SparkDad

One of my families favorite meals are homemade flautas. If you are not from Texas you might have never even seen this tasty, crunchy slice of heaven. Flautas are corn tortillas dipped in hot grease, wrapped around shredded beef of chicken and then deep fried. Very delicious. Very bad for you.

 

So tonight I set out to make them, but without all of the grease. Here is the recipe.

 

 

Ingredients:

 

3 Large Split Chicken Breasts

2 Tbs. Salt

2 Tbs Garlic

2 Tbs. Paprika

1 Can Pam or other cooking spray

10-20 Corn Tortillas

1 Plastic Bag

1 Cup Lettuce or Cabbage ( I did not have cabbage tonight )

1/2 Cup Fresh Tomato (Diced)

1/2 Cup Cheddar Cheese (leave out for a healthier meal)

2 Avocados

3 Limes

1/4 medium onion (diced)

1 small bottle of hot sauce (homemade is better)

 

1. Boil Chicken breasts until fully cooked. Remove skin and bones and wash thoroughly.

2. Shred chicken and place in a large bowl

3. Mix paprika, salt and garlic with shredded chicken. Set aside.

4. Slice open avocados, remove the meat inside and place in a small bowl. Using a fork mash up the avocado meat until the desired consistency. Squeeze in juice of 1 lime, add salt, 2 tbs of hot sauce. Mix well and set aside.

5. Slice lettuce or cabbage into small strips. Set aside.

6. Chop tomatoes. Set aside.

7. Spray bottom of a large pan and add in onion. Sauté onion on medium heat until caramelized.

8. Add in chicken mixture to the pan and cook for approximately 10-15 minutes. Do NOT overcook the chicken as it will dry the meat out. You are cooking it just long enough to let the chicken absorb the seasoning. Remove from heat.

9. Take about 6-8 tortillas and place in plastic bag. Do not seal the bag completely. Place in microwave for 2 minutes.

10. Remove tortillas from microwave and lay one tortilla flat. Make a line of chick on one end of  the tortilla. Roll the tortilla into a tight roll and place in baking dish.

11. Repeat until you have covered the bottom of the baking pan.

12. Spray the top of the flautas with pam and put in oven at 450-500 degrees. Cook each side for about 8 minutes or until golden brown.

13. Remove from oven, place on plate and garnish with lettuce or cabbage, guacamole, tomatos and hot sauce.

 

Serve with Mexican rice. Serves 6-8.

 

Enjoy!

 

- Spark Dad

 

Yesterday Pork Chop and I made a Valentines box for his classroom. We took a shoe box, wrapped it in brown paper and colored on it. Well when Mama came home and saw it she said, “You are not as good as the best Stay At Home Mom!!!!!, I can’t believe…” Well you can imagine the rest. So Pork Chop and I will be redoing the box this afternoon. We will be making a cool alligator that opens up and has teeth! Much better. While looking for ideas I saw this awesome idea.

 

 

Here is the link to the site where I found it.

 

http://www.dana-made-it.com/2008/07/tutorial-heartbreaker-valentines.html

 

I will send a picture of the Valentine Eating Alligator once we are done this afternoon!

 

Great idea!

 

- Spark Dad

 

With my current weight loss I am paying close attention to what I am eating. My goal is to get to 180 pounds by April 1. I am working really hard to get there and then of course maintain it.

Starting at 214 I was not huge, but I am definitely not at my optimal weight. Now as I was writing this post, I thought “What is my optimal weight?”, so I went out and found a health calculator   .

 

Health Calculator

More Diet Resources: Diet Reviews, Healthy Recipes, and Health News

What the health snapshot told me is that I am overweight and once I hit my April goal I will STILL be overweight! My optimal body weight is between 156 and 159 pounds depending on what formula you use. In addition my Body Mass Index is 29.4 which puts me in the overweight category of 25-30. I have a lot of work to do!

 

I encourage you to input your information and see where you stand. Once you find out please take the poll at right! I also encourage you to post comments on the site and let me know what content you would like to see regarding the Spark Dad Weight Loss Challenge. - Spark Dad

 

You can read the rest of the weight loss challenge posts here.

Last week was a rough week for me in my weight loss challenge. First of all I only went to the gym 2 times last week. I did get a workout on the elliptical at the house, but I find that it is a lot less of a workout. I burn fewer calories during a 20-30 minute workout than I do on the treadmill.

 

Secondly, my diet was terrible. I succumbed to temptation and ate several cup cakes left over from the Dia de la Candaleria. Our neighbor Veronica made these cupcakes which where carrot cake with cream cheese topping. Oooh! They were good! So after devouring 4 of them I gave them away to another neighbor : ) In addition I had Chick-fil-a a couple of days. Granted I had grilled instead of fried it was still not homemade.

 

In addition Mama and I went out for an early Valentines night out. We ate wonderful food at Mark’s restaurant in Houston. We both had seafood, but it was all very rich. Add cocktails and a bread pudding for desert and you have a recipe for diet disaster!

 

So this morning when I was schedule to weight in I was very worried. I woke up and took care of all bodliy functions and then stepped on the scale…..

 

199 pounds! I broke 200 pounds!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

180 here I  come!

 

- Spark Dad

 

This year had to have been one of the worst years for Super Bowl commercials. I did however see a commercial for Vacation Rental.org

that sparked my interest. They had a very funny vacation rental commercial.

 

This site is a travel site that focuses on staying at vacation homes instead of at a hotel when on a trip. This is a great idea and concept. They are very hard to find because there is no unified way to search them, but there are some phenomenal values in the industry, especially if you are going with a large group.

 

We used a vacation rental on our last summer vacation to Lake Medina, Texas. It was the second year that we rented the same home. The cost was about $1500 for a week and the home slept $10 so for about $150 per person for the week we had a lake front property!

 

I think that the next time that Mama and I do a weekend getaway we may check into using Vacation Rental.org

 

See you soon! – Spark Dad