogging. This week we have new bloggers, and fun news to share at the very end about one of our WHB regulars. I started the week thinking I might do photos for the recap now that I'm only hosting once a month. Then I remembered that one of my New Year's Resolutions is to actually have more of a life, and not spend quite so much time on the computer! So when I'm hosting I'll probably keep doing my tried-and-true style without photos.

Especially for Ilva: Here's What You'll Find in Kalyn's Kitchen

When I started food blogging in April 2005, one thing I'd never have predicted is that I'd have so much fun meeting food-lovers all over the world. To my great delight, that's been one of the best parts of writing a blog. I'm happy to count among my *blog friends* the incomparable Ilva, who creates such delicious looking food and photographs it so well in Pistoia, Italy. We *talk* regularly by e-mail, and share our deepest secrets with each other. So of course, when I heard that Ilva was urging bloggers to show their kitchens, I had to participate, even though I'd already given a tiny glimpse of my kitchen earlier. So here goes, Ilva. This is what you'll see when you come to Utah to visit me someday!

South Beach Recipes of the Week #20: Phase One Recipes

It's time for South Beach Recipes of the Week, those delicious-looking low glycemic index recipes I find on my favorite food blogs. I'm doing phase one recipes on Kalyn's Kitchen for the month of January, so these are all phase one recipes. When you see the South Beach Friendly recipes I've found on other blogs, it will help you understand why I love the South Beach diet so much. But even if you're completely uninterested in dieting, I think you'll agree that these recipes look good.

Friday Food Porn: Christmas Quiche

I can tell from my stats program that there are a lot of South Beach Diet fans hanging around this time of year.  I just hope they won't go too crazy when they see this post, which is about the most decidedly not-South Beach friendly quiche my sister made on Christmas day.

If you're new around here, on Fridays I take a day off from recipes and have fun showing Friday Food Porn, things I may or may not have eaten. Well let me confess, I did eat several pieces of this quiche. After all it was Christmas! We got distracted and let the crust get a bit brown on some of them, but all four were delicious.

A Friendly Reminder: Please Vote in the Food Blog Awards!

Just a reminder that voting is open in the 2006 Food Blog Awards hosted by The Well Fed Network. I was delighted to find Kalyn's Kitchen as a finalist for Best Food Blog - Theme. If you enjoy this blog I'd certainly appreciate it if you'd click over to the Theme category and vote for me. And Much Thanks to the lovely readers who already e-mailed to say they had voted!

South Beach Phase One Recipes: Something Yummy for Breakfast

If you've been reading this blog for a while, these egg muffins will be a familiar sight. However, for new readers who're coming here for South Beach Diet ideas, I thought it would be fun to do a whole post about what I eat for breakfast. And since I'm doing phase one recipes for the month of January, I started thinking about what I'd eat for breakfast on phase one.

South Beach Phase One Recipes: Warm Scallop Caesar Salad

It's the first day of a brand-new year, the time when we get to start over and change everything about our lives that we'd like to improve. If you're one of the people who's planning to start a healthier way of eating in the new year, you're in good company; literally millions of people will start a diet in the month of January. Even though I'm pretty committed to the South Beach Diet all year, I've indulged a little during the holidays, so I'll be doing phase one myself for a few weeks. This ability to do a quick diet tune-up if you need to is one of the ten reasons I love the South Beach Diet. For all my readers who might be starting South Beach, I'm challenging myself to feature only phase one recipes for a month. And even if you're completely uninterested in the low-glycemic way of eating, I think you'll be amazed to see all the delicious-looking food you can eat on this diet.